CALDE OF THE LONG SUN botls-3

by Gene Wolfe

  brushed with drab. And for a moment it seemed to Auk that he

  glimpsed the sneering features of a girl a year or two from

  womanhood.

  Chenille trembled violently and went limp, slumping to the altar

  top and roiling off to fall to the dark and slimy stone of the quay.

  Oreb fluttered over to her. "God go?"

  The girl's face--if it had been a face--vanished into a wall of

  green water, like an onrushing wave. The Holy Hues returned, first

  as sun-sparkles on the wave, then claiming the entire Window and

  filling it with their whirling ballet before fading back to luminescent

  gray.

  "I think so," Auk said. He rose, and discovered that his needler

  was still in his hand; he thrust it beneath his tunic, and asked

  tentatively, "You all right, Jugs?"

  Chenille moaned.

  He lifted her into a sitting position. "You banged your head on the

  rock, Jugs, but you're going to be all right." Eager to do something

  for her, but unsure what he should do, he called, "You! Patera! Get

  some water."

  "She throw?"

  Auk swung at Oreb, who hopped agilely to one side.

  "Hackum?"

  "Yeah, Jugs. Right here." He squeezed her gently with the arm

  that supponed her, conscious of the febrile heat of her sunburned skin.

  "You came back. Hackum, I'm so glad."

  The old fisherman coughed, striving to keep his eyes from

  Chenille's breasts. "Mebbe it'd be better if me an' him stayed on the

  boat awhile?"

  "We're all going on your boat," Auk told him. He picked up

  Chenille.

  Incus, a battered tin cup of water in his hand, asked, "You intend

  to _disobey?_"

  Auk dodged. "She said to go to the Juzgado. We got to get back to

  Limna, then there's wagons to the city."

  "She was sending someone, sending her slave she said, to take us

  there." Incus raised the cup and sipped. "She also said _I_ was to be

  _Prolocutor_."

  The old fisherman scowled. "This feller she's sendin', he'll have a

  boat o' his own. Have ter, ter git out here. What becomes o' mine if

  we go off with him? She said fer me ter fetch the rest back ter see

  them councillors, didn't she? How'm I s'posed ter do that if I ain't

  got my boat?"

  Oreb fluttered onto Auk's shoulder. "Find Silk?"

  "You got it." Carrying Chenille, Auk strode across the quay to eye

  the open water between it and the boat; it was one thing to spring

  from the gunnel to the quay, another to jump from the quay to the

  boat while carrying a woman taller than most. "Get that rope," he

  snapped to Incus. "Pull it closer. You left too much slack."

  Incus pursed his lips. "We cannot _possibly_ disobey the instructions

  of the goddess."

  "You can stay here and wait for whoever she's sending. Tell him

  we'll meet up with him in Limna. Me and Jugs are going in Dace's

  boat."

  The old fisherman nodded emphatically.

  "If _you_ wish to disobey, my son, _I_ will not attempt to prevent

  you. However--"

  Something in the darkness beyond the last tank fell with a crash,

  and the scream of metal on stone echoed from the walls of the

  cavern. A new voice, deeper and louder than any merely human

  voice, roared, "_I bring her! Give her to me!_"

  It was that of a talus larger than the largest Auk had ever seen; its

  virescent bronze face was cast in a grimace of hate, blinding yellow

  light glared from its eyes, and the oily black barrels of a flamer and a

  pair of buzz guns jutted from its open mouth. Behind it, the black

  dark at the back of the cavern had been replaced by a sickly greenish

  glow.

  "_I bring her! All of you! Give her to me!_" The talus extended a

  lengthening arm as it rolled toward them. A steel hand the size of

  the altar from which she had fallen closed about Chenille and

  plucked her from Auk's grasp; so a child might have snatched a

  small and unloved doll from the arms of another doll. "_Get on my

  back! Scylla commands it!_"

  A half dozen widely spaced rungs of bent rod laddered the talus's

  metal flank. Auk scrambled up with the night chough flapping

  ahead of him; as he gained the top, the talus's huge hand deposited

  Chenille on the sloping black metal before him.

  "Hang on!"

  Two rows of bent rods much like the steps of the ladder ran the

  length of the talus's back. Auk grasped one with his left hand and

  Chenille with his right. Her eyelids fluttered. "Hackum?"

  "Still here."

  Incus's head appeared as he clambered up; his sly face looked sick

  in the watery light. "By--by _Hierax!_"

  Auk chuckled.

  "You--You--Help me _up_."

  "Help yourself, Patera. You were the one that wanted to wait for

  him. You won. He's here."

  Before Auk had finished speaking, Incus sprang onto the talus's

  back with astonishing alacrity, apparently impelled by the muscular

  arm of the fisherman, who clambered up a moment later. "You'd

  make a dimber burglar, old man," Auk told him.

  "Hackum, where are we?"

  "In a cave on the west side of the lake."

  The talus turned in place, one wide black belt crawling, the other

  locked. Auk felt the thump of machinery under him.

