Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe (33 page)

“Stop that,” Savek said, as he took the objects back.

“S-S- Sorry, lord. I know not of what you describe. For me they are but trinkets, purchased beyond the western sea, and brought here by ship.” The last being true.

“And this?” Savek demanded, shaking the sail out to its full size.

“A t-t-tablecloth, lord, or a shroud. Depending on what the customer may choose.”

“You are a liar.”

“If you say so, l-l-lord,” Hethor said humbly.

It looked like Severian was about to object when a commotion came from outside. Then the door slammed open and a beast man entered. It uttered a series of urgent grunts, and a scream was heard coming from somewhere behind him. Savek swore and led the rest of the guards out of the chamber. A heartbeat later a roaring whoosh sounded.

Hethor left his chair and retrieved his belongings. “Master,” he said, staring at the open door, “what was that?”

A tongue of fire shot past the door in answer, and a glowing insect appeared. Its wings were a blur. It had a gauzy appearance, and seemed to shimmer like a mirage. Then, as the head with the hooked beak turned to look at them, it opened its mouth and another gout of fire flooded the entrance to the chamber.

That was when Kevas darted in and fired her laser pistol . . . to no effect.

Another tongue of fire shot out of the creature’s mouth and wrapped Kevas in a cocoon of yellow-orange flames. There was nothing melodious about her scream. Death came quickly, but the corpse continued to burn as it hit the floor.

Severian had reclaimed Terminus Est by then, and held it ready.

The creature turned away and disappeared onto the platform beyond—and more screams were heard.

Severian turned to Hethor. “Come on. This is our chance.”

“Yes, Master,” Hethor said obediently, as he followed the carnifex to the door. There was good reason to look around before exiting the chamber, and what he saw surprised him. The platform was empty. But off to the right, and many chains below, the glowing insect hovered in midair. A streamer of fire shot out to set a beast man alight. The soldier howled and rolled on the floor in a futile attempt to extinguish the flames.

There was a great cacophony of noise as inmates shouted all manner of things, a bell began to toll, and hundreds of beast men swarmed out onto the galleries, ramps, and platforms, ready to do battle.

Severian turned to the left and was forced to step over Savek’s charred body before he could access the stairs. He ran down them to a long gallery lined with cells. A beast man saw Severian, took him to be an escaped prisoner, and came at him with sword swinging. The carnifex ducked to let the blade pass over his head and took a swing at the creature’s left leg and followed it with a downward blow that split its head open.

“It’s wearing a key,” Severian observed. “Take it. Open those cells.”

Hethor hurried to obey, and as he opened door after door, Severian fought a succession of bloody duels. Then, once enough prisoners had been released, they became an army in their own right. They howled as they rushed down ramps, swarmed any jailer they could find, and opened more cells.

One by one the beast men fell, and as they did, the escapees took their weapons. All Severian and Hethor had to do was follow the mob down to ground level and find a way out.

They did so, but as Severian entered the tunnel that lead north from Piteous Gate, he turned to find that Hethor had disappeared. Swept away by the crowd perhaps—or determined to continue alone. Not that it mattered. He wanted to find Dorcas and assumed she was somewhere ahead.

Now, as Severian pushed his way through the surging crowd, he saw signs that the pyrausta, the flame-throwing insect, was somewhere in front of him. Two burnt bodies lay sprawled in the street, the faint odor of sulfur hung in the air, and there were screams ahead. In moments, he came across the man named Jonas, who was kneeling next to a dead onager. The animal was badly burned and its throat had been cut.

“It was hurt,” Jonas explained. “I had to give it peace.”

“You did the right thing,” Severian assured him. “Come with me. I can see the north end of the gate from here.”

Jonas stood, and with the merychip following along behind, they walked north. Neither man was aware that the object in Severian’s sabretache had started to glow, nor did they take notice when the light began to fade, because their eyes were on the road ahead.

New York Times bestselling author William C. Dietz has published more than forty novels, some of which have been translated into German, French, Russian, Korean, and Japa nese. Dietz also wrote the script for the Legion of the Damned game (iPhone, iTouch, and iPad), based on the popular series of the same name—and co wrote Sony’s Resis tance: Burning Skies game for the PS Vita. Dietz is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Writer’s Guild, and the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. He and his wife live near Gig Harbor in Washington state, where they enjoy traveling, kayaking, and reading books. For more information about William C. Dietz and his work, visit www.williamcdi etz.com.

Michael Andre-Driussi wrote The Wizard Knight Companion: A Lexicon for Gene Wolfe’s The Knight and The Wizard, as well as Lexicon Urthus: A Dictionary for the Urth Cycle, both with Gene Wolfe. This story would have been impossible without Michael’s advice and guidance.

MARC ARAMINI

On Gene Wolfe:
He is the single biggest influence on the way that I think today. I first encountered him by accident in the fourth grade when a friend of my father gave me a box of books, which included a hardcover of The Claw of the Conciliator. I had to get the first book, of course, and when I reread Wolfe I realized how profound he was—a modern and sophisticated man who can write breathtakingly about everything from spirituality to despair without ever falling victim to banality. He could build on ancient formulas and traditions without destroying them. I wrote him a fan letter in graduate school, and since then he has become a far more trustworthy hero to me than any of his protagonists. This story is of course inspired by his Latro books and their exploration of memory, identity . . . and mercy.

