Epiphany of the Long Sun Read online

  "So he can kill us?" Auk inquired dryly Incus hesitated, his eyes wary, one hand upraised. The talus was advandng even more slowly now, so that the chill wind that had whistled around them before the shooting began had sunk to the merest breeze. Chenille (who had been lying flat on the slanted plate that was the talus's back) sat up, covering her bare breasts with her forearms.

  "Why, ah, no," Incus said at last. He took a diminutive black device rather like a pair of very small tongs or large tweezers from a pocket of his robe. "This is an opticsynapter, an extremely valuable tool. With it-Well, look there."

  He pointed again. "That black cylinder is the triplex, the part corresponding to your heart. It's idling right now, but it pressurizes his working fluid so that he can move his limbs. The primary cable runs to his microbank-this big silver thing below the triplex-conveying instructions from his postprocessor."

  Chenille asked, "Can you really bring him back to life?"

  Incus looked frightened. "If he were dead, I could not, Superlative Scylla-"

  "I'm not her. I'm me." For a moment it seemed that she might weep again. "Just me. You don't even know me, Patera, and I don't know you."

  "I don't know you either," Auk said. "Remember that? Only I'd like to meet you sometime. How about it?"

  She swallowed, but did not speak.

  "Good girl!" Oreb informed them. Neither Incus nor Dace ventured to say anything, and the silence became oppressive.

  With an arm of his gammadion, Incus removed the soldier's skull plate. After a scrutiny Auk felt sure had taken half an hour at least, he worked one end of a second gamma between two thread-like wires.

  And the soldier spoke: "K-thirty-four, twelve. A-thirty-four, ninety-seven. B-thirty-four…"

  Incus removed the gamma, telling Dace, "He was scanning, do you follow me? It's as if you were to consult a physician. He might listen to your chest and tell you to cough."

  Dace shook his head. "You make this sojer well, an' he could kill all on board, like the big feller says. I says we shoves him over the side."

  "He won't." Incus bent over the soldier again.

  Chenille extended a hand to Dace. "I'm sorry about your boat, Captain, and I'm sorry I hit you. Can we be friends? I'm Chenille."

  Dace took it in his own large, gnarled hand, then released it to tug the bill of his cap. "Dace, ma'am. I never did hold nothin' agin you."

  "Thank you, Captain. Patera, I'm Chenille."

  Incus glanced up from the soldier. "You asked whether I could restore life, my daughter. He isn't dead, merely unable to actuate those parts that require fluid. He's unable to move his head, his arms, and his legs, in other words. He can speak, as you've heard. He doesn't because of the shock he's suffered. That is my considered opinion. The problem is to reconnect all the severed fibers correctly. Otherwise, he'll move his arms when he intends to take a step." He tittered.

  "I still say-" Dace began.

  "In addition, I'll attempt to render him compliant. For our safety. It's not legal, but if we're to do as Scylla has commanded…" He bent over the recumbent soldier again.

  Chenille said, "Hi, Oreb."

  Oreb hopped from Auk's shoulder to hers. "No cry?"

  "No more crying." She hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. "Other girls are always tellirig me how tough I am, because I'm so big. I think I better start trying to live up to it."

  Incus glanced up again. "Wouldn't you like to borrow my robe, my daughter?"

  She shook her head. "It hurts if anything touches me, and my back and shoulders are the worst. I've had men see me naked lots. Usually I've had a couple, though, or a pinch of rust. Rust makes it easy." She turned to Auk. "My name's Chenille, Bucko. I'm one of the girls from Orchid's."

  Auk nodded, not knowing what to say, and at length said, "I'm Auk. Real pleased, Chenille."

  That was the last thing he could remember. He was lying face down on a cold, damp surface, aware of pervasive pain and soft footsteps hastening to inaudibility. He rolled onto his back and sat up, then discovered that blood from his nose was dribbling down his chin.

  "Here, trooper." The voice was unfamiliar, metallic and harshly resonant. "Use this."

  A wad of whitish cloth was pressed into his hand; he held it gingerly to his face. "Thanks."

  From some distance, a woman called, "Is that you?"

  "Jugs?"

