Return to the Whorl

From the congregation, Gyrfalcon asked, "Which god, Patera?"

He straightened up, clearing his throat. "Where no other identi fication is made, it is safe to assume that the god to which a prophecy refers is the one to whom the victim is offered. The other augur-if augur is meant-also shall win the favor-"

At that instant, Oreb flew in through a window. "Watch out! Watch out!"

"And undertake a long journey, from which he shall not return. Death may be intended."

"Bad things!"

Raising a finger to his lips, he gave the bird a stern glance; it settled upon his shoulder, repeating, "Bad things! Things fly!"

"The god's prophecy concerned with all of us is about to be fulfilled, I believe. Certainly the entrails warn that it is very imminent. Some of you have slug guns, I see. You will need them. Others may have less obvious weapons of other kinds, as I do. You may wish to consider how best to employ them. I remind those of you who are unarmed that no man or woman of courage and resource is ever entirely helpless."

"Good Silk?" his bird croaked; and then, "Silk fight?"

He turned to the Prolocutor. "Your Cognizance, I suggest that this victim be offered to the flames entire, and that the remainder of the ceremony proceed as swiftly as possible. We haven't much time."

As has been said, Captain Wijzer led Vadsig down the aisle, he proud and tearful in crimson velvet tunic and trousers, she radiantly lovely in watered silk dripping with pearls. Her bridal bouquet was of pink-and-white seaspume; its gracious perfume soothed the very smoke of sacrifice. Aunt Oxlip's daughters Sweetbay and Madrone were her train-bearers, and Capsicum's grandson bore the ring on a black silk pillow.

Everything went normally and even magnificently, until the lovers had exchanged vows, kissed, and started back up the aisle, bathed in the fervent good wishes of their guests, among whom Hoof and I were of course numbered.

"Watch out!" Oreb croaked. And then with an urgency that few if any had heard before: "Watch out!" A flying shape not quite a man swooped over the pews. It struck Hide with such violence as to knock him off his feet, an apparition of fangs and terrible claws that fell in a welter of blood and slime, cut through the waist.

The blade of an azoth, a thing more terrible than any inhumi, vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, then darted forth again to spear a second inhumu at an open window.

No coherent description of that famous fight is possible. Patera Remora (this is widely known) defended himself and his altar with the knife of sacrifice, as was written two hundred years ago of another augur favored by the gods. Capsicum, it is said, stabbed Gyrfalcon in the melee; certainly she herself was shot and killed by a member of his bodyguard. Weasel, her grandson and Marrow's, is said to have killed an inhumi and an inhuma, though he was only a boy. Captain Wijzer, five inhumi, twice strangling one with each hand.

It would be possible and even easy to multiply such reports to fill a hundred pages. Because they are omitted from all the other accounts, what we must emphasize here are the indescribable noise, the welter of blood, and the wild confusion. Everyone was screaming. Everyone was fighting, even those who would have fled if they could. No count of the numbers of the inhumi was or is possible. It has been said that half the inhumi on Blue at the time took part in the attack, but the assertion rests upon their own testimony, and of what value is that?

Those skilled in war report that an attacking force will scarcely ever sustain its attack when it has lost a third of its number. The best count of the dead inhumi (that of Legume, who was charged with burning their bodies) is one hundred and ninety-eight. If it is correct, and they fought as crack troopers do, their number was about six hundred. It seems probable, however, that it was considerably larger. We would propose one thousand.

What seems certain is that without the azoth, Gyrfalcon's needier, and the slug guns of his bodyguard, the subject of this volume would have perished, and the wedding party with him.

Afterward, he visited Patera Remora, and they sat side by side talking for a time in the little garden between the manse and the manteion. "It is-ah-coming," Patera Remora told him. "In process, hey? If not in my, er, time, then in my acolyte's we will have a working Window, um, Horn."

He said, "Without Mainframe, no god can come to it, Your Cognizance."

"Better, hum? Better so. In-ah-Viron, eh? Thirty years? In, um, Old Viron, as we say now."

He smiled. "No doubt you're right, Your Cognizance."

"What all men, and most-ah-females, require is not theophany, not the divine, um, palpability. Tangibility. It is the-ha!-possibility."

"And yet Mainframe, too, will come. Not in your lifetime, I believe. In your acolyte's."

"He, um, welcome it." The Prolocutor nodded to himself, tossing back the lank gray hair that had fallen over his eyes.

