Epiphany of the Long Sun (10 page)

"Getting beat over the head the way they do," Chenille said positively, "that's the part I'd really hate."

Incus nodded, gratified. "There is
that,
as well. You must consider that the
men
most inclined to these attacks are
by no means
the most noble of my sex. To the
contrary!
You might actually be
killed
. Women frequently
are
."

"I guess you're right, Patera."

"Oh, I
am,
my daughter. You may
rely
upon it. In our present company, your nudity does
little
harm, I would say.
I,
at least, am
proof
against it. So is the soldier whose life I, by the grace and aid of
Fairest Phaea
, contrived to save. The captain of our boat-"

"Dace."

"Yes,
Dace.
Dace is
also
proof against it, or
nearly
so, I would imagine, by virtue of his advanced age.
Auk,
of whom I had entertained the gravest fears for your sake has
now,
by the intercession of
Divine Echidna
, who ever strives to safeguard the chastity of your sex as well as
my own
, been so severely injured that he is
most unlikely
to attack you or-"

"Auk? He wouldn't have to."

Incus cleared his throat again. "I forbear to dispute the matter, my daughter. Your reason or mine, though I
greatly
prefer
my own
. But consider this,
also
. We are to enter the
Juzgado
, using the tessera the talus supplied. Once there-"

"Is that what we're supposed to do when we get back? I guess it is, but I haven't been thinking about it, just about getting Auk to a doctor and all that. I know a good one. And sitting down and getting somebody nice to wash my feet, and some powder and rouge and some decent perfume, and drinks and something to eat. Aren't you hungry, Patera? I'm starving."

"I am not
wholly
unaccustomed to fasting, my daughter. To
revert
to our topic, we are to enter the Juzgado, or so that
talus
informed us as the claws of Hierax closed upon him. His instructions were
Scylla's,
he said, and I credit him. He told us the Ayuntamiento must be
destroyed,
as Scylla
herself
did upon that
unforgettable
occasion when she announced that she has chosen
me
her Prolocutor. The
talus
indicated that we were to announce her decision to the commissioners, and provided a
tessera
by which we are to
penetrate
the subcellar for that purpose. I must confess
I
had not known that such a subcellar existed, but presumably it does.
Consider
then, my daughter, that you will soon-"

"Thetis, that was it, wasn't it? I wondered what he meant when he said that. Does it work like a key? I've heard there are doors like that."

"Ancient
doors," Incus informed her. "Doors constructed by
Great Pas
at the time he built the whorl. The
Prolocutor's Palace
has such a door. Its tessera is known to me, though I may not reveal it."

"Thetis sounds like a god's name. Is it? I don't really know very much about any of the gods except the Nine. And the Outsider. Patera Silk told me a little about him."

"It is
indeed."
Incus glowed with satisfaction. "In the
Writings,
my daughter, the mechanism by which we augurs are chosen is described in
beautiful
though
picturesque
terms. It is there said…" He paused. "I regret that I cannot
quote
the passage. I must paraphrase it, I'm afraid. But it is written there that
each
new year Pas brings is like a
fleet.
You are familiar with boats, my daughter. You were upon that
wretched
little fishing boat with
me,
after all."

"Sure."

"Each year, as I have indicated, is likened to a fleet of boats that are its days,
gallant
craft loaded with the
young men
of that year. Each of these day-boats is
obliged
to pass
Scylla
on its voyage to
infinity
. Some sail very near to her, while others remain at a greater
distance
, their youthful crews crowding the side
most distant
from her loving embrace. None of which
signifies
. From each of these boats, she selects the young men who most
please
her."

"I don't see-"

"But,"
Incus continued impressively, "how is it that these
boats
pass her at all? Why do they not remain safe in harbor? Or sail
someplace else?
It is because there is a minor goddess whose function it is to direct them to her.
Thetis
is that goddess, and thus a most suitable
tessera
for us. A
key
, as you said. A
ticket
or
inscribed tile
that will admit
us
to the Juzgado, and incidentally
release
us from the cold and dark of these
horrid
tunnels."

"You think we might be close to the Juzgado now, Patera?"

Incus shook his head. "I do not know, my daughter. We traveled
some distance
on that
unfortunate
talus, and he went
very
fast. I dare
hope
we are beneath the city now."

"I doubt if we're much past Limna," Chenille told him.

Auk's head ached. Sometimes it seemed to him that a wedge had been pounded into it, sometimes it felt more like a spike; in either case, it hurt so much at times that he could think of nothing else, forcing himself to take one step forward like an automaton, one more weary step in a progression of weary steps that would never be over. When the ache subsided, as it did now and then, he became aware that he was as sick as he had ever been in his life and might vomit at any moment.

Hammerstone stalked beside him, his big, rubber-shod feet making less noise than Auk's boots as they padded over the damp shiprock of the tunnel floor. Hammerstone had his needler, and when the pain in his head subsided, Auk schemed to recover it, illusory schemes that were more like nightmares. He would push Hammerstone from a cliff into the lake, snatching his needler as Hammerstone fell, trip him as they scaled a roof, break into Hammerstone's house, find him asleep, and take his needler from Hammerstone's strong room… Hammerstone falling headlong, somersaulting, rolling down the roof as he, Auk, fired needle after needle at him, viscous black fluid spurting from every wound to paint the snowy sheets and turn the water of the lake to black blood in which they drowned.

No, Incus had his needler, had it under his black robe; but Hammerstone had a slug gun, and even soldiers could be killed with slugs, which could and often did penetrate the mud-brick walls of houses, the thick bodies of horses and oxen as well as men, slugs that left horrible wounds.

