Epiphany of the Long Sun (54 page)

From the highest step of Silk's manteion, Auk addressed them again. "I told you there ain't going to be a god. You jerk me around, don't you? Sacrifice right this minute! Show us a god, Auk! All your clatter. You think you could jerk me around like you do if I could jerk the gods around? I can't. Neither can you. What I'm telling you is, it's time."

He drew his brass-mounted hanger. "I can cut your goats with this. That's nothing. Can I cut myself out of the whorl? That's what matters. Think about it. Nobody but you can make you think, not even gods."

"Sacrifice!" someone shouted.

"Not even the gods!" Auk bellowed. "Only they can snuff you if you don't, see? Or just leave you to die, 'cause this whorl's finished! Tartaros told me!"

The crowd stirred.

"Ever see a dead bitch in the street? And her pups still trying to suck? That's you! And that's me!" Over his shoulder Auk added, "Open these doors, Hammerstone."

The soldier hooked a finger as thick as a crowbar through one wrought iron handle and rattled the door until it seemed it must leave its hinges. "It's locked."

"Then bust it down. We'll use the wood."

Hammerstone released the door and drew back his fist, but Hyacinth exclalined, "Wait! Somebody's coming!"

In a moment Auk heard the rattle and squeak of the old iron lock, and the solid
thunk
as the bolt slid back. He grasped the handle and pulled.

"Patera!"
Hammerstone knelt as a father does to embrace a boy who does not like being lifted, and hugged Incus in arms that could have splintered the ribs of a bull.

Even Auk smiled. "Hi, Patera. Where you been?"

Hyacinth, torn between the opportunity for flight and the deliverance she sensed was almost at hand, nudged Auk. "Is this him? The one Hammerstone talks about all the time?"

"Yeah. You want to argue with him? Me neither."

Pointing to Incus he announced, "This's the augur I asked you about. Now we can have a regular augur, and maybe he'll let me help. We'll need wood for the altar, you scavy? Some of you got to go get us some. Cedar if you can find any, any kind if you can't."

From Hammerstone's embrace, Incus protested,
"Auk,
my son!"

"We got to, Patera. You like for lots of people to see you sacrifice? I got you three or four hundred here. Hammerstone, loosen up or you'll chill him."

Speaking so quickly her racing words flashed past like frightened linnets, Hyacinth gabbled, "Patera, I know what I look like, I know how awful, but I'm not the sort that would ever set her cap for a cully like this or even let him, you know, talk to her even if he just wanted to talk, you know how they do, and that's not me, and I've got money and good clothes even if you wouldn't think it to look at me and jewelry, and I know people, I've got, you know, bucks that would do me favors any time, commissioners and brigadiers, and I know the Caldé, I really do, he's a particular friend of mine and this man and the soldier have been making me stay in a dirty freezing place with rats, and you've got to help me, Patera, you've got to tell-"

Auk clapped a hand over her month. "She goes on like that quite a bit, Patera, and we ain't got time for it all. Let him go, Hammerstone. Get him inside there and up to the altar. You can carry him, I guess, if it makes you feel better."

"I've
prayed,"
Incus managed to gasp as Hammerstone hoisted him, "all morning, prayed upon my
knees
with tears and
bitterest groans
-don't drop me, Hammerstone my son, your shoulders are slippery-for a sign of
favor
from Surging Scylla or any other god, the smallest
morsel
of
assistance
, the most humble
crumb
of
succor
in my
divinely ordained
mission."

"I'd say maybe you got it," Auk told him. "What do you think, Terrible Tartaros?"

Briefly, the blind god's hand tightened on his. "Release the woman, Auk my noctolater. I am about to leave you. I have mended your mind, insofar as I am able."

Auk turned, although he knew he could not see the god.

"It will heal itself soon of the damage that remains. I have explained your task, and you have learned better than I could have hoped. Direct your gaze to the Sacred Window, Auk my noctolater."

"This's the Plan, Terrible Tartaros. Emptying the whole whorl. I can't do that by myself!"

"Look at the screen, Auk. At the Sacred Window. This is the last instruction I shall give you."

Auk sank to his knees. Faintly, through the open door, the silver glow shone from the far end of the manteion. "Get out of my way, Hammerstone! I got to see the Window."

"Farewell, Auk. May neither of us forget the prayers you offered nightside, while I hearkened invisible in your glass."

Auk stood up, alone.

"You're crying." Hyacinth stepped closer to peer at him. "Auk, you're
crying.
"

"Yeah. I guess I am." He wiped his streaming eyes with his fingers. "I never had any father."

"I do, and he's a pig's arse." Worshippers pushed past them caryying armloads of wood; some paused to stare.

"I got to get up there and do it. You want to go, go on. I won't stop you."

"I can leave anytime I want to?"

"Yeah, Hy. Beat the hoof."

"Then I'm going to-no, that's abram. G'bye, Bruiser." Her lips brushed his.

"Auk
my son!" Incus stood beside the altar, directing the laying of the fire. "We've more wood than we require. Tell them to
desist.
"

He did, happy to have something to do.

At Silk's ambion, Incus drew himself up beyond his full height, rising on his toes. "A holy
augur's
blessing upon each and every one of you, my children.
Silence,
back there! This is a
manteion,
a house sacred to the
immortal gods
." It was the hour he had dreamed of since childhood.

"Hammerstone,
my son. It is best to offer our
pious gifts
upon a fire kindled
directly
from the
beneficent
rays. This is not accorded us on this
day of darkness
. If you will look in the sacristy, behind the
Sacred Window
, you may discover a
fire-keeper
, a vessel of metal or even lowly
terra cotta
safeguarding the
holy spark
against such an hour as
this
."

