CALDE OF THE LONG SUN botls-3

by Gene Wolfe

  A crude bludgeon, a stone lashed with sinew to a fire-blackened

  bone, lay near one of the convicts Incus had shot. Auk picked it up

  to look at, then tossed it away, wondering how close the man had

  gotten to Incus before he fell. If Incus had been killed, he, Auk,

  would have gotten his needler back. But what might Hammerstone

  have done?

  He examined more curiously the one he had cut down with his

  hanger. He had stolen the hanger originally, had worn it largely for

  show, had sharpened it once only because he used it now and then

  to cut rope or prize open drawers, had taken two lessons from

  Master Xiphias out of curiosity; now he felt that he possessed a

  weapon he had never known was his.

  The radiance of the creeping lights was noticeably dimmer here; it

  would be some time before the section in which he had left the old

  fisherman was well lit. He drew his hanger and advanced cautiously.

  "You sing out if you see anything, bird."

  "No see."

  "But you can see in this, can't you? Shag, I can see, too. I just

  can't see good."

  "No men." Oreb snapped his bill and fluttered from Auk's right

  shoulder to his left. "No things."

  "Yeah, I don't see much either. I wish I could be sure this was the

  spot."

  Most of all, he wished that Chenille had come. Bustard was

  walking beside him, big and brawny; but it was not the same. If

  Chenille had not cared enough to come, there was no point going--no

  point in anything.

  How'd you get yourself into this, sprat, Bastard wanted to know.

  "I dunno," Auk muttered. "I forget."

  Give me the pure keg, sprat. You want me to window you out? If

  I'm going to help, I got to know.

  "Well, I liked him. Patera, I mean. Patera Silk. I think the

  Ayuntamiento got him. I thought, well, I'll go out to the lake

  tonight, meet 'em in Limna, and they'll be glad to see me for the

  gelt, for a dimber dinner and drinks, and maybe a couple uphill

  rooms for us after. He won't touch her, he's a augur--"

  "Bad talk!"

  "He's a augur, and she'll have a couple with her dinner and feel

  like she owes me for it and the ring, owes for both, and it'll be nice."

  What'd I tell you about hooking up with some dell, sprat?

  "Yeah, sure, brother. Whatever you say. Only then he was gone

  and she was fuddled, and I got hot and lumped her and went looking. Only

  everybody say's he's going to be calde, the new calde--Patera. That

  would be somebody to know, if he pulls it off."

  "Girl come!"

  Never mind that. So now you're going back here, back the way we

  come, for this Silk butcher?

  "Yeah, for Silk, because he'd want me to. And for him, too, for

  Dace, the old man that owned our boat."

  You've snaffled a sackful like him. You don't even have his

  shaggy boat.

  "Patera'd want me to, and I liked him."

  This much?

  "Hackum? Hackum!"

  He's waitin', you know. That buck Gelada's waitin' for us in the

  dark next to the old man's body, sprat. He had a bow. Didn't any of

  em back there have no bow.

  "Girl come," Oreb repeated.

  Auk swung around to face her. "Stand clear, Jugs!"

  "Hackum, there's something I've got to tell you, but I can't yell it."

  "He can see us, Jugs. Only we can't see him. Not even the bird can

  see him from here where it's brighter, looking into the dark.

  Where's your launcher?"

  "I had to leave it with Stony. Patera didn't want me to go. I think

  he thought I might try to kill them with it once I got off a ways."

  Auk glanced to his right, hoping to consult Bustard; but Bustard

  had gone.

  "So I said, we're not going to do anything like that. We don't hate

  you. But he said you did."

  Auk shook his head, the pain there a crimson haze. "He hates me,

  maybe. I don't hate him."

  "That's what I told him. He said very well my daughter--you

  know how he talks--leave _that_ with us, and I shall believe you. So I

  did. I gave it to Stony."

  "And came after me without it to tell me about the shaggy doors."

  "Yes!" She drew nearer as she spoke. "It's important, really

  important, Hackum, and I don't want that cully that knocked me

  down to hear it."

