Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

He straightened up, lifting the knobbed staff over the battlement and tapping the uneven surface on which he stood. "You're not. We have no way of doing that, and I'm not at all certain this roof would support your weight. I know Mucor, as I said; and she's been willing to do favors for me in the past. If I find her, I'll bring her to you." He weighed the morality of this statement for a moment and added, "Or send her."

Before Pig could object, he turned away. Once the questing tip of his staff found an aching void where the glass roof of the conservatory had been; after that, he stepped cautiously and stayed so near the battlement that from time to time his left leg brushed its merlons.

"Wall come," Oreb warned.

The tip of his staff discovered it. His hands, groping by instinct, found a window. He pushed aside what remained of a broken shutter. "Right here," he told Oreb. "Here it is, just as I imagined it. Is there anyone in there?"

"No man. No girl."

He put his staff through the window, turned it sidewise, and used it to pull himself up while the toes of his well-worn shoes scrabbled the wall. "This is the place, I feel sure. This was Mucor's room, the first room Silk entered when he broke into this house."

His staff discovered only the floor, and empty space. He asked, "Is there furniture in here, Oreb? A table? Anything of that kind?" Putting a hand on the wall, he took a cautious step, then another. "In Silk's day, the door was barred from outside," he told the darkness, "but it seems unlikely that's still the case." There was no reply. After half a minute more of cautious exploration he called, "Oreb? Oreb?" but no bird answered.

"Have you been bad?"

The voice seemed achingly remote. Aloud he said, "As if the speaker were in fact on Blue. As you are, I believe."

Silence and darkness, and the weight of years.

"I'd like to talk to you, Mucor. I've something to tell you and something to ask you, and a favor to ask as well. Won't you talk to me?"

The distant voice did not return. His fingers found the door and pulled it open.

"Have you been bad?"

He thought of Green and the war fought and lost there, of delectable nights with a one-armed lover whose lips had tasted of the saltsweet sea. "Yes, I have. Many times."

As though she had always been there, Mucor stood before him. "You came looking for me." It was not a question.

"Yes, to tell you that I'm here, and that I'm looking for eyes for your grandmother. I promised her I would."

"You've been gone a long time."

He nodded humbly. "I know. I've done my best to find Silk, but I haven't found him. I'm still looking."

"You will find him." Her tone admitted of no doubt.

"I will?" His heart leaped. "That's wonderful! Are you sure, Mucor? Do you really know the future, as gods do?"

She stood silent before him, no larger than a child, her face a skull, her lank black hair falling to her waist.

"You look…" He groped for words. "Like-the way you did the first time I saw you."

"Yes."

"As if you have starved almost to death. I-I thought that sailors brought your food there on your island, that you and your grandmother caught fish."

"You've been gone a long time," she repeated. This time she added, "I haven't."

"I see-or at least believe I see. Certainly I see you, which reminds me of the favor I must ask in a moment; before I do, where will I find Silk?"

"In whatever place you go."

"In Viron? Thank you, I'm sure you must be correct. Will you, Mucor, as a great favor to me, go outside and talk-if only just for a moment-to my friend Pig?"

In an instant she was gone, and he was left in darkness. Retracing his steps, he found her window again and looked out. He could see nothing, only darkness beyond that of any natural night. He heard Pig's voice, and although he could not make out what Pig had said, that voice overflowed with joy. There was a hiatus, a half minute of silence. Pig's deep tones came again, trembling and so freighted with exaltation that he knew Pig was near to weeping.

Hound stroked the donkey's smooth, soft nose, saying, "There, there. Nothing to worry about." The donkey (it was Tortoise, not the one Hound rode) seemed in less than full agreement, although determined to be polite.

"If there were wolves about, I'd know it, wouldn't I?" Hound stepped back and twirled his burning stick, whose faint flame had nearly died away. It made a pretty pattern of sparks, and fanned the flame enough to show the fearful donkeys huddled together with their forelegs hobbled.

"Bird back!" Oreb settled on one of Scylla's outstretched arms. "Bird back. Silk back. Come fire."

"I'm glad to hear it," Hound said, "I've been worrying about him. He and Pig have been gone a long time." Hound went through the portico and re-entered what had been Blood's reception hall. "There you are! Is everything all right, Horn?"

"No." He turned away from the fire. "May I have some more of your wine?"

"Go right ahead. Empty the bottle. There's not much left."

"Thank you."

"You look tired." Hound sat down next to him. "Maybe it's just the firelight. I hope so. But you don't look well."

"Good Silk," Oreb muttered, perching on his shoulder.

"I-" He drank, and put down the bottle. "That doesn't matter. I owe you an apology, and offer it freely. Before I left, I drank your good wine for a bad reason, which is a species of crime. There's something sacred about wine. Have you noticed?"

Hound shrugged. "It belongs to some minor god or other. But then everything does that doesn't belong to one of the Nine."

"To Thyone's son. Isn't it odd that I should remember it? Supposedly, there is no less significant fact in religion, yet that one has stuck with me. I recalled it when Nettle and I wrote our book about Patera Silk, and I recall it now. May I have some more?"

"Certainly." Hound handed him the bottle again.

"Wine is sacred to Thelxiepeia because it intoxicates and intoxication is hers, like magic, paradoxes, illusions and other things of that sort. But wine in and of itself is sacred to Thyone's son. Thyone is a very minor goddess."

"I don't mean to change the subject," Hound said, "but do you know what has become of Pig?"

"I do and I don't."

"Poor Pig!" Oreb croaked.

Both men were silent, looking into the fire; then Hound said, "You can't tell me what happened to him?"

"Nor what happened to me, though I suppose I'll talk about it when I've ordered my thoughts a bit more."

"Wise Silk!"

He smiled. "That's the sort of the thing Hammerstone was always saying about Patera Incus. Is Incus Prolocutor now?"

Hound nodded. "I think that's the name."

"That's very well. He may be willing to help me. There's only a swallow left, wouldn't you like it? Here."

"I've had more than my share already. I've been trying to remember the bad purpose you mentioned, and I can't. Wine does that to you, makes you forget. All that I can think of is that you said it might keep away ghosts, but not the ghost of the ugly daughter. You wanted to see her."

He nodded. "That was the bad purpose-keeping off the ghosts. We always go wrong when we use it for something other than itself, Hound. It's meant to be a beverage, a pleasant, refreshing drink, next to good cold water the best we have. When we use it for something else-to make us forget, which is what I meant when I said it might keep off the ghosts-or to warm us when we are chilled, we pervert it. Have you noticed, by the way, that it's no longer as hot as it was?"

Hound smiled. "You're right. Praise Pas!"

"No, not at all. Pas is the sun god, and it is blowing out the Long Sun that has cooled the whorl for us. I mentioned the son of Thyone. He's called that because no one knows his name-or much of anything else about him save that he's dark, and that wine is sacred to him. Am I boring you? We don't have to talk about this."