Read Online Epiphany of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gene Wolfe
Tags: Science-Fiction
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self-examination convinced him that he could never exchange it for money if he had any right to it.
Someone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other, and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon worth a company of the Civil Guard-the weapon with which he had slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him with when he would not lie with her.
Had her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night for a few cards-that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower. He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions. So he had been taught.
An augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for. An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with its bolted doors and barred windows?
He placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his beads beside it, and removed his trousers. They were muddier even than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains that could not be washed out.
His shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rain-soaked, followed them into the hamper.
Rude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better than the people they represented before the gods and still represent them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered.
Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his. As be stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty of coquetry, she simpered, "This isn't the first time I've seen you with no clothes on."
He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was not there.
"I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother you any more."
By that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. "I wasn't. I hoped that I wouldn't have to."
From beyond the bedroom door: ' My Caldé? "
"I'll be down in a moment, Captain."
" I heard voices, My Caldé. You are in no danger? "
"This manse is haunted, Captain. You may come up and see for yourself if you like."
Mucor tittered. "Isn't this how you talk to them? In the glasses?"
"To a monitor, you mean?" He had been thinking of one; could she read his thoughts? "Yes, it's very much like this. You must have seen them."
"They don't look the same to me."
"I suppose not." With a considerable feeling of relief, Silk pulled on clean black trousers.
"I thought I'd be one for you."
He nodded in recognition of her consideration. "Just as you use your window and the gods their Sacred Windows. I had not thought of the parallel, but I should have."
Unreflected, her face in his mirror bobbed up and down. "I wanted to tell you it's no good any more, telling my father to lock my window. He'll kill you if he sees you, now. Potto said he had to, and
Someone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other, and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon worth a company of the Civil Guard-the weapon with which he had slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him with when he would not lie with her.
Had her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night for a few cards-that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower. He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions. So he had been taught.
An augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for. An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with its bolted doors and barred windows?
He placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his beads beside it, and removed his trousers. They were muddier even than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains that could not be washed out.
His shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rain-soaked, followed them into the hamper.
Rude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better than the people they represented before the gods and still represent them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered.
Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his. As be stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty of coquetry, she simpered, "This isn't the first time I've seen you with no clothes on."
He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was not there.
"I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother you any more."
By that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. "I wasn't. I hoped that I wouldn't have to."
From beyond the bedroom door: ' My Caldé? "
"I'll be down in a moment, Captain."
" I heard voices, My Caldé. You are in no danger? "
"This manse is haunted, Captain. You may come up and see for yourself if you like."
Mucor tittered. "Isn't this how you talk to them? In the glasses?"
"To a monitor, you mean?" He had been thinking of one; could she read his thoughts? "Yes, it's very much like this. You must have seen them."
"They don't look the same to me."
"I suppose not." With a considerable feeling of relief, Silk pulled on clean black trousers.
"I thought I'd be one for you."
He nodded in recognition of her consideration. "Just as you use your window and the gods their Sacred Windows. I had not thought of the parallel, but I should have."
Unreflected, her face in his mirror bobbed up and down. "I wanted to tell you it's no good any more, telling my father to lock my window. He'll kill you if he sees you, now. Potto said he had to, and
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