  "Is it about what the tall ass said?"

  Chenille halted, dumbfounded.

  "I heard, Jugs. I was right there behind you, and doors are my

  business. Doors and windows and walls and roofs. You think I'd

  miss that?"

  She shook her head. "I guess not."

  "I guess not, too. Stay back where you'll be safe." He turned away,

  hoping she had not seen how sick and dizzy he was; the darkening

  tunnel seemed to spin as he stared into its black maw, a pinwheel

  that had burned out, or the high rear wheel of a deadcoach, all

  ebony and black iron, rolling down a tarred road to nowhere. "I

  know you're in there, Gelada, and you got the old man with you.

  You listen here. My name's Auk, and I'm a pal of Urus's. I'm not

  here for a row. Only I'm a pal of the old man's, too."

  His voice was trailing away. He tried to collect such strength as

  remained. "What we're going to do pretty soon now, we're going to

  go back to your pit with Urus."

  "Hackum!"

  "Shut up." He did not bother to look at her. "That's 'cause I can

  get you through one of these iron doors down here that you can't

  solve. I'm going to talk to 'em in your pit. I'm going to say anybody

  that wants out, you come with me and I'll get you out. Then we'll go

  to that door and I'll open it, and we'll go on out. Only that's it. I

  ain't coming back for anybody."

  He paused, waiting for some reply. Oreb's bill clacked nervously.

  "You and the old man come here and you can come with us. Or let

  him go and head back to the pit yourself, and you can come along

  with the rest if you want to. But I'm going to look for him."

  Chenille's hand touched his shoulder, and he started.

  "You in this, Jugs?"

  She nodded and put her arm through his. They had taken perhaps

  a hundred more steps into the deepening darkness when an arrow

  whizzed between their heads; she gasped and held him more tightly

  than ever.

  "That's just a warning," he told her. "He could have put it in us if

  he'd wanted to. Only he won't, because we can get him out and he

  can't get out himself."

  He raised his voice as before. "The old man's finished, ain't he,

  Gelada? I got you. And you think when I find out, it's all in the tub.

  That's not how it'll be. Everything I said still goes. We got a augur

  with us, the little cull you saw with Jugs here when you shot at her.

  Just give us the old man's body. We'll get him to pray over it and

  maybe bury it somewhere proper, if we can find a place. I never

  knew you, but maybe you knew Bustard, my brother. Buck that

  nabbed the gold Molpe Cup? You want us to fetch Urus? He'll cap

  for me."

  Chenille called, "He's telling the truth, Gelada, really he is. I

  don't think you're here any more, I think you ra
n off down the

  tunnel. That's what I'd have done. But if you are, you can trust

  Auk. You must have been down in the pit a real long time, because

  everybody in the Orilla knows Auk now."

  "Bird see!" Oreb muttered.

  Auk walked slowly into the deepening twilight of the tunnel. "He

  got his bow?"

  "Got bow!"

  "Put it down, Gelada. You shoot me, you're shooting the last

  chance you'll ever get."

  "Auk?" The voice from the darkness might have been that of

  Hierax himself, hollow and hopeless as the echo from a tomb. "That

  your name? Auk?"

  "That's me. Bustard's brother. He was older than me."

  "You got a needler? Lay it down."

  "I don't have one." Auk sheathed his hanger, pulled off his tunic,

  and dropped it to the tunnel floor. With uplifted arms, he turned in

  a complete circle. "See? I got the whin, and that's all I got." He drew

  his hanger again and held it up. "I'm leaving it right here on my

  gipon. You can see Jugs don't have anything either. She left her

  launcher back there with the soldier." Slowly he advanced into the

  darkness, his hands displayed.

  There was a sudden glimmer a hundred paces up the tunnel. "I got

  a darkee," Gelada called. "Burns bufe drippin's."

  He puffed the flame again, and this time Auk could hear the soft

  exhalation of his breath, "I should've figured," he muttered to

  Chenille.

