Epiphany of the Long Sun (89 page)

"You were going to win by giving up?"

Silk shook his head. "No one wins by giving up, Nettle, though many fights are not worth winning. I was going to gain what I wanted-peace-by persuading my enemy that he gained by letting me have it, which happened to be the truth. I still hope to do it, though the prospect isn't bright at the moment."

Horn said, "General Mint and Colonel Bison got away. So did Generalissimo Oosik." Nettle added, "The fat councillor did, too, I think. Is there going to be peace now because of what you said?"

"I don't know, but I doubt it." Silk sighed. "It will depend mostly on the Trivigauntis; and as long as they hold us, Generalissimo Oosik and General Mint are liable to regard them as enemies as bad as the Ayuntamiento, if not worse.

Maytera Marble sniffed. "I don't see why they want us."

"His Cognizance is fond of giving short and long answers," Silk told her. "In this case, he'd probably say that the short answer was that Siyuf has a bad conscience. She came to Viron as an ally, ostensibly, but with the secret hope of making it dependent upon Trivigaunte - a servant city."

"Did she actually say that, Patera?"

"Of course not; but she was quick to believe that we were plotting against her, and people who always suspect they're being cheated are generally trying to cheat. When General Mint and Patera Remora tried to treat with the Ayuntamiento, Siyuf feared we'd come to an agreement unfavorable to Trivigaunte. By taking our Juzgado, she showed clearly that she intended to govern Viron. Today-though that's yesterday now, I suppose-I made the mistake of telling Councillor Loris that he and Potto could confer in person with us, since that was what they wanted. I thought it was safe, because Hossaan would report everything we said to Colonel Abanja, and I was resolved to say nothing that Siyuf could object to.

"I don't think you did, Caldé, except there at the end."

"Thank you. There at the end it no longer rnattered. Horn and Mucor had told me the Trivigauntis were on their way, and I knew I'd overplayed my hand just by letting the councillors into the Caldé's Palace. Unfonunately, Hossaan overplayed his as well. If he and his spies had simply kept us from leaving until the troopers arrived, something might have been gained. I doubt it, but it might have been. As things are, a great deal has been lost-peace first of all. Peace is always a great deal, but now it's more urgent than ever, because of Pas's threat."

Silk wiped his eyes. "Having saved our manteion, I tried to save Viron and the whorl, Nettle; and now all I can do is sit here crying."

"That's a awfully bigjob for just one man, Caldé, saving the whorl. Do you really think Pas is going to destroy us?"

As if he had not heard her, Silk said, "We were talking about those who escaped, and no one mentioned Oreb. Did he get out? Did anyone see him?"

A horse voice croaked, "Bird here!"

"Oreb! I should've known. Come down here."

Wings beat in the darkness, and Oreb landed with a thump.

"His Cognizance reminded me once that there are people who love birds so much they cage them, and others who love them so much i they free them. Then he said that Echidna and the Seven were people of the first kind, and Pas a person of the second kind. When I bought Oreb, he was in a cage; and when I freed him I smashed that cage-never thinking that it might have seemed a place of refuge to him."

"Horn said, "I never thought of the whorl being a cage."

"I never had either, until the Outsider showed me what lies outside it."

"Maybe Auk and Chenille can steal General Saba's airship, Caldé, and take Sciathan back to Mainframe like he wants."

"Good man," Oreb informed them. "Man fly."

"He is, Oreb, in both senses, I believe. So is Auk, and even Chenille is a very competent person in her way. But to tell you the truth I have no confidence in them at all when it comes to this-less than I would have in Potto and Spider, if anything. Frankly, I've never imagined that there was any way to get Auk and his followers to Mainframe other than getting General Saba and her crew to fly them there.

"That was another reason for wanting peace, and in fact it was the most pressing one-as long as there was war, Siyuf would want to keep the airship here. It couldn't be used in the tunnels, of course, but eventually the Aytintamiento would have to send troops to the surface if it hoped to win, and the airship would be a terrible adversary.

"With the war ended, it might-I say might-have been possible to persuade her to do what we wanted. Now we'll have to wait for it to end, I'm afraid, or at least for Pas to do whatever he plans to do first to drive humanity out. I can think of a dozen possibilities, none pleasant."

Silk awaited another question, but even Oreb was silent. At length he said, "Now let's sleep if we can. We'll have a trying day tomorrow, I'm afraid."

