crushed by the scorching sunlight and the heat from the blaze on the
altar, and poisoned by the fumes of so much blood, as she bent to
consider the dove's left shoulder blade.
Linked rings, frequently interrupted.
'Many who are chained in our city shall be set free,' she
announced, and threw the dove into the sacred fire, startling a little
girl bringing more cedar. An old woman was overjoyed to receive
the second dove.
The next presenter was a fleshy man nearing sixty; with him was a
handsome younger one who hardly came to his shoulder; the
younger man carried a cage containing two white rabbits. 'For
Maytera Rose,' the older man said. 'This Kypris is for love, right?'
He wiped his sweating head with his handkerchief as he spoke,
releasing a heavy fragrance.
'She is the goddess of love, yes.'
The younger man smirked, pushing the cage at Maytera Mint.
'Well, roses stand for love,' the older man said, 'I think these
should be all right.
Maytera Marble sniffed. 'Victims in confinement cannot be
accepted. Bloody, have him open that and hand one to me.'
The older man appeared startled.
Maytera Marble held up the rabbit, pulling its head back to bare
its throat. If there were a rule for rabbits, Maytera Mint had
forgotten it; 'We'll treat these as we did the doves,' she said as
firmly as she could.
The older man nodded.
Why, they do everything I tell them, she reflected. They accept
anything I say! She struck off the first rabbit's head, cast it into the
fire, and opened its belly.
Its entrails seemed to melt in the hot sunshine, becoming a
surging line of ragged men with slug guns, swords, and crude pikes.
The buzz gun rattled once more, somewhere at the edge of
audibility, as one stepped over a burning rabbit.
She mounted the steps again, groping for a way to begin. 'The
message is very clear. Extraordinarily clear. Unusual.'
A murmur from the crowd.
'We--mostly we find separate messages for the giver and the
augur. For the congregation and our city, too, though often those
are together. In this victim, it's all together.'
The presenter shouted. 'Does it say what my reward will be from
the Ayuntamiento?'
'Death.' She stared at his flushed face, feeling no pity and
surprised that she did not. 'You are to die quite soon, or at least the
presenter will. Perhaps your son is meant.'
She raised her voice, listening to the buzz gun; it seemed strange
that no one else heard it. 'The presenter of this pair of rabbits has
reminded me that the rose, our departed sib's nameflower, signifies
love in what is called the language of flowers. He is right, and
Comely Kypris, who has been so kind to us here on Sun Street, is
the author of that language, by which lovers may converse with
bouquets. My own nameflower, mint, signifies virtue. I have always
chosen to think of it as directing me toward the virtues proper to a
holy sibyl. I mean charity, humility, and--and all the rest. But
_virtue_ is an old word, and the Chrasmologic Writings tell us
that it first meant strength and courage in the cause of right.'
They stood in awed silence listening to her; she herself listened
for the buzz gun, but it had ceased to sound if it had ever really
sounded at all.
'I haven't much of either, but I will do the best I can in the fight to
come.' She looked for the presenter, intending to say something
about 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,
