CALDE OF THE LONG SUN
                         by Gene Wolfe

                  Chapter 1  -  The Slaves of Scylla

As unruffled by the disturbances shaking the city as by the furious
thunderstorm that threatened with every gust to throw down its
shiprock and return its mud brick to the parent mud, His Cognizance
Patera Quetzal, Prolocutor of the Chapter of This Our Holy
City of Viron, studied his present sere and sallow features in the
polished belly of the silver teapot.
    As at this hour each day, he swung his head to the right and
contemplated his nearly noseless profile, made a similar inspection
of its obverse, and elevated his chin to display a lengthy and notably
wrinkled neck. He had shaped and colored face and neck with care
upon arising, as he did every morning; nevertheless, there remained
the possibility (however remote) that something had gone awry by
ten: thus the present amused but painstaking self-examination.
    "For I am a careful man," he muttered, pretending to smooth one
thin white eyebrow.
    A crash of thunder shook the Prolocutor's Palace to its
foundations at the final word, brightening every light in the room to a
glare; rain and hail drummed the windowpanes.
    Patera Remora, Coadjutor of the Chapter, nodded solemnly.
"Yes indeed, Your Cognizance. You are indeed a most - ah - advertent man."
    Yet there was always that possibility. "I'm growing old, Patera.
Even we careful men grow old."
    Remora nodded again, his long bony face expressive of regret.
"Alas, Your Cognizance."
    "As do many other things, Patera. Our city... The whorl itself
grows old. When we're young, we notice things that are young, like
ourselves. New grass on old graves. New leaves on old trees."
Quetzal lifted his chin again to study his bulging reflection through
hooded eyes.
    "The golden season of beauty and - um - elegiacs, Your Cognizance."
Remora's fingers toyed with a dainty sandwich.
    "As we notice the signs of advancing age in ourselves, we see them
in the whorl. Just a few chems today who ever saw a man who saw a
man who remembered the day Pas made the whorl."
    A little bewildered by the rapid riffle through so many generations,
Remora nodded again. "Indeed, Your Cognizance. Indeed
not." Surreptitiously, he wiped jam from one finger.
    "You become conscious of recurrences, the cyclical nature of
myth. When first I received the baculus, I had occasion to survey
many old documents. I read each with care. It was my custom to
devote three Hieraxdays a month to that. To that alone, and to
inescapable obsequies. I gave my prothonotary the straitest instructions
to make no appointments for that day. It's a practice I recommend, Patera."
    Thunder rattled the room again, lightning a dragon beyond the windows.
    "I will, um, reinstitute this wise usage at once, Your Cognizance."
    "At once, you say?" Quetzal looked up from the silver pot,
resolved to repowder his chin at the first opportunity. "You may go
to young Incus and so instruct him, if you want. Tell him now,
Patera. Tell him now."
    "That is - ah - unfeasible, I fear, Your Cognizance. I sent Patera
Incus upon a - um - errand Molpsday. He has not - um - rejoined us."
    "I see. I see." With a trembling hand, Quetzal raised his cup until
its gilt rim touched his lips, then lowered it, though not so far as to
expose his chin. "I want beef tea, Patera. There's no strength in this.
I want beef tea. See to it, please."
    Long accustomed to the request, his coadjutor rose. "I shall
prepare it with my own hands, Your Cognizance. It will - ah - occupy
only an, um, trice. Boiling water, an, um, roiling boil. Your
Cognizance may rely upon me."
    Slowly, Quetzal replaced the delicate cup in its saucer as he
watched Remora's retreating back; he even spilled a few drops
there, for he was, as he had said, careful. The measured closing of
the door. Good. The clank of the latchbar. Good again. No one
could intrude now without noise and a slight delay; he had designed
the latching mechanism himself.
    Without leaving his chair, he extracted the puff from a drawer on
the other side of the room and applied flesh-toned powder delicately
to the small, sharp chin he had shaped with such care upon arising.
Swinging his head from side to side as before, frowning and smiling
by turns, he studied the effect in the teapot. Good, good!
    Rain beat against the windows with such force as to drive trickles
of chill water through crevices in the casements; it pooled invitingly
on the milkstone windowsills and fell in cataracts to soak the carpet.
That, too, was good. At three, he would preside at the private
sacrifice of twenty-one dappled horses, the now-posthumous offering
of Councillor Lemur - one to all the gods for each week since
Thin more substantial than a shower had blessed Viron's fields. They
could be convened to a thank offering, and he would so convert them.
    Would the congregation know by then of Lemur's demise?
Quetzal debated the advisability of announcing the fact if they did
not. It was a question of some consequence and at length, for the
temporary relief the act afforded him, he pivoted his hinged fangs
from their snug grooves in the roof of his mouth, snapping each
gratefully into its socket and grinning gleefully at his distorted image.
    The rattle of the latch was. nearly lost in another crash of thunder,
but he had kept an eye on the latchbar. There was a second and
louder rattle as Remora, on the other side of the door, contended
with the inconveniently-shaped iron handle that would, when its
balky rotation had been completed, laboriously lift the clumsy bar
clear of its cradle.
    Quetzal touched his lips almost absently with his napkin; when he
spread it upon his lap again, his fangs had vanished. "Yes, Patera?"
he inquired querulously. "What is it now? Is it time already?"
    "Your beef tea, Your Cognizance." Remora set his small tray on
the table. "Shall I - um - decant a cup for you? I have, er, obtained a
clean cup for the purpose."
    "Do, Patera. Please do." Quetzal smiled. "While you were gone, I
was contemplating the nature of humor. Have you ever considered it?"
    Remora resumed his seat. 'i fear not, Your Cognizance."
    "What's become of young Incus? You hadn't expected him to be
gone so long?"
    "No, Your Cognizance. I dispatched him to Limna." Remora spooned beef salts
into the clean cup and added water from the small copper kettle he had
brought, producing a fine plume of steam. "I am - ah - moderately
concerned. An, um, modicum of civil unrest last night, eh?" He stirred
vigorously. "This - ah - stripling Silk. Patera Silk, alas. I know him."
    "My prothonotary told me." With the slightest of nods, Quetzal
accepted the steaming cup. "I'd have thought Limna would be safer."
    "As would I, Your Cognizance. As did I."
    A cautious sip. Quetzal held the hot, salty fluid in his mouth,
drawing it deliciously through folded fangs.
    "I sent him in search of a - ah, um - individual, Your Cognizance.
A, er, acquaintance of this Patera Silk's. The Civil Guard is
searching for Patera himself, hey? As are, er, certain others.
Other - ah - parties. So I am told. This morning, Your Cognizance, I
dispatched still others to look for young Incus. The rain, however,
ah, necessitous, will hamper them all, hum?"
    "Do you swim, Patera?"
    "I, Your Cognizance? At the - um - lakeside, you mean? No. Or
at least, not for many years.
    "Nor I."
    Remora groped toward a point he had yet to discern. "A healthful
exercise, however. For those of, um, unaugmented years, eh? A hot
bath before sacrifice, Your Cognizance? Or - I have it! - springs.
There are, er, reborant springs at Urbs. Healing springs, most
healthful. Possibly, while - affairs are so - ah - unsettled here, eh?"
    Quetzal shook himself. He had a way of quivering like a fat man
when he did that, although on the few occasions when Remora had
been obliged to lift him into bed, his body had in fact been light and
sinuous. "The gods..." He smiled.
    "Must be served, to be sure, Your Cognizance. I would be on the
spot - ah - ensuring that the Chapter's interests were vigilantly
safeguarded, hey?" Remora tossed lank black hair away from his
eyes. "Each rite carried out with - um - "
    "You must recall the story, Patera." Quetzal swayed from side to
side, perhaps with silent mirth. "A-man and Wo-man like rabbits in
a garden. The - what do you call them?" He held up a thin,
blue-veined hand, palm cupped.
    "A cobra, Your Cognizance?"
    "The cobra persuaded Wo-man to eat fruit from his tree, miraculous
fruit whose taste conferred wisdom."
    Remora nodded, wondering how he might reintroduce the
springs. "I recollect the - um - allegory."
    Quetzal nodded more vigorously, a wise teacher proffering praise
to a small boy. "It's all in the Writings. Or nearly all. A god called
Ah Lah barred Wo-man and her husband from the garden." He
ceased to speak, apparently wandering among thoughts. "We seem
to have lost sight of Ah Lah, by the way. I can't recall a single
sacrifice to him. No one ever asks why the cobra wanted Wo-man to
eat his fruit."
    "From sheer, er, wickedness, Your Cognizance? That is what I
had always supposed."
    Quetzal swayed faster, his face solemn. "In order that she would
ditrib his tree, Patera. The man likewise. Their story's not over
because they haven't climbed down. That's why I asked if you had
considered the nature of humor. Is Patera Incus a strong swimmer?"
    "Why, I've - ah - no notion, Your Cognizance."
    "Because you think you know why the woman you sent him to
look for visited the lake with our scamp Silk, whose name I see on
walls."
    "Why, er, Your Cognizance is - ah - great penetration, as always."
Remora fidgeted.
    "I saw it scratched on one five floors up, yesterday," Quetzal
continued as though he had not heard, "and went wide."
    "Disgraceful, Your Cognizance!"
    "Respect for our cloth, Patera. I myself swim well. Not so well as a
fish, but very well indeed. Or I did."
    "I'm pleased to hear it, Your Cognizance."
    "The jokes of gods are long in telling. That's why you ought to sift
the records of the past on Hieraxdays, Patera. Today's Hieraxday.
You'll learn to think in new and better ways. Thank you for my beef
tea. Now go."
    Remora rose and bowed. "As Your Cognizance desires."
    His Cognizance stared past him, lost in speculation.
    Greatly daring, Remora ventured, "I have often observed that
your own way of thinking is somewhat - ah - unlike, as well as much
more, um, select than that of most men."
    There was no reply. Remora took a step backward. "Upon every - ah - topic
whatsoever, Your Cognizance's information is quite, um, marvelous."
    "Wait." Quetzal had made his decision. "The riots. Has the
Alambrera fallen?"
    "What's that? The Alambrera? Why - ah - no. Not to my
knowledge, Your Cognizance."
    "Tonight." Quetzal reached for his beef tea. "Sit down, Patera.
You're always jumping about. You make me nervous. It can't be
good for you. Lemur's dead. Did you know it?"
    Remora's mouth gaped, then snapped shut. He sat.
    "You weren't. It's your responsibility to learn things."
    Remora acknowledged his responsibility with a shamefaced nod.
"May I inquire, Your Cognizance - ?"
    "How I know? In the same way I knew the woman you sent Incus
after had gone to Lake Limna with Patera Calde Silk."
    "Your Cognizance!"
    Once again, Quetzal favored Rernora with his lipless smile. "Are
you afraid I'll be arrested, Patera? Cast into the pits? You'd be
Prolocutor, presumably. I've no fear of the pits." Quetzal's long-skulled,
completely hairless head bobbed above his cup. "Not at my
age. None."
    "None the less, I implore Your Cognizance to be more - ah - circumspect."
    "Why isn't the city burning, Patera?"
    Caught by surprise, Remora glanced at the closest window.
    "Mud brick and shiprock walls. Timbers supporting upper floors.
Thatch or shingles. Five blocks of shops burned last night. Why isn't
the whole city burning today?"
    "It's raining, Your Cognizance," Remora summoned all his courage.
"It's been raining - ah - forcibly since early this morning."
    "Exactly so. Patera Calde Silk went to Limna on Molpsday with a
woman. That same day, you sent Incus there to look for an
acquaintance of his. A woman, since you were reluctant to speak of
it. Councillor Loris spoke through the glass an hour before lunch."
    Remora tensed. "He told you Councillor Lemur was no longer
among us, Your Cognizance?"
    Quetzal swung his head back and forth. "That Lemur was still
alive, Patera. There are rumors. So it would appear. He wanted me
to denounce them this afternoon."
    "But if Councillor Loris - ah - assures - "
    "Clearly Lemur's dead. If he weren't, he'd speak to me in person.
Or show himself at the Juzgado. Or both."
    "Even so, Your Cognizance - "
    Another crash of thunder made common cause with Quetzal's
thin hand to interrupt.
    "Can the Ayuntamiento prevail without him? That's the question,
Patera. I want your opinion."
    To give himself time to consider, Rernora sipped his now tepid
tea. "Munitions, the - ah - thews of contention, are stored in the
Alambrera, as well as in the, um, cantonment of the Civil Guard,
cast of the city."
    "I know that."
    "It is an, er, complex of great - um - redoubtability, Your
Cognizance. I am informed that the outer wall is twelve cubits
in - ah - laterality. Yet Your Cognizance anticipates its surrender
tonight? Before venturing an opinion, may I enquire as to the
source of Your Cognizance's information?"
    "I haven't any," Quetzal told him. "I was thinking out loud. If the
Alambrera doesn't fall in a day or so, Patera Calde Silk will fail.
That's my opinion. Now I want yours."
    "Your Cognizance does me honor. There is also the - um - dormant army
to consider. Councillor Lemur - ah - Loris will undoubtedly issue
an - ah - call to arms, should the, um, situation,
in his view, become serious."
    "Your opinion, Patera."
    Remora's cup rattled in its saucer. "As long as the - ah - fidelity of
the Civil Guard remains - um - unblemished, Your Cognizance," he
drew a deep breath, "it would appear to me, though I am assuredly
no - um - master hand at matters military, that - ah, um - Patera
Calde cannot prevail."
    Quetzal appeared to be listening only to the storm; for perhaps
fifteen tickings of the coffin-shaped clock that stood beside the
door, the howling of the wind and the lash of rain filled the room.
At last he asked, "Suppose that you were to learn that part of the
Guard's gone over to Silk already?"
    Remora's eyes widened. "Your Cognizance has - ?"
    "No reason to think so. My question's hypothetical."
    Remora, who had much experience of Quetzal's hypothetical
questions, filled his lungs again. "I should then say, Your Cogni
zance, that should any such unhappy circumstance - ah - circumstances
eventuate, the city would find itself amongst - ah - perilous
waters."
    "And the Chapter?"
    Remora looked doleful. "Equally so, Your Cognizance. if not
worse. As an augur, Silk could well, ah, proclaim himself Prolocutor,
as well as calde."
    "Really. He lacks reverence for you, my coadjutor?"
    "No, Your Cognizance. Quite the, um, contrary."
    Quetzal sipped beef tea in silence.
    "Your Cognizance - ah - intends the Chapter to support the - um - host
of, er, Patera Calde?"
    "I want you to compose a circular letter, Patera. You have nearly
six hours. It should be more than enough. I'll sign it when we're
through in the Grand Manteion." Quetzal stared down at the
stagnant brown liquid in his cup.
    "To all the clergy, Your Cognizance?"
    "Emphasize our holy duty to bring comfort to the wounded and
the Final Formula to the dying. Imply, but don't say - " Quetzal
paused, inspired.
    "Yes, Your Cognizance?"
    "That Lemur's death ends the claim to rule the councillors had in
the past. You say you know Patera Calde Silk?"
    Remora nodded. "I conversed with him at some - ah - extensively
Scylsday evening, Your Cognizance. We discussed the financial - um - trials
of his manteion, and - ah - various other matters."
    "I don't, Patera. But I've read every report in his file, those of his
instructors and those of his predecessor. Thus my recommendation.
Diligent, sensitive, intelligent, and pious. Impatient, as is to be
expected at his age. Respectful, which you now confirm. A tireless
worker, a point his instructor in theonomy was at pains to emphasize.
Pliable. During the past few days, he's become immensely
popular. Should he succeed in subjugating the Ayuntamiento, he's
apt to remain so for a year or more. Perhaps much longer. Charteral
government by a young augur who'll need seasoned advisors to
remain in office..."
    "Indeed, Your Cognizance." Remora nodded energetically. "The
same - ah - intuition had occurred tome."
    With his cup, Quetzal gestured toward the nearest window. "We
suffer a change in weather, Patera."
    "An, um, profound one, Your Cognizance."
    "We must acclimate ourselves to it. That's why I asked if young
Incus swam. If you can reach him, tell him to strike out boldly. Have
I made myself clear?"
    Remora nodded again. "I will, um, strive to render the Chapter's
wholehearted endorsement of an - ah - lawful and holy government
apparent, Your Cognizance."
    "Then go. Compose that letter."
    "If the Alambrera doesn't - ah - hey?"
    There was no indication that Quetzal had heard. Remora left his
chair and backed away, at length closing the door behind him.
    Quetzal rose, and an observer (had there been one) might have
been more than a little surprised to see that shrunken figure grown
so tall. As if on wheels, he glided across the room and threw open
the broad casement that overlooked his garden. admitting pounding
rain and a gust of wind that made his mulberry robe stand out
behind him like a banner.
    For some while he remained before the window, motionless,
cosmetics streaming from his face in rivulets of pink and buff, while
he contemplated the tamarind he had caused to be planted there
twenty years previously. It was taller already than many buildings
called lofty; its glossy, rain-washed leaves brushed the windowframe
and now even, by the width of a child's hand, sidled into his
bedchamber like so many timid sibyls, confident of welcome yet
habitually shy. Their parent tree, nourished by his own efforts, was
of more than sufficient size now, and a fount of joy to him: a
sheltering presence, a memorial of home, the highroad to freedom.
    Quetzal crossed the room and barred the door, then threw off his
sodden robe. Even in this downpour the tree was safer, though he
could fly.

The looming presence of the cliff slid over Auk as he sat in the bow,
and with it a final whistling gust of icy rain. He glanced up at the
beetling rock, then trained his needler on the augur standing to the
halyard. "This time you didn't try anything. See how flash you're
getting?" The storm had broken at shadeup and showed no signs of
slackening.
    Chenille snapped, "Steer for that," and pointed. Chill tricklings
from her limp crimson hair merged into a rivulet between her full
breasts to flood her naked loins.
    At the tiller, the old fisherman touched his cap. "Aye, aye,
Scaldin' Scylla."
    They had left Limna on Molpsday night. From shadeup to
shadelow, the sun had been a torrent of white fire across a dazzling
sky; the wind, fair and strong at morning, had veered and died away
to a breeze, to an occasional puff, and by the time the market
closed, to nothing. Most of that afternoon Auk had spent in the
shadow of the sail, Chenille beneath the shelter of the half deck; he
and she, like the augur, had gotten badly sunburned just the same.
    Night had brought a new wind, foul for their destination.
Directed by the old fisherman and commanded to hold ever closer
by the major goddess possessing Chenille, they had tacked and
tacked and tacked again, Auk and the augur bailing frantically on
every reach and often sick, the boat heeling until it seemed the
gunnel must go under, a lantern swinging crazily from the masthead
and crashing into the mast each time they went about, going out half
a dozen times and leaving the three weary men below in deadly fear
of ramming or being rammed in the dark.
    Once the augur had attempted to snatch Auk's needler from his
waistband. Auk had beaten and kicked him, and thrown him over
the side into the churning waters of the lake, from which the old
fisherman had by a miracle of resource and luck rescued him with a
boathook. Shadeup had brought a third wind, this out of the
southeast, a storm-wind driving sheet after gray sheet of slanting
rain before it with a lash of lightning.
    "Down sail!" Chenille shrieked. "Loose that, you idiot! Drop the
yard!"
    The augur hurned to obey; he was perhaps ten years senior to
Auk, with protruding teeth and small, soft hands that had begun to
bleed almost before they had left Limna.
    After the yard had crashed down, Auk turned in his seat to peer
forward at their destination, seeing nothing but rainwet stone and
evoking indignant squawks from the meager protection of his legs.
"Come on out," he told Silk's bird. "We're under a cliff here."
    "No out!"
    Dry by comparison though the foot of the cliff was, and shielded
from the wind, it seemed colder than the open lake, reminding Auk
forcibly that the new summer tunic he had worn to Limna was
soaked, his baggy trousers soaked too, and his greased riding boots
full of water.
    The narrow inlet up which they glided became narrower yet,
damp black rock to left and right rising fifty cubits or more above
the masthead. Here and there a freshet, born of the storm,
descended in a slender line of silver to plash noisily into the quiet
water. The cliffs united overhead, and the iron mast-cap scraped stone.
    "She'll go," Chenille told the old fisherman confidently. "The
ceiling's higher farther in."
    "I'd 'preciate ter raise up that mains'l ag'in, ma'am," the old
fisherman remarked almost conversationally, "an' undo them reefs.
It'll rot if it don't dry."
    Chenille ignored him; Auk gestured toward the sail and stood to
the halyard with the augur, eager for any exercise that might warm
him.
    Oreb hopped onto the gunnel to look about and fluff his damp
feathers. "Bird wet!" They were gliding past impressive tanks of
white-painted metal, their way nearly spent.
    "A _Sacred Window!_ It _is!_ There's a Window and an altar
_right there!_ Look!" The augur's voice shook with joy, and he released
the halyard. Auk's kick sent him sprawling.
    "Got ter break out sweeps, ma'am, if there's more channel."
    "Mind your helm. Lay alongside the Window." To the augur
Chenille added, "Have you got your knife?"
    He shook his head miserably.
"Your sword then," she told Auk. "Can you sacrifice?"
    "I've seen it done, Surging Scylla, and I got a knife in my boot.
That might work better." As daring as Remora, Auk added, "But a
bird? I didn't think you liked birds."
    "That?" She spat into the water.
A fender of woven cordage thumped, then ground against stone.
Their side lay within a cubit of the natural quay on which the tanks
and the Window stood. "Tie us up." Chenille pointed to the augur.
"You, too! No, the stern, you idiot. He'll take the bow."
    Auk made the halyard fast, then sprang out onto the stone quay.
It was wet, and so slimed that he nearly fell; in the watery light of
the cavern, he failed to make out the big iron ring at his feet until he
stepped on it.
    The augur had found his ring sooner. He straightened up. "I - I
_am_ an _augur_, Savage Scylla. I've sacrificed to you and to all
the Nine _many times_. I'd be _delighted_, Savage Scylla. With his
knife..."
    "Bad bird," Oreb croaked. "Gods hate." He flapped his injured
wing as if to judge how far it might carry him.
    Chenille bounded onto the slippery stone and crooked a finger at
the old fisherman. "You. Come up here."
    "I oughter - "
    "You ought to do what you're told, or I'll have my thug kill you
straight off."
    It was a relief to Auk to draw his needler again, a return to
familiar ground.
    "_Scylla!_" the augur gasped. "A _human being?_ Really - "
    She whirled to confront him. "What were you doing on my boat?
"Who sent you?"
    "Bad cut," Oreb assured her.
    The augur drew a deep breath. "I am H-his _Eminence's_
prothonotary." He smoothed his sopping robe as if suddenly conscious of his
bedraggled appearance. "H-his E-e-eminence desired me to _l-locate_
a particular y-y-young woman - "
    Auk trained his needler on him.
    "Y-you. Tall, red hair and so forth. I _didn't_ know it was you,
Savage Scylla." He swallowed and added desperately, "H-his interest
was ha-wholly friendly. H-his Eminence - "
    "You are to be congratulated, Patera." Chenille's voice was
smooth and almost courteous; she had an alarming habit of remaining
immobile in attitudes no mere human being could have maintained for
more than a few seconds, and she did so now, her pivoting
head and glaring eyes seemingly the only living pans of her lush
body. "You have succeeded splendidly. Perhaps you identified the
previous occupant? You say this woman," she touched her chest,
"was described to you?"
    The augur nodded rapidly. "_Yes_, Savage Scylla. Fiery hair
and - and s-skill with a _knife_ and..."
    Chenille's eyes had rolled backward into her skull. until only the
whites could be seen. "Your Eminence. Silk addressed him like that.
You attended my graduation, Your Eminence."
    The augur said hurriedly, "He wished me to _assure_ her of our
submission. Of the _Chapter's_. To offer our _advise_ and
_support_, and declare our _loyalty_. Information H-his Eminence
had received indicated that - that you'd _g-gone_ to the lake with
Patera Silk. His Eminence is Patera's _superior_. He - I - we
declare our _undying_ loyalty, Savage Scylla."
    "To Kypris."
    There was that in Chenille's tone which rendered the words
unanswerable. The augur could only stare at her.
    "Bad man," Oreb announced virtuously. "Cut?"
    "An augur? I hadn't considered it, but..."
    The old fisherman hawked and spat. "If'n you're really Scaldin'
Scylla, ma'am, I'd like ter say somethin'." He wiped his grizzled
mustache on the back of his hand.
    "I am Scylla. Be quick. We must sacrifice now if we're to sacrifice
at all. My slave will arrive soon."
    "I been prayin' and sacrificin' ter you all my life. You an' your pa's
the only ones us fishermen pay mind to. I'm not sayin' you owe me
anythin'. I got my boat, an' I had a wife and raised the boys. Always
made a livin'. What I'm wantin' ter say is when I go you'll be losin'
one of your own. It's goin' ter be one less here for you an' ol' Pas.
Maybe you figure I took you 'cause the big feller's got his stitchin'
gun. Fact is, I'd of took you anywheres on the lake soon as I knowed
who you was."
    "I must reintegrate myself in Mainframe," Chenille told him.
"There may be new developments. Are you through?"
    "Pretty nigh. The big feller, he does anythin' you want him, just
like what I'd do in his britches. Only he b'longs ter Hierax, ma'am."
    Auk started.
    "Not ter you nor your pa neither. He maybe don't know it hisself,
but he do. His bird an' that needler he's got, an' the big hangersword,
an' his knife what he tells he's got in his boots, they all show
it. You got ter know it better'n me. As fer this augur you're gettin'
set ter offer me up, I fished him out O' the lake last night, and t'other
day I seen another fished up. They do say - "
    "Describe him."
    "Yes'm." The old fisherman considered. "You was down in the
cuddy then, I guess. When they'd got him out, I seen him look over
our way. Lookin' at the bird, seemed like. Pretty young. Tall as the
big feller. Yeller hair - "
    "Silk!" Auk exclaimed.
    "Pulled out of the water, you said?"
    The fisherman nodded. "Scup's boat. I've knowed Scup thirty year."
    "You may be right," Chenille told him. "You may be too valuable
to sacrifice, and one old man is nothing anyway."
    She strode toward the Window before whirling to face them
again. "Pay attention to what I say, all three of you. In a moment,
I'll depart from this whore. My divine essence will pass from her
into the Sacred Window that I have caused to be put here, and be
reintegrated with my greater divine self in Mainframe. Do you
understand me? All of you?"
    Auk nodded mutely The augur knelt, his head bowed.
    "Kypris, my mortal enemy and the enemy of my mother, my
brothers, and my sisters - of our whole family, in fact - has been
mischief-making here in Viron. Already she seems to have won to
her side the meager fdol this idiot - What's your name, anyhow?"
    "Incus, Savage Scylla. I-I'm Patera _Incus_."
    "The fool this idiot calls His Eminence. I don't doubt that she
intends to win over my Prolocutor and my Ayuntamiento too, if she
can. The four of you, I include the whore after I'm through with her,
are to see to it that she fails. Use threats and force and the power of
my name. Kill anyone you need to, it won't be held against you. If
Kypris returns, do something to get my attention. Fifty or a hundred
children should catch my eye, and Viron's got plenty to spare."
    She glared at each man in turn. "Questions? Let's hear them now,
if there are any. Objections?"
    Oreb croaked in his throat, one bright black eye trained warily
upon her.
    "Good. You're my prophets henceforth. Keep Viron loyal, and
you'll have my favor. Believe nothing Kypris may tell you. My slave
should be here shortly. He'll carry you there, and assist you. See the
Prolocutor and talk to the commissions in the Juzgado. Tell
everyone who'll listen about me. Tell them everything I've said to
you. I'd hoped that the Ayuntamiento's boat would be in this dock.
It usually is. It isn't today, so you'll have to see the councillors for
me. The old man can bring you back here. Tell them I mean to sink
their boat and drown them all in my lake if my city goes over to Kypris."
    Incus stammered, "A th-theophany, S-savage S-s-scylla, w-would - "
    "Not convince your councillors. They think themselves too wise.
Theophanies may be useful, however. Reintegrated, I may consider them."
    She strode to the damp stone altar and sprang effonlessly to its top.
    "I had this built so your Ayuntamiento might offer private
sacrifices and, when I chose, confer with me. Not a trace of ash!
They'll pay for that as well.
    "You." She pointed to Auk. "This augur Silk's plotting to overthrow
them for Kypris. Help him, but show him where his duty lies.
If he can't see it, kill him. You've my permission to rule yourself as
my Calde in that case. The idiot here can be Prolocutor under
similar circumstances, I suppose."
    She faced the Window and knelt. Auk knelt, too, pulling the
fisherman down. (Incus was kneeling already.) Clearing his throat,
Auk began the prayer that he had bungled upon the Pilgrims' Way,
when Scylla had revealed her divine identity. "Behold us, lovely
Scylla, woman of the waters - "
    Incus and the fisherman joined in. "Behold our love and our need
for thee. Cleanse us, O Scylla!"
    At the name of the goddess, Chenille threw high her arms with a
strangled cry. The dancing colors called the Holy Hues filled the
Sacred Window with chestnut and brown, aquamarine, orange,
scarlet, and yellow, cerulean blue and a curious shade of rose
brushed with drab. And for a moment it seemed to Auk that he
glimpsed the sneering features of a girl a year or two from
womanhood.
    Chenille trembled violently and went limp, slumping to the altar
top and roiling off to fall to the dark and slimy stone of the quay.
    Oreb fluttered over to her. "God go?"
    The girl's face - if it had been a face - vanished into a wall of
green water, like an onrushing wave. The Holy Hues returned, first
as sun-sparkles on the wave, then claiming the entire Window and
filling it with their whirling ballet before fading back to luminescent
gray.
    "I think so," Auk said. He rose, and discovered that his needler
was still in his hand; he thrust it beneath his tunic, and asked
tentatively, "You all right, Jugs?"
    Chenille moaned.
    He lifted her into a sitting position. "You banged your head on the
rock, Jugs, but you're going to be all right." Eager to do something
for her, but unsure what he should do, he called, "You! Patera! Get
some water."
    "She throw?"
    Auk swung at Oreb, who hopped agilely to one side.
    "Hackum?"
    "Yeah, Jugs. Right here." He squeezed her gently with the arm
that supponed her, conscious of the febrile heat of her sunburned skin.
    "You came back. Hackum, I'm so glad."
    The old fisherman coughed, striving to keep his eyes from
Chenille's breasts. "Mebbe it'd be better if me an' him stayed on the
boat awhile?"
    "We're all going on your boat," Auk told him. He picked up
Chenille.
    Incus, a battered tin cup of water in his hand, asked, "You intend
to _disobey?_"
    Auk dodged. "She said to go to the Juzgado. We got to get back to
Limna, then there's wagons to the city."
    "She was sending someone, sending her slave she said, to take us
there." Incus raised the cup and sipped. "She also said _I_ was to be
_Prolocutor_."
    The old fisherman scowled. "This feller she's sendin', he'll have a
boat o' his own. Have ter, ter git out here. What becomes o' mine if
we go off with him? She said fer me ter fetch the rest back ter see
them councillors, didn't she? How'm I s'posed ter do that if I ain't
got my boat?"
    Oreb fluttered onto Auk's shoulder. "Find Silk?"
    "You got it." Carrying Chenille, Auk strode across the quay to eye
the open water between it and the boat; it was one thing to spring
from the gunnel to the quay, another to jump from the quay to the
boat while carrying a woman taller than most. "Get that rope," he
snapped to Incus. "Pull it closer. You left too much slack."
    Incus pursed his lips. "We cannot _possibly_ disobey the instructions
of the goddess."
    "You can stay here and wait for whoever she's sending. Tell him
we'll meet up with him in Limna. Me and Jugs are going in Dace's
boat."
    The old fisherman nodded emphatically.
    "If _you_ wish to disobey, my son, _I_ will not attempt to prevent
you. However - "
    Something in the darkness beyond the last tank fell with a crash,
and the scream of metal on stone echoed from the walls of the
cavern. A new voice, deeper and louder than any merely human
voice, roared, "_I bring her! Give her to me!_"
    It was that of a talus larger than the largest Auk had ever seen; its
virescent bronze face was cast in a grimace of hate, blinding yellow
light glared from its eyes, and the oily black barrels of a flamer and a
pair of buzz guns jutted from its open mouth. Behind it, the black
dark at the back of the cavern had been replaced by a sickly greenish
glow.
    "_I bring her! All of you! Give her to me!_" The talus extended a
lengthening arm as it rolled toward them. A steel hand the size of
the altar from which she had fallen closed about Chenille and
plucked her from Auk's grasp; so a child might have snatched a
small and unloved doll from the arms of another doll. "_Get on my
back! Scylla commands it!_"
    A half dozen widely spaced rungs of bent rod laddered the talus's
metal flank. Auk scrambled up with the night chough flapping
ahead of him; as he gained the top, the talus's huge hand deposited
Chenille on the sloping black metal before him.
    "Hang on!"
    Two rows of bent rods much like the steps of the ladder ran the
length of the talus's back. Auk grasped one with his left hand and
Chenille with his right. Her eyelids fluttered. "Hackum?"
    "Still here."
    Incus's head appeared as he clambered up; his sly face looked sick
in the watery light. "By - by _Hierax!_"
    Auk chuckled.
    "You - You - Help me _up_."
    "Help yourself, Patera. You were the one that wanted to wait for
him. You won. He's here."
    Before Auk had finished speaking, Incus sprang onto the talus's
back with astonishing alacrity, apparently impelled by the muscular
arm of the fisherman, who clambered up a moment later. "You'd
make a dimber burglar, old man," Auk told him.
    "Hackum, where are we?"
    "In a cave on the west side of the lake."
    The talus turned in place, one wide black belt crawling, the other
locked. Auk felt the thump of machinery under him.
    Puffs of black smoke escaped from the joint between the upright
thorax and long wagon-like abdomen to which they clung. It rocked,
jerked, and skewed backward. A sickening sidewise skid ended in a
geyser of icy water as one belt slipped off the quay. Incus clutched at
Auk's tunic as their side of the talus went under, and for a dizzying
second Auk saw the boat tossed higher than their heads.
    The wave that had lifted it broke over them like a blow, a
suffocating, freezing whorl that at once drained away; when Auk
opened his eyes again Chenille was sitting up screaming, her
dripping face blank with terror.
    Something black and scarlet landed with a thump upon his
sopping shoulder. "Bad boat! Sink."
    It had not, as he saw when the talus heaved itself up onto the quay
again; Dace's boat lay on its side, the mast unshipped and tossing
like driftwood in the turbulent water.
    Huge as a boulder, the talus's head swiveled around to glare at
them, revolving until it seemed its neck must snap. "_Five ride! The
small may go!_"
    Auk glanced from the augur to the fisherman, and from him to
the hysterical Chenille, before he realized who was meant. "You can
beat the hoof if you want to, bird. He says he won't hurt you if you do."
    "Bird stay," Oreb muttered. "Find Silk."
    The talus's head completed its revolution, and the talus lunged
forward. Yellow light glared back at them, reflected from the
curved white side of the last tank, leaving the Sacred Window empty
and dead looking behind them. Sallow green lights winked into
being just above the talus's helmeted head, and the still-tossing
waters of the channel congealed to rough stone as the cavern
dwindled to a dim tunnel.
    Auk put his arm around Chenille's waist. "Fancy a bit of company, Jugs?"
    She wept on, sobs lost in the wind of their passage.
    He released her, got out his needler, and pushed back the
sideplate; a trickle of gritty water ran onto his fingers, and he blew
into the mechanism. "Should be all right," he told Oreb, "soon as it
dries out. I ought to put a couple drops of oil on the needles,
though."
    "Good girl," Oreb informed him nervously. "No shoot."
    "Bad girl," Auk explained. "Bad man, too. No shoot. No go away,
either."
    "Bad bird!"
    "Lily." Gently, he kissed Chenille's inflamed back. "Lie down if
you want to. Lay your head in my lap. Maybe you can get a little
sleep."
    As he pronounced the words, he sensed that they came too late.
The talus was descending, the tunnel angling downward, if only
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
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 bull and the other beasts outside, but the
sacrifice of Maytera herself.
    "Sacrifices are of two kinds. In the first, we send a gift. In the
second, we share a meal. Thus my dear sib and I dare hope it will
not shock you when I tell you that my dear sib has taken for her use
some of the marvelous devices that sustained our beloved Maytera
Rose. Even if we were disposed to forget her, as I assure you we are
not, we could never do so now. They will remind us both of her life
of service. Though I know that her spirit treads the Aureate Path, I
shall always feel that something of her lives on in my sib."
    Now, or never.
    "We are delighted that so many of you have come to honor her, as
it is only right you should. But there are many more outside, men
and women, children too, who would honor her if they could, but
were unable to find places in our manteion. It seems a shame, for
her sake and for the gods' as well.
    "There is an expedient, as some of you must stirely know, that can
be adopted on such occasions as this. It is to move the casket, the
altar, and the Sacred Window itself out into the street temporarily."
    They would lose their precious seats. She half expected them to
riot, but they did not.
    She was about to say, "I propose - " but caught herself in time; the
decision was hers, the responsibility for it and its execution hers.
"That is what we will do today." The thick, leather-bound Chrasmologic
Writings lay on the ambion before her; she picked it up.
"Horn? Horn, are you here?"
    He waved his hand, then stood so she could see him.
    "Horn was one of Maytera's students. Horn, I want you to choose
five other boys to help you with her casket. The altar and the Sacred
Window are both very heavy, I imagine. We will need volunteers to
move those."
    Inspiration struck. "Only the very strongest men, please. Will
twenty or thirty of the strongest men present please come forward?
My sib and I will direct you."
    Their rush nearly overwhelmed her. Half a minute later, the altar
was afloat upon a surging stream of hands and arms, bobbing and
rocking like a box in the lake as a human current bore it down the
aisle toward the door.
    The Sacred Window was more difficult, not because it was
heavier, but because the three-hundred-year-old clamps that held it
to the sanctuary floor had rusted shut and bad to be hammered. Its
sacred cables trailed behind it as it, too, was carried out the door, at
times spitting the crackling violet fire that vouched for the immanent
presence of divinity.
    "You did wonderfully, sib. Just wonderfully!" Maytera Marble had
followed Maytera Mint out of the manteion; now she laid a hand
upon her shoulder. "Taking everything outside for a viaggiatory!
However did you think of it?"
    "I don't know. It was just that they were still in the street, most of
them, and we were in there. And we couldnn't let them in as we
usually do. Besides," Maytera Mint smiled impishly, "think of all the
blood, sib. It would've taken us days to clean up the manteion
afterward."
    There were far too many victims to pen in Maytera Marble's little
garden. Their presenters had been told very firmly that they would
have to hold them until it was time to lead them in, with the result
that Sun Street looked rather like the beast-sellers quarter in the
market. How many would be here, Maytera Mint wondered, if it
hadn't been for the rain? She shuddered. As it was, the victims and
their presenters looked soaked but cheerful, steaming in the sunshine
of Sun Street.
    "You're going to need something to stand on," Maytera Marble
warned her, "or they'll never hear you."
    "Why not here on the steps?" Maytera Mint inquired.
    "Friends..." To her own ears, her voice sounded weaker than
ever here in the open air; she tried to imagine herself a trumpeter1
then a trumpet. "Friends! I won't repeat what I said inside. This is
Maytera Rose's last sacrifice. I know that she knows what you've
done for her, and is glad.
    "Now my sib and her helpers are going to build a sacred fire on the
altar. We will need a big one today - "
    They cheered, surprising her.
    "We'll need a big one, and some of the wood will be wet. But the
whole sky is going to be our god gate this afternoon, letting in Lord
Pas's fire from the sun."
    Like so many brightly-colored ants, a straggling line of little girls
had already begun to carry pieces of split cedar to the altar, where
Maytera Marble broke the smallest pieces.
    "It is Patera Silk's custom to consult the Writings before sacrificing.
Let us do so too." Maytera Mint held up the book and opened it at random.
<blockquote>
Whatever it is we are, it is a little flesh, breath, and the ruiing
part. As if you were dying, despise the flesh; it is blood, bones, and
network, a tissue of nerves and veins. See the breath also, what
kind of thing it is: air, and never the same, but at every moment sent
Out and drawn in. The third is the ruling part. No longer let this part
be enslaved, no longer let it be pulled by its strings like a
marionette. No longer complain of your lot, nor shrink from the future.
</blockquote>
<spacer Type='horizontal' Size=32>
"Patera Silk has told us often that each passage in the Writings
holds two meanings at least." The words slipped out before she
realized that she could see only one in this one. Her mind groped
frantically for a second interpretation.
    "The first seems so clear that I feel foolish explaining it, though it
is my duty to explain it. All of you have seen it already, I'm sure. A
part, two parts as the Chrasmologic writer would have it, of our dear
Maytera Rose has perished. We must not forget that it was the baser
part, the part that neither she nor we had reason to value. The
better part, the part beloved by the gods and by us who knew her,
will never perish. This, then, is the message for those who mourn
her. For my dear sib and me, particularly."
    Help me! Hierax, Kypris, Sphigx, please help!
    She had touched the sword of the officer who had come to arrest
Silk; her hand itched for it, and something deep within her, denied
until this moment, scanned the crowd.
    "I see a man with a sword." She did not, but there were scores of
such men. "A fine one. Will you come forward, sir? Will you lend
me your sword? It will be for only a moment."
    A swaggering bully who presumably believed that she had been
addressing him shouldered a path through the crowd. It was a
hunting sword, almost certainly stolen, with a shell guard, a stag
grip, and a sweeping double-edged blade.
    "Thank you." She held it up, the polished steel dazzling in the hot
sunshine. "Today is Hieraxday. It is a fitting day for final rites. I
think it's a measure of the regard in which the gods held Maytera
Rose that her eyes were darkened on a Tarsday, and that her last
sacrifice takes place on Hieraxday. But what of us? Don't the
Writings speak to us, too? Isn't it Hieraxday for us, as well as for
Maytera? We know they do. We know it is.
    "You see this sword?" The denied self spoke through her, so that
she - the little Maytera Mint who had, for so many years, thought
herself the only Maytera Mint - listened with as much amazement as
the crowd, as ignorant as they of what her next word might be. "You
carry these, many of you. And knives and needlers, and those little
lead clubs that nobody sees that strike so hard. And only Hierax
himself knows what else. But are you ready to pay the price?"
    She brandished the hunting sword above her head. There was a
white stallion among the victims; a flash of the blade or some note in
her voice made him rear and paw the air, catching his presenter by
surprise and lifting him off his feet.
    "For the price is death. Not death thirty or forty years from now,
but death now! Death today! These things say, _I will not cower to
you! Jam no slave, no ox to be led to the butcher! Wrong me, wrong
the gods, and you die! For I fear not death or you!_"
    The roar of the crowd seemed to shake the street.
    "So say the Writings to us, friends, at this manteion. That is the
second meaning." Maytera Mint returned the sword to its owner.
"Thank you, sir. It's a beautiful weapon."
    He bowed. "It's yours anytime you need it, Maytera, and a hard
hand to hold it."
    At the altar, Maytera Marble had poised the shallow bowl of
polished brass that caught falling light from the sun. A curl of smoke
arose from the splintered cedar, and as Maytera Mint watched, the
first pale, almost invisible flame.
    Holding up her long skirt, she trotted down the steps to face the
Sacred Window with outstretched arms. "Accept, all you gods, the
sacrifice of this holy sibyl. Though our hearts are torn, we, her
siblings and her friends, consent. But speak to us, we beg, of times
to come, hers as well as ours. What are we to do? Your lightest word
will be treasured."
    Maytera Mint's mind went blank - a dramatic pause until she
recalled the sense, though not the sanctioned wording, of the rest of
the invocation. "If it is not your will to speak. we consent to that,
too." Her arms fell to her sides.
    From her place beside the altar, Maytera Marble signaled the first
presenter.
    "This fine white he-goat is presented to..." Once again, Maytera
Mint's memory failed her.
    "Kypris," Maytera Marble supplied.
    To Kypris, of course. The first three sacrifices were all for Kypris.
who had electrified the city by her theophany on Scylsday. But what
was the name of the presenter?
    Maytera Mint looked toward Maytera Marble, but Maytera
Marble was, strangely, waving to someone in the crowd.
    "To Captivating Kypris, goddess of love, by her devout
supplicant - ?"
    "Bream," the presenter said.
    "By her devout supplicant Bream." It had come at last, the
moment she had dreaded most of all. "Please, Maytera, if you'd do
it, please...?" But the sacrificial knife was in her hand, and
Maytera Marble raising the ancient wail, metal limbs slapping the
heavy bombazine of her habit as she danced.
    He-goats were supposed to be contumacious, and this one had
long, curved horns that looked dangerous; yet it stood as quietly as
any sheep, regarding her through sleepy eyes. It had been a pet, no
doubt, or had been raised like one.
    Maytera Marble knelt beside it, the earthenware chalice that had
been the best the manteion could afford beneath its neck.
    I'll shut my eyes, Maytera Mint promised herself, and did not.
The blade slipped into the white goat's neck as easily as it might
have penetrated a bale of white straw. For one horrid moment the
goat stared at her, betrayed by the humans it had trusted all its life;
it bucked, spraying both sibyls with its lifeblood, stumbled, and
rolled onto its side.
    "Beautiful," Maytera Marble whispered. "Why, Patera Pike
couldn't have done it better himself."
    Maytera Mint whispered back, "I think I'm going to be sick," and
Maytera Marble rose to splash the contents of her chalice onto the
fire roaring on the altar, as Maytera Mint herself had so often.
    The head first, with its impotent horns. Find the joint between the
skull and the spine, she reminded herself. Good though it was, the
knife could not cut bone.
    Next the hooves, gay with gold paint. Faster! Faster! They would
be all afternoon at this rate; she wished that she had done more of
the cooking, though they had seldom had much meat to cut up. She
hissed, "You must take the next one, sib. Really, you must!"
    "We can't change off now!"
    She threw the last hoof into the fire, leaving the poor goat's legs
ragged, bloody stumps. Still grasping the knife, she faced the
Window as before. "Accept, O Kind Kypris, the sacrifice of this fine
goat. And speak to us, we beg, of the days that are to come. What
are we to do? Your lightest word will be treasured." She offered a
silent prayer to Kypris, a goddess who seemed to her since Scylsday
almost a larger self. "Should you, however, choose otherwise..."
    She let her arms fall. "We consent. Speak to us, we beg, through
this sacrifice."
    On Scylsday, the sacrifices at Orpine's funeral had been
ill-omened to say the least. Maytera Mint hoped fervently for better
indicants today as she slit the belly of the he-goat.
    "Kypris blesses..." Louder. They were straining to hear her.
"Kypris blesses the spirit of our departed sib." She straightened up
and threw back her shoulders. "She assures us that such evil as
Maytera did has been forgiven her."
    The goat's head bunt in the fire, scattering coals: a presage of
violence. Maytera Mint bent over the carcass once more, struggling
frantically to recall what litfie she knew of augury - remarks
dropped at odd moments by Patera Pike and Patera Silk, half-hearted
lessons at table from Maytera Rose, who had spoken as
much to disgust as to teach her.
    The right side of the beast concerned the presenter and the augur
who presided, the giver and the performer of the sacrifice; the left
the congregation and the whole city. This red liver foretold deeds of
blood, and here among its tangled veins was a knife, indicating the
augur - though she was no augur - and pointing to a square, the
square stem of mint almost certainly, and the hilt of a sword. Was
she to die by the sword? No, the blade was away from her. She was
to hold the sword, but she had already done that, hadn't she?
    In the entrails a fat little fish (a bream, presumably) and a jumble
of circular objects, necklaces or rings, perhaps. Certainly that
interpretation would be welcomed. They lay close to the bream, one
actually on top of it, so the time was very near. She mounted the
first two steps.
    "For the presenter. The goddess favors you. She is well pleased
with your sacrifice." The goat had been a fine one, and presumably
Kypris would not have indicated wealth had she not been gratified.
"You will gain riches, jewels and gold particularly. within a short
time."
    Grinning from ear to ear, Bream backed away.
    "For all of us and for our city, violence and death, from which
good will come." She glanced down at the carcass, eager to be
certain of the sign of addition she had glimpsed there; but it had
gone, if it had ever existed. "That is all that I can see in this victim,
though a skilled augur such as Patera Silk could see much more, I'm
sure."
    Her eyes searched the crowd around the altar for Bream. "The
presenter has first claim. If he wishes a share in this meal, let him
come forward."
    Already the poor were struggling to get nearer the altar. Maytera
Marble whispered, "Burn the entrails and lungs, sib!"
    It was wise and good and customary to cut small pieces when the
congregation was large, and there were two thousand in this one at
least; but there were scores of victims, too, and Maytera Mint had
little confidence in her own skill. She distributed haunches and
quarters, receiving delighted smiles in return.
    Next a pair of white doves. Did you share out doves or burn them
whole? They were edible, but she remembered that Silk had burned
a black cock whole at Orpine's last sacrifice. Birds could be read,
although they seldom were. Wouldn't the giver be offended,
however, if she didn't read these?
    "One shall be read and burned," she told him firmly. "The other
we will share with the goddess. Remain here if you would like it for
yourself."
    He shook his head.
    The doves fluttered desperately as their throats were cut.
    A deep breath. "Accept, O Kind Kypris, the sacrifice of these fine
doves. And speak to us, we beg, of the times that are to come. What
are we to do? Your lightest word will be treasured." Had she really
killed those doves? She risked a peek at their lifeless bodies. "Should
you, however, choose otherwise..."
    She let her arms fall, conscious that she was getting more blood
on her habit. "We consent. Speak to us, we beg, through this
sacrifice."
    Scraping feathers, skin, and flesh from the first dove's right
shoulder blade, she scanned the fine lines that covered it. A bird
with outspread wings; no doubt the giver's name was Swan or
something of the sort, though she had forgotten it already. Here was
a fork on a platter. Would the goddess tell a man he was going to eat
dinner? Impossible! A minute drop of blood seemed to have seeped
out of the bone. "Plate gained by violence," she announced to the
presenter, "but if the goddess has a second message for me, I am too
ignorant to read it."
    Maytera Marble whispered, "The next presenter will be my son,
Bloody."
    Who was Bloody? Maytera Mint felt certain that she should
recognize the name. "The plate will be gained in conjunction with
the next presenter," she told the giver of the doves. "I hope the
goddess isn't saying you'll take from him."
    Maytera Marble hissed, "He's bought this manteion, sib."
    She nodded without comprehension. She felt hot and sick,
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,
she knew the intense relief of passing responsibility to someone else.
"Friends, neither my dear sib nor I will read this fine lamb for you.
Nor need you endure the irregularity of sacrifice by sibyls any
longer. Patera Gulo has returned!"
    He was at her side before she pronounced the final word,
disheveled and sweating in his wool robe, but transported with
triumph. "You will, all you people - everybody in the city - have a
real augur to sacrifice for you. Yes! But it won't be me. Patera Silk's
back!"
    They cheered and shouted until she covered her ears.
    Gulo raised his arms for silence. "Maytera, I didn't want to tell
you, didn't want to worry you or involve you. But I spent most of
the night going around writing on walls. Talking to - to people.
Anybody who'd listen, really, and getting them to do it, too. I took
a box of chalk from the palaestra. _Silk for calde! Silk for
calde! Here he comes!_"
    Caps and scarves flew into the air. "_SILK FOR CALDE!_"
    Then she caught sight of him, waving, head and shoulders
emerging from the turret of a green Civil Guard floater - one that
threw up dust as all floaters did, but seemed to operate in ghostly
silence, so great was the noise.

