Gene Wolfe: CALDE OF THE LONG SUN

Something black and scarlet landed with a thump upon his

sopping shoulder. "Bad boat! Sink."

It had not, as he saw when the talus heaved itself up onto the quay

again; Dace's boat lay on its side, the mast unshipped and tossing

like driftwood in the turbulent water.

Huge as a boulder, the talus's head swiveled around to glare at

them, revolving until it seemed its neck must snap. "_Five ride! The

small may go!_"

Auk glanced from the augur to the fisherman, and from him to

the hysterical Chenille, before he realized who was meant. "You can

beat the hoof if you want to, bird. He says he won't hurt you if you do."

"Bird stay," Oreb muttered. "Find Silk."

The talus's head completed its revolution, and the talus lunged

forward. Yellow light glared back at them, reflected from the

curved white side of the last tank, leaving the Sacred Window empty

and dead looking behind them. Sallow green lights winked into

being just above the talus's helmeted head, and the still-tossing

waters of the channel congealed to rough stone as the cavern

dwindled to a dim tunnel.

Auk put his arm around Chenille's waist. "Fancy a bit of company, Jugs?"

She wept on, sobs lost in the wind of their passage.

He released her, got out his needler, and pushed back the

sideplate; a trickle of gritty water ran onto his fingers, and he blew

into the mechanism. "Should be all right," he told Oreb, "soon as it

dries out. I ought to put a couple drops of oil on the needles,

though."

"Good girl," Oreb informed him nervously. "No shoot."

"Bad girl," Auk explained. "Bad man, too. No shoot. No go away,

either."

"Bad bird!"

"Lily." Gently, he kissed Chenille's inflamed back. "Lie down if

you want to. Lay your head in my lap. Maybe you can get a little

sleep."

As he pronounced the words, he sensed that they came too late.

The talus was descending, the tunnel angling downward, if only

slightly. The mouths of other tunnels flashed past to left and right,

darker even than the damp shiprock walls. Drops of water clinging

to the unchanging ceiling gleamed like diamonds, vanishing as they

passed.

The talus slowed, and something struck its great bronze head,

ringing it like a gong. Its buzz guns rattled and it spat a tongue of

blue fire.

"It would be better," Maytera Marble murmured to Maytera Mint,

"if you did it, sib."

Maytera Mint's small mouth fell open, then firmly closed.

Obedience meant obeying, as she had told herself thousands of times;

obedience was more than setting the table or fetching a plate of

cookies. "If you wish it, Maytera. High Hierax knows I have no

voice, but I suppose I must."

Maytera Marble sighed to herself with satisfaction, a hish from

the speaker behind her lips so soft that no ears but hers could hear it.

Maytera Mint stood, her cheeks aflame already, and studied the

congregation. Half or more were certainly thieves; briefly she

wondered whether even the images of the gods were safe.

She mounted the steps to the ambion, acutely conscious of the

murmur of talk filling the manteion and the steady drum of rain on

its roof; for the first time since early spring, fresh smelling rain was

stabbing through the god gate to spatter the blackened altartop--though

there was less now than there had been earlier.

Molpe, she prayed, Marvelous Molpe, for once let me have a

voice. "Some--" Deep breath. "Some of you do not know me..."

Few so much as looked at her, and it was apparent that those who

did could not hear her. How ashamed that gallant captain who had

showed her his sword would be of her now!

Please Kypris! Sabered Sphigx, great goddess of war .

There was a strange swelling beneath her ribs; through her mind a

swirl of sounds she had never heard and sights she had not seen: the

rumbling hoofbeats of cavalry and the booming of big guns. the

terrifying roars of Sphigx's lions, the silver voices of trumpets, and

the sharp crotaline clatter of a buzz gun. A woman with a bloodstained

rag about her head steadied the line: _Form up! Form Up!

Forward now! Forward! Follow me!_

With a wide gesture, little Maytera Mint drew a sword not even

she could see. "_Fr_iends!" Her voice broke in the middle of the word.

Louder, girl! Shake these rafters!

"Friends, some of you don't know who I am. I am Maytera Mint, a.

sibyl of this manteion." She swept the congregation with her eyes,

and saw Maytera Marble applauding silently; the babble of several

hundred voices had stilled altogether.

"The laws of the Chapter permit sacrifice by a sibyl when no augur

is present. Regrettably, that is the case today at our manteion. Few

of you, we realize, will wish to remain. There is another manteion

on Hat Street, a manteion well loved by all the gods, I'm sure,

where a holy augur is preparing to sacrifice as I speak. Toward the

market, and turn left. It's not far."

She waited hopefully, listening to the pattering rain; but not one

of the five hundred or so lucky enough to have seats stood, and none

of the several hundred standers in the aisles turned to go.

"Patera Silk did not return to the manse last night. As many of you

know, Guardsmen came here to arrest him&151"

The angry mutter from her listeners was like the growl of some

enormous beast.

"That was yesterday, when Kind Kypris, in whose debt we shall

always be, honored us for a second time. All of us feel certain that

there has been a foolish enor. But until Patera Silk comes back, we

can only assume that he is under arrest. Patera Cub, the worthy

augur His Cognizance the Prolocutor sent to assist Patera Silk,

seems to have left the manse early this morning, no doubt in the

hope of freeing him."

Maytera Mint paused, her fingers nervously exploring the

chipped stone of the ancient ambion, and glanced down at the

attentive worshipers crouched on the floor in front of the foremost

bench, and at the patchy curtain of watching faces that filled the

narthex arch.

"Thus the duty of sacrifice devolves upon Maytera Marble and

me. There are dozens of victims today. There is even an unspotted

white bull for Great Pas, such a sacrifice as the Grand Manteion

cannot often see." She paused again to listen to the rain, and for a

glance at the altar.

"Before we begin, I have other news to give you, and most

particularly to those among you who have come to honor the gods

not only today but on Scylsday every week for years. Many of you

will be saddened by what I tell you, but it is joyful news.

"Our beloved Maytera Rose has gone to the gods. in whose

service she spent her long life. For reasons we deem good and

proper, we have chosen not to display her mortal remains. That is

her casket there, in front of the altar.

"We may be certain that the immortal gods are aware of her

exemplary piety. I have heard it said that she was the oldest

biochemical person in this quarter, and it may well have been true.

She belonged to the last of those fortunate generations for which

prosthetic devices remained, devices whose principles are lost even

to our wisest. They sustained her life beyond the lives of the

children of many she had taught as children, but they could not

sustain it indefinitely. Nor would she have wished them to. Yester

day they failed at last, and our beloved sib was freed from the