Gene Wolfe - Lake of the Long Sun

Silk stood and limped slowly to the ambion. "All of you are entitled to hear-"

His voice seemed nonexistent. His tongue and lips had moved, and air had passed them, but no trumpeter could have made himself heard above the din.

Silk raised his hands and looked at the Sacred Window again. It was a shimmering gray, as empty as if no goddess had ever spoken through it. Yesterday in the yellow house on Lamp Street, the goddess had told him that she would speak to him again soon, repeating soon.

She kept her word, he thought.

Almost idly it occurred to him that the registers behind the Sacred Window would no longer be empty, as he had always seen them. One would show a single one, now; the other would display the length of the goddess's theophany, in units that no living person understood. He wanted to look at them, to verify the reality of what he had just seen and heard.

"All of you are entitled to hear-" His voice sounded weak and reedy, but at least he could hear it.

All of you are entitled to hear yourselves speaking when you could not hear yourselves at all, he thought. All of you are entitled to know how you felt and what you said to the goddess, or wanted to say-though most of us never will. The tumult was subsiding now, falling like a wave on the lake. Strongly, Silk told himself, from the diaphragm. They had praised him for this at the schola.

"You are entitled to know what the goddess said, and the name that she gave. It was Kypris; and that is not a name from the Nine, as you know." Before he could stop himself, he added, "You are entitled to know as well, that Kypris has previously appeared to me in a private revelation."

She had told him not to speak of that, and now he had; he felt sure that she would never forgive him, as he would never forgive himself.

"Kypris is mentioned seven times in the Writings, where it is said that she always takes an interest in-in-in young women. Women of marriageable age, who are young. No doubt she took an interest in Orpine. I feel sure she must have."

They were almost quiet now, many listening intently; but his mind was still whelmed by the wonder of the goddess, and barren of cohesive thought.

"Comely Kypris, who has so favored us, is mentioned upon seven occasions in the Chrasmologic Writings. I think I said that before, though some of you may not have heard it. White doves and white rabbits are to be offered her, which was why we had those doves. The doves were supplied by her mother-I mean by Orpine's mother, by Orchid."

Providentially, he remembered something more. "In the Writings she is honored as the most favored companion of Pas among the minor gods."

Silk paused and swallowed. "I said you were entitled to hear everything that she said. That is what is called for by the canon. Unfortunately, I cannot adhere to that canon as I would wish. A part of her message was directed to the chief mourner alone. I must deliver that in private, and I'll try to arrange to do that as soon as I am finished here."

The sea of faces stirred. Even the mutes were listening with wide eyes and open mouths.

"She-I mean Comely Kypris-said three things. One was the private message that I must deliver. She said also that she would prophesy, in order that you would believe. I don't think there's anyone here who does not, not now. But possibly some of us might question her theophany later. Or possibly she intended our whole city, all of us in Viron.

"Her prophesy was this: there will be a great crime, a successful one, here in Viron. She spreads her mantle above the-the criminals, and because of it they will succeed."

Shaken and trying frantically to collect his wits, Silk fell silent. He was rescued by a man sitting near Auk, who shouted, "When? When'll it be?"

"Tonight." Silk cleared his throat. "She said it would be tonight."

The man's jaw snapped shut, and he stared about him. "The third was this: that she would come again to this Sacred Window, soon. I asked her-you must have heard me, some of you. I implored her to come back, and she said she would, and soon. That-that's everything I can tell you now."

He saw Maytera Marble's bowed head, and sensed that she was praying for him, praying that he would somehow receive the strength and presence of mind that he so clearly needed. The knowledge itself strengthened him.

"And now I must request that the chief mourner come up here. Orchid, my daughter, please join me. We must retire to-to a private place, in order that I can deliver the goddess's message to you."

He would take her out the side door and into the garden, and thinking of the garden reminded him of the heifer and the other victims. "Please remain where you are, all of you. Or leave if you like, and let others join in the sacred meal. That would be a meritorious act. As soon as I have conveyed the goddess's message, we will proceed with Orpine's rites."

He had left Blood's lioness-headed walking stick behind the Sacred Window; he retrieved it before they started down the stair to the side door. "There are seats in the arbor, outside. I have to take off this thing around my leg and-and beat it against something. I hope you won't mind."

Orchid did not reply.

It was not until he stepped out into the garden that Silk realized how hot it had been in the manteion, near the altar fire. The whole place seemed to glow; the rabbits lay on their sides gasping for breath, and Maytera Marble's herbs were wilting almost visibly; but to him the hot, dry wind felt cool, and the burning bar that was the midday sun, which should have struck him like a blow, seemed without force.

"I ought to have something to drink," he said. "Water, I mean. Water's all we have. No doubt you should, too."

Orchid said, "All right," and he led her to the arbor and limped into the kitchen of the manse, pumped and pumped until the water came, then doused his head in the gushing stream.

Outside again, he handed Orchid a tumbler of water, sat down, and filled another for himself from the carafe he had brought. "It's cold, at least. I'm sorry I don't have wine to offer you. I'll have some in a day or two, thanks to you; but there wasn't time this morning."

"I have a headache," Orchid said. "This's what I need." And then, "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"The goddess? Oh, yes! She was-she's lovely. No artist-"

"I meant Orpine." Orchid had emptied her tumbler; as she spoke she held it out to be refilled, and Silk nodded as he tilted the carafe.

"Don't you think that was one reason why this goddess came? I'd like to think so anyhow, Patera. And it might be true."

Silk said, "I had better give you the goddess's message now-I've already waited too long. She said that I was to tell you that no one who loves something outside herself can be wholly bad. That Orpine had saved you for a while, but that you must find something else to save you now. That you must find something new to love."

Orchid sat silent for what seemed to Silk a long while. The white heifer, lying beneath the dying fig tree, moved to a more comfortable position and began to chew her cud. The people waiting in Sun Street, on the other side of the garden wall, were chattering excitedly among themselves. Silk could not understand, though he could easily guess, what they were saying.

At last she murmured, "Does love really mean more than life, Patera? Is it more important?"

"I don't know. I think it may be."

"I would've said I loved a lot of other things." Her mouth twisted in a bitter grin. "Money, just for starters. Only I gave you a hundred cards for this, didn't I? Maybe that shows I don't love it as much as I thought."

Silk groped for words. "The gods have to speak to us in our own language, a language that we are always corrupting, because it's the only one we understand. They, perhaps, have a thousand words for a thousand different kinds of love, or ten thousand words for ten thousand; but when they talk to us, they must say 'love,' as we do. I think that at times it must blur their meaning."