by Gene Wolfe
“That very great god the Outsider has placed you in my power. You, also, have a window, as we both know. I can close it, and lock it against you, if I choose. Depart from this house forever, or I will so choose.” Silk struck the stage with Blood’s stick. “Be gone!”
The young women started and gasped, and the dark one’s grin faded. It was (Silk told himself) as though she’d had a fever; the fever was draining away as he watched, and her delirium with it.
“Now I have spoken enough for the present. Orchid, I asked Chenille a while ago whether you’d been possessed, and she said you hadn’t. Is that correct?”
Orchid nodded.
“Stand up, please, and speak loudly enough for all of us to hear you.”
Orchid rose and cleared her throat. “No, Patera. It’s never happened to me. And I don’t want it to.”
Several of the young women tittered.
“It will never happen to any of you again. I believe that I can promise you that, and I do. Orchid, you know to whom it has already happened. Who are they?”
“Violet and Crassula.”
Silk gestured with the walking stick. “Will they stand up, please?”
Reluctantly, they did so, Violet taller than most, with sleek black hair and flashing eyes; Crassula thin and almost plain.
Silk said, “This isn’t all. I know that there’s one more at least. If you’ve been possessed, please stand up, even if Orchid did not name you.”
Blood was smiling in the back row; he nudged Musk, who smiled in return as he cleaned his nails with a long-bladed knife. The women stared at one another; a few whispered. Slowly, the small, dark woman rose.
“Thank you, my daughter,” Silk said. “Yes, you’re the one. Has the devil gone now?”
“I think so.”
“So do I. What’s your name, my daughter?”
“Poppy, Patera. Only I still don’t feel quite like I did before.”
“I see. You know, Poppy, Orchid mentioned you to me when we were talking earlier, I suppose—” He was on the point of saying that it had probably been because she was Chenille’s opposite physically; at the last possible moment he substituted, “because you’re very attractive. That may have had something to do with your possession, although I can’t be certain. When were you possessed, Poppy?”
“Just now.”
“Speak louder, please. I don’t believe everyone can hear you.”
Poppy raised her voice. “Just now, until you said be gone, Patera.”
“And how did it feel, Poppy?”
The small, dark girl began to tremble.
“If it frightens you too much, you don’t have to tell us. Would you rather sit back down?”
“I felt like I was dead. I didn’t care any more about anything, and I was right here but far away. I was seeing all the same things, but they meant different things, and I can’t explain. People were hollow, like clothes nobody was wearing, all of them except you.”
Violet said, “I had my best pins in my hair, and I laid one on the washstand. I didn’t want to, but I did, and the drain sort of reached up and ate it, a real good pin with a turquoise head, and I thought it was funny.”
Silk nodded. “And for you, Crassula?”
“I wanted to fly, and I did. I stood up in the bed and jumped off and sort of flew around the room. He hit me, but I didn’t care.”
“Was this last night? One of you was possessed last night. Was it you, Crassula?”
The thin woman nodded wordlessly.
“Was it you who screamed last night? I was here then—outside the house, on Lamp Street, and I heard someone scream.”
“That was Orpine. It had come back and I was throwing things. The flying was the first time, last month.”
Silk nodded, looking thoughtful. “Thank you, Crassula. I should also thank Poppy and Violet, and I do. I’ve never had the opportunity to speak with anyone who’s been possessed before now, and what you’ve told me may be helpful to me.”
Mucor was gone, or at least he could no longer see her in any of the faces before him. When they had met in Sun Street, Blood had told him that there were human beings who could possess others; he wondered whether Blood did not at least suspect that the devil who had troubled this house was his daughter. Silk decided that it might be best not to give him more time in which to think of it.
“Now we’re going to sing the song that we will sing in the course of the ceremony. Stand up, all of you, and join hands. Blood, you and Musk and the rest must sing with us. Come to the front and join hands.”
