Epiphany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  Nor is their message so brief, and so less than mistakable. From forest to lake, from the proud crown of the Palatine to the humblest of alleys they proclaim him. O my beloved clergy, with what incommunicable joy shall I do so additionally. For Supreme Pas has, as never previously, espoused for our city a Caldé from within our own ranks, an anointed augur, holy, pious, and redolent of sanctity.

  May I name him? I shall, yet surely I need not. There is not one amongst you, Beloved Clergy, who will not know that name prior to mine overjoyed acclamation. It is Patera Silk. Again I say, Patera Silk!

  How readily here might I inscribe, let us welcome him and obey him as one of ourselves. With what delight shall I inscribe in its place, let us welcome him and obey him, for he is one of ourselves!

  May every god favor you, beloved clergy. Blessed be you in the Most Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in that of Gradous Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and their Daughters alike, this day and forever, in the name of their eldest child, Scylla, Patroness of this, Our Holy City of Viron. Thus say I, Pa. Quetzal, Prolocutor.

  As Silk refolded the letter, Shell said, "His Cognizance has come down completely on your side, you see, and brought the Chapter with him. You said-I hope you were mistaken in this, Patera, really I do. But you said a minute ago that if the Ayuntamiento knew you were here they'd have you shot. If that's true-" He cleared his throat nervously. "If it's true, they'll have His Cognizance shot too. And-and some of the rest of us."

  "The coadjutor," Silk said, "he drafted this. He'll die as well, if they can get their hands on him." It was strange to think of Remora, that circumspect diplomatist, tangled and dead in his own web of ink.

  Of Remora dying for him.

  "I suppose so, Patera." Shell hesitated, plainly ill at ease. "I'd call you-use the other word. But it might be dangerous for you."

  Silk nodded slowly, stroking his cheek.

  "His Cognizance says you're the first augur, ever. That-it came as a shock to-to a lot of us, I suppose. To Patera Jerboa, he said. He says it's never happened before in his lifetime. Do you know Patera Jerboa, Patera?"

  Silk shook his head.

  "He's quite elderly. Eighty-one, because we had a little party for him just a few weeks ago. But then he thought, you know, sort of getting still and pulling at his beard the way he does, and then he said it was sensible enough, really. All the others, the previous-the previous-"

  "I know what you mean, Patera."

  "They'd been chosen by the people. But you, Patera, you were chosen by the gods, so naturally their choice fell upon an augur, since augurs are the people they've chosen to serve them."

  "You yourself are in danger, Patera," Silk said. "You're in nearly as much danger as I am, and perhaps more. You must be aware of it."

  Shell nodded miserably.

  "I'm surprised they let you in here after this."

  "They-the captain, Patera. I-I haven't…"

  "They don't know."

  "I don't think so, Patera. I don't think they do. I didn't tell them."

  "That was wise, I'm sure." Silk studied the window as he had before, but as before saw only their reflections, and the night. "This Patera Jerboa, you're his acolyte? Where is he?"

  "At our manteion, on Brick Street."

  Silk shook his head.

  "Near the crooked bridge, Patera."

  "Way out east?"

  "Yes, Patera." Shell fidgeted uncomfortably. "That's where we are now, Patera. On Basket Street. Our manteion's that way," he pointed, "about five streets."

  "I see. That's right, they lifted me into something-into some sort of cart that jolted terribly. I remember lying on sawdust and trying to cough. I couldn't, and my mouth and nose kept filling with blood." Silk's index finger drew small circles on his cheek. "Where's my robe?"

  "I don't know. The captain has it, I suppose, Patera."

  "The battle, when General Mint attacked the floaters on Cage Street, was that this afternoon?"

  Shell nodded again.

  "About the time I was shot, perhaps, or a little later. You brought the Pardon to the wounded. To all of them? All those in danger of death, I mean?"

  "Yes, Patera."

  "Then you went back to your manteion-?"

