Litany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  The steps faded away and were gone.

  Silk had sat up and pulled off his new red tunic before he fully realized that he had resolved to shave. Rising, he jerked the bellpull vigorously and was rewarded by a distant drumroll on the stairs. Two days' beard might disguise him, but it would also mark him as someone requiring a disguise, and the Outsider could not reasonably object to his shaving, something that he did every day. If he were arrested, well and good. There would be no further rioting and loss of life; and he would be arrested as himself-as Silk, the man others called Caldé, and not as some skulking fugitive.

  "Soap, towels, and a basin of hot water," he told the deferential maid who answered his ring. "I'm going to get rid of all this right now." She had brought the aroma of the kitchen with her, and one whiff of it woke his hunger. "I'll have a sandwich or something, too. Whatever you can prepare quickly. Mate or tea. Put everything on our bill."

  Crane had rung for more towels and fresh shaving water as soon as he bustled in. "I'll bet you thought I'd deserted you," he said as he arranged them on the washstand.

  Silk shook his head and, finding the action practically painless, fingered the lump left by Potto's fist. "If you hadn't returned, I'd have known you were under arrest. Do you intend to shave off your beard? I hope you don't mind my borrowing your razor."

  "No, not a bit." Crane eyed himself in the luxuriously large mirror. "I think I'd better whack away the best part of it, anyhow."

  "Most men in your position would have shaved first and sent their report afterward. Do you think those fishermen who rescued us will tell the Guard, if they're questioned?"

  "Uh-huh." Crane slipped out of his tunic.

  "Then the Guard will know enough to look for us here, in Limna."

  "They'd look here anyhow. This is the most likely spot, if we lived."

  "I suppose so. You gave those fishermen a card? A card must be a great deal of money to a fisherman."

  "They saved our lives. Besides, the captain will go to Viron to buy something, and his sailors will get drunk. If they're drunk enough, they won't be questioned."

  Silk nodded again, knowing that Crane could see him in the mirror. "I can't tell you how surprised I was to find that the driver who had taken me home from Blood's was one of the crew. He's become a fisherman, it seems." Crane turned to stare at Silk, his face lathered and the razor in his hand. "I keep underestimating you. Every time I do, I tell myself that's the last time." He waited for a reply, then turned back to the mirror. "Thanks for keeping it to yourself until we were alone."

  "I thought he seemed familiar, but we were in the harbor before I placed him. He tried to keep his face turned away from me, and it gave me a good view of the back of his head; and that had been what I'd seen, mostly, when he took me to my manteion. I'd been sitting behind him."

  Crane dabbed at one sidebum with the razor. "Then you knew."

  "I didn't really understand until just now, when I was thinking about what a good spy you are-how valuable you must be to your city."

  Crane chuckled. "We're soaping each other's beards, it seems."

  "I didn't really understand about the fishing boat until we changed clothes in that alley," Silk told him. "Before that I was simply mystified; but someone aboard that fishing boat, the captain or more plausibly the driver who had taken me home, had given you several cards." "You saw there was no money belt. I've been kicking myself ever since and hoping you hadn't noticed."

  "When Chenille told you about that commissioner…"

  "Simuliid."

  "Yes, Simuliid. When Chenille told you he'd gone to the lake to meet with members of the Ayuntamiento, you came here yourself to investigate. I know you did, because I spoke to a young couple you befriended. If you didn't have somebody here already, you decided then that you should have someone all the time; and you hired the captain and his boat. I'd imagine they were to keep an eye on the Pilgrims' Way. The path runs along the edge of the cliffs in places, and anyone on it could be seen easily from a boat on that part of the lake. I won't inform on him or you now, of course; yet I'm curious. Is the captain Vironese?"

  "Yes," Crane told him. "Not that it matters."

  "You're not shaving. I didn't intend to interrupt you."

  Crane turned to face him again. "I'd rather give you my complete attention. I hope you realize I've been working for you as well as for my city. Working to put you in power because it might head off a war."

