Epiphany of the Long Sun (59 page)

"Then I'd remember that Wool was dead, and think where were the ones who rode with me, where was Kingcup who brought us her horses when her horses were all she had? I hope she's alive, Your Eminence, but I couldn't locate her, couldn't find her, and all these new people telling about the wonderful things they'd done, when I didn't remember them at all. Skink led an attack on the Palatine and had both his less blown off. Where was he? Where was the giant with the gaps in his teeth? I don't even remember his name, but I remember looking up at them, he must have been twice my height, and wondering who had been big enough to hit him way up there, and what he'd hit him with, and what had happened after he did it."

"What was his name?"

"The giant, Your Eminence? I can't recall it. Cat? Or Tomcat, something like that. No, Gib. That was it. Gib. It means a male cat, Your Eminence, so that would make it Snarling Sphigx, the Patroness of Trivigaunte. Cats are hers, cats and lions. But Gib wasn't in my dream."

"The man who saved you."

"Oh, him. It was Rook, but rooks aren't sacred to any god, are they, Your Eminence? Eagles for Pas. Hawks, too, because hawks are little eagles, or something like them. Thrushes and larks for Molpe, but rooks can't sing. Poultry for Thelxiepeia, as Your Eminence said a moment ago, but rooks-wait.

"I've got it, Your Eminence. I was thinking lists, wasn't I? Thinking about lists instead of animals and what they look like. And a rook looks like a night chough, like the Caldé's pet. The Caldé got him to give to the god who enlightened him. People think it was Pas, almost everyone seems to think that, but I asked the Caldé about it and he said it wasn't, that it was one of the minor gods, the Outsider. I don't know much about him, Your Eminence. I'm sure you must know much more than I, but night choughs must be sacred to him. Or if they aren't, they're associated with him now, because that was the sacrifice the Caldé chose. Isn't that correct, Your Eminence?"

Remora did not reply.

Maytera Mint thought of getting up to see whether he had gone. It seemed to her that she had slept even as she spoke aloud; but it was too delicious, far too delicious to lie where she was, with Bison in the other bed snoring softly and Auk to watch over them. "Auk?" she called softly. "Auk?"

Auk would bring them water, would surely bring water if she asked for it, a carafe of cold clear water, fresh from the well, and glasses. More loudly this time: "Auk!"

Yeah, Mother. Right here.

"Auk,
my son?"

"Sorry, Patera." Shivering in the afternoon sunlight, Auk returned his attention to Incus. "Thought I heard something."

"You desired to speak with me?"

"Right. Back in the manteion you explained what he said." Auk felt uneasy among the Palatine's gracious mansions of gray stone; until now he had visited them only to steal.

"I
endeavored
to explain, certainly. It was my
sacred duty
to do so, thus I
strove
to make clear the
divine utterances
."

"You were clear as polymer, Patera," Hammerstone declared loyally. "I felt like I could understand every word Pas ever said before you finished."

Voices called for them to halt, and they did.

"Bios with slug guns, Patera. I heard them behind us, but I was hoping they wouldn't mess around."

Afraid he was about to be arrested, Auk grumbled, "Can't a man walk uphill any more?"

By then the patrol leader had noted Incus's black robe. "Sorry, Patera. It's the soldier. They say some are on our side. Is he one?"

Hammerstone nodded. "You got it."

"Indeed,
my son." Incus favored the patrol with a toothy smile. "You have my
sacred word
as an augur and your-well, let us not go into
that
. You have my
sacred word
that Corporal
Hammerstone
longs for the overthrow of the Ayuntamiento, even as I do myself."

"I'm Sergeant Linsang," the patrol leader said. "Are you going to the Grand manteion, Patera?"

Incus shook his head. "To the
Prolocutor's Palace
, my son. I am a resident
thereof
" His voice grew confidential. "I have been favored with a
theophany. Great Pas himself
so favored
me
. It is not the first, but the
second
time that I have been thus
favored
by the gods. You will
scarcely
credit it, I know, for I scarcely credit it
myself
. But
both
my companions were present upon the
latter
occasion. They will attest to the
theophany
, I feel quite
certain
."

One of Linsang's troopers raised his slug gun so that it no longer pointed at Auk. "Aren't you Auk? Auk the prophet?"

"That's me."

"He's been going all over the city," the trooper explained to Linsang, "telling everybody to get ready for Pas's Plan. He says Tartaros told him to."

"He did," Auk declared stoutly. "Pas wants me to keep on doing it, too. What about you, trooper? Are you set to go? Set to give up on the whole whorl?"

Linsang asked, "What did Pas say? That is if I'm not-"

"It is
irregular,"
Incus conceded, "but not
contrary
to the
canon.
Do all of you
desire
to hear the words of the
Father of the Gods?
"

Several assured him that they did.

"And
will
you," Incus pursued his advantage, "permit us to
proceed
upon our
sacred errand
once you have
heard them?
"

Linsang's troopers nodded. They were in their teens, and identifiable as troopers only by their slug guns and bandoliers.

Linsang objected. "I need to get it from this soldier, first. Hammerstone? Is that your name, Corporal?"

"Present and accounted for." Hammerstone's own slug gun was pointed at the skylands, its butt on his hip.

"Are you for the Ayuntamiento or the Caldé?"

"The Caldé, Sergeant."

"How do you feel about the Ayuntamiento?"

"If the Caldé or Patera here said not to shoot them, I wouldn't do it. If it's up to me, they're dead meat."

One of the troopers ventured, "A soldier killed Councillor Potto. That's what we heard."

Hammerstone grinned, his head back and his chin out. "It wasn't me, but I'll shake his hand first chance I get."

"All right." Linsang grounded his slug gun. "You can go on to the Prolocutor's Palace, Patera. Them, too. Only tell us what Pas had to say."