  "We don't like to use 'um much." Gelada stood, a stick figure not

  much taller than Incus. "Keep 'um shut up mostly. Wick 'bout

  snuffed. Culls bring 'um down 'n leave 'um."

  When Auk, walking swiftly through the dark, said nothing, he

  repeated, "Burn drippin's when the oil's gone."

  "I was thinking you'd make 'em out of bones," Auk said

  conversationally. "Maybe twist the wicks out of hair." He was close now, near

  enough to see Dace's shadowy body lying at Gelada's feet.

  "We do that sometimes, too. Only hair's no good. We braid 'urn

  out o' rags."

  Auk halted beside the body. "Got him back there, didn't you? His

  kicks are messed some."

  "Dragged 'im far as I could. "E's a grunter."

  Auk nodded absently. Silk had once told him, as the two had sat

  at dinner in a private room in Viron, that Blood had a daughter, and

  that Blood's daughter's face was like a skull, was like talking to a

  skull though she was living and Bustard was dead (Bustard whose

  face really was a skull now) was not like that. Her father's face,

  Blood's flabby face, was not like that either, was soft and red and

  sweating even when he was saying that this one or that one must

  pay.

  But this Gelada's too was a skull, as if he and not Blood were the

  mort Mucor's father, was as beardless as any skull or nearly, the

  grayish white of dirty bones even in the stinking yellow light of the

  dark lantern--a talking cadaver with a little round belly, elbows

  bigger than its arms, and shoulders like a towel horse, the dark

  lantern in its hand and its small bow, like a child's bow, of bone

  wound with rawhide, lying at its feet, with an arrow next to it, with

  Dace's broad-bladed old knife next to that, and Dace's old head, the

  old cap it always wore gone, his wild white hair like a crone's and

  the clean white bones of his arm half-cleaned of flesh and whiter

  than his old eyes, whiter than anything.

  "You crank, Auk?"

  "Yeah, a little." Auk crouched beside Dace's body.

  "Had the shiv on 'im." Stooping swiftly, Gelada snatched it up.

  "I'm keepin' it."

  "Sure." The sleeve of Dace's heavy, worn blue tunic had been cut

  away, and strips cut from his forearm and upper arm. Oreb hopped

  from Auk's shoulder to scrutinize the work, and Auk warned him,

  "Not your peck."

  "Poor bird!"

  "Had a couple bits, too. You can have 'um when you get me out."

  "Keep 'em. You'll need 'em up there."

  From the corner of his eye, Auk saw Chenille trace the sign of

  addition. "High Hierax, Dark God, God of Death..."

  "He show much fight?"

  "Not much. Got behind 'im. Got my spare string 'round 'is neck.

  There a art to that. You know Mandrill?"

  "Lit out," Auk told him without looking up. "Palustria's what I

  heard."

  "My cousin. Used to work with 'im. How 'bout Elodia?"

  "She's dead. You, too." Auk straightened up and drove his knife

  into the rounded belly, the point entering below the ribs and

  reaching upward for the heart.

  Gelada's eyes and mouth opened wide. Briefly, he sought to

  grasp Auk's wrist, to push away the blade that had already ended his

  life. His dark lantern fell clattering to the naked shiprock with

  Dace's old knife, and darkness rushed upon them.

  "Hackum!"

  Auk felt Gelada's weight come onto the knife as Gelada's legs

  went limp. He jerked it free and wiped the blade and his right hand

  on his thigh, glad that he did not have to look at Gelada's blood at

  that moment, or meet a dead man's empty, staring eyes.

  "Hackum, you said you wouldn't hurt him!"

  "Did I? I don't remember."

  "He wasn't going to do anything to us."

  She had not touched him, but he sensed the nearness of her, the

  female smell of her loins and the musk of her hair. "He'd already

  done it, Jugs." He returned his knife to his boot, located Dace's

  body with groping fingers, and slung it across his shoulders. It felt

  no heavier than a boy's. "You want to bring that darkee? Could be

  good if we can figure away to light it."

