Epiphany of the Long Sun (99 page)

Horn said, "I've got a tough one, Caldé. I'm not trying to show you up or anything.

"Of course not. What is it?"

"Tartaros told Auk the short sun whorl would be like ours, only there wouldn't be any people, or no people like us. Auk told Chenille, and I asked her. She said it means there'll be grass and rocks and flowers, only not like we're used to. Why is that?"

Nettle shook her head in disbelief. "That's not hard at all. Because Pas picked them out for us to make it easy."

"Or difficult," Silk muttered.

"I don't understand."

"Suppose there were no plants or animals-we'll leave the rocks aside. Auk's lander is stocked with seeds and embryos, as you saw. He'll be able to grow whichever ones he wants; and if the whorl he chooses had none of its own, those would be the only plants and animals with which he would have to deal. As things are, he'll have a much more interesting time of it-as well as a much harder one."

The hum of their engines deepened, and the three of them drifted toward the prow of the second gondola until the ropes that united them with the first were taut. "We're under way," Horn announced. Oreb agreed: "Go home!"

"As soon as we're gone, I don't think I'll believe I was here." Nettle sighed. "Grandma came for a talk. I said stay with me and we'll take you back, but she said she couldn't."

"Patera Remora's mother came to see him," Horn told Silk. "He's been smiling at everybody. He told her he had his own manteion now, and he'd sacrifice and shrive and bring the Peace, and wouldn't have to work in the Palace any more. And she said it's what she'd wanted for him all the time."

"Hyacinth's mother visited her, too."

Nettle looked surprised. "I didn't think her mother was dead, Caldé."

"Neither did Hyacinth."

Hand over hand they pulled themselves forward again, until they were standing on the deck, although standing very lightly; Silk freed himself from the loop of rope.

Nettle said, "Caldé, you never did answer my question about the roofs. And I wanted to know why the shade's so close here, and we can't see the sun."

"The Pylon makes it," Horn declared, "or anyhow it shoots it into the sky. Isn't that right, Caldé? Then the sun burns it but instead of smoke it turns into air. If the Pylon didn't shoot out more, the shade would burn up and there'd be daylight all the time. Only Mainframe would fry, because it's so close. The sun starts at the top of the Pylon and goes all the way to the West Pole."

"Long way," Oreb elaborated.

"We, too, have a long way to go," Silk said, addressing neither Horn nor Nettle, "but at last we've begun."

"I understand about the roofs now," Nettle said.

He looked around at her. "Do you? Tell me."

"We used to go to the lake every summer when I was little. Then… I don't know, something happened, and it seemed like we never had enough money."

"Taxes went up after the old Caldé died," Horn told her. "They went up a lot."

"Maybe that was it. Anyway, one year when I was nine or ten we waited till everybody else had gone home, and went when it was cheaper, and after that we never went any more."

Silk nodded.

"It would be nice, sometimes, in the afternoons, and we'd swim, but it was pretty cold in the morning. One morning I got up when everybody else was still asleep and walked to the lake just to look at it. I think I knew this was the last year, and we wouldn't come any more. Maybe we were going home that day."

"This isn't about roofs," Horn said; but Silk put a finger to his lips.

"The lake was all covered with ghosts, white shapes coming up out of the water and reaching for the air, getting bigger and stronger all the time. I was thinking about ghosts a lot then, because Gam had, you know, gone to Mainframe, the one I talked to today. We were supposed to say she was in Mainframe, but we didn't think it meant anything. Aren't you going to say that it wasn't really ghosts, Horn?"

He shook his head.

"It wasn't, it was fog. There was an old lady fishing off the pier, and I guess she liked me because when I asked she said there was water in the air over the lake, and when it got cold enough it came together and made tiny little drops that take a long, long while to fall, and that was what you saw. I'd never wondered where fog came from before then."

"Fog good."

"That's right, you're a marsh bird. Don't they come from Palustria, Caldé? The swamps around there?"

Silk nodded. "I believe so."

"What I was going to say was that the fog got thicker and thicker that day, and got everything wet. So if they have a lot of fogs here… We're not hardly there, though, any more. But you know what I mean. Only you wouldn't want it inside, so you'd have roofs, and they do."