"_I am come?_" the talus thundered again. "_In the service of Scylla!
Mightiest of goddesses! Let me pass! Or perish!_" Both buzz guns
spoke together, filling the tunnel with the wild shrieking of ricochets.
    Auk, who had pulled Chenille flat when the shooting began,
clasped her more tightly than ever. After a half minute or more the
right buzz gun fell silent, then the left. He could hear no answering
fire.
    Rising, he peered over the talus's broad shoulder. Chems littered
the tunnel as far as the creeping lights illuminated it. Several were
on fire. "Soldiers," he reported.
    "Men fight," Oreb amplified. He flapped his injured wing uneasily.
"Iron men."
    "The Ayuntamiento," Incus cleared his throat, "must have called
out the _Army_." The talus rolled forward before he had finished, and
a soldier cried out as its belts crushed him.
    Auk sat down between Incus and Chenille. "I think it's time you
and me had a talk, Patera. I couldn't say much while the goddess
was around."
    Incus did not reply or meet his eyes.
    "I got pretty rough with you, and I don't like doing that to an
augur. But you got me mad, and that's how I am."
    "Good Auk!" Oreb maintained.
    He smiled bitterly. "Sometimes. What I'm trying to say, Patera, is
I don't want to have to pitch you off this tall ass. I don't want to have
to leave you behind in this tunnel. But I will if I got to. Back there
you said you went out to the lake looking for Chenille. If you knew
about her, didn't you know about me and Silk too?"
    Incus seemed to explode. "How can you sit here talking about
_nothing_ when _men_ are _dying_ down there!"
    "Before I asked you, you looked pretty calm yourself."
    Dace, the old fisherman, chuckled.
    "I was _praying_ for them!"
    Auk got to his feet again. "Then you won't mind jumping off to
bring 'em the Pardon of Pas."
    Incus blinked.
    "While you're thinking that over," Auk frowned for effect and felt
himself grow genuinely angry, "maybe you could tell me what your
jefe wanted with Chenille."
    The talus fired, a deafening report from a big gun he had not
realized it possessed; the concussion of the bursting shell followed
without an interval.
    "You're _correct_." Incus stood up. His hand trembled as he jerked a
string of ranling jet prayer beads from a pocket of his robe. "You're
right, because Hierax has _prompted_ you to recall _me_ to my duty.
I - I _go_."
    Something glanced off the talus's ear and ricocheted down the
tunnel, keening like a grief-stricken spirit. Oreb, who had perched
on the crest of its helmet to observe the battle, dropped into Auk's
lap with a terrified squawk. "Bad fight!"
    Auk ignored him, watching Incus, who with Dace's help was
scrambling over the side of the talus. Behind it, the tunnel stretched
to the end of sight, a narrowing whorl of spectral green varied by fires.
    When he caught sight of Incus crouched beside a fallen soldier,
Auk spat. "If I hadn't seen it... I didn't think he had the salt." A
volley pelted the talus like rain, drowning Dace's reply.
    The talus roared, and a gout of blue flame from its mouth lit the
tunnel like lightning; a buzz gun supported its flamer with a long,
staccato burst. Then the enormous head revolved, an eye emitting a
pencil of light that picked out Incus's black robe. "_Return to me!_"
    Still bent over the soldier, Incus replied, although Auk could not
make out his words. Ever curious, Oreb fluttered up the tunnel
toward them. The talus stopped and rolled backward, one of its
extensile arms reaching for Incus.
    This time his voice carried clearly. "_I'll_ get back on if you take
_him_, too."
    There was a pause. Auk glanced behind him at the metal mask
that was the talus's face.
    "_Can he speak!_"
    "_Soon_, I hope. I'm _trying_ to repair him."
    The huge hand descended, and Incus moved aside for it. Perched
on the thumb, Oreb rode jauntily back to the talus's back. "Still
live!"
    Dace grunted doubtfully.
    The hand swept downward; Oreb fluttered to Auk's shoulder.
"Bird homer'
    With grotesque tenderness fingers as thick as the soldier's thighs
deposited him between bent handholds.
    "Still live?" Oreb repeated plaintively.
    Certainly it did not seem so. The fallen soldier's arms and legs, of
painted metal now scratched and lusterless, lay motionless, bent at
angles that appeared unnatural; his metal face, designed as a model
of valor, was filled with the pathos that attaches to all broken things.
Singled out inquiringly by one of Oreb's bright, black eyes, Auk
could only shrug.
    The talus rolled forward again as Incus's head appeared above its
side. "I'm going to - he's not _dead_," the little augur gasped. "Not
completely."
    Auk caught his hand and pulled him up.
    "I was - was just reciting the _liturgy_ you know. And I saw - The
gods provide us such graces! I looked into his _wound_, there where
the chest plate's sprung. They train us, you know, at the schola, to
repair Sacred Windows."
    Afraid to stand near the edge of the talus's back, he crawled
across it to the motionless soldier, pointing. "I was quite good at it.
And - And I've had occasion since to - to _help_ various chems.
_Dying_ chems, you understand."
    He took the gammadion from about his neck and held it up for
Auk's inspection. "This is Pas's voided cross. You've seen it many
times, I'm sure. But you can undo the catches and open up a chem
with the pieces. _Watch_."
    Deftly he removed the sprung plate. There was a ragged hole near
its center, through which he thrust his forefinger. "Here's where a
flechette went in."
    Auk was peering at the mass of mechanisms the plate had
concealed. "I see little specks of light."
    "Certainly you do!" Incus was triumphant. "What you're seeing is
what _I_ saw under this plate when _I_ was bringing him the Pardon of
Pas. His primary cable had been severed, and those are the ends of
the fibers. It's _exactly_ as if your spinal cord were cut."
    Dace asked, "Can't you splice her?"
    "_Indeed!_" Incus positively glowed. "Such is the mercy of Pas! Such
is his _concern_ for us, his adopted sons, that here upon the back of
this valiant talus is the one man who can _in actual fact_ restore him to
health and strength."
    "So he can kill us?" Auk inquired dryly
    Incus hesitated, his eyes wary, one hand upraised. The talus was
advandng even more slowly now, so that the chill wind that had
whistled around them before the shooting began had sunk to the
merest breeze. Chenille (who had been lying flat on the slanted
plate that was the talus's back) sat up, covering her bare breasts with
her forearms.
    "Why, ah, _no_," Incus said at last. He took a diminutive black
device rather like a pair of very small tongs or large tweezers from a
pocket of his robe. "This is an opticsynapter, an _extremely_ valuable
tool. With it - Well, look there."
    He pointed again. "That black cylinder is the triplex, the part
corresponding to _your_ heart. It's idling right now, but it pressurizes
_his_ working fluid so that he can move his limbs. The primary cable
runs to his microbank - this big silver thing below the triplex - conveying
instructions from his postprocessor."
    Chenille asked, "Can you really bring him back to life?"
    Incus looked frightened. "If he were _dead_, I could not, Superlative
Scylla - "
    "I'm not her. I'm me." For a moment it seemed that she might
weep again. "Just me. You don't even know me, Patera, and I don't
know you."
    "I don't know you either," Auk said. "Remember that? Only I'd
like to meet you sometime. How about it?"
    She swallowed, but did not speak.
    "Good girl!" Oreb informed them. Neither Incus nor Dace
ventured to say anything, and the silence became oppressive.
    With an arm of his gammadion, Incus removed the soldier's skull
plate. After a scrutiny Auk felt sure had taken half an hour at least,
he worked one end of a second gamma between two thread-like wires.
    And the soldier spoke: "K-thirty-four, twelve. A-thirty-four,
ninety-seven. B-thirty-four..."
    Incus removed the gamma, telling Dace, "He was scanning, do
you follow me? It's as if _you_ were to consult a physician. He might
listen to your chest and tell you to cough."
    Dace shook his head. "You make this sojer well, an' he could kill
all on board, like the big feller says. I says we shoves him over the
side."
    "He _won't_." Incus bent over the soldier again.
    Chenille extended a hand to Dace. "I'm sorry about your boat,
Captain, and I'm sorry I hit you. Can we be friends? I'm Chenille."
    Dace took it in his own large, gnarled hand, then released it to tug
the bill of his cap. "Dace, ma'am. I never did hold nothin' agin you."
    "Thank you, Captain. Patera, I'm Chenille."
    Incus glanced up from the soldier. "You asked whether I could
restore _life_, my daughter. He isn't dead, merely unable to actuate
those parts that require fluid. He's unable to move his head, his
arms, and his legs, in other words. He can _speak_, as you've heard. He
_doesn't_ because of the shock he's suffered. That is my _considered_
opinion. The problem is to reconnect all the severed fibers correctly.
Otherwise, he'll move his _arms_ when he _intends_ to take a
step." He tittered.
    "I still say - " Dace began.
    "In _addition_, I'll attempt to render him _compliant_. For our safety.
It's not _legal_, but if we're to do as _Scylla_ has commanded..." He
bent over the recumbent soldier again.
    Chenille said, "Hi, Oreb."
    Oreb hopped from Auk's shoulder to hers. "No cry?"
    "No more crying." She hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. "Other
girls are always tellirig me how tough I am, because I'm so big. I
think I better start trying to live up to it."
    Incus glanced up again. "Wouldn't you like to borrow my robe,
my daughter?"
    She shook her head. "It hurts if anything touches me, and my back
and shoulders are the worst. I've had men see me naked lots.
Usually I've had a couple, though, or a pinch of rust. Rust makes it
easy." She turned to Auk. "My name's Chenille, Bucko. I'm one of
the girls from Orchid's."
    Auk nodded, not knowing what to say, and at length said, "I'm
Auk. Real pleased, Chenille."

That was the last thing he could remember. He was lying face down
on a cold, damp surface, aware of pervasive pain and soft footsteps
hastening to inaudibility. He rolled onto his back and sat up, then
discovered that blood from his nose was dribbling down his chin.
    "Here, trooper." The voice was unfamiliar, metallic and harshly
resonant. "Use this."
    A wad of whitish cloth was pressed into his hand; he held it
gingerly to his face. "Thanks."
    From some distance, a woman called, "Is that you?"
    "Jugs?"
    The tunnel was almost pitch dark to his left, a rectangle of black
relieved by a single remote fleck of green. To his right, something
was on fire - a shed or a big wagon, as well as he could judge.
    The unfamiliar voice asked, "Can you stand up, trooper?"
    Still pressing the cloth to his face, Auk shook his head.
    There was someone nearer the burning structure, whatever it
was: a short stocky figure with one arm in a sling. Others, men with
dark and strangely variegated skins... Auk blinked and looked
again.
    They were soldiers, chems that he had sometimes seen in parades.
Here they lay dead, their weapons beside them, eerily lit by the
flames.
    A small figure in black materialized from the gloom and gave him
a toothy grin. "_I_ had sped you to the _gods_, my son. I see _they_
sent you back."
    Through the cloth, Auk managed to say, "I don't remember
meeting any," then recalled that he had, that Scylla had been their
companion for the better part of two days, and that she had not
been in the least as he had imagined her. He risked removing the
cloth. "Come here, Patera. Have a seat. I got to have a word with you."
    "Gladly. _I_ must speak with _you_, as well." The little augur lowered
himself to the shiprock floor. Auk could see the white gleam of his teeth.
    "Was that really Scylla?"
    "_You_ know better than _I_, my son."
    Auk nodded slowly. His head ached, and the pain made it
difficult to think. "Yeah1 only I don't know. Was it her, or just a
devil pretending?"
    Incus hesitated, grinning more toothily than ever. "This is rather
difficult to explain."
    "I'll listen." Auk groped his waistband for his needler; it was still in
place.
    "My son, if a devil were to _personate_ a goddess, it would become
that goddess, in a way."
    Auk raised an eyebrow.
    "Or that _god_. Pas, let us say, or _Hierax_. It would run a grave risk
of merging into the total god. Or so the science of _theodaimony_
teaches us."
    "That's abram." His knife was still in his boot as well, his hanger at
his side.
    "Such are the _facts_, my son." Incus cleared his throat impressively.
"That is to say, the facts as far as they can be expressed in purely
_human_ terms. It's there averred that devils do not often dare to
personate the gods for _that very reason_, while the immortal gods, for
their part, _never_ stoop to personating devils."
    "Hoinbuss," Auk said. The man with the injured arm was circling
the fire. Changing the subject, Auk asked, "That's our talus, ain't it?
The soldiers got it?"
    The unfamiliar voice said, "That's right, we got it."
    Auk turned. There was a soldier squatting behind him.
    "I'm Auk," Auk said; he had reintroduced himself to Chenille with
the same words, he remembered, before whatever had happened
had happened. He offered his hand.
    "Corporal Hammerstone, Auk." The soldier's grip stopped just
short of breaking bones.
    "Pleased." Auk tried to stand, and would have fallen if Hammerstone
had not caught him. "Guess I'm still not right."
    "I'm a little rocky myself, trooper."
    "Dace and _that young woman_ have been after me to have
Corporal Hammerstdne carry you, my son. I've _resisted_ their
importunities for his sake. He would _gladly_ do it if I asked. He and I
are the _best of friends_."
    "More than friends," Hammerstone told Auk; there was no hint of
humor in his voice. "More than brothers."
    "He would do _anything_ for me. I'm tempted to _demonstrate_ that,
though I refrain. I prefer you to think about it for a while, always
with some element of _doubt_. Perhaps I'm teasing you, merely
_blustering_. What do you think?"
    Auk shook his head. "What I think don't matter.
    "Exactly. Because you _thought_ that you could throw me from that
filthy little boat with _impunity_. That I'd _drown_, and you would be
well rid of me. We see _now_, don't we, how _misconceived_ that was.
You have fodeited any right to have your opinions heard with the
_slightest_ respect."
    Chenille strode out of the darkness carrying a long weapon with a
cylindrical magazine. "Can you walk now, Hackum? We've been
waiting for you."
    From his perch on the barrel, Oreb added, "All right?"
    "Pretty soon," Auk told them. "What's that you got?"
    "A launcher gun." Chenille grounded it. "This is what did for our
talus, or that's what we think. Stony showed me how to shoot it.
You can look, but don't touch."
    Although pain prevented Auk from enjoying the joke, he managed,
"Not till I pay, huh?"
    She grinned wickedly, making him feel better. "Maybe not even
then. Listen here, Patera. You too, Stony. Can I tell all of you what
I've been thinking?"
    "Smart girl!" Oreb assured them.
    Incus nodded; Auk shrugged and said, "I'm not getting up for a
while yet. C'mere, bird."
    Oreb hopped onto his shoulder. "Bad hole!"
    Chenille nodded. "He's right. We heard some real funny noises
while I was back there looking for something to shoot, and there's
probably more soldiers farther on. There's more lights up that way
too though, and that might help."
    Hammerstone said, "Not if we want to dodge their patrols."
    "I guess not. But the thing is, Oreb could say what he did about
anyplace down here, and he wouldn't be wrong. Auk, what I was
going to tell you is I used to have a cute little dagger that I strapped
onto my leg. It had a blade about as long as my foot, and I thought it
was just right. I thought your knife or your needler or whatever
should fit you, like shoes. You know what I'm saying?"
    He did not, but he nodded nevertheless.
    "Remember when I was Scylla?"
    "It's whether you remember. That's what I want to know."
    "I do a little bit. I remember being Kypris, too, maybe a little
better. You didn't know about that, did you, Patera? I was. I was
them, but underneath I was still me. I think it's like a donkey feels
when somebody rides him. He's still him, Snail or whatever his
name is, but he's you, too, going where you want to and doing what
you want to do. And ifhe doesn't want to, he gets kicked till he does
it anyhow."
    Oreb cocked his head sympathetically. "Poor girl!"
    "So pretty soon he gives up. Kick him and he goes, pull up and
he stops, not paying a lot of attention either way. It was like that
with me. I wanted rust really bad, and I kept thinking about it
and how shaggy tired I was. And all at once it was like I'd been
dreaming. I was in a manteion in Limna, then up on an altar in a
cave and fit for sod. And I didn't remember anything. or if I did I
wouldn't think about it. But when I was bumping out to the
shrine, up on those high rocks, stuff started coming back. About
being Kypris, I mean."
    Incus sighed. "_Scylla_ mentioned it, my daughter, so I did know.
Sharing your _body_ with the _goddess of love!_ How I _envy_ you!
It must have been _wonderful!_"
    "I guess it was. It wasn't nice. It wasn't fun at all. But the more I
think, the more I think it really was wonderful in a abram sort of
way. I'm not exactly like I used to be, either. I think when they left,
the goddesses must have left some crumbs behind, and maybe they
took some with them, too."
    She picked up the launcher, running her fingers along the pins
protruding from its magazine. "What I started to say was that after
the talus got hit I saw I'd been wrong about things fitting, my dagger
and all that. This stuff isn't really like shoes at all. The smaller
somebody is, the bigger a shiv she needs. Scylla left that behind, I
think, or maybe something I could use to see it myself.
    "Anyway, Auk here plucks a dimber needler, but I doubt he
needs it much. If I lived the way he does, and I chose to do, I'd need
it just about every day. So I found this launcher gun, and it's bigger.
It was empty, but I found another one with the barrel flat where the
talus had gone over it, and it was full. Stony showed me how you
load and unload them."
    Auk said, "I think I'll get something myself, a slug gun, anyhow.
There's probably a bunch of 'em lying around."
    Incus shook his head and reached for Auk's waist. "You'd better
allow me to take your needler this time, my son."
    At once Auk's arms were pinned from behind by a grip that was
quite literally of steel.
    With evident distaste, Incus lifted the front of Auk's tunic and
took his needler from his waistband. "This wouldn't harm Corporal
Hammerstone, but it would _kill_ me, I suppose." He gave Auk a
toothy smile. "Or _you_, my son."
    "No shoot," Oreb muttered; it was a moment or two before Auk
understood that he was addressing Chenille.
    "If you see him with a _slug gun_, Corporal, you're to take it from
him and break it _immediately_. A slug gun or any other such
weapon."
    "_Ahoy! Ahoy there!_" The old fisherman was shouting and waving,
silhouetted by orange flames from the burning talus. "_He says he's
dyin'! Wants to talk to us!_"

Silk lifted himself until he could sit almost comfortably upon the
turret, then waved both hands. His face was smeared with the mud
of the storm, mud that was cracking and falling away now; the gaudy
tunic that Doctor Crane had brought him in Limna was daubed with
mud as well, and he wondered how many of those who waved and
cheered and jumped and shouted around the floater actually
recognized him.
    _SILK FOR CALDE!_
    _SILK FOR CALDE!_
    Was there really to be a calde again, and was this new calde to be
himself? Calde was a title that his mother had mentioned occasionally,
a carved head in her closet.
    He looked up Sun Street, then stared. That was, surely, the
silver-gray of a Sacred Window, nearly lost in the bright sunshine - a
Window in the middle of the street.
    The wind carried the familiar odor of sacrifice - cedar smoke,
burning fat, burning hair, and burning feathers, the mixture stronger
than that of hot metal, hot fish-oil, and hot dust that wrapped
the floater. Before the silver shimmer of the Window, a black sleeve
slid down a thin arm of gray metal, and a moment later he caught
sight of Maytera Marble's shining, beloved face below the waving,
flesh-like hand. It seemed too good to be true.
    "_Maytera!_" In the tumult of the crowd he could scarcely hear his
own voice; he silenced them with a gesture, arms out, palms down.
"_Quiet! Quiet, please!_"
    The noise diminished, replaced by the troubled bleating of sheep
and the angry hissing of geese; as the crowd parted before the
floater, he located the animals themselves.
    "Maytera! You're holding a viaggiatory sacrifice?"
    "Maytera Mint is! I'm helping!"
    "Patera!" Gulo was back, trotting alongside the floater, his black
robe fallow with dust. "There are dozens of victims, Patera! Scores!"
    They would have to sacrifice alternately if the ceremony were not
to be prolonged till shadelow - which was what Gulo wanted, of
course; the glory of offering so many victims, of appearing before so
large a congregation. Yet he was not (as Silk reminded himself
sharply) asking for more than his due as acolyte. Furthermore, Gulo
could begin immediately, while he, Silk, would have to wash and
change. "Stop," he called to the driver. "Stop right here." The floater
settled to the ground before the altar.
    Silk swung his legs from the turret to stand at the edge of the deck
before it, admonished by a twinge from his ankle.
    "_Friends!_" A voice he felt he should recognize at once, shrill yet
thrilling, rang from the walls of every building on Sun Street. "This is
Patera Silk! This is the man whose fame has brought you to the
poorest manteion in the city. To the Window through which the
gods look upon Viron again!"
    The crowd roared approval.
    "Hear him! Recall your holy errand, and his!"
    Silk, who had identified the speaker at the fourth word, blinked
and shook his head, and looked again. Then there was silence, and
he had forgotten what he had been about to say.
    An antlered stag among the waiting victims (an offering to
Thelxiepeia, the patroness of divination, presumably) suggested an
approach; his fingers groped for an ambion. "No doubt there are
many questions you wish to ask the gods concerning these unsettled
times. Certainly there are many questions I need to ask. Most of all,
I wish to beg the favor of every god; and most of all to beg Stabbing
Sphigx, at whose order armies march and fight, for peace. But
before I ask the gods to speak to us, and before I beg their favor, I
must wash and change into suitable clothes. I've been in a battle,
you see - one in which good and brave men died; and before I
return to our manse to scrub my face and hands and throw these
clothes into the stove, I must tell you about it."
    They listened with upturned faces, eyes wide.
    "You must have wondered at seeing me in a Guard floater. Some
of you surely thought, when you saw our floater, that the Guard
intended to prevent your sacrifice. I know that, because I saw you
drawing weapons and reaching for stones. But you see, these
Guardsmen have endorsed a new government for Viron."
    There were cheers and shouts.
    "Or as I should have said, a return to the old one. They wish us to
have a calde - "
    "_Silk is calde!_" someone shouted.
    " - and a return to the forms laid down in our Charter. I
encountered some of these brave and devout Guardsmen in Limna,
and because I was afraid we might be stopped by other units of the
Guard, I foolishly suggested that they pretend I was their prisoner.
Many of you will have anticipated what happened as a result. Other
Guardsmen attacked us, thinking that they were rescuing me." He
paused for breath.
    "Remember that. Remember that you must not assume that every
Guardsman you see is our enemy, and remember that even those
who oppose us are Vironese." His eyes sought out Maytera Marble
again. "I've lost my keys, Maytera. Is the garden gate unlocked? I
should be able to get into the manse that way."
    She cupped her hands (hands that might have belonged to a bio
woman) around her mouth. "I'll open it for you, Patera!"
    "Patera Gulo, proceed with the sacrifice, please. I'll join you as
soon as I can."
    Clumsily, Silk vaulted from the floater, trying to put as much
weight as he could on his sound left leg; at once he found himself
sunounded by well-wishers, some of them in green Civil Guard
uniforms, some in mottled green conflict armor, most in bright
tunics or flowing gowns, and more than a few in rags; they touched
him as they might have touched the image of a god, in speeches
blurted in a second or two declared themselves his disciples,
partisans, and supporters forever, and carried him along like the
rush of a rain-swollen river.
    Then the garden wall was at his elbow, and Maytera Marble at the
gate waving to him while the Guardsmen swung the butts of the slug
guns to keep back the crowd. A voice at his ear said, "I shall come
with you, My Calde. Always now, you must have someone to
protect you." It was the captain with whom he had breakfasted at
four in the morning in Limna.
    The garden gate banged shut behind them; on the other side
Maytera Marble's key grated in the lock. "Stay here," the captain
ordered a Guardsman in armor. "No one is to enter." He turned
back to Silk, pointed toward the cenoby. "Is that your house, My
Calde?"
    "No. It's over there. The triangular one." Belatedly. he realized
that it did not appear triangular from the garden; the captain would
think him mad. "The smaller one. Patera Gulo won't have locked
the door. Potto got my keys."
    "Councillor Potto, My Calde?"
    "Yes, Councillor Potto." Yesterday's pain rushed back: Potto's
fists and electrodes, Sand's black box. Scrupulous answers that
brought further blows and the electrodes at his groin. Silk pushed
the memories away as he limped along the graveled path, the
captain behind him and five troopers behind the captain, passing the
dying fig in whose shadow the animals that were to die for Orpine's
spirit had rested, the arbor in which he had spoken to Kypris and
chatted with Maytera Marble, her garden and his own blackberries
and wilting tomato vines, all in less time than his mind required to
recognize and love them.
    "Leave your men outside, Captain. They can rest in the shade of
the tree beside the gate if they like." Were they doomed, too? From
the deck of the floater he had talked of Sphigx; and those who
perished in battle were accounted her sacrifices, just as those struck
by lightning were said to have been offered to Pas.
    The kitchen was exactly as he recalled it; if Gulo had eaten since
moving into the manse, he had not done it here. Oreb's water cup
still stood on the kitchen table beside the ball snatched from Horn.
"If it hadn't happened, the big boys would have won," he murmured.
    "I beg pardon, My Calde?"
    "Pay no attention - I was talking to myself." Refusing the captain's
offer of help, he toiled at the pump handle until he could splash his
face and disorderly yellow hair with cold water that he could not
help imagining smelled of the tunnels, soap and rinse them, and rub
them dry with a dish towel.
    "You'll want to wash up a bit, too, Captain. Please do so while I
change upstairs."
    The stair was steeper than he remembered; the manse, which he
had always thought small, smaller than ever. Seated on the bed that
he had left unmade on Molpseday morning, he lashed its wrinkled
sheets with Doctor Crane's wrapping.
    He had told the crowd he would burn his tunic and loose brown
trousers, but although soaked and muddy they were still practically
new, and of excellent quality; washed, they might clothe some poor
man for a year or more. He pulled the tunic off and tossed it into the
hamper.
    The azoth he had filched from Hyacinth's boudoir was in the
waistband of the trousers. He pressed it to his lips and carried it to
the window to examine it again. It had never been Hyacinth's, from
what Crane had told him; Crane had merely had her keep it, feeling
that her rooms were less likely to be searched than his own. Crane
himself had received it from an unnamed Idlanum in Trivigaunte
who had intended it as a gift for Blood. Was it Blood's, then? If so,
it must be turned over to Blood without fail. There must be no more
theft from Blood; he had gone too far in that direction on Phaesday.
    On the other hand, if Crane had been authorized to dispose of it
(as it seemed he had), it was his, since Crane had given it to him as
Crane lay dying. It might be sold for thousands of cards and the
money put to good use - but a moment's self-examination convinced
him that he could never exchange it for money if he had any right to
it.
    Someone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him
standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other,
and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined
Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon
worth a company of the Civil Guard - the weapon with which he had
slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him
with when he would not lie with her.
    Had her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make
him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he
recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him
by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night
for a few cards - that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of
some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower.
He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions.
So he had been taught.
    An augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for.
An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had
already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought
Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought
Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with
its bolted doors and barred windows?
    He placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his
beads beside it, and removed his trousers. They were muddier even
than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their
color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that
augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on
the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it
made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains
that could not be washed out.
    His shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rain-soaked,
followed them into the hamper.
    Rude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there
was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity
toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such
as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better
than the people they represented before the gods and still represent
them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes
of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered.
    Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his. As
be stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty
of coquetry, she simpered, "This isn't the first time I've seen you
with no clothes on."
    He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was
not there.
    "I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were
going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother
you any more."
    By that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts
from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. "I wasn't.
I hoped that I wouldn't have to."
    From beyond the bedroom door: '_My Calde?_"
    "I'll be down in a moment, Captain."
    "_I heard voices, My Calde. You are in no danger?_"
    "This manse is haunted, Captain. You may come up and see for
yourself if you like."
    Mucor tittered. "Isn't this how you talk to them? In the glasses?"
    "To a monitor, you mean?" He had been thinking of one; could
she read his thoughts? "Yes, it's very much like this. You must have
seen them."
    "They don't look the same to me."
    "I suppose not." With a considerable feeling of relief, Silk pulled
on clean black trousers.
    "I thought I'd be one for you."
    He nodded in recognition of her consideration. "Just as you use
your window and the gods their Sacred Windows. I had not thought
of the parallel, but I should have."
    Unreflected, her face in his mirror bobbed up and down. "I
wanted to tell you it's no good any more, telling my father to lock
my window. He'll kill you if he sees you, now. Potto said he had to,
and he said he would."
    The Ayuntamiento had learned that he was alive and in the city,
clearly; it would learn that he was here soon, if it had not already. It
would send loyal members of the Guard, might even send soldiers.
    "So it doesn't matter. My body will die soon anyway, and I'll be
free like the others. Do you care?"
    "Yes. Yes, I do. Very much. Why will your body die?"
    "Because I don't cat. I used to like it, but I don't any more. I'd
rather be free."
    Her face had begun to fade. He blinked, and nothing but the
hollows that had been her eyes remained. A breath of wind stirred
the curtains, and those hollows, too, were gone.
    He said, "You must eat, Mucor. I don't want you to die." Hoping
for a reply, he waited. "I know you can hear me. You have to eat."
He had intended to tell her that he had wronged her and her father.
That he would make amends, although Blood might kill him
afterward. But it was too late.
    Wiping his eyes, he got out his last clean tunic. His prayer beads
and a handkerchief went into one trouser pocket, Hyacinth's
needler into the other (He would return it when he could, but that
problematic moment at which they might meet again seemed
agonizingly remote.) His waistband claimed the azoth; it was
possible that augury would provide some hint of what he ought to do
with it. He considered selling it again, and thought again of the
howling face that had been so like Mucor's in his minor, and
shuddered.
    Clean collar and cuffs on his second-best robe would have to do.
And here was the captain, waiting at the foot of the stair and
looking nearly as spruce as he had in that place - what had it been
called? In the Rusty Lantern in Limna.
    "I was concerned for your safety, My Calde."
    "For my reputation, you mean. You heard a woman's voice."
    "A child's, I thought, My Calde."
    "You may search the upper floor if you wish, Captain. If you find
a woman - or a child, either - please let me know."
    "Hierax have my bones if I have thought of such a thing, My
Calde!"
    "She is a child of Hierax's, certainly."
    The Silver Street door was barred, as it should have been; Silk
rattled the handle to make certain it was locked as well. The window
was shut, and locked behind its bars.
    "I can station a trooper in here, if you wish, My Calde."
    Silk shook his head. "We'll need every trooper you have and
more, I'm afraid. That officer in the floater - "
    "Major Civet, My Calde.
    "Tell Major Civet to station men to give the alarm if the
Ayuntamiento sends its troopers to arrest me. They should be a
street or two away, I suppose."
    "Two streets or more, My Calde, and there must be patrols
beyond them."
    "Very well, Captain. Arrange it. I'm willing to stand trial if I must,
but only if it will bring peace."
    "You are willing, My Calde. We are not. Nor are the gods."
    Silk shrugged and went into the sellaria. The Sun Street door was
locked and barred. Two letters on the mantel, one sealed with the
Chapter's knife and chalice, one with a flame between cupped
hands; he dropped them into the large pocket of his robe. Both the
Sun Street windows were locked.
    As they hurried through the garden again and into the street, he
found himself thinking of Mucor. And of Blood, who had adopted
her; then of Highest Hierax, who had dropped from the sky a few
hours ago for Crane and the solemn young trooper with whom he
and Crane had talked in the Rusty Lantern. Mucor wanted to die, to
yield to Hierax; and he, Silk, would have to save her if he could.
Had it been wrong of him, then, to call her a child of Hierax?
    Perhaps not. Women as well as men were by adoption the
children of the gods, and no other god so suited Mucor.