  Puffs of black smoke escaped from the joint between the upright

  thorax and long wagon-like abdomen to which they clung. It rocked,

  jerked, and skewed backward. A sickening sidewise skid ended in a

  geyser of icy water as one belt slipped off the quay. Incus clutched at

  Auk's tunic as their side of the talus went under, and for a dizzying

  second Auk saw the boat tossed higher than their heads.

  The wave that had lifted it broke over them like a blow, a

  suffocating, freezing whorl that at once drained away; when Auk

  opened his eyes again Chenille was sitting up screaming, her

  dripping face blank with terror.

  Something black and scarlet landed with a thump upon his

  sopping shoulder. "Bad boat! Sink."

  It had not, as he saw when the talus heaved itself up onto the quay

  again; Dace's boat lay on its side, the mast unshipped and tossing

  like driftwood in the turbulent water.

  Huge as a boulder, the talus's head swiveled around to glare at

  them, revolving until it seemed its neck must snap. "_Five ride! The

  small may go!_"

  Auk glanced from the augur to the fisherman, and from him to

  the hysterical Chenille, before he realized who was meant. "You can

  beat the hoof if you want to, bird. He says he won't hurt you if you do."

  "Bird stay," Oreb muttered. "Find Silk."

  The talus's head completed its revolution, and the talus lunged

  forward. Yellow light glared back at them, reflected from the

  curved white side of the last tank, leaving the Sacred Window empty

  and dead looking behind them. Sallow green lights winked into

  being just above the talus's helmeted head, and the still-tossing

  waters of the channel congealed to rough stone as the cavern

  dwindled to a dim tunnel.

  Auk put his arm around Chenille's waist. "Fancy a bit of company, Jugs?"

  She
wept on, sobs lost in the wind of their passage.

  He released her, got out his needler, and pushed back the

  sideplate; a trickle of gritty water ran onto his fingers, and he blew

  into the mechanism. "Should be all right," he told Oreb, "soon as it

  dries out. I ought to put a couple drops of oil on the needles,

  though."

  "Good girl," Oreb informed him nervously. "No shoot."

  "Bad girl," Auk explained. "Bad man, too. No shoot. No go away,

  either."

  "Bad bird!"

  "Lily." Gently, he kissed Chenille's inflamed back. "Lie down if

  you want to. Lay your head in my lap. Maybe you can get a little

  sleep."

  As he pronounced the words, he sensed that they came too late.

  The talus was descending, the tunnel angling downward, if only

  slightly. The mouths of other tunnels flashed past to left and right,

  darker even than the damp shiprock walls. Drops of water clinging

  to the unchanging ceiling gleamed like diamonds, vanishing as they

  passed.

  The talus slowed, and something struck its great bronze head,

  ringing it like a gong. Its buzz guns rattled and it spat a tongue of

  blue fire.

  Chapter 2 -- Silk's Back!

  "It would be better," Maytera Marble murmured to Maytera Mint,

  "if you did it, sib."

  Maytera Mint's small mouth fell open, then firmly closed.

  Obedience meant obeying, as she had told herself thousands of times;

  obedience was more than setting the table or fetching a plate of

  cookies. "If you wish it, Maytera. High Hierax knows I have no

  voice, but I suppose I must."

  Maytera Marble sighed to herself with satisfaction, a hish from

  the speaker behind her lips so soft that no ears but hers could hear it.

  Maytera Mint stood, her cheeks aflame already, and studied the

  congregation. Half or more were certainly thieves; briefly she

  wondered whether even the images of the gods were safe.

  She mounted the steps to the ambion, acutely conscious of the

  murmur of talk filling the manteion and the steady drum of rain on

  its roof; for the first time since early spring, fresh smelling rain was

  stabbing through the god gate to spatter the blackened altartop--though

  there was less now than there had been earlier.

  Molpe, she prayed, Marvelous Molpe, for once let me have a

  voice. "Some--" Deep breath. "Some of you do not know me..."

  Few so much as looked at her, and it was apparent that those who

  did could not hear her. How ashamed that gallant captain who had

  showed her his sword would be of her now!

  Please Kypris! Sabered Sphigx, great goddess of war .

  There was a strange swelling beneath her ribs; through her mind a

  swirl of sounds she had never heard and sights she had not seen: the

  rumbling hoofbeats of cavalry and the booming of big guns. the

  terrifying roars of Sphigx's lions, the silver voices of trumpets, and

  the sharp crotaline clatter of a buzz gun. A woman with a bloodstained

  rag about her head steadied the line: _Form up! Form Up!

  Forward now! Forward! Follow me!_

  With a wide gesture, little Maytera Mint drew a sword not even

  she could see. "_Fr_iends!" Her voice broke in the middle of the word.

  Louder, girl! Shake these rafters!

  "Friends, some of you don't know who I am. I am Maytera Mint, a.

  sibyl of this manteion." She swept the congregation with her eyes,

  and saw Maytera Marble applauding silently; the babble of several

  hundred voices had stilled altogether.

