Epiphany of the Long Sun (28 page)

Downwind along this hole and that, through a little hole (he landed and peered into it cautiously before venturing in himself) and into a big one where dirty humans stretched on the ground or prowled like cats, a hole lidded like a pot with the remembered sky of night.

Sword in hand, Master Xiphias stood at the window looking at the dark and empty street. Go home. That was what they'd told him.

Go home, though it had not been quite so bluntly worded. That dunce Bison, a fool who couldn't hold a sword correctly! That dunce Bison, who seemed in charge of everything, had come by while he was arguing with that imbecile Scale. Had smiled like friend and admired his sword, and had only pretended-pretended!-to believe him when he had stated (not boasting, just supplying a plain, straightforward answer in response to direct, uninvited questions) that he had killed five troopers in armor in Cage Street.

Then Bison had-the old fencing master grinned gleefully-had gaped like a carp when he, Xiphias, had parted a thumbthick rope dangling from his, Bison's, hand. Had admired his sword and waved it around like the ignorant boy he was, and had the gall to say in many sweet words, go home like Scale says, old man. We don't need you tonight, old man. Go home and eat, old man. Go home and sleep. Get some rest, old man, you've had a big day.

Bison's sweet words had faded and blown away, lighter and more fragile than the leaves that whirled up the empty street. Their import, bitter as gall, remained. He had been fighting-had been a famous fighting man-when Bison was in diapers. Had been fighting before Scale's mother had escaped her kennel to bump tails with some filthy garbage-eating cur.

Xiphias turned his back to the window and sat on the sill, his head in his hands, his sword at his feet. He was no longer what he had been thirty years ago, perhaps. No longer what he had been before he lost his leg. But there wasn't a man in the city-not one!-who dared cross blades with him.

A knock at the front door, floating up the narrow stair from the floor below.

There would be no students tonight; his students would be fighting on one side or the other; yet somebody wanted to see him. Possibly Bison had realized the gravity of his error and come to implore him to undertake some almost suicidal mission. He'd go, but by High Hierax they'd have to beg first!

He picked up his sword to return it to its place on the wall, then changed his mind. In times like these-

Another knock.

There had been somebody. A new student down for tonight, came with Auk, tall, left-handed. Had studied with somebody else but wouldn't admit it. Good though. Talented! Gifted, in fact. Couldn't be here for his lesson, could he? With the city like this?

A third knock, almost cursory. Xiphias returned to the window and peered out.

Silk sighed. The house was dark; when he had been here before, the second floor had blazed with light. He had been foolish to think that the old man might be home after all.

He knocked for the last time and turned away, only to hear a window thrown open above him. "It's you! Good! Good!" The window banged down. With speed that was almost comic, the door flew wide. "Inside! Inside! Bolt it, will you? Is that a bird? A pet bird? Upstairs!" Xiphias gestured largely with a saber, his shadow leaping beside him; whipped by the night wind, his wild white hair seemed to possess a life of its own.

"Master Xiphias, I need your help."

"Good man?" Oreb croaked.

"A very good man," Silk assured him, hoping he was right; he caught the good man's arm as he turned away. "I know I was supposed to come tonight for another lesson, Master Xiphias. I haven't. I can't, but I need your advice."

"Been called out? Have to fight? What did I tell you? What weapons?"

"I'm very tired. Is there a place where we can sit down?"

"Upstairs!" The old man bounded up them himself just as he had on Sphixday night. Wearily, Silk followed.

"Lesson first!" Lights kindled at the sound of the old man's voice, brightened as he beat the wall with a foil.

The traveling bag now held only the yellow tunic, yet it seemed as heavy as a full one; Silk dropped it into a corner. "Master Xiphia-"

He snatched down another foil and beat the wall with that as well. "Been fighting?"

"Not really. In a manner of speaking I have, I suppose."

"Me too!" Xiphias tossed Silk the second foil. "Killed five. Ruins you, fighting! Ruins your technique!"

Oreb squawked, "Look out!" and flew as Silk ducked.

"Don't cringe!" Another whistling cut, this one rattling on the bamboo blade of Silk's foil. "What do you need, lad?"

"A place to sit." He was tired, deadly tired; his chest throbbed and his ankle ached. He parried and parried again, sickened by the realization that the only way to get this mad old man to listen was to defeat him or lose to him; and to lose (it was as if a god had whispered it) tonight was death: the thing in him that had kept him alive and functioning since he had been shot would die at his defeat, and he soon after.