            Chapter 3  -  A Tessera for the Tunnel

"Bad thing," Oreb muttered, watching the burning talus to see
whether it could hear him. When it did not react, he repeated more
loudly, "Bad thing!"
    "Shut up." Auk, too, watched it warily.
    Chenille addressed it, stepping forward with her launcher ready.
"We'd put out the fire if we could. If we had blankets or - or
anything we could beat it out with."
    "_I die! Hear me!_"
    "I just wanted to say we're sorry." She glanced back at the four
men, and Dace nodded.
    "_I serve Scylla! You must!_"
    Incus drew himself up to his full height. "You may rely upon me to
do everything in my power to carry out the goddess's will. I speak
here for my friend Corporal Hammerstone, as well as for myself."
    "_The Ayuntamiento has betrayed her! Destroy it!_"
    Hammerstone snapped to attention. "Request permission to
speak, Talus."
    The slender black barrel of one buzz gun trembled and the gun
fired, its burst whistling five cubits above their heads and sending
screaming ricochets far down the tunnel.
    "Maybe you better not," Auk whispered. He raised his voice,
"Scylla told us Patera Silk was trying to overthrow them, and
ordered us to help him. We will if we can. That's Chenille and me,
and his bird."
    "_Tell the Juzgado!_"
    "Right, she said to." Dace and Incus nodded.
    A tongue of flame licked the talus's cheek. "_The tessera! Thetis!
To the subceltar..._" An interior explosion rocked it.
    Needlessly, Auk shouted, "Get back!" As they fled down the
tunnel, fire veiled the great metal face.
    "She's done fer now! She's goin' down!" Dace was slower even
than Auk, who tottered on legs weaker than he had known since
infancy.
    A second muffled explosion, then silence except for the sibilation
of the flames. Hammerstone, who had been matching strides with
Auk, broke step to snatch up a slug gun. "This was a sleeper's," he
told Auk cheerfully. "See how shiny the receiver is? Probably never
been fired. I couldn't go back for mine 'cause I was supposed to
watch you. Mine's had about five thousand rounds through it." He
put the new slug gun to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.
    Oreb squawked, and Auk said, "Careful there! You might hit Jugs."
    "Safety's on." Hammerstone lowered the gun. "You knew her
before, huh?"
    Auk nodded and slowed his pace enough to allow Dace to catch
up. "Since spring, I guess it was."
    "I had a girl myself once," Hammerstone told him. "She was a
housemaid, but you'd never have guessed it to look at her. Pretty as
a picture."
    Auk nodded. "What happened?"
    "I had to go on reserve. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I
wasn't stationed in the city any more. Maybe I should've gone
looking for Moly." He shrugged. "Only I figured by then she'd found
somebody else. Just about all of them had."
    "You'll find somebody, too, if you want to," Auk assured him. He
paused to look back up the tunnel; the talus was still in view but
seemed remote, a dot of orange fire no larger than the closest light.
"You could be dead," he said. "Suppose Patera hadn't fixed you up?"
    Hammerstone shook his head. "I can't ever pay him. I can't even
show how much I love him, really. We can't cry. You know about that?"
    "Poor thing!" Oreb sounded shocked.
    Auk told him, "You can't cry either, cully."
    "Bird cry!"
    "You meatheads are always talking about how good us chems
have it," Hammerstone continued. "Good means not being able to
eat, and duty seventy-four, maybe a hundred and twenty, hours at a
stretch. Good means sleeping so long the _Whorl_ changes, and you
got to learn new procedures for everything. Good means seven or
eight tinpots after every woman. You want to try it?"
    "Shag, no!"
    Dace caught Auk's arm. "Thanks for waitin' up."
    Auk shook him off. "I can't go all that fast myself."
    More cheerfully Hammerstone said, "I could carry you both, only
I'm not supposed to. Patera wouldn't like it."
    Dace's grin revealed a dark gap from which two teeth were
missing. "Mama, don't put me on no boat!"
    Auk chuckled.
    "He means well," Hammerstone assured them. "He cares about
me. That's one reason I'd die for him."
    Auk suppressed his first thought and substituted, "Don't you
think about your old knot any more? The other soldiers?"
    "Sure I do. Only Patera comes first."
    Auk nodded.
    "You got to consider the whole setup. Our top commander ought
to be the calde. That's our general orders. Only there isn't one, and
that means all of us are stuck. Nobody's got the right to give an
order, only we do it 'cause we've got to, to keep the brigade
running. Sand's my sergeant, see?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "And Schist and Shale are privates in our squad. He tells me and I
tell them. Then they go sure, Corporal, whatever you say. Only
none of us feels right about it."
    "Girl wait?" Oreb inquired. He had been eyeing Chenille's distant,
naked back.
    "Sooner or later," Auk told him. "Snuff your jaw. This is interesting."
    "Take just the other day," Hammerstone continued, "I was
watching a prisoner. A flap broke and I tried to handle it, and he got
away from me. If everything was right, I'd've lost my stripes over
that, see? Only it's not, so all I got was a chewing out from Sand and
double from the major. Why's that?" He leveled a pipe-sized finger
at Auk, who shook his head.
    "I'll tell you. "Cause both of them know Sand wasn't authorized to
give anybody orders in the first place, and I could've told him
dee-dee if I'd wanted to."
    "Dee-dee?" Oreb peered quizzically at Hammerstone.
    "You want the straight screw? I felt pretty bad when it happened,
but it was a lot worse when I was talking to them. Not 'cause of
anything they said. I've heard all that till I could sing it. 'Cause they
didn't take my stripes. I never thought I'd say that, but that's what it
was. They could've done it, only they didn't 'cause they knew they
didn't have authority from the calde, and I kept thinking, you don't
have to tell me to wipe them off, I'll wipe them off myself. Only that
would just have made them feel worse."
    "I never liked working for anybody but me," Auk told him.
    "You got to have somebody outside. Or anyhow I do. You feeling
pretty good now?"
    "Better'n I did."
    "I been watching you, 'cause that's what Patera wants. And you
can't hardly walk. You hit your head when the talus bought it, and
we figured you were KIA. Patera sort of liked it at first. Only then,
not so much. His essential nobility of character coming out. Know
what I'm saying?"
    Dace put in, "That big gal cryin an' yellin' at him."
    "Yeah, that too. Look here - "
    "Wait a minute," Auk told them. "Chenille. She cried?"
    Dace chuckled. "I felt sorrier fer her than fer you."
    "She wasn't even there when I woke up!"
    "She run off. I was over talkin' ter that talus, but I seen her."
    "She was around when I came to," Hammerstone told Auk. "She
had that launcher, only it was empty. There was another one, all
smashed up, where we were. Maybe she brought it, I don't know.
Anyhow, after I talked to Patera about you and a couple other
things, I showed her how to disarm the bad one's magazine and load
the SSMs in the good one."
    Dice told Hammerstone, "She got her'n up the tunnel whilst the
augur was fixin' you. This big feller, he was off watch, and didn't
nobody know rightly how bad he'd got hurt. When she come back
an' seen he wasn't comin' 'round, she foundered."
    Auk scratched his ear.
    "You've broke your head-bone, big feller, don't let nobody tell
you no different. I seen it afore. Feller on my boat got a rap from
the boom. He laid in the cuddy couple nights 'fore we could fetch
him ashore. He'd open the point an' talk, then sheer off down
weather. We fetched him the doctor an' I guess he done all he was
able but that feller died next day. You're in luck you wasn't hit no
worse."
    "What makes it good luck?" Hammerstone asked him.
    "Why, stands ter reason, don't it? He don't want ter be dead, no
more'n me!"
    "All you meatheads talk like that. Only look at it. No more
trouble and no more work. No more patrols through these tunnels
looking everywhere for nothing and lucky to get a shot at a god. No
more - "
    "Shot god?" Oreb inquired.
    "Yeah," Auk said. "What the shag are you talking about?"
    "That's just what we call them," Hammerstone explained.
"They're really animals. Kind of like a dog, only ugly where a real
dog's all right, so we say it backwards."
    "I've never seen any kind of shaggy animal down here."
    "You haven't been down here long, either. You just think you
have. There's bats and big blindworms, out under the lake especially.
There's gods all around here, only there's five of us and me a
soldier, and quite a few lights on this stretch. When we get to
someplace darker, watch out."
    "You don't mind dyin'," Dace reminded him. "That's what you
says a little back."
    "Now I do." Hammerstone pointed up the tunnel to Incus, a
hundred cubits ahead. "That's what I was trying to tell you. Auk said
he didn't need an outfit or a leader like Patera, or anything like that."
    "I don't," Auk declared. "It's the shaggy truth."
    "Then sit down right here. Go to sleep. Dace and me will keep
going. You feel pretty sick, I can tell. You don't like walking. Well,
there's no reason you've got to. I'll wait till we're about to lose sight
of you, then I'll put a couple slugs in you."
    "No shoot!" Oreb protested.
    "I'll wait till you've settled down, see? You won't know it's
coming. You'll get to thinking I'm not going to. What do you say?"
    "No thanks."
    "All right, here's what I been trying to get across. It doesn't
sound that good to you. If I kept on about it, you'd say you had to
take care of your girl, even when you're hurt so bad you can't
hardly take care of yourself. Or maybe look out for your talking
bird or something. Only it'd all be gas, 'cause you really don't
want to, even when you know it makes more sense than what
you're doing."
    Sick and weak, Auk shrugged. "If you say so."
    "It's not like that for us. Just sitting down somewhere down here
and letting everything slow down till I go to sleep, and sleeping, with
nobody ever coming by to wake me up, that sounds pretty good. It
would sound all right to my sergeant, too, or the major. The reason
we don't is we're supposed to look out for Viron. That means the
calde, 'cause he's the one that says what's good for Viron and what's
not."
    "Silk's supposed to be the new calde," Auk remarked. "I know
him, and that's what Scylla said."
    Hammerstone nodded. "That'll be great if it happens, but it hasn't
happened yet and maybe it never will. Only I've got Patera now,
see? Right now I can walk in back of him like this and keep looking
at him just about all the time, and he isn't even telling me not to
look like he did at first. So I don't want to sit down and die any more
than you do."
    Oreb bobbed his approval. "Good! Good!"

Farther along the tunnel, Incus asked with some asperity, "Are you
_sure_ that's all, my daughter?"
    "That's everything since Patera Silk shrived me, like I said,"
Chenille declared, "everything that I remember, anyhow." Apologetically
she added, "That was Sphixday, so there wasn't time for a lot, and you
said things I did when I was Kypris or Scylla don't count."
    "Nor _do_ they. The gods _can_ do no evil. At least, not on _our_ level."
Incus cleared his throat and made sure that he was holding his
prayer beads correctly. "That being the case, I bring to you, my
daughter, the pardon of all the gods. In the name of _Lord Pas_, you
are forgiven. In the name of _Divine Echidna_, you are forgiven. In
the _glorious ever-efficacious_ name of _Sparkling Scylla, loveliest_ of
goddesses and _firstborn of the Seven and ineffable patroness_ of _this_,
our - "
    "I'm not her any more, Patera. That's lily."
    Incus, who had been seized by a sudden, though erroneous,
presentiment, relaxed. "You are forgiven. In the name of _Molpe_,
you are forgiven. In the name of _Tartaros_, you are forgiven. In the
name of _Hierax_, you are forgiven."
    He took a deep breath. "In the name of _Thelxiepeia_, you are
forgiven. In the name of _Phaea_, you are forgiven. In the name of
_Sphigx_, you are forgiven. And in the name of _all lesser gods_,
you are forgiven. Kneel now, my daughter. I must trace the sign of addition
over your head."
    "I'd sooner Auk didn't see. Couldn't you just - "
    "_Kneel!_" Incus told her severely, and by way of merited discipline
added, "_Bow_ your head!" She did, and he swung his beads forward
and back, then from side to side.
    "I hope he didn't see me," Chenille whispered as she got to her
feet, "I don't think he's jump for religion."
    "I dare say _not_." Incus thrust his beads back into his pocket. "While
you _are_, my daughter? If that's so, you've deceived me most
completely."
    "I thought I'd better, Patera. Get you to shrive me, I mean. We
could've been killed back there when our talus fought the soldiers.
Auk just about was, and the soldiers could have killed us afterwards.
I don't think they knew we were on his back, and when he
caught fire they were afraid he'd blow up, maybe. If they'd been
right, we'd have got killed by that."
    "They will return for their _dead_, eventually. I must say the
prospect _concerns_ me. What if we _encounter_ them?"
    "Yeah. We're supposed to get rid of the councillors?"
    Incus nodded. "So _you_, possessed by Scylla, instructed us, my
daughter. We are to displace _His Cognizance_ as well." Incus permitted
himself a smile, or perhaps could not resist it. "I am to have the office."
    "You know what happens to people that go up against the
Ayuntamiento, Patera? They get killed or thrown in the pits. All of
them I ever heard of."
    Incus nodded gloomily.
    "So I thought I'd better get you to do it. Shrive me. I've got a day
left, maybe. That's not a whole lot of time."
    "Women, and _augurs_, are usually spared the ignominy of execution,
my daughter."
    "When they go up against the Ayuntamiento? I don't think so.
Anyhow, I'd be locked up in the Alambrera or tossed in a pit. They
eat the weak ones in the pits."
    Incus, a full head shorter than she, looked up at her. "You've
_never_ struck me as _weak_, my daughter. And you _have_ struck me,
you know."
    "I'm sorry, Patera. It wasn't personal, and anyhow you said it
doesn't count." She glanced over her shoulder at Auk, Dace, and
Hammerstone. "Maybe we'd better slow down, huh?"
    "Gladly!" He had been hard put to keep up with her. "As I said,
my daughter, what you did to me is not to be accounted _evil. Scylla_
has every right to strike me, as a mother her child. Contrast that
with that man _Auk's_ behavior toward me. He seized me _bodily_ and
cast me into the lake."
    "I don't remember that."
    "_Scylla_ did not order it, my daughter. He acted upon his own _evil
impulse_, and were I to be asked to shrive him for it _again_, I am _far_
from confident I could bring myself to do so. Do you find him
attractive?"
    "Auk? Sure."
    "I confess _I_ thought him a fine specimen when I first saw him. His
features are _by no means_ handsome, yet his _muscular masculinity_ is
both real and impressive." Incus sighed. "One _dreams_...I mean _a
young woman_ such as yourself, my daughter, not infrequently
dreams of such a man. _Rough_, yet, one hopes, not entirely lacking
inner _sensitivity_. When the _actual object_ is encountered, however,
one is _invariably_ disappointed."
    "He lumped me a couple of times while we were hoofing out to
that shrine. Did he tell you about that?"
    "About visiting a _shrine?_" Incus's eyebrows shot up. "Auk and
yourself? No _indeed_."
    "Lumping me, I meant. I thought maybe... Never mind. Once I
sat down on one of those white rocks, and he kicked me. Kicked my
leg, you know. I got pretty sore about that."
    Incus shook his head, dismayed at Auk's brutality. "I should
imagine _so_, my daughter. I, for one, am disinclined to criticize you
for it."
    "Only by-and-by I figured it out. See, Kypris had - you know,
what Scylla did. It was at Orpine's funeral. Orpine's a dell I used to
know." Transfering the launcher to her other hand, Chenille wiped
her eyes. "I still feel really bad about her. I always will."
    "Your grief does you _credit_, my daughter."
    "Now she's lying in a box in the ground, and I'm walking in this
one, only mine's a whole lot deeper. I wonder whether this is what
being dead seems like to her? Maybe it is."
    "Her _spirit_ has doubtless united itself with the gods in Mainframe,"
Incus said kindly.
    "Her spirit, sure, but what about her? What do you call this tunnel
stuff? They make houses out of it, sometimes.
    "The ignorant say _shiprock_, the learned _navislapis_."
    "A big shiprock box. That's what we're in, and we're just as
buried as Orpine. What I was going to say is Kypris never told Auk,
Patera. Not like Scylla. She told him right away, but he thought
Kypris was me, and he liked her a lot. He gave me this ring, see?
Then she talked to people in Limna and went in the manteion and
went away. Went clear out of me and left me all alone in front of the
Window. I was scared to death. I had some money and I kept buying
red ribbon - "
    "Brandy, my daughter?"
    "Yeah. Throwing it down, trying to pretend it was rust because it's
about the same color. It took a lot before I got over being scared,
and then I still was, a little, way back in my head and deep down in
my tripes. Then I saw Auk, this was still in Limna, so I hooked him
because I was out of gelt, and I was just some drunk, some old
drunk trull. So naturally he lumped me. He never did lump me as
hard as Bass did once, and I'm sorry I lumped you. Aren't the gods
supposed to care about us, Patera?"
    "They _do_, my daughter."
    "Well, Scylla didn't. She could've kept me out of the sun and kept
my clothes so I wouldn't get so burned. We got hot when I was
running for her and they got in our way, so she just tore them off
and threw them down. My best winter gown."
    Incus cleared his throat. "I have been meaning to speak to you
about _that_, my daughter. Your _nudity_. Perhaps I ought to have
done so when I shrove you. I foresaw, however, that you might
misunderstand. I, _myself_, am sunburned, and nudity _is_ wrong,
you know."
    "It gets bucks hot. Mine does, I mean, or Violet. I saw a buck
practically jump the wall once when Violet took off her gown, and
she wasn't really naked, either. She had on one of those real good
bandeaus that hike up your tits when they look like they're just
shoving them back."
    "_Nudity_, my daughter," Incus continued gamely, "is wrong not
only because it engenders concupiscent thoughts in weak men, but because it
is _often_ the occasion of _violent_ attacks. Concupiscent thoughts
are wrong in themselves, as I suggested, though they are not _seriously_
evil. Violent _attacks_, on the other hand, _are_ seriously evil.
In the matter of concupiscent thoughts, the fault lies with you when by
_intentional_ nudity you give rise to them. In that of _violent
attacks_, the fault lies with the _attacker_. He is obliged to _restrain_
himself, no matter _how severe_ a provocation is offered him. But I
ask you to consider, my daughter, whether you wish _any_ human spirit to
be rejected by the immortal gods."
    "Getting beat over the head the way they do," Chenille said
positively, "that's the part I'd really hate."
    Incus nodded, gratified. "There is _that_, as well. You must consider
that the _men_ most inclined to these attacks are _by no means_ the most
noble of my sex. To the _contrary!_ You might actually be _killed_.
Women frequently _are_."
    "I guess you're right, Patera."
    "Oh, I _am_, my daughter. You may _rely_ upon it. In our present
company, your nudity does _little_ harm, I would say. _I_, at least, am
_proof_ against it. So is the soldier whose life I, by the grace and aid of
_Fairest Phaea_, contrived to save. The captain of our boat - "
    "Dace."
    "Yes, _Dace_. Dace is _also_ proof against it, or _nearly_ so, I would
imagine, by virtue of his advanced age. _Auk_, of whom I had
entertained the gravest fears for your sake has _now_, by the
intercession of _Divine Echidna_, who ever strives to safeguard the
chastity of your sex as well as _my own_, been so severely injured that
he is _most unlikely_ to attack you or - "
    "Auk? He wouldn't have to."
    Incus cleared his throat again. "I forbear to dispute the matter, my
daughter. Your reason or mine, though I _greatly_ prefer _my own_. But
consider this, _also_. We are to enter the _Juzgado_, using the tessera
the talus supplied. Once there - "
    "Is that what we're supposed to do when we get back? I guess it is,
but I haven't been thinking about it, just about getting Auk to a
doctor and all that. I know a good one. And sitting down and getting
somebody nice to wash my feet, and some powder and rouge and
some decent perfume, and drinks and something to eat. Aren't you
hungry, Patera? I'm starving."
    "I am not _wholly_ unaccustomed to fasting, my daughter. To
_revert_ to our topic, we are to enter the Juzgado, or so that _talus_
informed us as the claws of Hierax closed upon him. His
instructions were _Scylla's_, he said, and I credit him. He told us
the Ayuntamiento must be _destroyed_, as Scylla _herself_ did upon
that _unforgettable_ occasion when she announced that she has
chosen _me_ her Prolocutor. The _talus_ indicated that we were to
announce her decision to the commissioners, and provided a
_tessera_ by which we are to _penetrate_ the subcellar for that
purpose. I must confess _I_ had not known that such a subcellar
existed, but presumably it does. _Consider_ then, my daughter, that
you will soon - "
    "Thetis, that was it, wasn't it? I wondered what he meant when he
said that. Does it work like a key? I've heard there are doors like
that."
    "_Ancient_ doors," Incus informed her. "Doors constructed by _Great
Pas_ at the time he built the whorl. The _Prolocutor's Palace_ has such
a door. Its tessera is known to me, though I may not reveal it."
    "Thetis sounds like a god's name. Is it? I don't really know very
much about any of the gods except the Nine. And the Outsider.
Patera Silk told me a little about him."
    "It is _indeed_." Incus glowed with satisfaction. "In the _Writings_, my
daughter, the mechanism by which we augurs are chosen is
described in _beautiful_ though _picturesque_ terms. It is there said..."
He paused. "I regret that I cannot _quote_ the passage. I must
paraphrase it, I'm afraid. But it is written there that _each_ new year
Pas brings is like a _fleet_. You are familiar with boats, my daughter.
You were upon that _wretched_ little fishing boat with _me_, after all."
    "Sure."
    "Each year, as I have indicated, is likened to a fleet of boats that
are its days, _gallant_ craft loaded with the _young men_ of that year.
Each of these day-boats is _obliged_ to pass _Scylla_ on its voyage to
_infinity_. Some sail very near to her, while others remain at a greater
_distance_, their youthful crews crowding the side _most distant_ from
her loving embrace. None of which _signifies_. From each of these
boats, she selects the young men who most _please_ her."
    "I don't see - "
    "_But_," Incus continued impressively, "how is it that these _boats_
pass her at all? Why do they not remain safe in harbor? Or sail
_someplace else?_ It is because there is a minor goddess whose
function it is to direct them to her. _Thetis_ is that goddess, and thus a
most suitable _tessera_ for us. A _key_, as you said. A _ticket_ or _inscribed
tile_ that will admit _us_ to the Juzgado, and incidentally _release_ us from
the cold and dark of these _horrid_ tunnels."
    "You think we might be close to the Juzgado now, Patera?"
    Incus shook his head. "I do not know, my daughter. We traveled
_some distance_ on that _unfortunate_ talus, and he went
_very_ fast. I dare _hope_ we are beneath the city now."
    "I doubt if we're much past Limna," Chenille told him.

Auk's head ached. Sometimes it seemed to him that a wedge had
been pounded into it, sometimes it felt more like a spike; in either
case, it hurt so much at times that he could think of nothing else,
forcing himself to take one step forward like an automaton, one
more weary step in a progression of weary steps that would never be
over. When the ache subsided, as it did now and then, he became
aware that he was as sick as he had ever been in his life and might
vomit at any moment.
    Hammerstone stalked beside him, his big, rubber-shod feet
making less noise than Auk's boots as they padded over the damp
shiprock of the tunnel floor. Hammerstone had his needler, and
when the pain in his head subsided, Auk schemed to recover it,
illusory schemes that were more like nightmares. He would push
Hammerstone from a cliff into the lake, snatching his needler as
Hammerstone fell, trip him as they scaled a roof, break into
Hammerstone's house, find him asleep, and take his needler from
Hammerstone's strong room... Hammerstone falling headlong,
somersaulting, rolling down the roof as he, Auk, fired needle after
needle at him, viscous black fluid spurting from every wound to
paint the snowy sheets and turn the water of the lake to black blood
in which they drowned.
    No, Incus had his needler, had it under his black robe; but
Hammerstone had a slug gun, and even soldiers could be killed with
slugs, which could and often did penetrate the mud-brick walls of
houses, the thick bodies of horses and oxen as well as men, slugs
that left horrible wounds.
    Oreb fluttered on his shoulders, climbing with talon and crimson
beak from one to the other. Peering though his ears Oreb glimpsed
his thoughts; but Oreb could not know, no more than he himself
knew, what those thoughts portended. Oreb was only a bird, and
Incus could not take him from him, no more than his hanger, no
more than his knife.
    Dace had a knife as well. Under his tunic Dace had the old
thick-bladed spear-pointed knife he had used to gut and fillet the
fish they had caught from his boat, the knife that had worked so
quickly, so surely, though it looked so unsuited to its task. Dace was
not an old man at all, but a flunky and a toady to that old knife, a
thing that carried it as Dace's old boat had carried them all when
there was nothing inside it to make it go, carrying them as they
might have been carried by a child's toy, toys that can shoot or fly
because they are the right shape though hollow and empty as Dace's
boat, as crank as the boat or solid as a potato; but Bustard would see
to Dace.
    His brother Bustard had taken his sling because he had slung
stones at cats with it, and had refused to give it back. Nothing about
Bustard had ever been fair, not his being born first though his name
began with _B_ and Auk's with _A_, not his dying first either. Bustard
had cheated to the end and past the end, cheating Auk as he always
did and cheating himself of himself. That was the way life was, the
way death was. A man lived as long as you hated him and died on
you as soon as you began to like him. No one but Bustard had been
able to hurt him when Bustard was around; it was a privilege that
Bustard reserved for himself, and Bustard was back and carrying
him, carrying him in his arms again, though he had forgotten that
Bastard had ever carried him. Bustard was only three years older,
four in winter. Had Bustard himself been the mother that he,
Bustard, professed to remember, that he, Auk, could not? Never
could, never quite, Bustard with this big black bird bobbing on his
head like a bird upon a woman's hat, its eyes jet beads, twitching
and bobbing with every movement of his head, a stuffed bird
mocking life and cheating death.
    Bustards were birds, but bustards could fly - that was the Lily
truth, for Bustard's mother had been Auk's mother had been Lily
whose name had meant truth, Lily who had in truth flown away with
Hierax and left them both; therefore he never prayed to Hierax, to
Death or the God of Death, or anyhow very seldom and never in his
heart, though Dace had said that he belonged to Hierax and
therefore Hierax had snatched Bustard, the brother who had been a
father to him, who had cheated him of his sling and of nothing else
that he could remember.
    "How you feelin', big feller?"
    "Fine. I'm fine," he told Dace. And then, "I'm afraid I'm going to
puke."
    "Figure you might walk some?"
    "It's all right, I'll carry him," Bustard declared, and by the timbre
of his harsh baritone revealed Hammerstone the soldier. "Patera
said I could."
    "I don't want to get it on your clothes," Auk said, and Hammerstone
laughed, his big metal body shaking hardly at all, the slug gun
slung behind his shoulder rattling just a little against his metal back.
    "Where's Jugs?"
    "Up there. Up ahead with Patera."
    Auk raised his head and tried to see, but saw only a flash of fire, a
thread of red fire through the green distance, and the flare of the
exploding rocket.

The white bull fell, scarlet arterial blood spilling from its immaculate
neck to spatter its gilded hooves. Now, Silk thought, watching
the garlands of hothouse orchids slide from the gold leaf that
covered its horns.
    He knelt beside its fallen head. Now if at all.
    She came with the thought. The point of his knife had begun the
first cut around the bull's right eye when his own glimpsed the Holy
Hues in the Sacred Window: vivid tawny yellow iridescent with
scales, now azure, now dove gray, now rose and red and thunderous
black. And words, words that at first he could not quite distinguish,
words in a voice that might almost have been a crone's, had it been
less resonant, less vibrant, less young.
    "Hear me. You who are pure."
    He had assumed that if any god favored them it would be Kypris.
This goddess's unfamiliar features overfilled the Window, her
burning eyes just below its top, her meager lower lip disappearing
into its base when she spoke.
    "Whose city is this, augur?" There was a rustle as all who heard her
knelt.
    Already on his knees beside the bull, Silk contrived to bow. "Your
eldest daughter's, Great Queen." The serpents around her face - thicker
than a man's wrist but scarcely larger than hairs in proportion
to her mouth, nose, and eyes, and pallid, hollow cheeks - identified
her at once. "Viron is Scalding Scylla's city."
    "Remember, all of you. You most of all, Prolocutor."
    Silk was so startled that he nearly turned his head. Was it possible
that the Prolocutor was in fact here, somewhere in this crowd of
thousands?
    "I have watched you," Echidna said. "I have listened."
    Even the few remaining animals were silent.
    "This city must remain my daughter's. Such was the will of her
father. I speak everywhere for him. Such is my will. Your remaining
sacrifices must be for her. For no one else. Disobedience invites
destruction."
    Silk bowed again. "It shall be as you have said, Great Queen."
Momentarily he felt that he was not so much honoring a deity as
surrendering to the threat of force; but there was no time to analyze
the feeling.
    "There is one here fit to lead. She shall be your leader. Let her
step forth."
    Echidna's eyes, hard and black as opals, had fastened on Maytera
Mint. She rose and walked with small, almost mincing steps toward
the awful presence in the Window, her head bowed. When she
stood beside Silk, that head was scarcely higher than his own,
though he was on his knees.
    "You long for a sword."
    If Maytera Mint nodded, her nod was too slight to be seen.
    "You are a sword. Mine. Scylla's. You are the sword of the Eight
Great Gods."
    Of the thousands present, it was doubtful if five hundred had
been able to hear most of what Maytera Marble, or Patera Gulo, or
Silk himself had said; but everyone - from men so near the canted
altar that their trouser legs were speckled with blood, to children
held up by mothers themselves scarcely taller than children - could
hear the goddess, could hear the peal of her voice and to a limited
degree understand her, Great Echidna, the Queen of the Gods, the
highest and most proximal representative of Twice-Headed Pas. As
she spoke they stirred like a wheatfield that feels the coming storm.
    "The allegiance of this city must be restored. Those who have
suborned it must be cast out. This ruling council. Kill them. Restore
my daughter's Charter. The strongest place in the city. The prison
you call the Alambrera. Pull it down."
    Maytera Mint knelt, and again the silver trumpet sounded. "I will,
Great Queen!" Silk could hardly believe that it had emanated from
the small, shy sibyl he had known.
    At her reply the theophany was complete. The white bull lay dead
beside him, one ear touching his hand; the Window was empty
again, though Sun Street was still filled with kneeling worshippers,
their faces blank or dazed or ecstatic. Far away - so distant that he,
standing, could not see her - a woman screamed in an agony of rapture.
    He raised his hands as he had when he had stood upon the
floater's deck. "People of Viron!"
    Half, perhaps, showed some sign of having heard.
    "We have been honored by the Queen of the Whorl! Echidna
herself - "
    The words he had planned died in his throat as a searing
incandescence smashed down upon the city like a ruinous wall. His
shadow, blurred and diffused as shadows had always been under the
beneficent radiance of the long sun, solidified to a pitch-black
silhouette as sharp as one cut from paper.
    He blinked and staggered beneath the weight of the white-hot
glare; and when he opened his eyes again, it was no more. The dying
fig (whose upper branches could be seen above the garden wall) was
on fire, its dry leaves snapping and crackling and sending up a
column of sooty smoke.
    A gust fanned the flames, twisting and dissolving their smoke
column. Nothing else seemed to have changed. A brutal-looking
man, still on his knees by the casket before the altar, inquired,
"W-was that more word from the gods, Patera?"
    Silk took a deep breath. "Yes, it was. That was word from a god
who is not Echidna, and I understand him."
    Maytera Mint sprang to her feet - and with her a hundred or
more; Silk recognized Gayfeather, Cavy, Quill, Aloe, Zoril, Horn
and Nettle, Holly, Hart, Oont, Aster, Macaque, and scores of
others. The silver trumpet that Maytera Mint's voice had become
summoned all to battle. "Echidna has spoken! We have felt the
wrath of Pas! To the Alambrera!"
    The congregation became a mob.
    Everyone was standing now, and it seemed that everyone was
talking and shouting. The floater's engine roared. Guardsmen,
some mounted, most on foot, called, "To me, everyone!" "To me!"
"To the Alambrera!" One fired his slug gun into the air.
    Silk looked for Gulo, intending to send him to put out the burning
tree; he was already some distance away, at the head of a hundred
or more. Others led the white stallion to Maytera Mint; a man
bowed with clasped hands, and she sprang onto its back in a way
Silk would not have thought possible. It reared, pawing the wind, at
the touch of her heels.
    And he felt an overwhelming sense of relief. "Maytera! _Maytera!_"
Shifting the sacrificial knife to his left hand and forsaking the dignity
augurs were expected to exhibit, he ran to her, his black robe
billowing in the wind. "Take this!"
    Silver, spring-green, and blood-red, the azoth Crane had given
him flashed through the air as he flung it over the heads of the mob.
The throw was high and two cubits to her left - yet she caught it, as
he had somehow known she would.
    "Press the bloodstone," he shouted, "when you want the blade!"
    A moment later that endless aching blade tore reality as it swept
the sky. She called, "Join us, Patera! As soon as you've completed
the sacrifices!"
    He nodded, and forced himself to smile.