  "The laws of the Chapter permit sacrifice by a sibyl when no augur

  is present. Regrettably, that is the case today at our manteion. Few

  of you, we realize, will wish to remain. There is another manteion

  on Hat Street, a manteion well loved by all the gods, I'm sure,

  where a holy augur is preparing to sacrifice as I speak. Toward the

  market, and turn left. It's not far."

  She waited hopefully, listening to the pattering rain; but not one

  of the five hundred or so lucky enough to have seats stood, and none

  of the several hundred standers in the aisles turned to go.

  "Patera Silk did not return to the manse last night. As many of you

  know, Guardsmen came here to arrest him&151"

  The angry mutter from her listeners was like the growl of some

  enormous beast.

  "That was yesterday, when Kind Kypris, in whose debt we shall

  always be, honored us for a second time. All of us feel certain that

  there has been a foolish enor. But until Patera Silk comes back, we

  can only assume that he is under arrest. Patera Cub, the worthy

  augur His Cognizance the Prolocutor sent to assist Patera Silk,

  seems to have left the manse early this morning, no doubt in the

  hope of freeing him."

  Maytera Mint paused, her fingers nervously exploring the

  chipped stone of the ancient ambion, and glanced down at the

  attentive worshipers crouched on the floor in front of the foremost

  bench, and at the patchy curtain of watching faces that filled the

  narthex arch.

  "Thus the duty of sacrifice devolves upon Maytera Marble and

  me. There are dozens of victims today. There is even an unspotted

  white bull for Great Pas, such a sacrifice as the Grand Manteion

  cannot often see." She paused again to listen to the rain, and for a

  glance at the altar.

  "Before we begin, I have other news to give you, and most

  particularly to those among you who have come to honor the gods

  not only today but on Scylsday every week for years. Many of you

  will be saddened by what I tell you, but it is joyful news.

  "Our beloved Maytera Rose has gone to the gods. in whose

  service she spent her long life. For reasons we deem good and

  proper, we have chosen not to display her mortal remains. That is

  her casket there, in front of the altar.

  "We may be certain that the immortal gods are aware of her

  exemplary piety. I have heard it said that she was the oldest

  biochemical person in this quarter, and it may well have been true.

  She belonged to the last of those fortunate generations for which

  prosthetic devices remained, devices whose principles are lost even

  to our wisest. They sustained her life beyond the lives of the

  children of many she had taught as children, but they could not

  sustain it indefinitely. Nor would she have wished them to. Yester

  day they failed at last, and our beloved sib was freed from the

  sufferings that old age had brought her, and the toil that was her

  only solace."

  Some men standing in the aisles were opening the windows there;

  little rain if any seemed to be blowing in. The storm was over,

  Maytera Mint decided, or nearly over.

  "So our sacrifice this morning is not merely that which we offer to

  the undying gods each day at this time if a victim is granted us. It is

  our dear Maytera Rose's last sacrifice, by which I mean that it is not

  just that of the white bull and the other beasts outside, but the

  sacrifice of Maytera herself.

  "Sacrifices are of two kinds. In the first, we send a gift. In the

  second, we share a meal. Thus my dear sib and I dare hope it
will

  not shock you when I tell you that my dear sib has taken for her use

  some of the marvelous devices that sustained our beloved Maytera

  Rose. Even if we were disposed to forget her, as I assure you we are

  not, we could never do so now. They will remind us both of her life

  of service. Though I know that her spirit treads the Aureate Path, I

  shall always feel that something of her lives on in my sib."

  Now, or never.

  "We are delighted that so many of you have come to honor her, as

  it is only right you should. But there are many more outside, men

  and women, children too, who would honor her if they could, but

  were unable to find places in our manteion. It seems a shame, for

  her sake and for the gods' as well.

  "There is an expedient, as some of you must stirely know, that can

  be adopted on such occasions as this. It is to move the casket, the

  altar, and the Sacred Window itself out into the street temporarily."

  They would lose their precious seats. She half expected them to

  riot, but they did not.

  She was about to say, "I propose--" but caught herself in time; the

  decision was hers, the responsibility for it and its execution hers.

  "That is what we will do today." The thick, leather-bound Chrasmologic

  Writings lay on the ambion before her; she picked it up.

  "Horn? Horn, are you here?"

  He waved his hand, then stood so she could see him.

  "Horn was one of Maytera's students. Horn, I want you to choose

  five other boys to help you with her casket. The altar and the Sacred

  Window are both very heavy, I imagine. We will need volunteers to

  move those."

  Inspiration struck. "Only the very strongest men, please. Will

  twenty or thirty of the strongest men present please come forward?

  My sib and I will direct you."

  Their rush nearly overwhelmed her. Half a minute later, the altar

  was afloat upon a surging stream of hands and arms, bobbing and

  rocking like a box in the lake as a human current bore it down the

  aisle toward the door.

  The Sacred Window was more difficult, not because it was

  heavier, but because the three-hundred-year-old clamps that held it

  to the sanctuary floor had rusted shut and bad to be hammered. Its

  sacred cables trailed behind it as it, too, was carried out the door, at

  times spitting the crackling violet fire that vouched for the immanent