Feinting and lunging, Silk fought for his life with the bamboo sword.

Its hilt was just long enough for him to grip it with both hands, and he did. Cut right and left and right again, beating down the old man's guard. He was still stronger than any old man, however strong, however active, and he drove him back and again back, slashing and stabbing with frenzied speed.

"Where'd you learn that two-handed thrust, lad? Aren't you left-handed?"

Dislodged from his waistband, Musk's needler fell to the mat. Silk kicked it aside and snatched a second foil from the wall, parrying with one, then the other, attacking with the free foil, right, left, and right again. A vertical cut, and suddenly Xiphias's foot was on his right-hand foil. The blunt tip of Xiphias's foil thumped his wound, bringing excruciating pain.

"What'll you charge, lad? For the lesson?"

Silk shrugged, trying to hide the agony that lightest of blows had brought. "I should pay you, sir. And you won."

"Silk win!" Oreb proclaimed from the grip of a yataghan.

Silk die, Silk thought. So be it.

"I learned, lad! Know how long it's been since I had a student who could teach me anything? I'll pay! Food? You hungry?"

"I think so." Silk leaned upon his foil; in the same way that faces from his childhood swam into his consciousness, he recalled that he had once had a walking stick with the head of a lioness carved on its handle-had leaned upon it like this the last time he had been here, although he could not remember where he had acquired such a thing or what had become of it.

"Bread and cheese? Wine?"

"Wonderful." Retrieving the traveling bag, he followed the old man downstairs.

The kitchen was at once disorderly and clean, glasses and dishes and bowls, pots and ladles anywhere and everywhere, an iron bread-pan already in the chair Xiphias offered, as if it fully expected to join in their conversation, though it found itself banished to the woodbox. Mismatched glasses crashed down on the table so violently that for a moment Silk felt sure they had broken.

"Have some? Red wine from the veins of heroes! Care for some?" It was already gurgling into Silk's glass. "Got it from a student! Fact! Paid wine! Ever hear of such a thing? Swore it was all good! Not so! What do you think?"

Silk sipped, then half emptied his glass, feeling that he was indeed drinking from the flask that had dangled from his bedpost, drinking new life.

"Bird drink?"

He nodded, and when he could find no napkin patted his mouth with his handkerchief. "Could we trouble you for a cup of water, Master Xiphias, for Oreb here?"

The pump at the sink wheezed into motion. "You been out? City in an uproar! Dodging! Throwing stones! Haven't thrown stones since I was a sprat! Had a sling! You too? Better armed!" Crystal water rushed forth like the old man's words until he had filled a battered tankard. "This new cull, Silk! Going to show 'em! We'll see… Fighting, fighting! Threw stones, ducked and yelled! Five with my sword. I tell you? Know how to make a sling?"

Silk nodded again, certain that he was being gulled but unresentful.

"Me too! Used to be good with one!" The tankard arrived with a cracked green plate holding a shapeless lump of white-rinded cheese only slightly smaller than Silk's head. "Watch this!" Thrown from across the room, a big butcher knife buried its blade in the cheese.

"You asked whether I'd been out much tonight."

"Think there's any real fighting now?" Abruptly, Xiphias found himself siding with Bison. "Nothing! Nothing at all! Snipers shooting shadows to keep awake." He paused, his face suddenly thoughtful. "Can't see the other man's blade in the dark, can you? Interesting. Interesting! Have to try it! A whole new field! What do you think?"

The sight and the rich, corrupt aroma of the cheese had awakened Silk's appetite. "I think that I'll have a piece," he replied with sudden resolution. He was about to die-very well, but no god had condemned him to die hungry. "Oreb, you like cheese, too, I know. It was one of the first things you told me, remember?"

"Want a plate?" It came with a quarter of what must have been a gargantuan loaf on a nicked old board, and a bread knife nearly as large as Auk's hanger. "All I've got! You eat at cookshops, mostly? I do! Bad now! All shut!"

Silk swallowed. "This is delicious cheese and wonderful wine. I thank you for it, Master Xiphias and Feasting Phaea." Impelled by habit, the last words had left his lips before he discovered that he did not mean them.