  "For something to eat, Patera, a bite of supper." Shell looked apologetic. "This brigade-it's the Third. They're in reserve, they say. They don't have much. Some were going into people's houses, you know, and taking any food they could find. There's supposed to be food coming in wagons, but I thought-"

  "Of course. You returned to your manse to eat with Patera Jerboa, and this letter had arrived while you were gone. There would have been a copy for you, too, and one for him."

  Shell nodded eagerly. "That's right, Patera."

  "You would have read yours at once, of course. My copy-this one-it was there as well?"

  "Yes, Patera."

  "So someone at the Palace knew I had been captured, and where I'd been taken. He sent my copy to Patera Jerboa instead of to my own manteion in the hope that Patera Jerboa could arrange to get to me, as he did. His Cognizance was with me when I was shot; there's no reason to conceal that now. While my wounds were being treated, I was wondering whether he had been killed. The officer who shot me may not have recognized him, but if he did…" Silk let the thought trail away. "If they don't know about this already-and I think you're right, they can't know yet, not here at any rate-they're bound to find out soon. You realize that?"

  "Yes, Patera."

  "You must leave. It would probably be wise for you and Patera Jerboa to leave your manteion, in fact-to go to a part of the city controlled by General Mint, if you can."

  "I-" Shell seemed to be choking. He shook his head desperately.

  "You what, Patera?"

  "I don't want to leave you as long as I can be of-of help to you. Of service. It's my duty."

  "You have been of help," Silk told him. "You've rendered invaluable service to me and to the Chapter already. I'll see you're recognized for it, if I can." He paused, considering.

  "You can be of further help, too. On your way out, I want you to speak to this captain for me. There were two letters in a pocket of my robe. They were on the mantel this morning; my acolyte must have put them there yesterday. I haven't read them, and your giving me this one has reminded me of them." Somewhat tardily, he thrust the letter under his quilt. "One had the seal of the Chapter. It may have been another copy of this, though that doesn't seem very likely, since this one has today's date. Besides, they wouldn't have sent this to Patera Jerboa this evening, in that case."

  "I suppose not, Patera."

  "Don't mention them to the captain. Just say I'd like to have my robe-all of my clothes. Ask for my clothes and see what he gives you. Bring them to me, my robe particularly. If he mentions the letters, say that I'd like to see them. If he won't give them to you, try to find out what was in them. If he won't tell you, return to your manteion. Tell Patera Jerboa that I, the Caldé, order him to get himself and you-are there sibyls, too?"

  Shell nodded. "There's Maytera Wood-"

  "Never mind their names. That you and he and they are to lock up the manteion and leave as quickly as possible."

  "Yes, Patera." Shell stood, very erect. "But I won't go back to our manteion straight away, no matter what the captain says. I-I'm coming back. Back here to see you and tell you what he said, and try to do something more for you, if I can. Don't tell me not to, please, Patera. I'll only disobey."

  To his surprise, Silk found that he was smiling. "Your disobedience is better than the obedience of many people I've known, Patera Shell. Do what you think right; you will anyway, I feel certain."

  Shell left, and the room seemed empty as soon as he was out the door. Silk's wound began to throb, and he made himself think of something else. How proudly Shell had announced his intention to disobey, while his lip trembled! It reminded Silk of his mother, her eyes shining with team of joy at some only too ordinary childhood
feat. Oh, Silk! My son, my son! That was how he felt now. These boys!

  Yet Shell was no younger. They had entered the schola together, and Shell had sat at the desk in front of his own when an instructor insisted on alphabetical seating; they had been anointed on the same day, and both had been assigned to assist venerable augurs who were no longer able to attend to all the demands of their manteions.

  Shell, however, had not been enlightened by the Outsider-or had not had a vein burst in his head, as Doctor Crane would have had it. Shell had not been enlightened, had not hurried to the market, had not encountered Blood…

  He had been as young as Shell when he had talked to Blood and plucked three cards out of Blood's hand, not knowing that somewhere below a monitor was mad and howling for want of those cards-as young or nearly, because Shell might have done it, too. Again Silk smelled the dead dog in the gutter and the stifling dust raised by Blood's floater, saw Blood wave his stick, tall, red faced, and perspiring. Silk coughed, and felt that a poker had been plunged into his chest.