Horn said, "The fountains get the grass wet, too, like it does at home on a windy day. It's not as much as you'd think, because there's a thing that sucks in air at the bottom and takes the water out for the pump. If they shut that off, it would water everything."

Silk tossed aside his rope and watched it settle to the deck. "We have weight once more."

"Yeah, I know. I mean yes."

"I should consider this better before I speak, Horn, but I find it exhilarating. When we arrived and could float-could fly, after a fashion, after Sciathan secured propulsion modules for us-I found that exhilarating as well. I'm contradicting myself, I suppose."

Horn looked to Nettle, who said, "I don't think so."

"It's not easy for me to sort out, and even less easy for me to explain. Sciathan is a Flier, in love with flight and pardonably proud of his wings and his special status among the Crew. Until we got here, I was confident that I understood his feelings."

Horn looked puzzled. "Everybody flies here, Caldé."

"Exactly. They have to, and we flew in the same way. Or floated.
Floated
may be the better term. It's easy, so much so that all three of us floated here without modules; but we floated under a lowering shade that never brought night or rose to bring a new day."

"It's getting to be daylight here." Horn gestured toward the sky-filling brown bulk of the airship.

"We've reached the foothills of the Mountains That Look At Mountains," Silk said, "and if we had tried to float this far, we'd have settled to the ground. But Sciathan flies over these hills, and across the mountains, too-or soars from valley to valley, if he chooses."

"Bird fly!"

"Yes. Sciathan flies like Oreb here, or the eagle that brought down poor Iolar. I had a taste of that when I piloted this airship." For a moment Silk's smile was radiant.

Saba's head emerged from the hatch. "Hello, Caldé! Going to take a reading?"

"I wouldn't know how."

She swung herself easily onto the deck. "I do, and I've got the protractor so I can show you. It's early yet, but I wanted to climb up here while it didn't take so much lifting." She chuckled. "I heard you talking about flying. I command a thousand pterotroopers, but I can't fly like they do. Neither could you, we're both too heavy. Even this girl would have to lose a little to be much good."

"I was about to explain to Horn and Nettle that while wings are wonderful-and they are, truly, truly wonderful-feet are wonderful too. Doctor Crane, if he were still alive, could amputate my legs, and then I'd be light enough to fly the way your troopers do, and perhaps even as Sciathan does; but as much as I envy them, I wouldn't want him to. It would be marvelous to fly as they do, so it's not surprising that we envy them; but imagine how much someone without legs must envy us."

"I don't have to imagine. Some of my dearest friends have lost their legs."

Horn asked, "Are you going to be pilot some on the way back, Caldé? You like it so much I think you ought to. You were good at it, too."

Saba said, "For somebody without training, he was better than good. He'll be taking over in four hours."

Horn looked relieved.

"When we're past the mountains," Silk told him, and walked forward to the prow of the gondola.

Saba trotted after him. "I wouldn't do that, Caldé. We still haven't got all the altitude we want, and mountains can give you some tricky winds."

"I'll be fine; but you must remain where you are."

Behind Saba, Nettle called, "Horn's afraid you're going to jump, Caldé. That's all it is"

"I'm not."

"When General Saba said you were going to be the pilot, he felt a lot better, because he thought you wouldn't want to miss it. We both did."

Looking down upon the green and rising slopes far below, where hillside meadows yielded to forested heights, Silk smiled. "You don't have to worry. I love life and Hyacinth too much to jump. Besides, if I jumped I wouldn't be able to wrestle with your questions, Nettle-though that might be good for both of us. Have you more?"

"I was going to ask you about the mountains." Timorously, she edged past Saba to grasp Silk's hand. "It scares me to look at them. You know how lampreys look in the market? Those round mouths with rings and rings of teeth? These look like that to me, under us and up in the skylands too. Only a million times bigger."

"Were you going to ask me why they exist? Because Pas built them to guard Mainframe; but that's sheer speculation. I don't know any more than you do."

"If anybody lives there. And-and why there's snow on the tops. The tops are closer to the sun, so they ought to be warmer."

