Gene Wolfe - CALDE OF THE LONG SUN

Maytera? We know they do. We know it is.

"You see this sword?" The denied self spoke through her, so that

she--the little Maytera Mint who had, for so many years, thought

herself the only Maytera Mint--listened with as much amazement as

the crowd, as ignorant as they of what her next word might be. "You

carry these, many of you. And knives and needlers, and those little

lead clubs that nobody sees that strike so hard. And only Hierax

himself knows what else. But are you ready to pay the price?"

She brandished the hunting sword above her head. There was a

white stallion among the victims; a flash of the blade or some note in

her voice made him rear and paw the air, catching his presenter by

surprise and lifting him off his feet.

"For the price is death. Not death thirty or forty years from now,

but death now! Death today! These things say, _I will not cower to

you! Jam no slave, no ox to be led to the butcher! Wrong me, wrong

the gods, and you die! For I fear not death or you!_"

The roar of the crowd seemed to shake the street.

"So say the Writings to us, friends, at this manteion. That is the

second meaning." Maytera Mint returned the sword to its owner.

"Thank you, sir. It's a beautiful weapon."

He bowed. "It's yours anytime you need it, Maytera, and a hard

hand to hold it."

At the altar, Maytera Marble had poised the shallow bowl of

polished brass that caught falling light from the sun. A curl of smoke

arose from the splintered cedar, and as Maytera Mint watched, the

first pale, almost invisible flame.

Holding up her long skirt, she trotted down the steps to face the

Sacred Window with outstretched arms. "Accept, all you gods, the

sacrifice of this holy sibyl. Though our hearts are torn, we, her

siblings and her friends, consent. But speak to us, we beg, of times

to come, hers as well as ours. What are we to do? Your lightest word

will be treasured."

Maytera Mint's mind went blank--a dramatic pause until she

recalled the sense, though not the sanctioned wording, of the rest of

the invocation. "If it is not your will to speak. we consent to that,

too." Her arms fell to her sides.

From her place beside the altar, Maytera Marble signaled the first

presenter.

"This fine white he-goat is presented to..." Once again, Maytera

Mint's memory failed her.

"Kypris," Maytera Marble supplied.

To Kypris, of course. The first three sacrifices were all for Kypris.

who had electrified the city by her theophany on Scylsday. But what

was the name of the presenter?

Maytera Mint looked toward Maytera Marble, but Maytera

Marble was, strangely, waving to someone in the crowd.

"To Captivating Kypris, goddess of love, by her devout

supplicant--?"

"Bream," the presenter said.

"By her devout supplicant Bream." It had come at last, the

moment she had dreaded most of all. "Please, Maytera, if you'd do

it, please...?" But the sacrificial knife was in her hand, and

Maytera Marble raising the ancient wail, metal limbs slapping the

heavy bombazine of her habit as she danced.

He-goats were supposed to be contumacious, and this one had

long, curved horns that looked dangerous; yet it stood as quietly as

any sheep, regarding her through sleepy eyes. It had been a pet, no

doubt, or had been raised like one.

Maytera Marble knelt beside it, the earthenware chalice that had

been the best the manteion could afford beneath its neck.

I'll shut my eyes, Maytera Mint promised herself, and did not.

The blade slipped into the white goat's neck as easily as it might

have penetrated a bale of white straw. For one horrid moment the

goat stared at her, betrayed by the humans it had trusted all its life;

it bucked, spraying both sibyls with its lifeblood, stumbled, and

rolled onto its side.

"Beautiful," Maytera Marble whispered. "Why, Patera Pike

couldn't have done it better himself."

Maytera Mint whispered back, "I think I'm going to be sick," and

Maytera Marble rose to splash the contents of her chalice onto the

fire roaring on the altar, as Maytera Mint herself had so often.

The head first, with its impotent horns. Find the joint between the

skull and the spine, she reminded herself. Good though it was, the

knife could not cut bone.

Next the hooves, gay with gold paint. Faster! Faster! They would

be all afternoon at this rate; she wished that she had done more of

the cooking, though they had seldom had much meat to cut up. She

hissed, "You must take the next one, sib. Really, you must!"

"We can't change off now!"

She threw the last hoof into the fire, leaving the poor goat's legs

ragged, bloody stumps. Still grasping the knife, she faced the

Window as before. "Accept, O Kind Kypris, the sacrifice of this fine

goat. And speak to us, we beg, of the days that are to come. What

are we to do? Your lightest word will be treasured." She offered a

silent prayer to Kypris, a goddess who seemed to her since Scylsday

almost a larger self. "Should you, however, choose otherwise..."

She let her arms fall. "We consent. Speak to us, we beg, through

this sacrifice."

On Scylsday, the sacrifices at Orpine's funeral had been

ill-omened to say the least. Maytera Mint hoped fervently for better

indicants today as she slit the belly of the he-goat.

"Kypris blesses..." Louder. They were straining to hear her.

"Kypris blesses the spirit of our departed sib." She straightened up

and threw back her shoulders. "She assures us that such evil as

Maytera did has been forgiven her."

The goat's head bunt in the fire, scattering coals: a presage of

violence. Maytera Mint bent over the carcass once more, struggling

frantically to recall what litfie she knew of augury--remarks

dropped at odd moments by Patera Pike and Patera Silk, half-hearted

lessons at table from Maytera Rose, who had spoken as

much to disgust as to teach her.

The right side of the beast concerned the presenter and the augur

who presided, the giver and the performer of the sacrifice; the left

the congregation and the whole city. This red liver foretold deeds of

blood, and here among its tangled veins was a knife, indicating the

augur--though she was no augur--and pointing to a square, the

square stem of mint almost certainly, and the hilt of a sword. Was

she to die by the sword? No, the blade was away from her. She was

to hold the sword, but she had already done that, hadn't she?

In the entrails a fat little fish (a bream, presumably) and a jumble

of circular objects, necklaces or rings, perhaps. Certainly that

interpretation would be welcomed. They lay close to the bream, one

actually on top of it, so the time was very near. She mounted the

first two steps.

"For the presenter. The goddess favors you. She is well pleased

with your sacrifice." The goat had been a fine one, and presumably

Kypris would not have indicated wealth had she not been gratified.

"You will gain riches, jewels and gold particularly. within a short

time."

Grinning from ear to ear, Bream backed away.

"For all of us and for our city, violence and death, from which

good will come." She glanced down at the carcass, eager to be

certain of the sign of addition she had glimpsed there; but it had

gone, if it had ever existed. "That is all that I can see in this victim,

though a skilled augur such as Patera Silk could see much more, I'm

sure."

Her eyes searched the crowd around the altar for Bream. "The