  Somewhat unsteadily, he crossed the room to the window and raised the sash to let in the night wind, then surveyed his naked torso in the minor over the bureau, a much larger one than his shaving mirror back at the manse.

  A dressing half concealed the multicolored bruise left by Musk's hilt. From what little anatomy he had picked up from the victims he had sacrificed, he decided that the needle had missed his heart by four fingers. Still, it must have been good shooting by a mounted man.

  With his back to the mirror, he craned his neck to see as much as possible of the dressing on his back; it was larger, and his back hurt more. He was conscious of a weak wrongness deep in his chest, and of the effort he had to make to breathe.

  Clothing in the drawers of the bureau: underwear, tunics, and carelessly folded trousers-under these last, a woman's perfumed scarf. This was a young man's room, a son's; the couple who owned the house would have a bedroom on the ground floor, a corner room with several windows.

  Chilled, he returned to the bed and drew up the quilt. The son had left without packing, otherwise the drawers would be half empty. Perhaps he was fighting in Maytera Mint's army.

  Some part of Kypris had entered her, and that fragment had made the shy sibyl a general-that, and Echidna's command. For a moment he wondered what fragment it had been, and whether Kypris herself had known she possessed it. It was the element that had freed Chenille from rust, presumably; they would be part and parcel of the same thing. Kypris had told him she was hunted, and His Cognizance had called it a wonder that she had not been killed long ago. Echidna and her children, hunting the goddess of love, must soon have learned that love is more than perfumed scarves and thrown flowers. That there is steel in love.

  A young woman had thrown that scarf from a balcony, no doubt. Silk tried to visualize her, found she wore Hyacinth's face, and thrust the vision back. Blood had wiped his face with a peach-colored handkerchief, a handkerchief more heavily perfumed than the scarf. And Blood had said…

  Had said there were people who could put on a man like a tunic. He had been referring to Mucor, though he, Silk, had not known it then-had not known that Mucor existed, a girl who could dress her spirit in the flesh of others just as he, a few moments before, had been considering putting on the clothes of the son whose room this was.

  Softly he called, "Mucor? Mucor?" and listened; but there was no phantom voice, no face but his own in the mirror above the bureau. Closing his eyes, he composed a long formal prayer to the Outsider, thanking him for his life, and for the absence of Blood's daughter. When it was complete, he began a similar prayer to Kypris.

  Beyond the bedroom door, a sentry sprang to attention with an audible clash of his weapon and click of his heels.

  Shadeup woke Auk, brilliant beams of the long sun piercing his tasseled awnings, his gauze curtains, his rich draperies of puce velvet, and the grimed glass of every window in the place, slipping past his lowered blinds of split bamboo, the warped old boards someone else had nailed up, his colored Scylla, and his shut and bolted shutters; through wood, paper, and stone.

  He blinked twice and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "I feel better," he announced, then saw that Chenille was still asleep, Incus and Urus both sleeping, Dace and Bustard sound asleep as well, and only big Hammerstone the soldier already up, sitting crosslegged with Oreb on his shoulder and his back against the tunnel wall. "That's good, trooper," Hammerstone said.

  "Not good," Auk explained. "I don't mean that. Better. Better than I did, see? That feels better than good, 'cause when you're feeling good you don't even think about it. But when you feel the way I do, you pay more attention than when you're feeling good. I'm a dimberdamber nanny nipper." He nudged Chenille with the toe of his boot. "Look alive, Jugs. Time for breakfast!"

  "What's the matter with you?" Incus sat up as though it had been he and not Chenille who had been thus nudged.

  "Not a thing," Auk told him. "I'm right as rain." He considered the matter. "If it does, I'll go to the Cock. If it don't, I'll do some business on the hill. Slept with my boots on." He seated himself beside Chenille. "You too? You shouldn't do that, Patera. Bad on the feet."

  Untying their laces, he tugged off his boots, then pulled off his stockings. "Feel how wet these are. Still wet from the boat. Wake up, old man! From the boat and the rain. If we had that tall ass again, I'd make him squirt fire for me so I could dry 'em. Phew!" He hung the stockings over the tops of his boots and pushed them away.

