Epiphany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  "I would, yes. Very much."

  "There are needlers, too. One is like the one with which you were shot. There is also a smaller one that seems to have belonged to a woman named Hyacinth."

  "Yes," Silk said again.

  "I see I know her, if she is the Hyacinth I'm thinking of. An amiable girl, as well as a very beautiful one. I lay with her on Phaesday."

  Silk shut his eyes.

  "I did not set out to give you pain, Caldé. Look at me. I'm old enough to be your father, or hers. Do you imagine she sends me love letters?"

  "Is that…?"

  "What one of the letters in your pocket is?" Oosik nodded solemnly "Captain Gecko told me the seals had not been broken when he found them. Quite frankly, I doubted him. I see that I should not have. You have not read them."

  "No," Silk said.

  "Captain Gecko has, and I. No one else. Gecko can be discreet if I order it, and a man of honor must be a man of discretion, also. Otherwise he is worse than useless. You did not recognize her seal?"

  Silk shook his head. "I've never gotten a letter from her before."

  "Caldé, I have never gotten one at all." Oosik tugged his mustache. "You would be well advised to keep that before you. Many letters from women over the years, but never one from her. I say again, I envy you."

  "Thank you," Silk said.

  "You love her." Oosik leaned back in his chair. "That is not a question. You may not know it, but you do." His voice softened. "I was your age once, Caldé. Do you realize that in a month it may be over?"

  "In a day it may be over," Silk admitted. "Sometimes I hope it will be."

  "You fear it, too. You need not say so. I understand. I told you I knew her and it gave you pain, but I do not want you to think, later, that I have been less than honest. I am being equally honest now. Brutally honest with myself. My pride. I am nothing to her."

  "Thank you again," Silk said.

  "You are welcome. I do not say that she is nothing to me. I am not a man of stone. But there are others, several who are much more. To explain would be offensive."

  "Certainly you don't have to go into details unless you want me to shrive you. May I see her letter?"

  "In a moment, Caldé. Soon I will give it to you to keep. I think so, at least. There is one further matter to be dealt with. You chanced to mention a woman called Chenille. I know a woman of that name, too. She lives in a yellow house."

  Silk smiled and shook his head.

  "That does not pain you at all. She is not the Chenille you took to the lake?"

  "I was amused at myself-at my stupidity. She told me she had entertained colonels; but until you said you knew her, it had never entered my mind that you were almost certain to be one of them. There can't be a great many."

  "Seven besides myself." Oosik rummaged in the bundle of clothing and produced Musk's big needler and Hyacinth's small, gold-plated one. After holding them up so that Silk could see them, he laid them on the windowsill.

  "The little one is hers," Silk said. "Hyacinth's. Could you see that it's returned to her?"

  Oosik nodded. "I shall send it by a mutual acquaintance. What about the large one?"

  "The owner's dead. I suppose it's mine now."

  "I am too well mannered to ask if you killed him, but I hope he was not one of our officers."

  "No," Silk said, "and no. I confess I was tempted to kill him several times-as he was undoubtedly tempted to kill me-but I didn't. I've only killed once, in self-defense. May I read Hyacinth's letter now?"

  "If I can find it." Oosik fumbled through Silk's clothes again, then held up both the letters Silk had taken from the mantel in the manse that morning. "This other is from another augur. You have no interest in it?"

  "Not as much, I'm afraid. Who is it?"

  "I have forgotten." Oosik extracted the letter from its envelope and unfolded it. "'Patera Remora, Coadjutor.' He wishes to see you, or he did. You were to come to his suite in the Prolocutor's Palace yesterday at three. You are more than a day late already, Caldé. Do you want it?"

  "I suppose so," Silk said; and Oosik tossed it on the bed.

  Oosik rose, holding out Hyacinth's letter. "This one you will not wish to read while I watch, and I have urgent matters to attend to. I may look in on you again, later this evening. Much later. If I am too busy, I will see you in the morning, perhaps." He tugged his mustache. "Will you think me a fool if I say I wish you well, Caldé? That if we were no longer opponents I should consider your friendship an honor?"

  "I'd think you were an estimable, honorable man," Silk told him, "which you are."

