Exodus from the Long Sun

“I’m a laywoman again,” Maytera Marble told him.

“This officious laywoman once boasted that though others might be tempted to lie, her figures were accurate. So are mine. Inside of three months, Siyuf will be unable to feed her troops, to say nothing of her horses, mules, and camels. Having no alternative, she’ll return to Trivigaunte. By then half the city will have abandoned your rebellion. We came to inform you of that, and demand that you restore our personal accounts.”

“And keep your hands off the Fisc,” Potto subjoined.

“That will be guaranteed by their surrender.” Loris looked around the table, a councillor so rich in wisdom and experience that even Maytera Mint was inclined to accept everything that he said. “Would you care to hear our terms?”

“No.” Silk paused, listening to the sounds of hurrying feet in the foyer. “We haven’t time. I accept. We surrender. We can discuss terms when we have more leisure. That was why I hoped you’d remain, Councillor. It would have facilitated—”

At that moment I burst into the room. “They’re coming, Calde, like you said. A couple of hundred, some on horses.”

“Thank you, Horn.” Silk smiled sadly. “They’ll knock, I believe — at least I hope they will. If they do, delay them as long as you can, please.”

Potto was on his feet again. “We accept your surrender. Let’s go, Cousin!”

Maytera Marble stepped into their path. “Let me remind you of what I told you at my son’s. Calde Silk’s surrender is valid and binds everyone. Patera Silk’s means nothing at all. Do you accept him as Calde? For life?”

The door to the kitchen flew open then, and Hossaan strode in with a needler in each hand; behind him came a dozen women brandishing slug guns. “That life may be short,” he told Silk. “It will be, unless you get your hands up. The rest of you, too.”

One by one Hyacinth, Silk, Remora, Potto, Spider, and Horn complied, Maytera Marble and Bison raising their hands last, and together. Silk said, “You realize, I hope, that this is fundamentally a misunderstanding, a falling out among friends. It can be smoothed over, and soon will be.”

“Spread out,” Hossaan told the women who had entered with him. “Each cover a prisoner.” He smiled at Silk, a smile that did not reach his hooded eyes. “I hope you’re right, Calde. On the personal level, I like you and your wife. I’m carrying out Colonel Abanja’s—”

The crack of a needler cut him off. Ragged fire from the slug guns ended in a choking cloud of plaster dust and an ear-splitting roar as most of the west wall fell, severed from its foundations by the azoth Silk had received from Doctor Crane and given to Maytera Mint.

Chapter 14 — The Best Thieves in the Whorl

“Patera?” Horn inquired softly. “Calde?”

Silk sat up. “What is it?”

“Nettle’s asleep. Just about everybody is, but I knew you weren’t. I could see your eyes.”

Silk nodded, the motion almost invisible in the darkness of the freezing tent. “You’re right, I wasn’t; and you’re afraid, as we all are, and want reassurance. I’ll reassure you as much as I can, though that isn’t very much.”

“I have some questions, too.”

Silk smiled, his teeth flashing in the gloom. “So do I, but you can’t answer mine. I may be able to answer a few of yours. I’ll try.”

Nettle whispered, “I’m not asleep. Horn thought I was, but I was pretending so he’d sleep.” Horn took her hand as she said, “I’ve got a question too.”

“Reassurance first,” Silk told them. “You may need it more than you realize. It’s quite unlikely that Generalissimo Siyuf will have you executed or even imprisoned. Hossaan — that’s Willet’s real name, he’s a Trivigaunti — knows that you and Horn were at the palace to help Moly. Besides, you’re hardly more than children. Siyuf’s a harsh woman, but not a cruel one from what I’ve seen; she wouldn’t command the loyalty she does if she were. I can only guess, but I believe that you and Horn will be questioned and released.”

Horn asked, “Is there anything you don’t want us to tell?”

“No, tell them everything. Nothing you can say can harm Hyacinth or Moly or me. Or Patera Remora and Patera Incus, or even Spider. Nor can anything you say harm you. The better they understand your place in all this, the more likely it is that you’ll be set free once they’ve learned all they can from you — or so it seems to me.”

In a whisper, Nettle asked, “Does this mean we’ve failed, Patera?”

“Of course not. I’m not sure what you’re asking about whether you’re afraid we’ve failed as human beings—”

“Failed the gods.”

“No.” There was resolution in Silk’s voice. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I’m eight years older. It seems an enormous separation to me, as no doubt it does to you. How does it appear to His Cognizance, do you think?”

Horn said, “Like nothing. His Cognizance was an old, old man when we were born.”

“When I was, too. Consider then how young we must appear to Pas, who built the whorl — or to the Outsider, who shaped our forebears from the mud of the Short-Sun Whorl.” Silk fell silent, listening to the slow pacing of the sentries outside, and Remora’s soft snores.

“Since the Outsider began us, let us begin with him. I’ve never seen him, except in a dream, and even then I couldn’t see his face clearly; but he’s seen me from the begi

“Blood is dead. Musk, who was the owner of record and who I once considered worse than Blood, is dead too. Patera Remora over there is the new augur on Sun Street — I believe that may be the Outsider’s way of telling me the task is done. You both helped do it, and I’m sure he’s grateful, as I am.”

Horn muttered, “We didn’t do anything, Patera.”

“Of course you did — but listen. I may be wrong, wrong about having saved our manteion, and wrong about the sign. I may fail after all; I can’t be sure. But I can be sure of this — he will forgive me if I fail, and he would surely forgive you. I know him more than well enough to be certain of that.”

Nettle said, “I was mostly thinking about Echidna. I saw her, when she talked to Maytera Mint, I was there.”

“So was I. Echidna told her to destroy the Alambrera. It has been destroyed, and the convicts have been freed. I freed them.”

“Yes, but—”

“Echidna also ordered the destruction of the Ayuntamiento. It is still in existence, if you like, but consider: Lemur, who headed it so long, is dead; so is Loris, who succeeded him.”

“Maytera says that wasn’t really him,” Nettle objected. “She says Maytera Mint said Potto just works the councillors that we see, like you’d work a puppet.”

Silk chuckled, a small, cheerful sound in the darkness. “Like the wooden man that Horn had when you were small.”

“Yes, Patera.”

“That’s true, I’m sure; and I’m equally sure that at one time it was true of all five councillors. Before Doctor Crane killed Lemur, however, we learned that the real Lemur had died some time before — years before, probably. The manipulated body had become Lemur, the only Lemur in existence, though it thought itself still manipulated by the corpse in Lemur’s bed. Do you follow this, Horn? Nettle?”

Nettle said, “I think so, Patera.”

“When I had time to think about that, which wasn’t until Doctor Crane and I had been pulled out of the water, I wondered about the other councillors. If Councillor Loris had remained with us as I asked, and if he had found it impossible to divert his consciousness to another chem, I would have known — and we would have held the presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento. As it was, I would guess that Loris himself knew before he came to treat with us; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have snatched up the needler Generalissimo Oosik offered to Councillor Potto and begun firing. He understood Generalissimo Siyuf well enough to realize that she would have him executed on some pretense, and knew he had his life to lose like any other man. In the event, he lost it sooner; but he had the satisfaction of a combatant’s death, which may have meant something to him.”