Epiphany of the Long Sun (14 page)

She shook her head. "I guess not."

"I guess not, too. Stay back where you'll be safe." He turned away, hoping she had not seen how sick and dizzy he was; the darkening tunnel seemed to spin as he stared into its black maw, a pinwheel that had burned out, or the high rear wheel of a deadcoach, all ebony and black iron, rolling down a tarred road to nowhere. "I know you're in there, Gelada, and you got the old man with you. You listen here. My name's Auk, and I'm a pal of Urus's. I'm not here for a row. Only I'm a pal of the old man's, too."

His voice was trailing away. He tried to collect such strength as remained. "What we're going to do pretty soon now, we're going to go back to your pit with Urus."

"Hackum!"

"Shut up." He did not bother to look at her. "That's 'cause I can get you through one of these iron doors down here that you can't solve. I'm going to talk to 'em in your pit. I'm going to say anybody that wants out, you come with me and I'll get you out. Then we'll go to that door and I'll open it, and we'll go on out. Only that's it. I ain't coming back for anybody."

He paused, waiting for some reply. Oreb's bill clacked nervously.

"You and the old man come here and you can come with us. Or let him go and head back to the pit yourself, and you can come along with the rest if you want to. But I'm going to look for him."

Chenille's hand touched his shoulder, and he started.

"You in this, Jugs?"

She nodded and put her arm through his. They had taken perhaps a hundred more steps into the deepening darkness when an arrow whizzed between their heads; she gasped and held him more tightly than ever.

"That's just a warning," he told her. "He could have put it in us if he'd wanted to. Only he won't, because we can get him out and he can't get out himself."

He raised his voice as before. "The old man's finished, ain't he, Gelada? I got you. And you think when I find out, it's all in the tub. That's not how it'll be. Everything I said still goes. We got a augur with us, the little cull you saw with Jugs here when you shot at her. Just give us the old man's body. We'll get him to pray over it and maybe bury it somewhere proper, if we can find a place. I never knew you, but maybe you knew Bustard, my brother. Buck that nabbed the gold Molpe Cup? You want us to fetch Urus? He'll cap for me."

Chenille called, "He's telling the truth, Gelada, really he is. I don't think you're here any more, I think you ran off down the tunnel. That's what I'd have done. But if you are, you can trust Auk. You must have been down in the pit a real long time, because everybody in the Orilla knows Auk now."

"Bird see!" Oreb muttered.

Auk walked slowly into the deepening twilight of the tunnel. "He got his bow?"

"Got bow!"

"Put it down, Gelada. You shoot me, you're shooting the last chance you'll ever get."

"Auk?" The voice from the darkness might have been that of Hierax himself, hollow and hopeless as the echo from a tomb. "That your name? Auk?"

"That's me. Bustard's brother. He was older than me."

"You got a needler? Lay it down."

"I don't have one." Auk sheathed his hanger, pulled off his tunic, and dropped it to the tunnel floor. With uplifted arms, he turned in a complete circle. "See? I got the whin, and that's all I got." He drew his hanger again and held it up. "I'm leaving it right here on my gipon. You can see Jugs don't have anything either. She left her launcher back there with the soldier." Slowly he advanced into the darkness, his hands displayed.

There was a sudden glimmer a hundred paces up the tunnel. "I got a darkee," Gelada called. "Burns bufe drippin's."

He puffed the flame again, and this time Auk could hear the soft exhalation of his breath, "I should've figured," he muttered to Chenille.

"We don't like to use 'um much." Gelada stood, a stick figure not much taller than Incus. "Keep 'um shut up mostly. Wick 'bout snuffed. Culls bring 'um down 'n leave 'um."

When Auk, walking swiftly through the dark, said nothing, he repeated, "Burn drippin's when the oil's gone."

"I was thinking you'd make 'em out of bones," Auk said conversationally. "Maybe twist the wicks out of hair." He was close now, near enough to see Dace's shadowy body lying at Gelada's feet.

"We do that sometimes, too. Only hair's no good. We braid 'urn out o' rags."

Auk halted beside the body. "Got him back there, didn't you? His kicks are messed some."

"Dragged 'im far as I could. "E's a grunter."

