Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe (35 page)

“A sphere is the most perfect shape,” I said to her, and she held that sphere in her hands, though her eyes were the eyes of a lioness.

And Aelius, with the golden hair, the effulgent face so radiant—he stood near her, flickering away into her shadow. “You were right to treat Hadrianus as you did,” he said, “though he was my friend.”

I nodded, and admitted then what I had feared to admit before, when Aelius had cast aside the fleshly appearance of a Senator and the plebian retaliation and the rise to arms had stopped dead before it could begin. Hadrianus had known they would trust me, and gambled that the consul would listen to him in forcefully putting them down.

“Once I would have fought for him, or fought against him with the outraged. Now I don’t want to fight, not anymore. I spared him, though he did not beg for mercy.”

“Even you can be redeemed. Us, too.” The lion-eyed goddess picked up the iron thunderbolt that had fallen in my wrestling match and held it at her waist. “You no longer remember the screaming woman at his altar, do you? You would know why he hated them, then. Perhaps we have not stopped that.”

It was at that point that the great boar burst through the ground itself, as if he had been tunneling since time began, creating some cavern of darkness and death, his skin itself an angry red glare as his weak eyes opened with rage, taking in the goddess with the lion eyes, Aelius, and myself.

It screamed with a rage that seemed to have all the power of the dead behind it, a nacreous and chaotic mess left in its wake that murmured of slimy and desperate disappointment.

The sword at my side had been blunted over time, but I knew that this enemy was one I would have more difficulty sparing.

Aelius only regarded it with sorrow, and with all my speed and all my strength I grabbed its tusks and turned its charge into the marble altar. The tusks stuck in the hard marble, and with a wrench of desperation the bore jerked to the side, shattering its tusks in jagged and grotesque fashion. While it freed itself, I was able to get one hand loose and draw the sword at my belt, and scoured it across the head, hoping that I would not have to actually kill it. I jumped back as it completely extricated itself, turned, and charged again, and I cut it shallowly over and over, until I was sure that it was not a great boar I fought but a man. And when he sank to his knees, I managed to restrain him in my hands, and his resis tance ceased. I turned and faced Aelius.

The sun was fierce indeed, blinding me, such that the ruined buildings of the consulate were as nothing.

“Why do you want me to do this?” I asked, but Aelius made no answer. It felt for a second that I was talking only to myself, that there was nothing else in existence. That feeling, too, passed, and it spoke in my head. The angry flesh of he who had been a boar furrowed under my hands, and though I halted my hands from twisting that sturdy neck, he squirmed as if it could escape into the earth, into the embrace of Mother Ge to be reborn again. He melted through the floor of the temple of the sun. But I knew that he wanted nothing so much as to grab the light shining through Aelius and call it his own.

“You have recalled dimly and only in part, but I have heard through you,” Aelius said. There were many voices behind him. “Though you could not remember, at each point losing more of yourself, something was gained, too. I have heard, and those things will never be forgotten again. You have been one of my rays, and now there will be rays of mercy. Tomorrow you will come back to me, and we will both go forward, to another and another tomorrow, to the great peace we have begun by stopping this rebellion. We need a more unified Republic for now, and we have taken that first step. As for him, we shall spare him, not once, not twice, but every time, when he supplicates for mercy.”

“And when he does not know to ask for it?”

He was silent for a time. “Write tonight, and return tomorrow.”

And all I could think was that it was impossible, and that this, too, would fade away, lost forever, though it was so very bright.

I felt that I myself would become one with that golden figure, in casting away my sword. I thought that the distance which had seemed so great, the mist so strong, was nothing but the parting of all the ages of both men and gods, in one immutable moment, the setting and rising of the sun. Were Ge and Sol to wed yet again, or would this ray of hope forever end it? Do you see the guilt on me? I spared the creature of zalmo, so that tomorrow, or even two hundred thousand tomorrows from now, this mercy will be remembered. Let it be, for I have had enough. I wanted to call it enough killing and loss, I am misremembering. It is something—the trumpet sounding across the river, and the light from the sun reflected so powerfully it is blinding, blinding as the first opening of an infant’s eyes must be, for one who has never seen before. And for just that instant I felt it: the light—the light of the whole world at peace.

