Epiphany of the Long Sun (97 page)

"You need not proceed, Horn, if it embarrasses you."

"What I mean is she'd be a lot like Auk if she was a man. You'd be a better runner, but-but…"

"We are alike in certain ways, I suppose."

"That's not it." Horn was less at ease than ever. "Since you've been Caldé everybody talks about the old one. Then last night before those women came you were talking about his will. Nettle told me, and this's her idea, really. He said he had an adopted son, and this son was going to be the next one. What Nettle says is he didn't say to make it happen, he just said it would. Is that right?"

Silk nodded. "'Though he is not the son of my body, my son will succeed me.'"

"Chenille's his real daughter, Nettle told me that too. And you're the next Caldé. So if she's your sister-"

"We will go no further with this, Horn. It has nothing to do with our topic."

"All right. I won't tell anybody."

"There are so many lies in the whorl that it's not likely anyone would credit you if you did. May I instance one more? Hyacinth subdued our pilot, Hyacinth alone. I mentioned it."

"Yes, Caldé."

"I've been trying to think of an enlightening analogy for you, but I can't. Suppose I were to say that it was like seeing Patera Incus overpower Auk. The analogy would be flawed because I've never supposed that Patera Incus could not fight, only that he would fight badly. I had imagined Hyacinth would be helpless in the face of violence; she spoke of taking fencing from Master Xiphias once, yet I never…"

"I can't hear you. Can't you turn around this way?"

"No. Come closer." Silk found Horn's hand and drew him nearer the edge.

"Nobody thought you could fight either, Caldé."

"I know, and they had almost convinced me of it. That was a part of the reason I broke into Blood's-I needed to prove I wasn't the milksop everyone took me for. Nor was I, though I was badly frightened most of the time."

"Maybe that's how Hyacinth felt about the pilot." Greatly daring, Horn sat up, his legs stretched before him and his feet on the edge of the deck. "Hyacinth's real girly when you're around. We got lots of it this morning. She smiles whenever you look at her and holds on like she can't stand up. She wants you to like her. Caldé, you know that big cat Mucor's got?"

Silk was staring down at a mountain valley, following the snowy rush of a young river over red stones. "You mean Lion?"

"I don't know the name, but Lion sounds like a boy. This was a girl cat, I think, kind of gray, with long pointed ears and a little short tail. I saw it one time when I brought up Mucor's dinner. It really liked her. It would rub up against her and smile. Cats can smile, Caldé."

"I know."

"It kept putting its paw in Mucor's lap so she'd pet it, but it wasn't too sure about me. It showed me its teeth, pulling its lips back without making any noise. I was pretty scared."

"So was I, Horn. I shot two of those horned cats once; I'm very sorry for that now." Silk leaned forward again. "Look at that cliff, Horn. Can you see it?"

"Sure, I saw it just a minute ago. I don't think I could climb it, but I'd like to try."

Horn made himself speak more loudly. "I know what Hyacinth seems like to you, Caldé, but she seems a lot like Mucor's cat to Nettle and me. She's respectful to Moly, though."

Silk glanced over his shoulder. "You're right, there is a great deal of good in Hyacinth, though I would love her even if there were none."

Horn shook his head. "I was going to say she sort of hits it off with Hammerstone. He can be awful rough."

"Yes, I'm well aware of it."

"He likes Moly and Patera Incus, so he's nice to them. But he treats Nettle and me like sprats, and with other people he's like Auk. Hyacinth won't give him half a step, and once when she got mad she called him all kinds of names. I thought I knew all those. I learned most of that stuff when I was little, but she had some I never heard. If the pilot pulled a needler on Mucor, what do you think her cat would do?"

"Come here," Silk told him. "Sit with me. Are you afraid I'll take you with me if I jump? I'm not going to, and I'd like you beside me."

"I'm still pretty scared."

"You would have climbed that cliff, given the chance. You would be no more dead falling from here."

"All right." Gingerly, Horn edged forward until his legs dangled over the abyss of air. Oreb settled on his shoulder.

"As I said, I've neglected my duty to teach you. Now I can actually show you part of the Plan. I find it enlightening, and you may, too. See the city ahead? The mountains we crossed isolate it from the west. Soon we'll see what isolates it from the east; and if we were to turn north or south, we'd come upon barriers there as well. Some are more formidable than others, of course."