  "Thank you, Caldé!" Oosik bowed, with a click of his booted heels.

  "Colonel?"

  "Your beads. I had forgotten. You will find them in a pocket of the robe, I feel sure." Oosik turned to go, but turned back. "A matter of curiosity. Are you familiar with the Palatine, Caldé?"

  Silk's right hand, holding Hyacinth's letter, had begun to tremble; he pressed it against his knee so that Oosik would not see it. "I've been there." By an effort of will, he kept his voice almost steady. "Why do you ask?"

  "Often, Caldé?"

  "Three times, I believe." It was impossible to think of anything but Hyacinth; he could as easily have said fifty, or never. "Yes, three times-once to the Palace, and twice to attend sacrifice at the Grand Manteion."

  "Nowhere else?"

  Silk shook his head.

  "There is a place having a wooden figure of Thelxiepeia. As an augur, you may know where it is."

  "There's an onyx image in the Grand Manteion-"

  Oosik shook his head. "In Ermine's, to the right as one enters the sellaria. One sees an arch with greenery beyond it At the rear, there is a pool with goldfish. She stands by it holding a mirror. The lighting is arranged so that the pool is reflected in her mirror, and her mirror in the pool. It is mentioned in that letter." Oosik turned upon his heel.

  "Colonel, these needlers-"

  He paused at the door. "Do you intend to shoot your way to freedom, Caldé?" Without waiting for Silk's reply he went out, leaving the door ajar behind him. Silk heard the sentry come to attention, and Oosik say, "You are dismissed. Return to the guardroom immediately."

  Silk's hands were still shaking as he unfolded Hyacinth's letter; it was on stationery the color of heavy cream, scrawled in violet ink, with many flourishes.

  O My Darling Wee Flea:

  I call you so not only because of the way you sprang from my window, but because of the way you hopped into my bed! How your lonely bloss has longed for a note from you!!! You might have sent one by the kind friend who brought you my gift, you know!

  That had been Doctor Crane, and Doctor Crane was dead-had died in his arms that very morning.

  Now you have to tender me your thanks and so much more, when next we meet! Don't you know that little place up on the Palatine where Thelx holds up a mirror? Hieraxday.

  Hy

  Silk closed his eyes. It was foolish, he told himself. Utterly foolish. The semiliterate scribbling of a woman whose education had ended at fourteen, a girl who had been given to her father's superior as a household servant and concubine, who had scarcely read a book or written a letter, and was trying to flirt, to be arch and girlish and charming on paper. How his instructors at the schola would have sneered!

  Utterly foolish, and she had called him darling, had said she longed for him, had risked compromising herself and Doctor Crane to send him this.

  He read it again, refolded it, and returned it to its envelope, then pushed aside the quilt and got up.

  Oosik had intended him to go, of course-had intended him to escape, or perhaps to be killed escaping. For a few seconds he tried to guess which. Had Oosik been insincere in speaking of friendship? Oosik was capable of any quantity of double-dealing, if he was any judge of men.

  It did not matter.

  He took his clothing from the chair and spread it on the bed. If Oosik intended him to escape, he must escape as Oosik inte
nded. If Oosik intended him to be killed escaping, he must escape just the same, doing his best to remain alive.

  His tunic was crusted with his own blood and completely unwearable; he threw it down and sat on the bed to pull on his undershorts, trousers, and stockings. When he had tied his shoes, he rose and jerked open a drawer of the bureau.

  Most of the tunics were cheerful reds and yellows; but he found a blue one, apparently never worn, so dark that it might pass for black under any but the closest scrutiny. He laid it on the pillow beside the letters, and put on a yellow one. The closet yielded a small traveling bag. Slipping both letters into a pocket, he rolled up his robe, stuffed it into the bag, and put the dark blue tunic on top of it.

  The magazine status pin of the big needler indicated it was loaded; he opened the action anyway trying to recall how Auk had held his that night in the restaurant, and remembering at the last moment Auk's adjuration to keep his finger off the trigger. The magazine appeared to be full of long, deadly-looking needles, or nearly full. Auk had said his needler held how many? A hundred or more, surely; and this big needler that had been Musk's must hold at least as many if not more. It was possible, of course, that it had been disabled in some way.