"Ah-Caldé?" Remora's nasal voice floated out of the darkness.

"Yes, Patera. I'm sorry we woke you. We tried to keep our voices down."

"I have listened with great, um, edification. Sorry I did not wake sooner, eh? But there is one, um, point. Eland, eh? I knew him. You said-ah-"

"I said I had a vague description of his killer. Vague from our point of view, anyway. I believe it was Hossaan, whom you may have met as Willet, my driver. I won't tell you at present how I obtained it. Let us sleep, Patera."

"Good girl," Oreb confided.

"Add cot end add word," Tick commented sleepily from his place at Hyacinth's side.

Staring up at the still-distant airship, Silk clenched his teeth, determined equally that the icy wind that whipped his robe would not make them chatter and that the airship would not make him gape, though so immense a flying structure seemed less an achievement than a force of nature. Ever so slowly, it edged its vast, mummy-colored bulk across the gray midday sky, lost at times among low clouds dark with snow, always reappearing nearer the winter-wet meadow where he and his companions waited under guard.

Maytera Mint's grip on his arm tightened, and she uttered a sound like a raindrop falling into a scrub bucket, then another, and another. He turned from his contemplation of the airship to her. "Why are you making that noise, Maytera?"

Hyacinth whispered, "She's crying. Let her alone."

"Wise girl!" Oreb approved.

"You won't be able to take your bird, Caldé." Dismounting and dropping her reins, Saba strode over to them, her porcine face sympathetic and severe. "I'm sorry, but you can't." She indicated Hyacinth with her riding crop. "You had some sort of animal too, girly. Where is it?"

"A c-catachrest," Hyacinth told her through chattering teeth. "I gave him a little of my food this morning and sent him away."

Silk said, "You'll have to leave, Oreb. Fly back to the place where you were caught if you can."

"Good Silk!"

"Good bird too, but you must go. Go back to the Palustrian Marshes, that's where the man in the market said you came from."

"Bird stay," Oreb announced, then squawked and took wing as Saba cut at him with her quirt.

"Sorry, Caldé, I didn't try to hit it. Have a nice breakfast?"

"Baked horse-fodder," Hyacinth told her.

"Horde bread, you mean. We turn little girls like you into troopers with it."

Silk said, "I had assumed that we would be questioned by Generalissimo Siyuf."

Behind him, Incus began, "We are holy
augurs.
You
cannot
simply-" He was jointed by Remora, and Remora by Spider.

"Quiet!" Saba snapped. "I'll have the lot of you flogged. By Sphigx, I'll flog you myself!" She counted them, her lips twitching. "Eight, that's right."

She raised her voice. "You're going up in my airship. The Caldé said he'd like to see it, and he's going to. So are the rest of you, as soon as they drop the
'ishsh.
We're taking you home so the Rani and her ministers can have a look at you, but anybody who gives us trouble might not get there. She might sort of fall off first. Understand? If you-if…"

Seeing Saba's eyes sink and grow dull, Silk took his arm from Hyacinth's shoulders. "Can you and I walk a step or two, General? I'd like a word with you in private."

Saba's head nodded like a marionette's. "I've been in here all morning, Silk. She thinks you won't come back."

"I see." He drew Saba aside. "But she isn't going to kill us, or she wouldn't have threatened to. I'm not worried about myself, Mucor; the Outsider will take care of me in one way or another. I'm worried about Hyacinth, and about you."

"Grandmother will take care of her, Silk."

"At the moment, Hyacinth's taking care of her; but no doubt you're right. With your grandrnother gone, however, there's no one to take care of you."

Saba laughed, a mirthless noise that made Silk shudder even as he worried that the watching troopers had heard it. "I'm going with you, Silk, way up in the air. The man who broke his wings is there already."

"You can't! Can't you understand? You absolutely cannot!" Assistant Day Manager Feist trotted at Sand's side, snapping and yelping.

"It's right up there, Sarge." Hammerstone waved toward the sentries before Siyufs door. "See the twist troopers? Got to be it." The "twist troopers" in question were moving the safety catches of their slug guns to the ‹font size=2›FIRE‹/font› position.

Ignoring them, Sand grasped the front of Feist's tunic and separated his highly polished shoes from Ermine's three-finger-thick stair runner. "You say we can't go barging in, right?"