  Chenille said nothing, but in a few seconds he heard the tinny

  rattle of the lantern.

  "He killed Dace. That'd be enough by itself, only he ate him

  some, too. That's why he didn't talk at first. Too busy chewing. He

  knew we'd want the old man's body, and he wanted to fill up."

  "He was starving. Starving down here." Chenille's voice was

  barely above a whisper.

  "Sure. Bird, you still around?"

  "Bird here!" Feathers brushed Auk's fingers; Oreb was riding atop

  Dace's corpse.

  "If you were starving, you might have done the same thing,

  Hackum."

  Auk did not reply, and she added, "Me, too, I guess."

  "It don't signify, Jugs." He was walking faster, striding along

  ahead of her.

  "I don't see why not!"

  "Because I had to. He'd have done it too, like I said. We're going

  to the pit. I told him so."

  "I don't like that, either." Chenille sounded as though she were

  about to weep.

  "I got to. I got too many friends that's been sent there, Jugs. If

  some's in this pit and I can get 'em out, I got to do it. And

  everybody in the pit's going to find out. Maybe Patera wouldn't tell

  'em, if I asked nice. Maybe Hammerstone wouldn't. Only Urus

  would for sure. He'd say this cull, he did for a pal of Auk's and ate

  him, too, and Auk never done a thing. When I got 'em out, it'd be

  all over the city."

  A god laughed behind them, faintly but distinctly, the meaningless,

  humorless laughter of a lunatic; Auk wondered whether

/>   Chenille had heard it. "So I had to. And I did it. You would've too,

  in my shoes."

  The tunnel was growing lighter already. Ahead, where it was

  brighter still, he could see Incus, Hammerstone, and Urus still

  seated on the tunnel floor, Hammerstone with Chenille's launcher

  across his steel lap, Incus telling his beads, Urus staring back up the

  tunnel toward them.

  "All right, Hackum."

  Here were his hanger and his tunic. He laid down Dace's corpse,

  sheathed the hanger, and put on his tunic again.

  "Man good!" Oreb's beak snapped with appreciation.

  "You been eating off him? I told you about that."

  "Other man," Oreb explained. "My eyes."

  Auk shrugged. "Why not?"

  "Let's get out of here. Please, Hackum." Chenille was already

  several steps ahead.

  He nodded and picked up Dace.

  "I've got this bad feeling. Like he's still alive back there or

  something."

  "He ain't." Auk reassured her.

  As they reached the three who had waited, Incus pocketed his

  beads. "I would gladly have brought the _Pardon of Par_ to our late

  comrade. But his spirit has _flown_."

  "Sure," Auk said. "We were just hoping you'd bury him, Patera, if

  we can find a place."

  "It's _Patera_ now?"

  "And before. I was saying Patera before. You just didn't notice,

  Patera."

  "Oh, but I _did_, my son." Incus motioned for Hammerstone and

  Urus to rise. "I would do what I _can_ for our unfortunate comrade in

  any case. Not for your sake, my son, but for _his_."

  Auk nodded. "That's all we're asking, Patera. Gelada's dead.

  Maybe I ought to tell everybody."

  Incus was eyeing Dace's body. "You cannot bear such a weight

  _far_, my son. Hammerstone will have to carry him, I suppose."

  "No," Auk said, his voice suddenly hard. "Urus will. Come're,

  Urus. Take it."

  Chapter 4 -- The Plan of Pas

  "I'm sorry you did that, Mucor," Silk said mildly.

  The old woman shook her head. "I wasn't going to kill you. But I

  could've."

  "Of course you could."

  Quetzal had picked up the needler; he brushed it with his fingers,

  then produced a handkerchief with which to wipe off the white bull's

  blood. The old woman turned to watch him, her eyes widening as

  her death's-head grin faded.

  "I'm sorry, my daughter," Silk repeated. "I've noticed you at

  sacrifice now and then, but I don't recall your name."