"Their houses are like people, Caldé. Look, there's Pas, with the two heads. Even the little ones are like people lying down, see? The thatch makes it look like they've got blankets."

"Good place." Oreb bobbed on Horn's shoulder.

"It is," Silk agreed, "but if we weren't used to seeing Pas pictured like this, we'd think this image the more horrible-and it is horrible-for being so large. I won't ask if you've lain with a woman, Horn; it's too personal a matter to broach save in shriving, and I know you too well to shrive you. Should you wish to be shriven, I hope you'll go to Patera Remora."

"All right."

"I had not until my wedding night. Indeed, it remains my only such experience. You needn't tell me that Hyacinth has lain with scores of men. I knew it and was acutely conscious of it; so was she. I can't say what our experience meant to her, and perhaps it meant little or nothing. To me it was wonderful. Wonderful! I came to her as one starving. And yet-"

Still very frightened, Horn jerked his head. "I know."

"Good. I'm glad you understand. There was a taint that came from neither Hyacinth nor me, but from the act itself. After two hours, or about that, I rested. We had done what men and women do more than once, and more than twice. I was happy, exhausted, and soiled. I felt that Echidna, particularly, was displeased; and I doubt that I would have had the courage if I had not rejected her in my heart after her theophany. You were there, I know."

Horn nodded again. "She's a very great goddess, Caldé."

"She is. Great and terrible. It may be that I was wrong to reject her-I won't argue the point. I only say that I had, and felt as I did. As I've said, the Outsider enlightened me a second time then. I won't tell you all that he told me-I couldn't. But one thing was that he created Pas. The Seven, as everyone knows, are the children of Pas and Echidna; it had never occurred to me to wonder whence they themselves came. Why do you think Pas built barriers between our cities, Horn?"

The sudden question caught him off guard. "To keep them from fighting, Caldé?"

"Not at all. Not only do they fight, but he knew that they would; if he hadn't, he wouldn't have provided them with armies. No, he erected mountains and dug rivers and lakes so they could not combine against him. More specifically, so they couldn't combine against Mainframe, the home he was to set over them."

"Did the Outsider tell you that, Caldé?"

Silk shook his head. "Hammerstong did, and Hammerstone is right. The Outsider, as he showed me, has no reason to fear our leaguing against him. We've done it innumerable times, just as we betray him daily as individuals. His fear-he is afraid for our sake, not his own-is that we may come to love other things more than we love him. When I was at your manteion on Sun Street, foolish people used to ask me why Pas or Scylla permitted some action that they regarded as evil, as if a god had to sign a paper before a man could be struck or a child fall ill. On my wedding night, the Outsider explained why it is that he permits what people call evil at all-not this theft or that uncleanness, but the thing itself. It serves him, you see. It hates him, yet it serves him, too. Does this make sense to you, Horn?"

"Like a mule that kicks whenever it gets a chance."

"Exactly. That mule is harnessed like the rest and draws the wagon, however unwillingly. Given the freedom of the whorl-and even of those beyond it-evil directs us back to the Outsider. I told you I rejected Echidna; I thought I did it because she is evil, but the truth is that I did it because he is better. A child who burns its hand says the fire's bad, as the saying goes; but the fire itself is saying, 'Not to me, child. Reach out to him.'"

"I think I see. Caldé, I'm getting pretty cold."

"Fish heads?" Oreb inquired.

Silk nodded. "We'll go in soon, so you and Oreb will be warm and can get something to eat; but first, have you been looking at our whorl, Horn? This is winter wheat below us, I believe. See how the sunlight plays on it, how it ripples in the wind, displaying every conceivable shade of green?"

"You still haven't told me-maybe I shouldn't ask you-"

"Why I was tempted to jump? It's obvious, isn't it?"

Oreb squawked, "Look out!"

Already, Horn was sliding from the edge of the deck; the face he turned toward Silk displayed Mucor's deathly grin.

"You know where Silk is?" Auk stepped into the cockpit and shut the flimsy door behind him.

Sciathan pointed to the ceiling, his urchin face all sharp
V's.
"Upstairs, which is what you call me. I saw shoes and stockings, and the legs of trousers at the top." He gestured toward the slanted pane before him. "The trousers were black, the shoes and stockings the same, the legs too long for the smallest augur. The tallest, I think, would not do this."

