Long Sun - Nightside The Long Sun Part 9

They halted their shuffling dance. Maytera Marble said diplomatically, "No doubt it has already carried your thanks to the G.o.ds, Patera."

Maytera Rose sniffed loudly and reclaimed the sacrificial knife.

Little Maytera Mint inquired timidly, "Aren't you going to burn it, Patera?"

Silk shook his head. "Mishaps of this kind are covered in the rubrics, Maytera, although I admit I never thought I'd have to apply those particular strictures. They state unequivocally that unless another victim can be produced without delay, the sacrifice must not proceed. In other words, we can't just throw this dead bird into the sacred fire. This could just as well be something that one of the children picked up in the street"

He wanted to rid himself of it as he spoke-to fling it among the benches or drop it down the chute into which Maytera Marble and Maytera Mint would eventually shovel the still-sacred ashes of the altar fire. Controlling himself

NlGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN

55.

with an effort, he added, "All of you have seen more of life than I. Haven't you ever a.s.sisted at a profaned sacrifice before?"

Maytera Rose sniffed again. Like her earlier sniff, it reeked of condemnation; what had happened was unquestionably Patera Silk's fault, and his alone. It had been he and none other (as the sniff made exquisitely plain), who had chosen this contemptible bird. If only he had been a little more careful, a little more knowledgeable, and above all a great deal more pious-in short, much, much more like poor dear Patera Pike-nothing of this shameful kind could possibly have occurred.

Maytera Marble said, "No, Patera, never. May I speak with you when we're through here, on another topic? In my room in the palaestra, perhaps?"

Silk nodded. "I'll meet you there as soon as I've disposed of this, Maytera." The temptation to berate himself proved too strong. "I ought to have known better. The Writings warned me; but they left me foolish enough to suppose that my sacrifice might yet be acceptable, even if our Sacred Window remained empty. This will be a salutary lesson for me, Maytera. At least I certainly hope it will be, and it had better be. Thank Phaea that the children weren't here to see it."

By this time Maytera Mint had nerved herself to speak. "No one can ever know the mind of the Outsider, Patera, He isn't like the other G.o.ds, who take counsel with one another in Mainframe."

"But when the G.o.ds have spoken so clearly-" Realizing that what he was saying was not to the point, Silk left the thought incomplete. "You're right, of course, Maytera. His desires have been made plain to me, and this sacrifice was not included among them. In the future I'll try to confine myself to doing what he's told me to do. I know I can rely upon all of you to a.s.sist me in that, as in everything."

56 Gene Wolfe

Maytera Rose did not sniff a third time, mercifully contenting herself with scratching her nose instead. Her nose, her mouth, and her right eye were the most presentable parts of her face; and though they had been molded of some tough polymer, they appeared almost normal. Her left eye, with which she had been born, seemed at once mad and blind, bleared and festering.

While trying to avoid that eye, and wis.h.i.+ng (as he so often had since coming to the manteion) that replacements were still available, Silk s.h.i.+fted the night chough from his left hand to his right "Thank you, Maytera Rose, Maytera Marble, Maytera Mint. Thank you. We'll do much better next time, I feel certain." He had slipped off his sacrificial gauntlets; the hated bird felt warm and somehow dusty in his perspiring hands. "In the palaestra, in five minutes or so, Maytera Marble."

Chapter j.

TWILIGHT.

^*In here, Patera!"

Silk halted abruptly, nearly slipping as the wet gravel rolled beneath his shoes.

"In the arbor," Maytera Marble added. She waved, her , black-clad arm and gleaming hand just visible through the iftereening grape leaves.

^ The first fury of the storm had pa.s.sed off quickly, but it "5as still raining, a gentle pattering that setded like a benediction upon her struggling beds of kitchen herbs.

We meet like lovers, Silk thought as he regained his ' balance and pushed aside the dripping foliage, and won-^iJered for an instant whether she did not think die same. **&- No. As lovers, he admitted to himself. For he loved her he had loved his mother, as he might have loved the sister he had never had, striving to draw forth the shy she achieved by an inclination of her head-to win viler approval, the approbation of an old sibyl, of a worn-out !Tchem at whom n.o.body, when he had been small and there been a lot more chems around, would ever have trou-to glance twice, whom no one but the youngest chil-ever thought interesting. How lonely he would have in the midst of the brawling congestion of this quarry if it had not been for her!

58 Gene Wolfe

NlGHTSIDE THE LONG SuN

She rose as he entered the arbor and sat again as he sat He said, "You really don't have to do that when we're alone, sib. I've told you."

Maytera Marble tilted her head in such a way that her rigid, metal face appeared contrite. "Sometimes I forget I apologize, Patera."

"And I forget that I should never correct you, because I

always find out, as soon as it's too late, that you were right

after all. What is it you want to talk to me about, Maytera?"

"You don't mind the rain?" Maytera Marble looked up

at the overarching thatch of vines.

"Of course not But you must If you don't feel like walking all the way to the palaestra, we could go into the manteion. I want to see if the roof still leaks, anyway."

She shook her head. "Maytera Rose would be upset She knows that it's perfectly innocent but she doesn't want us meeting in die palaestra, with no one else present People might talk, you know-the kind of people who never attend sacrifices anyway, and are looking for an excuse. And she didn't want to come herself, and Maytera Mint's watching the fire. So I thought out here. It's not quite sq private- Maytera can see us through the windows of the cen.o.by- and we still have a bit of shelter from the rain," Silk nodded. "I understand."

"You said the rain must make me uncomfortable. That was very kind of you, but I don't feel it and my clothes will dry. I've had no trouble drying the wash lately, but it takes a great deal of pumping to get enough water to do it in. Is the manse's well still good?"

"Yes, of course." Seeing her expression, Silk shook his head. "No, not of course. It's comforting to believe as children do that Pas won't resist his daughter's pleas in our behalf much longer, and that he'll always provide for us. But one never knows, really, we can only hope. If we must have new wells dug, the Church will have to lend us the

money, that's all. If we can't keep this manteion going without new wells, it will have to."

Maytera Marble said nothing, but sat with head bowed as though unable to meet his eyes.

"Does it worry you so much, Maytera? Listen, and I'll tell you a secret. The Outsider has enlightened me."

Motionless, she might have been a time-smoothed statue, decked for some eccentric commemorative purpose in a sibyl's black robe.

"It's true, Maytera! Don't you believe me?"

Looking up she said, "I believe that you believe you've been enlightened, Patera. I know you well, or at least I think I do, and you wouldn't lie about a thing like that."

"And he told me why-to save our manteion. That's my task." Silk stumbled after words. "You can't imagine how good it feels to be given a task by a G.o.d, Maytera. It's wonderful! You know it's what you were made for, and your whole heart points toward that one thing."

He rose, unable to sit still any longer. "If I'm to save our manteion, doesn't that tell us something? I ask you."

"I don't know, Patera. Does it?"

"Yes! Yes, it does. We can apply logic even to the instructions of the G.o.ds, can't we? To their acts and to their words, and we can certainly apply logic to this. It tells us two things, both of major importance. First, that the mante-ion's in danger. He wouldn't have ordered me to save it if it weren't, would he? So there's a threat of some sort, and that's vital for us to know." Silk strode out into the warm rain to stare east toward Mainframe, the home of the G.o.ds.

"The second is even more important, Maytera. It's that our manteion can be saved. It's endangered, not doomed, in other words. He wouldn't have ordered me to save it if that couldn't be done, would he?"

"Please come in and sit down, Patera," Maytera Marble pleaded. "I don't want you to catch cold."