Most of them did not know the Hymn to Every God, but Silk taught them the chorus and the first three verses, and eventually achieved a creditable performance, to which Musk, who so seldom spoke, supplied a more than adequate tenor.
“Good! That was our rehearsal, and in a moment we’ll begin the ceremony. We’ll start outside. This little jar of paint and this brush—” Silk displayed them, “have been blessed and consecrated already. Five of you, chosen from among those who live in this house, will participate in the restoration of the voided cross over the Music Street door, while the rest of us sing. It would be best if the three who have been possessed were among that five. After that, we’ll circle the house three times in procession, and then assemble in here once more for the final casting out.”
Outside, while surprised urchins stared and pointed at the women, many of whom were still only half dressed, Silk chose the additional representatives, selecting two who were slight of build from among those who seemed to be taking the proceedings most seriously. The Hymn to Every God sounded faint and thin in the open air of Music Street, but a score of watching loungers removed their hats as Blood and Bass gravely lifted each of the five in turn on their shoulders. Gammadion by gammadion the nearly effaced voided cross was restored to prominence. When the base line had been added beneath it, Silk burned the brush and the remainder of the paint in the largest thurible.
“Aren’t you going to sacrifice?” Orchid asked. “The others did.”
“I’ve just done so,” Silk told her. “A sacrifice need not be of a living beast, and you’ve just witnessed one that wasn’t. Should a second exorcism be required, we will offer a beast, and retrace the sacred design in its blood. Do you understand the sacrifice, and why we’re doing all this? I’m assuming that the evil being entered your house through this Music Street door, since it is the only outside entrance to the profaned manteion.”
Orchid nodded hesitantly.
“Good.” Silk smiled. “As the second part proper of this exorcism, we will march in solemn procession, making a threefold circuit of the entire structure, while I read from the Chrasmologic Writings. It might be best if you were to walk behind me, and for the four men to take positions from which they can maintain order.”
He raised his voice for the benefit of the listening women. “It will not be necessary for you to keep in step like troopers. It will be necessary that you remain in a single file and pay attention to what I read.”
He got out his glasses, wiped them on his sleeve, and put them on. One of the young women tittered nervously.
Would Hyacinth laugh so, if she were to see him with these small and always somewhat smeared lenses before his eyes? Surely she would—she had laughed at less ridiculous things when they had been together. For the first time it struck him that she might have laughed as she had because she had been happy. He himself had been happy then, though for no good reason.
As he cleared his throat, he sought to recollect those emotions. No, not happy—joyful.
Joyous. Silk endeavored to imagine his mother offering Hyacinth the pale, greenish limeade that they had drunk each year during the hottest weather, and failed utterly.
“‘A devil does violence to itself, first of all, when it becomes an abscess and, as it were, a cancer in the whorl, as far as it can; for to be enraged at anything in the whorl is to separate oneself from that whorl, and its ultimately semi-divine nature, in some part of wh
ich the various natures of all other things whatsoever are contained. Secondly, a devil does violence to itself when it turns away from any good man, and moves against him with the intention of doing harm.’”
Silk risked a glance behind him. Orchid’s hands were clasped in prayer, and the younger women were following in decent order, though a few seemed to be straining to hear. He elevated his voice.
“‘Thirdly, a devil does violence to itself whenever it succumbs to the pleasure of pain. Fourthly, when it plays a part, whether acting or speaking insincerely or untruthfully. Fifthly, when it acts or moves, always aimlessly…’”
They had completed half of the third and final circuit when a window shattered above their heads, subjecting Crane, near the end of their straggling line, to a shower of glass. “Just the devil departing,” he assured the women around him. “Don’t start yelling.”
Orchid had stopped to stare up at the broken window. “That’s one of my rooms!”
A feminine voice from the window, vibrant and firm, spoke like thunder. “Send up your augur to me!”
Chapter 12
DINNER ON AUK
Hers was the most beautiful face that Silk had ever seen. It hovered behind the glass in Orchid’s sellaria, above a suggestion of neck and shoulders; and its smile was at once innocent, inviting, and sensual, the three intermingling to form a new quality, unknown and unknowable, desirable and terrifying.
