Gene Wolfe - Lake of the Long Sun

But who had made the tunnels, and what had been their purpose? Maytera Marble recalled the Short Sun. Did she remember the tunnels, the digging of the tunnels, and the uses of the tunnels as well?

Their room, which should have been cool, was over-warm-hotter than his bedroom in the manse, which was always too warm, always baking, though both its windows, the Silver Street window and the garden window, stood wide open, their thin white curtains flapping in a hot wind that did nothing to cool the room. All the while Doctor Crane waited outside with Maytera Marble, throwing chips of shiprock from the tunnels through his window to tell him that he must go back for Hyacinth's silver azoth.

Like smoke, he rose and drifted to the window. The dead flier floated there, his last breath bubbling from nose and mouth. Everyone drew a final breath eventually, not knowing it for the last. Was that what the flier had been trying to say?

The door burst open. It was Lemur. Behind him waited the monstrous black, red, and gold face of the fish that had devoured the woman who slept in the glass tube, the tube in which he himself now slept beside Chenille, who was Kypris,,who was Hyacinth, who was Mamelta, with Hyacinth's jet-black hair, which the fish had and would devour, snap, snap, snap, snapping monstrous jaws. ...

Silk sat up. The room was'wide and dark and silent, its warm, humid air retaining ihe memory of the sound that had awakened him. Crane stirred in the other bed.

It came again, a faint tapping, a knock like the rapid ticking of the little clock in his room in the manse.

"The Guard." Silk could not have explained how he knew.

Crane muttered, "Probably just a maid wanting to change the beds."

"It's still dark. The middle of the night." Silk swung his legs to the floor.

The lapping resumed. An annoyed Guardsman with a slug gun stood in the middle of Dock Street, scarcely visible in the cloud-dimmed sunlight. He waved as he caught sight of Silk at the window, then came to attention and saluted.

"It is the Guard," Silk said. By an effort of will, he kept his tone conversational. "I'm afraid they have us."

Crane sat up. "That's not a Guardsman's knock."

"There's one outside, watching our window." Silk slid back the bolt and swung the door wide. A uniformed captain of the Civil Guard saluted, the click of polished boot heels as sharp as the snap of the great fish's jaws. Behind the captain, another armored trooper saluted like the first, his flattened hand across the barrel of his slug gun.

"May every god favor you," Silk said, not knowing what else to say. He stood aside. "Would you like to come in?" "Thank you, My Calde."

Silk blinked.

They stepped over the threshold, the captain negligently elegant in his tailored uniform, the trooper immaculate in waxed green armor.

Crane yawned'. "You haven't come to arrest us?"

"No, no!" the captain said. "By no means. I've come to warn you-to warn our calde particularly-that there are others who will arrest him. Others who are searching for him even as we speak. I take it that you are Doctor Crane, sir? There are warrants for you both. You stand in urgent need of protection, and I have arrived. I am sorry to have disturbed your sleep, but delighted that I found you before the others did."

Silk said slowly, "This is happening because of an ill-considered remark of Councillor Lemur's, I believe."

"I know nothing of that, My Calde."

"Some god overheard him-I believe I can guess which. What time is it, Captain?"

"Three forty-five. My Calde."

"Too early to start back to the city, then. Sit-no, first bring the trooper who's watching our window inside. Then I want you to sit down, all three of you, and tell us what's been happening in Viron."

"It might be better to leave him where he is, My Calde, if we wish the others to believe I am arresting you."

"And now you've made the arrest." Silk picked up his trousers and sat on the bed to put them on. "Doctor Crane and I have been subdued and disarmed, so the man outside is no longer needed. Bring him in."

The captain motioned to the trooper, who strode to the window and gestured; the captain himself took a chair.

Silk slapped Crane's wrapping against the bedpost. "You addressed me as calde. Why did you do that?"

"Everyone knows, My Calde, that there is supposed to be a calde. The Charter, written by Our Patroness and Lord Pas himself, says so plainly-yet there has been no calde in twenty years."

Crane said, "But everything's gone along pretty well, hasn't it? The city's quiet?"

The captain shook his head. "Not really, Doctor." He glanced toward his trooper, then shrugged. "There was more rioting last night, and houses and shops were burned. An entire brigade was scarcely enough to defend the Palatine. Unbelievable! It gets a little worse each year. The heat has iT/ade things very bad this year, and the high prices in the market. . ." He shrugged again. "If the Ayuntamiento had asked my opinion, I would have advised buying up staples-corn and beans, the foods of the poor-and reselling them below cost. They did not ask, and I shall write my opinion in their blood."

Unexpectedly, the trooper said, "A goddess spoke to us, Calde."

The captain smoothed his thin mustache. "That is so, My Calde. We were signally honored yesterday at your manteion, where now the gods speak again."

Silk wound the wrapping about his ankle. "One of you understood her?" "We all did, My Calde. Not in the way that I understand you, and not in the way that you yourself would beyond doubt have understood her. Yet she told us plainly that what we had been ordered to do was blasphemy, that you are accounted sacred. By the favor of the goddess, your acolyte returned as she spoke. He can relate her message in her own words. The substance was that the immortal gods are displeased with our unhappy city, that they have chosen you to be our calde, and that all who resist you must perish. My own men-"

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door; the trooper opened it to admit his comrade.

"These men," the captain continued, "were ready to kill me if I insisted we carry out our orders, My Calde. I had no intention of doing so, however, you may be sure."

Silk received this in silence. When the captain had finished speaking, Silk pulled on his red tunic.

The trooper who had just come in glanced at his captain; he nodded, and the trooper said, "Everybody can see there's something wrong. Pas is holding back the rain, and there's all this heat. One crop after another's failing. My father had a good big pond, but we pumped it dry to water the corn. Now it's stayed dry all summer, and he was lucky to get ten quintals."

The captain cocked his head toward the trooper who had spoken as if to say you see the difficulties with which I must deal. "There is talk of digging canals from the lake, My Calde, but it will take years. Meanwhile the skies are locked against us, and every manteion in the city is silent except yours. Long before the goddess spoke, it was clear that the gods are displeased witli us. Many of us feel that it is equally obvious why. Are you aware. My Calde, that people all over the city have been chalking 'Silk for Calde' on walls?"

Silk nodded.

"Tonight my men and I have been doing a bit of chalking of our own. We write, 'Silk is Calde.' "

Crane chuckled dryly. "They mean the same thing, don't they, Captain? 'Silk will be killed if caught.' "

"Let us be grateful that it has not occurred, Doctor."

"I'm grateful, I can tell you that." Crane threw aside his sweat-soaked sheet. "But gratitude won't get the calde into theJuzgado. Can you suggest a place where we could hide until that's attended to?"

"I'm not going to hide," Silk told him. "I'm going back to my manteion."