The right eye first. It seemed to Silk that a lifetime had passed
between the moment he had first knelt to extract the eye from its
socket and the moment that he laid it in the fire, murmuring Scylla's
short litany. By the time he had completed it, the congregation had
dwindled to a few old men and a gaggle of small children watched by
elderly women, perhaps a hundred persons in all.
    In a low and toneless voice, Maytera Marble announced, "The
tongue for Echidna. Echidna has spoken to us."
    Echidna herself had indicated that the remaining victims were to
be Scylla's, but Silk complied. "Behold us, Great Echidna, Mother
of the Gods, Incomparable Echidna, Queen of this Whorl - " (Were
there others, where Echidna was not Queen? All that he had
learned in the schola argued against it, yet he had altered her
conventional compliment because he felt that it might be so.)
"Nurture us, Echidna. By fire set us free."
    The bull's head was so heavy that he could lift it only with
difficulty; he had expected Maytera Marble to help, but she did not.
Vaguely he wondered whether the gold leaf on the horns would
merely melt, or be destroyed by the flames in some way. It did not
seem likely, and he made a mental note to make certain it was
salvaged; thin though gold leaf was, it would be worth something. A
few days before, he had been planning to have Horn and some of
the others repaint the front of the palaestra, and that would mean
buying paint and brushes.
    Now Horn, the captain, and the toughs and decent family men of
the quarter were assaulting the Alambrera with Maytera Mint,
together with boys whose beards had not yet sprouted, girls no
older, and young mothers who had never held a weapon; but if they
lived...
    He amended the thought to: if some lived.
    "Behold us, lovely Scylla, wonderful of waters, behold our love
and our need for thee. Cleanse us, O Scylla. By fire set us free."
    Every god claimed that final line, even Tartaros, the god of
night, and Scylla, the goddess of water. While he heaved the
bull's head onto the altar and positioned it securely, he reflected
that "by fire set us free" must once have belonged to Pas alone. Or
perhaps to Kypris - love was a fire, and Kypris had possessed
Chenille, whose hair was dyed flaming red. What of the fires that
dotted the skylands beneath the barren stone plain that was the
belly of the Whorl?
    Maytera Marble, who should have heaped fresh cedar around the
bull's head, did not. He did it himself, using as much as they would
have used in a week before Kypris came.
    The right front hoof. The left. The right rear and the left, this last
freed only after a struggle. Doubtfully, he fingered the edges of his
blade; they were still very sharp.
    Not to read a victim as large as the bull would have been
unthinkable, even after a theophany; he opened the great paunch
and studied the entrails. "War, tyranny, and terrible fires." He
pitched his voice as low as he dared, hoping that the old people
would be unable to hear him. "It's possible I'm wrong I hope so.
Echidna has just spoken to us directly, and surely she would have
warned us if such calamities awaited us." In a corner of his mind,
Doctor Crane's ghost snickered. _Letters from the gods in the guts of
a dead bull, Silk? You're getting in touch with your own subconscious,
that's all_.
    "More than possible that I'm wrong - that I'm reading my own
fears into this splendid victim." Silk elevated his voice. "Let me
repeat that Echidna said nothing of the sort." Rather too late he
realized that he had yet to transmit her precise words to the
congregation. He did so, interspersing every fact he could recall
about her place at Pas's side and her vital role in superintending
chastity and fertility. "So you see that Great Echidna simply urged
us to free our city. Since those who have left to fight have gone at
her behest, we may confidently expect them to triumph."
    He dedicated the heart and liver to Scylla.
    A young man had joined the children, the old women, and the old
men. There was something familiar about him, although Silk,
nearsightedly peering at his bowed head, was unable to place him.
A small man, his primrose silk tunic gorgeous with gold thread, his
black curls gleaming in the sunshine.
    The bull's heart sizzled and hissed, then burst loudly - fulminated
was the euchologic term - projecting a shower of sparks. It was a
sign of civil unrest, but a sign that came too late; riot had become
revolution, and it seemed entirely possible that the first to fall in this
revolution had fallen already.
    Indeed, laughing Doctor Crane had fallen already, and the
solemn young trooper. This morning (only this morning!) he had
presumed to tell the captain that nonviolent means could be
employed to oust the Ayuntamiento. He had envisioned refusals to
pay taxes and refusals to work, possibly the Civil Guard arresting
and detaining officials who remained obedient to the four remaining
councillors. Instead he had helped unleash a whirlwind; he
reminded himself gloomily that the whirlwind was the oldest of Pas's
symbols, and strove to forget that Echidna had spoken of "the Eight
Great Gods."
    With a last skillful cut he freed the final flap of hide from the
bull's haunch; he tossed it into the center of the altar fire. "The
benevolent gods invite us to join in their feast. Freely, they return to
us the food we offer them, having made it holy. I take it that the
giver is no longer present? In that case, all those who honor the gods
may come forward."
    The young man in the primrose tunic started toward the bull's
carcass; an old woman caught his sleeve, hissing, "Let the children
go first!" Silk reflected that the young man had probably not
attended sacrifice since he had been a child himself.
    For each, he carved a slice of raw bull-beef, presenting it on the
point of the sacrificial knife - the only meat many of these children
would taste for some time, although all that remained would be
cooked tomorrow for the fortunate pupils at the palaestra.
    If there was a tomorrow for the palaestra and its pupils.
    The last child was a small girl. Suddenly bold, Silk cut her a piece
substantially thicker than the rest. If Kypris had chosen to possess
Chenille because of her fiery hair, why had she chosen Maytera
Mint as well, as she had confided to him beneath the arbor before
they went to Limna? Had Maytera Mint loved? His mind rejected
the notion, and yet... Had Chenille, who had stabbed Orpine in a
nimiety of terror, loved something beyond herself? Or did self-love
please Kypris as much as any other son? She had told Orchid flatly
that it did not.
    He gave the first old woman an even larger slice. These women,
then the old men, then the lone young man, and finally, to Maytera
Marble (the only sibyl present) whatever remained for the palaestra
and the cenoby's kitchen. Where was Maytera Rose this morning?
    The first old man mumbled thanks, thanking him and not the
gods; he remembered then that others had done the same thing at
Orpine's final rites, and resolved to talk to the congregation about
that next Scylsday, if he remained free to talk.
    Here was the last old man already. Silk cut him a thick slice, then
glanced past him and the young man behind him to Maytera
Marble, thinking she might disapprove - and abruptly recognized
the young man.
    For a moment that seemed very long, he was unable to move.
Others were moving, but their motions seemed as labored as the
struggles of so many flies in honey. Slowly, Maytera Marble inched
toward him, her face back-tilted in a delicate smile; evidently she
felt as he did: palaestra tomorrow was worse than problematical.
Slowly, the last old man bobbed his head and turned away, gums
bared in a toothless grin. Ardently, Silk's right hand longed to enter
his trousers pocket, where the gold-plated needler Doctor Crane
had given Hyacinth awaited it; but it would have to divest itself of
the sacrificial knife first, and that would take weeks if not years.
    The flash of oiled metal as Musk drew his needler blended with
the duller gleam of Maytera Marble's wrists. The report was
drowned by the screech of a wobbling needle, unbalanced by its
passage through the sleeve of Silk's robe.
    Maytera Marble's arms locked around Musk. Silk slashed at the
hand that grasped the needler. The needler fell, and Musk shrieked.
The old women were hurrying away (they would call it running),
some herding children. A small boy dashed past Silk and darted
around the casket, reappearing with Musk's needler precariously
clutched in both hands and ridiculously trained upon Musk himself.
    Two insights came to Silk simultaneously. The first was that Villus
might easily fire by accident, killing Musk. The second, that he,
Silk, did not care.
    Musk's thumb dangled on a rag of flesh, and blood from his hand
mingled with the white bull's. Still trying to comprehend the
situation, Silk asked, "He sent you to do this, didn't he?" He
pictured the flushed, perspiring face of Musk's employer vividly,
although at that moment he could not recall his name.
    Musk spat thick, yellow phlegm that clung to Silk's robe as
Maytera Marble wrestled him toward the altar. Horribly, she bent
him over the flames. Musk spat again, this time into her face, and
struggled with such desperate strength that she was lifted off her feet.
    Villus asked, "Should I shoot him, Maytera?" When she did not
answer, Silk shook his head.
    "This fine and living man," she pronounced slowly, "is presented to
me, to Divine Echidna." Her hands, the bony blue-veined hands of a
elderly bio, glowed crimson in the flames. "Mother of the Gods.
Incomparable Echidna, Queen of the _Whorl_. Fair Echidna! Smile
upon us. Send us beasts for the chase. Great Echidna! Put forth thy
green grass for our kine..."
    Musk moaned. His tunic was smoking; his eyes seemed ready to
start from their sockets.
    An old woman tittered.
    Surprised, Silk looked for her and from her death's-head grin
knew who watched through her eyes. "Go home, Mucor."
    The old woman tittered again.
    "Divine Echidna!" Maytera Marble concluded. "By fire set us free."
    "Release him, Echidna," Silk snapped.
    Musk's silk tunic was burning; so were Maytera Marble's sleeves.
    "Release him!"
    The perverse self-forged discipline of the Orilla broke at last;
Musk screamed and continued to scream, each pause and gasp
followed by a scream weaker and more terrible. To Silk, tugging
futilely at Maytera Marble's relentless arms, those screams seemed
the creakings of the wings of death, of the black wings of High
Hierax as he flapped down the whorl from Mainframe at the East
Pole.
    Musk's needler spoke twice, so rapidly it seemed almost to
stammer. Its needles scarred Maytera Marble's cheek and chin, and
fled whimpering into the sky.
    "Don't," Silk told Villus. "You might hit me. It won't do any good."
    Villus started, then stared down in astonishment at the dusty
black viper that had fastened upon his ankle.
    "Don't run," Silk told him, and turned to come to his aid,
thereby saving himself. A larger viper pushed its blunt head from
Maytera Marble's collar to strike at his neck, missing by two
fingers' width.
    He jerked the first viper off Villus's ankle and flung it to one side,
crouching to mark the punctures made by its fangs with the sign of
addition, executed in shallow incisions with the point of the
sacrificial knife. "Lie down and stay quiet," he told Villus. When
Villus did, he applied his lips to the bleeding crosses.
    Musk's screams ceased, and Maytera Marble faced them, her
blazing habit slipping from her narrow shoulders; in each hand she
brandished a viper. "I have summoned these children to me from the
alleys and gardens of this treacherous city. Do you not know who I am?"
    The familiarity of her voice left Silk feeling that he had gone mad.
He spat a mouthful of blood.
    "The boy is mine. I claim him. Give him to me."
    Silk spat a second time and picked up Villus, cradling him in his
arms. "None but the most flawless may be offered to the gods. This
boy has been bitten by a poisonous snake and so is clearly
unsuitable."
    Twice Maytera Marble waved a viper before her face as if
whisking away a fly. "Are you to judge that? Or am I?" Her burning
habit fell to her feet.
    Silk held out Villus. "Tell me why Pas is angry with us, O Great Echidna."
    She reached for him, saw the viper she held as if for the first time,
and raised it again. "Pas is dead and you a fool. Give me Auk."
    "This boy's name is Villus," Silk told her. "Auk was a boy like this
about twenty years ago, I suppose." When she said nothing more, he
added, "I knew you gods could possess bios like us. I didn't know
you could possess chems as well."
    Echidna whisked the writhing viper before her face. "They are
easier what mean these numbers? Why should we let you...? My
husband..."
    "Did Pas possess someone who died?"
    Her head swiveled toward the Sacred Window. "The prime
calcula... His citadel."
    "Get away from that fire," Silk told her, but it was too late. Her
knees would no longer support her; she crumpled onto her burning
habit, seeming to shrink as she fell.
    He laid Villus down and drew Hyacinth's needler. His first shot
took a viper behind the head, and he congratulated himself; but the
other escaped, lost in the scorching yellow dust of Sun Street.
    "You're to forget everything you just overheard," he told Villus as
he dropped Hyacinth's needler back into his pocket.
    "I didn't understand anyway, Patera." Villus was sitting up, hands
tight around his bitten leg.
    "That's well." Silk pulled her burning habit from under Maytera
Marble.
    The old woman tittered. "I could kill you, Silk." She was holding
the needler that had been Musk's much as Villus had, and aiming it
at Silk's chest. "There's councillors at our house now. They'd like that."
    The toothless old man slapped the needler from her hand with his
dripping slab of raw beef, saying sharply, "Don't, Mucor!" He put his
foot on the needler.
    As Silk stared, he fished a gammadion blazing with gems from
beneath his threadbare brown tunic. "I ought to have made my
presence known earlier, Patera, but I'd hoped to do it in private.
I'm an augur too, as you see. I'm Patera Quetzal."

Auk stopped and looked back at the last of the bleared green lights.
It was like leaving the city, he thought. You hated it - hated its nasty
ugly ways, its noise and smoke and most of all its shaggy shitty itch
for gelt, gelt for this and gelt for that until a man couldn't fart
without paying. But when you rode away from it with the dark
closing in on you and skylands you never noticed much in the city
sort of floating around up there, you missed it right away and pulled
up to look back at it from just about any place you could. All those
tiny lights so far away, looking just like the lowest skylands after the
market closed, over where it was night already.
    From the black darkness ahead, Dace called, "You comin'?"
    "Yeah. Don't get the wind up, old man."
    He still held the arrow someone had shot at Chenille; its shaft was
bone, not wood. A couple long strips of bone, Auk decided,
running his fingers along it for the tenth or twelfth time, scarfed and
glued together, most likely strips from the shin bone of a big animal
or maybe even a big man. The nock end was fletched with feathers
of bone, but the wicked barbed point was hammered metal.
Country people hunted with arrows and bows, he had heard, and
you saw arrows in the market. But not arrows like this.
    He snapped it between his hands and let the pieces fall, then
hurried down the tunnel after Dace. "Where's Jugs?"
    "Up front ag'in with the sojer." Dace sounded as though he was
still some distance ahead.
    "Well, by Hierax! They almost got her the first time."
    "They very nearly killed _me_." Incus's voice floated back through
the darkness. "Have you forgotten _that?_"
    "No," Auk told him, "only it don't bother me as much."
    "No care," Oreb confirmed from Auk's shoulder.
    Incus giggled. "Nor do _you_ bother _me_, Auk. When I sent Corporal
Hammerstone ahead of us, my _first_ thought was that you would
have to accompany him. Then I realized that there was no harm in
_your_ lagging behind. Hammerstone's task is not to _nurse you_, but to
protect _me_ from your _brutal_ treatment."
    "And thresh me out whenever you decide I need it."
    "Indeed. Oh, _indeed_. But _mercy_ and _forbearance_ are much dearer
to the _immortal gods_ than sacrifice, Auk. If you wish to stay where
you are, _I_ will not seek to prevent you. Neither will my tall friend,
who is, as we have seen, so much stronger than _yourself_."
    "Chenille ain't stronger than me, not even now. I doubt she's
much stronger than you."
    "But she possesses the best _weapon_. She insisted for _that_ reason.
For my own part, _I_ was glad to have her _and_ her weapon near the
_redoubtable_ corporal, and remote from _yourself_."
    Auk kicked himself mentally for having failed to realize that the
launcher Chenille carried would flatten Hammerstone as effectively
as any slug gun. Bitterly he mumbled, "Always thinking, ain't you."
    "You refuse to call me _Patera_, Auk? Even _now_, you refuse me my
title of respect?"
    Auk felt weak and dizzy, afraid for Chenille and even for himself;
but he managed to say, "It's supposed to mean you're my father, like
Maytera meant this teacher I used to have was my mother. Anytime
you start acting like a father, I'll call you that."
    Incus giggled again. "We _fathers_ are expected to curb the violent
behavior of our offspring, and to teach them - I _do_ hope you'll
excuse a trifling bit of vulgarity - to teach them to wipe their _dirty,
snotty little noses_."
    Auk drew his hanger; it felt unaccustomedly heavy in his hand,
but the weight and the cold, hard metal of the hilt were reassuring.
Hoarsely, Oreb advised, "No, no!"
    Incus, having heard the hiss of the blade as it cleared the
scabbard, called, "_Corporal!_"
    Hammerstone's voice came from a distance, echoing through the
tunnel. "Right here, Patera. I started dropping back as soon as I
heard you and him talking."
    "Hammerstone has no _light_, I fear. He tells me he lost it when he
was _shot_. But he can see in the dark better than _we_, Auk. Better
than _any_ biological person, in fact."
    Auk, who could see nothing in the pitch blackness, said, "I got
eyes like a cat."
    "_Do_ you really. What have I in my _hand_, in that case?"
    "My needler." Auk sniffed; there was a faint stench, as though
someone were cooking with rancid fat.
    "You're guessing." Hammerstone sounded closer. "You can't see
Patera's needler 'cause he's not holding it. You can't see my slug
gun either, but I see you and I got it aimed at you. Try to stick
Patera with that thing, and I'll shoot you. Put it up or I'll take it
away from you and bust it."
    Faintly, Auk heard the big soldier's rapid steps. He was running,
or at least trotting.
    "Bird see," the night chough muttered in Auk's ear.
    "You don't have to do that," Auk told Hammerstone. "I'm putting
it up." To Oreb he whispered, "Where is he?"
    "Come back."
    "Yeah, I know. Is he as close as that shaggy butcher?"
    "Near men. Men wait."
    Auk called, "Hammerstone! Stop. Watch out!"
    The running steps halted. "This better be good."
    "How many men, bird?"
    "Many." The night chough's bill clacked nervously. "Gods too.
Bad gods!"
    "Hammerstone, listen up! You can't see much better'n Patera. I
know that."
    "Spit oil!"
    "Only I can. Between you and him, there's a bunch of culls,
waiting quiet up against the wall. They got - "
    The sound that filled the tunnel was half snarl and half howl. It
was followed by a boom from Hammerstone's slug gun, and the ring
of a hard blow on metal.
    "Hit head," Oreb explained, and elaborated, "Iron man."
    Hammerstone fired twice in quick succession, the echoing thunder
succeeded by a series of hard, flat reports and the tortured
shriekings of ricocheting needles.
    "Get down!" Auk reached for a place where he thought Dace
might be, but his hand met only air.
    A scream. Auk shouted, "I'm coming, Jugs!" and found that he
was running already, sprinting sightless through darkness thicker
than the darkest night, his hanger blade probing the blackness
before him like a beggar's white stick.
    Oreb flapped overhead. "Man here!"
    Auk slashed wildly again and again, half crouched, still advancing,
his left hand groping frantically for the knife in his boot. His
blade struck something hard that was not the wall, then bit deep into
flesh. Someone who was not Chenille yelped with pain and surprise.
    Hammerstone's slug gun boomed, close enough that the flash lit
the vicinity like lightning: a naked skeletal figure reeled backward
with half its face gone. Auk slashed again and again and again. The
third slash met no resistance.
    "Man dead!" Oreb announced excitedly. "Cut good!"
    "Auk! Auk, help me! Help!"
    "I'm coming!"
    "Watch out!" Oreb warned, _sotto voce_. "Iron man."
    "Get outta my way, Hammerstone!"
    From his left, Oreb croaked, "Come Auk."
    His blade rang upon metal. He ducked, certain Hammerstone
would swing at him. Then he was past, and Oreb exclaiming from
some distance, "Here girl! Here Auk! Big fight!"
    "Auk! Get him off me!"
    A new voice nearly as harsh as Oreb's demanded, "Auk? Auk
from the Cock?"
    "Shag yes!"
    "Pas piss. Wait a minute."
    Auk halted. "Jugs, you all right?"
    There was no reply.
    Someone moaned, and Hammerstone fired again. Auk yelled,
"Don't fight unless they do, anybody. Old man, where are you?"
    His own fighting frenzy had drained away, leaving him weaker
and sicker than ever. "Jugs?"
    Oreb seconded him. "Girl say. All right? No die?"
    "No! I'm not all right." Chenille gasped for breath. "He hit me with
something, Auk. He knocked me down and tried to... You know.
Get it free. I'm pretty beat up, but I'm still alive, I guess."
    The darkness faded, as sudden as shadeup and as faint. A dozen
stades along the tunnel, one of the crawling lights was slowly
rounding a corner. As Auk watched fascinated, it came into full
view, a gleaming pinprick that rendered plain all that had been
concealed.
    Chenille was sitting up some distance away. Seeing Auk, the
naked, starved-looking man standing over her raised both hands
and backed off. Auk went to her and tried to help her up,
discovering (just as Silk had a moment before) that his hand was
encumbered by his knife. Gritting his teeth against pain that seemed
about to tear his head to bits, he stooped and returned the knife to
his boot.
    "He grabbed my launcher in the dark. Hit me with a club or
something."
    Examining her scalp in the dim light, Auk decided the dark
splotch was a bleeding bruise. "You're shaggy lucky he didn't kill you."
    The naked man smirked. "I could of. I wasn't tryin' to."
    "I ought to kill you," Auk told him. "I think I will. Go get your
launcher, Jugs."
    Behind Auk, Incus said, "He intended to take her by _force_, I dare
say. I warned her on that _very_ point. To force any woman is wrong,
my son. To force yourself upon a _prophetess_ - " Striding forward, the
little augur leveled Auk's big needler. "I _too_ am of half a mind to kill
you, for _Scylla's_ sake.
    "Patera got both gods," Hammerstone announced proudly. "A
couple of you meatheads, too."
    "Wait up, Patera. We got to talk to him." Auk indicated the naked
man by a jab of his gory hanger. "What's your name?"
    "Urus. Look, Auk, we used to be a dimber knot. Remember that
sweatin' ken? You went in through the back while I kept the street
for you."
    "Yeah. I remember you. You got the pits. That was - " Auk tried
to think, but found only pain.
    "Only a couple months ago, 'n I got lucky." Urus edged closer,
hands supplicating. "If I'd of knowed it was you, Auk, this whole lay
would of gone different. We'd of helped you, me 'n my crew. Only I
never had no way to know, see? This cully Gelada, all he said was
her 'n him." He indicated Chenille and Incus by quick gestures. "A
tall piece out of the piece pit 'n a runt cull with her, see, Auk? He
never said nothin' about no sojer. Nothin' about you. Soon's I
twigged the sojer walkin', I was fit to beat hoof, only by then he was
goin' back."
    Chenille began, "How come - "
    "Because you ain't got anything on, Jugs." Auk sighed. "They take
their clothes before they shove 'em in. I thought everybody knew
that. Sit down. You too, Patera, Hammerstone. Old man, you coming?"
    Oreb added his own throaty summons. "Old man!"
    There was no reply from the ebbing darkness.
    "Sit down," Auk told them again. "We're all tired out - shaggy
Hierax knows I am - and we've probably got a long way to go before
we find dinner or a place to sleep. I got a few questions for Urus
here. Most likely the rest of you got some too."
    "_I_ do, certainly."
    "All right, you'll get your chance." Auk seated himself gingerly on
the cold floor of the tunnel. "First, I ought to tell you that what he
said's lily, but it don't mean a lot. I know maybe a hundred culls I
can trust a little, only not too much. Before they threw him in the
pits, he used to be one of 'em, and that's all it ever was."
    Incus and Hammerstone had sat down together as he spoke;
cautiously, Urus sat, too, after receiving a permissive nod.
    Auk leaned back, his eyes shut and his head spinning. "I said
everybody'd get their chance. I only got this one first, then the rest
of you can go ahead. Where's Dace, Urus?"
    "Who's that?"
    "The old man. We had a old man with us, a fisherman. His name's
Dace. You do for him?"
    "I didn't do for anybody." Urus might have been a league away.
Hammerstone's voice: "Why'd they throw you in the pit?" Chenille's:
"That doesn't matter now. What are you doing here, that's
what I want to know. You're supposed to be in a pit, and you
thought I'd been in one. Was it no clothes, like Auk said?" Incus:
"My son, I have been _considering_ this. You could _hardly_ have
foreseen that I, an augur, would be _armed_." "I didn't even know you
was one. That cully Gelada, he said there was this long mort, and a
little cull with her. That's all we knew when we started pullin' lights
down." "It was this _Gelada_ who shot the bone arrow at _me_, I take it."
"Not at you, Patera. At her. She had a launcher, he said, so he shot,
only he missed. He's got this bow pasted up out of bones, only he's
not as good with it as he thinks. Auk, all I want's to get out, see?
You take me up, anyplace, 'n that's it. I'll do anythin' you say."
    "I was wondering," Auk murmured.
    Incus: "I _fired_ twenty times at least. There were _beastly animals_,
and _men_ as well." Chenille: "You could've killed all of us, you know
that? Just shooting Auk's needler like that in the dark. That was
abram." Hammerstone: "Not me." "If I had _not_, my daughter, I might
very well have died _myself_. Nor was I firing at _random_. I _knew!_
Though I might as well have been _blind_. That was _wonderful_. Truly
_miraculous. Scylla_ must have been at my side. They _rushed_ upon me
to kill me, all of them, but _I_ killed _them_ instead."
    Auk opened his eyes to squint into the darkness behind them.
"They killed Dace, maybe. I dunno. In a minute I'm going to see."
    Chenille prepared to rise. "You feel awful, don't you? I'll go."
    "Not now, Jugs. It's still dark back there. Urus, you said your culls
took down lights. That was to make a dark stretch here so you could
get behind us, right?"
    "That's it, Auk. Getada got up on my shoulders to pull four down,
'n Gaur run them on back. They spread out lookin' for dark. You
know about that?"
    Auk grunted.
    "Only they don't go real fast. So we figured we'd wait flat to the
side till you went by. Her, I mean, 'n this runt augur cully. That's all
we figured there was." "And jump on me from in back!" "What'd you
of done?" (Auk sensed, though he could not see, Urus's outspread
hands.) "You shot a rocket at Gelada. If it hadn't been for the bend,
you coulda done for our whole knot." "Bad man!" (That was Oreb.)
    Auk opened his eyes once more. "Three or four, anyhow.
Hammerstone, didn't you say something about a couple animals
Patera shot?"
    "Tunnel gods," Hammerstone confirmed. "Like dogs, like I told
you, only not nice like dogs."
    "I got to go back," Auk muttered. "I got to see what's happened to
the old man, and I want to have a look at these gods. Urus, you're
one, and I did for one, so that makes two. Hammerstone says Patera
got a couple, that's four. Anybody else do for any?"
    Hammerstone: "Me. One. And one Patera'd shot was still flopping
around, so I shot him again."
    "Yeah, I think I heard that. So that's five. Urus, don't give me
clatter, I'm telling you. How many'd you have?"
    "Six, Auk, 'n the two bufes."
    "Counting you?"
    "That's right, countin' me, 'n that's the lily word."
    "I'm going back there," Auk repeated, "soon as the lights get there
and I feel better. Anybody that wants to come with me, that's all
right. Anybody that wants to go on, that's all right, too. But I'm
going to look at the gods and see about Dace." He closed his eyes again.
    "Good man!"
    "Yeah, bird, he was." Auk waited for someone to speak, but no
one did. "Urus, they threw you in the pits. Do they really throw
them? I always wondered."
    "Only if you get their backs up. If you don't, you can ride down in
the basket."
    "That's how they feed you? Put your slum in this basket and let it
down?"
    "'N water jars, sometimes. Only mostly we got to catch our own
when it rains."
    "Keep talking."
    "It ain't as bad as you think. Anyhow mine ain't. Mostly we get
along, see? 'N the new ones comin' in are stronger."
    "Unless they get thrown. They'd have broken legs and so forth, I guess"
    "That's lily, Auk."
    "Then you kill 'em right off and eat 'em while they're still fat?"
    Someone (Incus, Auk decided) gasped.
    "Not all the time, 'n that's lily. Not if it's somebody that somebody
knows. We wouldn't of et you, see."
    "So you got stuck in a pit, riding down in this basket, and you're a
bully cull, or used to be. Found out they'd been digging, didn't
you?" Auk opened his eyes, resolving to keep them open.
    "That's it. They meant to dig out, see? Over till they fetched the
big wall, then down underneath, deep as they had to. Ours is about
the deepest, see? One of the real old 'uns 'n one that's near the wall.
They'd dig with bones, two culls at once, 'n more carryin' it out in
their hands. The rest'd watch for Hoppy 'n tramp it down when it
was scattered 'round. They told me all about it."
    Hammerstone asked, "You hit this tunnel when you went to go
under the wall?"
    Urus nodded eagerly. "They did, that's the right of it. They told
me. And the shiprock - it's shiprock there, it is in lots of place - it
was cracked, see? 'N they scraped the dirt out, hopin' to get
through, 'n saw the lights. They got wild then, that's what they said.
So they fetched rocks 'n chipped away at the shiprock, just a
snowflake, like, for your wap, fill you can wiggle through."
    Incus grinned, exposing his protruding teeth more than ever. "I
_begin_ to comprehend your plight, my son. When you had _accessed_
these horrid tunnels, you found yourself _unable_ to reach the _surface_.
Is that not correct? The fact of the matter? _Pas's_ justice on you?"
    "Yeah, that's it, Patera." With an ingratiating grimace, Urus
leaned toward Incus, appearing almost to abase himself. "Only look
at it, Patera. You shot a couple friends of mine just a minute ago,
didn't you? You didn't lend 'em no horse to Mainframe, did you?"
    Incus shook his head, plump cheeks quivering. "I thought it best
to let the gods judge for _themselves_ in this instance, my son. As I
would in _yours_, as well."
    "All right, I was fixin' to kill you. That's lily, see? I'm not tryin' to
bilk you over it. Only now you 'n me ought to forget about all that,
see Patera? Put it right behind us like what Pas'd want us to do. So
how about it?" Urus held out his hand.
    "My son, when you possess such a needler as _this_, I shall consent
to a truce _gladly_."
    Auk chuckled. "How far you gone, Urus? Looking for a way out?"
    "Pretty far. Only there's queer cheats in these tunnels, see? 'N
there's various ones, too. Some's full of water, or there's cave-ins.
Some ends up against doors."
    Chenille said, "I can tell you something about the doors, Hackum,
next time we're alone."
    "That's the dandy, Jugs. You do that." Painfully, Auk clambered
to his feet. Seeing that the blade of his hanger was still fouled with
blood, he wiped it on the hem of his tunic and sheathed it. "Things in
these tunnels, huh? What kinds of things?"
    "There's sojers like him down this way." Urus pointed to
Hammerstone. "They'll shoot if they see you, so you got to keep listenin'
for 'em. That was how I knowed he was a sojer in the dark, see?
They don't make much noise, not even when they're marchin', but
they don't sound like you 'n me, neither, 'n sometimes you can hear
when their guns hit up against 'em. Then there's bufes, what he calls
gods, 'n they can be devils. Only this cull Eland caught a couple
little 'uns 'n kind of tamed 'em, see? We had 'em with us. There's
big machines, sometimes, too. Some's tall asses, only not all. Some
won't row you if you don't rouse 'em."
    "That all?"
    "All I ever seen, Auk. There's stories 'bout ghosts 'n things, but I
don't know."
    "All right." Auk turned to address Incus, Hammerstone, and
Chenille. "I'm going to go back there and have a look for Dace, like
I said."
    He strolled slowly along the tunnel toward the lingering darkness,
not stopping until he reached the point at which the men and beasts
shot by Incus lay. Squatting to examine them more closely, he
contrived to glance toward the group he had left. No one had
followed him, and he shrugged. "Just you and me, Oreb."
    "Bad things!"
    "Yeah, they sure are. He called 'em bufes, but a bufe's a
watchdog, and Hammerstone was right. These ain't real dogs at all."
    A crude bludgeon, a stone lashed with sinew to a fire-blackened
bone, lay near one of the convicts Incus had shot. Auk picked it up
to look at, then tossed it away, wondering how close the man had
gotten to Incus before he fell. If Incus had been killed, he, Auk,
would have gotten his needler back. But what might Hammerstone
have done?
    He examined more curiously the one he had cut down with his
hanger. He had stolen the hanger originally, had worn it largely for
show, had sharpened it once only because he used it now and then
to cut rope or prize open drawers, had taken two lessons from
Master Xiphias out of curiosity; now he felt that he possessed a
weapon he had never known was his.
    The radiance of the creeping lights was noticeably dimmer here; it
would be some time before the section in which he had left the old
fisherman was well lit. He drew his hanger and advanced cautiously.
"You sing out if you see anything, bird."
    "No see."
    "But you can see in this, can't you? Shag, I can see, too. I just
can't see good."
    "No men." Oreb snapped his bill and fluttered from Auk's right
shoulder to his left. "No things."
    "Yeah, I don't see much either. I wish I could be sure this was the
spot."
    Most of all, he wished that Chenille had come. Bustard was
walking beside him, big and brawny; but it was not the same. If
Chenille had not cared enough to come, there was no point going - no
point in anything.
    How'd you get yourself into this, sprat, Bastard wanted to know.
    "I dunno," Auk muttered. "I forget."
    Give me the pure keg, sprat. You want me to window you out? If
I'm going to help, I got to know.
    "Well, I liked him. Patera, I mean. Patera Silk. I think the
Ayuntamiento got him. I thought, well, I'll go out to the lake
tonight, meet 'em in Limna, and they'll be glad to see me for the
gelt, for a dimber dinner and drinks, and maybe a couple uphill
rooms for us after. He won't touch her, he's a augur - "
    "Bad talk!"
    "He's a augur, and she'll have a couple with her dinner and feel
like she owes me for it and the ring, owes for both, and it'll be nice."
    What'd I tell you about hooking up with some dell, sprat?
    "Yeah, sure, brother. Whatever you say. Only then he was gone
and she was fuddled, and I got hot and lumped her and went looking. Only
everybody say's he's going to be calde, the new calde - Patera. That
would be somebody to know, if he pulls it off."
    "Girl come!"
    Never mind that. So now you're going back here, back the way we
come, for this Silk butcher?
    "Yeah, for Silk, because he'd want me to. And for him, too, for
Dace, the old man that owned our boat."
    You've snaffled a sackful like him. You don't even have his
shaggy boat.
    "Patera'd want me to, and I liked him."
    This much?
    "Hackum? Hackum!"
    He's waitin', you know. That buck Gelada's waitin' for us in the
dark next to the old man's body, sprat. He had a bow. Didn't any of
em back there have no bow.
    "Girl come," Oreb repeated.
    Auk swung around to face her. "Stand clear, Jugs!"
    "Hackum, there's something I've got to tell you, but I can't yell it."
    "He can see us, Jugs. Only we can't see him. Not even the bird can
see him from here where it's brighter, looking into the dark.
Where's your launcher?"
    "I had to leave it with Stony. Patera didn't want me to go. I think
he thought I might try to kill them with it once I got off a ways."
    Auk glanced to his right, hoping to consult Bustard; but Bustard
had gone.
    "So I said, we're not going to do anything like that. We don't hate
you. But he said you did."
    Auk shook his head, the pain there a crimson haze. "He hates me,
maybe. I don't hate him."
    "That's what I told him. He said very well my daughter - you
know how he talks - leave _that_ with us, and I shall believe you. So I
did. I gave it to Stony."
    "And came after me without it to tell me about the shaggy doors."
    "Yes!" She drew nearer as she spoke. "It's important, really
important, Hackum, and I don't want that cully that knocked me
down to hear it."
    "Is it about what the tall ass said?"
    Chenille halted, dumbfounded.
    "I heard, Jugs. I was right there behind you, and doors are my
business. Doors and windows and walls and roofs. You think I'd
miss that?"
    She shook her head. "I guess not."
    "I guess not, too. Stay back where you'll be safe." He turned away,
hoping she had not seen how sick and dizzy he was; the darkening
tunnel seemed to spin as he stared into its black maw, a pinwheel
that had burned out, or the high rear wheel of a deadcoach, all
ebony and black iron, rolling down a tarred road to nowhere. "I
know you're in there, Gelada, and you got the old man with you.
You listen here. My name's Auk, and I'm a pal of Urus's. I'm not
here for a row. Only I'm a pal of the old man's, too."
    His voice was trailing away. He tried to collect such strength as
remained. "What we're going to do pretty soon now, we're going to
go back to your pit with Urus."
    "Hackum!"
    "Shut up." He did not bother to look at her. "That's 'cause I can
get you through one of these iron doors down here that you can't
solve. I'm going to talk to 'em in your pit. I'm going to say anybody
that wants out, you come with me and I'll get you out. Then we'll go
to that door and I'll open it, and we'll go on out. Only that's it. I
ain't coming back for anybody."
    He paused, waiting for some reply. Oreb's bill clacked nervously.
    "You and the old man come here and you can come with us. Or let
him go and head back to the pit yourself, and you can come along
with the rest if you want to. But I'm going to look for him."
    Chenille's hand touched his shoulder, and he started.
    "You in this, Jugs?"
    She nodded and put her arm through his. They had taken perhaps
a hundred more steps into the deepening darkness when an arrow
whizzed between their heads; she gasped and held him more tightly
than ever.
    "That's just a warning," he told her. "He could have put it in us if
he'd wanted to. Only he won't, because we can get him out and he
can't get out himself."
    He raised his voice as before. "The old man's finished, ain't he,
Gelada? I got you. And you think when I find out, it's all in the tub.
That's not how it'll be. Everything I said still goes. We got a augur
with us, the little cull you saw with Jugs here when you shot at her.
Just give us the old man's body. We'll get him to pray over it and
maybe bury it somewhere proper, if we can find a place. I never
knew you, but maybe you knew Bustard, my brother. Buck that
nabbed the gold Molpe Cup? You want us to fetch Urus? He'll cap
for me."
    Chenille called, "He's telling the truth, Gelada, really he is. I
don't think you're here any more, I think you ran off down the
tunnel. That's what I'd have done. But if you are, you can trust
Auk. You must have been down in the pit a real long time, because
everybody in the Orilla knows Auk now."
    "Bird see!" Oreb muttered.
    Auk walked slowly into the deepening twilight of the tunnel. "He
got his bow?"
    "Got bow!"
    "Put it down, Gelada. You shoot me, you're shooting the last
chance you'll ever get."
    "Auk?" The voice from the darkness might have been that of
Hierax himself, hollow and hopeless as the echo from a tomb. "That
your name? Auk?"
    "That's me. Bustard's brother. He was older than me."
    "You got a needler? Lay it down."
    "I don't have one." Auk sheathed his hanger, pulled off his tunic,
and dropped it to the tunnel floor. With uplifted arms, he turned in
a complete circle. "See? I got the whin, and that's all I got." He drew
his hanger again and held it up. "I'm leaving it right here on my
gipon. You can see Jugs don't have anything either. She left her
launcher back there with the soldier." Slowly he advanced into the
darkness, his hands displayed.
    There was a sudden glimmer a hundred paces up the tunnel. "I got
a darkee," Gelada called. "Burns bufe drippin's."
    He puffed the flame again, and this time Auk could hear the soft
exhalation of his breath, "I should've figured," he muttered to
Chenille.
    "We don't like to use 'um much." Gelada stood, a stick figure not
much taller than Incus. "Keep 'um shut up mostly. Wick 'bout
snuffed. Culls bring 'um down 'n leave 'um."
    When Auk, walking swiftly through the dark, said nothing, he
repeated, "Burn drippin's when the oil's gone."
    "I was thinking you'd make 'em out of bones," Auk said
conversationally. "Maybe twist the wicks out of hair." He was close now, near
enough to see Dace's shadowy body lying at Gelada's feet.
    "We do that sometimes, too. Only hair's no good. We braid 'urn
out o' rags."
    Auk halted beside the body. "Got him back there, didn't you? His
kicks are messed some."
    "Dragged 'im far as I could. "E's a grunter."
    Auk nodded absently. Silk had once told him, as the two had sat
at dinner in a private room in Viron, that Blood had a daughter, and
that Blood's daughter's face was like a skull, was like talking to a
skull though she was living and Bustard was dead (Bustard whose
face really was a skull now) was not like that. Her father's face,
Blood's flabby face, was not like that either, was soft and red and
sweating even when he was saying that this one or that one must
pay.
    But this Gelada's too was a skull, as if he and not Blood were the
mort Mucor's father, was as beardless as any skull or nearly, the
grayish white of dirty bones even in the stinking yellow light of the
dark lantern - a talking cadaver with a little round belly, elbows
bigger than its arms, and shoulders like a towel horse, the dark
lantern in its hand and its small bow, like a child's bow, of bone
wound with rawhide, lying at its feet, with an arrow next to it, with
Dace's broad-bladed old knife next to that, and Dace's old head, the
old cap it always wore gone, his wild white hair like a crone's and
the clean white bones of his arm half-cleaned of flesh and whiter
than his old eyes, whiter than anything.
    "You crank, Auk?"
    "Yeah, a little." Auk crouched beside Dace's body.
    "Had the shiv on 'im." Stooping swiftly, Gelada snatched it up.
"I'm keepin' it."
    "Sure." The sleeve of Dace's heavy, worn blue tunic had been cut
away, and strips cut from his forearm and upper arm. Oreb hopped
from Auk's shoulder to scrutinize the work, and Auk warned him,
"Not your peck."
    "Poor bird!"
    "Had a couple bits, too. You can have 'um when you get me out."
    "Keep 'em. You'll need 'em up there."
    From the corner of his eye, Auk saw Chenille trace the sign of
addition. "High Hierax, Dark God, God of Death..."
    "He show much fight?"
    "Not much. Got behind 'im. Got my spare string 'round 'is neck.
There a art to that. You know Mandrill?"
    "Lit out," Auk told him without looking up. "Palustria's what I
heard."
    "My cousin. Used to work with 'im. How 'bout Elodia?"
    "She's dead. You, too." Auk straightened up and drove his knife
into the rounded belly, the point entering below the ribs and
reaching upward for the heart.
    Gelada's eyes and mouth opened wide. Briefly, he sought to
grasp Auk's wrist, to push away the blade that had already ended his
life. His dark lantern fell clattering to the naked shiprock with
Dace's old knife, and darkness rushed upon them.
    "Hackum!"
    Auk felt Gelada's weight come onto the knife as Gelada's legs
went limp. He jerked it free and wiped the blade and his right hand
on his thigh, glad that he did not have to look at Gelada's blood at
that moment, or meet a dead man's empty, staring eyes.
    "Hackum, you said you wouldn't hurt him!"
    "Did I? I don't remember."
    "He wasn't going to do anything to us."
    She had not touched him, but he sensed the nearness of her, the
female smell of her loins and the musk of her hair. "He'd already
done it, Jugs." He returned his knife to his boot, located Dace's
body with groping fingers, and slung it across his shoulders. It felt
no heavier than a boy's. "You want to bring that darkee? Could be
good if we can figure away to light it."
    Chenille said nothing, but in a few seconds he heard the tinny
rattle of the lantern.
    "He killed Dace. That'd be enough by itself, only he ate him
some, too. That's why he didn't talk at first. Too busy chewing. He
knew we'd want the old man's body, and he wanted to fill up."
    "He was starving. Starving down here." Chenille's voice was
barely above a whisper.
    "Sure. Bird, you still around?"
    "Bird here!" Feathers brushed Auk's fingers; Oreb was riding atop
Dace's corpse.
    "If you were starving, you might have done the same thing,
Hackum."
    Auk did not reply, and she added, "Me, too, I guess."
    "It don't signify, Jugs." He was walking faster, striding along
ahead of her.
    "I don't see why not!"
    "Because I had to. He'd have done it too, like I said. We're going
to the pit. I told him so."
    "I don't like that, either." Chenille sounded as though she were
about to weep.
    "I got to. I got too many friends that's been sent there, Jugs. If
some's in this pit and I can get 'em out, I got to do it. And
everybody in the pit's going to find out. Maybe Patera wouldn't tell
'em, if I asked nice. Maybe Hammerstone wouldn't. Only Urus
would for sure. He'd say this cull, he did for a pal of Auk's and ate
him, too, and Auk never done a thing. When I got 'em out, it'd be
all over the city."
    A god laughed behind them, faintly but distinctly, the meaningless,
humorless laughter of a lunatic; Auk wondered whether
Chenille had heard it. "So I had to. And I did it. You would've too,
in my shoes."
    The tunnel was growing lighter already. Ahead, where it was
brighter still, he could see Incus, Hammerstone, and Urus still
seated on the tunnel floor, Hammerstone with Chenille's launcher
across his steel lap, Incus telling his beads, Urus staring back up the
tunnel toward them.
    "All right, Hackum."
    Here were his hanger and his tunic. He laid down Dace's corpse,
sheathed the hanger, and put on his tunic again.
    "Man good!" Oreb's beak snapped with appreciation.
    "You been eating off him? I told you about that."
    "Other man," Oreb explained. "My eyes."
    Auk shrugged. "Why not?"
    "Let's get out of here. Please, Hackum." Chenille was already
several steps ahead.
    He nodded and picked up Dace.
    "I've got this bad feeling. Like he's still alive back there or
something."
    "He ain't." Auk reassured her.
    As they reached the three who had waited, Incus pocketed his
beads. "I would gladly have brought the _Pardon of Par_ to our late
comrade. But his spirit has _flown_."
    "Sure," Auk said. "We were just hoping you'd bury him, Patera, if
we can find a place."
    "It's _Patera_ now?"
    "And before. I was saying Patera before. You just didn't notice,
Patera."
    "Oh, but I _did_, my son." Incus motioned for Hammerstone and
Urus to rise. "I would do what I _can_ for our unfortunate comrade in
any case. Not for your sake, my son, but for _his_."
    Auk nodded. "That's all we're asking, Patera. Gelada's dead.
Maybe I ought to tell everybody."
    Incus was eyeing Dace's body. "You cannot bear such a weight
_far_, my son. Hammerstone will have to carry him, I suppose."
    "No," Auk said, his voice suddenly hard. "Urus will. Come're,
Urus. Take it."