It was nonsense, and he knew it. I did not go to church the next Sunday, but I knew I would have to go see him later, and confront him about the truth—what he had found, why he was lying to himself and to us. I had to have this finished, quickly. I did not call Eleanor, perhaps in fear of her questioning. Eleanor would be happy then, I was sure, when I confronted him. It was late by the time I drove to see him, my eyes burning.

Yet he was still sitting there, his crippled little hand all close to his body, the other playing with his scarred forehead. He looked up and smiled at me as I came in, and then those blue eyes darkened im mensely.

“You . . . you didn’t bring the communion?”

“There’s no time for that nonsense now. I need to know the truth. You know what happened to your wife and your research partner. There was no sun cult in Rome until centuries later. No more scribbling pointless lies.”

And then his eyes were dark, and the skin on his brow looked angrily red. His stress caused it to shift, and then I noticed that the St. Jude was off his neck, cradled in his right hand.

“Toto urbe in pace composito, eh? You held everything that was worth knowing in your hands, while it was I who had been looking for the answer. You’ve thrown the answer away. At least I won’t be stuck here anymore.”

He reached out for me, and though there was no one to shut the door, I heard it slam, and felt his hand reach me, felt the medallion press into my skin. And as we touched, I knew then what he had been trying to tell me—and though it would very long, there was no mercy in it.

Marc Aramini was born in Washington, D.C., to military parents, but he spent most of his childhood in the southwestern United States. He has a degree in biochemistry from Notre Dame and has worked a variety of jobs from teaching to banking and even attaining properties and permits for a family business. He is currently teaching at Mohave Community College in Kingman, Arizona.

JODY LYNN NYE

On Gene Wolfe:
When one lives in the same town as Gene Wolfe, one can never be the most notable writer around. But knowing Gene and his works, I don’t mind at all. Personally, he is a courtly gentleman with a twinkle and a sense of humor, modest, patient, appreciative, who loves hearing a good tale as well as telling one. Professionally, he is a one-man literary tour de force. His fiction is so carefully constructed, his vocabulary so extensive, and his imaginative scope so broad that all one can say (other words being used up by this prolific and talented gentleman) is “Wow.” Every time I open one of his works, I gain two things. First, I get a lesson in my chosen craft that will be of use to me the next time I write something. Second, I get a humility lesson, because I realize that I will have to learn a lot more if I ever hope to reach the pinnacle on which he stands. I am proud to call this wonderful man my friend.

I
stood at the bow of the ship as the storm came upon us, and laughed with joy. Waves broke over my head and sluiced into the drains cut beneath the rail, leaving it almost dry. The sailors around me ran to haul sheets and bring in the lines. They were in no danger. Nor was the ship, but the habits of a life on Ocean were hard to break.

Each of us possessed, although not fastened around our necks, a necklace that enfolded us in a cloak of air. If we were thrown into the water we would not drown, at least not right away.

Most of these brave sailors could swim. I could not. It was a failing of mine. I never learned. I feared large bodies of water; I had seen my doom in them. Now, though, I had the added pain of finding humor and tragedy in shapes, and those that the sea threw up in our faces were so hilarious that I couldn’t restrain myself from laughing. I could not explain my merriment to my fellows. They feared me, as they feared all us witches of the tower from whence I came. I could not blame ordinary folk from withdrawing from us. We asked “why” when no one else would so dare.