Auk nodded absently. Silk had once told him, as the two had sat at dinner in a private room in Viron, that Blood had a daughter, and that Blood's daughter's face was like a skull, was like talking to a skull though she was living and Bustard was dead (Bustard whose face really was a skull now) was not like that. Her father's face, Blood's flabby face, was not like that either, was soft and red and sweating even when he was saying that this one or that one must pay.

But this Gelada's too was a skull, as if he and not Blood were the mort Mucor's father, was as beardless as any skull or nearly, the grayish white of dirty bones even in the stinking yellow light of the dark lantern-a talking cadaver with a little round belly, elbows bigger than its arms, and shoulders like a towel horse, the dark lantern in its hand and its small bow, like a child's bow, of bone wound with rawhide, lying at its feet, with an arrow next to it, with Dace's broad-bladed old knife next to that, and Dace's old head, the old cap it always wore gone, his wild white hair like a crone's and the clean white bones of his arm half-cleaned of flesh and whiter than his old eyes, whiter than anything.

"You crank, Auk?"

"Yeah, a little." Auk crouched beside Dace's body.

"Had the shiv on 'im." Stooping swiftly, Gelada snatched it up. "I'm keepin' it."

"Sure." The sleeve of Dace's heavy, worn blue tunic had been cut away, and strips cut from his forearm and upper arm. Oreb hopped from Auk's shoulder to scrutinize the work, and Auk warned him, "Not your peck."

"Poor bird!"

"Had a couple bits, too. You can have 'um when you get me out."

"Keep 'em. You'll need 'em up there."

From the corner of his eye, Auk saw Chenille trace the sign of addition. "High Hierax, Dark God, God of Death…"

"He show much fight?"

"Not much. Got behind 'im. Got my spare string 'round 'is neck. There a art to that. You know Mandrill?"

"Lit out," Auk told him without looking up. "Palustria's what I heard."

"My cousin. Used to work with 'im. How 'bout Elodia?"

"She's dead. You, too." Auk straightened up and drove his knife into the rounded belly, the point entering below the ribs and reaching upward for the heart.

Gelada's eyes and mouth opened wide. Briefly, he sought to grasp Auk's wrist, to push away the blade that had already ended his life. His dark lantern fell clattering to the naked shiprock with Dace's old knife, and darkness rushed upon them.

"Hackum!"

Auk felt Gelada's weight come onto the knife as Gelada's legs went limp. He jerked it free and wiped the blade and his right hand on his thigh, glad that he did not have to look at Gelada's blood at that moment, or meet a dead man's empty, staring eyes.

"Hackum, you said you wouldn't hurt him!"

"Did I? I don't remember."

"He wasn't going to do anything to us."

She had not touched him, but he sensed the nearness of her, the female smell of her loins and the musk of her hair. "He'd already done it, Jugs." He returned his knife to his boot, located Dace's body with groping fingers, and slung it across his shoulders. It felt no heavier than a boy's. "You want to bring that darkee? Could be good if we can figure away to light it."

Chenille said nothing, but in a few seconds he heard the tinny rattle of the lantern.

"He killed Dace. That'd be enough by itself, only he ate him some, too. That's why he didn't talk at first. Too busy chewing. He knew we'd want the old man's body, and he wanted to fill up."

"He was starving. Starving down here." Chenille's voice was barely above a whisper.

"Sure. Bird, you still around?"

"Bird here!" Feathers brushed Auk's fingers; Oreb was riding atop Dace's corpse.

"If you were starving, you might have done the same thing, Hackum."

Auk did not reply, and she added, "Me, too, I guess."

"It don't signify, Jugs." He was walking faster, striding along ahead of her.

"I don't see why not!"

"Because I had to. He'd have done it too, like I said. We're going to the pit. I told him so."

"I don't like that, either." Chenille sounded as though she were about to weep.

"I got to. I got too many friends that's been sent there, Jugs. If some's in this pit and I can get 'em out, I got to do it. And everybody in the pit's going to find out. Maybe Patera wouldn't tell 'em, if I asked nice. Maybe Hammerstone wouldn't. Only Urus would for sure. He'd say this cull, he did for a pal of Auk's and ate him, too, and Auk never done a thing. When I got 'em out, it'd be all over the city."

A god laughed behind them, faintly but distinctly, the meaningless, humorless laughter of a lunatic; Auk wondered whether Chenille had heard it. "So I had to. And I did it. You would've too, in my shoes."