  "I don't want power," Silk told him, "but it would be iniquitous not to thank you for everything you've done- for saving my life, too, when it would have been safer for you to have left me in the water."

  "If you really feel like that, are you willing to formalize our alliance? Viron's Ayuntamiento's going to kill us if it gets hold of us again. I'm a spy, and you've become a major threat to its power. You realize that, don't you?"

  Reluctantly, Silk nodded. "Then we'd better stand back to back, or we'll lie side by side. Tell me everything you know, and I'll tell you anything else you want to know. My word on it. You've got no particular reason to trust it, but it's better than you think. What do you say?"

  "It's hardly fair to you, Doctor. The things that I've guessed will be of no particular value to you; but you may have information that will be extremely valuable to me."

  "There's more. You do everything you can to see to it that my people and I aren't picked up, and to free us if we are. I promise we'll do nothing to injure your city. You realize, don't you, that you may have to run if you want to keep breathing? If we can't make you Caldé, we'll at least give you a place to go. Not because we're overflowing with kindness, but because you'll be a focus for discontent as long as you're alive. You need us now, and you may need us a lot-more in a few days."

  "You'll answer all my questions openly and honestly?"

  "I said so, didn't I? Yes. You've got my word on all of it. We'll put you in power if we can, and you'll keep the peace when we do and not go after us. Now I want your word. Have I got it?"

  Slowly, Silk nodded. He extended his hand. Crane laid aside his razor, and he and Silk joined hands.

  "Now tell me what you learned about my operation."

  "Very little, really. Hyacinth's working for you, of course. Isn't she?"

  Crane nodded.

  "That's why I'm doing this." Silk had taken his beads from his pocket; he pulled them through his fingers as he spoke. "Turning against my city, I mean. That burst vein in my brain-I don't feel up to arguing with you about it, you see. Not yet, because it might make us enemies again. It wants me to save the manteion, and so I must if I can; but I myself want to save Hyacinth. You must think that's foolish, too."

  "I'm trying to save her myself," Crane told him. "And the men on the fishing boat who saved us both from drowning. All of them are my people. I feel responsible for them. By Tartaros, I am responsible for them. If it wasn't for that, I'd have told you about the boat when we picked you up. But what if you were caught and talked? Those three men would be killed, and they're mine."

  Silk nodded again. "I feel like that about the people who come to sacrifice at our manteion. You would proba- bly say that they're only porters and thieves and washer-women, but they are our manteion, really. The buildings and even our Sacred Window could be replaced, just as I could; they can't." He stood and went to the window.

  "As I said, Doctor, I was thinking about how important you were, and how silly I'd been not to realize it earlier. You must be fifty at least."

  Crane turned back to the mirror and washed the dried foam from his beard. "Fifty-six."

  "Thank you. So you've been a spy for a long time, and you're likely to be of high rank. Besides you're a doctor, and that in itself would make you important to your city's government. They wouldn't just send you off to Blood's by yourself. Hyacinth's Vironese. I know that because I've spoken with someone who knew her when she was younger. But my driver is from your own city, or so I would guess. Was he your second in command?"

 
"That's right." Crane was lathering his beard for the second time, plying the big boar's-hair brush with sweeping strokes.

  "Blood told Musk to have a driver bring a floater around for me; but you had anticipated that, and when you left us you told your second in command to be ready. You'd brought me the azoth, of course, and there was a chance that whoever drove me might see it."

  "You're right." Crane scraped a little hair from one cheek. "I also wanted him to get a look at you and become acquainted. I thought it might be useful later. I could say now that it has been."

  "I suppose I ought to be flattered." Silk leaned out of the window, peering upward. "The important point, I'd say, is that in order to act as he did-I mean today-your second in command must have known not only that you had been captured, but that you had been taken to the lake. It would even appear that he knew precisely where the Ayuntamiento's underwater boat was when we were swept out of it, since he had your fishing boat so accurately positioned that he and the fishermen were able to pick you up as soon as you came to the surface. You can't have gotten out of the underwater boat much before I did; nor can you have reached the surface much faster. I wasn't in the water very long, yet you were already in the boat when I was rescued, and there had been time for your second in command to pass you some money. He would have been prepared for that, because he would've known that your possessions had been taken from you. Even if he was the person who brought your medical bag to Lemur-"

  "He wasn't. He'd left Blood's earlier. In a way that was too bad. He might've been able to slip something useful past them."