His visitor gave him a piercing glance. "Not you?"

"Er, yes. To be sure."

"It would be presumptuous-very presumptuous-for me to proffer advice, Your Cognizance."

"Yet I should welcome it, er, Horn."

Oreb corrected him.

"Patera Quetzal de-emphasized the worship of Great Pas, Your Cognizance, knowing that Pas was dead. He chose-doubtless wisely-to emphasize that of Scylla instead."

Patera Remora patted his forehead with a worn and yellowed, but neatly folded, handkerchief. "I remember it well." It was the first warm day of summer.

"You, Your Cognizance, might choose to emphasize that of the Outsider, for example."

"I, um."

"He, at least-"

"Good god," Oreb remarked.

"Will not come to your Window, Your Cognizance. I believe I can assure Your Cognizance of that. Not in your time, nor in your acolyte's, nor in his."

Patera Remora nodded slowly at first, then more rapidly. "I, er, comprehend."

"Mainframe may reach Blue, Your Cognizance, before the Whorl puts out again; but Mainframe can never have the power here that it had there, the reins of the sun. Meanwhile it might be well for New Viron-for all of Blue-if you were to exercise your discretion."

"I, um, have. In another matter, hey? But-ah-first, Pat- Er, Horn. May I say that you are most, um, perspicacious? You are correct. I, ah, apprehend it now. I would, um... On my own, eh? Having been given the, er, hint? No, intimation. By you. During the-ah-the ceremony, eh? Your, um, son's nuptials. I would have, um, come wise?" He chuckled.

"I feel certain you would, Your Cognizance."

"Was it this? This the, er, topic? Upon which you, eh?"

"No, Your Cognizance." His visitor sighed. "Or at least, only partially."

"In that case, um...?"

"It is wrong to take one's own life."

He waited for a reply, but none came.

"Is it also wrong to put oneself in harm's way, in the hope that one's life may be taken?"

"Poor Silk!" Oreb exclaimed, and fluttered from his shoulder to an overhanging branch.

"You, um, did. You arranged for the... ah? At the wedding?"

"Yes, Your Cognizance."

Remora pushed back his sweat-damp hair with bony fingers. "Not, um, sufficient. Tell me."

"Your Cognizance will recall the first inhumu, who attacked Hide. His name was Juganu, or at least that is the name by which I knew him. He was infatuated with a human woman, a murderess. He wanted to free her. She is in a prison, as I ought to have told Your Cognizance."

"You, um, opposed this? Quite right."

"I opposed it, Your Cognizance, in such a way as to stir up Juganu's ill will as much as possible." Each hand warred with the other, twisting and tearing. "I didn't-I've searched my conscience on this, Your Cognizance. I didn't imagine that Juganu would enlist hundreds of his kind for a public attack."

Remora grunted.

"I believed it most probable that Juganu would come for me alone. I would feign sleep and permit him to drink his fill, which would be much. If I lived, so be it."

Remora nodded to himself. "But if you, hum?"

"So be it. Possibly he would bring a companion. I foresaw that. Possibly he would bring two or even three; in either case I would certainly die."

"So-um-et cetera, Patera?"

"Yes, exactly, Your Cognizance. It would be what I wanted. I wanted someone else to kill me, so that I would not bear the guilt myself. You know the result of my folly-the deaths of a round dozen people and hundreds of inhumi."

"Evil, eh? Vile, um, miscreations that deserve to-ah-perish, my son."

"Yes, Your Cognizance." He straightened up and squared his shoulders. "I have been on friendly terms with three, however. No, four, because I was briefly on such terms with Juganu himself. With two inhumus, Your Cognizance, and two inhumas. I made a covenant with evil, one I bitterly regret, though those I have known have been no worse than we. I wish to be shriven of that, as well. Shall we begin?"

"No. Urn, no." Remora shook his head. "First, Patera, you must tell me why you wish to-ah-ascend."

"Isn't it obvious?" His voice was angry, so much so that Oreb fled to a higher branch. "I failed! I gave my life, and still I failed."

Remora leaned back, his fingers forming a lofty steeple whose apex touched his chin. "My son, you-ah-adverted a moment ago that the, er, our attackers were no, um, not inferior to-ah-morally. I let it pass. Ignored it, hey?"

