slightly. The mouths of other tunnels flashed past to left and right,
darker even than the damp shiprock walls. Drops of water clinging
to the unchanging ceiling gleamed like diamonds, vanishing as they
passed.
The talus slowed, and something struck its great bronze head,
ringing it like a gong. Its buzz guns rattled and it spat a tongue of
blue fire.
Chapter 2 -- Silk's Back!
'It would be better,' Maytera Marble murmured to Maytera Mint,
'if you did it, sib.'
Maytera Mint's small mouth fell open, then firmly closed.
Obedience meant obeying, as she had told herself thousands of times;
obedience was more than setting the table or fetching a plate of
cookies. 'If you wish it, Maytera. High Hierax knows I have no
voice, but I suppose I must.'
Maytera Marble sighed to herself with satisfaction, a hish from
the speaker behind her lips so soft that no ears but hers could hear it.
Maytera Mint stood, her cheeks aflame already, and studied the
congregation. Half or more were certainly thieves; briefly she
wondered whether even the images of the gods were safe.
She mounted the steps to the ambion, acutely conscious of the
murmur of talk filling the manteion and the steady drum of rain on
its roof; for the first time since early spring, fresh smelling rain was
stabbing through the god gate to spatter the blackened altartop--though
there was less now than there had been earlier.
Molpe, she prayed, Marvelous Molpe, for once let me have a
voice. 'Some--' Deep breath. 'Some of you do not know me...'
Few so much as looked at her, and it was apparent that those who
did could not hear her. How ashamed that gallant captain who had
showed her his sword would be of her now!
Please Kypris! Sabered Sphigx, great goddess of war .
There was a strange swelling beneath her ribs; through her mind a
swirl of sounds she had never heard and sights she had not seen: the
rumbling hoofbeats of cavalry and the booming of big guns. the
terrifying roars of Sphigx's lions, the silver voices of trumpets, and
the sharp crotaline clatter of a buzz gun. A woman with a bloodstained
rag about her head steadied the line: _Form up! Form Up!
Forward now! Forward! Follow me!_
With a wide gesture, little Maytera Mint drew a sword not even
she could see. '_Fr_iends!' Her voice broke in the middle of the word.
Louder, girl! Shake these rafters!
'Friends, some of you don't know who I am. I am Maytera Mint, a.
sibyl of this manteion.' She swept the congregation with her eyes,
and saw Maytera Marble applauding silently; the babble of several
hundred voices had stilled altogether.
'The laws of the Chapter permit sacrifice by a sibyl when no augur
is present. Regrettably, that is the case today at our manteion. Few
of you, we realize, will wish to remain. There is another manteion
on Hat Street, a manteion well loved by all the gods, I'm sure,
where a holy augur is preparing to sacrifice as I speak. Toward the
market, and turn left. It's not far.'
She waited hopefully, listening to the pattering rain; but not one
of the five hundred or so lucky enough to have seats stood, and none
of the several hundred standers in the aisles turned to go.
'Patera Silk did not return to the manse last night. As many of you
know, Guardsmen came here to arrest him&151'
The angry mutter from her listeners was like the growl of some
enormous beast.
'That was yesterday, when Kind Kypris, in whose debt we shall
always be, honored us for a second time. All of us feel certain that
there has been a foolish enor. But until Patera Silk comes back, we
can only assume that he is under arrest. Patera Cub, the worthy
augur His Cognizance the Prolocutor sent to assist Patera Silk,
seems to have left the manse early this morning, no doubt in the
hope of freeing him.'
Maytera Mint paused, her fingers nervously exploring the
chipped stone of the ancient ambion, and glanced down at the
attentive worshipers crouched on the floor in front of the foremost
bench, and at the patchy curtain of watching faces that filled the
narthex arch.
'Thus the duty of sacrifice devolves upon Maytera Marble and
me. There are dozens of victims today. There is even an unspotted
white bull for Great Pas, such a sacrifice as the Grand Manteion
cannot often see.' She paused again to listen to the rain, and for a
glance at the altar.
'Before we begin, I have other news to give you, and most
particularly to those among you who have come to honor the gods
not only today but on Scylsday every week for years. Many of you
will be saddened by what I tell you, but it is joyful news.
'Our beloved Maytera Rose has gone to the gods. in whose
service she spent her long life. For reasons we deem good and
proper, we have chosen not to display her mortal remains. That is
her casket there, in front of the altar.
'We may be certain that the immortal gods are aware of her
exemplary piety. I have heard it said that she was the oldest
biochemical person in this quarter, and it may well have been true.
She belonged to the last of those fortunate generations for which
prosthetic devices remained, devices whose principles are lost even
to our wisest. They sustained her life beyond the lives of the
children of many she had taught as children, but they could not
sustain it indefinitely. Nor would she have wished them to. Yester
day they failed at last, and our beloved sib was freed from the
sufferings that old age had brought her, and the toil that was her
