he said. I asked how many that was, and it's a hundred or more. The
others had needlers and swords and things. His floater had fallen on
its side, but he crawled out through the hatch. The gunner had
already gotten out, he said, and their officer was dead, but as soon
as he got out himself, someone rode him down and broke his arm.
That's why he's here, and without the gods' favor he would've been
killed. When he got up again, there were rebels--I mean--"
"I know what you mean, Patera. Go on, please."
"They were all around him. He said he would have climbed back
in their floater, but it was starting to burn, and he knew that if the
fire didn't go out their ammunition would explode, the bullets for
the buzz guns. He wasn't wearing armor like the troopers outside,
just a helmet, so he pulled it off and threw it away, and the--your
people thought he was one of them, most of them. He said that
sometimes swords would cut the men's armor. It's polymeric, did
you know that, Patera? Sometimes they silver it, private guards and
so on do, like a glazier silvers the back of a mirror. But it's still
polymeric under that, and the troopers' is painted green like a
soldier."
"It will stop needles, won't it?"
Shell nodded vigorously. "Mostly it will. Practically always. But
sometimes a needle will go through the opening for the man's eyes,
or where he breathes. when it does that, he's usually killed, they
say. And sometimes a sword will cut right through their armor, if it's
a big heavy sword, and the man's strong. Or stabbing can split the
breastplate. A lot of your people had axes and hatchets. For
firewood, you know. And some had clubs with spikes through them.
A big club can knock down a trooper in armor, and if there's a spike
in it, the spike will go right through." Shell paused for breath.
"But the soldiers aren't like that at all. Their skin's all metal, steel
in the worst places. Even a slug from a slug gun will bounce off a
soldier sometimes, and nobody can kill or even hurt a soldier with a
club or a needler."
Silk said, I know, I shot one once, then realized that he had not
spoken aloud. I'm like poor Mamelta, he thought--I have to
remember to speak, to breathe out while I move my lips and tongue.
"One told me she saw two men trying to take a soldier's slug gun.
They were both holding onto it, but he lifted them right off their feet
and threw them around. This wasn't the driver but a woman I talked
to, one of your people, Patera. She had her washing stick, and she
got behind him and hit him with it, but he shook off the two men
and hit her with the slug gun and broke her shoulder. A lot of your
people had gotten slug guns from troopers by then, and they were
shooting at the soldiers with them. Somebody shot the one fighting
her. She would've been killed if it hadn't been for that she said. But
the soldiers shot a lot of them, too, and chased them up Cheese
Street and a lot of other streets. She tried to fight, but she didn't
have a slug gun, and with her shoulder she couldn't have shot one if
she'd had it. A slug hit her leg, and the doctors here had to cut it
off."
"I'll pray for her," Silk promised, "and for everyone else who's
been killed or wounded. If you see her again, Patera, please tell her
how sorry I am that this happened. Was Maytera--was General
Mint hurt?"
"They say not. They say she's planning another attack, but
nobody really knows. Were you wounded very badly, Patera?"
"I don't believe I'm going to die." For seconds that grew to a
minute or more, Silk stared in wonder at the empty flask hanging
from the bedpost. Was life such a simple thing that it could be
drained from a man as red fluid, or poured into him? Would he
eventually discover that he held a different life, one which longed
for a wife and children, in a house that he had never seen? It had not
been his own blood--not his own life--surely. "I believed I was, not
long ago. Even when you came, Patera. I didn't care. Consider the
wisdom and mercy of the god who made us so that when we're about
to die we no longer fear death!"
"If you don't think you're going to die--"
"No, no. Shrive me. The Ayuntamiento certainly intends to kill
me. They can't possibly know I'm here; if they did, I'd be dead
already." Silk pushed aside his quilt.
Hurriedly, Shell replaced it. "You don't have to kneel, Patera.
You're still ill, terribly ill. You've been badly hurt. Turn your head
toward the wall, please."
Silk did so, and the familiar words seemed to rise to his lips of
their own volition. "Cleanse me, Patera, for I have given offense to
Pas and to other gods." It was comforting, this return to ritual
phrases he had memorized in childhood; but Pas was dead, and the
well of his boundless mercy gone dry forever.
"Is that all, Patera?"
"Since my last shriving, yes."
"As penance for the evil you have done, Patera Silk, you are to
perform a meritorious act before this time tomorrow." Shell paused
and swallowed. "I'm assuming that your physical condition will
permit it. You don't think it's too much? The recitation of a prayer
will do."
"Too much?" With difficulty, Silk forced himself to keep his eyes
averted. "No, certainly not. Too little, I'm sure."
