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“I remember a time very long ago when I was cold and hungry. I lay upon my back, encircled by brown walls, and heard the sound of my own screams. Yes, I must have been an infant Not old enough to crawl, I think. You are very clever. What am I thinking now?”
“That I am but an unconscious exercise of your own power, as the Claw was. It is true, of course. I was deformed, and died before birth, and have been kept here since in white brandy. Break the glass.”
“I would question you first,” I said.
“Brother, there is an old man with a letter at your door.”
I listened. It was strange, after having listened only to his words in my mind, to hear real noises again—the calling of the sleepy blackbirds among the towers and the tapping at the door.
The messenger was old Rudesind, who had guided me to the picture-room of the House Absolute. I motioned him in (to the surprise, I think, of the sentries) because I wanted to talk to him and knew that with him I had no need to stand upon my dignity.
“Never been in here in all my years,” he said. “How can I help you. Autarch?”
“We’re served already, just by the sight of you. You know who we are, don’t you? You recognized us when we met before.”
“If I didn’t know your face. Autarch, I’d know a couple dozen times over anyhow. I’ve been told that often. Nobody here talks about anything else, seems like. How you was licked to shape right here.
How they seen you this time and that time. How you looked, and what you said to them. There ain’t one cook that didn’t treat you to a pastry often. All them soldiers told you stories. Been a while now since I met a woman didn’t kiss you and sew up a hole in your pants. You had a dog—”
“That’s true enough,” I said. “We did.”
“And a cat and a bird and a coti that stole apples. And you climbed every wall in this place. And jumped off after, or else swung on a rope, or else hid and pretended you’d jumped. You’re every boy that’s ever been here, and I’ve heard stories put on you that belong to men that was old when I was just a boy, and I’ve heard about things I did myself, seventy years ago.”
“We’ve already learned that the Autarch’s face is always concealed behind the mask the people weave for him. No doubt it’s a good thing; you can’t become too proud once you understand how different you really are from the thing they bow to. But we want to hear about you. The old Autarch told us you were his sentinel in the House Absolute, and now we know you’re a servant of Father Inire’s.”
“I am,” the old man said. “I have that honour, and it’s his letter I carry.” He held up a small and somewhat smudged envelope.
“And we are Father Inire’s master.”
He made a countrified bow. “I know so. Autarch.”
“Then we order you to sit down, and rest yourself. We’ve questions to ask you, and we don’t want to keep a man your age standing. When we were that boy you say everyone’s talking of, or at least not much older, you directed us to Master Ultan’s stacks. Why did you do that?”
“Not because I knew something others didn’t. Not because my master ordered it, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. Won’t you read his letter?”
“In a moment. After an honest answer, in a few words.”
The old man hung his head and pulled at his thin beard. I could see the dry skin of his face rise in hollow-sided, tiny cones as it sought to follow the white hairs. “Autarch, you think I guessed at something back then. Perhaps some did. Perhaps my master did, I don’t know.” His rheumy eyes rolled up under his brows to look at me then fell again. “You were young, and seemed a likely-looking boy, so I wanted you to see.”
“To see what?”
“I’m an old man. An old man then, and an old man now. You’ve grown up since. I see it in your face. I’m hardly any older because that much time isn’t anything to me. If you counted all the time I’ve spent just going up and down my ladder, it’d be longer than that. I wanted you to see there has been a lot come before you. That there was thousands and thousands that lived and died before you was ever thought of, some better than you. I mean. Autarch, the way you was then. You’d think anybody growing up here in the old Citadel would be born knowing all that, but I’ve found they’re not. Being around it all the time, they don’t see it. But going down there to Master Ultan brings it home to the cleverer ones.”
“You are the advocate of the dead.”
The old man nodded. “I am. People talk about being fair to this one and that one, but nobody I ever heard talks about doing right by them. We take everything they had, which is all right. And spit, most often, on their opinions, which I suppose is all right too. But we ought to remember now and then how much or what we have we got from them. I figure while I’m still here I ought to put a word in for them.—And now, if you don’t mind. Autarch, I’ll just lay the letter here on this fu
“Rudesind ...”
“Yes, Autarch?”
“Are you going to clean your paintings?”
He nodded again. “That’s one reason I’m eager to be gone, Autarch. I was at the House Absolute until my master—” here he paused and seemed to swallow, as men do when they fed they have perhaps said too much “—went away north. Got a Fechin to dean, and I’m behind.”
“Rudesind, we already know the answers to the question you think we are going to ask. We know your master is what the people call a cacogen, and that for whatever reason, he is one of those few who have chosen to cast their lots entirely with humanity, remaining on Urth as a human being. The Cumaean is another such, though perhaps you did not know that. We even know that your master was with us in the jungles of the north, where he tried until it was too late to rescue my predecessor. We only want to say that if a young man with an errand comes past again while you are on your ladder, you are to send him to Master Ultan. That is our order.”
When he had gone, I tore open the envelope. The sheet within was not large, but it was covered with tiny writing, as though a swarm of hatchling spiders had been pressed into its surface.
His servant Inire hails the bridegroom of the Urth, Master of Nessus and the House Absolute, Chief of his Race, Gold of his People, Messenger of Dawn, Helios, Hyperion, Surya, Savitar, and Autarch!
I hasten, and will reach you within two days. It was a day and more ere I learned what had taken place. Much of my information came from the woman Agia, who at least by her own account was instrumental in freeing you. She told me also something or your past dealings with her, for I have, as you know, means of extracting information. You will have learned from her that the Exultant Vodalus is dead by her act His paramour, the Chatelaine Thea, at first attempted to gain control of those myrmidons who were about him at his death; but as she is by no means fitted to lead them, and still less to hold in check those in the south, I have contrived to set this woman Agia in her place. From your former mercy toward her, I trust that will meet with your approval. Certainly it is desirable to maintain in being a movement that has proved so useful in the past, and as long as the mirrors of the caller Hethor remain unbroken, she provides it with a plausible commander.
You will perhaps consider the ship I summoned to aid my master, the autarch of his day, inadequate—as for that matter do I—yet it was the best I could obtain, and I was hard pressed to get it.
I myself have been forced to travel south otherwise, and much more slowly; the time may come soon when my cousins are ready to side not just with humankind but with us—but for the present they persist in viewing Urth as somewhat less significant than many of the colonized worlds, and ourselves on a par with the Ascians, and for that matter with the Xanthoderms and many others.
You will perhaps already have gained news both fresher and more precise than mine. On the chance that you have not: