expect every officer, every trooper, and every soldier to receive
them in a manner fully in accordance with loyalty and good discipline.
"My Calde, have you anything further to say?"
"Yes, I do." Silk leaned toward him, speaking into the ear. "Please
stop fighting. It was needful, as I said; but it's become senseless.
Stop them if you can, Maytera Mint. General Mint, please stop
them. Peace is within our grasp--from the moment we accept it, all
of us have won."
He straightened up, savoring the wonder of the ear. It really does
look like a black flower, he thought, a flower meant to bloom at
night; and because it's bloomed, shadeup is on the way, even if the
night looks nearly as dark as ever.
To the ear he added, "We'll be with you in a few minutes, on the
floater Generalissimo Oosik told you about. Don't shoot us, please.
We certainly won't shoot you. No one will." He turned to Oosik for
confirmation, and Oosik nodded vigorously.
"Not even if you shoot me. I'll stand up if I can, so you can see
me." He paused. Was there more to say?
Attenuated like distant thunder, his words flew back to him
through the window, an ebbing storm: "_Can see me_."
"Those who fought for Viron will be rewarded, regardless of the
side on which they fought. Maytera Marble, if you can hear this,
please come to the floater. I need you badly, so please come. Auk,
too, and Chenille." Had Kypris possessed Hyacinth, rendering her
irresistible? Could she possess two women simultaneously? For a
second he pondered the question among the remembered faces of
his teachers at the schola. He ought to end this, he thought, by
invoking the gods; but the time-worn honorifics caught in his throat.
"Until I see you," he said at last, "please pray for me--for our city,
and for all of us. Pray to Kind Kypris, who is love. Pray especially to
the Outsider, because he is the god whose time is coming and I am
the help he's sent us."
He let the hand that held the ear fall, and Oosik took it from him.
"For which we all give thanks," Oosik said, and Oreb muttered,
"Watch out."
No one spoke after that. Although Oosik and his surgeon,
Xiphias, and Quetzal were all present, the bedroom felt empty.
Beyond the window, a hush hung over the Palatine. No street
vendor hawked his wares and no gun spoke.
Peace.
Peace here, at least; for those on the Palatine and those surrounding
it, there was peace. Incredible as it seemed, hundreds--thousands--had
ceased fighting, merely because he, Silk, had told them to.
He felt better; perhaps peace, like blood, made one feel better.
He was stronger, though he was still not strong. The surgeon had
poured blood--more blood--into him while he slept, and that sleep
must have been something akin to a coma, because the needle had
not awakened him. Another's blood--another's life--had let him
live, though he had been certain the night before that he would die
that night. Premonitions born of weakness could be frustrated,
clearly; he would have to remember that. With friends to help, a
man could make his own fate.
Chapter 9 -- Victory
Xiphias, it transpired, had gone to the Palace, bringing back one
of Remora's fine robes. It fit Silk surprisingly well, although it
carried in its soft fabric a suggestion of somber luxury he found
detestable. "They won't know you outside of this, lad," Xiphias
said. He, shaking his head, wondered how they could possibly
know him in it.
Oosik returned. "I have had more lights mounted on your floater,
Calde. There will be a flag on its antenna as well. Most will be on
you, two on the flag." Without waiting for a reply, he asked the
surgeon, "Is he ready?"
"He shouldn't walk far," the surgeon said.
"I can walk around the city if need be," Silk told them.
Hyacinth declared, "He should lie down again till it's time to go,"
and to please her, he did.
Within half a minute, it seemed, Xiphias and the surgeon were
lowering him into a litter. Hyacinth walked beside him as she had
when the waiters had carried him out of the Glasshouse, and it
seemed to him that his mother's garden walked with her; from the
mulberry velvet contributing the mingled smells of frankincense and
something else to the cool and windy dark. At his ears, the
_frou-frou-frou_ of Hyacinth's skirt and the _whish-shish_
of Quetzal's robe sounded louder than the snap of Oosik's flag. Troopers
saluted, clicking their heels. One knelt for Quetzal's blessing.
"It would be better," Oosik said, "if you did not have to be carried
into the floater, Calde. Can you do it?"
He could, of course, rising from the litter with the help of
Xiphias's cane. A volley of shots crackled in the distance; it was
followed by a faint scream, rarefied and unreal. "Men fight," Oreb
commented.
"Some do," Silk told him. "That's why we're going."
The entry port let spill a sallow light; the surgeon was crouching
inside to help him in. "Blood's floater was open," Silk remarked,
remembering. "There was a transparent canopy--a top that you
could see through almost as well as air--but when it was down, you
could stand up."
"You can stand in this, too," the surgeon said, "right here." He
steered Silk toward the spot. "See? You're under the turret here."
Straightening up, Silk nodded. "I rode in one of these yesterday--on the
outside, when the rain stopped. It wasn't nearly as roomy as this." Corpses,
including Doctor Crane's, had taken up most of the space inside.