"Then I bring to you, Patera Silk, the pardon of all the god--"
Of _all_ the gods. He had forgotten that aspect of the Pardon, fool
that he was! Now the words brought a huge sense of relief. In
addition to Echidna and her dead husband, in addition to the Nine
and truly minor gods like Kypris, Shell was empowered to grant
amnesty for the Outsider. For all the gods. Hence he, Silk, was
forgiven his doubt.
He turned his head so that he could see Shell. "Thank you, Patera.
You don't know--you can't--how much this means to me."
Shell's hesitant smile shone again. "I'm in a position to do you
another favor, Patera. I have a letter for you from His Cognizance."
Seeing Silk's expression, he added quickly, "It's only a circular
letter, I'm afraid. All of us get a copy." He reached into his robe.
"When I told Patera Jerboa you had been captured, he gave me
yours, and it's about you."
The folded sheet Shell handed him bore the seal of the Chapter in
mulberry-colored wax; beside it, a clear, clerkly hand had written:
"Silk, Sun Street."
"It's a very important letter, really," Shell said.
Silk broke the seal and unfolded the paper.
<blockquote>
_30th Nemesis 332_
To the Clergy of the Chapter,
Both Severally and Collectively
Greetings in the name of Pas, in the name of Scylla, and in
the names of all gods! Know that you are ever in my
thoughts, as in my heart.
The present disturbed state of Our Sacred City obliges us
to be even more conscious of our sacred duty to minister to
the dying, not only to those amongst them with whose recent
act
ions we may sympathize, but to all those to whom, as we
apprehend, Hierax may swiftly reveal his compassionate
power. Thus it is that I implore you this day to cultivate the
perpetual and indefatigable--
</blockquote>
Patera Remora composed this, Silk thought; and as though Remora
sat before him, he saw Remora's long, sallow, uplifted face, the tip
of the quill just brushing his lips as he sought for a complexity of
syntax that would satisfy his insatiate longing for caution and
precision.
<blockquote>
The perpetual and indefatigable predisposition toward
mercy and pardon whose conduit you so frequently must be.
Many of you have appealed for guidance in these most
disturbing days. Nay, many appeal so still, even hourly.
Most of you will have learned before you read this epistle of
the lamented demise of the presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento.
The late Councillor Lemur was a man of extraordinary
gifts, and his passing cannot but leave a void in every heart.
How I long to devote the remainder of this necessarily
curtailed missive to mourning his passing. Instead, for such
are the exactions of this sad whorl, the whorl that passes, my
duty to you requires that I forewarn you without delay
against the baseless pretexts of certain vile insurgents who
would have you to believe that they act in the late Councillor
Lemur's name.
regarding the propriety of an intercaldean caesura spanning
some two decades. That the press of unhappy events then
rendered an interval of that kind, if not desirable, then
unquestionably attractive, we can all agree. That it represented,
to judgements not daily schooled to the nice discriminations
of the law, a severe strain upon the elasticity of
our Charter, we can agree likewise, can we not? The
argument is wholly historical now. O beloved, let us resign it
to the historians.
What is inarguable is that this caesura, to which I have had
reason to refer above, has attained to its ordained culmination.
It cannot, O my beloved clergy, as it should not,
survive the grievous loss which it has so recently endured.
What, then, we may not illegitimately inquire, is to succeed
that just, beneficent and ascendant government so sadly
terminated?
Beloved clergy, let us not be unmindful of the wisdom of
the past, wisdom which lies in no less a vehicle than our own
Chrasmologic Writings. Has it not declared, "_Vox poputi,
vox dei_"? which is to say, in the will of the masses we may
discern words of Pas's. At the present critical moment in the
lengthy epic of Our Sacred City, Pas's grave words are not to
be mistaken. With many voices they cry out that the time has
arrived for a precipitate return to that Charteral guardianship
which once our city knew. Shall it be said of us that we
stop our ears to Pas's words?
Nor is their message so brief, and so less than mistakable.
From forest to lake, from the proud crown of the Palatine to
the humblest of alleys they proclaim him. O my beloved
clergy, with what incommunicable joy shall I do so additionally.
For Supreme Pas has, as never previously, espoused for
our city a calde from within our own ranks, an anointed
augur, holy, pious, and redolent of sanctity.
May I name him? I shall, yet surely I need not. There is
not one amongst you, Beloved Clergy, who will not know
that name prior to mine overjoyed acclamation. It is Patera
Silk. Again I say, Patera Silk!
How readily here might I inscribe, let us welcome him and
obey him as one of ourselves. With what delight shall I
inscribe in its place, let us welcome him and obey him, for he
is one of ourselves!
May every god favor you, beloved clergy. Blessed be you
in the Most Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in that
of Gradous Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and
their Daughters alike, this day and forever, in the name of
their eldest child, Scylla, Patroness of this, Our Holy City of
Viron. Thus say I, Pa. Quetzal, Prolocutor.
