Epiphany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  "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."

  "The wife, the friend, they are soldiers also?"

  Hammerstone said, "No, sir. My wife's a civilian. Her name's Moly. She's no bigger'n you, sir, maybe smaller. My friend's a bio, a augur, His Eminence Patera Incus. People think he's the coadjutor. Really he's the Prolocutor, only people don't know yet."

  The monitor's face gained color, reshaping itself to become that of Siyuf's intelligence officer.

  "There is here too much of warlockery, Colonel. You see here soldiers, marvels we should have in museums but here fight us, and for us also. They are come to offer a bargain. Am I not a woman of honor?"

  Violet nodded enthusiastically and Abanja said, "You are indeed, Generalissimo."

  "Just so. I do not cheat, not even these soldiers. So I must know. Do we have the holy man Incus? Violet, my darling, read the names. How many now, Colonel?"

  "Eighty-two, sir. There were some other holy men besides the Caldé, and I suppose this might be one of them." Abanja leafed through papers below the field of her glass.

  Leaning over Violet's shoulder, Hammerstone pointed with a finger thrice the size of hers.

  "I don't really read so good," she whispered. "What's that second word? It can't-Sweetheart, there's a Chenille in here. Is that the Chen we know?"

  Abanja looked up. "The paramour of the Vironese who was plotting to steal our airship, sir. She was seated across the table from me at that dinner at the Caldé's residence."

  Hammerstone said, "It says, 'Maytera Marble a holy woman,' on here, sir. That's my wife, Moly. Patera's here, too. You got them all right."

  "Then you must give me your information," Siyuf told Sand. "If it is worth their freedom, I will free them as soon as I can. I do not say at once. At once may not be possible. But as soon as is possible. You do not betray your city when you do this?"

  Sand shook his head. "Help it, is what we figure. See, if you're smart you'll let the Caldé go when we tell you. And with us, it's him. He's the top of the chain of command, and we know you got him."

  "Sir, the airship…" Abanja's face was agitated.

  Siyuf motioned her to silence. "We speak of that later, Colonel. First I must learn what this soldier knows."

  She turned back to Sand. "I will release your Caldé, you say. I do not say this. With regard to Caldé Silk, I give no promise. You do not bargain for him; I notice this."

  "Because we know you wouldn't, sir. You'd say you were going to keep him, and dismissed. But you'll let him go if you're smart. It'll be better for us and better for you, too. You're going to, is what we think. Only we want to see to it Hammerstone's wife and his buddy get loose too."

  Sand hesitated, glancing at Abanja's face in the glass, then back to Siyuf. "The insurrection's over. That's what we're here to tell you, sir. Give us your word on Moly and Patera What'shisnarne-"

  "Incus," Hammerstone prompted.

  "And Patera Incus, and we'll give you the details. Have we got it?"

  "I will release both as soon as I am able. Have I not said? Bring to me the image of the sole great goddess, and I swear on it. There is not one here, I think."

  "Your word's good enough for us, sir." Sand glanced at Harnmerstone, who nodded.

  "All right. You want me to tell you, or you want to ask questions, sir?"

  "First I ask one question. Then you tell, and after I ask more if I wish. When I am satisfied, I give the order, and if there is a place to which you wish them brought, we will do it. But not more than a day's travel.

  Hammerstone said, "The Caldé's Palace. That's where me and Moly have been living." Shale asked, "You got any problem with that, sir?"

  "No. This is within reason. My question. You say I will let go your Caldé, the head of your government. I do not think so, so I am curious. Why do you say this?"

  "Cause out of all the people you got to deal with here, he's the one that likes you the most," Hammerstone told her. "I know him pretty well. Me and Sarge picked him up one time on patrol, and I shot the bull with him before he gave me the slip. Then too, I been living in his palace like I said, and I heard a lot from Moly."

  "I helped Councillor Potto interrogate him the next time we got him," Sand said, "so I know him pretty well too. He's big for peace. He was trying to stop the insurrection before you got here."

  For a second or more, Siyuf studied Sand as if she hoped to find a clue to his thoughts in his blank metal face. "You have kill this man Potto. After, I suppose? This Mint tells. But you have not kill him well. He is now back."

  "I been dead too," Sand told her, and Violet gasped. "I could give you the scoop on that, but it'd take a while."

  "Rather I would hear of the end of the insurrection. This you proposed."

  "Good here. Last night there was a confab at the Caldé's place. None of us were there, but we heard from General Mint. Your people tried to grab everybody, only four made it out, and Councillor Loris is K. The ones that gave you the slip was her and Colonel Bison, and the Generalissimo and Councillor Potto."

  "I know of this." Siyuf delivered a withering glance to Abanja's image in the glass.

  Schist said, "Tell her about surrendering, Sarge. That's pretty important."

  "Yeah, he did. The Caldé did. Maybe you don't know that, sir. It was before your people came in."

  Siyuf nodded. "Colonel Abanja have report this. She has had an informant in your Caldé's household, a most praiseworthy accomplishment."

  Abanja said, "Thank you, Generalissimo."

  "So the four that got clear put their heads together, see? Our generalissimo, he'd come in a Guard floater, and they piled in and took off, Counci
llor Potto too. Naturally he said, well, your Caldé's called quits so we're in charge again. Councillor Loris's dead so I'm the new presiding officer. You're working for me, and if you do what I say maybe I won't shoot you."

  Schist interjected, "He figured they all had it coming, I guess. What we figure is, not just them. He'll probably stop Sarge's works real good."

  Violet said, "Ah!" and Siyuf laughed. "Shadeup, after so long a night. Potto is not friend to this soldier who not one month past shoot him. Potto has the… What is this word?"

  "He'll have it in for him."

  Sand nodded. "But he can't hand out anything that I can't take. I been dead already, just like I said. You want to talk about me, or you want to hear the rest?"

  Hammerstone said, "They went around quite a bit, to hear Colonel Bison tell it. Only there was one thing they didn't have any trouble with. Tell 'em, Sarge."

  "You foreigners, sir." Sand leveled his huge forefinger at Siyuf. "Councillor Potto's mean as a bad wrench, and he hates you worse'n dirt in his pump. General Mint, she hates Councillor Potto, but you're number two on her list."

  "She is the central, to be sure. The sole woman." Siyuf looked thoughtful. "Colonel, what is it you say of this?"

  In the glass, Abanja's image shrugged. "It doesn't run counter to any information I have, Generalissimo."

  "You have leave off two, Sergeant. What of those?"

  "I didn't leave 'em out, sir," Sand protested, "I hadn't got to 'em yet. Colonel Bison's General Mint's man. If she says spit oil, he says how far?"

  "I grasp this. Proceed."

  "We haven't seen Generalissimo Oosik, but Corporal Slate here chewed things over with his driver this morning, the one that brought him and got them clear. Tell her, Slate."

  "He brought a slug gun to the meetin', sir," Slate began. "That's what his driver says, 'n he says he don't usually have nothin' but a needler 'n his sword, see? So who was that for? Then when they was talkin' in back-you know how them armed floaters are laid out, sir? There's no wall or nothin' between the seats up front and the back, so he tuned in. General Mint said somethin' about how Councillor Loris was the head of the Ayuntamiento, and it was Generalissimo Oosik that said he was dead. He thinks maybe Generalissimo Oosik did it himself, he seemed so happy about it."