"We took out a lot of ammo, Calde," the trooper at the controls
told him.
Silk nearly nodded again, although the trooper could not see his
head. He had found the ladder he recalled, a spidery affair of metal
rods, and was climbing cautiously but steadily toward the open
hatch at the top of the turret.
"Bad thing," Oreb informed him nervously. "Thing shine."
To his own astonishment Silk smiled. "This buzz gun, you
mean?" It was dull black, but the open breech revealed bright
steel. "They won't shoot us with it, Oreb. They won't shoot
anyone, I hope."
The surgeon's voice floated up from below. "There's a saddle for
the gunner, Calde, and things to put your feet in."
"Stirrups." That voice had been Oosik's, surely.
Silk swung himself onto the leather-covered seat, almost but not
quite losing his grip on Xiphias's cane. There were officers on
horseback around the floater, and what seemed to be a full company
of troopers standing at ease half a street behind it. The footman who
had admitted him to Ermine's was watching everything from his
station by the door; Silk waved to him with the cane, and he waved
in return, his grin a touch of white in the darkness.
It's going to rain again, Silk thought. I don't believe we've had a
morning this dark since spring.
Quetzal's head rose at his elbow. "I'm going to be
besides you,
Patera Calde. They're finding a box for me to stand on."
With as much firmness as he could muster, Silk said, "I can't
possibly sit while your Cognizance stands."
A hatch opened at the front of the floater; Oosik's head and
shoulders emerged, and he spoke to someone inside.
Quetzal touched Silk's hand with cold, dry fingers that might have
been boneless. "You're wounded, Patera Calde, and weaker than
you think. Stay seated. That is my wish." His head rose to the level
of Silk's own.
"As Your Cognizance desires." With both hands on the rim of the
hatch, Silk heaved up his unwontedly uncooperative body. For an
instant the effort seemed too great; his heart pounded and his arms
shook; then one foot found a corner of the box on which Quetzal
stood, and he was able to hoist himself up enough to sit on the
coaming of the open turret hatch. "The gunner's seat remains for
Your Cognizance," he said.
The floater lifted beneath them, gliding forward. Louder than the
roar of its engine, Oosik's voice seemed to reach into every street in
the city: "_People of Viron! Our new calde is coming among you as we
promised. At his side is His Cognizance the Prolocutor, who has
confirmed that Calde Silk has the favor of all the gods. Hail him!
Follow him!_"
Brilliant white lights glared to left and right, less than an arm's
"Girl come!" Oreb exclaimed.
A black civilian floater had nosed between their floater and the
troopers, and was pushing through the mounted officers. Hyacinth
stood on its front seat beside the driver; and while Silk watched
open mouthed, she stepped over what seemed to be a low invisible
barrier, and onto the waxed and rounded foredeck. "Your stick!" she
called.
Silk tightened the handle, leaned as far back as he dared, and held
it out to her; the civilian floater advanced until its cowling touched
the back of the floater upon which he rode.
And Hyacinth leaped, her scarlet skirt billowing about her bare
legs in the updraft from the blowers. For an instant he was certain
she would fall. Then she had grasped the cane and stood secure on
the sloping rear deck of his floater, waving in triumph to the
mounted officers, most of whom waved in return or saluted. As the
floater in which she had come turned away and vanished into the
twilight beyond the lights on their own, Silk recognized the driver
who had returned him to his manse Phaesday night.
Hyacinth gave him a mischievous grin. "You look like you've seen
a ghost. You didn't expect company, did you?"
"I thought you were inside. I should've--I'm sorry, Hyacinth.
Terribly sorry."
"You ought to be." He had to put his ear to her lips to hear her,
and she nipped and kissed it. "Oosie sent me away. Don't tell him
I'm up here."
Lost in the wonder of her face, Silk could only gasp.
Quetzal raised the baculus to bestow a benison, although Silk
could see no one beyond the glare that enveloped the three of them
except the mounted officers. The roar of their floater was muted
now; an occasional grating hesitation suggested that its cowling was
actually scraping the cobbles.
"You said you took a floater," Silk told Hyacinth. "I thought you
meant that you just, well, took it."
"I wouldn't know how to make one go." Sitting, she edged nearer,
grasping the coaming of the turret hatch. "Would you? But that
driver's my friend, and I gave him a little money."
They rounded a corner, and innumerable throats cheered from
the dimness beyond the lights. Someone shouted, "We've gone over
to Silk!"
A thrown chrysanthemum brushed his cheek, and he waved.
Another voice shouted, "Live the calde!" It brought a storm of
cheering, and Hyacinth waved and smiled as if she herself were that
calde, evoking a fresh outburst. "Where are we going? Did Oosie
tell you?"
"To the Alambrera." Silk had to shout to make himself heard.
"We'll free the convicts. The Juzgado afterward."
