Epiphany of the Long Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

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. "Friends!" 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-"
    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 only solace."
    Some men standing in the aisles were opening the windows there; little rain if any seemed to be blowing in. The storm was over, Maytera Mint decided, or nearly over.
    "So our sacrifice this morning is not merely that which we offer to the undying gods each day at this time if a victim is granted us. It is our dear Maytera Rose's last sacrifice, by which I mean that it is not just that of the white