"For my lesson!" The old man dropped into a chair. "Can you throw, lad? Knives and whatnot? Like I just did?"

"I doubt it. I've never tried."

"Want me to teach you? You're an augur?"

Silk nodded again as he sliced bread.

"So's this Silk! You know Bison? He told me! Told us all!" Xiphias raised his glass, discovered he had neglected to fill it, and did so. "Funny, isn't it? An augur! Heard about him? He's an augur too!"

Although his mouth watered for the bread, Silk managed, "That's what they say."

"He's here! He's there! Everybody knows him! Nobody knows where he is! Going to do away with the Guard! Half's on his side already! Ever hear such nonsense in your life? No taxes, but he'll dig canals!" Master Xiphias made a rude noise. "Pas and the rest! Could they do all that people want by this time tomorrow? You know they couldn't!"

Oreb hopped back onto Silk's shoulder. "Good drink!"

He chewed and swallowed. "You should have some of this cheese, too, Oreb. It's marvelous."

"Bird full."

Xiphias chortled. "Me too, Oreb! That's his name? Ate when I got home! Ever see a shoat? Like that! All the meat, half the bread, and two apples! Why'd you go out?"

Silk patted his lips. "That was what I came to talk to you about, Master Xiphias. I was on the East Edge-"

"You walked?"

"Walked and ran, yes."

"No wonder you're limping! Wanted to sit, didn't you? I remember!"

"There was no other way by which I might hope to reach the Palatine," Silk explained, "but there were Guardsmen all along one side of Box Street, and the rebels-General Mint's people-had three times as many on the other, young men mostly, but women and even children, too, though the children were mostly sleeping. I had trouble getting across."

"I'll lay you did!"

"Maytera-General Mint's people wanted to take me to her when they found out who I was. I had a hard time getting away from them, but I had to. I have an appointment at Ermine's."

"On the Palatine? You should've stayed with the Guard! Thousands there! Know Skink? Tried about suppertime! Took a pounding! Two brigades! Taluses, too!"

Silk persevered. "But I must go there, without fighting if I can. I must get to Ermine's." Before he could rein in his tongue he added, "She might actually be there."

"See a woman, eh, lad?" Xiphias's untidy beard rearranged itself in a smile. "What if I tell old whatshisname? Old man, purple robe?"

"I had hoped-"

"I won't! I won't! Forget everything anyhow, don't I? Ask anybody! We going tomorrow? Need a place to sleep?"

"Day sleep," Oreb advised.

"Tonight," Silk told the old man miserably, "and only I am going. But it has to be tonight. Believe me, I would postpone it until morning if I could."

"Drinking wine? No more for us!" Xiphias recorked the bottle and set it on the floor beside his chair. "Watch your bird! Watch and learn! Knows more than you, lad!"

"Smart bird!"

"Hear that? There you are!" Xiphias bounced out of his chair. "Have an apple? Forgot 'em! Still a few." He opened the oven door and banged it shut. "Not in there! Had to move 'em! Cooked the meat! Where's Auk?"

"I've no idea, I'm afraid." Silk cut himself a second, smaller piece of cheese. "I hope he's home in bed. May I put that apple you're looking for in my pocket? I appreciate it very much-I feel a great deal better-but I must go. I wanted to ask whether you knew a route to the Palatine that might be safer than the principal street-"

"Yes, lad! I do, I do!" Triumphantly, Xiphias displayed a bright red apple snatched from the potato bin.

"Good man!"

"And whether you could teach me a trick that might get me past the fighters on both sides. I knew there must be such things, and Auk would certainly know them; but it's a long way to the Orilla, and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to find him. It occurred to me that he'd probably learned many from someone else, and that you were a likely source."

"Need a teacher? Yes, you do! Glad you know it! Where's your needler, lad?"

For a moment Silk was nonplussed. "My-? Right here in my pocket." He held it up much as Xiphias had the apple. "It isn't actually mine, however. It belongs to the young woman I'm to meet at Ermine's."

"Big one! I saw it! Fell out of your pants! Left it upstairs! Want me to get it? Eat your cheese!"

Xiphias darted through the kitchen door, and Silk heard him clattering up the stair. "We must go, Oreb." He rose and dropped the apple into a pocket of his robe. "He intends to go with us, and I can't permit it." For a second his head spun; the walls of the kitchen shook like jelly and revolved like a carousel before snapping back into place.