Oreb fluttered on his shoulders, climbing with talon and crimson beak from one to the other. Peering though his ears Oreb glimpsed his thoughts; but Oreb could not know, no more than he himself knew, what those thoughts portended. Oreb was only a bird, and Incus could not take him from him, no more than his hanger, no more than his knife.

Dace had a knife as well. Under his tunic Dace had the old thick-bladed spear-pointed knife he had used to gut and fillet the fish they had caught from his boat, the knife that had worked so quickly, so surely, though it looked so unsuited to its task. Dace was not an old man at all, but a flunky and a toady to that old knife, a thing that carried it as Dace's old boat had carried them all when there was nothing inside it to make it go, carrying them as they might have been carried by a child's toy, toys that can shoot or fly because they are the right shape though hollow and empty as Dace's boat, as crank as the boat or solid as a potato; but Bustard would see to Dace.

His brother Bustard had taken his sling because he had slung stones at cats with it, and had refused to give it back. Nothing about Bustard had ever been fair, not his being born first though his name began with
B
and Auk's with
A,
not his dying first either. Bustard had cheated to the end and past the end, cheating Auk as he always did and cheating himself of himself. That was the way life was, the way death was. A man lived as long as you hated him and died on you as soon as you began to like him. No one but Bustard had been able to hurt him when Bustard was around; it was a privilege that Bustard reserved for himself, and Bustard was back and carrying him, carrying him in his arms again, though he had forgotten that Bastard had ever carried him. Bustard was only three years older, four in winter. Had Bustard himself been the mother that he, Bustard, professed to remember, that he, Auk, could not? Never could, never quite, Bustard with this big black bird bobbing on his head like a bird upon a woman's hat, its eyes jet beads, twitching and bobbing with every movement of his head, a stuffed bird mocking life and cheating death.

Bustards were birds, but bustards could fly-that was the Lily truth, for Bustard's mother had been Auk's mother had been Lily whose name had meant truth, Lily who had in truth flown away with Hierax and left them both; therefore he never prayed to Hierax, to Death or the God of Death, or anyhow very seldom and never in his heart, though Dace had said that he belonged to Hierax and therefore Hierax had snatched Bustard, the brother who had been a father to him, who had cheated him of his sling and of nothing else that he could remember.

"How you feelin', big feller?"

"Fine. I'm fine," he told Dace. And then, "I'm afraid I'm going to puke."

"Figure you might walk some?"

"It's all right, I'll carry him," Bustard declared, and by the timbre of his harsh baritone revealed Hammerstone the soldier. "Patera said I could."

"I don't want to get it on your clothes," Auk said, and Hammerstone laughed, his big metal body shaking hardly at all, the slug gun slung behind his shoulder rattling just a little against his metal back.

"Where's Jugs?"

"Up there. Up ahead with Patera."

Auk raised his head and tried to see, but saw only a flash of fire, a thread of red fire through the green distance, and the flare of the exploding rocket.

The white bull fell, scarlet arterial blood spilling from its immaculate neck to spatter its gilded hooves. Now, Silk thought, watching the garlands of hothouse orchids slide from the gold leaf that covered its horns.

He knelt beside its fallen head. Now if at all.

She came with the thought. The point of his knife had begun the first cut around the bull's right eye when his own glimpsed the Holy Hues in the Sacred Window: vivid tawny yellow iridescent with scales, now azure, now dove gray, now rose and red and thunderous black. And words, words that at first he could not quite distinguish, words in a voice that might almost have been a crone's, had it been less resonant, less vibrant, less young.

"Hear me. You who are pure."

He had assumed that if any god favored them it would be Kypris. This goddess's unfamiliar features overfilled the Window, her burning eyes just below its top, her meager lower lip disappearing into its base when she spoke.

"Whose city is this, augur?" There was a rustle as all who heard her knelt.

Already on his knees beside the bull, Silk contrived to bow. "Your eldest daughter's, Great Queen." The serpents around her face-thicker than a man's wrist but scarcely larger than hairs in proportion to her mouth, nose, and eyes, and pallid, hollow cheeks-identified her at once. "Viron is Scalding Scylla's city."

"Remember, all of you. You most of all, Prolocutor."

Silk was so startled that he nearly turned his head. Was it possible that the Prolocutor was in fact here, somewhere in this crowd of thousands?

"I have watched you," Echidna said. "I have listened."

Even the few remaining animals were silent.

"This city must remain my daughter's. Such was the will of her father. I speak everywhere for him. Such is my will. Your remaining sacrifices must be for her. For no one else. Disobedience invites destruction."

Silk bowed again. "It shall be as you have said, Great Queen." Momentarily he felt that he was not so much honoring a deity as surrendering to the threat of force; but there was no time to analyze the feeling.

"There is one here fit to lead. She shall be your leader. Let her step forth."

Echidna's eyes, hard and black as opals, had fastened on Maytera Mint. She rose and walked with small, almost mincing steps toward the awful presence in the Window, her head bowed. When she stood beside Silk, that head was scarcely higher than his own, though he was on his knees.

"You long for a sword."

If Maytera Mint nodded, her nod was too slight to be seen.

"You are a sword. Mine. Scylla's. You are the sword of the Eight Great Gods."

Of the thousands present, it was doubtful if five hundred had been able to hear most of what Maytera Marble, or Patera Gulo, or Silk himself had said; but everyone-from men so near the canted altar that their trouser legs were speckled with blood, to children held up by mothers themselves scarcely taller than children-could hear the goddess, could hear the peal of her voice and to a limited degree understand her, Great Echidna, the Queen of the Gods, the highest and most proximal representative of Twice-Headed Pas. As she spoke they stirred like a wheatfield that feels the coming storm.

"The allegiance of this city must be restored. Those who have suborned it must be cast out. This ruling council. Kill them. Restore my daughter's Charter. The strongest place in the city. The prison you call the Alambrera. Pull it down."