Gene Wolfe - Soldier of Sidon

There is gold in the bag at my belt, but it buys no food here. He crops the fresh green grass. Which of us will tire first?

WHEN I UNROLLED this to read what I had written last night, there was a curved pin of bright gold in it. It melted as I held it in my hand, and was gone. Then I thought the sun had brought a waking dream. It seemed to me that a great lioness paced beside me, and afterward that a tree-tall woman walked there. When I turned to look, there was no one.

Now I write, though there is so little space left. She led me to her temple. There was an antelope there, dead upon her altar, a large one and very fine.

I drank from her spring, cut flesh from the antelope's flank, and cooked it over a fire of brown grass and dried dung. She is Mehit; she sat with me and shared my food. She laughed at me, and her laugh was forgotten gold shaken in a cup. "Can you who caught me not catch a stallion?" She told me that I would never catch him, but that he would catch me. I RODE TODAY, north because I did not know in which way to go and it seemed best. A lively boy driving cattle said that in the city men would fill my hands with gold for my horse. I told him about the lions, and how my horse Ater had come to me for protection.

"Does that name mean something?" he asked.

"Darkness, gloom, ill luck."

"He's not! He's beautiful!"

"He is," I said, "and I am his ill luck."

The city, the boy said, is on a river island. If my own luck is as bad as Ater's, the ship will have passed it already. But where there is a city there are many men, and one may have the blade the river god returned to me.

I WONDER WHERE I got the bridle I have taken from Ater? Did I write of that here? I tied him by the reins, but a moment ago I set him free. Beasts prowl the night-lions and worse. I would rather he escape me than that he fall to such a beast.

There are horses too bad to be ridden. It may be that there are horses too good to be ridden as well.

For a time I heard him not far off. I no longer do. I sit before my little fire, my own protection from the beasts we both fear, with only the baboon for company. He prompts me to write again and again-to write smaller and smaller. There is little fuel for the fire, and so small a fire cannot be a great protection. The lions roar. I have heard them twice. A madman laughs, not far from my fire. THE BABOON LEFT while I read. Who was Mehit, who sat at meat with me? Surely she was a friend, and I wish she were here with me. I am alone with the night, and shivering in a wind that will soon be cold.

ATER AND I came to the river. He was no longer afraid, but thought only of mares and of fighting the stallions who held them, of coupling with them, and of protecting them and the foals they would bear. It cannot be right for a man to know every thought of the horse he straddles, yet I knew his.

While I was polishing my shield last night, I remembered a white stallion-the armor I wore, and the lions that roared on either side as I spurred toward my enemy. But most of all the stallion, the swift white stallion of the sun. How fine he was! How strong and beautiful and brave! I did not keep him, and I resolved that I would not keep Ater.

When we reached the river, I dismounted, took away his bridle, and threw it into the water. "You have repaid me for saving you from the lions," I told him. (I had read of it here.) "We're quit, and I will not keep you as a slave. Go in peace."

He watched me with one eye, afraid to believe in freedom.

"Go! Good luck to you!" I slapped his flank. "Find her!"

He trotted for a hundred paces or so before he turned to look back at me. Are we enemies, Latro?

"No!" I shouted. "Friends! Friends forever!"

He stared for a moment, again through the left eye, turned, and trotted away.

A boatman who had been watching me said, "You must be mad to free that animal. I'm going to catch it."

"I am." The point of my spear stopped him before he had taken a step. "Mad indeed! My whole family will tell you when you meet them in the Deadland." Leaning toward him I whispered, "I killed them. Killed them all. My wife. Our children. My own parents, her parents, and our children's parents. All dead! Dead! But I've forgotten it." I laughed, not to impress him but because it had struck me that it might be true. "You must row me to the city on an island. Take me this instant! A great fish means to swallow it. The crocodile told me, and I must warn the people."

I untied the painter and got into his boat. "We go. Or I go. Wouldn't this sail better if it were turned over?"

He hurried to jump in with me. "It's mine. My boat. I'd starve without it."

"Make sail," I told him. When he landed me on this island I gave him a coin, which surprised him no end.

I found a cookshop and ate, not because I was hungry but because I knew it had been long since I had eaten, and I felt weak. I ate bread hot from the pan, steaming, strengthening, and greasy, and a big bowl of fish soup that was at least tolerable. In the market I bought a few fresh dates. These left my hands sticky but were as good, I believe, as any food any man has ever put into his mouth.

When I had finished the last and let a starving cur lick my hands, it occurred to me that I might go to a temple, make some small offering, and pray that I again remember as other men do. Then that I might so visit all the temples in the city, telling the priests about Falcata and asking the help of the gods in reclaiming her.

A man I spoke with recommended the Sun Temple, but it is on the mainland. I resolved to visit it when I left, and returned to the quay, eventually walking all around the island. Several people told me that a large foreign ship had passed that way three days before. One said it had docked for a time, pointing to the place. All agreed that there was no such ship in the docks now. When I inquired about a lofty building not far from the water, I was told it was the temple of Isis. I had already passed one such temple on the southern end of the island without entering, and resolved that I would not thus pass this one.

A priest waited at the entrance to collect the offerings of those who had come to petition the goddess. Watching him for a time, I observed that he accepted any offering, no matter how small.

I gave him a silver shekel, and asked the best way of gaining her gracious attention.

"Leave those weapons with me," he said, "I will watch over them and return them when you leave. Prostrate yourself before the goddess, swearing to do anything she may command, make your petition, and listen in silence, waiting for her to speak in your heart."

I thanked him and did as he suggested. The doors of the holiest place were half open, so we might glimpse the goddess within. I prostrated myself. "I am a strong man, O great Isis, well able to work and fight. I have lost my sword Falcata, which I beg you to restore to me. Any order you give me I will forget in a day or less, I know. But I will write it where I will see it again, and obey you without fail. Have I murdered my parents? My wife? Our children? I ask these things because the words came to my lips today, and I cannot remember. Grant, please, that I may remember as others do!"

She motioned to me, and I rose and entered the holiest place.

"I am the daughter of Ra," she told me, "the mother of many kings, the mistress of magic, and the friend of women." Her voice was slow and warm, the voice of a loving woman speaking to a child. Stooping, she laid her hand on my head. "I cannot heal you. Walk toward the north star until you find your sword. Turn your steps then toward the rising sun. I would teach you magic, but you would soon lose all my teaching, for you are but a broken vessel. Receive my blessing."