                  Chapter 4  -  The Plan of Pas

"I'm sorry you did that, Mucor," Silk said mildly.
    The old woman shook her head. "I wasn't going to kill you. But I
could've."
    "Of course you could."
    Quetzal had picked up the needler; he brushed it with his fingers,
then produced a handkerchief with which to wipe off the white bull's
blood. The old woman turned to watch him, her eyes widening as
her death's-head grin faded.
    "I'm sorry, my daughter," Silk repeated. "I've noticed you at
sacrifice now and then, but I don't recall your name."
    "Cassava." She spoke as though in a dream.
    He nodded solemnly. "Are you ill, Cassava?"
    "I..."
    "It's the heat, my daughter." To salve his conscience, he added,
"Perhaps. Perhaps it's the heat, in part at least. We should get you
out of the sun and away from this fire. Do you think you can walk,
Villus?"
    "Yes, Patera."
    Quetzal held out the needler. "Take this, Patera. You may need
it." It was too large for a pocket; Silk put it in his waistband beneath
his tunic, where he had carried the azoth. "Farther back, I think,"
Quetral told him. "Behind the point of the hip. It will be safer there
and just as convenient."
    "Yes, Your Cognizance."
    "This boy shouldn't walk." Quetzal picked up Villus. "He has
poison in his blood at present, and that's no little thing, though we
may hope there's only a little poison. May I put him in your manse,
Patera? He should be lying down, and this poor woman, too."
    "Women are not - but of course if Your Cognizance - "
    "They are with my permission," Quetzal told him. "I give it. I also
permit you, Patera, to go into the cenoby to fetch a sibyl's habit.
Maytera here," he glanced down at Maytera Marble, "may regain
consciousness at any moment. We must spare her as much embarrassment
as we can." With Villus over his shoulder, he took
Cassava's arm. "Come with me, my daughter. You and this boy will
have to nurse each other for a while."
    Silk was already through the garden gate. He had never set foot in
the cenoby, but he thought he had a fair notion of its plan: sellaria,
refectory, kitchen, and pantry on the lower floor; bedrooms (four at
least, and perhaps as many as six) on the upper floor. Presumably
one would be Maytera Marble's, despite the fact that Maytera
Marble never slept.
    As he trotted along the graveled path, he recalled that the altar
and Sacred Window were still in the middle of Sun Street. They
should be carried back into the manteion as soon as possible,
although that would take a dozen men. He opened the kitchen door
and found himself far from certain of even that necessity. Pas was
dead - no less a divine personage than Echidna had declared it - and
he, Silk, could not imagine himself sacrificing to Echidna again, or
so much as attending a sacrifice honoring her. Did it actually matter,
save to those gods, if the altar of the gods or the Window through
which they so rarely condescended to communicate were ground
beneath the wheels of dung carts and tradesmen's wagons?
    Yet this was blasphemy. He shuddered.
    The cenoby kitchen seemed almost familiar, in part, he decided,
because Maytera Marble had often mentioned this stove and this
woodbox, these cupboards and this larder; and in part because it
was, although cleaner, very much like his own.
    Upstairs he found a hall that was an enlarged version of the
landing at the top of the stair in the manse, with three faded pictures
decorating its walls Pas, Echidna, and Tartaros bringing gifts of
food, progeny, and prosperity (here mawkishly symbolized by a
bouquet of marigolds) to a wedding; Scylla spreading her beautiful
unseen mantle over a traveler drinking from a pool in the southern
desert; and Molpe, perfunctorily disguised as a young woman of the
upper classes, approving a much older and poorer woman's feeding
pigeons.
    Momentarily he paused to examine the last. Cassava might, he
decided, have posed for the old woman; he reflected bitterly that
the flock she fed could better have fed her, then reminded himself
that in a sense they had - that the closing years of her life were
brightened by the knowledge that she, who had so little left to give,
could still give something.
    A door at the end of the hall was smashed. Curious, he went in.
The bed was neatly made and the floor swept. There was water in a
ewer on the nightstand, so this was certainly Maytera Mint's room
or Maytera Rose's, or perhaps the room in which Chenille had spent
Scylsday night. An icon of Scylla's hung on the wall, much darkened
by the votive lamps of the small shrine before it. And here was - yes
what appeared to be a working glass. This was Maytera Rose's
room, surely. Silk clapped, and a monitor's bloodless face appeared
in its gray depths.
    "Why has Maytera Rose never told me she had this glass?" Silk
demanded.
    "I have no idea, sir. Have you inquired?"
    "Of course not!"
    "That may well be the reason, sir."
    "If you - " Silk rebuked himself, and found that he was smiling.
What was this, compared to the death of Doctor Crane or Echidna's
theophany? He must learn to relax, and to think.
    When the manteion had been built, a glass must have been
provided for the use of the senior sibyl as well as the senior augur;
that was natural enough, and in fact praiseworthy. The senior
augur's glass, in what was now Patera Gulo's room, was out of order
and had been for decades; this one, the senior sibyl's, was still
functioning, perhaps only because it had been less used. Silk ran his
fingers through his disorderly yellow hair. "Are there more glasses in
this cenoby, my son?"
    "No, sir."
    He advanced a step, wishing that he had a walking stick to lean
upon. "In this manteion?"
    "Yes, sir. There is one in the manse, sir, but it is no longer
summonable."
    Silk nodded to himself. "I don't suppose you can tell me whether
the Alambrera has surrendered?"
    Immediately the monitor's face vanished, replaced by the turreted
building and its flanking walls. Several thousand people were
milling before the grim iron doors, where a score of men attempted
to batter their way in with what seemed to be a building timber. As
Silk watched, two Guardsmen thrust slug guns over the parapet of a
turret on the right and opened fire.
    Maytera Mint galloped into view, her black habit billowing about
her, looking no bigger than a child on the broad back of her mount.
She gestured urgently, the newfound silver trumpet that was her
voice apparently sounding retreat, although Silk could not distinguish
her words; the terrible discontinuity that was the azoth's blade
sprang from her upraised hand, and the parapet exploded in a
shower of stones.
    "Another view," the monitor announced smoothly.
    From a vantage point that appeared to be fifteen or twenty cubits
above the street, Silk found himself looking down at the mob before
the doors; some turned and ran; others were still raging against the
Alambrera's stone and iron. The sweating men with the timber
gathered themselves for a new assault, but one fell before they
began it, his face a pulpy mask of scarlet and white.
    "Enough," Silk said.
    The monitor returned. "I think it safe to say, sir, that the
Alambrera has not surrendered. If I may, I might add that in my
judgement it is not likely to do so before the arrival of the relief
force, sir."
    "A relief force is on the way?"
    "Yes, sir. The First Battalion of the Second Brigade of the Civil
Guard, sir, and three companies of soldiers." The monitor paused. "I
cannot locate them at the moment, sir, but not long ago they were
marching along Ale Street. Would you care to see it?"
    "That's all right. I should go." Silk turned away, then back. "How
were you - there's an eye high up on a building on the other side of
Cage Street, isn't there? And another over the doors of the
Alambrera?"
    "Precisely, sir."
    "You must be familiar with this cenoby. Which room is Maytera
Marble's?"
    "Less so than you may suppose, sir. There are no other glasses in
this cenoby, sir, as I told you. And no eyes save mine, sir. However,
from certain remarks of my mistress's, I infer that it may be the
second door on the left, sir."
    "By your mistress you mean Maytera Rose? Where is she?"
    "Yes, sir. My mistress has abandoned this land of trials and
sorrows for a clime infinitely more agreeable, sir. That is to say, for
Mainframe, sir. My lamented mistress has, in short, joined the
assembly of the immortal gods."
    "She's dead?"
    "Precisely so, sir. As to the present whereabouts of her remains,
they are, I believe, somewhat scattered. This is the best I can do,
sir."
    The monitor's face vanished again, and Sun Street sprang into
view: the altar (from which Musk's fire-blackened corpse had
partially fallen); and beyond it, Maytera Marble's naked metal
body, sprawled near a coffin of softwood stained black.
    "Those were her final rites," Silk muttered to himself. "Maytera
Rose's last sacrifice. I never knew."
    "Yes, sir, I fear they were." The monitor sighed. "I served her for
forty-three years, sir, eight months, and five days. Would you care
to view her as she was in life, sir? Or the last scene it was my
pleasure to display to her? As a species of informal memorial, sir? It
may console your evident grief, sir, if I may be so bold."
    Silk shook his head, then thought better of it. "Is some god
prompting you, my son? The Outsider, perhaps?"
    "Not that I'm aware of, sir.
    "Last Phaesday I encountered a very cooperative monitor," Silk
explained. "He directed me to his mistress's weapons, something
that I wouldn't - in retrospect - have supposed a monitor would
normally do. I have since concluded that he had been ordered to
assist me by the goddess Kypris."
    "A credit to us all, sir."
    "He would not say so, of course. He had been enjoined to silence.
Show me that scene, the last your mistress saw."
    The monitor vanished. Choppy blue water stretched to the
horizon; in the mid-distance, a small fishing boat ran close-hauled
under a lowering sky. A black bird (Silk edged closer) fluttered in
the rigging, and a tall woman, naked or neariy so, stood beside the
helmsman. A movement of her left hand was accompanied by a
faint crimson flash.
    Silk stroked his cheek. "Can you repeat the order Maytera Rose
gave you that led you to show her this?"
    "Certainly, sir. It was, 'Let's see what that slut Silk foisted on us is
doing now.' I apologize, sir, as I did to my mistress, for the meager
image of the subject. There was no nearer point from which to
display it, and the focal length of the glass through which I viewed it
was at its maximum."

Hearing Silk's approach, Maytera Marble turned away from the
Window and tried to cover herself with her new hands. With averted
eyes, he passed her the habit he had taken from a nail in the wall of
her room, saying, "It doesn't matter, Maytera. Not really."
    "I know, Patera. Yet I feel... There, it's on."
    He faced her and held out his hand. "Can you stand up?"
    "I don't know, Patera. I - I was about to try when you came.
Where is everyone?" Harder than flesh, her fingers took his. He
heaved with all his strength, reawakening the half-healed wounds
left by the beak of the white-headed one.
    Maytera Marble stood, almost steadily, and endeavored to shake
the dust from her long, black skirt, murmuring, "Thank you, Patera.
Did you get - ? Thank you very much."
    He took a deep breath. "I'm afraid you must think I've acted
improperly. I should explain that His Cognizance the Prolocutor
personally authorized me to enter your cenoby to bring you that.
His Cognizance is here; he's in the manse at the moment, I believe."
    He waited for her to speak, but she did not.
    "Perhaps if you got out of the sun."
    She leaned heavily on his arm as he led her through the arched
gateway and the garden to her accustomed seat in the arbor.
    In a voice not quite like her own, she said, "There's something I
should tell you. Something I should have told you long ago."
    Silk nodded. "There's something I should have told you long ago,
too, Maytera - and something new that I must tell you now. Please
let me go first; I think that will be best."
    It seemed she had not heard him. "I bore a child once, Patera. A
son, a baby boy. It was... Oh, very long ago."
    "Built a son, you mean. You and your husband."
    She shook her head. "Bore him in blood and pain, Patera. Great
Echidna had blinded me to the gods, but it wasn't enough. So I
suffered, and no doubt he suffered, too, poor little mite, though he
had done nothing. We nearly died, both of us."
    Silk could only stare at her smooth, metal face.
    "And now somebody's dead, upstairs. I can't remember who. It
will come to me in a moment. I dreamt of snakes last night, and I
hate snakes. If I tell you now, I think perhaps I won't have that
dream again."
    "I hope not, Maytera," he told her. And then, "Think of something
else, if you can."
    "It was... Was not an easy confinement. I was forty, and had
never borne a child. Maytera Betel was our senior then, an excellent
woman. But fat, one of those people who lose nothing when they
fast. She became horribly tired when she fasted, but never thinner."
    He nodded, increasingly certain that Maytera Marble was possessed
again, and that he knew who possessed her.
    "We pretended I was becoming fat, too. She used to tease me
about it, and our sibs believed her. I'd been such a small woman
before."
    Watching carefully for her reaction, Silk said, "I would have
carried you, Maytera, if I could; but I knew you'd be too heavy for
me to lift."
    She ignored it. "A few bad people gossiped, but that was all. Then
my time came. The pains were awful. Maytera had arranged for a
woman in the Orilla to care for me. Not a good woman, Maytera
said, but a better friend in time of need than many good women.
She told me she'd delivered children often, and washed her hands,
and washed me, and told me what to do, but it would not come
forth. My son. He wouldn't come into this world, though I pressed
and pressed until I was so tired I thought I must die."
    Her hand - he recognized it now as Maytera Rose's - found his.
Hoping it would reassure her, he squeezed it as hard as he could.
    "She cut me with a knife from her kitchen that she dipped in
boiling water, and there was blood everywhere. Horrible! Horrible!
A doctor came and cut me again, and there he was, covered with my
blood and dripping. My son. They wanted me to nurse him, but I
wouldn't. I knew that she'd blinded me, Ophidian Echidna had
blinded me to the gods for what I'd done, but I thought that if I
didn't nurse it she might relent and let me see her after all. She
never has."
    Silk said, "You don't have to tell me this, Maytera."
    "They asked me to name him, and I did. They said they'd find a
family that wanted a child and would take him, and he'd never find
out, but he did, though it must have taken him a long while. He
spoke to Marble, said she must tell me he'd bought it, and his name.
When I heard his name, I knew."
    Silk said gently, "It doesn't matter any more, Maytera. That was
long ago, and now the whole city's in revolt, and it no longer
matters. You must rest. Find peace."
    "And that is why," Maytera Marble concluded. "Why my son
Bloody bought our manteion and made all this trouble."
    The wind wafted smoke from the fig tree to Silk's nose, and he
sneezed.
    "May every god bless you, Patera." Her voice sounded normal
again.
    "Thank you," he said, and accepted the handkerchief she offered.
    "Could you bring me water, do you think? Cool water?"
    As sympathetically as he could, he told her, "You can't drink
water, Maytera."
    "Please? Just a cup of cool water?"
    He hurried to the manse. Today was Hieraxday, after all; no
doubt she wished him to bless the water for her in Hierax's name.
Later she would sprinkle it upon Maytera Rose's coffin and in the
corners of her bedroom to prevent Maytera's spirit from troubling
her again.
    Cassava was sitting in the kitchen, in the chair Patera Pike had
used at meals. Silk said, "Shouldn't you lie down, my daughter? It
would make you feel better, I'm sure, and there's a divan in the
sellaria."
    She stared at him. "That was a needler, wasn't it? I gave you a
needler. Why'd I have a thing like that?"
    "Because someone gave it to you to give me." He smiled at her.
"I'm going to the Alambrera, you see, and I'll need it." He worked
the pump-handle vigorously, letting the first rusty half-bucketful
drain away, catching the clear, cold flood that followed in a tumbler,
and presenting it to Cassava. "Drink this, please, my daughter. It
should make you feel better."
    "You called me Mucor," she said. "Mucor." She set the untasted
tumber on the kitchen table and rubbed her forehead. "Didn't you
call me Mucor, Patera?"
    "I mentioned Mucor, certainly; she was the person who gave you
the needler to give to me." Studying her puzzled frown, Silk decided
it would be wise to change the subject. "Can you tell me what has
become of His Cognizance and little Villus, my daughter?"
    "He carried him upstairs, Patera. He wanted him to lie down, like
you wanted me."
    "Doubtless he'll be down shortly." Silk reflected that the
Prolocutor had probably intended to bandage Villus's leg, and lost some
time searching for medical supplies. "Drink that water, please. I'm
sure it will make you feel better." He filled a second tumbler and
carried it outside.
    Maytera Marble was sitting in the arbor just as he had left her.
Pushing aside the vines, he handed her the tumbler, saying, "Would
you like me to bless this for you, Maytera?"
    "It won't be necessary, Patera."
    Water spilled from the lip; rills laced her fingers, and rain
panered upon the black cloth covering her metal thighs. She smiled.
    "Does that make you feel better?" he asked,
    "Yes, much better. Much cooler, Patera. Thank you."
    "I'll be happy to bring you another, if you require it."
    She stood. "No. No, thank you, Patera. I'll be all right now, I
think."
    "Sit down again, Maytera, please. I'm still worried about you, and
I have to talk to you."
    Reluctantly, she did. "Aren't there others hurt? I seem to
remember others - and Maytera Rose, her coffin,"
    Silk nodded. "That's a part of what I must talk to you about.
Fighting has broken out all over the city."
    She nodded hesitantly. "Riots."
    "Rebellion, Maytera. The people - some at least - are rising
against the Ayuntamiento. There won't be any burials for several
days, I'm afraid; so when you're feeling better, you and I must carry
Maytera's coffin into the manteion. Is it very heavy?"
    "I don't think so, Patera."
    "Then we should be able to manage it. But before we go, I ought
to tell you that Villus and an old woman named Cassava are in the
manse with His Cognizance. I can't stay here, nor will he be able to,
I'm sure; so I intend to ask him to allow you to enter to care for
them."
    Maytera Marble nodded.
    "And our altar and Window are still out in the street. I doubt that
it will be possible for you to get enough help to move them back
inside until the city is at peace. But if you can, please do."
    "I certainly will, Patera."
    "I want you to stay and look after our manteion, Maytera.
Maytera Mint's gone; she felt it her duty to lead the fighting, and
she answered duty's call with exemplary courage. I'll have to go
soon as well. People are dying - and killing others - to make me
calde, and I must put a stop to that if I can."
    "Please be careful, Patera. For all our sakes."
    "Yet this manteion is still important, Maytera. Terribly
important." (Doctor Crane's ghost laughed aloud in a corner of Silk's
mind.) "The Outsider told me so, remember? Someone must care
for it, and there's no one left but you."
    Maytera Marble's sleek metal head bobbed humbly, oddly
mechanical without her coif. "I'll do my best, Patera."
    "I know you will." Refilled his lungs. "I said there were two things
I had to tell you. You may not recall it, but I did. When you began
to speak, I found there were a great many more. Now I must tell you
those two, and then we'll carry Maytera into the manteion, if we
can. The first is something I should have said months ago. Perhaps I
did; I know I've tried. Now I believe - I believe it's quite likely I
may be killed, and I must say it now, or be silent forever."
    "I'm anxious to hear it, Patera." Her voice was soft, her metal
mask expressionless and compassionate; her hands clasped his, hard
and wet and warm.
    "I want to say - this is the old thing - that I could never have stood
it here if it hadn't been for you. Maytera Rose and Maytera Mint
tried to help, I know they did. But you have been my right arm,
Maytera. I want you know that."
    Maytera Marble was staring at the ground. "You're too kind,
Patera."
    "I've loved three women. My mother was the first. The third..."
He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. You don't know her, and I doubt
that I'll ever see her again." A pillar of swirling dust rose above the
top of the garden wall, to be swept away in a moment.
    "The second thing, the new one, is that I can't remain the sort of
augur I've been. Pas - Great Pas, who ruled the whole Whorl like a
father - is dead, Maytera. Echidna herself told us. Do you remember that?"
    Maytera Marble said nothing.
    "Pas built our whorl, as we learn from the Writings. He built it, I
believe, to endure for a long, long time, but not to endure
indefinitely in his absence. Now he's dead, and the sun has no
master. I believe that the Fliers have been trying to tame it, or
perhaps only trying to heal it. A man in the market told me once
that his grandfather had spoken of them, saying their appearance
presaged rain; so all my life, and my mother's, and her parents', too,
have been lived under their protection, while they wrestled the sun."
    Silk peered through the wilting foliage overhead at the dwindling
golden line, already narrowed by the shade. "But they've failed,
Maytera. A flier told me yesterday, with what was almost his final
breath. I didn't understand then; but I do now, or at least I believe I
may. Something happened in the street that made it unmistakable.
Our city, and every other, must help if it can, and prepare for worse
times than we've ever known."
    Quetzal's tremulous old voice came from outside the arbor.
"Excuse me, Patera. Maytera." The wilting vines parted, and he
stepped inside. "I overheard what you said. I couldn't help it, it's so
quiet. You'll pardon me, I hope?"
    "Of course, Your Cognizance." Both rose.
    "Sit down, my daughter. Sit, please. May I sit beside you, Patera?
Thank you. Everyone's hiding indoors, I imagine, or gone off to
join the fighting. I've been upstairs in your manse, Patera, and I
looked out your window. There isn't a cart in the street, and you can
hear shooting."
    Silk nodded. "A terrible thing, Your Cognizance."
    "It is, as I overheard you say earlier, Patera. Maytera, you are,
from all I've heard and read in our files, a woman of sound sense. A
woman outstanding for that valuable quality, in fact. Viron's at war
with itself. Men and women, and even children, are dying as we
speak. They call us butchers for offering animal blood to the gods,
though they're only animals and die quickly for the highest of
purposes. Now the gutters are running with wasted human blood. If
we're butchers, what will they call themselves when it's over?" He
shook his head. "Heroes, I suppose. Do you agree?"
    Maytera Marble nodded mutely.
    "Then I ask you, how can it be ended? Tell me, Maytera. Tell us
both. My coadjutor fears my humor, and I myself fear at times that I
overindulge it. But I was never more serious."
    She muttered something inaudible.
    "Louder, Maytera."
    "Patera Silk must become our calde."
    Quetzal leaned back in the little rustic seat. "There you have it.
Her reputation for good sense is entirely justified, Patera Calde."
    "Your Cognizance!"
    Maytera Marble made Quetzal a seated bow. "You're too kind,
Your Cognizance."
    "Maytera. Suppose I maintain that yours isn't the only solution.
Suppose I say that the Ayuntamiento has governed us before and
can govern us again. We need only submit. What's wrong with that?"
    "There'd be another rebellion, Your Cognizance, and more riots."
Maytera Marble would not meet Silk's eyes. "More fighting, new
rebellions every few years until the Ayuntamiento was overthrown.
I've watched discontent grow for twenty years, Your Cognizance,
and now they're killing, Patera says. They'll be quicker to fight next
time, and quicker again until it never really stops. And - and..."
    "Yes?" Quetzal motioned urgently. "Tell us."
    "The soldiers will die, Your Cognizance, one by one. Each time
the people rise, there will be fewer soldiers."
    "So you see." His head swung about on its wrinkled neck as he
spoke to Silk. "Your supporters must win, Patera Calde. Stop
wincing when I call you that, you've got to get used to it. They must,
because only their victory will bring Viron peace. Tell Loris and the
rest they can save their lives by surrendering now. Lemur's dead,
did you know that?"
    Swallowing, Silk nodded.
    "With Lemur gone, a few smacks of your quirt will make the rest
trot anywhere you want. But you must be calde, and the people
must see you are."
    "If I may speak, Your Cognizance?"
    "Not to tell me that you, an anointed augur, will not do what I,
your Prolocutor, ask you to, I trust."
    "You've been Prolocutor for many years, Your Cognizance. Since
long before I was born. You were Prolocutor in the days of the last
calde."
    Quetzal nodded. "I knew him well. I intend to know you better,
Patera Calde."
    "I was a child when he died, Your Cognizance, a child just
learning to walk. A great many things must have happened then that
I've never heard of. I mention it to emphasize that I'm asking out of
ignorance. If you would prefer not to answer, no more will be said
about the matter."
    Quetzal nodded. "If it were Maytera here inquiring, or your
acolyte, let's say, or even my coadjutor, I might refuse exactly as
you suggest. I can't imagine a question asked by our calde that I
wouldn't feel it was my duty to answer fully and clearly, however.
What's troubling you?"
    Silk ran his fingers through his hair. "When the calde died, Your
Cognizance, did you - did anyone - protest the Ayuntamiento's
decision not to hold an election?"
    Quetzal nodded, as if to himself, and passed a trembling hand
across his hairless scalp, a gesture similar to Silk's yet markedly
different. "The short answer, if I intended nothing more than a
short answer, would be yes. I did. So did various others. You
deserve more than a short answer, though. You deserve a
complete explanation. In the meantime, that lucky young man's
body lies half consumed on the altar. I saw it from your window.
You indicate that you're not inclined to plead your office to
excuse disobedience. Will you follow me into the street and help
me do what can be done there? When we're finished, I'll answer
you fully."

Crouched behind the remaining wall of a fire-gutted shop, Maytera
Mint studied her subordinates' faces. Zoril looked fearful, Lime
stunned, and the big, black-bearded man (she found she had
forgotten his name, if she had ever heard it) resolute. "Now, then,"
she said.
    Why it's just like talking to the class, she thought. No different at
all. I wish I had a chalkboard,
    "Now then, we've just had news, and it's bad news, I don't intend
to deny that. But it isn't unexpected news. Not to me, and I hope to
none of you. We've got Guards penned up in the Alambrera, where
they're supposed to pen up other people."
    She smiled, hoping they appreciated the irony. "Anyone would
expect that the Ayuntamiento would send its people help. Certainly
I expected it, though I hoped it wouldn't be quite so prompt. But it's
come, and it seems to me that we can do any of three things." She
held up three fingers. "We can go on attacking the Alambrera,
hoping we can take it before they get here." One finger down. "We
can withdraw." Another finger down. "Or we can leave the Alambrera
as it is and fight the reinforcements before they can get inside."
The last finger down. "What do you suggest, Zoril?"
    "If we withdraw, we won't be doing what the goddess said for us to."
    The black-bearded man snorted.
    "She told us to capture the Alambrera and tear it down," Maytera
Mint reminded Zoril. "We've tried, but we haven't been able to.
What we've got to decide, really, is should we go on trying until
we're interrupted? Or rest awhile until we feel stronger, knowing
that they'll be stronger too? Or should we see to it that we're not
interrupted. Lime?"
    She was a lank woman of forty with ginger-colored hair that
Maytera Mint had decided was probably dyed. "I don't think we can
think _only_ about what the goddess said. If she just wanted it torn
down, she could have done it herself. She wants us to do it."
    Maytera Mint nodded. "I'm in complete agreement."
    "We're mortals, so we've got to do it as mortals." Lime gulped. "I
don't have as many people following me as the rest of you, and most
of mine are women."
    "There's nothing wrong with that," Maytera Mint assured her. "So
am I. So is the goddess, or at least she's female like us. We know
she's Pas's wife and seven times a mother. As for your not having
lots of followers, that's not the point. I'd be happy to listen to
somebody who didn't have any, if she had good, workable ideas."
    "What I was trying to say - " A gust of wind carried dust and
smoke into their council; Lime fanned her face with one long, flat
hand. "Is most of mine don't have much to fight with. Just kitchen
knives, a lot of them. Eight, I think it is, have needlers, and there's
one who runs a stable and has a pitchfork."
    Maytera Mint made a mental note.
    "So what I was going to say is they're feeling left out. Discouraged,
you know?"
    Maytera Mint assured her that she did.
    "So if we go home, I think some will stay there. But if we can beat
these new Hoppies that're coming, they could get slug guns. They'd
feel better about themselves, and us, too."
    "A very valid point."
    "Bison here - "
    Maytera Mint made another note: "Bison" was clearly the black-bearded
man; she resolved to use his name whenever she could until
it was fixed in her memory.
    "Bison thinks they won't fight. And they won't, not the way he
wants them to. But if they had slug guns, they'd shoot all day if you
told them to, Maytera. Or if you told them to go someplace and
Hoppies tried to stop them."
    "You're for attacking the relief column, Lime?"
    Lime nodded.
    Bison said, "She's for it as long as somebody else does the
fighting. I'm for it, too, and we'll do the fighting."
    "The fighting among ourselves, you mean, Bison?" Maytera Mint
shook her head. "That sort of fighting will never bring back the
Charter, and I'm quite sure it isn't what the goddess intended. But
you're in favor of attacking the relief column? Good, so am I! I'm
not sure I know what Zoril wants, and I'm not sure he knows. Even
so, that's a clear majority. Where would you suggest we attack it,
Bison?"
    He was silent, fingering his beard.
    "We'll lose some stragglers. I realize that. But there are steps we
can take to keep from losing many, and we might pick up some new
people as well. Zoril?"
    "I don't know, Maytera. I think you ought to decide."
    "So do I, and I will. But it's foolish to make decisions without
listening to advice, if there's time for it. I think we should attack
right here, when they reach the Alambrera."
    Bison nodded emphatically.
    "In the first place, we don't have much time to prepare, and that
will give us the most."
    Bison said, "People are throwing stones at them from the roof-tops.
The messenger told us that, too, remember? Maybe they'll kill
a few Hoppies for us. Let's give them a chance."
    "And perhaps some of their younger men will come over to us.
We ought to give them as much opportunity as we can to do that."
Inspired by the memory of games at the palaestra, she added,
"When somebody changes sides, it counts twice, one more for us and
one fewer for them. Besides, when they get here the Guards in the
Alambrera will have to open those big doors to let them in." Their
expressions showed that none of them had thought of that, and she
concluded, "I'm not saying that we'll be able to get inside ourselves.
But we might. Now them, how are we going to attack?"
    "Behind and before, with as many men as we can," Bison rumbled.
    Lime added, "We need to take them by surprise, Maytera."
    "Which is another reason for attacking here. When they get to the
Alambrera, they'll think they've reached their goal. They may relax
a little. That will be the time for us to act."
    "When the doors open." Bison drove a fist into his palm.
    "Yes, I think so. What is it, Zoril?"
    "I shouldn't say this. I know what everybody's going to think, but
they've been shooting down on us from the walls and the high
windows. Just about everybody we've lost, we've lost like that." He
waited for contradiction, but there was none.
    "There's buildings across the street as high as the wall, Maytera,
and one just a little up the street that's higher. I think we ought to
have people in there to shoot at the men on the wall. Some of mine
that don't have needlers or slug guns could be on the roofs, too,
throwing stones like the messenger talked about. A chunk of
shiprock falling that far ought to hit as hard as a slug, and these
Hoppies have got armor."
    Maytera Mint nodded again. "You're right. I'm putting you in
charge of that. Get some people - not just your own, some of the
older boys and girls particularly - busy right away carrying stones
and bricks up there. There must be plenty around after the fires.
    "Lime, Your women are no longer fighters unless they've got
needlers or slug guns. We need people to get our wounded out of
the fight and take care of them. They can use their knives or
whatever they have on anyone who tries to interfere with them. And
that woman with the pitchfork? Go get her. I want to talk to her."
    A fragment of broken plaster caught Maytera Mint's eye. "Now,
Bison, look here." Picking it up, she scratched two widely spaced
lines on the fire-blackened wall behind her. "This is Cage Street."
With speed born of years of practice, she sketched in the Alambrera
and the buildings facing it.

