Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

Then we went back, Father and me, Juganu, and the bird. When we woke up in Capsicum's house, Juganu just fixed his face and went out. He never said a word to us. We watched to see if he really left the house, and he did. I think he was afraid we would kill him, and I would have if Father had not stopped me.

After that, Hide and Vadsig came with Mother from Lizard for the wedding, so this is everything I have got to write about, the things that I was the only one to see. I will let them and Daisy do the rest. I will criticize like they have been doing to me.

Wijzer gave the bride. Her dress was a simple one of white silk with a white lace veil, but her pearls and her beauty set the manteion buzzing. Gyrfalcon came, with an armed bodyguard of twenty men. If he had not, things would almost certainly have gone very differently, and we would not be writing this.

Nothing of that was known, of course, when Wijzer led her to the altar. What was known, and to half the town, was that a family that had never been considered prominent other than as the source of The Book of the Long Sun (a chronicle, generally factual, of events prior to the founding of New Viron) was now conceded to be very prominent indeed in politics and religion. Nettle, particularly, was courted by women who had previously scarcely deigned to speak to her; few, if any, dared ask whether the man assisting His Cognizance was in fact her husband.

He himself seemed happier than anyone had seen him before. At the bride's request, he read the second victim, a waterhorse. Everyone expected the usual platitudes.

Seconds built minutes, piling up like grains of sand. The whispered conversations fell away, and still he stood staring at the entrails of the snow-white victim he himself had provided.

"Mysire…?" the bride whispered.

Startled, he looked up. "I'm sorry. There is a great deal here."

Another minute passed.

"His Cognizance was good enough to permit this," he said when his gaze left the carcass of the waterhorse at last. "It may have been a mistake, as such things are commonly counted."

Everyone present sensed that he was inviting them to silence him, but no one attempted to.

"I see the hand of a god in it," he told them, "and since this victim was offered to the Outsider, we can assume that it is his. That being the case, I take this opportunity to tell you that he is the god of Blue. Have you never wondered who it is? We have other gods here already. There is a Scylla greater than the one we knew, for example. You should fear and respect-but not worship-her, lest you come to ill."

One of the wedding guests called out, "Pas!"

"He is not yet here, or at least, I do not believe he is. He will come, however. You or others like you will bring him, and Silk with him-Silk, whom you sent me to bring and whom I failed to bring."

He paused, regarding those who heard him through an eye that very few could meet. "They will come. But never forget what I tell you today: you belong to Blue, and to the Outsider."

He studied the carcass. "No doubt His Cognizance has often said here that one side of the victim represents the givers and performers of the sacrifice; the other, the congregation and the community. I repeat it because I know that there are some present who have seldom honored the gods since childhood.

"The presenters of this fine white waterhorse are my son Hide and my daughter-to-be Vadsig. For them, a long marriage and a largely, though not entirely, happy one."

There were chuckles.

"They will have six children."

He hesitated, and bent lower to see more clearly. "I see a great deal of paper as well."

Scattered laughter.

"Quills and ink, and a partnership with another couple.

"The performers are His Cognizance and myself. We shall soon separate, parting in friendship and regret. One shall be highly favored by a god."

From the congregation, Gyrfalcon asked, "Which god, Patera?"

He straightened up, clearing his throat. "Where no other identi fication is made, it is safe to assume that the god to which a prophecy refers is the one to whom the victim is offered. The other augur-if augur is meant-also shall win the favor-"

At that instant, Oreb flew in through a window. "Watch out! Watch out!"

"And undertake a long journey, from which he shall not return. Death may be intended."

"Bad things!"

Raising a finger to his lips, he gave the bird a stern glance; it settled upon his shoulder, repeating, "Bad things! Things fly!"

"The god's prophecy concerned with all of us is about to be fulfilled, I believe. Certainly the entrails warn that it is very imminent. Some of you have slug guns, I see. You will need them. Others may have less obvious weapons of other kinds, as I do. You may wish to consider how best to employ them. I remind those of you who are unarmed that no man or woman of courage and resource is ever entirely helpless."

"Good Silk?" his bird croaked; and then, "Silk fight?"

He turned to the Prolocutor. "Your Cognizance, I suggest that this victim be offered to the flames entire, and that the remainder of the ceremony proceed as swiftly as possible. We haven't much time."

As has been said, Captain Wijzer led Vadsig down the aisle, he proud and tearful in crimson velvet tunic and trousers, she radiantly lovely in watered silk dripping with pearls. Her bridal bouquet was of pink-and-white seaspume; its gracious perfume soothed the very smoke of sacrifice. Aunt Oxlip's daughters Sweetbay and Madrone were her train-bearers, and Capsicum's grandson bore the ring on a black silk pillow.

Everything went normally and even magnificently, until the lovers had exchanged vows, kissed, and started back up the aisle, bathed in the fervent good wishes of their guests, among whom Hoof and I were of course numbered.

"Watch out!" Oreb croaked. And then with an urgency that few if any had heard before: "Watch out!" A flying shape not quite a man swooped over the pews. It struck Hide with such violence as to knock him off his feet, an apparition of fangs and terrible claws that fell in a welter of blood and slime, cut through the waist.

The blade of an azoth, a thing more terrible than any inhumi, vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, then darted forth again to spear a second inhumu at an open window.

No coherent description of that famous fight is possible. Patera Remora (this is widely known) defended himself and his altar with the knife of sacrifice, as was written two hundred years ago of another augur favored by the gods. Capsicum, it is said, stabbed Gyrfalcon in the melee; certainly she herself was shot and killed by a member of his bodyguard. Weasel, her grandson and Marrow's, is said to have killed an inhumi and an inhuma, though he was only a boy. Captain Wijzer, five inhumi, twice strangling one with each hand.

It would be possible and even easy to multiply such reports to fill a hundred pages. Because they are omitted from all the other accounts, what we must emphasize here are the indescribable noise, the welter of blood, and the wild confusion. Everyone was screaming. Everyone was fighting, even those who would have fled if they could. No count of the numbers of the inhumi was or is possible. It has been said that half the inhumi on Blue at the time took part in the attack, but the assertion rests upon their own testimony, and of what value is that?

Those skilled in war report that an attacking force will scarcely ever sustain its attack when it has lost a third of its number. The best count of the dead inhumi (that of Legume, who was charged with burning their bodies) is one hundred and ninety-eight. If it is correct, and they fought as crack troopers do, their number was about six hundred. It seems probable, however, that it was considerably larger. We would propose one thousand.