  The tunnel was almost pitch dark to his left, a rectangle of black relieved by a single remote fleck of green. To his right, something was on fire-a shed or a big wagon, as well as he could judge.

  The unfamiliar voice asked, "Can you stand up, trooper?"

  Still pressing the cloth to his face, Auk shook his head.

  There was someone nearer the burning structure, whatever it was: a short stocky figure with one arm in a sling. Others, men with dark and strangely variegated skins… Auk blinked and looked again.

  They were soldiers, chems that he had sometimes seen in parades. Here they lay dead, their weapons beside them, eerily lit by the flames.

  A small figure in black materialized from the gloom and gave him a toothy grin. "I had sped you to the gods, my son. I see they sent you back."

  Through the cloth, Auk managed to say, "I don't remember meeting any," then recalled that he had, that Scylla had been their companion for the better part of two days, and that she had not been in the least as he had imagined her. He risked removing the cloth. "Come here, Patera. Have a seat. I got to have a word with you."

  "Gladly. I must speak with you, as well." The little augur lowered himself to the shiprock floor. Auk could see the white gleam of his teeth.

  "Was that really Scylla?"

  "You know better than I, my son."

  Auk nodded slowly. His head ached, and the pain made it difficult to think. "Yeah1 only I don't know. Was it her, or just a devil pretending?"

  Incus hesitated, grinning more toothily than ever. "This is rather difficult to explain."

  "I'll listen." Auk groped his waistband for his needler; it was still in place.

  "My son, if a devil were to personate a goddess, it would become that goddess, in a way."

  Auk raised an eyebrow.

  "Or that god. Pas, let us say, or Hierax. It would run a grave risk of merging into the total god. Or so the science of theodaimony teaches us."

  "That's abram." His knife was still in his boot as well, his hanger at his side.

  "Such are the facts, my son." Incus cleared his throat impressively. "That is to say, the facts as far as they can be expressed in purely human terms. It's there averred that devils do not often dare to personate the gods for that very reason, while the immortal gods, for their part, never stoop to personating devils."

  "Hoinbuss," Auk said. The man with the injured arm was circling the fire. Changing the subject, Auk asked, "That's our talus, ain't it? The soldiers got it?"

  The unfamiliar voice said, "That's right, we got it."

  Auk turned. There was a soldier squatting behind him.

  "I'm Auk," Auk said; he had reintroduced himself to Chenille with the same words, he remembered, before whatever had happened had happened. He offered his hand.

  "Corporal Hammerstone, Auk." The soldier's grip stopped just short of breaking bones.

  "Pleased." Auk tried to stand, and would have fallen if Hammerstone had not caught him. "Guess I'm still not right."

  "I'm a little rocky myself, trooper."

  "Dace and that young woman have been after me to have Corporal Hammerstdne carry you, my son. I've resisted their importunities for his sake. He would gladly do it if I asked. He and I are the best of friends."

  "More than friends," Hammerstone told Auk; there was no hint of humor in his voice. "More than brothers."

  "He would do anything for me. I'm tempted to demonstrate that, though I refrain. I prefer you to think about it for a while, always with some element of doubt. Perhaps I'm teasing you, merely blustering. What do you think?"

  Auk shook his head. "What I think
don't matter.

  "Exactly. Because you thought that you could throw me from that filthy little boat with impunity. That I'd drown, and you would be well rid of me. We see now, don't we, how misconceived that was. You have fodeited any right to have your opinions heard with the slightest respect."

  Chenille strode out of the darkness carrying a long weapon with a cylindrical magazine. "Can you walk now, Hackum? We've been waiting for you."

  From his perch on the barrel, Oreb added, "All right?"

  "Pretty soon," Auk told them. "What's that you got?"

  "A launcher gun." Chenille grounded it. "This is what did for our talus, or that's what we think. Stony showed me how to shoot it. You can look, but don't touch."

  Although pain prevented Auk from enjoying the joke, he managed, "Not till I pay, huh?"

  She grinned wickedly, making him feel better. "Maybe not even then. Listen here, Patera. You too, Stony. Can I tell all of you what I've been thinking?"

  "Smart girl!" Oreb assured them.