"I don't believe that the sun heats air," Silk told her absently, "not much, and perhaps not at all. If it did, the sun's heat couldn't reach us. If you think about it, you'll soon realize that sunlight doesn't illuminate air either; we could see air if it did, and we can't."

Behind Silk, Horn said, "No kind of light does then."

"Correct, I'm sure. The warmth of the sun heats the soil and the waters, and they in return warm the air above them. Up here where there are only widely separated peaks, the air must be cold of necessity. Hence, snow; and in the Mountains That Look At Mountains, snow has weight enough to fall."

Silk paused, considering. "I never asked Sciathan who lived in the mountains, or whether anyone did. I've seen no cities, but I would think a few people must, people who fled the cities or were driven out. It must be a wild and lawless place; no doubt many like it for just that reason."

From the hatch Hyacinth called, "Silk, is that you?" and he turned to smile at her.

"I've been looking all over for you, but nobody'd seen you. Oh, hello, General." As gracefully as ever, Hyacinth stepped from the ladder onto the deck. "Hi, sprats. Got a better view from up here? It's bigger, anyway."

"You can leave me to my own devices now," Silk told Horn.

It was snowing in Viron, a hard fall that converted misery to unrelieved wretchedness, snow that rendered every surface slippery and made every garment damp, and rushed into Maytera Mint's eyes each time she faced the wind.

"We have done what we can, My General." Under stress of weather, the captain stood beside, not before, her. Both had their coat collars turned up against the wind and cold; his uniform cap was pulled over his ears like her striped stocking cap, his right arm inadequately immobilized by a bloodstained sling.

"I'm sure you have, Colonel, They'll start dying in a few hours, I'm afraid, just the same."

"I am not a colonel, My General."

"You are, I just promoted you. Now show me you deserve it. Find them shelter."

"I have tried, My General. I shall try again, though every house in this quarter has been burned." He was not a tall man, yet he seemed tall as he spoke.

That about the houses had been unnecessary, Maytera Mint thought, and showed how tired he was. She said, "I know."

"This was your own quarter, was it not? Near the Orilla?"

"It was, and it is."

"I go. May I say first that I would prefer to fight for you and the gods, My General? Viron must be free!"

She shivered. "What if you lose that arm, Colonel?"

"One hand suffices to fire a needler, My General."

She smiled in spite of her determination not to. "Even the left? Could you hit anything?"

He took a step backward, saluting with his uninjured arm. "When one cannot aim well, one closes with the enemy."

He had vanished into the falling snow before she could return his salute. She lowered the hand that had not quite gotten to her eyebrow, and began to walk among the huddled hundreds who had fled the fighting.

I would know every face, she thought, if I could see their faces. Not the names, because I've never been good with names. Dear Pas, won't you let us have even a single ray of sun?

Children and old people, old people and children. Did old people not fight because they were too feeble? Or was it that they had, over seventy or eighty years, come to appreciate the futility of it?

Something caught at her skirt. "Are they bringing food?" She dropped to one knee. The aged face might almost have been Maytera Rose's. "I've ordered it, but there's very little to be had. And we've very few people we can spare to look for it, wounded troopers mostly."

"They'll eat it themselves!"

Perhaps they will, Maytera Mint thought. They are hungry, too, I'm sure, and they've earned it. "Somebody will bring you something soon, before shadelow." She stood up.

"Sib? Sib? Mama's over there, and she's real cold."

She peered into the pale little face. "Perhaps you could find wood and start a fire. Someone must have an igniter."

"She won't…" The child's voice fell away.

Maytera Mint dropped to one knee again. "Won't what?"

"She won't take my coat, Maytera. Will you make her?"

Oh, my! Oh, Echidna! "No. I cannot possibly interfere with so brave a woman," There was something familiar about the small face beneath the old rabbit-skin cap. "Don't I know you? Didn't you go to our palaestra?"

The child nodded.

"Maytera Marble's group. What's your name?"

"Villus, Maytera." A deep inhalation for words requiring boldness. "I was sick, Maytera. I got bit by a big snake. I really did. I'm not lying."

"I'm sure you're not, Villus."

"That's why she won't, so tell her I'm well!" The small coat stood open now, displaying what appeared to be an adult's sweater, far too large.