“I’ve been watching you … Watching for you. Silk? Silk. What a lovely name! I’ve always, always loved silk, Silk. Come to me and sit down. You’re limping, I’ve seen you. Draw up a chair to the glass. You mended our broken Window, mended it a little bit, anyway, and that’s part of this house now, you said, Silk.”
He had knelt, head bowed.
“Sit down, please. I want to see your face. Aren’t you paying me honor? You should do what I ask.”
“Yes, O Great Goddess,” he said, and rose. This wasn’t Echidna, surely; this goddess was too beautiful, and seemed almost too kind. Scylla had eight, or ten, or twelve arms; but he could not see her arms. Sphigx—it was Sphigxday—
“Sit down. There’s a little chair behind you, Silk. I can see it. It was very nice of you to mend our terminal.”
Her eyes were of a color he had never seen before, a blue so deep that it was almost black, without being truly black or even dark, their lids so heavy that she seemed blind.
“I would have revealed myself to you then, if I could. I could see and hear you, but not that. There’s no power for the beam, I think. It still won’t light. So disappointing. Perhaps you can do something more?”
He nodded, speechless.
“Thank you. I know you’ll try. In mending that, you mended this, I think. It’s dusty.” She laughed, and her laughter was the chiming of bells far away, bells cast of a metal more precious than any gold. “Isn’t it funny? I could break that window. By making the right sound. And holding it until the glass broke. Because I could hear you outside reading something. You didn’t stop the first time I called. I suppose you didn’t hear me?”
He wanted to run but shook his head instead. “No, Great Goddess. I’m terribly sorry.”
“But I can’t wipe the glass. Wipe this glass for me, Silk. And I’ll forgive you.”
“If you’ll—My handkerchief has blood on it, Great Goddess. Perhaps in there—”
“I won’t mind. Unless it’s still wet. Do as I asked. Won’t you, please?”
Silk got out his handkerchief, stained with Orpine’s blood. At each step he took toward the glass, he felt that he was about to burst into flames or dissolve into the air like smoke.
“I watched him kill a thousand once. Men, mostly. It was in the square. I watched from my balcony. They made them kneel facing him, and some still knelt when they were dead.”
It seemed the depth of blasphemy to whisk his ragged, bloodstained handkerchief up and down those lovely features, which when the dust was gone seemed more real than he. Not Molpe; Molpe’s hair fell across her face. Not—
“I wanted to faint. But he was watching me from his balcony. Much higher up, with a flag over the thing there. The little wall. I was staying at his friend’s house then. I saw so much then. It doesn’t bother me any more. Have you sacrificed to me today? Or yesterday? Some of those big white bunnies, or a white bird?”
The victims identified her. “No, Kypris,” Silk said. “The fault is mine; and I will, as soon as I can.”
She laughed again, more thrilling than before. “Don’t bother. Or let those women do it. I want other services from you. You’re lame. Won’t you sit down now? For me? There’s a chair behind you.”
Silk nodded and gulped, finding it very difficult to think of words in the presence of a goddess, harder still when his eyes strayed to her face. He struggled to recall her attributes. “I hurt my ankle, O Great Goddess Kypris. Last night.”
“Bouncing out of Hyacinth’s window.” Her smile grew minutely wider. “You looked like a big black rabbit. You really shouldn’t have. You know, Silk? Hy wouldn’t have hurt you. Not with that big sword or any other way. She liked you, Silk. I was in her, so I know.”
He took a deep breath. “I had to, Gentle Kypris, in order to preserve the anipotence by which I behold you.”
“Because Echidna lets you see us in our Sacred Windows, then. Like a child.”
“Yes, Gentle Kypris; by her very great kindness to us, she does.”
“And am I the first, Silk? Have you never seen a god before?”