The tunnel was growing lighter already. Ahead, where it was brighter still, he could see Incus, Hammerstone, and Urus still seated on the tunnel floor, Hammerstone with Chenille's launcher across his steel lap, Incus telling his beads, Urus staring back up the tunnel toward them.

"All right, Hackum."

Here were his hanger and his tunic. He laid down Dace's corpse, sheathed the hanger, and put on his tunic again.

"Man good!" Oreb's beak snapped with appreciation.

"You been eating off him? I told you about that."

"Other man," Oreb explained. "My eyes."

Auk shrugged. "Why not?"

"Let's get out of here. Please, Hackum." Chenille was already several steps ahead.

He nodded and picked up Dace.

"I've got this bad feeling. Like he's still alive back there or something."

"He ain't." Auk reassured her.

As they reached the three who had waited, Incus pocketed his beads. "I would gladly have brought the
Pardon of Par
to our late comrade. But his spirit has
flown
."

"Sure," Auk said. "We were just hoping you'd bury him, Patera, if we can find a place."

"It's
Patera
now?"

"And before. I was saying Patera before. You just didn't notice, Patera."

"Oh, but I
did,
my son." Incus motioned for Hammerstone and Urus to rise. "I would do what I
can
for our unfortunate comrade in any case. Not for your sake, my son, but for
his.
"

Auk nodded. "That's all we're asking, Patera. Gelada's dead. Maybe I ought to tell everybody."

Incus was eyeing Dace's body. "You cannot bear such a weight
far,
my son. Hammerstone will have to carry him, I suppose."

"No," Auk said, his voice suddenly hard. "Urus will. Come're, Urus. Take it."

The Plan of Pas

"I
'm sorry you did that, Mucor," Silk said mildly.

The old woman shook her head. "I wasn't going to kill you. But I could've."

"Of course you could."

Quetzal had picked up the needler; he brushed it with his fingers, then produced a handkerchief with which to wipe off the white bull's blood. The old woman turned to watch him, her eyes widening as her death's-head grin faded.

"I'm sorry, my daughter," Silk repeated. "I've noticed you at sacrifice now and then, but I don't recall your name."

"Cassava." She spoke as though in a dream.

He nodded solemnly. "Are you ill, Cassava?"

"I…"

"It's the heat, my daughter." To salve his conscience, he added, "Perhaps. Perhaps it's the heat, in part at least. We should get you out of the sun and away from this fire. Do you think you can walk, Villus?"

"Yes, Patera."

Quetzal held out the needler. "Take this, Patera. You may need it." It was too large for a pocket; Silk put it in his waistband beneath his tunic, where he had carried the azoth. "Farther back, I think," Quetral told him. "Behind the point of the hip. It will be safer there and just as convenient."

"Yes, Your Cognizance."

"This boy shouldn't walk." Quetzal picked up Villus. "He has poison in his blood at present, and that's no little thing, though we may hope there's only a little poison. May I put him in your manse, Patera? He should be lying down, and this poor woman, too."

"Women are not-but of course if Your Cognizance-"

"They are with my permission," Quetzal told him. "I give it. I also permit you, Patera, to go into the cenoby to fetch a sibyl's habit. Maytera here," he glanced down at Maytera Marble, "may regain consciousness at any moment. We must spare her as much embarrassment as we can." With Villus over his shoulder, he took Cassava's arm. "Come with me, my daughter. You and this boy will have to nurse each other for a while."

Silk was already through the garden gate. He had never set foot in the cenoby, but he thought he had a fair notion of its plan: sellaria, refectory, kitchen, and pantry on the lower floor; bedrooms (four at least, and perhaps as many as six) on the upper floor. Presumably one would be Maytera Marble's, despite the fact that Maytera Marble never slept.

As he trotted along the graveled path, he recalled that the altar and Sacred Window were still in the middle of Sun Street. They should be carried back into the manteion as soon as possible, although that would take a dozen men. He opened the kitchen door and found himself far from certain of even that necessity. Pas was dead-no less a divine personage than Echidna had declared it-and he, Silk, could not imagine himself sacrificing to Echidna again, or so much as attending a sacrifice honoring her. Did it actually matter, save to those gods, if the altar of the gods or the Window through which they so rarely condescended to communicate were ground beneath the wheels of dung carts and tradesmen's wagons?