  There was no one in the hall outside. Silk closed the door, and after a moment's thought put the quilt against its bottom and shut the window, then sat down on the bed, sick and horribly weak. When had he eaten last?

  Very early that morning, in Limna, with Doctor Crane and that captain whose name he had never learned or had forgotten, and the captain's men. Kypris had granted another theophany, had appeared to them, and to Maytera Marble and Patera Gulo, and they had been full of the wonder of it, all three of them newly come to religious feeling, and feeling that no one had ever come to it before. He had eaten a very good omelet, then several slices of hot, fresh bread with country butter, because the cook, roused from sleep by a trooper, had popped the loaves that had been rising overnight into the oven. He had drunk hot, strong coffee, too; coffee lightened with cream the color of Hyacinth's stationery and sweetened with honey from a white, blue-flowered bowl passed to him by Doctor Crane, who had been putting honey on his bread. Now Doctor Crane was dead, and so was one of the troopers, the captain and the other trooper most likely dead too, killed in the fighting before the Alambrera.

  Silk lifted the big needler.

  Someone had told him that he, too, should be dead-he could not remember whether it had been the surgeon or Colonel Oosik. Perhaps it had been Shell, although it did not seem the sort of thing that Shell would say.

  The needler would not fire. He tugged its trigger again and returned it to the windowsill, congratulating himself on having resolved to test it; saw that he had left the safety catch on, pushed it off, took aim at a large bottle of cologne on the dresser, and squeezed the trigger. The needler cracked in his hand like a bullwhip and the bottle exploded, filling the room with the clean scent of spruce.

  He reapplied the safety and thrust the needler into his waistband under the yellow tunic. If Musk's needler had not been disabled, there was no point in testing Hyacinth's small one, too. He made sure its safety catch was engaged, forced himself to stand, and dropped it into his trousers pocket.

  One thing more, and he could go. Had the young man whose bedroom this was never written anything here? Looking around, he saw no writing materials.

  What of the owner of the perfumed scarf? She would write to him, almost certainly. A woman who cared enough to drop a silk scarf from her window would write notes and letters. And he would keep them, concealing them somewhere in this room and replying in notes and letters of his own, though perhaps less frequently. The study, if there was one, would belong to his father. Even a library would not be sufficiently private. He would write to her here, surely, sitting-where?

  There had been no chair in the room until Shell brought one. The occupant could only have sat on the bed or the floor, assuming that he had sat at all. Silk sat down again, imagined that he held a quill, pushed aside the chair Shell had put in front of the little night table, and pulled it over to him. Its shallow drawer held a packet of notepaper, a discolored scrap of flannel, a few envelopes, four quills, and a small bottle of ink.

  Choosing a quill, he wrote:

  Sir, events beyond my control have forced me to occupy your bedchamber for several hours, and I fear I have broken a bottle of your cologne, and stained your sheets. In extreme need, I have, in addition, appropriated two of your tunics and your smallest traveling bag. I am heartily sorry to have imposed on you in this fashion. I am compelled, as I indicated.

  When peace and order return to our city, as I pray that they soon will, I will endeavor to locate you, make restitution, and return your property. Alternately, you may apply to me, at any time you find convenient. I am Pa. Silk, of Sun Street

  For a long moment he paused, considering, the feathery end of the gray goose-quill tickling his lips. Very well.

  With a final dip into the ink, he added a comma and the word Caldé after "Sun Street," and wiped the quill.

  Restoring the quilt to the bed, he opened the door. The hall was still empty. Back stairs brought him to the kitchen, in which it appeared at least a company had been foraging for food. The back door opened on what seemed, from what he could see by skylight, to be a small formal garden; a white-painted gate was held shut by a simple hook.

  Outside on Basket Street, he stopped to look back at the house he had left. Most of its windows were lit, including one on the second floor whose lights were dimming; his, no doubt. Distant explosions indicated the center of the city as well as anything could.