There was still a good deal of cedar left, and the fire on the altar had
not quite gone out. Silk heaped fresh wood on it and let the wind fan
it for him, sparks streaking Sun Street.
    Quetzal had taken charge of Musk's corpse, arranging it decently
beside Maytera Rose's coffin. Maytera Marble, who had gone to the
cenoby for a sheet, had not yet returned.
    "He was the most evil man I've ever known." Silk had not
intended to speak aloud, but the words had come just the same.
"Yet I can't help feeling sorry for him, and for all of us, as well,
because he's gone."
    Quetzal murmured, "Does you credit, Patera Calde," and wiped
the blade of the manteion's sacrificial knife, which he had rescued
from the dust.
    Vaguely, Silk wondered when he had dropped it. Maytera Rose
had always taken care of it, washing and sharpening it after each
sacrifice, no matter how minor; but Maytera Rose was gone, as
dead as Musk.
    After he had cut the sign of addition in Villas's ankle, of course,
when he had knelt to suck out the poison.
    When he had met Blood on Phaesday, Blood had said that he had
promised someone - had promised a woman - that he would pray at
this manteion for her. Suddenly Silk knew (without in the least
understanding how he knew) that the "woman" had been Musk. Was
Musk's spirit lingering in the vicinity of Musk's body and prompting
him in some fashion? Whispering too softly to be heard? Silk traced
the sign of addition, knowing that he should add a prayer to
Thelxiepeia, the goddess of magic and ghosts, but unable to do so.
    Musk had bought the manteion for Blood with Blood's money;
and Musk must have felt, in some deep part of himself that all his
evil actions had not killed, that he had done wrong - that he had by
his purchase offended the gods. He had asked Blood to pray for
him, or perhaps for them both, in the manteion that he had bought;
and Blood had promised to do it.
    Had Blood kept his promise?
    "If you'd help with the feet, Patera Calde?" Quetzal was standing
at the head of Maytera Rose's coffin.
    "Yes, of course, Your Cognizance. We can carry that in."
    Quetzal shook his head. "We'll lay it on the sacred fire, Patera
Calde. Cremation is allowed when burial is impractical. If you
would...?"
    Silk picked up the foot of the coffin, finding it lighter than he had
expected. "Shouldn't we petition the gods, Your Cognizance? On
her behalf?"
    "I already have, Patera Calde. You were deep in thought. Now
then, as high as you can, then quickly down upon the fire. Without
dropping it, please. One, two, _three!_"
    Silk did as he was told, then stepped hurriedly away from the
lengthening flames. "Possibly we ought to have waited for Maytera,
Your Cognizance."
    Quetzal shook his head again. "This way is better, Patera Calde. It
would be better for you to keep from looking at the fire, too. Do
you know why coffins have that peculiar shape, by the way? Look at
me, Patera Calde."
    "To allow for the shoulders, Your Cognizance, or so I've
heard."
    Quetzal nodded. "That's what everyone's told. Would this sibyl of
yours need extra room for her shoulders? Look at me, I said."
    Already the thin, stained wood was blackening honestly, charring
as the flames that licked it brought forth new flames. "No," Silk said,
and looked away again. (It was strange to think that this bent, bald
old man was in fact the Prolocutor.) "No, Your Cognizance. Nor
would most women, or many men."
    There was a stench of burning flesh.
    "They do it so that we, the living, will know at which end the head
lies, when the lid's on. Coffins are sometimes stood on end, you see.
Patera!"
    Silk's gaze had strayed to the fire again. He turned away and
covered his eyes.
    "I would have saved you that if I could," Quetzal told him, and
Maytera Marble, arriving with the sheet, inquired, "Saved him from
what, Your Cognizance?"
    "Saved me from seeing Maytera Rose's face as the flames
consumed it," Silk told her. He rubbed his eyes, hoping that she
would think he had been rubbing them before, that he had gotten
smoke in them.
    She held out one end of the sheet. "I'm sorry I took so long,
Patera. I - I happened to see my reflection. Then I looked for
Maytera Mint's mirror. My cheek is scratched."
    Silk took corners of the sheet in tear-dampened fingers; the wind
tried to snatch it from him, but he held it fast. "So it is, Maytera.
How did you do it?"
    "I have no idea!"
    To his surprise, Quetzal lifted Musk's half-consumed body easily.
Clearly, this venerable old man was stronger than he appeared.
"Spread it flat and hold it down," he told them. "We'll lay him on it
and fold it over him."
    A moment more, and Musk, too, rested among the flames.
    "It's our duty to tend the fire until both have burned. We don't
have to watch, and I suggest we don't." Quetzal had positioned
himself between Silk and the altar. "Let us pray privately for the
repose of their spirits."
    Silk shut his eyes, bowed his head, and addressed himself to the
Outsider, without much confidence that this most obscure of gods
heard him or cared about what he said, or even existed.
    "_And yet I know this_." (His lips moved, although no sound issued
from them.) "_You are the only god for me. It is better for me that I
should give you all my worship, though you are not, than that I
should worship Echidna or even Kypris, whose faces l have seen.
Thus I implore your mercy on these, our dead. Remember that I,
whom once you signally honored, ought to have loved them both but
could not, and so failed to provide the impetus that might have
brought them to you before Hierax claimed them. Mine therefore is
the guilt for any wrong they have done while they have known me. I
accept it, and pray you will forgive them, who burn, and forgive me
also, whose fire is not yet lit. Obscure Outsider, be not angry with us,
though we have never sufficiently honored you. All that is outcast,
discarded, and despised is yours. Are this man and this woman, who
have been neglected by me, to be neglected by you as well? Recall the
misery of our lives and their deaths. Are we never to find rest? I have
searched my conscience, Outsider, to discover that in which l have
displeased you. I find this: That I avoided Maytera Rose whenever I
could, though she might have been to me the grandmother I have
never known; and that I hated Musk, and feared him too, when he
had not done me the least wrong. Both were yours, Outsider, as I
now see; and for your sake I should have been loving with both. I
renounce my pride, and I will honor their memories. This I swear.
My life to you, Outsider, if you will forgive this man and this woman
whom we burn today_."
    Opening his eyes he saw that Quetzal had already finished, if he
had ever prayed. Soon Maytera Marble raised her head as well, and
he inquired, "Would Your Cognizance, who knows more about the
immortal gods than anyone else in the whorl, instruct me regarding
the Outsider? Though he's enlightened me, as I informed your
coadjutor, I would be exceedingly grateful if you could tell me
more."
    "I have no information to give, Patera Calde, regarding the
Outsider or any other god. What little I have learned in the course
of a long life, regarding the gods, I have tried to forget. You saw
Echidna. After that, can you ask me why?"
    "No, Your Cognizance." Silk looked nervously at Maytera
Marble.
    "I didn't, Your Cognizance. But I saw the Holy Hues and heard
her voice, and it made me wonderfully happy. I remember that she
exhorted all of us to purity and confirmed Scylla's patronage,
nothing else. Can you tell me what else she said?"
    "She told your sib to overthrow the Ayuntamiento. Let that be
enough for you, Maytera, for the present."
    "Maytera Mint? But she'll be killed!"
    Quetzal's shoulders rose and fell. "I think we can count on it,
Maytera. Before Kypris manifested here on Scylsday, the Windows
of our city had been empty for decades. I can't take credit for that, it
wasn't my doing. But I've done everything in my power to prevent
theophanies. It hasn't been much, but I've done what I could. I
proscribed human sacrifice, and got it made law, for one thing. I
admit I'm proud of that."
    He turned to Silk. "Patera Calde, you wanted to know if I
protested when the Ayuntamiento failed to hold an election to
choose a new calde. You were right to ask, more right than you
knew. If a new calde had been elected when the last died, we
wouldn't have had that visit from Echidna today."
    "If Your Cognizance - "
    "No, I want to tell you. There are many things you have to know
as calde, and this is one. But the situation wasn't as simple as you
may think. What do you know about the Charter?"
    "Next to nothing, Your Cognizance. We studied when I was a boy - that
is to say, our teacher read it to us and answered our questions.
I was ten, I think."
    Maytera Marble said, "We're not supposed to teach it now. It was
dropped from all the lesson plans years ago."
    "At my order," Quetzal told them, "when even mentioning it
became dangerous. We have copies at the Palace, however, and I've
read it many times. It doesn't say, Patera Calde, that an election
must be held on the death of the calde, as you seem to believe. What
it really says is that the calde is to hold office for life, that he may
appoint his successor, and that a successor is to be elected if he dies
without havmg done it. You see the difficulty?"
    Uneasily, Silk glanced up and down the street, seeing no one near
enough to overhear. "I'm afraid not, Your Cognizance. That sounds
quite straightforward to me."
    "It does _not_ say that the calde must announce his choice,
you'll notice. If he wants to keep it secret, he can do it. The reasons are
so obvious I hesitate to explain them."
    Silk nodded. "I can see that it would put them both in an
uncomfonable position."
    "In a very dangerous one, Patera Calde. Partisans of the successor
might assassinate the calde, while those who'd hoped to become
calde would be tempted to murder the successor. When the last
calde's will was read, it was found to designate a successor. I
remember the exact wording. It said, 'Though he is not the son of
my body, my son will succeed me.' What do you make of that?"
    Silk stroked his cheek. "It didn't name this son?"
    "No. I've given you the entire clause. The calde had never
married, as I should have told you sooner. As far as anybody knew,
he had no sons."
    Maytera Marble ventured, "I never knew about this, Your
Cognizance. Didn't the son tell them?"
    "Not that I know of. It's possible he did and was killed secretly by
Lemur or one of the other councillors, but I doubt it." Quetzal
selected a long cedar split and poked the sinking fire. "If they'd done
that, I'd have heard about it by this time. Probably much sooner. No
public announcement was made, you understand. If there'd been
one, pretenders would have put themselves forward and made
endless trouble. The Ayuntamiento searched in secret. To be frank,
I doubt that the boy would have lived if they'd found him."
    Silk nodded reluctantly.
    "If it had been a natural son, they could've used medical tests. As
it was, the only hope was turn up a record. The monitors of every
glass that could be located were queried. Old documents were read
and reread, and the calde's relatives and associates interrogated, all
without result. An election should have been held, and I urged one
repeatedly because I was afraid we'd have a theophany from Scylla
unless something was done. But an election would have been illegal,
as I had to admit. The calde had designated his successor. They
simply couldn't find him."
    "Then I'll have no right to office if it's forced on me."
    "Hardly. In the first place, that was a generation ago. It's likely
the adopted son's dead if he ever existed. In the second, the Charter
was written by the gods. It's a document expressing their will
regarding our governance nothing more. It's clear they're displeased
with the present state of things, and you're the only
alternative, as Maytera told you."
    Quetzal handed the sacrificial knife to Maytera Marble. "I think
we can go now, Maytera. You must stay. Watch the fire until it goes
out. When it does, carry the ashes into your manteion and dispose
of them as usual. You may notice bones or teeth among them. Don't
touch them, or treat them differently from the rest of the ashes in
any way."
    Maytera Marble bowed.
    "Purify the altar as usual. If you can get people to help you, take it
back into the manteion. Your Sacred Window, too."
    She bowed again. "Patera has already instructed me to do so,
Your Cognizance."
    "Fine. You're a good sensible woman, Maytera, as I said. I was
glad to see that you had resumed your coif when you went back to
your cenoby. You've my permission to enter the manse. There's an
old woman there. I think you'll find she's well enough to go home.
There's a boy on one of the beds upstairs. You can leave him there
or carry him into your cenoby to nurse, if that will be more
convenient. See to it that he doesn't exert himself, and that he
drinks a lot of water. Get him to eat, if you can. You might cook
some of this meat for him."
    Quetzal turned to Silk. "I want to look in on him again, Patera,
while Maytera's busy with the fire. I'm also going to borrow a spare
robe I saw up there, your acolyte's, I suppose. It looked too short
for you, but it should fit me, and when we meet the rebels - perhaps
we should call them servants of the Queen of the Whorl, some such.
When we meet them, it may help if they know who I am as well as
who you are."
    Silk said, "I feel certain Patera Gulo would want you to have
anything that can be of any assistance whatsoever to you, Your
Cognizance."
    As Quetzal tottered away, Maytera Marble asked, "Are you going
to help Maytera Mint, Patera? You'll be in frightful danger, both of
you. I'll pray for you."
    "I'm much more worried about you than about myself," Silk told
her. "More, even, than I am about her - she must be under
Echidna's protection, in spite of what His Cognizance said."
    Maytera Marble lifted her head in a slight, tantalizing smile.
"Don't fret about me. Maytera Marble's taking good care of me."
Unexpectedly, she brushed his cheek with warm metal lips. "If you
should see my boy Bloody, tell him not to worry either. I'll be all
right."
    "I certainly will, Maytera." Silk took a hasty step back. "Good-bye,
Maytera Rose. About those tomatoes - I'm sorry, truly sorry about
everything. I hope you've forgiven me."
    "She passed away yesterday, Patera. Didn't I tell you?"
    "Yes," Silk mumbled. "Yes, of course."

Auk lay on the floor of the tunnel. He was tired - tired and weak
and dizzy, he admitted to himself. When had he slept last? Dayside
on Molpsday, after he'd left Jugs and Patera, before he went to the
lake, but he'd slept on the boat a dog's right before the storm. Her
and the butcher had been tired, too, tireder than him though they
hadn't been knocked on the head. They'd helped in the storm, and
Dace was dead. Urus hadn't done anything, would kill him if he got
the chance. He pictured Urus standing over him with a bludgeon
like the one he had seen, and sat up and stared around him.
    Urus and the soldier were talking quietly. The soldier called, "I'm
keeping an eye out. Go back to sleep, trooper."
    Auk lay down again, though no soldier could be a friend to
somebody like him, though he'd sooner trust Urus though he didn't
trust Urus at all.
    What day was it? Thelxday. Phaesday, most likely. Grim Phaea,
for food and healing. Grim because eating means killing stuff to eat,
and it's no good pretending it don't. Stuff like Gelada'd killed Dace
with his bad arm and the string around his neck. That's why you
ought to go to manteion once in a while. Sacrifice showed you,
showed the gray ram dying and its blood thrown in the fire, and
poor people thanking Phaea or whatever god it was for "this good
food." Grim because healing hurts more than dying, the doctor cuts
you to make you well, sets the bone and it hurts. Dace said a bone in
his head was broken, was cracked or something, he was cracked for
sure and it was probably true because he got awful dizzy sometimes,
couldn't see good sometimes, even stuff right in front of him. A
white ram, Phaea, if I get over this.
    It should've been a black ram. He'd promised Tartaros a black
ram, but the only one in the market had cost more than he had, so
he'd bought the gray one. That was before last time, before Kypris
had promised them it'd be candy, before the ring for Jugs, the
anklet for Patera. It had been why his troubles started, maybe,
because his ram had been the wrong color. They dyed those black
rains anyhow...

Up the tree and onto the roof, then in through the attic window, but
he was dizzy, dizzy and the tree already so high its top touched the
shade, brushed the shaggy shade with dead leaves rustling, rustling,
and the roof higher, Urus whistling, whistling from the corner
because the Hoppies were practically underneath this shaggy tree
now.
    He stood on a limb, walked out on it watching the roof sail away
with all the black peaked roofs of Limna as the old man's old boat
put out with Snarling Scylla at the helm, Scylla up in Jugs's head not
taking up room but pulling her strings, jerking her on reins, digging
spurred heels in, Spurred Scylla a gamecock spurring Jugs to make
her trot. A little step and another and the roof farther than ever,
higher than the top of the whole shaggy tree and his foot slipped
where Gelada's blood wet the slick silvery bark and he fell.

He woke with a start, shaking. Something warm lay beside him,
dose but not quite touching. He rolled over, bringing his legs up
under her big soft thighs, his chest against her back, an arm around
her to warm her and it, cupping her breast. "By Kypris, I love you,
Jugs I'm too sick to shag you, but I love you. You're all the woman
I'll ever want."
    She didn't talk, but there'd been a little change in her breathing,
so he knew she wasn't asleep even if she wanted him to think so.
That was dimber by him, she wanted to look at it and he didn't
blame her, wouldn't want a woman who wouldn't look because a
woman like that got you nabbed sooner or later even if she didn't
mean to.
    Only he'd looked at it already, had looked all that he'd ever
need to while he was rolling over. And he slept beside her quite
content.

"I shocked you, Patera Calde. I know I did. I could see it in your
face. My eyes aren't what they were, I'm afraid. I'm no longer good
at reading expressions. But I read yours."
    "Somewhat, Your Cognizance." Together, they were walking up a
deserted Sun Street, a tall young augur and a stooped old one
side-by-side, Silk taking a slow step for two of Quetzal's lame and
unsteady ones.
    "Since you left the schola, Patera Calde, since you came to this
quarter, you've prayed that a god would come to your Window,
haven't you? I feel sure you have. All of you do, or nearly all. Who
did you hope for? Pas or Scylla?"
    "Scylla chiefly, Your Cognizance. To tell the truth, I scarcely
thought about the minor gods then. I mean the gods outside the
Nine - no god is truly minor, I suppose. Scylla seemed the most
probable. It was only on Scylsdays that we had a victim, for one
thing; and she's the patroness of the city, after all."
    "She'd tell you what to do, which was what you wanted." Quetzal
squinted up at Silk with a toothless smile he found disconcerting.
"She'd fill your cash box, too. You could fix up those old buildings,
buy books for your palaestra, and sacrifice in the grand style every
day."
    Reluctantly, Silk nodded.
    "I understand. Oh, I understand. It's perfectly normal, Patera
Calde. Even commendable. But what about me? What about me,
not wanting gods to come at all? That isn't, is it? It isn't, and it's
bothering you."
    Silk shook his head. "It's not my place to judge your acts or your
words, Your Cognizance."
    "Yet you will." Quetzal paused to peer along Lamp Street, and
seemed to listen. "You will, Patera Calde. You can't help it. That's
why I've got to tell you. After that, we're going to talk about
something you probably think that you learned all about when you
were a baby. I mean the Plan of Pas. Then you can go off to Maytera
what'shername."
    "Mint, Your Cognizance.
    "You can go off to help her overthrow the Ayuntamiento for
Echidna, and I'll be going off to find you more people to do it with,
and better weapons. To begin - "
    "Your Cognizance?" Silk ran nervous fingers through his haystack
hair, unable to restrain himself any longer. "Your Cognizance, did
you know Great Pas was dead? Did you know it already, before she
told us today?"
    "Certainly. We can start there, Patera Calde, if that's troubling
you. Would you have talked about it from the ambion of the Grand
Manteion if you'd been in my place? Made a public announcement?
Conducted ceremonies of mourning and so forth?"
    "Yes," Silk said firmly. "Yes, I would."
    "I see. What do you suppose killed him, Patera Calde? You're an
intelligent young fellow. You studied hard at the schola, I know.
Your instructors' reports are very favorable. How could the Father
of the Gods die?"
    Faintly, Silk could hear the booming of slug guns, then a long,
concerted roar that might almost have been thunder.
    "Building falling," Quetzal told him. "Don't worry about that now.
Answer my question."
    "I can't conceive of such a thing, Your Cognizance. The gods are
immortal, ageless. It's their immortality that makes them gods,
really, more than anything else."
    "A fever," Quetzal suggested. "We mortals die of fevers every day.
Perhaps he caught a fever?"
    "The gods are spiritual beings, Your Cognizance. They're not
subject to disease."
    "Kicked in the head by a horse. Don't you think that could have
been it?"
    Silk did not reply.
    "I'm mocking you, Patera Calde, of course I am. But not idly.
My question's perfectly serious. Echidna told you Pas is dead,
and you can't help believing her. I've known it for thirty years,
since shortly after his death, in fact. How did he die? How could he?"
    Silk combed his disorderly yellow hair with his fingers again.
    "When I was made Prolocutor, Patera Calde, we had a vase at the Palace
that had been thrown on the Short Sun Whorl, a beautiful thing. They told me
it was five hundred years old. Almost inconceivable. Do you agree?"
    "And priceless, I would say, Your Cognizance."
    "Lemur wanted to frighten me, to show me how ruthless he could
be. I already knew, but he didn't know I did. I think he thought that
if I did I'd never dare oppose him. He took that vase from its stand
and smashed it at my feet."
    Silk stared down at Quetzal. "You - you're serious, Your Cognizance?
He actually did that?"
    "He did. Look, now. That vase was immortal. It didn't age. It was
proof against disease. But it could be destroyed, as it was. So could
Pas. He couldn't age, or even fall sick. But he could be destroyed,
and he was. He was murdered by his family. Many men die like that,
Patera Calde. When you're half my age, you'll know it. Now a god
has, too."
    "But, Your Cognizance..."
    "Viron's isolated, Patera Calde. All the cities are. He gave us
floaters and animals. No big machines that could carry heavy loads.
He thought that would be best for us, and I dare say he was right.
But the Ayuntamiento's not isolated. The calde wasn't either, when
we had one. Did you think he was?"
    Silk said, "I realize we have diplomats, Your Cognizance, and
there are traveling traders and so forth - boats on the rivers, and
even spies."
    "That's right. As Prolocutor, I'm no more isolated than he was.
Less, but I won't try to prove that. I'm in contact with religious
leaders in Urbs, Wick, and other cities, cities where his children
have boasted of killing Pas."
    "It was the Seven, then, Your Cognizance? Not Echidna? Was
Scylla involved?"
    Quetzal had found prayer beads in a pocket of Gulo's robe; he
ran them through his fingers. "Echidna was at the center. You've
seen her, can you doubt it? Scylla, Molpe, and Hierax were in it.
They've said so at various times."
    "But not Tartaros, Thelxiepeia, Phaea, or Sphigx, Your Cognizance?"
Silk felt an irrational surge of hope.
    "I don't know about Tartaros and the younger gods, Patera
Calde. But do you see why I didn't announce it? There would
have been panic. There will be, if it becomes widely known. The
Chapter will be destroyed and the basis of morality gone.
Imagine Viron with neither. As for public observances, how do
you think Pas's murderers would react to our mourning him?"
    "We - " Something tightened in Silk's throat. "We, you and I,
Your Cognizance. Villus and Maytera Marble, all of us are - were
his children too. That is to say, he built the whorl for us. Ruled us
like a father. I..."
    "What is it, Patera Calde?"
    "I just remembered something, Your Cognizance. Kypris - you
must know there was a theophany of Kypris at our manteion on
Scylsday."
    "I've had a dozen reports. It's the talk of the city."
    "She said she was hunted, and I didn't understand. Now I believe I may."
    Quetzal nodded. "I imagine she is. The wonder is that they
haven't been able to corner her in thirty years. She can't be a tenth
as strong as Pas was. But it can't be easy to kill even a minor goddess
who knows you're trying to. Not like killing a husband and father
who trusts you. Now you see why I've tried to prevent theophanies,
don't you, Patera Calde? If you don't, I'll never be able to make it
clear."
    "Yes, Your Cognizance. Of course. It's - horrible. Unspeakable.
But you were right. You are right."
    "I'm glad you realize it. You understand why we go on sacrificing
to Pas? We must. I've tried to downgrade him somewhat. Make him
seem more remote than he used to. I've emphasized Scylla at his
expense, but you're too young to have realized that. Older people
complain, sometimes."
    Silk said nothing, but stroked his cheek as he walked.
    "You have questions, Patera Calde. Or you will have when you've
digested all this. Don't fear you may offend me. I'm at your disposal
whenever you want to question me."
    "I have two," Silk told him. "I hesitate to pose the first, which
verges upon blasphemy."
    "Many necessary questions do." Quetzal cocked his head. "This
isn't one, but do you hear horses?"
    "Horses, Your Cognizance? No."
    "I must be imagining it. What are your questions?"
    Silk walked on in silence for a few seconds to collect his thoughts.
At length he said, "My original two questions have become three,
Your Cognizance. The first, for which I apologize in advance, is,
isn't it true that Echidna and the Seven love us just as Pas did? I've
always felt, somehow, that Pas loved them, while they love us; and
if that is so, will his death - terrible though it is - make a great deal
of difference to us?"
    "You have a pet bird, Patera Calde. I've never seen it, but so I've
been told."
    "I had one, Your Cognizance, a night chough. I've lost him, I'm
afraid, although it may be that he's with a friend. I'm hoping he'll
return to me eventually."
    "You should have caged him, Patera Calde. Then you'd still have him."
    "I liked him too much for that, Your Cognizance."
    Quetzal's small head bobbed upon its long neck. "Just so. There
are people who love birds so much they free them. There are others
who love them so much they cage them. Pas's love of us was of the
first kind. Echidna's and the Seven's is of the other. Were you going
to ask why they killed Pas? Is that one of your questions?"
    Silk nodded, "My second, Your Cognizance."
    "I've answered it. What's the third?"
    "You indicated that you wished to discuss the Plan of Pas with me,
Your Cognizance. If Pas is dead, what's the point of discussing his
plan?"
    Hoofbeats sounded faintly behind them.
    "A god's plans do not die with him, Patera Calde. He is dead, as
Serpentine Echidna told us. We are not. We were to carry Pas's plan
out. You said he ruled us as a father. Do a father's plans benefit
him? Or his children?"
    "Your Cognizance, I just remembered something? Another god,
the Outsider - "
    "_Pateras!_" The horseman, a lieutenant of the Civil Guard in
mottled green conflict armor, pushed up his visor. "Are you - you
there, Patera. The young one. Aren't you Patera Silk?"
    "Yes, my son," Silk said. "I am."
    The lieutenant dropped the reins. His hand appeared slow as it
jerked his needler from the holster, yet it was much too quick to
permit Silk to draw Musk's needler. The flat crack of the shot
sounded an instant after the needle's stinging blow.

                     Chapter 5  -  Mail

They had insisted she not look for herself, that she send one of them
to do it, but she felt she had already sent too many others. This time
she would see the enemy for herself, and she had forbidden them to
attend her. She straightened her snowy coif as she walked, and held
down the wind-tossed skirt of her habit - a sibyl smaller and younger
than most, gowned (like all sibyls) in black to the tops of her worn
black shoes, out upon some holy errand, and remarkable only for
being alone.
    The azoth was in one capacious pocket, her beads in the other;
she got them out as she went around the corner onto Cage Street,
wooden beads twice the size of those Quetzal fingered, smoothed
and oiled by her touch to glossy chestnut.
    First, Pas's gammadion: "_Great Pas, Designer and Creator of the
Whorl, Lord Guardian of the Aureate Path, we_ - "
    The pronoun should have been _I_, but she was used to saying them
with Maytera Rose and Maytera Marble; and they, praying together
in the sellaria of the cenoby, had quite properly said "we." She
thought: But I'm praying for all of us. For all who may die this
afternoon, for Bison and Patera Gulo and Bream and that man who
let me borrow his sword. For the volunteers who'll ride with me in a
minute, and Patera Silk and Lime and Zoril and the children.
Particularly for the children. For all of us, Great Pas.
    "_We acknowledge you the supreme and sovereign_..."
    And there it was, an armored floater with all its hatches down
turning onto Cage Street. Then another, and a third. A good big
space between the third and the first rank of marching Guardsmen
because of the dust. A mounted officer riding beside his troopers.
The soldiers would be in back (that was what the messenger had
reported) but there was no time to wait until they came into view,
though the soldiers would be the worst of all, worse even than the
floaters.
    Beads forgotten, she hurried back the way she had come.
    Scleroderma was still there, holding the white stallion's reins. "I'm
coming too, Maytera. On these two legs since you won't let me have
a horse, but I'm coming. You're going, and I'm bigger than you."
    Which was true. Scleroderma was no taller, but twice as wide.
"Shout," she told her. "You're blessed with a good, loud voice. Shout
and make all the noise you can. If you can keep them from seeing
Bison's people for one second more, that may decide it."
    A giant with a gape-toothed grin knelt, hands clasped to help her
mount; she put her left foot in them and swung into the saddle, and
although she sat a tall horse, the giant's head was level with her
own. She had chosen him for his size and ferocious appearance.
(Distraction - distraction would be everything). Now it struck her
that she did not know his name. "Can you ride?" she asked. "If you
can't, say so."
    "Sure can, Maytera."
    He was probably lying; but it was too late, too late to quiz him or
get somebody else. She rose in her stirrups to consider the five
riders behind her, and the giant's riderless horse. "Most of us will be
killed, and it's quite likely that all of us will be."
    The first floater would be well along Cage Street already, halted
perhaps before the doors of the Alambrera; but if they were to
succeed, their diversion would have to wait until the marching men
behind the third floater had closed the gap. It might be best to fill
the time.
    "Should one of us live, however, it would be well for him - or her - to
know the names of those who gave their lives. Scleroderma, I
can't count you among us, but you are the most likely to live. Listen
carefully."
    Scleroderma nodded, her pudgy face pale.
    "All of you. Listen, and try to remember."
    The fear she had shut out so effectively was seeping back now.
She bit her lip; her voice must not quaver. "I'm Maytera Mint, from
the Sun Street manteion. But you know that. You," she pointed to
the rearmost rider. "Give us your name, and say it loudly."
    "Babirousa!"
    "Good. And you?"
    "Goral!"
    "Kingcup!" The woman who had supplied horses for the rest.
    "Yapok!"
    "Marmot!"
    "Gib from the Cock," the giant grunted, and mounted in a way
that showed he was more accustomed to riding donkeys.
    "I wish we had horns and war drums," Maytera Mint told them.
"We'll have to use our voices and our weapons instead. Remember,
the idea is to keep them, the crews of the floaters especially, looking
and shooting at us for as long as we can."
    The fear filled her mind, horrible and colder than ice; she felt sure
her trembling fingers would drop Patera Silk's azoth if she tried to
take it from her pocket; but she got it out anyway, telling herself
that it would be preferable to drop it here, where Scleroderma could
hand it back to her.
    Scleroderma handed her the reins instead.
    "You have all volunteered, and there is no disgrace in reconsidering.
Those who wish may leave." Deliberately she faced forward, so
that she would not see who dismounted.
    At once she felt that there was no one behind her at all. She
groped for something that would drive out the fear, and came upon
a naked woman with yellow hair - a wild-eyed fury who was not
herself at all - wielding a scourge whose lashes cut and tore the gray
sickness until it fled her mind.
    Perhaps because she had urged him forward with her heels,
perhaps only because she had loosed his reins, the stallion was
rounding the corner at an easy canter. There, still streets ahead
though not so far as they had been, were the floaters, the third
settling onto the rutted street, with the marching troopers closing
behind it.
    "For Echidna!" she shouted. "The gods will it!" Still she wished for
war drums and horns, unaware that the drumming hooves echoed
and re-echoed from each shiprock wall, that her trumpet had shaken
the street. "Silk is Calde!"
    She jammed her sharp little heels in the stallion's sides. Fear was gone,
replaced by soaring joy. "_Silk is Calde!_" At her right the giant
was firing two needlers as fast as he could pull their triggers.
    "_Down the Ayuntamiento! Silk is Calde!_"
    The shimmering horror that was the azoth's blade could not be
held on the foremost floater. Not by her, certainly not at this
headlong gallop. Slashed twice across, the floater wept silvery metal
as the street before it erupted in boiling dust and stones exploded
from the gray walls of the Alambrera.
    Abruptly, Yapok was on her right. To her left, Kingcup flailed a
leggy bay with a long brown whip, Yapok bellowing obscenities,
Kingcup shrieking curses, a nightmare witch, her loosed black hair
streaming behind her.
    The blade again, and the foremost floater burst in a ball of orange
flame. Behind it, the buzz guns of the second were firing, the flashes
from their muzzle mere sparks, the rattle of their shots lost in
pandemonium. "Form up," she shouted, not knowing what she
meant by it. Then, "_Forward! Forward!_"
    Thousands of armed men and women were pouring from the
buildings, crowding through doorways and leaping from windows.
Yapok was gone, Kingcup somehow in front of her by half a length.
Unseen hands snatched off her coif and plucked one flapping black sleeve.
    The shimmering blade brought a gush of silver from the second
floater, and there were no more flashes from its guns, only an
explosion that blew off the turret - and a rain of stones upon the
second floater, the third, and the Guardsmen behind it, and lines of
slug guns booming from rooftops and high windows. But not
enough, she thought. Not nearly enough, we must have more.
    The azoth was almost too hot to hold. She took her thumb off the
demon and was abruptly skyborn as the white stallion cleared a slab
of twisted, smoking metal at a bound. The guns of the third floater
were firing, the turret gun not at her but at the men and women
pouring out of the buildings, the floater rising with a roar and a
cloud of dust and sooty smoke that the wind snatched away, until
the blade of her azoth impaled it and the floater crashed on its side,
at once pathetic and comic.

To Silk's bewilderment, his captors had treated him with consideration,
bandaging his wound and letting him lie unbound in an
outsized bed with four towering posts which only that morning had
belonged to some blameless citizen.
    He had not lost consciousness so much as will. With mild surprise,
he discovered that he no longer cared whether the Alambrera had
surrendered, whether the Ayuntamiento remained in power, or
whether the long sun would nourish Viron for ages to come or burn
it to cinders. Those things had mattered. They no longer did. He
was aware that he might die, but that did not matter either; he
would surely die, whatever happened. If eventually, why not now?
It would be over - over and done forever.
    He imagined himself mingling with the gods, their humblest
servitor and worshipper, yet beholding them face-to-face; and found
that there was only one whom he desired to see, a god who was not
among them.

"Well, well, well!" the surgeon exclaimed in a brisk, professional
voice. "So you're Silk!"
    He rolled his head on the pillow. "I don't think so."
    "That's what they tell me. Somebody shoot you in the arm, too?"
    "No. Something else. It doesn't matter." He spat blood.
    "It does to me: that's an old dressing. It ought to be changed." The
surgeon left, returning at once (it seemed) with a basin of water and
a sponge. "I'm taking that ultrasonic diathermic wrapping on your
ankle. We've got men who need it a lot more than you do."
    "Then take it, please," Silk told him.
    The surgeon looked surprised.
    "What I mean is that 'Silk' has become someone a great deal
bigger than I am - that I'm not what is meant when people say,
'Silk.'"
    "You ought to be dead," the surgeon informed him somewhat
later. "Your lung's collapsed. Probably better to enlarge the exit
wound instead of going in this way. I'm going to roll you over. Did
you hear that? I'm going to turn you over. Keep your nose and
mouth to the side so you can breathe."
    He did not, but the surgeon moved his head for him.
    Abruptly he was sitting almost upright with a quilt around him,
while the surgeon stabbed him with another needle. "It's not as bad
as I thought, but you need blood. You'll feel a lot better with more
blood in you."
    A dark flask dangled from the bedpost like a ripe fruit.

