Epiphany of the Long Sun (60 page)

"I'm on it, Patera. He said now when his Plan's starting to move, he's putting himself back together. He said right now he was his own ghost, Pas's ghost, but with more of his pieces getting found, he'll be Pas again. He wants us to help. Auk in particular, but everybody's supposed to pitch in. We got to find this one particular bio, Patera Jerboa, 'cause he's got the piece for Viron. There was maybe five or six hundred bios in the manteion, but after Patera'd explained the whole thing to them, there wasn't one that knew who this Patera Jerboa was or where we could maybe find him.

"So Patera told them not to bunch up, but scatter and start asking people all over, and bring him to Auk when they got him. Then he told Auk the Chapter's got records about all this stuff, where every augur's at and what he's doing there, and they're in the Palace, and Patera knows where and how to read them. He's worked with them for years, right Patera? So him and Auk and me started off to take a look, and here we are."

"The
majesty
of diction was lacking,
Hammerstone,
my son, yet the
matter
was in
attendance."
Incus regarded Linsang and his troopers. "What of
you?
We seek to obey the dictates of the
Father
of the
Seven.
Can you
assist
us? No
holy augur
can know every other. We are
far
too
numerous
. Do you know of a
Patera Jerboa?
Any of you?
Speak
."

No one did.

Shots woke Maytera Mint. At first, as she lay blinking in the darkness, she did not know what the sounds had been; she was hungry and thirsty, vaguely conscious of the cold, and conscious that she had been cold for a long time, shivering as she slept. Her buttocks and shoulder blades, pressed by her slight weight to unyielding shiprock, were numb, her feet freezing.

She sat up. Her room had been the smallest and meanest in the old cenoby on Silver Street, with a ceiling that dripped at every shower; yet it had not been too small or too mean for a window past whose threadbare drape wisps of light crept on even the darkest nights.

Three sharp bangs, unevenly spaced. Pictures falling? She recalled an incident from her childhood: an old watercolor had fallen when its yellowed string rotted through at last, and had taken another picture and a small vase down with it. Once she had heard a horse trying to kick its way out of its stall. The shots had sounded like that.

"Ah, General?"

The voice had been Remora's; his nasal tones brought it all back to her. "Yes, Your Eminence."

"You have, um, familiar with the sound of gunfire, hey? During the past-ah-fighting."

"Yes, Your Eminence. Tolerably so." Against her will, she found herself wondering how many Remoras there had been, how many augurs and sibyls who had responded to Echidna's theophany by going to the safest place they could find and staying there. Patera Silk had not. (But then, he wouldn't.) Patera Silk had been shot in the chest, had been captured, and had contrived, somehow, to turn Oosik and the whole Third Brigade, the act that had done more than any other to determine the course of their insurrection. But how many more-

"Er, General?"

"Yes, Your Eminence. I was considering the matter. The door is thick and rather tightly fitted, and these walls are shiprock. Those factors must have affected the quality of the shots as we heard them."

"You-ah-believe them shots, eh?"

"I'm putting on my shoes, Your Eminence." She groped for them in the dark. "If we're to be taken somewhere-"

"Quite right." Remora sounded cheerful. "Quetzal, eh? Old Quetzal. His Cognizance, I ought to say."

More thirsty than ever, Maytera Mint licked her dry lips. "His Cognizance, Your Eminence?"

"Rescue, eh? He's come for me, er, we. Or-ah-sent somebody. Shrewd, eh? Plays a deep game, old Quetzal. Card sense in both-um-the applicable senses."

She tried to imagine the elderly Prolocutor fighting, slug gun in hand, against Spider and his spy-catchers, and failed utterly. "I would think Bison's sent scouts into the tunnels by this time, Your Eminence. If we're lucky, it may be some of them we heard. But even if they notice this door, they may not be able to get it open.

Another shot, and it was definitely a shot.

"They will notice it, General. I-um-my word on it. My gammadion, eh?"

"Your gammadion, Your Eminence?"

"Not you, ah, sibyls. But we augurs. Holy augurs, eh? Wear Pas's voided cross. Comes apart. Use to test a Window, hey? Tighten connections, make adjustments, all that sort of, er, operations. Gold, hey? Mine is. Coadjutor, eh? Stones. Not like old Quetzal's, I, um, but gems. Annethysts, largely. Gold chain. Under my tunic, generally. Out at sacrifice, hey?"

"I'm familiar with them, Your Eminence."

"I've-ah-slipped it beneath the door, Maytera. Push it out, eh? Pull it back in. Moving object, hum? Catches the light, ah, attracts the eye."