</blockquote>
As Silk refolded the letter, Shell said, "His Cognizance has come
down completely on your side, you see, and brought the Chapter
with him. You said--I hope you were mistaken in this, Patera, really
I do. But you said a minute ago that if the Ayuntamiento knew you
were here they'd have you shot. If that's true--" He cleared his
throat nervously. "If it's true, they'll have His Cognizance shot too.
And--and some of the rest of us."
"The coadjutor," Silk said, "he drafted this. He'll die as well, if
they can get their hands on him." It was strange to think of Remora,
that circumspect diplomatist, tangled and dead in his own web of
ink.
Of Remora dying for him.
"I suppose so, Patera." Shell hesitated, plainly ill at ease. "I'd call
you--use the other word. But it might be dangerous for you."
Silk nodded slowly, stroking his cheek.
"His Cognizance says you're the first augur, ever. That--it came
as a shock to--to a lot of us, I suppose. To Patera Jerboa, he said.
He says it's never happened before in his lifetime. Do you know
Patera Jerboa, Patera?"
Silk shook his head.
"He's quite elderly. Eighty-one, because we had a little party for
him just a few weeks ago. But then he thought, you know, sort of
getting still and pulling at his beard the way he does, and then he
said it was sensible enough, really. All the others, the previous--the
previous--"
"I know what you mean, Patera."
"They'd been chosen by the people. But you, Patera, you were
chosen by the gods, so naturally their choice fell upon an augur,
since augurs are the people they've chosen to serve them."
"You yourself are in danger, Patera," Silk said. "You're in nearly
as much danger as I am, and perhaps more. You must be aware of it."
Shell nodded miserably.
"I'm surprised they let you in here after this."
"They--the captain, Patera. I--I haven't..."
"They don't know."
"I don't think so, Patera. I don't think they do. I didn't tell them."
"That was wise, I'm sure." Silk studied the window as he had
before, but as before saw only their reflections, and the night. "This
Patera Jerboa, you're his acolyte? Where is he?"
"At our manteion, on Brick Street."
Silk shook his head.
"Near the crooked bridge, Patera."
"Way out east?"
"Yes, Patera." Shell fidgeted uncomfortably. "That's where we are
now, Patera. On Basket Street. Our manteion's that way," he
pointed, "about five streets."
"I see. That's right, they lifted me into something--into some sort
of cart that jolted terribly. I remember lying on sawdust and trying
to cough. I couldn't, and my mouth and nose kept filling with
blood." Silk's index finger drew small circles on his cheek. "Where's
&nbs
p; my robe?"
"I don't know. The captain has it, I suppose, Patera."
"The battle, when General Mint attacked the floaters on Cage
Street, was that this afternoon?"
Shell nodded again.
"About the time I was shot, perhaps, or a little later. You brought
the Pardon to the wounded. To all of them? All those in danger of
death, I mean?"
"Yes, Patera."
"Then you went back to your manteion--?"
"For something to eat, Patera, a bite of supper." Shell looked
apologetic. "This brigade--it's the Third. They're in reserve, they
say. They don't have much. Some were going into people's houses,
you know, and taking any food they could find. There's supposed to
be food coming in wagons, but I thought--"
"Of course. You returned to your manse to eat with Patera
Jerboa, and this letter had arrived while you were gone. There
would have been a copy for you, too, and one for him."
Shell nodded eagerly. "That's right, Patera."
"You would have read yours at once, of course. My copy--this
one--it was there as well?"
"Yes, Patera."
"So someone at the Palace knew I had been captured, and where
I'd been taken. He sent my copy to Patera Jerboa instead of to my
own manteion in the hope that Patera Jerboa could arrange to get to
me, as he did. His Cognizance was with me when I was shot; there's
no reason to conceal that now. While my wounds were being
treated, I was wondering whether he had been killed. The officer
who shot me may not have recognized him, but if he did..." Silk
let the thought trail away. "If they don't know about this already--and
I think you're right, they can't know yet, not here at any rate--they're
bound to find out soon. You realize that?"
"Yes, Patera."
"You must leave. It would probably be wise for you and Patera
Jerboa to leave your manteion, in fact--to go to a part of the city
controlled by General Mint, if you can."
"I--" Shell seemed to be choking. He shook his head desperately.
"You what, Patera?"
"I don't want to leave you as long as I can be of--of help to you.
Of service. It's my duty."
"You have been of help," Silk told him. "You've rendered
invaluable service to me and to the Chapter already. I'll see you're
recognized for it, if I can." He paused, considering.
"You can be of further help, too. On your way out, I want you to