Epiphany of the Long Sun (86 page)

Hyacinth said, "I use it sometimes, and I've been telling myself that if Chen can kick it so can I, and I hope it's true. But it's hard, don't ever believe anybody who says it's not.

Quetzal gave Loris a lipless smile. "Blood does tell, my son." "Watch out!" Oreb advised; it was not clear to which he spoke.

Maytera Mint asked, "Do you know why they didn't try to find another situation, Caldé?"

"I don't; but I believe I can guess. Chenille's mother had recently given birth to the Caldé's child, or if she had not, she was carrying that child-and it was her child, too. She must have guessed, or known, that the Caldé had been murdered. At that time, the Ayuntamiento was searching everywhere for the adopted son mentioned in the Caldé's will; and she would have supposed, as I believe most people did, that it would kill him if it found him. She needn't have been an educated woman, or an imaginative one, to guess what would happen to another child of the Caldé's, if it learned that she existed."

Silk filled his lungs, feeling a twinge from his wounded chest. "We've gotten far off the subject, but since we're here, let's finish what we've begun. Caldé Tussah left a substantial estate. I have it now as trustee for his daughter; I'll turn it over to Chenille as soon as she reaches twenty, the legal age of maturity."

"Good girl!" Oreb assured everyone.

Loris told Silk, "That will have to be adjudicated by the courts, I'm afraid."

He shook his head. "Our government is sorely in need of funds, Councillor. We have a war to prosecute, in addition to all the usual civic expenses; and we gave each of General Mint's troopers two cards, as well as his or her weapon, before we sent them home."

Loris said, "You're generous with the taxpayers' money."

"In order to do it, we've taken control of the Fisc; the city assumes responsibility for inactive accounts, and for the accounts in trust, such as Caldé Tussah's. We've sequestered the accounts of the members of the Ayuntamiento, as you know. Do you want to talk about it now?"

Sciathan said, "We must speak more of the airship. It is urgent. This Potto says he will get it, but in one month. We have a few days at most. Not more."

"Why?" Hyacinth asked him, speaking across Silk.

Auk told him, "Let 'em jaw about the money first. If you don't, they'll keep going back to it."

"Wise man!" Oreb exclaimed.

Silk rapped the table. "Which will it be, the airship or your accounts? Personally I'd prefer to deal with Generalissimo Oosik's complaints against Generalissimo Siyuf, and General Mint and Colonel Bison's. It's usually best, I've found, to consider minor matters first and get them out of the way. Otherwise they cloud everyone's thinking, as Auk says."

"We knew you'd stolen our money," Loris told him, "but we also knew it would be useless to protest the theft."

Maytera Mint declared, "You want to make peace after all."

"Hardly. But we're prepared to offer you new terms of surrender, much more liberal terms than those I proposed at Blood's, which were intended merely as an opening point for negotiations."

"You said at the time that they were not negotiable," Silk reminded him.

"Certainly. One always does. You were willing to listen to Potto's proposal. Will you hear ours as well? Our joint proposal?"

"Of course."

"Then let me first explain why you should accept it. You assert that you have a strategy that will assure your victory, though you are loath to follow it. You are mistaken, but we are not. We have a strategy of our own, one that will assure your defeat in under a year."

Oosik said, "Clearly you do not, or you would follow it," and Silk nodded.

"You have been assisting us with it," Loris continued, smiling, "for which we are appropriately grateful."

Potto grinned. "We're giving away slug guns too!"

"We are," Loris confirmed, "and other weapons as well, needlers mostly. We still have access to several stores of weapons. I hope you will excuse my keeping their locations confidential."

"Giving them to who?" Bison inquired.

"In a moment. Some preparation is necessary. You were underground not long ago, Colonel. The tunnels are extensive, are you aware of it? You saw not a thousandth part of them."

"I've been told the Caldé went into them from a shrine by the lake, and that General Mint went in from a house north of the city and came out on the Palatine. If those she saw and those he saw belong to the same complex, it's pretty large."

Maytera Mint told him, "Much larger than that, according to what I've learned from Spider."

"I want him," Potto put in. "I want him and the Flier. I offered the airship and you refused it. Name your price."

