Litany of the Long Sun (61 page)

Far worse was the unfounded feeling that he had already turned back, that he was walking not north toward Limna but south again, that at any minute, around any slight curve or turning, he would catch sight of the dead talus.

Of the talus he had killed; but the talus had, or so it seemed, sent him to the grave.'It was dead, he buried. Soon, he felt, he would encounter Orpine, old Patera Pike, and his mother, each in the appropriate state of decay. He and they would lie down together on the floor of the tunnel, perhaps, one place being as good as another here, and they would tell him the many things he would need to know among the dead, just as Patera Pike had instructed him (when he had arrived at Sun Street) concerning the shops and people of the quarter, the necessity of buying one's tunics and turnips from those few shopkeepers who attended sacrifice with some regularity, and the need to beware of certain notorious liars and swindlers. Once he heard a distant tittering, a lunatic laughter without humor or merriment or even humanity: the laughter of a devil devouring its own flesh in the dark.

After what seemed half a day or more of weary, frightened walking, he reached a point at which the floor of the tunnel was covered with water for as far as he could see, the dim reflections of the bleared lights that crept along the ceiling showing plainly that the extent of the flood was by no means inconsiderable. Irresolute at the brink of that clear, still pool, he was forced to admit that it was even possible that the tunnel he had followed so long was, within the next league or two, entirely filled.

He knelt and drank, discovering that he was very thirsty indeed. When he tried to stand, his right ankle protested so vehemently that he sat instead, no longer able to hide from himself how tired he was. He would rest here for an hour; he felt certain that it was dark on the surface. Patera Gulo would no doubt be wondering what had become of him, eager to begin spying in earnest. Maytera Marble might be wondering too; but Auk and Chenille would have gone back to the city some time ago, after having left word for him at the wagon stop.

Silk took off his shoes and rubbed his feet (finding it a delightful exercise), and at last lay down. The rough floor of the tunnel ought certainly to have been uncomfortable, but somehow was not. He had been wise, clearly, to take this opportunity to nap on the seat of Blood's floater. He would be more alert, better able to grasp every advantage that their peculiar relationship conferred, thanks to this brief rest. "Can't float too fast," the driver told him, "not going this way!" But quite soon now, as the swift floater sailed over a landscape grown liquid, his mother would come to kiss him good-night; he liked to be awake for it, to say distinctly, "Good night to you, too, Mama," when she left.

He resolved not to sleep until she came.

WEAVING AND MORE than half-drunk, Chenilte emerged from the door of the Full Sail, caught sight of Auk, and waved. "You there! You, Bucko. Don' I know you?" When he smiled and waved in return, she crossed the street and caught his arm. "You've been to Orchid's place. Sure you have, lots, and I oughta know your name. It'll come to me in a minute. Listen, Buck, I'm not queering a lay for you, am I?"

Auk had learned early in childhood to cooperate in such instances. "Dimber with me. Stand you a glass?" He jerked his thumb toward the Full Sail. "I bet there's a nice quiet corner in there?"

"Oh, Bucko, would you?" Chenille leaned upon his arm, walking so close that her thigh brushed his. "Wha's your name? Mine's Chenille. I oughta know yours too, course I should, only I got this queer head an' we're at the lake, aren't we?" She blew her nose in her fingers. "All that water, I seen it down one of these streets, Bucko, only I ought to get back to Orchid's for dinner an' the big room after that, you know? She'll get Bass to winnow me out if I'm not lucky."

Auk had been watching her eyes from the corner of his own; as they entered the Full Sail, he said, "That's the lily word, ain't it, Jugs? You don't remember."

She nodded dolefully as she sat down, her fiery curls trembling. "An' I'm reedy, too-real reedy. You got a pinch for me?"

Auk shook his head.

"Just a pinch an' all night free?"

"I'd give it to you if I had it," Auk told her, "but I don't."

A frowning barmaid stopped beside their table. "Take her someplace else."

"Red ribbon and water," Chenille told the barmaid, "and don't mix them."

The barmaid shook her head emphatically. "I gave you more than I should've already."

"An' I gave you all my money!"

He laid a card on the table. "You start a tab for me, darling. My name's Auk."