Someone he could not see was sitting beside his bed. He turned his
head and craned his neck to no avail. At last he extended a hand
toward the visitor; and the visitor took it between his own, which
were large and hard and warm. As soon as their hands touched, he
knew.
    You said you weren't going to help, he told the visitor. You said I
wasn't to expect help from you, yet here you are
    The visitor did not reply, but his hands were clean and gentle and
full of healing.
                             *   *   *
"Are you awake, Patera?"
    Silk wiped his eyes. "Yes."
    "I thought you were. Your eyes were closed, but you were crying."
    "Yes," Silk said again.
    "I brought a chair. I thought we might talk for a minute. You
don't mind?" The man with the chair was robed in black.
    "No. You're an augur, like me."
    "We were at the schola together, Patera. I'm Shell - Patera Shell
now. You sat behind me in canonics. Remember?"
    "Yes. Yes, I do. It's been a long time."
    Shell nodded. "Nearly two years." He was thin and pale, but his
small shy smile made his face shine.
    "It was good of you to come and see me, Patera - very good." Silk
paused for a moment to think. "You're on the other side, the
Ayuntamiento's side. You must be. You're taking a risk by talking
to me. I'm afraid."
    "I was." Shell coughed apologetically. "Perhaps - I don't know,
Patera. I - I haven't been fighting, you know. Not at all."
    "Of course not."
    "I brought the Pardon of Pas to our dying. To your dying, too,
Patera, when I could. When that was done, I helped nurse a little.
There aren't enough doctors and nurses, not nearly enough, and
there was a big battle on Cage Street. Do you know about it? I'll tell
you if you like. Nearly a thousand dead."
    Silk shut his eyes.
    "Don't cry, Patera. Please don't. They've gone to the gods. All of
them, from both sides, and it wasn't your fault, I'm sure. I didn't see
the battle, but I heard a great deal about it. From the wounded, you
know. If you'd rather talk about something else - "
    "No. Tell me, please."
    "I thought you'd want to know, that I could describe it to you and
it would be something that I could do for you. I thought you might
want me to shrive you, too. We can close the door. I talked to the
captain, and he said that as long as I didn't give you a weapon it
would be all right."
    Silk nodded. "I should have thought of it myself. I've been
involved with so many secular concerns lately that I've been getting
lax, I'm afraid." There was a bow window behind Shell; noticing that
it displayed only black night and their own reflected images, Silk
asked, "Is this still Hieraxday, Patera?"
    "Yes, but its after shadelow. It's about seven thirty, I think.
There's a clock in the captain's room, and it was seven twenty-five
when I went in. Seven twenty-five by that clock, I mean, and I
wasn't there long. He's very busy."
    "Then I haven't neglected Thelxiepeia's morning prayers."
Briefly, he wondered whether he could bring himself to say them
when morning came, and whether he should. "I won't have to ask
forgiveness for that when you shrive me. But first, tell me about the
battle."
    "Your forces have been trying to capture the Alambrera, Patera.
Do you know about that?"
    "I knew they had gone to attack it. Nothing more."
    "They were trying to break down the doors and so on. But they
didn't, and everybody inside thought they had gone away, probably
to try to take over the Juzgado."
    Silk nodded again.
    "But before that, the government - the Ayuntamiento, I mean - had
sent a lot of troopers, with floaters and so on and a company of
soldiers, to drive them away and help the Guards in the Alambrera."
    "Three companies of soldiers," Silk said, "and the Second Brigade
of the Guard. That's what I was told, at any rate."
    Shell nearly bowed. "Your information will be much more accurate
than mine, I'm sure, Patera. They had trouble getting through
the city, even with soldiers and floaters, although not as much as
they expected. Do you know about that?"
    Silk rolled his head from side to side.
    "They did. People were throwing things. One man told me he was
hit by a slop jar thrown out of a fourth-floor window." Shell
ventured an apologetic laugh. "Can you imagine? What will the
people who live up there do tonight I wonder? But there wasn't
much serious resistance, if you know what I mean. They expected
barricades in the street, but there was nothing like that. They
marched through the city and stopped in front of the Alambrera.
The troopers were supposed to go in while the soldiers searched the
buildings along Cage Street."
    Silk allowed his eyes to close again, visualizing the column
described by the monitor in Maytera Rose's glass.
    "Then," Shell paused for emphasis, "General Mint herself charged
them down Cage Street, riding like a devil on a big white horse.
From the other way, you see. From the direction of the market."
    Surprised, Silk opened his eyes. "_General_ Mint?"
    "That's what they call her. The rebels - your people, I mean."
Shell cleared his throat. "The fighters loyal to the Calde. To you."
    "You're not offending me, Patera."
    "They call her General Mint and she's got an azoth. Just imagine!
She chopped up the Guard's floaters horribly with it. This trooper I
talked to had been the driver of one, and he'd seen everything. Do
you know how the Guard's floaters are on the inside, Patera?"
    "I rode in one this morning." Silk shut his eyes again, striving to
remember, "I rode inside until the rain stopped. Later I rode on it,
sitting on the... Up on that round part that has the highest buzz
gun. It was crowded inside, not at all comfortable, and we'd put the
bodies in there - but it was better than being out in the rain, perhaps."
    Shell nodded eagerly, happy to agree. "There are two men and an
officer. One of the men drives the floater. He was the one I talked
to. The officer's in charge. He sits beside the driver, and there's a
glass for the officer, though some don't work any more, he said. The
officer has a buzz gun, too, the one that points ahead. There's
another man, the gunner, up in the round thing you sat on. It's
called the turret."
    "That's right. I remember now."
    "General Mint's azoth cut right into their floater and killed their
officer, and stopped one of the rotors. That's what this driver said.
It had seemed to me that if an azoth could do that, it could cut right
through the doors of the Alambrera and kill everyone in there, but
he said they won't. That's because the doors are steel and three
fingers thick, but a floater's armor is aluminum because it couldn't
lift that much. It couldn't float at all, if it were made out of iron or
steel."
    "I see. I didn't know that."
    "There was cavalry following General Mint. About a troop is what
he said. I asked how many that was, and it's a hundred or more. The
others had needlers and swords and things. His floater had fallen on
its side, but he crawled out through the hatch. The gunner had
already gotten out, he said, and their officer was dead, but as soon
as he got out himself, someone rode him down and broke his arm.
That's why he's here, and without the gods' favor he would've been
killed. When he got up again, there were rebels - I mean - "
    "I know what you mean, Patera. Go on, please."
    "They were all around him. He said he would have climbed back
in their floater, but it was starting to burn, and he knew that if the
fire didn't go out their ammunition would explode, the bullets for
the buzz guns. He wasn't wearing armor like the troopers outside,
just a helmet, so he pulled it off and threw it away, and the - your
people thought he was one of them, most of them. He said that
sometimes swords would cut the men's armor. It's polymeric, did
you know that, Patera? Sometimes they silver it, private guards and
so on do, like a glazier silvers the back of a mirror. But it's still
polymeric under that, and the troopers' is painted green like a
soldier."
    "It will stop needles, won't it?"
    Shell nodded vigorously. "Mostly it will. Practically always. But
sometimes a needle will go through the opening for the man's eyes,
or where he breathes. when it does that, he's usually killed, they
say. And sometimes a sword will cut right through their armor, if it's
a big heavy sword, and the man's strong. Or stabbing can split the
breastplate. A lot of your people had axes and hatchets. For
firewood, you know. And some had clubs with spikes through them.
A big club can knock down a trooper in armor, and if there's a spike
in it, the spike will go right through." Shell paused for breath.
    "But the soldiers aren't like that at all. Their skin's all metal, steel
in the worst places. Even a slug from a slug gun will bounce off a
soldier sometimes, and nobody can kill or even hurt a soldier with a
club or a needler."
    Silk said, I know, I shot one once, then realized that he had not
spoken aloud. I'm like poor Mamelta, he thought - I have to
remember to speak, to breathe out while I move my lips and tongue.
    "One told me she saw two men trying to take a soldier's slug gun.
They were both holding onto it, but he lifted them right off their feet
and threw them around. This wasn't the driver but a woman I talked
to, one of your people, Patera. She had her washing stick, and she
got behind him and hit him with it, but he shook off the two men
and hit her with the slug gun and broke her shoulder. A lot of your
people had gotten slug guns from troopers by then, and they were
shooting at the soldiers with them. Somebody shot the one fighting
her. She would've been killed if it hadn't been for that she said. But
the soldiers shot a lot of them, too, and chased them up Cheese
Street and a lot of other streets. She tried to fight, but she didn't
have a slug gun, and with her shoulder she couldn't have shot one if
she'd had it. A slug hit her leg, and the doctors here had to cut it
off."
    "I'll pray for her," Silk promised, "and for everyone else who's
been killed or wounded. If you see her again, Patera, please tell her
how sorry I am that this happened. Was Maytera - was General
Mint hurt?"
    "They say not. They say she's planning another attack, but
nobody really knows. Were you wounded very badly, Patera?"
    "I don't believe I'm going to die." For seconds that grew to a
minute or more, Silk stared in wonder at the empty flask hanging
from the bedpost. Was life such a simple thing that it could be
drained from a man as red fluid, or poured into him? Would he
eventually discover that he held a different life, one which longed
for a wife and children, in a house that he had never seen? It had not
been his own blood - not his own life - surely. "I believed I was, not
long ago. Even when you came, Patera. I didn't care. Consider the
wisdom and mercy of the god who made us so that when we're about
to die we no longer fear death!"
    "If you don't think you're going to die - "
    "No, no. Shrive me. The Ayuntamiento certainly intends to kill
me. They can't possibly know I'm here; if they did, I'd be dead
already." Silk pushed aside his quilt.
    Hurriedly, Shell replaced it. "You don't have to kneel, Patera.
You're still ill, terribly ill. You've been badly hurt. Turn your head
toward the wall, please."
    Silk did so, and the familiar words seemed to rise to his lips of
their own volition. "Cleanse me, Patera, for I have given offense to
Pas and to other gods." It was comforting, this return to ritual
phrases he had memorized in childhood; but Pas was dead, and the
well of his boundless mercy gone dry forever.

"Is that all, Patera?"
    "Since my last shriving, yes."
    "As penance for the evil you have done, Patera Silk, you are to
perform a meritorious act before this time tomorrow." Shell paused
and swallowed. "I'm assuming that your physical condition will
permit it. You don't think it's too much? The recitation of a prayer
will do."
    "Too much?" With difficulty, Silk forced himself to keep his eyes
averted. "No, certainly not. Too little, I'm sure."
    "Then I bring to you, Patera Silk, the pardon of all the god - "
    Of _all_ the gods. He had forgotten that aspect of the Pardon, fool
that he was! Now the words brought a huge sense of relief. In
addition to Echidna and her dead husband, in addition to the Nine
and truly minor gods like Kypris, Shell was empowered to grant
amnesty for the Outsider. For all the gods. Hence he, Silk, was
forgiven his doubt.
    He turned his head so that he could see Shell. "Thank you, Patera.
You don't know - you can't - how much this means to me."
    Shell's hesitant smile shone again. "I'm in a position to do you
another favor, Patera. I have a letter for you from His Cognizance."
Seeing Silk's expression, he added quickly, "It's only a circular
letter, I'm afraid. All of us get a copy." He reached into his robe.
"When I told Patera Jerboa you had been captured, he gave me
yours, and it's about you."
    The folded sheet Shell handed him bore the seal of the Chapter in
mulberry-colored wax; beside it, a clear, clerkly hand had written:
"Silk, Sun Street."
    "It's a very important letter, really," Shell said.
    Silk broke the seal and unfolded the paper.
<blockquote>
_30th Nemesis 332_<br>
To the Clergy of the Chapter,<br>
Both Severally and Collectively<br>
Greetings in the name of Pas, in the name of Scylla, and in
the names of all gods! Know that you are ever in my
thoughts, as in my heart.
    The present disturbed state of Our Sacred City obliges us
to be even more conscious of our sacred duty to minister to
the dying, not only to those amongst them with whose recent
actions we may sympathize, but to all those to whom, as we
apprehend, Hierax may swiftly reveal his compassionate
power. Thus it is that I implore you this day to cultivate the
perpetual and indefatigable - 
</blockquote>
Patera Remora composed this, Silk thought; and as though Remora
sat before him, he saw Remora's long, sallow, uplifted face, the tip
of the quill just brushing his lips as he sought for a complexity of
syntax that would satisfy his insatiate longing for caution and
precision.
<blockquote>
The perpetual and indefatigable predisposition toward
mercy and pardon whose conduit you so frequently must be.
    Many of you have appealed for guidance in these most
disturbing days. Nay, many appeal so still, even hourly.
Most of you will have learned before you read this epistle of
the lamented demise of the presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento.
    The late Councillor Lemur was a man of extraordinary
gifts, and his passing cannot but leave a void in every heart.
How I long to devote the remainder of this necessarily
curtailed missive to mourning his passing. Instead, for such
are the exactions of this sad whorl, the whorl that passes, my
duty to you requires that I forewarn you without delay
against the baseless pretexts of certain vile insurgents who
would have you to believe that they act in the late Councillor
Lemur's name.
    Let us set aside, my beloved clergy, all fruitless debate
regarding the propriety of an intercaldean caesura spanning
some two decades. That the press of unhappy events then
rendered an interval of that kind, if not desirable, then
unquestionably attractive, we can all agree. That it represented,
to judgements not daily schooled to the nice discriminations
of the law, a severe strain upon the elasticity of
our Charter, we can agree likewise, can we not? The
argument is wholly historical now. O beloved, let us resign it
to the historians.
    What is inarguable is that this caesura, to which I have had
reason to refer above, has attained to its ordained culmination.
It cannot, O my beloved clergy, as it should not,
survive the grievous loss which it has so recently endured.
What, then, we may not illegitimately inquire, is to succeed
that just, beneficent and ascendant government so sadly
terminated?
    Beloved clergy, let us not be unmindful of the wisdom of
the past, wisdom which lies in no less a vehicle than our own
Chrasmologic Writings. Has it not declared, "_Vox poputi,
vox dei_"? which is to say, in the will of the masses we may
discern words of Pas's. At the present critical moment in the
lengthy epic of Our Sacred City, Pas's grave words are not to
be mistaken. With many voices they cry out that the time has
arrived for a precipitate return to that Charteral guardianship
which once our city knew. Shall it be said of us that we
stop our ears to Pas's words?
    Nor is their message so brief, and so less than mistakable.
From forest to lake, from the proud crown of the Palatine to
the humblest of alleys they proclaim him. O my beloved
clergy, with what incommunicable joy shall I do so additionally.
For Supreme Pas has, as never previously, espoused for
our city a calde from within our own ranks, an anointed
augur, holy, pious, and redolent of sanctity.
    May I name him? I shall, yet surely I need not. There is
not one amongst you, Beloved Clergy, who will not know
that name prior to mine overjoyed acclamation. It is Patera
Silk. Again I say, Patera Silk!
    How readily here might I inscribe, let us welcome him and
obey him as one of ourselves. With what delight shall I
inscribe in its place, let us welcome him and obey him, for he
is one of ourselves!
    May every god favor you, beloved clergy. Blessed be you
in the Most Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in that
of Gradous Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and
their Daughters alike, this day and forever, in the name of
their eldest child, Scylla, Patroness of this, Our Holy City of
Viron. Thus say I, Pa. Quetzal, Prolocutor.
</blockquote>

As Silk refolded the letter, Shell said, "His Cognizance has come
down completely on your side, you see, and brought the Chapter
with him. You said - I hope you were mistaken in this, Patera, really
I do. But you said a minute ago that if the Ayuntamiento knew you
were here they'd have you shot. If that's true - " He cleared his
throat nervously. "If it's true, they'll have His Cognizance shot too.
And - and some of the rest of us."
    "The coadjutor," Silk said, "he drafted this. He'll die as well, if
they can get their hands on him." It was strange to think of Remora,
that circumspect diplomatist, tangled and dead in his own web of
ink.
    Of Remora dying for him.
    "I suppose so, Patera." Shell hesitated, plainly ill at ease. "I'd call
you - use the other word. But it might be dangerous for you."
    Silk nodded slowly, stroking his cheek.
    "His Cognizance says you're the first augur, ever. That - it came
as a shock to - to a lot of us, I suppose. To Patera Jerboa, he said.
He says it's never happened before in his lifetime. Do you know
Patera Jerboa, Patera?"
    Silk shook his head.
    "He's quite elderly. Eighty-one, because we had a little party for
him just a few weeks ago. But then he thought, you know, sort of
getting still and pulling at his beard the way he does, and then he
said it was sensible enough, really. All the others, the previous - the
previous - "
    "I know what you mean, Patera."
    "They'd been chosen by the people. But you, Patera, you were
chosen by the gods, so naturally their choice fell upon an augur,
since augurs are the people they've chosen to serve them."
    "You yourself are in danger, Patera," Silk said. "You're in nearly
as much danger as I am, and perhaps more. You must be aware of it."
    Shell nodded miserably.
    "I'm surprised they let you in here after this."
    "They - the captain, Patera. I - I haven't..."
    "They don't know."
    "I don't think so, Patera. I don't think they do. I didn't tell them."
    "That was wise, I'm sure." Silk studied the window as he had
before, but as before saw only their reflections, and the night. "This
Patera Jerboa, you're his acolyte? Where is he?"
    "At our manteion, on Brick Street."
    Silk shook his head.
    "Near the crooked bridge, Patera."
    "Way out east?"
    "Yes, Patera." Shell fidgeted uncomfortably. "That's where we are
now, Patera. On Basket Street. Our manteion's that way," he
pointed, "about five streets."
    "I see. That's right, they lifted me into something - into some sort
of cart that jolted terribly. I remember lying on sawdust and trying
to cough. I couldn't, and my mouth and nose kept filling with
blood." Silk's index finger drew small circles on his cheek. "Where's
my robe?"
    "I don't know. The captain has it, I suppose, Patera."
    "The battle, when General Mint attacked the floaters on Cage
Street, was that this afternoon?"
    Shell nodded again.
    "About the time I was shot, perhaps, or a little later. You brought
the Pardon to the wounded. To all of them? All those in danger of
death, I mean?"
    "Yes, Patera."
    "Then you went back to your manteion - ?"
    "For something to eat, Patera, a bite of supper." Shell looked
apologetic. "This brigade - it's the Third. They're in reserve, they
say. They don't have much. Some were going into people's houses,
you know, and taking any food they could find. There's supposed to
be food coming in wagons, but I thought - "
    "Of course. You returned to your manse to eat with Patera
Jerboa, and this letter had arrived while you were gone. There
would have been a copy for you, too, and one for him."
    Shell nodded eagerly. "That's right, Patera."
    "You would have read yours at once, of course. My copy - this
one - it was there as well?"
    "Yes, Patera."
    "So someone at the Palace knew I had been captured, and where
I'd been taken. He sent my copy to Patera Jerboa instead of to my
own manteion in the hope that Patera Jerboa could arrange to get to
me, as he did. His Cognizance was with me when I was shot; there's
no reason to conceal that now. While my wounds were being
treated, I was wondering whether he had been killed. The officer
who shot me may not have recognized him, but if he did..." Silk
let the thought trail away. "If they don't know about this already - and
I think you're right, they can't know yet, not here at any rate - they're
bound to find out soon. You realize that?"
    "Yes, Patera."
    "You must leave. It would probably be wise for you and Patera
Jerboa to leave your manteion, in fact - to go to a part of the city
controlled by General Mint, if you can."
    "I - " Shell seemed to be choking. He shook his head desperately.
    "You what, Patera?"
    "I don't want to leave you as long as I can be of - of help to you.
Of service. It's my duty."
    "You have been of help," Silk told him. "You've rendered
invaluable service to me and to the Chapter already. I'll see you're
recognized for it, if I can." He paused, considering.
    "You can be of further help, too. On your way out, I want you to
speak to this captain for me. There were two letters in a pocket of
my robe. They were on the mantel this morning; my acolyte must
have put them there yesterday. I haven't read them, and your giving
me this one has reminded me of them." Somewhat tardily, he thrust
the letter under his quilt. "One had the seal of the Chapter. It may
have been another copy of this, though that doesn't seem very
likely, since this one has today's date. Besides, they wouldn't have
sent this to Patera Jerboa this evening, in that case."
    "I suppose not, Patera."
    "Don't mention them to the captain. Just say I'd like to have my
robe - all of my clothes. Ask for my clothes and see what he gives
you. Bring them to me, my robe particularly. If he mentions the
letters, say that I'd like to see them. If he won't give them to you, try
to find out what was in them. If he won't tell you, return to your
manteion. Tell Patera Jerboa that I, the calde, order him to get
himself and you - are there sibyls, too?"
    Shell nodded. "There's Maytera Wood - "
    "Never mind their names. That you and he and they are to lock up
the manteion and leave as quickly as possible."
    "Yes, Patera." Shell stood, very erect. "But I won't go back to our
manteion straight away, no matter what the captain says. I - I'm
coming back. Back here to see you and tell you what he said, and try
to do something more for you, if I can. Don't tell me not to, please,
Patera. I'll only disobey."
    To his surprise, Silk found that he was smiling. "Your disobedience
is better than the obedience of many people I've known,
Patera Shell. Do what you think right; you will anyway, I feel
certain."
    Shell left, and the room seemed empty as soon as he was out the
door. Silk's wound began to throb, and he made himself think of
something else. How proudly Shell had announced his intention to
disobey, while his lip trembled! It reminded Silk of his mother, her
eyes shining with team of joy at some only too ordinary childhood
feat. _Oh, Silk! My son, my son!_ That was how he felt now. These
boys!
    Yet Shell was no younger. They had entered the schola together,
and Shell had sat at the desk in front of his own when an instructor
insisted on alphabetical seating; they had been anointed on the same
day, and both had been assigned to assist venerable augurs who
were no longer able to attend to all the demands of their manteions.
    Shell, however, had not been enlightened by the Outsider - or
had not had a vein burst in his head, as Doctor Crane would have
had it. Shell had not been enlightened, had not hurried to the
market, had not encountered Blood...
    He had been as young as Shell when he had talked to Blood and
plucked three cards out of Blood's hand, not knowing that somewhere
below a monitor was mad and howling for want of those cards - as young
or nearly, because Shell might have done it, too. Again
Silk smelled the dead dog in the gutter and the stifling dust raised by
Blood's floater, saw Blood wave his stick, tall, red faced, and
perspiring. Silk coughed, and felt that a poker had been plunged
into his chest.

Somewhat unsteadily, he crossed the room to the window and raised
the sash to let in the night wind, then surveyed his naked torso in the
minor over the bureau, a much larger one than his shaving mirror
back at the manse.
    A dressing half concealed the multicolored bruise left by Musk's
hilt. From what little anatomy he had picked up from the victims he
had sacrificed, he decided that the needle had missed his heart by
four fingers. Still, it must have been good shooting by a mounted man.
    With his back to the mirror, he craned his neck to see as much as
possible of the dressing on his back; it was larger, and his back hurt
more. He was conscious of a weak wrongness deep in his chest, and
of the effort he had to make to breathe.
    Clothing in the drawers of the bureau: underwear, tunics, and
carelessly folded trousers - under these last, a woman's perfumed
scarf. This was a young man's room, a son's; the couple who owned
the house would have a bedroom on the ground floor, a corner
room with several windows.
    Chilled, he returned to the bed and drew up the quilt. The son
had left without packing, otherwise the drawers would be half
empty. Perhaps he was fighting in Maytera Mint's army.
    Some part of Kypris had entered her, and that fragment had made
the shy sibyl a general - that, and Echidna's command. For a
moment he wondered what fragment it had been, and whether
Kypris herself had known she possessed it. It was the element that
had freed Chenille from rust, presumably; they would be part and
parcel of the same thing. Kypris had told him she was hunted, and
His Cognizance had called it a wonder that she had not been killed
long ago. Echidna and her children, hunting the goddess of love,
must soon have learned that love is more than perfumed scarves and
thrown flowers. That there is steel in love.
    A young woman had thrown that scarf from a balcony, no doubt.
Silk tried to visualize her, found she wore Hyacinth's face, and
thrust the vision back. Blood had wiped his face with a peach-colored
handkerchief, a handkerchief more heavily perfumed than
the scarf. And Blood had said...
    Had said there were people who could put on a man like a tunic.
He had been referring to Mucor, though he, Silk, had not known it
then - had not known that Mucor existed, a girl who could dress her
spirit in the flesh of others just as he, a few moments before, had
been considering putting on the clothes of the son whose room this
was.
    Softly he called, "Mucor? Mucor?" and listened; but there was no
phantom voice, no face but his own in the mirror above the bureau.
Closing his eyes, he composed a long formal prayer to the Outsider,
thanking him for his life, and for the absence of Blood's daughter.
When it was complete, he began a similar prayer to Kypris.
    Beyond the bedroom door, a sentry sprang to attention with an
audible clash of his weapon and click of his heels.

Shadeup woke Auk, brilliant beams of the long sun piercing his
tasseled awnings, his gauze curtains, his rich draperies of puce
velvet, and the grimed glass of every window in the place, slipping
past his lowered blinds of split bamboo, the warped old boards
someone else had nailed up, his colored Scylla, and his shut and
bolted shutters; through wood, paper, and stone.
    He blinked twice and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "I feel better," he
announced, then saw that Chenille was still asleep, Incus and Urus
both sleeping, Dace and Bustard sound asleep as well, and only big
Hammerstone the soldier already up, sitting crosslegged with Oreb
on his shoulder and his back against the tunnel wall. "That's good,
trooper," Hammerstone said.
    "Not good," Auk explained. "I don't mean that. Better. Better
than I did, see? That feels better than good, 'cause when you're
feeling good you don't even think about it. But when you feel the
way I do, you pay more attention than when you're feeling good.
I'm a dimberdamber nanny nipper." He nudged Chenille with the
toe of his boot. "Look alive, Jugs. Time for breakfast!"
    "What's the matter with _you?_" Incus sat up as though it had been
he and not Chenille who had been thus nudged.
    "Not a thing," Auk told him. "I'm right as rain." He considered the
matter. "If it does, I'll go to the Cock. If  it don't, I'll do some
business on the hill. Slept with my boots on." He seated himself
beside Chenille. "You too? You shouldn't do that, Patera. Bad on
the feet."
    Untying their laces, he tugged off his boots, then pulled off his
stockings. "Feel how wet these are. Still wet from the boat. Wake
up, old man! From the boat and the rain. If we had that tall ass
again, I'd make him squirt fire for me so I could dry 'em. Phew!" He
hung the stockings over the tops of his boots and pushed them away.
    Chenille sat up and began to take off her jade earrings. "Ooh, did
I dream!" She shuddered. "I was lost, see? All alone down here, and
this tunnel I was in kept going deeper both ways. I'd walk one way
for a long, long while, and it would just keep going down. So I'd
turn around and walk the other way, only that way went down, too,
deeper and deeper all the time."
    "Recollect that the _immortal gods_ are always with you, my
daughter," Incus told her.
    "Uh-huh. Hackum, I've got to get hold of some clothes. My
sunburn's better. I could wear them, and it's too cold down here
without any." She grinned. "A bunch of new clothes, and a double
red ribbon. After that, I'll be ready for ham and half a dozen eggs
scrambled with peppers."
    "Watch out," Hammerstone warned her, "I don't think your
friend's ready for inspection."
    Auk rose, laughing. "Look at this," he told Hammerstone, and
kicked Urus expertly, bending up his bare toes so that Urus's ribs
received the ball of his foot.
    Urus blinked and rubbed his eyes just as Auk had, and Auk
realized that he himself was the long sun. He had awakened himself
with his own light, light that filled the whole tunnel, too dazzlingly
bright for Urus's weak eyes.
    "The way you been carrying the old man," he told Urus, "I don't
like it." He wondered whether his hands were hot enough to burn
Urus. It seemed possible; they were ordinary when he wasn't
looking at them, but when he did they glowed like molten gold.
Stooping, he flicked Urus's nose with a forefinger, and when Urus
did not cry out, jerked him to his feet.
    "When you carry the old man," Auk told him, "you got to do it like
you love him. Like you were going to kiss him." It might be a good
idea to make Urus really kiss him, but Auk was afraid Dace might
not like it.
    "All right," Urus said. "All right."
    Bustard inquired, How you feelin', sprat?
    Auk pondered. "There's parts of me that work all right," he
declared at length, "and parts that don't. A couple I'm not set about.
Remember old Marble?"
    Sure.
    "She told us she could pull out these lists. Out of her sleeve, like.
What was right and what wasn't. With me, it's one thing at a time."
    "I can do that," Hammerstone put in. "It's perfectly natural."
    Chenille had both earrings off, and was rubbing her ears. "Can
you put these in your pocket, Hackum? I got no place to carry them."
    "Sure," Auk said. He did not turn to look at her.
    "I could get a couple cards for them at Sard's. I could buy a good
worsted gown and shoes, and eat at the pastry cook's till I was ready
to split."
    "Like, there's this dimber punch," Auk explained to Urus. "I
learned it when I wasn't no bigger than a cobbler's goose, and I
always did like it a lot. You don't swing, see? Culls always talk
about swinging at you, and they do. Only this is better. I'm not sure
it still works, though."
    His right fist caught Urus square in the mouth, knocking him
backward into the shiprock wall. Incus gasped.
    "You sort of draw your arm up and straighten it out," Auk
explained. Urus slumped to the tunnel floor. "Only with your weight
behind it, and your knuckles level. Look at them." He held them
out. "If your knuckles go up and down, that's all right, too. Only it's
a different punch, see?" Not as good, Bustard said. "Only not as
good," Auk confirmed.
    I kin walk, big feller, he don't have to carry me, nor kiss me
neither.
    The dead body at his feet, Auk decided, must be somebody else.
Urus, maybe, or Gelada.

Maytera Marble tried to decide how long it had been since she had
done this, entering _roof_ and when that evoked only a flood of
dripping ceilings and soaked carpets, _attic_.
    A hundred and eighty-four years ago.
    She could scarcely believe it - did not wish to believe it. A
graceful girl with laughing eyes and industrious hands had climbed
this same stair, as she still did a score of times every day, walked
along this hall, and halted beneath this odd-looking door overhead,
reaching up with a tool that had been lost now for more than a century.
    She snapped her new fingers in annoyance, producing a loud and
eminently satisfactory clack, then returned to one of the rooms that
had been hers and rummaged through her odds-and-ends drawer
until she found the big wooden crochet hook that she had sometimes
plied before disease had deprived her of her fingers. Not these
fingers, to be sure.
    Back in the hall, she reached up as the girl who had been herself
had and hooked the ring, wondering whimsically whether it had
forgotten how to drop down on its chain.
    It had not. She tugged. Puffs of dust emerged from the edges of
the door above her head. The hall would have to be swept again.
She hadn't been up there, no one had - 
    A harder tug, and the door inclined reluctantly downward,
exposing a band of darkness. "Am I going to have to swing on you?"
she asked. Her voice echoed through all the empty rooms, leaving
her sorry she had spoken aloud.
    Another tug evoked squeals of protest, but brought the bottom of
the door low enough for her to grasp it and pull it down; the folding
stair that was supposed to slide out when she did yielded to a hard pull.
    I'll oil this, she resolved. I don't care if there isn't any oil. I'll cut
up some fat from that bull and boil it, and skim off the grease and strain
it, and use that. Because this _isn't_ the last time. It is _not_.
    She trotted up the folding steps in an energetic flurry of black bombazine.
    Just look how good my leg is! Praise to you, Great Pas!
    The attic was nearly empty. There was never much left when a
sibyl died; what there was, was shared among the rest in accordance
with her wishes, or returned to her family. For half a minute,
Maytera Marble tried to recall who had owned the rusted trunk next
to the chimney, eventually running down the whole list - every sibyl
who had ever lived in the cenoby - without finding a single tin trunk
arnong the associated facts.
    The little gable window was closed and locked. She told herself
that she was being foolish even as she wrestled its stubborn catch.
Whatever it was that she had glimpsed in the sky while crossing the
playground was gone, must certainly be gone by this time if it had
ever existed.
    Probably it had been nothing but a cloud.
    She had expected the window to stick, but the dry heat of the last
eight months had shrunk its ancient wood. She heaved at it with all
her strength, and it shot up so violently that she thought the glass
must break.
    Silence followed, with a pleasantly chill wind through the window.
She listened, then leaned out to peer up at the sky, and at last
(as she had planned the whole time, having a lively appreciation of
the difficulty of proving a negative after so many years of teaching
small boys and girls) she stepped over the sill and out onto the thin
old shingles of the cenoby roof.
    Was it necessary to climb to the peak? She decided that it was,
necessary for her peace of mind at least, though she wondered what
the quarter would say if somebody saw her there. Not that it
mattered, and most were off fighting anyhow. It wasn't as noisy as it
had been during the day, but you could still hear shots now and
then, like big doors shutting hard far away. Doors shutting on the
past, she thought. The cold wind flattened her skirt against her legs
as she climbed, and would have snatched off her coif had not one
hand clamped it to her smooth metal head.
    There were fires, as she could see easily from the peak, one just a
few streets away. Saddle Street or String Street, she decided,
probably Saddle Street, because that was where the pawnbrokers
were. More fires beyond it, right up to the market and on the other
side, as was to be expected. Darkness except for a few lighted
windows up on Palatine Hill.
    Which meant, more surely than any rumor or announcement, that
Maytera Mint had not won. Hadn't won yet. Because the Hill would
burn, would be looted and burned as predictably as the sixth term in
a Fibonacci series of ten was an eleventh of the whole. With the
Civil Guard beaten, nothing - 
    Before she could complete the thought, she caught sight of it, way
to the south. She had been looking west toward the market and
north to the Palatine, but it was over the Orilla... No, leagues
south of that, way over the lake. Hanging low in the southern sky
and, yes, opposing the wind in some fashion, because the wind was
in the north, was blowing cold out of the north where night was new,
because the wind must have come up, now that she came to think of
it, only a few minutes before while she had been in the palaestra
cutting up the last of the meat and carrying it down to the root
cellar. She had come upstairs again and found her hoarded wrapping
papers blown all over the kitchen, and shut the window.
    So this thing - this huge thing, whatever it might be - had been
over the city or nearly over it when she had glimpsed it above the
back wall of the ball court. And it wasn't being blown south any
more, as a real cloud would be; if anything, it was creeping north
toward the city again, was creeping ever so slowly down the sky.
    She watched for a full three minutes to make sure. 
    Was creeping north like a beetle exploring a bowl, losing heart at
times and retreating, then inching forward again. It had been here,
had been over the city, before. Or almost over it, when the wind had
risen - had been taken unawares, as it seemed, and blown away over
the lake; and now it had collected its strength to return, wind or no wind.
    So briefly that she was not sure she had really seen it, something
flashed from the monstrous dark flying bulk, a minute pinprick of
light, as though someone in the shadowy skylands behind it had
squeezed an igniter.
    Whatever it might be, there was no way for her to stop it. It would
come, or it would not, and she had work to do, as she always did.
Water, quite a lot of it, would have to be pumped to fill the wash
boiler. She picked her way back to the gable, wondering how much
additional damage she had done to a roof by no means tight to begin with.
    She would have to carry wood in, enough for a big fire in the
stove. Then she could wash the sheets from the bed she had died in
and hang them out to dry. If Maytera Mint came back (and Maytera
Marble prayed very fervently that she would) she could cook
breakfast for her on the same fire, and Maytera Mint might even
bring friends with her. The men, if there were any, could eat in the
garden; she would carry one of the long tables and some chairs out
of the palaestra for them. Luckily there was still plenty of meat,
though she had cooked some for Villus and given more to his family
when she had carried him home.
    She stepped back into the attic and closed the window.
    Her sheets would be dry by shadeup. She could iron them and put
them back on her bed. She was still senior sibyl - or rather, was
again senior sibyl, so both rooms were hers, though she probably
ought to move everything into the big one.
    Descending the folding steps, she decided that she would leave
them down until she oiled them. She could cut off some fat and boil
it in a saucepan while the wash water was getting hot; the boiler
wouldn't take up the whole stove. By shadeup, the thing in the air
would be back, perhaps; if she stood in the middle of Silver Street
she might be able to see it quite clearly then, if she had time.

Auk felt sure they had been tramping through this tunnel forever,
and that was funny because he could remember when they had
turned off the other one to go down this one that they had been
going down since Pas built the Whorl, Urus spitting blood and
carrying the body, himself behind them in case Urus needed
winnowing out, Dace and Bustard so they could talk to him, then
Patera with the big soldier with the slug gun who had told them how
to walk and made him do it, and last Chenille in Patera's robe, with
Oreb and her launcher. Auk would rather have walked with her and
had tried to, but it was no good.
    He looked around at her. She waved friendly, and Bustard and
Dace had gone. He thought of asking Incus and the soldier what had
become of them but decided he didn't want to talk to them, and she
was too far in back for a private chat. Bustard had most likely gone
on ahead to look things over and taken the old man with him. It
would be like Bustard, and if Bustard found something to eat he'd
bring him back some.
    Pray to Phaea, Maytera Mint instructed him. Phaea is the food
goddess. Pray to her, Auk, and you will surely be fed. He grinned at
her. "Good to see you, Maytera! I been worried about you." May
every god smile upon you, Auk, this day and every day. Her smile
turned the cold damp tunnel into a palace and replaced the watery
green glow of the crawling light with the golden flood that had
awakened him. Why should you worry about me, Auk? I have
served the gods faithfully since I was fifteen. They will not abandon
me. No one has less reason to worry than I. "Maybe you could get
some god to come down here and walk with us," Auk suggested.
    Behind him, Incus protested, "_Auk_, my son!"
    He made a rude noise and looked around for Maytera Mint, but
she was gone. For a minute he thought she might have run ahead to
talk to Bustard, then realized that she had gone to fetch a god to
keep him company. That was the way she'd always been. The least
little thing you happened to mention, she'd jump up and do it if she
could.
    He was still worried about her, though. If she was going to
Mainframe to fetch a god, she'd have to pass the devils that made
trouble for people on the way, telling lies and pulling them off the
Aureate Path. He should have asked her to go get Phaea. Phaea and
maybe a couple pigs. Jugs would like some ham, and he still had his
hanger and knife. He could kill a pig and cut it up, and dish up her
ham. Shag, he was hungry himself and Jugs couldn't eat a whole pig.
They'd save the tongue for Bustard, he'd always liked pig's tongue.
It was Phaesday, so Maytera would most likely bring Phaea, and
Phaea generally brought at least one pig. Gods generally brought
whatever animal theirs was, or anyhow, pretty often.
    Pigs for Phaea. (You had to get them all right if you wanted to
learn the new stuff next year.) Pigs for Phaea and lions or anyhow
cats for Sphinx. Who'd eat a cat? Fish for Scylla, but some fish
would be all right. Little birds for Molpe, and the old 'un had limed
perches for 'em, salted 'em, and made sparrow pie when he'd got
enough. Bats for Tartaros, and owls and moles.
    Moles?
    Suddenly and unpleasantly it struck Auk that Tartaros was the
underground god, the god for mines and caves. So this was his
place, only Tartaros was supposed to be a special friend of his and
look what had happened to him down here, he had made Tartaros
shaggy mad at him somehow because his head hurt, his head wasn't
right, something kept sliding and slipping up there like a needler
that wouldn't chamber right no matter how much you oiled it and
made sure every last needle was as straight as the sun. He reached
under his tunic for his, but it wasn't right at all - was so wrong, in
fact, that it wasn't there, though Maytera Mint was his mother and
in need of him and it.
    "Poor Auk! Poor Auk!" Oreb circled above his head. The wind
from his laboring wings stirred Auk's hair, but Oreb would not
settle on his shoulder, and soon flew back to Chenille.
    It wasn't there any more and neither was she. Auk wept.