Feist gasped and choked.

"Fine, we've got it. So you're going first. You've got to talk your way past those girls and get inside."

Sand paused at the top of the stair, displaying Feist to the sentries while covering them with his slug gun, gripped in one hand like a needler. "When you get in, tell the Generalissimo we got big news to trade real cheap, and if-"

The intricately-carved sandalwood door of the Lyrichord Room had opened; a tall and strikingly handsome brunette in a diaphanous gown peered out. "Hi. You want to see Generalissimo Siyuf?"

"You got it, Plutonium." Sand strode toward the door, as an afterthought tossing Feist over the ornate railing. "You tell her the First Squad, First Platoon, Company 'S,' Army of Viron's here. You got all that?"

The handsome young woman nodded. "Close enough, Soldier. I'm Violet."

"Sergeant Sand, pleased. You tell her we won't take much of her time and we aren't asking much, and she'll be shaggy glad she talked to us."

"Wait a minute, she's getting dressed." The door closed.

"What do you think?" Slate asked Hammerstone. "She goin' to see us?"

"One way or the other," Hammerstone told him; almost too swiftly for the eye to follow, his hands shot out, grasped the barrels of the sentries' slug guns, and crushed them.

At length, when repeated knockings had produced no result, Maytera Marble's friend Scleroderma employed the butt of her new needler to pound the rearmost door of the Caldé's Palace. A second floor window flew open with a bang, and a cracked male voice called, "Who's there? Visitor? Want to see the Caldé? So do I!"

"I'm here to see Moly," Scleroderma announced firmly. "I'm going to. Is she all right?"

"Mollie? Mollie? Good name! Fish name! Relative of mine? Don't know her! Wait."

The window slammed down. Scleroderma dropped her needler into the pocket of her winter coat, drawing the coat so tightly about her that for a moment it appeared buttonable.

The door flew open. "Come in! Come in! Cold out there! In here, too! Wall's down! Terrible! No Mollie. You mean Mucor? She's here, skinny girl! Know her?"

"I certainly do, she's Moly's granddaughter. Maybe-"

"Won't talk," the lean old man who had opened the door declared. "Asked about Mollie. She talk to you? Not to me! Upstairs! Want to see her? Maybe she will!"

Scleroderma, whose weight gave her a pronounced aversion to stairs, shook her head emphatically as she pushed the door shut behind her. "She'll catch her death up there, the poor starved little thing. You bring her down here right away." Waddling after him through the scullery and into the kitchen, she called to the old man's fast-vanishing back, "I'll build a fire in the stove and start her dinner."

High above the Trivigaunti airship, Oreb eyed the cage-like enclosure swinging below it. The question, as Oreb saw it, was not whether he should rejoin Silk, but when. It might be best to wait until Silk was alone. It might also be best to find something to eat first. There was always food at the big house on the hill, but Oreb had a score to settle.

Bright black eyes sharper than most telescopes examined the good girl pressing herself against Silk without result, then scanned the orderly rows of pointed houses. The target sighted, Oreb began a wingover that quickly became a dive.

"You," Pterotrooper Nizam told her new pet, "are going to have to be as quiet as a mouse in this barracks bag."

"Ess, laddie."

"As quiet as
two
mice. As soon as we get aboard-"

A red-and-black projectile shot between them with a rush of wind and a hoarse cry. The new pet bared small teeth and claws in fury. "Add, add word! Laddie, done by scarred."

Sand's soldiers filled the Lyrichord Room's luxurious sellaria with polite clankings as Siyuf returned his salute. "I have hear of you, Sergeant. Why do you come?"

"You got a couple prisoners-", he began.

"More than this."

"Two I'm talking about. This's Corporal Hammerstone."

Hammerstone stiffened to attention.

"He's married, only you got his wife and his best buddy. We want 'em back, and what we got to tell you's worth ten of 'em. So here's what I say. We tell you, and we leave it up to you, sir. If you don't think it's worth it, say so and we'll clear off. If you do, give 'em back. What do you say?"

Siyuf clapped her hands; when the monitor appeared in her glass she said, "Get Colonel Abanja.

"To begin, Sergeant, I do not know that I hold the wife or the friend of this soldier. Violet my darling, bring for me the list that was last night from Colonel Abanja."

Violet grinned and winked at Hammerstone. "Sure thing."