Silk sighed. "I said that trivial points tend to obscure discussions. This is just such a point, so let's dispose of it. Spider is our prisoner. We will exchange him for one of equal value, during this truce or another. Have you a prisoner to offer us? Who is it?"

Potto shook his head. "I will have, soon. Give him back, and you'll get double value as soon as I have it."

"No!" Maytera Mint struck the table with her small fist, and Hyacinth's catachrest thrust his furry little head above the tabletop, saying, "Done bay saw made, laddie."

"Of course not," Silk told Potto, "but may I propose an alternative I believe workable?"

"Let's hear it'

"In a moment. You also want Sciathan."

"Only temporarily." Potto giggled. "I'll pay you a line for every day I keep him over a fortnight, how's that? Like a library book. I still have a lot more money than you stole."

Auk declared, "I heard about you from Maytera, and you ain't taking him."

"Auk speaks for me as well," Silk said, "and for all of us. Sciathan is a free individual-"

"A free
man,"
Loris amended.

"Precisely. He is not mine to give or keep. He is here in this palace as my guest, and nothing more-nothing less, I ought to say. If you believe he's under restraint, ask him."

Remora tossed back his lank black hair. "'Sacred unto Pas are the life and property of the stranger you welcome.'"

"Furthermore, he would disappoint you. He's been beaten and interrogated already by Generalissimo Siyut who hoped to learn how the Fliers' propulsion modules operate. Councillor Lemur killed Iolar, who was another Flier, for the same reason; I shrove Iolar before he died. Since Lemur himself died soon after, you may not be aware of it. Are you?"

Loris shrugged. "We were aware of his capture, of course. What Lemur learned from him died with Lemur, unfortunately."

"Lemur learned nothing from him; that was why Lemur killed him. I discussed the propulsion modules with Sciathan today. He freely conceded that their principle is important; that it would be valuable to our city or any other is obvious; but he doesn't have it, and neither did Iolar.

"The scientists who make them remain in Mainframe, safe from capture. The Fliers who use them are kept ignorant of the principle, for reasons they understand and approve. It's an elementary precaution, one that you and your fellow councillors ought to have anticipated. It would have been anticipated, surely, by anyone not blinded by the itch for power. If you want to find out how they operate, you might capture one of those the Trivigauntis have and take it apart; but I doubt that I could tell leaf from root."

"Naturally you couldn't." Potto giggled. "Have you got one? Name your price for Spider. A hundred cards? I want to hear it, and the price of the propulsion module, too, if you've got one."

"We don't. Councillor Loris, Councillor Lemur told me that he was a bio, not a chem. Are you?"

"Certainly."

"Despite the marble bookend you crushed at Blood's?"

"This is not my natural body. Physically, I'm on our boat, well out of your reach. This body," Loris touched his black velvet tunic, "is a chem, if you like. To simplify matters, I won't object to your calling it that. I manipulate it from my bed, making it move and speak as I did when I was younger."

Maytera Mint told Silk, "I explained all this, I think."

"Yes, you did, Maytera; I'm very grateful. Spider should be grateful as well."

"If it gets me loose," Spider grunted.

"It very well may. From what General Mint has reported, counterintelligence has been your chief concern. I'm not so naive as to think that your organization-what remains of it-could not be put to other uses, however; and I noticed that Councillor Potto wanted you back when he was planning to seize control of General Saba's airship."

Potto said, "I do anyhow. He's valuable to us."

"Clearly. Primarily in frustrating spies?"

Loris said, "Primarily, yes."

"Spider, General Mint says you're a decent man, a patriot in your way. If I were to release you to Councillor Potto, as you wish, would you be willing to give me your solemn promise that in so far as our forces are concerned, you would confine your activities entirely to counterintelligence? By 'our forces' I intend those headed by Generalissimo Oosik and Auk-not only the Guard, but General Mint's volunteers, including those commanded by her through Colonel Bison."

Spider licked his lips. "If Councillor Potto don't tell me I can't, yeah, I will."

Potto raised a hand. "Wait. I think I heard something funny. Does your friend Auk have a private horde now?"

Auk grinned. "The best thieves in the whole city, the ones that's going with me and Sciathan. A month for the airship, you said. I figure we might nab it a whole lot sooner."

Sciathan stood up. "We must! If the Cargo will not leave the
Whorl,
Pas will drive everyone out as one drives a bear from a cave. He will starve and afflict Crew and Cargo until we go."

