Gene Wolfe - Lake of the Long Sun

He sneezed.

The reek of smoke had increased, and now his feet were sinking into some soft, dry substance; moreover he saw, not more than a few steps ahead, a fleck of dull red such as he had only too seldom observed in the firebox of the kitchen stove. It was an ember, he felt sure; when he reached it, went to his knees in the dark invisible softness, and blew gently, he knew that he had been correct. He twisted one of the sheets from his pen case into a spill and applied its end to the brightened ember.

Ashes.

Ashes everywhere. He stood upon the lowest slope of a great gray drift that blocked the tunnel entirely on one side, and on the other rose so high that he would be forced to stoop if he was not to knock his head against the ceiling.

He hurried forward, anxious to pass that narrow opening (as the earlier walker, who had left tracks there, had done) before the feeble yellow flame from the spill flickered out. It was difficult going; he sank in ash nearly to his knees at every step, and the fine haze that his hurrying feet stirred up clutched at his throat.

He sneezed again, and this time his sneeze was answered by an odd, low stridulation, louder and deeper than the noise of even a very large broken clock, yet something akin to it.

The flame of the spill was almost touching his fingers; he shifted his hold on the spill and puffed its flame higher, then dropped it, having seen its glow reflected in four eyes.

He shouted as he sometimes shouted at rats in the manse, snatched the azoth from his waistband, waved its deadly blade in the direction of the eyes, and was rewarded by a shriek of pain. It was quickly followed by the boom of a slug gun and a soft avalanche of ash that left him half buried.

The slug gun spoke again, its hollow report evoking a half-human screech. A strong light pierced swirling clouds of ash, and a creature that seemed half dog and half devil fled past him, stirring up more ash. As soon as he could catch his breath he shouted for help; minutes passed before two soldiers, thick-limbed chems two full heads taller than he, found him and jerked him unceremoniously out of the ash.

"You're under arrest," the first told him, shining his light in Silk's face. It was not a lantern or a candle, or any other portable lighting device with which Silk was familiar; lie stared at it, much too interested to be frightened.

"Who are you?" asked the second.

"Patera Silk, from the manteion on Sun Street." Silk sneezed yet again while trying hopelessly to brush the ash from his clothes.

"You come down the chute, Patera? Put your hands where I can see them. Both hands."

He did so, displaying their palms to show that both were empty.

"This is a restricted area. A military area. What are you doing here, Patera?"

"I'm lost. I hoped to speak to the Ayuntamiento about a spy some foreign city has sent into Viron, but I got lost in these tunnels. And then-" Silk paused, at a loss for words. "Then all this."

The first soldier said, "They send for you?" And the second, "Are you armed?"

"They didn't send for me. Yes, I've got a needler in my trousers pocket." Inanely he added, "A very small one."

"You planning to shoot us with it?" The first soldier sounded amused.

"No. I was concerned about the spy I told you about. I believe he may have confederates."

The first soldier said, "Pull out that needler, Patera. We want to see it."

Reluctantly, Silk displayed it.

The soldier turned his light upon his own mottled steel chest. "Shoot me."

"I'm a loyal citizen," Silk protested. "I wouldn't want to shoot one of our soldiers."

The soldier thrust the gaping muzzle of his slug gun at Silk's face. "You see this? It shoots a slug of depleted uranium as long as my thumb and just about as big around. If you won't shoot me, I'm going to shoot you, and mine will blow your head apart like a powder can. Now shoot."

Silk fired; the crack of the needler seemed loud in the tunnel. A bright scratch appeared on the soldier's massive chest.

"Again."

"What would be the point?" Silk dropped the needler back into his pocket.

"I was giving you another chance, that's all." The first soldier handed his light to the second. "All right, you've had your turn. Give it to me."

"So that you can shoot me with it? It would kill me."

"Maybe not. Hand it over, and we'll see."

Silk shook his head. "You said I was under arrest. If I am, you have to send for an advocate, provided I wish to engage one. I do. His name is Vulpes, and he has chambers on Shore Street in Limna, which can't be far from here."

The second soldier chuckled, a curiously inhuman sound like a steel rule run along the teeth of a rack. "Leave him alone, corporal. I'm Sergeant Sand, Patera. Who's this spy you were talking about?"

"I prefer to reserve that unless asked by a member of the Ayuntamiento."

Sand leveled his slug gun. "Bios like you die all the time down here, Patera. They wander in and most of them never get out. I'll show you one in a minute, if you're not dead yourself. They die and they're eaten, even the bones. Maybe there's scraps of clothes, maybe not. That's the truth, and for your sake you'd better believe me."

"I do." Silk rubbed his palms on his thighs to get off as much ash as he could.

"Our standing orders are to kill anybody who endangers Viron. If you know about a spy and won't tell us, that's you, and you're no better than a spy yourself. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Silk nodded reluctantly.

"Corporal Hammerstone was playing with you. He wouldn't really have shot you, just roughed you up a little. I'm not playing." Sand pushed off the safety of his slug gun with an audible click. "Name the spy!"

It was difficult for Silk to make himself speak: another moral capitulation in what seemed to be an endless series of such capitulations. "His name is Crane. Doctor Crane."

Hammerstone said, "Maybe he heard it too."

"I doubt it. What time did you come down here, Patera? Any idea?"

Doctor Crane would be arrested, and eventually shot or sent to the pits; Silk recalled how Crane had winked, pointing to the ceiling as he said, "Somebody up there likes you, some infatuated goddess, I should imagine." At which he, Silk, had known that Hyacinth had provided the object Crane had passed to him, and guessed that it was her azoth.

Sand said, "Make a guess if you can't be sure, Patera. This's Molpsday, pretty late. About when was it?"

"Shortly before noon, I believe-perhaps about eleven. I'd ridden the first wagon from Viron, and I must have spent at least an hour in Limna before I started up the Pilgrims' Way to Scylla's shrine."

Hammerstone asked, "Did you use the glass there?"

"No. Is there one? If there is, I didn't see it."

"Under the plaque that tells who built it. You lift it up and there's a glass."

Sand said, "What he's getting at, Patera, is that some news came over our glass at Division Headquarters before we jumped off tonight. It seems like Councillor Lemur caught himself a spy, in person. A doctor called Crane."

"Why, that's wonderful!"

Sand cocked his head. "What is? Finding out that you came down here for nothing?"

"No, no! It's not that." For the first time since Oreb had left him, Silk smiled. "That it won't be my fault. That it isn't. I felt it was my duty to tell somebody everything I'd learned-someone in authority, who could take action. I knew Crane would suffer as a result. That he'd probably die, in fact."

Sand said almost gently, "He's just a bio, Patera. You get built inside each other, so there's millions of you. One more or less doesn't matter." He started back up the hill of ash, sinking deeply at every step but making steady progress in spite of it. "Fetch him along, Corporal."