  "I was about to say that even if he had learned that you were at the lake because he brought your bag, or overheard the order that another driver do it, he had to have had some further means of locating you. I've been trying to imagine what that means might be, and the only things. I can think of are that he can send forth his spirit like Mucor, or that you're carrying a very small glass, or at least some device of that kind. You promised to answer my questions. Will you tell me whether I'm correct, and how they failed to find it?"

  "Because it's in here." Crane tapped his chest. "Eight years ago I had bypass surgery. We took the opportunity to implant a gadget that sends a half-second signal every two minutes. It tells anyone who's listening how my heart's doing, and the direction of the signal lets them find me. So if you're ever in need of rescue again, just kill me."

  He grinned. "While I'm still among the living, can I ask why you're so interested in that window?"

  "I've been wondering whether we could get out of here if we had to-if the Guard began breaking down the door, for example. I could re-ach the edge of the roof and pult myself up, I believe."

  "I couldn't. When I was your age I might have." Crane went back to his shaving.

  "Can't you fly?"

  Crane chuckled. "I wish I could." "But that's what you reported to the prince-president, isn't it? That shape Lemur showed us? How fliers fly?"

  "You're wrong there. I didn't."

  Silk turned away from the window. "A secret with so much military value? Why not?"

  "I wish I could tell you, I really do. But I can't. It wasn't included in our agreement. I hope you realize that. I swore I'd tell you everything you wanted to know about my organization and our operation. I can tell you what was in my report. My report was a part of the operation, I admit."

  "Go on."

  "But it didn't go to the prince-president of Palustria. Did you really think I'd tell that maniac Lemur the truth? You did, I know. But I'm not you."

  "I hope you're not about to say that you're not a spy at all, Doctor."

  "No, I'm a spy all right. What do you think of this? Or should I shave it all off?"

  "I'd remove it all."

  "I was afraid you were going to say that." Reluctantly, Crane pared away another patch of beard. "Aren't you going to ask who I spy for? It's Trivigaunte."

  "The women?"

  Crane chuckled again. "In Trivigaunte they'd say, 'The men?' Viron's dominated by men, like most other cities. Do you think the Ayuntamiento's got no female spies? It's got all it wants, I guarantee you."

  "Naturally our women are loyal."

  "Admirable." Crane turned to face Silk, gesturing with his razor. "So are men in Trivigaunte. We're not slaves. If anything we're better off than your women are-here."

  "Is this the truth?"

  "Absolutely. The truth, and nothing over."

  "Then tell me what was in your report."

  "I will," Crane wiped his razor. "It was pretty short. You saw me write it so you know that already, or you ought to. I reported that the Ayuntamiento was onto me, that I'd been picked up and had killed Councillor Lemur while making my escape. That they'd brought down a flier but lost the PM in the lake. That I'd found their headquarters, a boat in Lake Limna that sails under the water. I claimed the reward our Rani's offered for that."

  Grinning more broadly than ever, Crane continued, "And I'll get it, too. When I go back to Trivigaunte I'll be a rich man. But I said I wasn't going to leave yet because I thought there was a good chance that Silk might unseat the Ayuntamiento. I'd rescued him from them, he had reason to be grateful to me, and I thought a change in government here was worth any risk."

  "I am grateful to you," Silk said. "Very much so, as I've told you already. Was that all?"

  Crane nodded. "That's the lot, pretty much exactly as I wrote it down. Now I want you to explain to me how you knew Hyacinth was working for me. Did she say so?"

  "No. I looked at the engraving on this needler." Silk look it from his pocket. "It has hyacinths all over it, but here on the top there's a tall bird-a heron, I thought- standing in a pool; when I realized that it could be a crane instead of a heron, I knew you must have had it engraved for her." He opened the breech. "I hope that the water hasn't ruined it."

