Gene Wolfe: CALDE OF THE LONG SUN

found guilty on any charge, as I expect that you will be, I'll ask the

court to take into consideration whatever assistance you've rendered

our city in this time of crisis. Am I making myself clear?"

Blood glowered. "You extorted that property from me. You took

it under false pretences."

"I did." Silk nodded agreement. "I committed a crime to right the

wrong done to the people of our quarter by an earlier one. Why

should men like you be free to do whatever you wish whenever you

wish, guaranteed that you yourself will never be victimized? You

may, if you choose, complain about what I've done when peace has

been restored. You have a witness in the person of your mother."

He gave the lynx a last pat before pushing him away. "I wouldn't

advise you to call your adopted daughter, however. She's not

competent to testify, and she might tell the court about the nativity

of her pets."

"You had better not ask me to testify, either, Bloody," Maytera

Marble told him. "I'd have to tell the judge that you tried to bribe

our calde."

"They're coming," Mucor announced to Silk. "Councilior Loris has

finished talking to Councillor Tarsier through the glass. They've

decided to kill you and send your body back with the woman that

killed Musk."

Silk froze, his eyes on Blood.

Oreb squawked, "Watch out!"

Instinctively, Maytera Marble reached out to her son, a plea for

forgiveness and understanding.

His grip on the azoth tightened, and the shimmering horror that

was its blade divided the cosmos, leaving Maytera Marble on one

side and the hand she had held out to him on the other. It dropped

to the carpet as the hideous discontinuity swung up, showering them

with plaster and sundered lath. Silk shouted a warning; absurdly, he

tried to shield her from Blood's downward cut with Xiphias's cane.

Its thin wooden casing exploded in blazing splinters; but the

azoth's blade sprang back from the double-edged steel blade the

casing had concealed, having notched it to the spine.

It seemed to Silk then that his arm moved of itself--that he

merely watched it, a spectator fully as horrified as she, and fully as

separated from his arm's acts. As the door flew in with a crash, that

arm swung the ruined blade.

From behind Sergeant Sand and a second soldier equally soldier

large, Potto barked, "_Shoot him?_"

The notched blade slid forward, penetrating Blood's throat as

readily as the manteion's old bone-handled sacrificial knife had ever

entered that of a ram.

"Shoot the calde?" Sand's hand caught the other soldier's slug gun.

Blood's knees buckled as the light left his eyes. The double-edged

blade, scarlet to within a hand's breadth of the notch with Blood's

own blood, retreated from his throat.

"Yes, the calde!"

For a moment it seemed to Silk that Maytera Marble should have

knelt to catch Blood's blood; perhaps it seemed so to her as well, for

she crouched, her remaining hand extended to her son as he fell.

Silk turned, the sword still in his hand. Sand's slug gun was no

longer pointed at him, if it had ever been. Sand fired, and the

second soldier a fraction of a second after him. Potto fell, his

cheerful face slack with surprise.

"Take this, Patera." Maytera Marble was pressing Blood's azoth

into his free hand. "Take it before I kill you with it."

He did, and she took Xiphias's ruined sword from him, and with

its crook wedged between her small black shoes, contrived to wipe

its blade with a big handkerchief that she shook from her sleeve.

There was a clash of heels and a crash of weapons as Sand and the

second soldier saluted. Soldiers and men in silvered armor peering

around them began to salute as well. Silk nodded in response, and

when that seemed inadequate traced the sign of addition the air.

Epilogue

It had been hastily erected, Calde Silk reflected, studying the

triumphal arch that spanned the Alameda--very hastily. But surely

this new generalissimo from Trivigaunte would understand the

situation, would realize the difficulties they had labored under in

organizing a formal welcome in a city still at war with what remained

of its Ayuntamiento, and make allowances.

Now, this wind.

It stirred yellow dust from the gutters, whistled among the

chimneys, and shook the ramshackle arch until it trembled like an

aspen. Flowers covering the arch would have been nice, but that

moment of searing heat on Hieraxday had made flowers out of the

question. So much the better, Silk thought; this wind would surely

have stripped off every petal an hour ago. Even as he watched, a

long streamer of colored paper pulled free, becoming a flying jade

snake that mounted to the sky.

There the Trivigaunte airship fought its straining tether, so high

that its vast bulk appeared, if not festive, at least unthreatening.

From that airship, it should be simple to gauge the advance of

Generalissimo Siyuf's troops. Silk wished that there had been time

to arrange for signals of some sort: a flag hung from the gondola

when she entered the city, for example, or a smoke pot lit to warn

that she had been delayed. Rather to his own surprise, he discovered

that he was eager to go up in the airship himself, to see Viron

like the skylands again, and travel among the clouds as the fliers did.

There were a lot of them out today, riding this cold wind. More,

he decided, than he had ever seen before. A whole flock, like a

flight of storks, was just now appearing from behind the airship.

What city sent them forth to patrol the length of the sun, and what

good did those patrols do? Speculation about the Fliers had been

dismissed as bootless at the schola, until the Ayuntamiento had

condemned them as spies.

Had the Ayuntamiento known? Did Councillor Loris, who

wielded what authority remained to it, know now?

Might it not be possible to track Fliers in the airship, anchor at

last at that fabled city, learn its name, and offer whatever assistance

in its sacred labor Viron and Trivigaunte could provide?

(Buried, he had been wherever he had thought to be.)

A fresh gust, colder and wilder than any before it, roared up the

Alameda, shaking its raddled poplars like rats. To his right General

Saba stiffened, while he himself shivered without shame. He was

wearing the Cloak of Lawful Governance over his augur's robe; it

fell to his shoe-tops and was of the thickest tea-colored velvet, stiff

with gold thread. He ought to have been awash in his own

perspiration; he found himself wishing ardently for some sort of

head-covering instead. General Saba had a dust-colored military

cap and Generalissimo Oosik beyond her a tail helmet of green

leather topped with a plume, but he had nothing.

He recalled the broad-brimmed straw hat he had worn while

repairing the roof of the manteion--which would be missing more

shingles, surely, thanks to this wind. He had pulled that hat down so

that Blood's talus could not identify him later, and it had known him

by that.

(Dead by his hand, Blood and the talus both.)

He had lost that recollected hat somehow. Might not this wind

return it to him? All sorts of rubbish was blowing about, and

stranger things had happened.

His wound throbbed. Mentally he pushed it aside, forcing himself

to fill his lungs with cold air.

The shade had not climbed far yet, but what should have been a

bright streak of purest gold seemed faint, and flushed with brownish