  Incus nodded; Auk shrugged and said, "I'm not getting up for a while yet. C'mere, bird."

  Oreb hopped onto his shoulder. "Bad hole!"

  Chenille nodded. "He's right. We heard some real funny noises while I was back there looking for something to shoot, and there's probably more soldiers farther on. There's more lights up that way too though, and that might help."

  Hammerstone said, "Not if we want to dodge their patrols."

  "I guess not. But the thing is, Oreb could say what he did about anyplace down here, and he wouldn't be wrong. Auk, what I was going to tell you is I used to have a cute little dagger that I strapped onto my leg. It had a blade about as long as my foot, and I thought it was just right. I thought your knife or your needler or whatever should fit you, like shoes. You know what I'm saying?"

  He did not, but he nodded nevertheless.

  "Remember when I was Scylla?"

  "It's whether you remember. That's what I want to know."

  "I do a little bit. I remember being Kypris, too, maybe a little better. You didn't know about that, did you, Patera? I was. I was them, but underneath I was still me. I think it's like a donkey feels when somebody rides him. He's still him, Snail or whatever his name is, but he's you, too, going where you want to and doing what you want to do. And ifhe doesn't want to, he gets kicked till he does it anyhow."

  Oreb cocked his head sympathetically. "Poor girl!"

  "So pretty soon he gives up. Kick him and he goes, pull up and he stops, not paying a lot of attention either way. It was like that with me. I wanted rust really bad, and I kept thinking about it and how shaggy tired I was. And all at once it was like I'd been dreaming. I was in a manteion in Limna, then up on an altar in a cave and fit for sod. And I didn't remember anything. or if I did I wouldn't think about it. But when I was bumping out to the shrine, up on those high rocks, stuff started coming back. About being Kypris, I mean."

  Incus sighed. "Scylla mentioned it, my daughter, so I did know. Sharing your body with the goddess of love! How I envy you! It must have been wonderful!"

  "I guess it was. It wasn't nice. It wasn't fun at all. But the more I think, the more I think it really was wonderful in a abram sort of way. I'm not exactly like I used to be, either. I think when they left, the goddesses must have left some crumbs behind, and maybe they took some with them, too."

  She picked up the launcher, running her fingers along the pins protruding from its magazine. "What I started to say was that after the talus got hit I saw I'd been wrong about things fitting, my dagger and all that. This stuff isn't really like shoes at all. The smaller somebody is, the bigger a shiv she needs. Scylla left that behind, I think, or maybe something I could use to see it myself.

  "Anyway, Auk here plucks a dimber needler, but I doubt he needs it much. If I lived the way he does, and I chose to do, I'd need it just about every day. So I found this launcher gun, and it's bigger. It was empty, but I found another one with the barrel flat where the talus had gone over it, and it was full. Stony showed me how you load and unload them."

  Auk said, "I think I'll get something myself, a slug gun, anyhow. There's probably a bunch of 'em lying around."

  Incus shook his head and reached for Auk's waist. "You'd better allow me to take your needler this time, my son."

  At once Auk's arms were pinned from behind by a grip that was quite literally of steel.

  With evident distaste, Incus lifted the front of Auk's tunic and took his needler from his waistband. "This wouldn't harm Corporal Hammerstone, but it would kill me, I suppose." He gave Auk a toothy smile. "Or you, my son."

  "No shoot," Oreb muttered; it was a moment or two before Auk understood that he was addressing Chenille.

  "If you see him with a slug gun, Corporal, you're to take it from him and break it immediately. A slug gun or any other such weapon."

  "Ahoy! Ahoy there!" The old fisherman was shouting and waving, silhouetted by orange flames from the burning talus. "He says he's dyin'! Wants to talk to us!"

  Silk lifted himself until he could sit almost comfortably upon the turret, then waved both hands. His face was smeared with the mud of the storm, mud that was cracking and falling away now; the gaudy tunic that Doctor Crane had brought him in Limna was daubed with mud as well, and he wondered how many of those who waved and cheered and jumped and shouted around the floater actually recognized him.

  SILK FOR CALDÉ!

  SILK FOR CALDÉ!

