Gene Wolfe: Exodus from the Long Sun

Potto nodded rather too enthusiastically. “Someplace in all that verbiage was a morsel that seemed intelligent, my dear General. You said our Guard, or what’s left, wasn’t what you really wanted to destroy. That it was us. Why don’t you come down after us?”

Remora looked deeply distressed. “Do you, er, Councillor… Is this — ah — productive?”

“I think so. You’ll see. Answer me if you can, General.”

“Because the tunnels are too defensible. I haven’t been in them, but they’ve been described to me. A dozen soldiers could hold a place like that against a hundred troopers. If we’ve got to, we’ll find a way, digging shafts and so on. But we’d rather not, which is why I’m here. Also there’s another consideration. You spoke of destroying the Fourth. Clearly, we don’t want to. Still less do we want to destroy the Army, which is of immense value to our city. We know that—”

“You are an amazing woman.” Potto pushed his stool back and crossed the big kitchen to the stove. “A woman who talks sense whenever it suits her but can’t hear a kettle boil.”

“Women generally talk sense, if men will listen to it.”

“Those who are generals generally do, anyway. You’re right about the Fourth, and right about the Army and not tackling the tunnels, though you really don’t understand the situation at all. I’m our head spy, did you know that? I was in charge of Lemur’s spies, and now I’ve got Loris’s.” Potto tittered. “Who are generally the same, General, and mine. Do you really think all the troopers in the city are yours or ours? You simply can’t be that simple!” He lifted the big copper teakettle off the stove; it was spurting steam.

Maytera Mint pursed her lips.

“There are, um, an — ah — minuscule? Likewise. Token, eh? An — ah — few hundred…”

“Two hundred, more or less,” she supplied. “Two hundred Trivigaunti pterotroopers commanded by General Saba, who also commands the airship. Two hundred’s a very small force, as His Eminence says, though with supporting fire from the airship even a small force might accomplish a great deal. General Saba has offered her help when we move against the Fourth, by the way.”

“How kind.” Potto had carried the steaming teakettle to their table.

“Not to you, Councillor. I realize that. But to us it is. It’s a gesture good will from the Rani to the new government of Viron, and as is greatly appreciated.”

“Your diplomacy flourishes.” He raised the teakettle.

“It does. It’s in its infancy, but it does.” Maytera Mint stood. “We need a teapot, and tea. Sugar, milk, and a lemon, if His Eminence takes lemon. I’ll look for them.”

“I was about to ask you if my face looks dusty.”

“I beg your pardon, Councillor?”

“Whether it’s dusty. Look carefully, will you? Maybe we should go to a window, where the light will be better.”

“I don’t see any dust.” She was struck, unexpectedly and unpleasantly by the lack of warmth in that face, which seemed so animated. Maytera Marble’s familiar metal mask held a whorl of humility and passion; this, for all its seeming plumpness and high color, was as cold as Echidna’s serpents.

“It’s been packed away for years, you see.” Leaning back at an impossible angle, Potto scratched the tip of his nose with the steaming spout of the teakettle. “I’m the youngest member of the Ayuntamiento, dear General. Did you know that?”

Maytera Mint shook her head.

“Just the same, they thought this seemed too young, and asked me to replace it.” He contrived to lean even farther backward. A trickle of boiling water escaped the spout. “You don’t know about the Rani’s horde, either. Do you?”

“What about it?”

“My face?” Potto jabbed the spout toward it. “It was in storage. I said that, why didn’t you listen? Now I can’t see as clearly as I did. I may have dust in my eyes.”

Before Maytera Mint could stop him, he raised the teakettle and tilted it. Seething water cascaded down onto his nose and eyes. Remora exclaimed, “Oh, you gods!” as Maytera Mint jumped back from the hissing spray.

“There. That ought to do it.” Straightening up, Potto regarded her through wide blue eyes again, blinking hard to clear them of boiling drops. “That’s much better. I can see everything. I hope you can, too, my dear young General. The Rani’s horde has already set out, and there’s sixty thousand foot and fifteen thousand cavalry. I haven’t the luxury of an airship to keep watch on Viron’s enemies, but I do the best I can. Seventy-five thousand battle-hardened troopers, with their support troops, a supply train of fifteen thousand camels, and a labor battalion of ten thousand men.” Potto turned to Remora. “Trivigaunte’s men are of your school, Patera. No weapons. Or anyway they’re supposed to be.”

Remora had regained his composure. “If this extensive and, ah, formidable force is — ah — marching? Marching, you said, eh? Then I take it that it can’t be marching here, or you — um — the Ayuntamiento, more formally. Terms of surrender, hey?”

Potto tittered.

Maytera Mint squared her shoulders. “I wouldn’t laugh, Councillor. His Eminence is entirely correct. If the Rani is sending us a force of that size, your cause is doomed.”

“It’s just as I feared,” Potto told her. He held up the teakettle. “Do you think it’s cooled too much?”

“To make tea?” She took an involuntary step backward. “I doubt it.”

“To wash eyes, so they can see. I think you’re right. Boiling water stays hot for a long time.”

“I came under a flag of truce!”

He reached for her, moving much faster than so fat a man should have been able to. She whirled and ran, feeling his fingertips brush her habit, reached the door a hand’s breadth ahead of him, and flung herself through. An arm hooked her like a lamb; another pinned her own arms to her sides. Her face was crushed against musty cloth.

Sounding near, Potto said, “Bring her back in here.”

Not so near, words failed Remora. “You cannot — I mean to say simply cannot — woman’s a sibyl! You, you—”

“Oh, be quiet,” Potto told him. “Bend her over backwards, Spider. Make her look up at this.”

Abruptly there was light and air. The man who had caught her was as tall as Remora and as wide as Potto; he held her by her hair and dropped to one knee, pulling her across the other.

“My son.” Looking up at his heavy, unshaven chin, she found it horribly hard to keep from sounding frightened. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”

The man, presumably Spider, glanced to one side, presumably at Potto. “How’s this, Councillor?”

She rolled her eyes without finding him, and the thick fingers would not let her turn her head.

His voice came from a distance. “I’m putting the kettle back. We can’t have it cooling off while I give you the rules.”

Remora entered her field of view, seeming as lofty as a tower when he bent above them. “If there is — ah — Maytera. General. Anything I can do…?”

“There is,” she said. “Let Bison know what happened.”

“Go back to your seat,” Potto told Remora, and he vanished. “Didn’t you wonder, my dear General,” it was Potto’s cheerful, round face opposite Spider’s now, “how I happened to be so near my own corpse? Or what became of Blood’s? Blood was stabbed by your friend Silk. Let’s not call him Calde. We’re no longer being so polite.”

“Let me up, and I’ll be happy to ask you.”

“It won’t be necessary. Blood’s body has been hauled away already, you see. And you do see, don’t you? At present. I ordered that my own wasn’t to be touched, because I think we may be able to fix it. I came in person to pick it up, with a few of my most trusted spy catchers. Spider’s their jefe. I’d use soldiers, but they’re awfully sensitive, it seems, to mention of a calde, though you wouldn’t think it to look at them.”