Part 11 (1/2)

64 Gene Wolfe

NlGHTSIDE THE LONG SuN

65.

people any more. He'd done that, he said. He'd done it quite often, but he wouldn't any more. He promised Patera, Maytera says, and he promised her, too. You're going to lecture me now, Patera, because the promise of a man like that-a criminal's promise-can't be trusted.”

”No man's promise can be trusted absolutely,” Silk said slowly, ”since no man is, or can ever be, entirely free from evil. I include myself in that, certainly.”

Maytera Marble pushed her handkerchief back into her sleeve. ”I think Auk's promise, freely given, can be relied on as much as anybody's, Patera. As much as yours, and I don't intend to be insulting. That was the way he was as a boy, and it's the way he is as a man, too, as well as I can judge. He never had a mother or a father, not really. He- but I'd better not go on, or I'll let slip things that Maytera's made me promise not to repeat, and then I'll feel terrible, and I'll have to tell both of them that I broke my word.” ”Do you really believe that I may be able to help this man, Maytera? I'm surely no older than he is, and probably younger. He's not going to respect me the way he respected Patera Pike, remember.”

Rain dripping from the sparkling leaves dotted Maytera Marble's skirt; she brushed at the spots absently. ”That may be true, Patera, but you'll understand him better than Patera Pike could, I think. You're young, and as strong as he is, or almost. And he'll respect you as an augur. You needn't be afraid of him. Have I ever asked a favor of you, Patera? A real favor?”

”You asked me to intercede with Maytera Rose once, and I tried. I think I probably did more harm than good, so we won't count that. But you could ask a hundred favors if you wanted to, Maytera. You've earned that many and more.” ”Then talk with Auk, Patera, some Scylsday. Shrive him if he asks you to.”

”That isn't a favor,” Silk said. ”I'd do that much for

anyone; but of course you want me to make a special effort for this Auk, to speak to him and take him aside, and so on; and I will.”

”Thank you, Patera. Patera, you've known me for over a year now. Am I lacking in faith?”

The question caught Silk by surprise. ”You, Maytera? Why-why I've never thought so. You've always seemed, I mean to me at least-”

”Yet I haven't had the faith in you, and the G.o.d who enlightened you, that I should've had. I just realized it. I've been trusting in merely human words and appearances, like any petty trader. You were saying that the G.o.d had promised Patera Pike help, I think. Could you tell me more about that? I was only listening with care before. This time I'll listen with faith, or try to.”

”There's more than I could ever tell.” Silk stroked his cheek. He had himself in check now. ”Patera Pike was enlightened, as I said; and I was shown his enlightenment. He was told that all those prayers he had said over so many years were to be granted that day-that the help he had asked for, for himself and for this manteion and die whole quarter, would be sent to him at once.”

Silk discovered that his fists were clenched. He made himself relax. ”I was shown all that; then I saw that help arrive, alight as if with Pas's fire from the sun. And it was me. That was all it was, just me.”

”Then you cannot fail,” Maytera Marble told him softly.

Silk shook his head. ”I wish it were that easy. I can fail, Maytera. I dare not.”

She looked grave, as she often did. ”But you didn't know this until today? At noon, in the ball court? That's what you said.”

”No, I didn't. He told me something else, you see-that the time has come to act”

Maytera Marble sighed again. ”I have some information

66 Gene Wolfe

for you, Patera. Discouraging information, I'm afraid. But first I want very much to ask you just one thing more, and tell you something, perhaps. It was the Outsider who spoke to you, you say?”

”Yes. I don't know a great deal about him, however, even now. He's one of the sixty-three G.o.ds mentioned in the Writings, but I haven't had a chance to look him up since it happened, and as I remember there isn't a great deal about him anyway. He told me about himself, things that aren't in the Writings unless I've forgotten them; but I haven't really had much time to think about them.”

”When we were outside like him, living in the Short Sun Whorl before this one was finished and peopled, we wors.h.i.+pped him. No doubt you knew that already, Patera.”

”I'd forgotten it,” Silk admitted, ”but you're right It's in the tenth book, or the twelfth.”