Gene Wolfe - Exodus from the Long Sun

“I — ah — no. I have none, I confess.”

“Do you have a secret that would let Potto and the other councillors return to power in defiance of the gods?”

“I would — um — General. Be safer not, eh? Not to speak upon such, er, topics.”

“It certainly would if you had one, Your Eminence. Do you?” She was trying fo forget how thirsty she was.

“Positively not. Not privy to military matters, eh?”

“Neither do I, Your Eminence, so let them listen all they want.” It was ecstasy to take her shoes off; for half a minute she debated taking off her long black stockings, too, but selfcontrol prevailed. “By now Bison’s taken charge. Or someone else has, but probably it’s Bison. He was my best officer, absolutely steady in a crisis but not very imaginative. If he can find somebody a little more creative to advise him, Bison should give the Ayuntamiento a very difficult time.”

“I am, er, suffused with pleasure at the prospect.”

“So am I, Your Eminence. I just hope it’s true.” She leaned back against the wall.

“You will, um, reproach me.”

“Never, Your Eminence.”

“You, or others. One never lacks for, um, critics? Patera Feelers. Faultfinders. You will — um — er — vociferate that as a, um, intermediary I must restrain my partisanship.”

She laid her arms on her knees, and her head upon her arms.

“I rejoin, General, by, er, asseverating that I have done so. And do so, eh? In our, um, current instance and beyond, hey? It is not partisanship but reason, hey? I am a man of peace. I have so, um, declared myself. Under flag of truce, eh? Having consulted Brigadier Erne. Having likewise consulted Calde Silk. Brought the, um, exceedingly significant — hum. You, General. I brought you to discuss, er, armistice. An — ah — feat of diplomacy? Triumph. Is my, er, our persons. Are they respected? They are not!”

“I’m going to stretch out, if that won’t upset you, Your Eminence. I’ll tuck my skirt around my legs.”

“No, no, Mayt — General. I can scarcely make out your, ah, self in this — er — stygian. There is one quarrel that cannot be mediated, hey?”

“We certainly haven’t succeeded in mediating this one.”

“I refer to the quarrel between good and, um, evil. Yes, evil. As a man of the cloth, an augur erstwhile destined, eh? Destined for — ah — greatness. As that, um, augur, fallible, eh? At whiles foolish, eh? Yet sensible of the ultimate, hey? I cannot mediate all quarrels, for I cannot mediate that one. I have set down my name in the lists, eh? Long since. I am for good. I cannot close my eyes to evil. Will not. Both.”

“That’s good.” Maytera Mint closed hers. The only light in the dark, bare room was a long streak of watery green under the door; closing her eyes should have made little difference, yet she found it deeply restful.

“If — er — ah — um — hum,” Remora said; or at least, so she heard him. The facade of the Corn Exchange was falling very slowly, while she waited powerless to move.

She woke with a start. “Your Eminence?”

“Yes, General?”

“Some dreams are sent by the gods.”

“Ah — indubitably.”

“Has anyone ever proposed that all dreams are? That every dream is a message from the gods?”

“I — um. Cannot recollect, eh? I shall devote thought to the, er, query. Possibly. Quite possibly.”

“Because I just had a very commonplace sort of dream, Your Eminence, but I feel that it may have been sent by a god.”

“Unusual? Extraordinary. If I do not presume, hey? No wish to, er, intrude. But I offer my, um, if desired.”

“I dreamed I was standing on the street in front of the Corn Exchange. It was falling on me, but I couldn’t run.”

“I — ah — see.”

“It actually happened a few days ago. We pulled it down with oxen. I could’ve run then, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to die, so I stood there and watched it fall until Rook carried me out of danger. He was nearly killed, as well as I.”

“The — ah — import? I fail to see it, General.”

“A god, I think, was telling me that since I’d chosen to die then, I shouldn’t be afraid of dying now, that nothing they can do to me could be worse than being crushed by that building, which was the way I’d chosen to die not long ago.”

“What god, hey? What god, General? Have you any notion?”

She knew from an alteration in Remora’s voice that he had straightened up. She had, temporarily at least, ransomed him from self-pity; she wished fervently that someone would ransom her. “I haven’t the least idea which god may have favored me, Your Eminence, assuming one did. I don’t recall anything that would furnish a clue.”

“No animals, eh?”

“None, Your Eminence. Just the street, and the falling stones. It was after shadelow, and all I remember is how dark they looked against the skylands.”

“Not, um, Day-Ruling Pas. Sun god, eh? Master of the Long Sun and all that. Tartaros, hum? Night god. Dark stones, dark god. Bats — ah — flittering?”

Maytera Mint rolled her head so that the tip of her sharp little nose made a small arc of negation. “No animals, Your Eminence, as I said. None whatsoever.”

“I shall — ah — prefer. I prefer to, um, suspend? No, table. Table the question, eh? If only for the nonce. In my, er, not inconsiderable experience an, um, signature may be — ah — descried by one who, eh? Shall peer about. Let us peer about, Maytera. What day is this, would you say?”

“Now?”

“Ah — yes. And then, eh? What day did you feel it to be in your, um, envisagement?”

“If you mean the night it happened…?”

“No. Did it, ah, seem to you a particular day, eh? Were you, um, conscious of a — ah — the calendar?”

“No, Your Eminence.

“What day is it now? As we, ah, converse.”

How many times had their captors halted to eat and sleep? Three? Four? “I can’t be sure.” Maytera Mint was beginning to regret mentioning her dream; she let her eyelids fall.

“Guess, General. What day?”

“Hieraxday or Thelxday, I suppose.”

“Bodies, eh? Vultures?”

“No. Just the skylands, the building and the stones.”

“Mirrors, monkeys, deer? Cards, teacups — ah — string? Any colored string? Poultry, nothing of the sort?”

“No, Your Eminence. Nothing of the sort.”

“Space — um — largeness? Skylands, eh? You were — ah — not insensible of them?”

“I knew that they were there, Your Eminence. In fact they seemed significant, though I can’t say how.”

“We, er, progress? Yes, progress. Actually happened, you said? Building fell, eh? You rescued.”

“Yes, it was at the beginning of the fighting. I mean to say, Your Eminence, that it was at what we call the beginning now. At the time we felt we’d been fighting a long while, that those of us who’d been fighting from the start had done a great deal of it.” Maytera Mint paused, reflecting.

“We were like children who have gone to palaestra for the first time the year before. When the next year starts, children like that feel themselves old hands, veterans. They give advice to the new children and patronize them, when the truth is that their own education has scarcely begun.”

Remora grunted assent. “I have observed, um, similar.”

“And now — I mean before we went out to that house where the calde was rescued. Things had quieted down. We had the Fourth penned up, and nobody wanted to go after it right away. We sensed that Erne was wavering, and you confirmed it. The Ayuntamiento was down in these tunnels, and those of us who thought about it saw how difficult it would be to root them out. We dared hope that some other way could be found. That was why I went out there with you.”