  Was there really to be a Caldé again, and was this new Caldé to be himself? Caldé was a title that his mother had mentioned occasionally, a carved head in her closet.

  He looked up Sun Street, then stared. That was, surely, the silver-gray of a Sacred Window, nearly lost in the bright sunshine-a Window in the middle of the street.

  The wind carried the familiar odor of sacrifice-cedar smoke, burning fat, burning hair, and burning feathers, the mixture stronger than that of hot metal, hot fish-oil, and hot dust that wrapped the floater. Before the silver shimmer of the Window, a black sleeve slid down a thin arm of gray metal, and a moment later he caught sight of Maytera Marble's shining, beloved face below the waving, flesh-like hand. It seemed too good to be true.

  "Maytera!" In the tumult of the crowd he could scarcely hear his own voice; he silenced them with a gesture, arms out, palms down. "Quiet! Quiet, please!"

  The noise diminished, replaced by the troubled bleating of sheep and the angry hissing of geese; as the crowd parted before the floater, he located the animals themselves.

  "Maytera! You're holding a viaggiatory sacrifice?"

  "Maytera Mint is! I'm helping!"

  "Patera!" Gulo was back, trotting alongside the floater, his black robe fallow with dust. "There are dozens of victims, Patera! Scores!"

  They would have to sacrifice alternately if the ceremony were not to be prolonged till shadelow-which was what Gulo wanted, of course; the glory of offering so many victims, of appearing before so large a congregation. Yet he was not (as Silk reminded himself sharply) asking for more than his due as acolyte. Furthermore, Gulo could begin immediately, while he, Silk, would have to wash and change. "Stop," he called to the driver. "Stop right here." The floater settled to the ground before the altar.

  Silk swung his legs from the turret to stand at the edge of the deck before it, admonished by a twinge from his ankle.

  "Friends!" A voice he felt he should recognize at once, shrill yet thrilling, rang from the walls of every building on Sun Street. "This is Patera Silk! This is the man whose fame has brought you to the poorest manteion in the city. To the Window through which the gods look upon Viron again!"

  The crowd roared approval.

  "Hear him! Recall your holy errand, and his!"

  Silk, who had identified the speaker at the fourth word, blinked and shook his head, and looked again. Then there was silence, and he had forgotten what he had been about to say.

  An antlered stag among the waiting victims (an offering to Thelxiepeia, the patroness o
f divination, presumably) suggested an approach; his fingers groped for an ambion. "No doubt there are many questions you wish to ask the gods concerning these unsettled times. Certainly there are many questions I need to ask. Most of all, I wish to beg the favor of every god; and most of all to beg Stabbing Sphigx, at whose order armies march and fight, for peace. But before I ask the gods to speak to us, and before I beg their favor, I must wash and change into suitable clothes. I've been in a battle, you see-one in which good and brave men died; and before I return to our manse to scrub my face and hands and throw these clothes into the stove, I must tell you about it."

  They listened with upturned faces, eyes wide.

  "You must have wondered at seeing me in a Guard floater. Some of you surely thought, when you saw our floater, that the Guard intended to prevent your sacrifice. I know that, because I saw you drawing weapons and reaching for stones. But you see, these Guardsmen have endorsed a new government for Viron."

  There were cheers and shouts.

  "Or as I should have said, a return to the old one. They wish us to have a Caldé-"

  "Silk is Caldé!" someone shouted.

  "-and a return to the forms laid down in our Charter. I encountered some of these brave and devout Guardsmen in Limna, and because I was afraid we might be stopped by other units of the Guard, I foolishly suggested that they pretend I was their prisoner. Many of you will have anticipated what happened as a result. Other Guardsmen attacked us, thinking that they were rescuing me." He paused for breath.

  "Remember that. Remember that you must not assume that every Guardsman you see is our enemy, and remember that even those who oppose us are Vironese." His eyes sought out Maytera Marble again. "I've lost my keys, Maytera. Is the garden gate unlocked? I should be able to get into the manse that way."

  She cupped her hands (hands that might have belonged to a bio woman) around her mouth. "I'll open it for you, Patera!"

  "Patera Gulo, proceed with the sacrifice, please. I'll join you as soon as I can."