She went to the door (almost tripping over Remora) and rapped it sharply with the heel of one shoe.

"Admirable-ah-admirable. Crude, eh? Yet it-ah!"

The latch outside rattled and the door swung in, impeded by Remora. The burly Spider growled, "What's that noise?"

The lights in the tunnel were so dim that Maytera Mint did not blink. "I was pounding on the door with my shoe. We heard shots and hoped we'd be freed."

"Come on." Spider gestured with the barrel of his needler.

"We, um' require food," Remora ventured. "Water or-ah similar, er, potable."

"You won't if you don't get movin'."

"You don't dare shoot us," Maytera Mint declared. "We're valuable hostages. What would you tell-"

He caught her arm and jerked her through the doorway. "I'm strong, see?"

"I never doubted it." She tested her shoulder, fearing he had dislocated it.

"Strong as a chem. Not one of them soldiers, maybe, but a regular chem. You with me, sib? So I don't have to shoot you. There's twenty, thirty things I could do." One of Spider's men was lounging in the tunnel; he held a gleaming slug gun. "I'm ready to try a couple," Spider continued. "You scavy Councillor Potto's kettle? Wasn't anythin'. He was just playin', he's like that. I don't fool. We get lots of spies."

"I'm delighted to hear it." Maytera Mint had feared that she would not be allowed to resume her shoe; she tightened the bow and straightened up with an odd little thrill of triumph.

"I learned a lot, workin' on them. I never seen one so tough I couldn't get him to tell me anythin' I wanted to know. That way, and keep movin'."

"I, er, weak. Thirsty, eh? What one physically-ow!"

Remora had been prodded from behind by the man with the slug gun, who said, "I kicked a dead cull once till he got up and ran."

"The gods-ah-Pas. Tartaros, eh?" Remora progressed with rapid, unsteady strides, outdistancing Maytera Mint.

"Slow up!"

"I-ah-prayed. Beads. eh? The, um' general slept."

"You should have awakened me," she protested, and got a shove from Spider.

"Never! Wouldn't, um, consider-" Remora froze until he was prodded from behind. Somewhat nearsighted, Maytera Mint blinked as she tried to peer ahead through the watery light.

"Dead cull," Spider told her. "One of mine."

"Was that the shooting we heard?"

Spider pushed her forward. "Yeah." Another push. "He was watchin' your door. Sib, you better shaggy learn to drive your shaggy ass or you're going to learn a shaggy bunch you don't want to know."

She whirled, facing him. "I've already learned something, but it was something I wanted to know. That I wanted very much to know, in fact."

He struck her face with the flat of his hand, spinning her around and knocking her down, the blow as loud as the boom of a slug gun. "Pick her up," he told Remora.

Remora did, carrying her like a child as he staggered down the tunnel. When they reached the corpse, the man with the slug gun caught his arm and ordered him to stop, and he set her on her feet. "You're cryin'," Spider told her.

"I am. I shouldn't," she wiped her eyes, "because I know our hour will come. Perhaps I should cry for you instead, but that will come later if it comes at all."

Remora had knelt beside the corpse; he rose shaking his head. "The spirit has, ah, dispensed with its house of flesh."

The man with the slug gun asked, "You were going to say the words over him?"

"I-ah-so intended. It is too late."

"He never believed in it."

Maytera Mint said, "Then I should weep for him. A short life and a violent death in this wretched place. You can write on his stone, here lies one who sought no succor from the gods, and hence received none."

The man with the slug gun chuckled. "Maybe you can. How about it, Spider?"

"Sure, why not? She can do it while we're waiting."

Remora ventured, "May we be seated? My legs, er, flaccid."

"Go ahead. They'll be along in a minute."

"If you mean Bison's scouts, I feel certain you're right," Maytera Mint told him.

He took off his cap and ran a dirty comb through greasy, graying hair. "You figure Bison's boys chilled him? You're abram."

"I doubt that you even know who Bison is."

"The shag I don't. I got people all through your knot. You think I don't?"

"Thank you very much." She wiped away the last tears with her sleeve. "We appreciate all who come to us."

He laughed. "You appreciate them? They're tellin' us what you do, every move you make."

"Meanwhile they must work and fight for us, if they're not to be detected." She sat down next to Remora. "They would like to rise in our councils, I suppose. To do it, they'll have to work and fight well."

"S'pose all you want to," Spider grunted.

"You are, um, confident it was not one of Colonel Bison's men-er-persons. Troopers. Who shot this, um?"

"Sure. Sib, how come my culls don't faze you?"