“No, Gentle Kypris. Not like this. I had hoped to, perhaps when I was old, like Patera Pike. Then yesterday in the ball court—And last night. I went into that woman’s dressing room without knocking and saw colors in the glass there, colors that looked like the Holy Hues. I’ve still never seen them, but they told us—we had to memorize the descriptions, actually, and recite them.” Silk paused for breath. “And it seemed to me—it has always seemed to me, ever since I used the glass at the schola, that a god might use a glass. May I tell them about this at the schola?”
Kypris was silent for a moment, her face pensive. “I don’t think … No. No, Silk. Don’t tell anybody.”
He made a seated bow.
“I was there last night. Yes. But not for you. Only because I play with Hy sometimes. Now she reminds me of the way I used to be, but all that will be over soon. She’s twenty-three. And you, Silk? How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, Gentle Kypris.”
“There. You see. I prompted you. I know I did.” She shook her head almost imperceptibly. “All that abstinence! And now you’ve seen a goddess. Me. Was it worth it?”
“Yes, Loving Kypris.”
She laughed again, delighted. “Why?”
The question hung in the silence of the baking sellaria while Silk tried to kick his intellect awake. At length he said haltingly, “We are so much like beasts, Kypris. We eat and we breed; then we spawn and die. The most humble share in a higher existence is worth any sacrifice.”
He waited for her to speak, but she did not.
“What Echidna asks isn’t actually much of a sacrifice, even for men. I’ve always thought of it as a token, a small sacrifice to show her—to show all of you—that we are serious. We’re spared a thousand quarrels and humiliations, and because we have no children of our own, all children are ours.”
The smile faded from her lovely face, and the sorrow that displaced it made his heart sink. “I won’t talk to you again, Silk. Or at least not very soon. No, soon. I am hunted…” Her perfect features faded to dancing colors.
He rose and found that he was cold in his sweat-soaked tunic and robe, despite the heat of the room. Vacantly, he stared at the shattered window; it was the one he had opened when he had spoken with Orchid. The gods—Kypris herself—had prompted him to throw it open, perhaps; but Orchid had closed it again as soon as he left, as he should have known she would.
He trembled, and felt that he was waking from a dream.
An awfu
l silence seemed to fill the empty house, and he remembered vaguely that it was said that haunted houses were the quietest of all, until the ghost walked. Everyone was outside, of course, waiting on Lamp Street where he had left them, and he would be able to tell them nothing.
He visualized them standing in their silent, straggling line and looking at one another, or at no one. How much had they overheard through the window? Quite possibly they had heard nothing.
He wanted to jump and shout, to throw Orchid’s untasted goblet of brandy out the window or at the empty glass. He knelt instead, traced the sign of addition, and rose with the help of Blood’s stick.
* * *
Outside, Blood demanded to know who had summoned him. Silk shook his head.
“You won’t tell me?”
“You don’t believe in the gods, or in devils, either. Why should I tell you something at which you would only scoff?”
A woman whose hair had been bleached until it was as yellow as Silk’s own, exclaimed, “That was no devil!”
“You must keep silent about anything you heard,” Silk told her. “You should have heard nothing.”
Blood said, “Musk and Bass were supposed to have found every woman in the place and made them come to this ceremony of yours. If they missed any of them, I want to know about it.” He turned to Orchid. “You know your girls. Are they all here?”
She nodded, her face set. “All but Orpine.”
Musk was staring at Silk as though he wanted to murder him; Silk met his eyes, then turned away. Speaking loudly to the group at large, he said, “We’ve never completed our third circuit. It is necessary that we do so. Return to your places, please.” He tapped Blood’s shoulder. “Go back to your place in the procession.”
Orchid had kept the Writings for him, her finger at the point at which he had stopped reading. He opened the heavy volume there and began to pace and read again, a step for each word, as the ritual prescribed: “Man, himself, creates the conditions necessary for advance by struggling with and yielding to his animal desires; yet nature, the experiences of the spirit, and materiality need never be. His torment depends upon himself, yet the effects of that torment are always sufficient. You must consider this.”
