Read Online Nightside the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe - Free Book Online Page A

that’s all. If we can’t keep this manteion going without new wells, it will have to.”
    Maytera Marble said nothing, but sat with head bowed as though unable to meet his eyes.
    â€œDoes it worry you so much, Maytera? Listen, and I’ll tell you a secret. The Outsider has enlightened me.”
    Motionless, she might have been a time-smoothed statue, decked for some eccentric commemorative purpose in a sibyl’s black robe.
    â€œIt’s true, Maytera! Don’t you believe me?”
    Looking up she said, “I believe that you believe you’ve been enlightened, Patera. I know you well, or at least I think I do, and you wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”
    â€œAnd he told me why—to save our manteion. That’s my task.” Silk stumbled after words. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to be given a task by a god, Maytera. It’s wonderful! You know it’s what you were made for, and your whole heart points toward that one thing.”
    He rose, unable to sit still any longer. “If I’m to save our manteion, doesn’t that tell us something? I ask you.”
    â€œI don’t know, Patera. Does it?”
    â€œYes! Yes, it does. We can apply logic even to the instructions of the gods, can’t we? To their acts and to their words, and we can certainly apply logic to this. It tells us two things, both of major importance. First, that the manteion’s in danger. He wouldn’t have ordered me to save it if it weren’t, would he? So there’s a threat of some sort, and that’s vital for us to know.” Silk strode out into the warm rain to stare east toward Mainframe, the home of the gods.
    â€œThe second is even more important, Maytera. It’s that our manteion can be saved. It’s endangered, not doomed, in other words. He wouldn’t have ordered me to save it if that couldn’t be done, would he?”
    â€œPlease come in and sit down, Patera,” Maytera Marble pleaded. “I don’t want you to catch cold.”
    Silk re-entered the arbor, and she stood.
    â€œYou don’t have—” he began, then grinned sheepishly. “Forgive me, Maytera. Forgive me, please. I grow older, learning nothing at all.”
    She swung her head from side to side, her silent laugh. “You’re not old, Patera. I watched you play a while today, and none of the boys are as quick as you are.”
    â€œThat’s only because I’ve been playing longer,” he said, and they sat down together.
    Smiling she clasped his hand in hers, surprising him. The soft skin had worn from the tips of her fingers long ago, leaving bare steel darkened like her thoughts by time, and polished by unending toil. “You and the children are the only things at this manteion that aren’t old. You don’t belong here, neither of you.”
    â€œMaytera Mint’s not old. Not really, Maytera, though I know she’s a good deal older than I am.”
    Maytera Marble sighed, a soft hish like the weary sweep of a mop across a terrazzo floor. “Poor Maytera Mint was born old, I fear. Or taught to be old before she could talk, perhaps. However that may be, she has always belonged here. As you never have, Patera.”
    â€œYou believe it’s going to be torn down, too, don’t you? No matter what the Outsider may have told me.”
    Reluctantly, Maytera Marble nodded. “Yes, I do. Or as I ought to say, the buildings themselves may remain, although even that appears to be in doubt. But your manteion will no longer bring the gods to the people of this quarter, and our palaestra will no longer teach their children.”
    Silk snapped, “What chance would these sprats have—without your palaestra?”
    â€œWhat chance do children of their class have now?”
    He shook his head angrily, and would have liked to paw the ground.
    â€œSuch things have happened before, Patera. The Chapter