A jumble of boxes and furniture opened to let them pass--Liana's
barricade.
Beside him, Quetzal invoked the Nine: "In the name of Marvelous
Molpe, you are blessed. In the name of Tenebrous Tartaros..."
They trust the gods, Silk thought, all these wretched men; and
because they do, they have made me their leader. Yet I feel I can't
trust any god at all, not even the Outsider.
As if they had been chatting over lunch, Quetzal said, "Only a fool
would, Patera Calde."
Silk stared.
"Didn't I tell you that I've done everything I could to prevent
theophanies? Those we call gods are nothing more than ghosts.
Powerful ghosts, but only because they entailed that power to
themselves in life."
"I--" Silk swallowed. "I wasn't aware that I had spoken aloud,
Your Cognizance. I apologize; my remark was singularly inappropriate."
Oreb stirred apprehensively on his shoulder.
"You didn't, Patera Calde. I saw your face, and I've had lots of
practice. Don't look at me or your young woman. Look at the
people. Wave. Look ahead. Smile."
Both waved, and Silk tried to smile as well. His eyes had adjusted
to the lights well enough now for him to glimpse indistinct figures
beyond the mounted officers, many waving slug guns just as he
waved the cane. Through clenched teeth he ventured, "Echidna told
us Pas was dead. Your Cognizance confirmed it."
"Dead long ago," Quetzal agreed, "whoever he really was, poor
old fellow. Murdered by his family, as was inevitable." Deftly he
caught a bouquet. "Blessings on you, my children. Blessings,
blessings... May Great Pas and the immortal gods smile upon you
and all that you own, forever!"
"Silk is calde! Long live Silk!"
Hyacinth told him happily, "We're getting a real tour of the city!"
He nodded, feeling his smile grow warm and real.
"Look at them, Patera Calde. This is their moment. They have
bled for this."
"Peace!" Silk called to the shadowy crowds, waving the cane.
"Peace!"
"Peace!" Oreb confirmed, and hopped up onto Silk's head flapping
his wings. The day was brightening at last, Silk decided, in spite
of the storm-black cloud hanging over the city. How appropriate
that shadeup should come now--peace and sunlight together! A
cheering woman waved an evergreen bough, the symbol of life. He
waved in return, meeting her eyes and smiling, and she seemed
ready to swoon with delight.
"Don't start throwing flowers to yourself," Hyacinth told him with
mock severity. "They'll be blaming you soon enough."
"Then let's enjoy this while we can." Seeing the woman with the
bough had recalled one of the ten thousand things the Outsider had
shown him--a hero riding through some foreign city while a
cheering crowd waved big fan-like leaves. Would Echidna and her
children kill the Outsider too? With a flash of insight, he felt sure
they were already trying.
"Look! There's Orchid, throwing out the house."
A light directed at the flag showed her plainly, leaning so far from
the second-story window through which Kypris had called to him
that it seemed she might fall any moment. They were floating down
Lamp Street, clearly; the Alambrera could not be far.
As Hyacinth blew Orchid a kiss, something whizzed past Silk's
ear, striking the foredeck like a gong. A high whine and a booming
explosion were followed by the rattle of a buzz gun. Somebody
shouted for someone to come down, and someone inside the floater
caught his injured ankle and pulled.
He looked up instead, to where something new and enormous
that was not a cloud at all filled the sky. Another whine, louder,
mounting ever higher, until Lamp Street exploded in front of them,
peppering his face and throwing something solid at his head.
Oosik shouted, "Faster!" and disappeared down his hatch, slamming
it behind him.
"Inside, Patera Calde!"
He scooped Hyacinth into his arms instead, dropping the cane
into the floater. It was racing now, careering along Lamp Street and
scattering people like chaff. She shrieked.
Here was Cage Street, overlooked by the despotic wall of the
Alambrera. Hanging in the air in front of it was a single trooper with
wings--a female trooper, from the bulge at her chest--who leveled a
slug gun. He slid off the coaming and dropped, still holding
Hyadnth, onto the men below.
They sprawled in a tangle of arms and legs, like beetles swept into
a jar. Someone stepped on his shoulder and swarmed up the spidery
ladder. The turret hatch banged shut. At the front of the floater
Oosik snapped, "Faster, Sergeant!"
"We're getting a vector now, sir."
Silk tried to apologize, to tug Hyacinth's scarlet skirt (about
which Hyacinth herself seemed to care not a cardbit) over her
thighs, and to stand in a space in which he could not possibly have
stood upright, all at once. Nothing succeeded.
Something struck the floater like a sledge, sending it yawing into
something else solid; it rolled and plunged and righted itself, its
straining engine roaring like a wounded bull. Reeking of fish, a wisp
of oily black smoke writhed through the compartment.
"_Faster!_" Oosik shouted.
The turret gun spoke as if in response, a clatter that went on and