"I'm on it, Patera."

Incus returned his attention to the congregation. "
At this point
, my children, I am severely tempted to
discover
to you my own identity, and the
multifarious vicissitudes
and
tribulations
through which I come to you
today
. I
refrain
, however. I am an
augur
, as you see. I am
that
augur whom
Surfeiting Scylla
has designated
Prolocutor-to-be
, charged with the
utter destruction
of the
Ayunta
-"

For half a minute, their cheers silenced him.

"I am
in addition
-might I say
comrade
, Auk? A
fellow sufferer
at least of Auk's."

From the manteion floor Auk shouted, "A dimber mate!"

"
Thank you
. Beset, as you should know, by
woe
and eager for a
situation
of
venerational tranquility
, I bethought me of this manteion, the
new Caldé's own
, as a place to which I might retire, pray and contemplate the
inscrutable
ways of the gods. I had not seen it and had heard much of it during the
brief days
since Auk, my dear friend
Hammerstone
-"

"I got it right here, Patera." Hammerstone displayed a pierced clay pot from which a feeble crimson glow proceeded.

"Auk,
are you to
assist
me? Is that to be our
procedure?
"

A seemingly disembodied voice called, "He has to kill 'em!"

"Then he
shall,
and with my blessing. What of the
liturgy,
however?
Auk?
"

Auk had climbed the steps to the altar. "I don't know the words, Patera. You'll have to do it."

"I
shall.
And if
Auk
is to assist, why need my dear friend
Hammerstone
be excluded? Put the
sacred flame
to this
fuel
, if you will, Hammerstone.

"I obtained the
key,
journeyed
hence,
and locked myself in, counting the lock's
blessed squeakings
among the
treasures
of my
spirit
. I came, I say, in search of
quiet
, resolved upon
prayer and suppication
. I
found
it, as I had hoped, and spent hours upon my
knees
, the least supplicant of the
immortal gods
. It is a practice I recommend to you
without reservation
."

A tongue of fire had sprung up where Hammerstone fanned the wood piled on the altar.

"I was safe from all
interruption.
Or so I thought. Then you arrived, a
tumultuous throng
, elevating me to this
sacred
ambion. How
clearly
the gods speak!
Surmounting Scylla
had
lifted
me to the
Prolocutorship
. Now was I
cautioned
that the
Prolocutor-I
-can be no
holy recluse
, however he may
long
for peace.
Pray
for me, my
children
, as I pray for
myself
. Let me
not
forget my
lesson!

"Auk,
my son. Have you the
knife
of
sacrifice?
"

Auk drew his boot knife. "This's all I got, Patera."

"Then it must
suffice.
Bring it to
me
and
I
shall
bless
it." Incus did so, tracing the sign of addition over the blade. Before he finished, Hammerstone had been forced to step back from the leaping flames.

"In a
sacred ceremony
more regular, I should now ask their presenters to which of the
Nine
, or other
immortal gods
, they wished to offer the
fair victims. Today
, however-"

Someone shouted, "To Tartaros! He's always on him!"

"They ain't black," Auk told the speaker.

Incus nodded solemnly. "In the
present instance
that must be
dispensed
with. None are
white
. Nor are any
black
, as my erstwhile comrade has
rightly
said. Therefore
each
shall be offered to
all
the
gods
."

After glancing at the first victim, Incus faced the Sacred Window, his arms and his voice raised dramatically.
"Accept
all you gods, the sacrifice of this fine
piglet.
And speak to us, we beg, of the times that are to
come. What
are we to do? Your
lightest
word will-will-"

He got no further.

The silver radiance showed flecks of color, faded pastels that might have been shadows or phantoms, the visual illusions of disordered sight, dabs of rose and azure that blossomed and withered, shot with pearl and ebony.

Poised beside the young pig, Auk dropped his knife and fell to his knees. Momentarily it seemed that he could make out a face on the left. Then another, wholly different, on the right. A voice spoke, such a voice as Auk had never heard, filled with the roar of mighty engines. It praised him and urged him to seek something or someone. Now and again, though only now and again, he heard or at least believed he heard, a term he knew:
ghost, augur, plan
. Then silence.

Incus, too, was on his knees; his hands were clasped, his face that of a child.

The piglet had vanished, drawn perhaps into the Window, or perhaps merely fled through the dim manteion and out into the windy winter morning.

Hammerstone stood at rigid attention, his right hand raised in a salute.

For a time that might have been long or short, after the voice spoke no more and the half-formed colors had gone, all was silence; the congregation might have been so many statues, there in the old manteion on Sun Street, statues with starting eyes and gaping mouths.

Then the noise began. Men who had been sitting sprang to their feet; men who had been kneeling jumped up to dance upon the pews. Some howled as though in agony. Some shrieked as if in ecstasy. A woman fell in a fit, thrashing, contorted as a swatted fly, belching bloody foam as her teeth tore her tongue and lips; no one noticed her, or cared.

"He's gone." Auk rose slowly, still staring at the now-empty Window. More loudly, loudly enough to make himself heard by Hammerstone, he said, "He ain't here, not any more. That was him, wasn't it? That was Pas."

Hammerstone's steel arm crashed to his steel side, a sound like the clash of swords.

"Did anybody… You understand him, Patera? It sounded like he was talking about-about-" A man Auk did not know reached out and touched Auk's coat as he might have touched the Sacred Window.

"He liked me," Auk concluded weakly. "Kind of like he liked me, that was what it sounded like." No one heard him.

Incus was on his feet. He tottered to the ambion; although his mouth opened and shut and his lips appeared to shape words, no words could be heard above the din. At last he motioned to Hammerstone, and Hammerstone thundered for silence.