The barmaid's frown vanished. "Yes, sir."

"And I'll have a beer, the best. Nothing for her."

Chenille protested.

"I said I'd buy you one in the street. We're not in the street." Auk waved the barmaid away.

"That's your name!" Chenille was triumphant. "Auk. I told you I'd think of it."

He leaned toward her. "Where's Patera?"

She wiped her nose on her forearm.

"Patera Silk. You come out here with him. What'd you do with him?"

"Oh, I remember him. He was at Orchid's when-when Auk, I need a pinch bad. You've got money. Please?"

"In a minute, maybe. I ain't got my beer. Now you pay attention to what I say. You sat in here awhile lapping up red ribbon, didn't you?"

Chenille nodded. "I felt so-"

"Up your flue." He caught her hand and squeezed hard enough to hurt. "Where were you before that?"

She belched softly. "I'll tell you the truth, the whole thing. Only it isn't going to make any sense. If I tell you, will you buy me one?"

His eyes narrowed. "Talk fast. I'll decide after I hear it."

The barmaid set a sweating glass of dark beer in front of him. "The best and the coldest. Anything else, sir?" He shook his head impatiently.

"I got up shaggy late," Chenille began, " 'cause we'd had a big one last night, you know? Real big. Only you weren't there, Hackum. See, I remember you now. I wished you would have been."

Auk tightened his grip on her hand again. "I know I wasn't. Get naked."

"An' I had to dress up 'cause it was the funeral today an' Orchid wanted everybody to go. 'Sides, I'd told that long augur I would." She belched again. "Wha's his name, Hackum?"

"Silk," Auk said.

"Yeah, that's him. So I got out my good black dress, this one, see? An', you know, fixed up. There was a lot going together, only they'd already gone so I had to go by myself. Can't I have just one li'l sippy of that, Hackum? Please?"

"All right."

Auk pushed the sweating glass across the table to her, and she drank and wiped her mouth on her forearm. "You're not s'posed to mix them, are you? I better be careful."

He took back the glass. "You went to Orpine's funeral. Go on from that."

"That's right. Only I had a big pinch first, the last I had. Really sucked it up. I wish I had it back now."

Auk drank.

"Well, I got to the manteion, an' Orchid and everybody was already there an' they'd started, but I got a place an' sat down, an', an'-"

"And what?" Auk demanded.

"An' then I got up, but they were all gone. I was just looking at the Window, you know? But it was just a Window, and there wasn't anybody else in there hardly at all, only a couple old ladies, an' nobody or nothing anymore." She had started to cry, hot tears spilling down the broad flat cheeks. Auk pulled out a not-very-clean handkerchief and gave it to her. "Thanks." She wiped her eyes. "I was so scared, an' I still am. You think I'm scared of you, but it's just so nice to be with somebody an' have somebody to talk to. You don' know."

Auk scratched his head.

"An' I went outside, see? An' I wasn't in the city at all, not on Sun Street or any other place. I was way down here where we used to go when I was little, an' everybody gone. I found this place where they had awnings an' tables under them an' I had maybe three or four, and then this big black bird came, it kept hopping around and talking almost like a person till I threw this one little glass at it an' they made me get out."

Auk stood. "You hit it with that glass? Shag, no, you didn't. Come on. Show me where this place with the awnings is."

A STEEP HILLSIDE covered with brush barred Silk from the cenoby. He scrambled down it, scratching his hands and face and tearing his clothes on thorns and broken twigs, and went inside. Maytera Mint was in bed, sick, and he was briefly glad of it, having forgotten that no male was supposed to enter the cenoby save an augur to bring the pardon of the gods. He murmured their names again and again, each time sure that he had forgotten one, until a short plump student he never remembered from the schola arrived to tell him that they were all going down the street to call on the Prelate, who was also ill. Maytera Mint got out of bed, saying she would come too, but she was naked under her pink peignoir, her sleek metal body gleaming through it like silver. The peignoir carried the cloying perfume of the blue-glass lamp, and he told her she would have to dress before she could go.

