Gene Wolfe: Nightside the Long Sun

“I bought those, as I think you know, using money I had saved while I was at the schola—money that my mother had sent to me—and with money I had saved here from the salary I receive from the Chapter. Do all of you realize that our manteion operates at a loss?”

The older ones did, as was plain from their expressions.

“It does,” Silk continued. “The gifts we receive on Scylsday, and at other times, aren’t enough to offset the very small salaries paid to our sibyls and me. Our taxes are in arrears—that means we owe money to the Juzgado, and we have various other debts. Occasionally animals are presented by benefactors, people who hope for the favor of the merciful gods. Perhaps your own parents are among them, and if they are we are very grateful to them. When no such victims are presented, our sibyls and I pool our salaries to buy a victim for Scylsday, generally a pigeon.

“But the lambs, as I said, I bought myself. Why do you think I did that, Addax?”

Addax, as old as Horn and with coloring nearly as light as Silk’s own, stood. “To foretell the future, Patera.”

Silk nodded as Addax resumed his seat. “Yes, to know the future of our manteion. The entrails of those lambs told me that it is bright, as you know. But mostly because I sought the favor of various gods and hoped to win it by gifts.” Silk glanced at the Sacred Window behind him. “I offered the first lamb to Pas and the second to Scylla, the patroness of our city. Those, so I thought, were all that I had funds for—a single white lamb for All-powerful Pas, and another for Scylla. And I asked, as I should tell you, for a particular favor—I asked that they appear to us again, as they did of old. I longed for assurances of their love, not thinking how needless they would be when ample assurances are found throughout the Chrasmologic Writings.” He tapped the worn book before him on the ambion.

“Late one evening, as I read the Writings, I came to understand that. I’d read them from boyhood—and never learned in all that time how much the gods love us, though they had told me over and over. Of what use was it, in that case, for me to have a copy of my own? I sold it, but the twenty bits it brought would not have bought another white lamb, or even a black lamb for Phaea, whose day this is. I bought a gray lamb instead, and offered it to all the gods, and the entrails of the gray lamb held the same messages of hope that I had read in the white lambs. Then I should have known, though I did not, that it was not one of the Nine who was speaking to us through the lambs. Today I learned the identity of that god, but I won’t tell you that today; there is still too much I have not understood.” Silk picked up the Writings and stared at the binding for a moment before he spoke again.

“This is the manteion’s copy. It’s the one that I read now, and it’s a better one—a better printed copy, with more extensive notes—than my old one, the one I sold so that I might make a gift to all the gods. There are lessons there, and I hope that every one of you will master them. Wrestle with them a while, if they seem too difficult for you at first, and never forget that it was to teach you these wrestlings that our palaestra was founded long ago.

“Yes, Kit? What is it?”

“Patera, is a god really going to come.”

Some of the older students laughed. Silk waited until they were quiet again before he replied. “Yes, Kit. A god will come to our Sacred Window, though we may have to wait a very long time. But we need not wait—we have their love and their wisdom here. Open these Writings at any point, Kit, and you’ll find a passage applicable to your present condition—to the problems you have today, or to the ones you’ll have to deal with tomorrow. How is this possible? Who will tell me?” Silk studied the blank faces before him before calling on one of the girls who had laughed loudest. “Answer, Ginger.”

She rose reluctantly, smoothing her skirt. “Because everything’s connected to everything else, Patera?” It was one of his own favorite sayings.

“Don’t you know, Ginger?”

“Because everything’s connected.”

Silk shook his head. “That everything in the whorl is dependent on every other thing is unquestionably true. But if that were the answer to my question, we ought to find any passage from any book as appropriate to our condition as one from the Chrasmologic Writings. You need only look into any other book at random to prove that it isn’t so. But,” he tapped the shabby cover again, “when I open this book, what will we find?”

He did so, dramatically, and read the line at the top of the page aloud: “‘Are ten birds to be had for a song?’”

The clarity of this reference to his recent transaction in the market stunned him, afrighting his thoughts like so many birds. He swallowed and continued. “‘You have daubed Oreb the raven, but can you make him sing?’

“I’ll interpret that for you in a moment,” he promised. “First I wish to explain to you that the authors of these Writings knew not only the state of the whorl in their time—and what it had been—but what was yet to come. I’m referring,” he paused, his eyes lingering on every face, “to the Plan of Pas. Everyone who understands the Plan of Pas understands the future. Am I making myself plain? The plan of Pas is the future, and to understand it and follow it is the principal duty of every man, and of every woman and each child.

“Knowing the Plan of Pas, as I said, the Chrasmatists knew what would best serve us each time this book would be opened—what would most firmly set your feet and mine upon the Aureate Path.”

Silk paused again to study the youthful faces before him; there was a flicker of interest here and there, but no more than a flicker. He sighed.

“Now we return to the lines themselves. The first, ‘Are ten birds to be had for a song?’ bears three meanings at least. As you grow older and learn to think more deeply, you’ll learn that every line of the Writings bears two meanings or more. One of the meanings here applies to me personally. I’ll explain that meaning in a moment. The other two have application to all of us, and I’m going to deal with them first.

“To begin, we must assume that the birds referred to are of the singing kind. Notice that in the next line, when the singing kind isn’t intended, that is made plain. What then, is signified by these ten singing birds? Children in class—that is to say yourselves—provide an obvious interpretation, surely. You’re called upon to recite for the good sibyls who are your teachers, and your voices are high, like the twitterings of songbirds. To buy something for a song is to buy it cheaply. The meaning, as we see, is: is this multitude of young scholars to be sold cheaply? And the answer is clearly, no. Remember, children, how much Great Pas values, and tells us over and over again that he values, every living creature in the whorl, every color and kind of berry and butterfly—and human beings above all. No, birds are not to be sold for a song; birds are precious to Pas. We don’t sacrifice birds and other animals to the immortal gods because they are of no value, do we? That would be insulting to the very gods.

“‘Are ten birds to be had for a song?’ No. No, you children are not to be sold cheaply.”

He had their interest now. Everyone was awake, and many were leaning forward in their seats. “For the second, we must consider the second line as well. Notice that ten singing birds might easily produce, not ten, but tens of thousands of songs.” For a moment the picture filled his mind as it had once, perhaps, filled that of the long-dead Chrasmologic author: a patio garden with a fountain and many flowers, its top covered with netting—bulbuls, thrushes, larks, and goldfinches, their voices weaving a rich fabric of melody that would stretch unbroken through decades and perhaps through a century, until the netting rotted and the birds flew free at last.