"Your Cognizance-"

A bony hand waved him to silence. "Hear me out. The-ahimplication, hum? We no better than, er, they are. It-ah-will not argue. Possibly. Possibly."

"Bad things!" Oreb declared with unshakable conviction.

"Worse things than birds," his master agreed, and added sadly, "but so are we. I thought perhaps-oh, never mind."

"Possibly," Remora repeated. "I-ah-concede that. I, er, myself-"

"I intend nothing personal, Your Cognizance, believe me."

"Um, do. Yet I myself, eh? Conscious, always conscious of many shortcomings. Now, um, Gyrfalcon, eh? A bad man? You would, um, acquiesce, my son?"

He shrugged. "Many people say he was, now that he's dead."

"Was Gyrfalcon as, er, iniquitous as an inhumu? As this, hum, Juganu you once-ah?"

"I imagine so."

"As do I. The-ah. Old Quetzal. Recollect him, Patera?"

"Of course."

"Knew, Lemur, eh? Many, um, discussions. I, er, likewise. With Gyrfalcon. I-ah-understood him. Boasting, eh? Yes, boasting. Don't often, hey? But the truth. Talk with, er, him. Dined. Shrived him, eh? A bad man. In-ah-concordance on that point. But heah. Hear me here, Patera."

"Yes, Your Cognizance."

"Gyrfalcon, um, dispatched you, eh? One of, um, five of, er, us. The worst. Possibly. Possibly the worst of the, er, group. Even he would not, um? Blame someone who, er, expired. So you told me. Who-ah--died in the attempt. Do you take my meaning, Patera?" Remora shook his head violently. "Not so bad a man as that, eh? Not so bad a man as you are, Patera?"

There was silence.

"Do you still, um?"

"Want to end it?" He sighed. "Yes, I suppose I do, really. Nettle will have Hoof and Hide and Vadsig. She'll be all right."

"No die!"

Remora smiled. "Who is Nettle, Patera?"

"My wife. You know her, surely."

"An, er, dark day for me, eh? Boasted. Now I'm about to-ahintrude. Did you, eh? And she? Husband. Lengthy absence, eh? One, um, expects the-hum-warm commerce."

"No, Your Cognizance. She didn't want to, and neither did I; but if we had, there would have been nothing wrong in that, surely."

"I, um, suspend judgment, hey? Shriving, likewise."

"You can't be so cruel, Your Cognizance."

"No? I, um, consider otherwise. You still, um? Reject the gift, hey? The gift of life, Patera. Look at me, eh? Look at me, and tell you no longer desire, er, release. Can you do it?"

His eyes were on the ground. "No, Your Cognizance. If I had brought Pig-if some way I could have..."

"Forbear. For children, eh? For sprats, these ifs."

There was no reply.

"The, um, ceremony. Nuptials, eh? You recall them?"

"Yes, Your Cognizance."

"Well? Ah-distinctly?"

"Very distinctly, Your Cognizance."

"I, um, homily. Curtailed, eh? Yes-ah-abbreviated while the sacred fire, eh? But the, um, reading first. You were not, er, inattentive."

"I hope not, Your Cognizance."

"I, um, advanced to the ambion, eh? Took up the Writings?"

"Yes."

"And, um, then? What next, Patera? Please elucidate."

"You found the passage in which marriage-"

"No! You-ah-erroneous. Previous to that."

"Wait a minute." His forefinger drew small circles over his right cheek. "I remember. You opened the Writings, apparently at random, read a passage, and appeared to reject it. You turned to the passage on marriage then."

"Did I, er, communicate the first passage, Patera?"

"Read it aloud, you mean? No, you read it silently, then opened the book at a different place."

"Have you-ah-formed an, er, theory to account forum?"

"Only the obvious one, Your Cognizance." As he spoke, he felt an icy tendril of dread that he could not have explained. "The initial passage was not suitable for a wedding."

A toss of Remora's head cleared his eyes of his lank hair. "It was, um, suitable, Patera. Your own word, eh? It was-ah-cogent. Very. I, um, declined, eh? Nonetheless. An error. Ah-hubris. Knew better than the gods, eh? At my, um, time of life, I should be wiser." Remora rose. "If you will, er, be unoffended by a brief absence? I shall return presently. Will you, um, enjoy the fine weather?"

"Certainly, Your Cognizance. I'll be here when you return."

"Capital. I shan't be long."