He and the short, plump student left the cenoby. It was raining, a hard, cold, pounding rain that chilled him to the bone. A litter with six bearers was waiting in the street, and they discussed its ownership though he felt certain that it was Maytera Marble's. The bearers were all old, one was blind, and the dripping canopy was old, faded, and torn. He was ashamed to ask the old men to carry them, so they went, up the street to a large white structure without walls whose roof was of thin white slats set on edge a hand's breadth apart; in it there was so much white furniture that there was scarcely room to walk. They chose chairs and sat down to wait. When the Prelate came, he was Mucor, Blood's mad daughter.

They sat in the rain with her, shivering, discussing the affairs of the schola. She spoke about a difficulty she could not resolve, blaming him for it.

HE SAT UP cold and stiff, and crossed his arms to put his freezing fingers in his armpits. Mucor told him, "It's drier farther on. Meet me where the bios sleep." She was sitting cross-legged on the water, and like the water, transparent. He wanted to ask her to guide him to the surface; at the sound of his voice she vanished with the rest of his dream, leaving only a shimmer of greenish light like slime on the water. If that still, clear water had receded while he slept, the change was not apparent. He took off his stockings, tied his shoes together by their laces and hung them around his neck, and stuffed the wrapping into the pocket of his robe. He knotted the corners of his robe about his waist and rolled his trousers legs as high as he could while promising himself that exercise would soon warm him, that he would actually be more comfortable once he entered the water and began to walk.

It was as cold as he had feared, but shallow. It seemed to him that its very frigidity, its icy slapping against his injured ankle, should numb it; each time he put his weight on it, a needle stabbed deep into the bone nevertheless.

The faint splashings of his bare feet woke more lights, enabling him to see a considerable distance down the tunnel, which was flooded as far as the light reached. He did not actually know that water would harm the wrapping, and in fact he did not really believe it likely-people clever enough to build such a device would surely be able to protect it from an occasional wetting. But the wrapping was Crane's and not his, and though he would steal Crane's money if he had to in order to preserve the manteion, he would not risk ruining Crane's wrapping to save himself a little pain.

He had walked some distance when it occurred to him that he could warm himself somewhat by re-energizing the wrapping and returning it to his pocket. He tried the experiment, slapping the wrapping against the wall of the tunnel. The result was eminently satisfactory.

He thought of Blood's lioness-headed walking stick with nostalgia; if he had it now, it would take some weight off his injured ankle. Half a day ago (or a little more, perhaps) he had been ready to throw it away, calling his act of contempt a sacrifice to Scylla. Oreb had been frightened by that, and Oreb had been right; the goddess had engaged and defeated that walking stick (and thus her sister Sphigx) when he had brought it into her shrine.

His feet disturbed a clump of shining riparial worms, which scattered in all directions flashing tidings of fear in pale, luminous yellow. The water was deeper here, the gray shiprock walls dark with damp.

On the other hand, the talus he had killed had professed to serve Scylla; but that boast presumably meant no more than that it served Viron, Scylla's sacred city-as did he, for that matter, since he hoped to end Crane's activities. More realistically, the talus had unquestionably been a servant of the Ayuntamicnto. It had been Councillor Lemur who had built the shrine; and thus, almost certainly, it was the councillors who met with commissioners and judges in the room below it. This though they must surely come to the Juzgado (the real one in Viron, as Silk thought of it) from time to time. He had seen a picture of Councillor Loris addressing a crowd from the balcony not long ago.

And the talus had said that it had returned to Potto.

Silk halted, balancing himself on his sound foot, and slapped the wrapping against the wall of the tunnel again. If, however, the talus served the Ayuntamiento (and so by a permissible exaggeration Scylla), what had it been doing at Blood's villa? Mucor had indicated not only that it was his employee, but that it might be corrupted. This time Silk wound the wrapping around his chest under his tunic, finding that it did not constrict sufficiently to make it difficult for him to breathe.

AT FIRST SILK thought the flashes of pain from his ankle had somehow affected his hearing. The roar increased, and a pinpoint of light appeared far down the tunnel. There was no place to run, even if he had been capable of running, no place to hide. He flattened himself as much as he could against the wall, Hyacinth's azoth in his hand.

The point of light became a glare. The machine racing toward him held its head low, like that of an angry dog. It roared past, drenching him with icy water, and vanished in the direction from which he had come.