Gene Wolfe: Nightside the Long Sun

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 which 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!”

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?”