Epiphany of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online

courage in the face of death, but he had vanished into the crowd, and his son with him. The empty cage lay abandoned in the street.
    "For all of us," she told them, "victory!" What silver voice was this, ringing above the crowd? "We must fight for the goddess! We will win with her help!"
    How many remained. Sixty or more? Maytera Mint felt she had not strength enough for even one. "But I have sacrificed too long. I'm junior to my dear sib, and have presided only by her favor." She handed the sacrificial knife to Maytera Marble and took the second rabbit from her before she could object.
    A black lamb for Hierax after the rabbit; and it was an indescribable relief to Maytera Mint to watch Maytera Marble receive it and offer it to the untenanted gray radiance of the Sacred Window; to wail and dance as she had so many times for Patera Pike and Patera Silk, to catch the lamb's blood and splash it on the altar-to watch Maytera cast the head into the fire, knowing that everyone was watching Maytera too, and that no one was watching her.
    One by one, the lamb's delicate hoofs fed the gods. A swift stroke of the sacrificial knife laid open its belly, and Maytera Marble whispered, "Sib, come here."
    Startled, Maytera Mint took a hesitant step toward her; Maytera Marble, seeing her confusion, crooked one of her new fingers. "Please!"
    Maytera Mint joined her over the carcass, and Maytera Marble murmured, "You'll have to read it for me, sib."
    Maytera Mint glanced up at the senior sibyl's metal face.
    "I mean it. I know about the liver, and what tumors mean. But I can't see the pictures. I never could."
    Closing her eyes, Maytera Mint shook her head.
    "You must!"
    "Maytera, I'm afraid."
    Not so distant as it had been, the buzz gun spoke again, its rattle followed by the dull boom of slug guns.
    Maytera Mint straightened up; this time it was clear that people on the edge of the crowd had heard the firing.
    "Friends! I don't know who's fighting. But it would appear-"
    A pudgy young man in black was pushing through the crowd, pracfically knocking down several people in his hurry. Seeing him, she knew the intense relief of passing responsibility to someone else. "Friends, neither my dear sib nor I will read this fine lamb for you. Nor need you endure the irregularity of sacrifice by sibyls any longer. Patera Gulo has returned!"
    He was at her side before she pronounced the final word, disheveled and sweating in his wool robe, but transported with triumph. "You will, all you people-everybody in the city-have a real augur to sacrifice for you. Yes! But it won't be me. Patera Silk's back!"
    They cheered and shouted until she covered her ears.
    Gulo raised his arms for silence. "Maytera, I didn't want to tell you, didn't want to worry you or involve you. But I spent most of the night going around writing on walls. Talking to-to people. Anybody who'd listen, really, and getting them to do it, too. I took a box of chalk from the palaestra. Silk for Caldé! Silk for Caldé! Here he comes! "
    Caps and scarves flew into the air. " SILK FOR CALDÉ! "
    Then she caught sight of him, waving, head and shoulders emerging from the turret of a green Civil Guard floater-one that threw up dust as all floaters did, but seemed to operate in ghostly silence, so great was the noise.
    " I am come? " the talus thundered again. " In the service of Scylla! Mightiest of goddesses! Let me pass! Or perish! " Both buzz guns spoke together, filling the tunnel with the wild shrieking of ricochets.
    Auk, who had pulled Chenille flat when the shooting began, clasped her more tightly than ever. After a half minute or more the right buzz gun fell silent, then the left. He could hear no answering fire.
    Rising, he peered over the talus's broad shoulder. Chems littered the tunnel as far as the creeping lights illuminated it. Several were on fire. "Soldiers," he reported.
    "Men fight," Oreb amplified. He flapped his injured wing uneasily. "Iron men."
    "The Ayuntamiento," Incus