Part 3 (1/2)

Silk took a step backward, b.u.mping against one of the onlookers. ”I didn't call myself enlightened, sir.”

”You didn't have to. I've been listening to you. Now you listen to me. I'm not giving you these cards, not for your holy sacrifice or for anydiing else. I'm paying you to answer my questions, and this is the last one. I want you to tell me-right now-what enlightenment is, when you got it, and why you got it. Here diey are.” He held them up again. ”Tell me, Patera, and they're yours.”

Silk considered, then plucked them from Blood's hand. ”As you say. Enlightenment means understanding everything as the G.o.d who gives it understands it. Who you are and who everyone else is, really. Everything you used to think you understood, you see with complete clarity in that instant, and know that you didn't really understand it at all.”

The onlookers murmured, each to his neighbor. Several pointed toward Silk. One waved over die drawer of a pa.s.sing handcart.

”Only for an instant,” Blood said.

”Yes, only for an instant. But the memory remains, so that you know that you knew.” The three cards were still in Silk's hand; suddenly afraid that they would be s.n.a.t.c.hed away by one of the ragged throng around him, he slipped them into his pocket

”And when did this happen to you? Last week? Last year?”

Silk shook his head, glancing up at the sun. The thin black line of the shade touched it as he watched. ”Today.

Not an hour ago. A ball-I was playing a game with the

boys...

Blood waved the game away.

”And it happened. Everything seemed to stand still. I really can't say whether it was for an instant, or a day, or a year, or any other period of time-and I seriously doubt that any such period could be correct Perhaps that's why we call nun the Outsider because he stands outside of time, all the time.”

”Uh-huh.” Blood favored Silk with a grudging smile. ”I'm sure it's all smoke. Just some sort of daydream. But Fve got to admit it's interesting smoke, the way you tell it I've never heard of anything like this before.”

”It's not exactly what they teach you in the schola,” Silk conceded, ”but I feel in my heart that it's the truth.” He hesitated. ”By which I mean that it's what I was shown by him-or rather, that it's one of an endless panorama of things. Somehow he's outside our whorl in every way, and inside it with us at the same time. The other G.o.ds are only inside, I think, however great they may appear inside.”

Blood shrugged, his eyes wandering toward the ragged listeners. ”Well, they believe you, anyhow. But as long as we're in here too, it doesn't make a bad bit's difference to us, does it, Patera?”

”Perhaps it does, or may in the future. I don't know, really. I haven't even begun to think about that yet.” Silk glanced up again; the sun's golden road across the sky was markedly narrower already. ”Perhaps it will make all the difference in the whori,” he said. ”I think it will.”

”I don't see how.”

”You'll have to wait and see, my son-and so shall I.” Silk s.h.i.+vered, as he had before. ”You wanted to know why I received this blessing, didn't you? That was your last question: why something as tremendous as this should happen to someone as insignificant as I am. Wasn't that it?”

24.

Gene Wolfe

NlGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN

25.

”Yes, if this G.o.d of yours will let you tell anybody.”

Blood grinned, showing crooked, discolored teeth; and Silk, suddenly and without in the least willing it, saw more vividly than he had ever seen the man before him the hungry, frightened, scheming youth who had been Blood a generation before.

”And if you don't gibbe yourself, Patera.”