Loris's icy blue eyes twinkled. "A rain of blood. The Chrasmologic Writings speak of such things, I'm told."

Remora nodded solemnly. "Ah-worse, Councillor. Plagues, hey? Famine, er, likewise."

"Listen to me!" Sciathan s excited tenor cracked. "If a landing craft leaves, even one, Pas will wait for more. But if none leave everyone will be driven out. Do you understand now? We Crew have a craft ready, but so much Crew cannot be spared so early in the Plan. For this reason Tartaros has readied Auk for us, and we must have them!"

"Me and my knot," Auk explicated.

Chenille added, "That's me. I hope you don't mind that I stayed to listen, Patera. But when Auk goes, I go too."

"With my blessing," Potto chortled. "Oh, yes! Very much so. I'll be delighted to lose my accuser, and have the enemy lose its airship."

He turned to Silk. "Will Spider be free to act in any way we choose against your cherished allies? That's what it sounded like. You didn't expect me to miss that, did you?"

"No." Silk's expression was guarded. "But if you had, I would have mentioned it to him. You may not be aware of it, but Maytera Mint left the tunnels with two other prisoners. One was a convict named Eland. Eland was murdered yesterday morning in the Grand Manteion."

"A mystery!" Potto clapped his pudgy hands like a happy child. "I love them!"

"I don't. I try to clear them up when I can, and I've been trying to clear up this one. My first thought was that this man Eland had been killed by some old enemy, most plausibly someone who had attended the sacrifice there the previous night and had seen him. I asked Auk to find out who that enemy might be, and had one of General Skate's officers inquire as well."

Silk shifted his attention from Potto to Spider. "The harder they looked, the less probable it appeared. Eland had not been a thief, as I had assumed, but a horse trainer who had killed his employer in a fit of rage. Presumably there was some public sympathy for him, since he was not executed. Auk could find nobody who knew of anyone who bore him a murderous grudge."

Maytera Mint asked, "Did you consider Urus, Caldé?"

"We did, but we quickly dismissed him. Eland had been a useful subordinate in the tunnels, where Urus would have had any number of opportunities to kill him in complete safety. Why wait? Why run the risk of being shot by Acting Corporal Slate, as the killer very nearly was? Besides, I've gotten a sketchy description of the killer, and if it's even roughly correct, he was neither dirty nor dressed in rags. I'll tell you later how I obtained it."

"Got to protect his sources," Spider explained. "That's how it is, Maytera."

"Most of Eland's friends and relatives had assumed he was dead long ago," Silk continued, "yet someone with a needler had quite deliberately climbed into the choir of the Grand Manteion to shoot him. Why? After I'd turned over the question for an hour or two, it occurred to me that someone might have made a mistake-that he might have intended to shoot another person entirely, and mistaken Eland for that person. Chenille here was able to tell me in considerable detail how everyone present had been dressed, and Auk and Spider appeared to be the only possibilities."

Eyeing Spider, Oreb whistled.

"There were a number of sibyls present. All wore habits, and could be dismissed at once. So could Patera Incus and the body of Patera Jerboa-both were robed in black, as I am. No one could mistake a man for Chenille, and so on. If an error had been made, the intended victim was clearly Auk or Spider."

Auk said, "I don't think he was shooting at me."

"Neither do I," Silk told him. "You were near the altar, and thus somewhat nearer the killer. Furthermore, you were in a relatively well lit area. Spider and Eland were in a chapel behind the sanctuary, a more distant area as well as a more dimly lit one. I would guess that the killer had been given a verbal description of Spider, and had been told that he was being guarded by soldiers."

Silk turned back to Spider. "Were you and Eland awake when he was shot?"

Spider nodded.

"Were you standing up?"

Spider shook his head. "We were sittin' on the floor. That soldier wouldn't let us get up unless we had a reason."

"There you have it." Silk shrugged. "At least, you have as much as I do. Sitting would tend to conceal the difference in size. Slate was guarding both of you, and from what I've heard, neither of you had been given an opportunity to wash and change clothes, as General Mint and Patera Remora did. In the dim light of the chapel, the killer may not have seen you at all. Or he may simply have felt that Eland corresponded more closely to the description he had been given.