"I fear
not."
Incus shook his head. "You would not
accept
my
sacred word
, my son, but
insisted
that Hammerstone speak for
himself
. As it chanced, though nothing is mere
chance
to the
immortal gods
, but a moment previously he had
declared
that he
comprehends
the god's entire
message
, while my other companion,
Auk
, wished a fuller
exposition
."

Incus turned to the prophet in question. "Is that not
so,
Auk? Am I not
correct?
"

"You got it, Patera. Maybe I'm dumb. There's not many that said so where I could hear 'em, but maybe I am. Only this is important, and some was about me. I got to be sure I got it straight, so I can do what he wants me to."

"Would
that such
stupidity
as yours were more
widespread.
The
Chrasmologic Writings
assert that the
wisdom
of the
immortal gods
is but
folly
in the ears of
mortal men. Persevere
in your
stupidity
, and you will be welcomed to
Mainframe
." Incus nodded to the big soldier. "Tell us,
Hammerstone
, my son, and do not fear that you may
blunder
or omit a
sacred
injunction. I shall
amend
any such
innocent errors
, though I
anticipate
none."

"I can't do it as good as you, Patera, but I'll give it my best shot. Let me get my thinking works going." For eight or ten seconds, Hammerstone was as immobile as a statue.

"All right, I got it. It was when that bio was bringing up the pig. First the colors came on, right? Then his face. He started off by blessing everybody and said that everybody that was there 'cause they came with Auk-that was everybody but you, Patera-he blessed twice, once for coming and once for following Auk. Have I got that right?"

Incus nodded.
"Admirable,
Hammerstone, my son."

"Then he said he was giving us this theophany 'cause his son told him what was coming down in the manteion we were at, only he didn't say which son it was."

"Terrible Tartaros," Auk assured him.

Incus raised an admonitory finger. "He did not
so state
."

"Maybe not, but I'd just been talking to him. That's who it had to be."

"He said his son'd given Auk his orders, and they were the right ones. He and his son were going to see to it everybody got the word. We'd been thinking about his Plan like it was way off, when it was already time to move out…"

"Continue, my son."

"I'm sorry, Patera. That's when he started talking about me, and I get kind of choked up. It was the greatest moment of my life, right? I mean, if I was to make sergeant or anything like that I'd feel pretty good. But this was Pas. I got his drift and later you explained, and it was like I'd been feeling it was, just exactly. Hearing you say it was just about like I was hearing it all over again from him. I'm thinking there's a war, and all the good people's on his side. That's this son-"

"Terrible Tartaros," Auk put in.

"And the Caldé and Auk and naturally you are, Patera… And it's the side I'm on, too. He said how Auk got hurt when he was underground with us and how hard he'd been working for his Plan, and he was sending somebody from Mainframe to help him out."

"From the
Pole,
Corporal. That is the term which the god
himself
preferred to employ. That
Mainframe
is at the
Pole,
I freely concede."

Auk edged nearer. "To help
me
out? I'm the cull?"

"Yeah, you're the one, only I'm supposed to help too. He said he was going to decorate you for what you've done soon as you do what he wants you to next. Only here's where Patera said something I got to say too, so it'll make sense to these other bios. Pas is us chems' god. He's the god of all the digital, nuclear-chemical stuff. You got to buy that if you want to see where Pas's coming from. Isn't that right, Patera?"

Incus nodded solemnly.

"'Cause Pas told us what Auk's decoration's going to be. Anytime he sees anything like me, he's going to understand it straight off. How it goes together and what it's supposed to do, and how. Pas means to stick all the data into Auk, 'cause he'll need it to carry out the Plan."

Linsang and his troopers stared at Auk openmouthed. Auk endeavored to appear humble.

"That was when he gave me my direct order, and it wasn't just 'cause I happened to be around. I never thought anything like this would happen to me. I asked Patera about it back at the manteion, and he says if I hadn't been the one Pas wanted, I wouldn't have been there, it would've been some other tinpot. But it wasn't. I'm the one. Patera says it was probably 'cause him and me are, you know, like brothers only closer, and he's a holy augur, and as soon as he said it I knew it was right.

"Pas needs a soldier, so which one? There's thousands. Why, the augur's friend, doesn't that make sense? The friend of the augur Scylla picked to be the new Prolocutor, that's the one you need. A god don't have to think about stuff like that, he just knows. He said, talking to me, Auk might have a little trouble at first. You stick with him and help him over the tough spots. You're a mechanism, help him out and he'll help you. So here we are, Patera and me both, and we're trying to help."

Linsang asked Incus, "Was that all, Patera?"

"All?
I should say it was more than
enough,
my son. But no. It was
not.
Let us have the
remainder,
Hammerstone."

"He said that a while back, forty years, he said, he knew he was going to die-"

"To die?" Linsang was incredulous.

"That's what he said. He saw it coming, so he sort of took off little pieces of himself and hid them in various bios where they wouldn't be found. Then he died, and he's been dead for quite a while."

Incus cleared his throat. "All of
you,
and I,
similarly,
must comprehend the
dificulties
under which a god seeking to
communicate
with
human kind
labors. He can but speak to us in words mere
mortals
apprehend. Thus by
die
, the
Father
of the
Gods
indicated his own
renewal
. That
noblest
of
trees
, the
goldenshower
, is sacred to
Great Pas
. You cannot be ignorant of so
elementary
a fact."

Linsang and several of his troopers nodded.

"Suppose
that a
forest
of goldenshowers could
speak
to us. Would it not say, 'That
I,
the
sacred forest
, may remain
young
and
strong
, my
aged
trees must
fall
, though they have
endured
for
centuries
. Let
young
trees spring up in their
places
. I, the
forest, endure
.' Hammerstone?"