  "Let it dry out before you try to shoot. Oil it first, and it should be all right. But the fact that I presented Hy with a fancy needler can't have been the only thing that tipped you off. Any old fool with a crush on a beautiful woman might have given her something like that."

  "That's true, of course; but she kept the azoth in the same drawer. Do you still have it, by the way?"

  Crane nodded.

  "So it seemed likely that it had been given her by the same person, since she wouldn't want you to see it if you hadn't given it to her. An azoth's worth several thousand cards; thus if you'd given her one, you were clearly more than you seemed. Furthermore, you passed it to me while you were examining me in Blood's presence. I didn't believe the man you were pretending to be would have dared to do that."

  Crane chuckled again. "You're so shrewd, I'm beginning to doubt your innocence. Sure you're not of my trade?"

  "You're confusing innocence with ignorance, though I'm ignorant in many ways as well. Innocence is something one chooses, and something one chooses for the same reason one chooses any other thing-because it seems best."

  "I'll have to think about that. Anyhow, you're wrong about me giving Hy the azoth. Somebody'd searched my room a couple of days before. They didn't find it, but I asked Hy to keep it for me to be on the safe side." "When you put it in my waistband-" "I said that there was a goddess up there who liked you, sure. She brought it to me and said we had to figure out a way of getting it to you, because she thought Blood was going to have Musk kill you. When she came in she thought she'd find me patching you up, but I'd finished with you and sent you in to Blood. Musk came to get me while we were talking it over, so I tipped Hy a wink and took the azoth with me, figuring I'd have a chance to slip it to you."

  "But she came to you and asked you to do it?"

  "That's right," Crane said, "and if that makes you feel good, I don't blame you. When I was your age, it would've had me swinging on the rafters."

  "If does. I don't deny it." Silk gnawed his lip. "As a favor-a very great favor-may I see the" azoth again, please? Just for a minute or two? I don't intend to harm you with it, or even project the bl
ade, and I'll return it the moment you ask. I just/want to look at it again, and hold it!"

  Crane took the azoth from his waistband and handed it to him.

  "Thank you. While I had it, it bothered me that there were no hyacinths on it; but I understand that now. This demon, is it a bloodstone?"

  "That's right. It was meant to be a present for Blood. Our Rani gave me a nice bit of money in case it looked like we ought to buy him, and one of our khanums threw in that azoth for an extra goodwill gift. He's got a couple already, but back then we hadn't found that out yet."

  "Thank you." Silk revolved the azoth in his hands. "If I'd known that this was yours and not Hyacinth's, I wouldn't have returned with Mamelta to search those devilish tunnels for it. She and I would not have been overtaken by Lemur's soldiers, and she wouldn't have died."

  "If you hadn't gone back, you might have been picked up anyhow," Crane told him. "But Lemur wouldn't have had that azoth, and without it I couldn't have killed him. By this time you and I would both be dead. Your woman friend, too, most likely."

  "I suppose so." For what he believed to be the final time, Silk pressed his lips to the gleaming silver hilt. "I feel that it's brought me only bad luck; yet if I hadn't had it, the talus would have killed me." With some reluctance, he handed it back to Crane.

  THAT NIGHT, AS Silk lay in his rented bed whispering to a strange ceiling, the tunnels involved themselves in all his thoughts, their dim, tangled strands looping underneath everything. Was that lofty chamber in which the sleepers waited in their fragile tubes beneath him now, as he waited - for sleep? It seemed entirely possible, since that chamber had not been far from the ash-choked tunnel, and its ashes had fallen from the manteion here in Limna. No doubt his own manteion on Sun Street was above just such a tunnel, as Hammerstone had implied.

  How horribly cramped those tunnels had seemed, always about to close in and crush him! The Ayuntamiento hadn't built them-could not have built them. The tunnels were far older, and workmen digging new foundations struck them now and then, and wisely reclosed the holes in tunnel walls that they had made by accident.