  An officer on horseback who might easily have been the one who had shot him galloped past without taking the least notice. Two streets nearer the Palatine, a hurrying trooper carrying a dispatch box touched his cap politely.

  The box might contain an order to arrest every augur in the city, Silk mused; the galloping officer might be bringing Oosik word of another battle. It would be well, might in fact be of real value, for him to read those dispatches and hear the news that the galloping officer brought.

  But he had already heard, as he walked, the most important news, news pronounced by the muzzles of guns: the Ayuntamiento did not occupy all the city between this remote eastern quarter and the Palatine. He would have to make his way along streets in which Guardsmen and Maytera Mint's rebels were slaughtering each other, return to the ones that he knew best-and then, presumably, cross another disputed zone to reach the Palatine.

  For the Guard would hold the Palatine if it held anything, and in fact the captain had indicated only that morning that a full brigade had scarcely sufficed to defend it Molpsday night. Combatants on both sides would try to prevent him; he might be killed, and the exertions he was making this moment might kill him as surely as any slug. Yet he had to try, and if he lived he would see Hyacinth tonight.

  His free hand had begun to draw Musk's needler. He forced it back to his side, reflecting grimly that before shadeup he might learn some truths about himself that he would not prefer to ignorance. Unconsciously, he increased his pace.

  Men thought themselves good or evil; but the gods-the Outsider especially-must surely know how much depended upon circumstance. Would Musk, whose needler he had nearly drawn a few seconds before, have been an evil man if he had not served Blood? Might not Blood, for that matter, be a better man with Musk gone? He, Silk, had sensed warmth and generosity in Blood beneath his cunning and his greed, potentially at least.

  Something dropped from the sky, lighting on his shoulder so heavily he nearly fell. "Lo Silk! Good Silk!"

  "Oreb! Is it really you?"

  "Bird back." Oreb caught a lock of Silk's hair in his beak and gave it a tug.

  "I'm very glad-immensely glad you've returned. Where have you been? How did you get here?"

  "Bad place. Big hole!"

  "It was I who went into the big hole, Oreb. By the lake, in that shrine of Scylla's, remember?"

/>   Oreb's beak clattered. "Fish heads?"

  Chapter 6

  The Blind God

  Oreb had eyed Dace's corpse hopefully when Urus let it fall to the tunnel floor and spun around to shout at Hammerstone. "Why we got to find him? Tell me that! Tell me, an' I'll look till I can't shaggy walk, till I got to crawl-"

  "Pick it up, you." Without taking his eyes off Urus, Hammerstone addressed Incus. "All right if I kill him, Patera? Only I won't be able to carry them both and shoot."

  Incus shook his head. "He has a point, my son, so let us consider it. Ought we, as he inquires, continue to search for our friend Auk?"

  "I'll leave it up to you, Patera. You're smarter than all of us, smarter than the whole city'd be if you weren't living there. I'd do anything you say, and I'll see to it these bios do, too."

  "Thank you, my son." Incus, who was exceedingly tired already, lowered himself gratefully to the tunnel floor. "Sit down, all of you. We shall discuss this."

  "I don't see why." Tired herself, Chenille grounded her launcher. "Stony there does whatever you tell him to, and he could do for me and Urus like swatting flies. You say it and we'll do it. We'll have to."

  "Sit down. My daughter, can't you see how very illogical you're being? You maintain that you're forced to obey in all things, yet you will not oblige even the simplest request."

  "All right." She sat; and Hammemtone, laying a heavy hand on Urus, forced him to sit, too.

  "Where Auk?" Oreb hopped optimistically across the damp gray shiprock. "Auk where?" Although he could not have put the feeling into words, Oreb felt that he was nearer Silk when he was with Auk than in any other company. The red girl was close to Silk as well, but she had once thrown a glass at him, and Oreb had not forgotten.

  "Where indeed?" Incus sighed. "My daughter, you invite me to be a despot, but what you say is true. I might lord it over you both if I chose. I need not lord it over our friend. He obeys me very willingly, as you have seen. But I am not, by inclination, training, or native character inclined toward despotism. A holy augur's part is to lead and to advise, to conduct the laity to rich fields and unfailing springs, if I may put it thus poetically.