Nightside the Long Sun (40 page)

Of whom was he afraid? That other Silk would not have harmed a mouse, had postponed getting the ratsnake he needed again and again, visualizing the suffering of—rats. And yet it would be a fearful thing to meet that Silk whom he had been, and was a fearful thing to meet him now, in voice and memory. Had he truly become someone else?

He tore open the heavy, paper-wrapped packet Auk had put into his hand, dropping several needles. More filled the open breech of the needler like water, he released the loading knob and the breech closed. The needler would fire now if he needed it.

Or perhaps would not.

Patera Silk, and Silk nightside. He found that he, the latter, was contemptuous of the former, though envious, too.

His own voice echoed from the manse. “In the names of all the immortal gods, who give us all we have.”

Strange gifts, at times. He had saved this manteion, or had at least postponed its destruction; now, hearing the voice of its augur, he knew that it had never really been worth saving—though he had been sent to save it. Grim-faced, he rose, thrust the azoth back into his waistband and dropped the needler into his pocket again with what remained of the packet of needles, and dusted the back of his robe.

Everything had changed because he himself was changed. How had it happened? When he climbed Blood's wall? When he had entered the manteion to get the hatchet? Long ago, when he had helped force the window, with the other boys? Or had Mucor laid some spell on him, there in her filthy, lightless room? Mucor was one who might lay spells, if any did; Mucor was a devil, in so far as devils were. Was it she who had drunk poor Teasel's blood?

“Mucor,” Silk whispered. “Are you here? Are you still following me?” For a moment he seemed to hear an answering whisper, as the night wind stirred the dry leaves of the fig tree.

Gabbling now, his voice from the window: “Here hear what the Writings here have to Say-ilk. Here hear the high hopes of Horrible Hierax.”

“Here axe,” repeated the harsh voice, as though mocking his finding the hatchet, and Silk recognized it.

No, it had not been Mucor, or his deciding to take the hatchet or any such thing. All gods were good, but might not the unfathomable Outsider be good in a dark way? As Auk was, or as Auk might be? Suddenly Silk remembered the whorl outside the whorl, the Outsider's immeasurable whorl beneath his feet. So dark.

Yet lit by scattered motes.

With one hand on the needler in his pocket, he opened the door of the manse and stepped inside.

T
OR BOOKS BY
G
ENE
W
OLFE

Castle of Days

Castleview

The Death of Doctor Island

Endangered Species

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Free Live Free

Nightside the Long Sun

Pandora by Holly Hollander

Seven American Nights

Soldier of Arete

Soldier of the Mist

Storeys From the Old Hotelt

There Are Doors

The Urth of the New Sun

 

NIGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN

 

The first volume of a new masterpiece of science fiction

The Book of the Long Sun

“
The Book of the New Sun
having met ever-wider critical acclaim during the decade since its completion, Wolfe inaugurates its quadripartite successor with this quietly absorbing tale of one man's tribulations inside a massive space-faring artificial world.… His prose echoes with an almost mythic resonance and promises a wealth of further interesting adventures in the new New Sun saga.”

—Booklist

“As with many other old ideas he has addressed, Wolfe makes it new.”

—Science Fiction Age

“There is plenty to entertain and intrigue here.”

—Fantasy & Science Fiction

“… be assured that Wolfe is a master of style and texture. His version of [the generation—starship story] is as astonishingly fresh and convincing as the first version you ever read.”

—Analog

“The appearance of a new novel by Gene Wolfe is an event, and the appearance of the first volume of a new tetralogy by Wolfe is a major event. Nobody can be said to be current in sf if they miss this one, and I will watch with great interest as Wolfe explores, in his typically rich and resonant fashion, the traditional theme of the generation starship.”

—James E. Gunn

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

NIGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN

Copyright © 1993 by Gene Wolfe

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Richard Bober

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, N.Y. 10010

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

ISBN: 0-812-51625-7

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-21568

First edition: April 1993

First mass market edition: December 1993

eISBN 9781466828261

First eBook edition: August 2012