Gene Wolfe - The Claw of the Conciliator

Merryn asked the Cumaean, “Shall I tell them, Mother?”

The old woman nodded. “If you can, child.”

“She has been imbued with a glamour that rendered her beautiful. It is fading fast now because of the blood she lost and because she has had a great deal of exercise. By morning only traces will remain.”

Dorcas drew back, “Magic, you mean?”

“There is no magic. There is only knowledge, more or less hidden.”

Hildegrin was staring at Jolenta with a thoughtful expression.

“I didn’t know looks could be changed so much. That might be useful, that might. Can your mistress do it?”

“She could do much more than this, if she willed it.”

Dorcas whispered, “But how was this done?”

“There have been substances drawn from the glands of beasts added to her blood, to change the pattern in which her flesh was deposited. Those gave her a slender waist, breasts like melons, and so on. They may have been used to add calf to her legs as well. Cleaning and the application of healthening broths to the skin freshened her face. Her teeth were cleaned too, and some were ground down and given false crowns — one has fallen away now, if you’ll look. Her hair was dyed, and thickened by sewing threads of colored silk into her scalp. No doubt much body hair was killed as well, and that at least will remain so. Most important, she was promised beauty while entranced. Such promises are believed with faith greater than any child’s, and her belief compelled yours.”

“Can nothing be done for her?” Dorcas asked.

“Not by me, and it is not a task of the kind the Cumaean undertakes, save in great need.”

“But she will live?”

“As the Mother told you — though she will not wish it.”

Hildegrin cleared his throat and spat over the side of the roof. “That’s settled then. We’ve done what we can for her, and it’s all we can do. So what I say is let’s get on with what we come for. Like you said, Cumaean, it’s good these others showed up. I got the message I was supposed to, and they’re friends of the Liege of Leaves, just like me. The armiger here can help me fetch up this Apu-Punchau, and what with my two fellows bein’ killed on the road, I’ll be glad to have him. So what’s to keep us from goin’ ahead?”

“Nothing,” the Cumaean murmured. “The star is in the ascendant.”

Dorcas said, “If we’re going to assist you with something, shouldn’t we know what it is?”

“Bringin’ back the past,” Hildegrin told her grandly. “Divin’ back into the time of old Urth’s greatness. There was somebody who used to live in this here place we’re sittin’ on that knew things that could make a difference. I intend to have him up. It’ll be the high point, if I may say it, of a career that’s already considered pretty spectacular in knowin’ circles.”

I asked, “You’re going to open the tomb? Surely, even with alzabo—”

The Cumaean reached out to smooth Jolenta’s forehead. “We may call it a tomb, but it was not his. His house, rather.”

“You see what with me workin’ so near,” Hildegrin explained, “I’ve been in the way to do this Chatelaine a favor now and again. More than one, if I may say it, and more than two. Finally I figured the time had come for me to collect. I mentioned my little plan to the Master of the Wood, you may be sure. And here we are.”

I said, “I had been given to understand that the Cumaean served Father Inire.”

“She pays her debts,” Hildegrin announced smugly. “Quality always does. And you don’t have to be a wise woman to know it might be wise to have a few friends on the other side, just in case that’s the side that wins.”

Dorcas asked the Cumaean, “Who was this Apu-Punchau and why is his palace still standing when the rest of the town is only tumbled stones?”

When the old woman did not reply, Merryn said, “Less than a legend, for not even scholars now remember his story. The Mother has told us that his name means the Head of Day. In the earliest eons he appeared among the people here and taught them many wonderful secrets. Often he vanished, but always he returned. At last he did not return, and invaders laid waste to his cities. Now he shall return for the last time.”

“Indeed. Without magic?”

The Cumaean looked up at Dorcas with eyes that seemed as bright as the stars. “Words are symbols. Merryn chooses to delimit magic as that which does not exist… and so it does not exist. If you choose to call what we are about to do here magic then magic lives while we do it. In ancient days, in a land far off, there stood two empires, divided by mountains. One dressed its soldiers in yellow, the other in green. For a hundred generations they struggled. I see that the man with you knows the tale.”

“And after a hundred generations,” I said, “an eremite came among them and counseled the emperor of the yellow army to dress his men in green, and the master of the green army that he should clothe it in yellow. But the battle continued as before. In my sabretache, I have a book called The Wonders of Urth and Sky , and the story is told there.”

“That is the wisest of all the books of men,” the Cumaean said. “Though there are few who can gain any benefit from reading it. Child, explain to this man, who will be a sage in time, what we do tonight.”

The young witch nodded. “All time exists. That is the truth beyond the legends the epopts tell. If the future did not exist now, how could we journey toward it? If the past does not exist still, how could we leave it behind us? In sleep the mind is encircled by its time, which is why we so often hear the voices of the dead there, and receive intelligence of things to come. Those who, like the Mother, have learned to enter the same state while waking live surrounded by their own lives, even as the Abraxas perceives all of time as an eternal instant.”

There had been little wind that night, but I noticed now that such wind as there had been had died utterly. A stillness hung in the air, so that despite the softness of Dorcas’s voice her words seemed to ring. “Is that what this woman you call the Cumaean will do, then? Enter that state, and speaking with the voice of the dead tell this man whatever it is he wishes to know?”

“She cannot. She is very old, but this city was devastated whole ages before she came to be. Only her own time rings her, for that is all her mind comprehends by direct knowledge. To restore the city, we must make use of a mind that existed when it was whole.”

“And is there anyone in the world that old?”

The Cumaean shook her head. “In the world? No. Yet such a mind exists. Look where I point, child, just above the clouds. The red star there is called the Fish’s Mouth, and on its one surviving world there dwells an ancient and acute mind. Merryn, take my hand, and you, Badger, take the other. Torturer, take the right hand of your sick friend, and Hildegrin’s. Your paramour must take the sick woman’s other hand, and Merryn’s… Now we are linked, men to one side, women to the other.”

“And we’d best do somethin’ quick,” Hildegrin grumbled. “There’s a storm comin’, I would say.”

“We shall, as quickly as may be. Now I must use all minds, and the sick woman’s will be of little help. You will feel me guiding your thought. Do as I bid you.” Releasing Merryn’s hand for a moment, the old woman (if she were in truth a woman at all) reached into her bodice and drew out a rod whose tips vanished into the night as if they were at the borders of my field of vision, though it was hardly longer than a dagger. She opened her mouth; I thought she meant to hold the rod between her teeth, but she swallowed it. A moment later I could detect its glowing image, muted and tinged with crimson below the sagging skin of her throat.