I wished that I was on a quest to discover my own “why,” but I was not. A larger matter had overwhelmed us. At that moment, the great, blazing ball of the New Sun was concealed behind storm clouds. When it could be seen, it was a matter of great interest and study. As had been long predicted, the sorrowing, sanguine sphere of the Old Sun had vanished in a white fountain of light and heat. Ushas, once known as Urth, basked in the rays of its long promised New Sun. Yet in the van of that one enormous change had come countless small ones. My own situation was one of those changes, or so the oracles had told me. A wave jumped, spraying white foam in an arc, and I laughed.

“Nedell, come down from there,” Iria said peevishly, her words glowing pale blue with annoyance. The whip-lean woman fought her way against the wind and put a cloak over my thicker shoulders. At once, I felt a deep, sorrowful longing. Iria saw the look on my face and pulled the cloak away. The cloak had belonged to one of her forlorn lovers. Sensation, too, affected me differently than it had before. Instead, she wrapped a long arm around my shoulders and drew me down from the bow. The sailors immediately ran forward and began hauling down more sheets. They had not dared approach while I stood there.

In between heaves of the deck, Iria guided me over its rough boards and into the cabin. With some difficulty, she grabbed hold of the scornful door and slammed it, then made me sit on the bunk. Our servant Chettor huddled in a corner of the cabin, holding onto the leg of a table that had been bolted in place under the port. The eleven-year-old boy keened in a silvery green voice that cut through my head. I could almost feel the bones splintering in icy shards. Our brothers in the Matachin Tower could have tortured me no more expertly.

“Quiet!” Iria barked. The deep brown of her tone surprised Chettor into silence. “Help me with her!”

Together, they worked off my soaked gown, exposing my body to the derision of the cold air. I pushed them away and removed my chemise. Chettor took it and spread it over the back of the heavy chest at the foot of the large bunk we all shared. Iria scrubbed at my skin with the rough linen towels from the washbasin, the water of which now slopped across the floor. What difference did a few more bucketfuls make? We were surrounded by Ocean. It could not be long now before we were entirely engulfed.

From our trunk Chettor fetched a dry linen chemise and gown and brought them to Iria’s side. Once my skin had been rubbed red, she threw the garments over my head. The cloth soothed me. I ran my fingers over the weave. I marveled at the visions behind my eyes of our sister witch Menida at her loom, the love of her craft glowing from the threads. I refastened my belt and attached the scrip in which I bore the tools of our craft. I barely had it on before the ship began to heave up and down as if it would tear itself apart.

In a calm, mellow tan, Iria asked, “Are you all right now?”

I sighed, a silver whisper that rippled with gray, the result of my fear.

“Yes. I can’t help myself.”

“I know. I must go out again. They will steer against the storm unless I stop them.”

I looked up at her and took her rough, slim hands in my own plump palms. In them, I felt care and worry and understandable impatience, overlaid by the kindness Iria always tried to conceal. “Go safely, sister.”

She smiled, her eyes narrowing into amused slits. “Mother Emoranali said we would all be together until the guide was found. I have no fear of an accident in the meanwhile.”

The boards under us pitched nearly vertical. We clung to the bunk and one another. Iria fought loose from our grasp and pulled herself by means of the ropes looped against the wall to the door. She forced it outward against the wind. It slammed behind her, a harsh, dark blue sound.

Chettor put a hand on the cloth over my knee. Through it I could sense his terror. He admired the two of us, so he had been content to follow us aboard ship when asked, but he had never had a deck below his feet in his short life. It was an adjustment for him. For us all.

Iria’s high-pitched voice came clear as gold through the sounds of the storm, the creaking of the ship’s boards, and the harsh, dark grunts of the seafarers. Her gift was that of direction. Many had natural talents that could help them keep a true course, sensing which way was north by literally following a magnetic gland in their noses. Her sensitivity reached further. It was only because I trusted her with my life that I believed we could succeed in this quest that our Guildmistress had given to us. Chettor crept closer to me. In spite of my own terror, I embraced him as I would have one of my own children and cuddled him close.