I
opened the golden pyx as deftly as I could, fumbling for a second, thinking of the words that had caught my attention at the Christmas Vigil last week in the dark pew— the monophony of a chanting tenor echoing in my skull. I tried to believe that there was something sublime or transcendent waiting to happen. That old chant of time’s passage was stuck in my head, of how very much time it had been since the Earth was new, since the flood, since the two of us had seen each other clearly—time oppressed us both as I tried to remember the proper words. Only this hungry lie drew his gaze toward me, though we were alone in his little silent room.

His lips were dry, irritated from the growth above them. I could almost feel his lust for the unleavened bread in my hand. He was wearing a dark gray dress shirt today, and black slacks, with his red undershirt the only splash of color and vibrancy. St. Jude Thaddeus flashed in gold around his neck as he leaned forward to better see the wafers nestled in the pyx. The fluorescent lights above played shadowy games with his pale skin, hiding the dark blue eyes in deep recesses, but revealing the angry red marks around his scarred forehead, almost like tumors, though they proved flat to the touch.

There was a discernible reflection of that artificial light nested in his eyes when I returned his scrutiny. With the use of his left hand he must have fastened the buttons himself, or the aides would have left him in only the red shirt. It seemed to me that his right one was reaching out toward the pyx now.

“You were here last week,” was firmly spoken.

“Yesterday.”

He was silent for what seemed a minute at my reply, and I decided it was as good a time as any to get this over with.

“Behold the Lamb—”

“But last week, too,” he interjected, gathering steam now that silence was most expected. “I showed you the letter they sent. Questioning my document. I translated it, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, the document. We can talk after, you know.” I caught myself mimicking him, unconsciously. “And about other stuff, too. Eleanor has some questions I would like for you to answer.”

“Rome was already a republic when that last script was trapped, sealed up in that wall for so unbearably long. I knew it would be there. Before the accident. I found it.” He touched the scar near his left temple. “And right after the accident I was sure of what I had found, at last.”

I did not think he had been a very religious person before, but things had changed—if not from the time of his accident and that ghastly but apparently harmless skin infection, then later with the stroke, when his gait had become so labored.

“Hey, Grandpa, speaking of Rome: This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; happy are those who are called to his supper.” My voice sounded reedy to my ears.

“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

I could hear him humming under his breath, the old songs he had enjoyed so much, but in a fractious kind of concatenation only someone who truly knew him could follow. (And the traitor thought: Did he even know himself anymore? flashed through my mind.) I could hear the words of his haphazard humming in my head as if he were vocalizing: “and drink of his blood, you will live forever . . . Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis . . . dona nobis pacem.”

Then those shadowed eyes noticed me again, and they shifted to encompass my existence. “You should read it—I rewrote it all, but I think I lost the first half. I corrected a few of the words, from the Latin. I don’t think Sol Invictus was the right term, as I did before.”

“Look, I don’t have time for that now. I know you kept impeccable rec ords about what happened before the accident, maybe after. You always did. Your study had so many, but nothing about that last trip. Have you stored them somewhere? I need to see them. A key for a safe box? A vault? Anything?”

“Your mother used to ask the same way when she was alive.”

“Yeah, and she’s still alive. But you know why she can’t come here.” As I said it, I wondered if it was true.

“That key won’t help you get what you seek. That’s not worth knowing. Only what I have written here. On some paper towels, if you’d help me look.” He gestured at the small table in front of him, laid out with clean towels and a large safety cup. His bookshelf, filled with some of his hardcovers, was almost within reach from his wheeled seat. “Roy—it’s all you need.”

I ignored that. I saw where he was pointing, to the bits of crumpled paper between two volumes. Despite myself I reached out to retrieve and straighten it. “Did you put that there?”

“I think we could say Sol or Mithras, but since it hasn’t been published yet, we can change it. I need to summon the spirit, not the letter. That’s harder, isn’t it?”

I knew what he was talking about; I had seen his scrawled work weeks ago, and further, I knew its source. “I’m sorry, pops.” I couldn’t tell him that any historian would know in a few seconds. There was no solar cult in Rome until five centuries later; his allusions were getting less consistent.

Yet the imp of the perverse grabbed me, and I glanced down despite myself.

The sun reflected off the waters of Hiberus, and it suffused everything with such an inviting glow that I wanted to bathe in its warmth. The image was stuck in my head as surely as the knowledge that I am a soldier of the Great King. Senator Hadrianus Drusus had taken me to his apartment, and though he believed himself a clever man, I could see that he was trying to position me in a way to make the most of my talents—whatever he believed them to be.

It was a small and mostly tidy place for someone who had identified himself as a senator of the republic. His voice was not fast, yet there was something not entirely languorous in him. “We are not a greedy people, you know. Life is getting better—and we can make it even more so.”

“This ‘we’ you speak of,” I interposed, “is it this city, the eagle’s hordes? Or is this you and your friends? Or the two of us?” I would not be spoken to as a slave by this man—not anymore.

Cautus had bared his teeth at the bridge, where the scarred girl had left us and Hadrianus had first called to me. Though I could not remember how he had responded to everyone, I knew that Cautus loved me. And for a while after that I had been distracted by the maiden with the sheath of grain, as she whispered in my ear that I was blessed by Asopus. Yet all that was behind me for now, and I had accepted Hadrianus’s offer to accompany him to his nearby residence.

Hadrianus aimed a crooked leer at me. “You are a young and handsome man, and we have heard about the way you handled those plebes. I thought, here, this is what we have sought so long. I want to take you to a man named Aelius in the city, where we will see many things.”

“It was not because they were plebes—” But I could not finish, for it was fading. For an instant on the road today, the woman with the grain had made me feel good as she brushed against me, but when she had mentioned it would be many and many years before she married the sun, I felt nothing but a bitter cold.