"They ain't there any more." Auk bent, craning his neck to peer upward. "I ought to tell you, too. Number Seven ought to work if you start it."

Sciathan flicked two switches and nodded appreciatively as a needle rose. "You have removed his clamp."

"There was more to it than that. We're working on Number Five now. They got 'em out on booms, see?"

"I have observed this. In a moment I shall tell you what else I have observed."

"Only you can haul the booms in to fix the engines. It's a pretty good system. We had to yank the heads and beat on the pistons some, but we didn't hurt 'em much. What'd you see?"

"Another seated beside Silk. It is hazardous to sit thus."

"You said it."

"The other was almost chilled…" Sciathan paused, his head cocked. "Caldé Silk comes now to General Saba's cabin. I hear his voice."

Leaving the cockpit, Auk saw that Saba's curtain was drawn back. Silk stood where it had hung, and a perspiring Horn had crowded into the cubicle beside Nettle.

"-don't know how to put this, exactly," Silk was saying. "I ought to have given that more thought while I was up on the roof a moment ago." He glanced over his shoulder. "Hello, Auk. I'm glad you're here; I was going to send Nettle for you. We're about to return her airship to General Saba."

Oreb bobbed in assent as Auk stared.

"I don't mean, of course, that we're not going to take you to Mainframe-you and Sciathan, and the rest. We are. Or rather, she is; Hyacinth and I will accompany her, with Nettle, Horn, His Eminence, Patera Remora, and Moly."

Saba grinned at Auk. "I don't understand this either, but I like it."

"Of course you do," Silk told her, "and so will Auk. We all should, because it will help every one of us."

He turned back to Auk. "A small ceremony at which you return General Saba's sword might be appropriate. Would you like that?"

Auk shook his head.

"It wasn't taken from her, in any event. It's still in that box at the foot of her bed, she tells me."

Nettle displayed her needler. "Can I put this up?"

Auk snapped, "Keep it!"

"A very small ceremony, then-here and now. Would you get out your sword for me, General? I'll give it to Auk, who will give it back to you. You should wear it thereafter. It will hearten your troopers, I'm confident."

Auk declared, "We're not giving the slug guns back."

"Not now, at least. That will depend upon whether there are arms on the craft the Crew provides you, though I imagine there will be."

Horn mopped his forehead. "Nobody understands this except you, Caldé."

"It's simple enough. Neither General Saba nor I desire a war between Viron and Trivigaunte. We Vironese have seized this airship, the pride of its city."

Horn looked to Nettle, who said, "They'd seized as."

"Exacily. Another reason for war, which General Saba and I wish to prevent. The solution is obvious-our freedom for the airship."

"We're free now!"

"Nobody can be truly free without peace. Consider the alternative. When we returned to Viron, Generalissimo Siyuf would try to recapture this airship by force, while General Mint and Generalissimo Oosik tried to prevent her; it would cost five hundred lives the first day-at least that many, and perhaps more."

Saba told Nettle, "You're going to have to wait a little before you get a tour of Trivigaunte. When he wanted to know if I'd take you home if I got my airship back, I was too surprised to say anything. But I will, and let Auk here and the rabble we loaded first out at Mainframe, if that's what he wants." She bent over her footlocker. "Some of you are afraid I'm going to cross you. All of you, except your Caldé, most likely."

Auk grunted.

She straightened up, holding a sharply curved saber with a gem-studded hilt. "This is the sword of honor the Rani awarded me last year, and I'm proud of it. Maybe I haven't worn it as much as I ought to for fear something might happen to it."

Oreb whistled, and Nettle told Saba, "It's beautiful!"

Saba smiled at Auk. "The girl let me keep it. I told her about it, and she said leave it where it is, Auk won't mind."

He muttered, "I'd like mine back. That Colonel's got it."

"If you come back with us, I'll try to get it for you."

"No cut!" Oreb hopped from Silk's shoulder to Saba's to examine the sword more closely.

She drew it and took a half step backward, holding it at eye level with both hands grasping the blade. "By this sword I swear that as long as Caldé Silk's on my airship, I'll do whatever he tells me, and when I land him and his friends at their city it will be as passengers, and not prisoners."