  Chenille sat up and began to take off her jade earrings. "Ooh, did I dream!" She shuddered. "I was lost, see? All alone down here, and this tunnel I was in kept going deeper both ways. I'd walk one way for a long, long while, and it would just keep going down. So I'd turn around and walk the other way, only that way went down, too, deeper and deeper all the time."

  "Recollect that the immortal gods are always with you, my daughter," Incus told her.

  "Uh-huh. Hackum, I've got to get hold of some clothes. My sunburn's better. I could wear them, and it's too cold down here without any." She grinned. "A bunch of new clothes, and a double red ribbon. After that, I'll be ready for ham and half a dozen eggs scrambled with peppers."

  "Watch out," Hammerstone warned her, "I don't think your friend's ready for inspection."

  Auk rose, laughing. "Look at this," he told Hammerstone, and kicked Urus expertly, bending up his bare toes so that Urus's ribs received the ball of his foot.

  Urus blinked and rubbed his eyes just as Auk had, and Auk realized that he himself was the long sun. He had awakened himself with his own light, light that filled the whole tunnel, too dazzlingly bright for Urus's weak eyes.

  "The way you been carrying the old man," he told Urus, "I don't like it." He wondered whether his hands were hot enough to burn Urus. It seemed possible; they were ordinary when he wasn't looking at them, but when he did they glowed like molten gold. Stooping, he flicked Urus's nose with a forefinger, and when Urus did not cry out, jerked him to his feet.

  "When you carry the old man," Auk told him, "you got to do it like you love him. Like you were going to kiss him." It might be a good idea to make Urus really kiss him, but Auk was afraid Dace might not like it.

  "All right," Urus said. "All right."

  Bustard inquired, How you feelin', sprat?

  Auk pondered. "There's parts of me that work all right," he declared at length, "and parts that don't. A couple I'm not set about. Remember old Marble?"

  Sure.

  "She told us she could pull out these lists. Out of her sleeve, like. What was right and what wasn't. With me, it's one thing at a time."

  "I can do that," Hammerstone put in. "It's perfectly natural."

  Chenille had both earrings off, and was rubbing her ears. "Can you put these in your pocket, Hackum? I got no place to carry them."

  "Sure," Auk said. He did not turn to look at her.

  "I could get a couple cards for them at Sard's. I could buy a good worsted gown and shoes, and eat at
the pastry cook's till I was ready to split."

  "Like, there's this dimber punch," Auk explained to Urus. "I learned it when I wasn't no bigger than a cobbler's goose, and I always did like it a lot. You don't swing, see? Culls always talk about swinging at you, and they do. Only this is better. I'm not sure it still works, though."

  His right fist caught Urus square in the mouth, knocking him backward into the shiprock wall. Incus gasped.

  "You sort of draw your arm up and straighten it out," Auk explained. Urus slumped to the tunnel floor. "Only with your weight behind it, and your knuckles level. Look at them." He held them out. "If your knuckles go up and down, that's all right, too. Only it's a different punch, see?" Not as good, Bustard said. "Only not as good," Auk confirmed.

  I kin walk, big feller, he don't have to carry me, nor kiss me neither.

  The dead body at his feet, Auk decided, must be somebody else. Urus, maybe, or Gelada.

  Maytera Marble tried to decide how long it had been since she had done this, entering roof and when that evoked only a flood of dripping ceilings and soaked carpets, attic.

  A hundred and eighty-four years ago.

  She could scarcely believe it-did not wish to believe it. A graceful girl with laughing eyes and industrious hands had climbed this same stair, as she still did a score of times every day, walked along this hall, and halted beneath this odd-looking door overhead, reaching up with a tool that had been lost now for more than a century.

  She snapped her new fingers in annoyance, producing a loud and eminently satisfactory clack, then returned to one of the rooms that had been hers and rummaged through her odds-and-ends drawer until she found the big wooden crochet hook that she had sometimes plied before disease had deprived her of her fingers. Not these fingers, to be sure.