"Isn't it obvious? Because we're hiding nothing. You want to learn our secrets, but they're only virtue and prudence. His Eminence and I had hoped to arrange a peace in which your spies and you might live. Now there will be none. We-"

"All right! Muzzle it!"

"Will root you out. We'll go down into this wretched hole and fight, find the underwater boat on which-"

He kicked her.

"You held the Caldé-"

He kicked her again, and she screamed.

Remora lurched to his feet. "Really, I cannot-simply, ah, will not tolerate this. Kick me, if you like." Spider pushed him; he staggered, tripped over the corpse, and fell.

"And drop stones on it from the surface or catch it in a net," Maytera Mint finished. "If you want our plans, there you have them. Your spies can tell you nothing more."

"You're one tough little girl."

"I'm a gross coward," she told him. "I realized it about an hour after Echidna declared me her sword. We were storming the Alambrera. It might be more accurate to say we were trying to. I-shall I tell you?"

Spider put away his comb. "I'll break you."

"You have already. I screamed, didn't I? What more do you need to complete your triumph? My death?" She threw her arms wide. "Shoot!"

"Another time, maybe." Spider turned his attention to Remora, who was sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. "You, Patera. Your Eminence. Is that what they call you?"

"You may call me either. Or neither, eh? I should, um, opt for neither, given the choice. I-ah-covet no honors from you."

"You can die, too, Patera."

"I, um, well aware. Thinking, hey? Thinking while I, um, bore the general. Not valiant, eh? Not like, er, she."

"Your Eminence, I am
not
brave!"

"You are, Maytera-ah-General. Yes, you are. Not, um, sensible of it, conceivably. I-ah-am not. Was a, um, prisoner of Erne's. I told you, eh?"

"You told me you'd conferred with him, not that you were his prisoner."

Remora looked toward Spider, seeking his permission; Spider said, "Sure, I'd say we got time."

"In the, um, Palace, eh? Eating dinner. Warned, eh? By a page. Guardsmen coming. Thought they wanted-ah-consult me. Waited for my sweet. In they tramped, these, er, troopers. Where's the Prolocutor? That was the, um, term they employed. I endeavored to explain. His Cognizance comes and, ah, departs at his, er, pleasure. Arrested me, hey? Hands bound, all that. Under my robe, eh? I, urn, petitioned that favor, and they, er, condescended. Marched me out."

Remora paused to swallow. "Frightened, General. Badly frightened. Horribly, er, affrighted. Coward. Questions, eh? Questions, questions. Read, um, statements I never made, eh? Spoke in my own defense. Struck. Said I'd lied. Struck, eh? On and-ah-more of the, er, like treatment."

Maytera Mint nodded. Her right cheek was beginning to swell, but her eyes were full of sympathy. "I'm sorry, Your Eminence. Truly sorry."

"Said they'd kill me, eh? Needler at my head. All that. Coward, lost control. Bowels, er, voided. Soiled my clothes. Had to speak to the Brigadier. Said that over and over. I-ah-know him. Knew him, eh? In better days. Yes, in better days. Saw him at last. Truce, eh? Truce, cease-fire. I can, er, bring one about, hey? Caldé's an augur. Let me go. Spoke through glass to-ah-Councillor. Loris. Councillor Loris. He said-urn-let him go. And they-ah-did. Brigadier Erne did. Fellow I'd-ah-chatted with, hey? Ten, twenty, er, occasions. Parties, dinners, receptions. Gossip, prattle over wine. Beaten, wet-um-stinking. But free. Free."

Spider laughed.

"Back to the Palace, hey? Frightened-ah-terrified. Shooting augurs, eh? Sibyls, too. I, um, didn't see it. For that thank-ah-Tartaros. Thanked Tenebrous Tartaros for it, for, er, shielding my eyes. But I knew, eh? They told me. Felt the-ah-slug. Needle strike my back a score of times in-er-three streets. Roughly, eh? Roughly three. Dead twenty times. Back to the Palace, washed. Listening all the while. Listening for them. Why, eh? Why listen?" Remora's bony fingers laced and loosed, knotting and writhing free to form new knots.

"My-ah-rise. Page as a lad. Schola. Augur. My mother, eh? Be Prolocutor someday, eh? Mother, couple aunts. Father, too, hum? Acolyte, desk in the Palace, higher every year or so, hey? Father died. Careful, hey? Careful, worked hard, hey? Always careful, no enemies, hey? Long hours. Aunt died. Work and wait, eh? Coadjutor died. Younger than old Quetzal, hey? Dead at his table, eh? Lying on his-um-documents. Coadjutor, Mother. Old then, eh? Very. But her eyes shone, Maytera. Er, General. Her eyes shone." Remora's own were full of tears.