Gene Wolfe: Exodus from the Long Sun

From a distance, Remora called, “Councillor? Councillor!”

She shut her eyes. If she was never to see again, the last thing she saw should not be the high smoke-grimed ceiling of the kitchen in this ruined villa. Echidna, rather, her face filling the Sacred Window. Her mother’s face. Bison’s, with its quick eyes and curling black beard. Her room in the cenoby. Children playing, Maytera Marble’s group because she had always wanted them instead of the older girls this year and the older boys before Patera Pike died. Auk’s face, so ugly and serious, more precious than a stack of cards. Bison’s. Cage Street, and the floaters firing as the white stallion thundered toward them.

“Did you hear that, my dear General?”

“Hear what?” Maytera Mint opened her eyes, remembering too late that scalding water might be poured into them.

“Tell her, Patera! Tell her!” Potto was giggling like a girl of twelve, giggling so hard that he could hardly talk.

“I — ah — um — proposed an, er, substitution.”

“He wants to take your place. Really, it’s too funny.”

She tried to speak, and found that her eyes were filling with hot tears, irony so cheap and obvious as to be unbearable. “No, Your Eminence. But… But thank you.”

“He, um, Potto. Councillor. He wishes to, um, secure your — ah — collaboration, hey? I, um, endeavored to point out that to, er, spare me you would, eh? Whatever he wants.”

“I can already make you do anything I want.” Potto was back. He held the teakettle over her. “What I’m trying to do is what she’s done for years. Educate.” Giggling, he covered his mouth with his free hand. “Wash the dust out. Clarify her vision. Have I explained the rules?”

“Er — no.”

“Then I will. I have to. You want to save her, Patera?”

She could actually hear Remora’s teeth chatter. She had always supposed the business about chattering teeth was a sort of verbal convention, like hair standing on end.

“You made your offer, and I said no. But you can save me the trouble of washing her eyes.”

“I, um, every effort.”

“I’m going to ask questions. Educational questions. If her answers are right, we postpone the eyebath. Or if yours are. Ready? Spider, what about you? When you see the kettle tip, you’ll have to hold her tight and keep your hands clear.”

“Any time, Councillor.”

“I’ll start with an easy one. That’s the best way, don’t you think? If you really want children to learn. If you aren’t just showing off. Did you know Silk’s friend Doctor Crane?”

She shut her eyes again, finding it difficult to think. “Know him? No. Maytera Marble mentioned him once, the nice doctor who let her ride in his litter. I don’t think I ever saw him. I’m sure I haven’t met him.”

“And you never will. He’s dead.” Potto sounded pleased. “Your turn, Patera. What about you?”

“Crane, eh? A doctor? Can’t, um, place him.”

“He was a spy. Let’s give the poor fellow his due. He was a master spy, some say the Rani’s best. Trivigaunte had more spies in Viron than any other city. It still does, though they have no jefe now. Why do you think that is, Maytera? More spies than Urbs or Palustria?”

“All I can do is guess.” Her mouth was dry; she tried unsuccessfully to swallow. “The Rani’s a woman, but all the other cities near ours have male rulers. She may have been more sensitive to the danger you and your cousins presented.”

“Not bad. Can you improve on that, Patera?”

“I, ah, cheating.”

Potto giggled. “Double credit for it. Go ahead.”

“His Cognizance, eh? He told me. Not in so many words, eh? No mountains. First, um, er—”

“Objective,” Potto supplied.

“Indeed. Next, ah, year. Spring. Not long now, hey, Councillor? Winter has, um, commenced.”

“General, this is your area of expertise. Say another force is opposing yours, which is larger. Would you rather fight your way across a mountain range or a desert?”

“I’d want to see the desert,” she hedged.

“You can’t see either one, and if you won’t answer you won’t see anything.” The teakettle tilted a little.

“Then I prefer the desert.”

“Why?”

“Because fighting in mountains would be like fighting in tunnels. There would be narrow passes, in which we’d have to go at the enemy head-on. In a desert we could get around them.”

“Correct. Patera, I haven’t been giving you many chances, so you first. Two cities I’ll call Viron and Trivigaunte are separated by a lake and a desert. A big lake, though it’s been getting smaller and turning brackish. That’s the situation, and here’s the question. If the easiest city for Viron to attack is Trivigaunte, what’s easiest for Trivigaunte? Think carefully.”

“For, ah, them?” Remora’s voice quavered. “Us, I should say. Viron.”

“Do you agree, my dear General?”

She had begun a short prayer to Echidna while Remora was speaking; after murmuring the final phrase she said, “There could be other answers, but that’s the most probable. Viron.”

“I’m putting the kettle on again,” Potto told her. “Not because you’ve passed, but because you may fail right here, and I want the water hot enough to do the job. Listen carefully, because we’re going from geography to arithmetic. Listen, and think. Are you ready?”

She compelled her mind and lips. “I suppose so.”

Potto tittered. “Are you, Patera?”

“Ah… I wish, Councillor—”

“Save it for later. It’s time for arithmetic. The Rani of Trivigaunte has seventy-five thousand crack troopers in Viron. The so-called calde’s general has fifty thousand untrained ones, and the traitor commanding the Calde’s guard has about eighteen thousand fit for duty, of doubtful loyalty. If these numbers have you mixed up, I don’t blame you. Would you like me to stop here and repeat them, General?”

“Let me hear the rest.”

“We’re getting to the crux. Rani, seventy-five thousand. You, fifty thousand. Oosik, eighteen thousand. All these are troopers, armed bios. Now then, the Ayuntamiento, which opposes all three of them, has eight thousand two hundred soldiers and a thousand troopers underground, and another five thousand on the surface. The question is, who rules Viron? Answer, Patera.”

“The — ah — you do. The Ayuntamiento.”

“One drop for that,” Potto said. “I’ll fetch the kettle.”

Maytera Mint squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her teeth as a single scalding drop struck her forehead. Locked in a private nightmare of fear and pain, she heard the opening of the door as if it were leagues away. A new voice spoke in the reedy tones of an old man: “What’s this?”

Remora, overjoyed: “Your Cognizance!”

Almost carelessly, Potto said: “This is a nice surprise, I had men posted. Another prisoner’s welcome, just the same.”

She squinted upward. The sere old face over hers was one she had seen only at a distance; she had not realized then how its eyes glittered.

“Release her!” Quetzal snapped. “Let her go. Now!”

She tried to smile as Spider inquired, “Councillor?”

“Class dismissed for the present. It may resume soon, so think about the material.” He sounded angry.

Spider stood, and she fell to the floor.

“I’ve talked to your cousin Loris,” Quetzal told Potto, “and I’ve come to give you the news I brought him. If you decide to detain me afterward, it’s the risk I run.”

Potto spoke to Spider. “This old fox is the Prolocutor. If that’s going to bother you, say so.”

“Anything you want, Councillor.”

“He’s worth two of the general and ten of the butcher. Don’t forget it. Old man, what tricks have you cooked up?” Maytera Mint scrambled to her feet, trying not to step on the hem of her habit.