The captain's salute was much smarter than his torn and soiled
green uniform. "My men are in position, My General. My floater is
patrolling. To reinforce the garrison by stealth is no longer possible.
Nor will reinforcement at the point of the sword be possible, until
we are dead."
    Bison snorted, tilting back the heavy oak chair that was temporarily his.
    Maytera Mint smiled. "Very good, Captain. Thank you. Perhaps
you had better get some rest now."
    "I have slept, My General, though not long. I have eaten as well,
as you, I am told, have not. Now I inspect my men at their posts.
When my inspection is complete, perhaps I shall sleep another hour,
with my sergeant to wake me."
    "I'd like to go with you," Maytera Mint told him. "Can you wait
five minutes?"
    "Certainly, My General. I am honored. But..."
    She looked at him sharply. "What is it, Captain? Tell me, please."
    "You yourself must sleep, My General, and eat as well. Or you
will be fit for nothing tomorrow."
    "I will, later. Please sit down. We're tired, all of us, and you must
be exhausted." She turned back to Bison. "We have a principle in the
Chapter, for sibyls like me and augurs like Patera Silk. Discipline,
it's called, and it comes from an old word for pupil or student. If
you're a teacher, as I am, you must have discipline in the classroom
before you can teach anything. If you don't, they'll be so busy
talking among themselves that they won't hear a thing that you say,
and draw pictures instead of doing the assignment."
    Bison nodded.
    Recalling an incident from the year before, Maytera Mint smiled
again. "Unless you've _told_ them to draw pictures. If you've told
them to draw, they'll write each other notes."
    The captain smoothed his small mustache. "My General. We have
discipline also, we officers and men of the Civil Guard. The word is
the same. The practice, I dare say, not entirely different."
    "I know, but I can't use you to patrol the streets and stop the
looting. I wish I could, Captain. It would be very convenient, and no
doubt effective. But to many people the Guard is the enemy. There
would be a rebellion against our rebellion, and that's exactly what
we cannot afford."
    She turned back to Bison. "You understand why this is needed,
don't you? Tell me."
    "We're robbing ourselves," he said.
    His beard made it difficult to read his expression, but she tried
and decided he was uncomfortable. "What you say is true. The
people whose houses and shops are being looted are our people,
too, and if they have to stay there to defend them, they can't fight
for us. But that isn't all, is it? What else did you want to say?"
    "Nothing, General."
    "You must tell me everything." She wanted to touch him, as she
would have touched one of the children at that moment, but decided
it might be misconstrued. "Telling me everything when I ask you to
is discipline as well, if you like. Are we going to let the Guard be
better than we are?"
    Bison did not reply.
    "But it's really more important than discipline. Nothing is more
important to us now than my knowing what you think is important.
You and the captain here, and Zoril, and Kingcup, and all the rest."
    When he still said nothing, she added, "Do you want us to fail, so
you won't be embarrassed, Bison? That is what is going to happen if
we won't share concerns and information: we will fail the gods and
die. All of us, probably. Certainly I will, because I will fight until
they kill me. What is it?"
    "They're burning, too," he blurted. "The burning's worse than the
looting, a lot worse. With this wind, they'll burn down the city if we
don't stop them. And - and..."
    "And what?" Maytera Mint nibbled her underlip. "And put out the
fires that are raging all around the city already, of course. You're
right, Bison. You always are." She glanced at the door. "Teasel? Are
you still out there? Come in, please. I need you."
    "Yes, Maytera."
    "We're telling one another we should rest, Teasel. It seems to be
the convention of this night. You're not exempt. You were quite ill
only a few days ago. Didn't Patera Silk bring you the Peace of Pas?"
    Teasel nodded solemnly; she was a slender, pale girl of thirteen,
with delicate features and lustrous black hair. "On Sphixday,
Maytera, and I started getting better right away."
    "Sphixday, and this is Hieraxday." Maytera Mint glanced at the
blue china clock on the sideboard. "Thelxday in a few hours, so we'll
call it Thelxday. Even so, less than a week ago you were in
imminent danger of death, and tonight you're running errands for
me when you ought to be in bed. Can you run one more?"
    "I'm fine, Maytera."
    "Then find Lime. Tell her where I am, and that I want to see her
just as soon as she can get away. Then go home and go to bed.
_Home_, I said. Will you do that, Teasel?"
    Teasel curtsied, whirled, and was gone.
    "She's a good, sensible girl," Maytera Mint told Bison and the
captain. "Not one of mine. Mine are older, and they're off fighting
or nursing, or they were. Teasel's one of Maytera Marble's, very
likely the best of them."
    Both men nodded.
    "Captain, I won't keep you waiting much longer. Bison, I had
begun to talk about discipline. I was interrupted, which served me
right for being so long-winded. I was going to say that out of twenty
boys and girls, you can make eighteen good students with discipline.
I can, and you could too. In fact you would probably be better at it
than I am, with a little practice." She sighed, then forced herself to
sit up straight with her shoulders back.
    "Of the remaining, two one will never be a good student. He
doesn't have it in him, and all you can do is stop him from unsettling
the others. The other one doesn't need discipline at all, or at least
that's how it seems. Pas's own truth is that he's already disciplined
himself before you ever called the class to order. Do you understand me?"
    Bison nodded.
    "You're one of those. If you weren't, you wouldn't be my
surrogate now. which you are, you know. If I am killed, you must
take charge of everything."
    Bison grinned, big white teeth flashing in the thicket of his black
beard. "The gods love you, General. Your getting killed's one thing
I don't have to worry about."
    She waited for a better answer.
    "Hierax forbid," Bison said at last. "I'll do my best if it happens."
    "I know you will, because you always do. What you have to do is
find others like yourself. We don't have enough time to establish
real discipline, though I wish very much that we did. Choose men
with needlers, won't need slug guns for this - older men, who won't
loot themselves when they're sent to stop looters. Organize them in
groups of four, designate a leader for each group, and have to tell - 
    "Don't forget this, it's extremely important. Have them tell
everyone they meet that the looting and burning have to stop, and
they'll shoot anyone they find doing either."
    She rose. "We'll go Captain. I want to see how you've arranged
this. I've a great deal to learn and very little time to learn it in."
    Horn and Nettle, he with a captured slug gun and she with a
needler, had stationed themselves outside the street door.
    "Horn, go in the house and find yourself a bed," Maytera Mint
told him. "That is an order. When you wake up, come back here and
relieve Nettle if she's still here. Nettle, I'm going around the
Alambrera with the captain. I'll be back soon."
    The wind that chilled her face seemed almost supernatural
after so many months of heat; she murmured thanks to Molpe,
then recalled that the wind was fanning the fires Bison feared,
and that it might - that in some cases it most certainly would - spread
fire from shop to stable to manufactory. That there was a
good chance the whole city would burn while she fought the
Ayuntamiento for it.
    "The Ayuntamiento. They aren't divine, Captain."
    "I assure you, I have never imagined that they were, My
General." He guided her down a crooked street whose name she
had forgotten, if she had ever known it; around its shuttered store
fronts, the wind whispered of snow.
    "Since they aren't," she continued, "they can't possibly resist the
will of the gods for long. It is Echidna's will, certainly. I think we
can be sure it's Scylla's too."
    "Also that of Kypris," he reminded her. "Kypris spoke to me, My
General, saying that Patera Silk must be calde. I serve you because
you serve him, him because he serves her."
    She had scarcely heard him. "Five old men. Four, if His Cognizance
is right, and no doubt he is. What gives them the courage?"
    "I cannot guess, My General. Here is our first post. Do you see it?"
    She shook her head.
    "Corporal!" the captain called. Hands clapped, and lights kindled
across the street; a gleaming gun barrel protruded from a second-floor
window. The captain pointed. "We have a buzz gun for this
post, as you see, My General. A buzz gun because the street offers
the most direct route to the entrance. The angle affords us a
longitudinal field of fire. Down there," he pointed again, "a step or
two more, and we could be fired upon from an upper window of the
Alambrera."
    "They could come down this street, straight across Cage, and go
into the Alambrera?"
    "That is correct, My General. Therefore we will not go farther.
This way, please. You do not object to the alley?"
    "Certainly not."
    How strange the service of the gods was! When she was only a
girl, Maytera Mockorange had told her that the gods' service meant
missing sleep and meals, and had made her give that response each
time she was asked. Now here she was; she hadn't eaten since
breakfast, but by Thelxiepeia's grace she was too tired to be hungry.
    "The boy you sent off to bed." The captain chuckled. "He will
sleep all night. Did you foresee that, My General? The poor girl will
have to remain at her post until morning."
    "Horn? No more than three hours, Captain, if that."
    The alley ended at a wider steet. Mill Street, Maytera Mint told
herself, seeing the forlorn sign of a dark coffee shop called the Mill.
Mill Street was where you could buy odd lengths of serge and tweed cheaply.
    "Here we are out of sight, though not hidden from sentries on the
wall. Look." He pointed again. "Do you recognize it, My General?"
    "I recognize the wall of the Alambrera, certainly. And I can see a
floater. Is it yours? No, it can't be, or they'd be shooting at it, and
the turret's missing."
    "It is one of those you destroyed, My General. But it is mine now.
I have two men in it." He halted. "Here I leave you for perhaps three
minutes. It is too dangerous for us to proceed, but I must see that all
is well with them."
    She let him trot away, waiting until he had almost reached the
disabled floater before she began to run herself, running as she had
so often pictured herself running in games with the children at the
palaestra, her skirt hiked to her knees and her feet flying, the fear of
impropriety gone who could say where.
    He jumped, caught the edge of the hole where the turret had
been, pulled himself up and rolled over, vanishing into the disabled
floater. Seeing him, she felt less confident that she could do it too.
    Fortunately she did not have to; when she was still half a dozen
strides away, a door opened in its side. "I did not think you would
remain behind, My General," the captain told her, "though I dared
hope. You must not risk yourself in this fashion."
    She nodded, too breathless to speak, and ducked into the floater.
It was cramped yet strangely roofless, the crouching Guardsmen
clearly ill at ease, trained to snap to attention but compressed by
circumstance. "Sit down," she ordered them, "all of you. We can't
stand on formality in here."
    That word _stand_ had been unwisely chosen, she reflected. They
sat anyway, with muttered thanks.
    "This buzz gun, you see, My General," the captain patted it, "once
it belonged to the commander of this floater. He missed you, so it is
yours."
    She knew nothing about buzz guns and was curious despite her
fatigue. "Does it still operate? And do you have," at a loss, she
waved a vague hand, "whatever it shoots?"
    "Cartridges, My General. Yes, there are enough. It was the fuel
that exploded in this floater, you see. They are not like soldiers,
these floaters. They are like taluses and must have fish oil or
palm-nut oil for their engines. Fish oil is not so nice, but we employ
it because it is less costly. This floater carried sufficient ammunition
for both guns, and there is sufficient still."
    "I want to sit there." She was looking at the officer's seat. "May I?"
    "Certainly, My General." The captain scrambled out of her way.
    The seat was astonishingly comfortable, deeper and softer than
her bed in the cenoby, although its scorched upholstery smelled of
smoke. Not astonishing, Maytera Mint told herself, not really. To
be expected, because it had been an officer's seat, and the Ayuntamiento
treated officers well, knowing that its power rested on
them; that was something to keep in mind, one more thing she must
not forget.
    "Do not touch the trigger, My General. The safety catch is
disengaged." The captain reached over her shoulder to push a small
lever. "Now it is engaged. The gun will not fire."
    "This spider web thing." She touched it instead. "Is it what you call
the sight?"
    "Yes, the rear sight, My General. The little post you see at the end
of the barrel, that is the front sight. The gunner aligns the two, so
that he sees the top of the post in one or another of the small rectangles."
    "I see."
    "Higher rectangles, My General, if the target is distant. To left or
right if there is a strong wind, or because the gun favors one side or
another."
    She leaned back in the seat and allowed herself, for no more than
a second or two, to close her eyes. The captain was saying
something about night vision, short bursts hitting more than long
ones, about fields of fire.
    Fire was eating up somebody's home while he talked, and Lime
(if Teasel had found her quickly and she hadn't been far) was
looking for her right now, going from sentry post to post to post to
post. Looking for her and asking people at each post whether they
had seen her, whether they knew where the next one was and
whether they would take her there because of the fires, because
Bison had known, had rightly known that the fires must be put out
but had been afraid to say it because he had known his people
couldn't do it, could not, men and women who had fought so long
and hard already all day, fight fires tonight and fight again tomorrow.
Bison who made her feel so strong and competent, whose thick
and curling black beard was longer than her hair. Maytera Mockorange
had warned her about going without her coif, which was not
just against the rule but stimulating to a great many men who were
aroused by the sight of women's hair, particularly if long. She had
lost her coif somewhere, had gone without it though her hair was
short, though it had been cropped short on the first day, all of it.
    She fled Maytera Mockorange's anger down dark cold halls full of
sudden turnings until she found Auk, who reminded her that she
was to bring him the gods.

"I am Colonel Oosik, Calde," Silk's visitor informed him. He was a
big man, so tall and broad that Shell was hidden by his green-uniformed bulk.
    "The officer who directs this brigade," Silk offered his hand. "In
command. Is that what you say? I'm Patera Silk."
    "You have familiarized yourself with our organization." Oosik sat
down in the chair Shell had carried in earlier.
    "Not really. Are those my clothes you have?"
    "Yes." Oosik held them up, an untidy black bundle. "We will
speak of them presently, Calde. If you have made no study of our
organization charts, how is it you know my position?"
    "I saw a poster." Silk paused, remembering. "I was going to the
lake with a woman named Chenille. The poster announced the
formation of a reserve brigade. It was signed by you, and it told
anyone who wanted to join it to apply to Third Brigade Headquarters.
Patera Shell was kind enough to look in on me a few minutes
ago, and he happened to mention that this was the Third Brigade.
After he had gone, I recalled your poster."
    Shell said hurriedly, "The colonel was in the captain's room when
I got there, Patera. I told them I'd wait, but he made me come in
and asked what I wanted, so I told him."
    "Thank you," Silk said. "Please return to your manteion at once,
Patera. You've done everything that you can do here tonight."
Trying to freight the words with significance, he added, "It's already
late. Very late."
    "I thought, Patera - "
    "Go," Oosik tugged his drooping mustache. "Your calde and I
have delicate matters to discuss. He understands that. So should you."
    "I thought - "
    "Go!" Oosik had scarcely raised his voice, yet the word was like
the crack of a whip. Shell hurried out.
    "Sentry! Shut the door."
    The mustache was tipped with white, Silk observed; Oosik wound
it about his index finger as he spoke. "Since you have not studied our
organization, Calde, you will not know that a brigade is the
command of a general, called a brigadier."
    "No." Silk admitted. "I've never given it any thought."
    "In that case no explanation is necessary. I had planned to tell
you, so that each of us would know where we stand, that though I
am a mere colonel, an officer of field grade," Oosik released his
mustache to touch the silver osprey on his collar, "I command my
brigade exactly as a brigadier would. I have for four years. Do you
want your clothes?"
    "Yes. I'd like to get dressed, if you'll let me."
    Oosik nodded, though it was not clear whether his nod was meant
to express permission or understanding. "You are nearly dead,
Calde. A needle passed through your lung."
    "Nevertheless, I'd feel better if I were up and dressed." It was a
lie, although he wished fervently that it were true. "I'd be sitting on
this bed then, instead of lying in it; but I've got nothing on."
    Oosik chuckled. "You wish your shoes as well?"
    "My shoes and my stockings. My underwear, my trousers, my
tunic, and my robe. Please, colonel."
    The corners of the mustache tilted upward. "Dressed, you might
easily escape, Calde. Isn't that so?"
    "You say I'm near death, Colonel. A man near death might
escape, I suppose; but not easily."
    "We have handled you roughly here in the Third, Calde. You
have been beaten. Tortured."
    Silk shook his head. "You shot me. At least, I suppose that it was
one of your officers who shot me. But I've been treated by a doctor
and installed in this comfortable room. No one has beaten me."
    "With your leave." Oosik peered at him. "Your face is bruised. I
assumed that we had beaten you."
    Silk shook his head, pushing back the memory of hours of
interrogation by Councillor Potto and Sergeant Sand.
    "You do not wish to explain the source of your bruises. You have
been fighting, Calde, a shameful thing for an augur. Or boxing.
Boxing would be permissible, I suppose."
    "Through my own carelessness and stupidity, I fell down a flight of
stairs," Silk said.
    To his surprise, Oosik roared with laughter, slapping his knee.
"That is what our troopers say, Calde," he wiped his eyes, still
chuckling, "when one has been beaten by the rest. He says he fell
down the barracks stairs, almost always. They don't want to
confess that they've cheated their comrades, you see, or stolen
from them."
    "In my case it's the truth." Silk considered. "I had been trying to
steal, though not to cheat, two days earlier. But I really did fall
down steps and bruise my face."
    "I am happy to hear you haven't been beaten. Our men do it
sometimes without orders. I have known them to do it when it was
contrary to their orders, as well. I punish them for that severely, you
may be sure. In your case, Calde," Oosik shrugged. "I sent out an
officer because I required better information concerning the
progress of the battle before the Alambrera than my glass could give
me. I had made provisions for wounded and for prisoners. I needed
to learn whether they would be sufficient."
    "I understand."
    "He came back with you." Oosik sighed. "Now he expects a medal
and a promotion for putting me in this very difficult position. You
understand my problem, Calde?"
    "I'm not sure I do."
    "We are fighting, you and I. Your followers, a hundred thousand
or more, against the Civil Guard, of which I am a senior officer, and
a few thousand soldiers. Either side may win. Do you agree?"
    "I suppose so," Silk said.
    "Let us say, for the moment, that it is mine. I do not intend to be
unfair to you, Calde. We will discuss the other possibility in a
moment. Say that the victory is ours, and I report to the Ayuntamiento
that you are my prisoner. I will be asked why I did not
report it earlier, and I may be court-martialed for not having
reported it. If I am fortunate, my career will be destroyed. If I am
not, I may be shot."
    "Then report it," Silk told him, "by all means."
    Oosik shook his head again, his big face gloomier than ever.
"There is no right course for me in this, Calde. No right course at all.
But there is one that is clearly wrong, that can lead only to disaster,
and you have advised it. The Ayuntamiento has ordered that you be
killed on sight. Do you know that?"
    "I had anticipated it." Silk discovered that his hands were clenched
beneath the quilt. He made himself relax.
    "No doubt. Lieutenant Tiger should have killed you at once. He
didn't. May I be frank? I don't think he had the stomach for it. He
denies it, but I don't think he had the stomach. He shot you. There
you lay, an augur in an augur's robe, gasping like a fish and bleeding
from the mouth. One more shot would be the end." Oosik shrugged.
"No doubt he thought you would die while he was bringing you in.
Most men would have."
    "I see," Silk said. "He'll be in trouble now if you tell the
Ayuntamiento that you have me, alive."
    "_I_ will be in trouble." Oosik tapped his chest with a thick
forefinger. "I will be ordered to kill you, Calde, and I will have to do
it. If we lose after that, your woman Mint will have me shot, if she
doesn't light upon something worse. If we win, I will be marked for
life. I will be the man who killed Silk, the augur who was, as the city
firmly believes, chosen by Pas to be calde. If it is wise, the
Ayuntamiento will disavow my actions, court-martial me, and have
me shot. No, Calde, I will not report that I hold you. That is the last
thing that I will do."
    "You said that the Guard and the Army - I've been told there are
seven thousand soldiers - are fighting the people. What is the
strength of the Guard, Colonel?" Silk strove to recall his conversation
with Hammerstone. "Thirty thousand, approximately?"
    "Less."
    "Some Guardsmen have deserted the Ayuntamiento. I know that
for a fact."
    Oosik nodded gloomily.
    "May I ask how many?"
    "A few hundred, perhaps, Calde."
    "Would you say a thousand?"
    For half a minute or more, Oosik did not speak; at last he said, "I
am told five hundred. If that is correct, almost all have come from
my own brigade."
    "I have something to show you," Silk said, "but I have to ask you
for a promise first. It's something that Patera Shell brought me,
and I want you to give me your word that you won't harm him or
the augur of his manteion, or any of their sibyls. Will you promise?"
    Oosik shook his head. "I cannot disobey if I am ordered to arrest
them, Patera."
    "If you're not ordered to." It should give them ample time to
leave, Silk thought. "Promise me that you won't do anything to them
on your own initiative."
    Oosik studied him. "You are offering your information very
cheaply, Calde. We don't bother you religious, except under the
most severe provocation."
    "Then I have your word as an officer?"
    Oosik nodded, and Silk took the Prolocutor's letter from under
his quilt and handed it to him. He unbuttoned a shirt pocket and got
out a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, shifting his position slightly so
that the light fell upon the letter.
    In the silence that followed, Silk reviewed everything Oosik had
said. Had he made the right decision? Oosik was ambitious - had
probably volunteered to take charge of the reserve brigade as well
as his own in the hope of gaining the rank and pay to which his
position entitled him. He might be, in fact he almost certainly was,
underestimating the fighting capabilities of soldiers like Sand and
Hammerstone; but he was sure to know a great deal about those of
the Civil Guard, in which he had spent his adult life; and he was
considering the possibility that the Ayuntamiento would lose. The
Prolocutor's letter, with its implications of increased support for
Maytera Mint, might tilt the balance.
    Or so Silk hoped.
    Oosik looked up. "This says Lemur's dead."
    Silk nodded.
    "There have been rumors all day. What  if your Prolocutor is
simply repeating them?"
    "He's dead." Silk made the statement as forceful as he could,
fortified by the knowledge that for once there was no need to hedge
the truth. "You've got a glass, Colonel. You must. Ask it to find
Lemur for you."
    "You saw him die?"
    Silk shook his head, saying, "I saw his body, however," and Oosik
returned to the letter.
    Too much boldness could ruin everything; it would be worse than
useless to try to make Oosik say or do anything that could be
brought up against him later.
    Oosik put down the letter. "The Chapter is behind you, Calde. I
suspected as much, and this makes it very plain."
    "It is now, apparently." Here was a chance for Oosik to declare
himself. "If you suspected it before you read that letter, Colonel, it
was doubly kind of you to let Patera Shell in to see me."
    "I didn't, Calde. Captain Gecko did."
    "I see. But you'll keep your promise?"
    "I am a man of honor, Calde." Oosik refolded the letter and put it
in his pocket with his glasses. "I will also keep this. Neither of us
would want anyone else to read it. One of my officers, particularly."
    Silk nodded. "You're welcome to."
    "You want your clothes back. No doubt you would like to have
the contents of your pockets as well. Your beads are in there, I
think. I imagine you would like to tell them as you lie here."
    "I would, yes. Very much."
    "There are needlers, too. One is like the one with which you were
shot. There is also a smaller one that seems to have belonged to a
woman named Hyacinth."
    "Yes," Silk said again.
    "I see I know her, if she is the Hyacinth I'm thinking of. An
amiable girl, as well as a very beautiful one. I lay with her on
Phaesday."
    Silk shut his eyes.
    "I did not set out to give you pain, Calde. Look at me. I'm old
enough to be your father, or hers. Do you imagine she sends me
love letters?"
    "Is that...?"
    "What one of the letters in your pocket is?" Oosik nodded
solemnly "Captain Gecko told me the seals had not been broken
when he found them. Quite frankly, I doubted him. I see that I
should not have. You have not read them."
    "No," Silk said.
    "Captain Gecko has, and I. No one else. Gecko can be discreet
if I order it, and a man of honor must be a man of discretion, also.
Otherwise he is worse than useless. You did not recognize her seal?"
    Silk shook his head. "I've never gotten a letter from her before."
    "Calde, I have never gotten one at all." Oosik tugged his
mustache. "You would be well advised to keep that before you. Many
letters from women over the years, but never one from her. I say
again, I envy you."
    "Thank you," Silk said.
    "You love her." Oosik leaned back in his chair. "That is not a
question. You may not know it, but you do." His voice softened. "I
was your age once, Calde. Do you realize that in a month it may be
over?"
    "In a day it may be over," Silk admitted. "Sometimes I hope it will be."
    "You fear it, too. You need not say so. I understand. I told you I
knew her and it gave you pain, but I do not want you to think, later,
that I have been less than honest. I am being equally honest now.
Brutally honest with myself. My pride. I am nothing to her."
    "Thank you again," Silk said.
    "You are welcome. I do not say that she is nothing to me. I am not
a man of stone. But there are others, several who are much more.
To explain would be offensive."
    "Certainly you don't have to go into details unless you want me to
shrive you. May I see her letter?"
    "In a moment, Calde. Soon I will give it to you to keep. I think so,
at least. There is one further matter to be dealt with. You chanced
to mention a woman called Chenille. I know a woman of that name,
too. She lives in a yellow house."
    Silk smiled and shook his head.
    "That does not pain you at all. She is not the Chenille you took to
the lake?"
    "I was amused at myself - at my stupidity. She told me she had
entertained colonels; but until you said you knew her, it had never
entered my mind that you were almost certain to be one of them.
There can't be a great many."
    "Seven besides myself." Oosik rummaged in the bundle of clothing
and produced Musk's big needler and Hyacinth's small, gold-plated
one. After holding them up so that Silk could see them, he laid them
on the windowsill.
    "The little one is hers," Silk said. "Hyacinth's. Could you see that
it's returned to her?"
    Oosik nodded. "I shall send it by a mutual acquaintance. What
about the large one?"
    "The owner's dead. I suppose it's mine now."
    "I am too well mannered to ask if you killed him, but I hope he
was not one of our officers."
    "No," Silk said, "and no. I confess I was tempted to kill him several
times - as he was undoubtedly tempted to kill me - but I didn't. I've
only killed once, in self-defense. May I read Hyacinth's letter now?"
    "If I can find it." Oosik fumbled through Silk's clothes again, then
held up both the letters Silk had taken from the mantel in the manse
that morning. "This other is from another augur. You have no
interest in it?"
    "Not as much, I'm afraid. Who is it?"
    "I have forgotten." Oosik extracted the letter from its envelope
and unfolded it. "'Patera Remora, Coadjutor.' He wishes to see
you, or he did. You were to come to his suite in the Prolocutor's
Palace yesterday at three. You are more than a day late already,
Calde. Do you want it?"
    "I suppose so," Silk said; and Oosik tossed it on the bed.
    Oosik rose, holding out Hyacinth's letter. "This one you will not
wish to read while I watch, and I have urgent matters to attend to. I
may look in on you again, later this evening. Much later. If I am too
busy, I will see you in the morning, perhaps." He tugged his
mustache. "Will you think me a fool if I say I wish you well, Calde?
That if we were no longer opponents I should consider your
friendship an honor?"
    "I'd think you were an estimable, honorable man," Silk told him,
"which you are."
    "Thank you, Calde!" Oosik bowed, with a click of his booted heels.
    "Colonel?"
    "Your beads. I had forgotten. You will find them in a pocket of
the robe, I feel sure." Oosik turned to go, but turned back. "A
matter of curiosity. Are you familiar with the Palatine, Calde?"
    Silk's right hand, holding Hyacinth's letter, had begun to tremble;
he pressed it against his knee so that Oosik would not see it. "I've
been there." By an effort of will, he kept his voice almost steady.
"Why do you ask?"
    "Often, Calde?"
    "Three times, I believe." It was impossible to think of anything but
Hyacinth; he could as easily have said fifty, or never. "Yes, three
times - once to the Palace, and twice to attend sacrifice at the Grand
Manteion."
    "Nowhere else?"
    Silk shook his head.
    "There is a place having a wooden figure of Thelxiepeia. As an
augur, you may know where it is."
    "There's an onyx image in the Grand Manteion - "
    Oosik shook his head. "In Ermine's, to the right as one enters the
sellaria. One sees an arch with greenery beyond it At the rear,
there is a pool with goldfish. She stands by it holding a mirror. The
lighting is arranged so that the pool is reflected in her mirror, and
her mirror in the pool. It is mentioned in that letter." Oosik turned
upon his heel.
    "Colonel, these needlers - "
    He paused at the door. "Do you intend to shoot your way to
freedom, Calde?" Without waiting for Silk's reply he went out,
leaving the door ajar behind him. Silk heard the sentry come to
attention, and Oosik say, "You are dismissed. Return to the
guardroom immediately."
    Silk's hands were still shaking as he unfolded Hyacinth's letter; it
was on stationery the color of heavy cream, scrawled in violet ink,
with many flourishes.
<blockquote>
O My Darling Wee Flea:
    I call you so not only because of the way you sprang from
my window, but because of the way you hopped into my
bed! How your lonely bloss has longed for a note from you!!!
You might have sent one by the kind friend who brought you
my gift, you know!
</blockquote>

That had been Doctor Crane, and Doctor Crane was dead - had
died in his arms that very morning.
<blockquote>
Now you have to tender me your thanks and so much more,
when next we meet! Don't you know that little place up on
the Palatine where Thelx holds up a mirror? _Hieraxday_.
<p class=r>Hy
</blockquote>

Silk closed his eyes. It was foolish, he told himself. Utterly foolish.
The semiliterate scribbling of a woman whose education had ended
at fourteen, a girl who had been given to her father's superior as a
household servant and concubine, who had scarcely read a book or
written a letter, and was trying to flirt, to be arch and girlish and
charming on paper. How his instructors at the schola would have sneered!
    Utterly foolish, and she had called him darling, had said she
longed for him, had risked compromising herself and Doctor Crane
to send him this.
    He read it again, refolded it, and returned it to its envelope, then
pushed aside the quilt and got up.
    Oosik had intended him to go, of course - had intended him to
escape, or perhaps to be killed escaping. For a few seconds he tried
to guess which. Had Oosik been insincere in speaking of friendship?
Oosik was capable of any quantity of double-dealing, if he was any
judge of men.
    It did not matter.
    He took his clothing from the chair and spread it on the bed. If
Oosik intended him to escape, he must escape as Oosik intended. If
Oosik intended him to be killed escaping, he must escape just the
same, doing his best to remain alive.
    His tunic was crusted with his own blood and completely
unwearable; he threw it down and sat on the bed to pull on his
undershorts, trousers, and stockings. When he had tied his shoes,
he rose and jerked open a drawer of the bureau.
    Most of the tunics were cheerful reds and yellows; but he found a
blue one, apparently never worn, so dark that it might pass for black
under any but the closest scrutiny. He laid it on the pillow beside the
letters, and put on a yellow one. The closet yielded a small traveling
bag. Slipping both letters into a pocket, he rolled up his robe,
stuffed it into the bag, and put the dark blue tunic on top of it.
    The magazine status pin of the big needler indicated it was
loaded; he opened the action anyway trying to recall how Auk had
held his that night in the restaurant, and remembering at the last
moment Auk's adjuration to keep his finger off the trigger. The
magazine appeared to be full of long, deadly-looking needles, or
nearly full. Auk had said his needler held how many? A hundred or
more, surely; and this big needler that had been Musk's must hold at
least as many if not more. It was possible, of course, that it had been
disabled in some way.
    There was no one in the hall outside. Silk closed the door, and
after a moment's thought put the quilt against its bottom and shut
the window, then sat down on the bed, sick and horribly weak.
When had he eaten last?
    Very early that morning, in Limna, with Doctor Crane and that
captain whose name he had never learned or had forgotten, and the
captain's men. Kypris had granted another theophany, had
appeared to them, and to Maytera Marble and Patera Gulo, and
they had been full of the wonder of it, all three of them newly come
to religious feeling, and feeling that no one had ever come to it
before. He had eaten a very good omelet, then several slices of hot,
fresh bread with country butter, because the cook, roused from
sleep by a trooper, had popped the loaves that had been rising
overnight into the oven. He had drunk hot, strong coffee, too;
coffee lightened with cream the color of Hyacinth's stationery and
sweetened with honey from a white, blue-flowered bowl passed to
him by Doctor Crane, who had been putting honey on his bread.
Now Doctor Crane was dead, and so was one of the troopers, the
captain and the other trooper most likely dead too, killed in the
fighting before the Alambrera.
    Silk lifted the big needler.
    Someone had told him that he, too, should be dead - he could not
remember whether it had been the surgeon or Colonel Oosik.
Perhaps it had been Shell, although it did not seem the sort of thing
that Shell would say.
    The needler would not fire. He tugged its trigger again and
returned it to the windowsill, congratulating himself on having
resolved to test it; saw that he had left the safety catch on, pushed it
off, took aim at a large bottle of cologne on the dresser, and
squeezed the trigger. The needler cracked in his hand like a
bullwhip and the bottle exploded, filling the room with the clean
scent of spruce.
    He reapplied the safety and thrust the needler into his waistband
under the yellow tunic. If Musk's needler had not been disabled,
there was no point in testing Hyacinth's small one, too. He made
sure its safety catch was engaged, forced himself to stand, and
dropped it into his trousers pocket.
    One thing more, and he could go. Had the young man whose
bedroom this was never written anything here? Looking around, he
saw no writing materials.
    What of the owner of the perfumed scarf? She would write to
him, almost certainly. A woman who cared enough to drop a silk
scarf from her window would write notes and letters. And he would
keep them, concealing them somewhere in this room and replying in
notes and letters of his own, though perhaps less frequently. The
study, if there was one, would belong to his father. Even a library
would not be sufficiently private. He would write to her here,
surely, sitting - where?
    There had been no chair in the room until Shell brought one. The
occupant could only have sat on the bed or the floor, assuming that
he had sat at all. Silk sat down again, imagined that he held a quill,
pushed aside the chair Shell had put in front of the little night table,
and pulled it over to him. Its shallow drawer held a packet of
notepaper, a discolored scrap of flannel, a few envelopes, four
quills, and a small bottle of ink.
    Choosing a quill, he wrote:
<blockquote>
Sir, events beyond my control have forced me to occupy
your bedchamber for several hours, and I fear I have broken
a bottle of your cologne, and stained your sheets. In extreme
need, I have, in addition, appropriated two of your tunics
and your smallest traveling bag. I am heartily sorry to have
imposed on you in this fashion. I am compelled, as I
indicated.
    When peace and order return to our city, as I pray that
they soon will, I will endeavor to locate you, make restitution,
and return your property. Alternately, you may apply
to me, at any time you find convenient. I am Pa. Silk, of Sun Street
</blockquote>

For a long moment he paused, considering, the feathery end of the
gray goose-quill tickling his lips. Very well.
    With a final dip into the ink, he added a comma and the word
_Calde_ after "Sun Street," and wiped the quill.
    Restoring the quilt to the bed, he opened the door. The hall was
still empty. Back stairs brought him to the kitchen, in which it
appeared at least a company had been foraging for food. The back
door opened on what seemed, from what he could see by skylight,
to be a small formal garden; a white-painted gate was held shut by a
simple hook.
    Outside on Basket Street, he stopped to look back at the house he
had left. Most of its windows were lit, including one on the second
floor whose lights were dimming; his, no doubt. Distant explosions
indicated the center of the city as well as anything could.
    An officer on horseback who might easily have been the one who
had shot him galloped past without taking the least notice. Two
streets nearer the Palatine, a hurrying trooper carrying a dispatch
box touched his cap politely.
    The box might contain an order to arrest every augur in the city,
Silk mused; the galloping officer might be bringing Oosik word of
another battle. It would be well, might in fact be of real value, for
him to read those dispatches and hear the news that the galloping
officer brought.
    But he had already heard, as he walked, the most important
news, news pronounced by the muzzles of guns: the Ayuntamiento
did not occupy all the city between this remote eastern quarter and
the Palatine. He would have to make his way along streets in which
Guardsmen and Maytera Mint's rebels were slaughtering each
other, return to the ones that he knew best - and then, presumably,
cross another disputed zone to reach the Palatine.
    For the Guard would hold the Palatine if it held anything, and in
fact the captain had indicated only that morning that a full brigade
had scarcely sufficed to defend it Molpsday night. Combatants on
both sides would try to prevent him; he might be killed, and the
exertions he was making this moment might kill him as surely as any
slug. Yet he had to try, and if he lived he would see Hyacinth tonight.
    His free hand had begun to draw Musk's needler. He forced it
back to his side, reflecting grimly that before shadeup he might
learn some truths about himself that he would not prefer to
ignorance. Unconsciously, he increased his pace.
    Men thought themselves good or evil; but the gods - the Outsider
especially - must surely know how much depended upon circumstance.
Would Musk, whose needler he had nearly drawn a few
seconds before, have been an evil man if he had not served Blood?
Might not Blood, for that matter, be a better man with Musk gone?
He, Silk, had sensed warmth and generosity in Blood beneath his
cunning and his greed, potentially at least.
    Something dropped from the sky, lighting on his shoulder so
heavily he nearly fell. "Lo Silk! Good Silk!"
    "Oreb! Is it really you?"
    "Bird back." Oreb caught a lock of Silk's hair in his beak and gave
it a tug.
    "I'm very glad - immensely glad you've returned. Where have you
been? How did you get here?"
    "Bad place. Big hole!"
    "It was I who went into the big hole, Oreb. By the lake, in that
shrine of Scylla's, remember?"
    Oreb's beak clattered. "Fish heads?"

                      Chapter 6  -  The Blind God

Oreb had eyed Dace's corpse hopefully when Urus let it fall to the
tunnel floor and spun around to shout at Hammerstone. "Why we
got to find him? Tell me that! Tell me, an' I'll look till I can't shaggy
walk, till I got to crawl - "
    "Pick it up, you." Without taking his eyes off Urus, Hammerstone
addressed Incus. "All right if I kill him, Patera? Only I won't be able
to carry them both and shoot."
    Incus shook his head. "He has a _point_, my son, so let us consider
it. _Ought_ we, as he inquires, continue to search for our friend Auk?"
    "I'll leave it up to you, Patera. You're smarter than all of us,
smarter than the whole city'd be if you weren't living there. I'd do
anything you say, and I'll see to it these bios do, too."
    "_Thank_ you, my son." Incus, who was exceedingly tired already,
lowered himself gratefully to the tunnel floor. "Sit _down_, all of you.
We shall discuss this."
    "I don't see why." Tired herself, Chenille grounded her launcher.
"Stony there does whatever you tell him to, and he could do for me
and Urus like swatting flies. You say it and we'll do it. We'll have to."
    "Sit _down_. My daughter, can't you see how very _illogical_ you're
being? You _maintain_ that you're forced to obey in _all things_,
yet you will not oblige even the simplest request."
    "All right." She sat; and Hammemtone, laying a heavy hand on
Urus, forced him to sit, too.
    "Where Auk?" Oreb hopped optimistically across the damp gray
shiprock. "Auk where?" Although he could not have put the feeling
into words, Oreb felt that he was nearer Silk when he was with Auk
than in any other company. The red girl was close to Silk as well, but
she had once thrown a glass at him, and Oreb had not forgotten.
    "_Where_ indeed?" Incus sighed. "My daughter, you invite me to be a
_despot_, but what you say is true. I might lord it over you both if I
chose. I need not lord it over our friend. _He_ obeys me very willingly,
as you have seen. But I am _not_, by inclination, training, or _native
character_ inclined toward despotism. A holy augur's part is to lead
and to advise, to _conduct_ the laity to rich fields and _unfailing_
springs, if I may put it thus _poetically_.
    "So _let us_ review our position and take _council_, one with another.
Then I will lead us in prayer, a fervent and _devout_ prayer, let it be,
to all the Nine, _imploring_ their guidance."
    "Then we'll decide?" Urus demanded.
    "Then _I_ will decide, my son." By an effort, Incus sat up straighter.
"But _first_, allow me to dispel certain fallacies that have already crept
into our deliberations." He addressed himself to Chenille. "_You_, my
daughter, seek to accuse me of despotism. It is _impolite_, but
courtesy itself must at times give way to the _sacred duty_ of
_correction_. May I remind you that _you_, for the space of nearly _two
days, tyrannized_ us all aboard that miserable boat? Tyrannized _me_
largely by means of our unfortunate friend, for whom we have
already searched, as I would think, for nearly half a day?"
    "I'm not saying we ought to stop, Patera. That was him." She
pointed to Urus. "I want to find him."
    "Be _quiet_, my daughter. I am not yet finished with _you_. I shall
come to _him_ soon enough. _Why_, I inquire, did you so tyrannize us? I
say - "
    "I was possessed! Scylla was in me. You know that."
    "No, no, my daughter. It won't _do_. It is what you have _maintained_,
deflecting all criticism of your conduct with the same _shabby_
defense. It shall serve you no longer. You were _domineering,
oppressive_, and _brutal_. Is that characteristic of _Our Surging Scylla?_ I
affirm that it is _not_. As we have trudged on, I have reviewed all that
is recorded of _her_, both in the _Chrasmologic Writings_ and in our
traditions likewise. _Imperious?_ One can but agree. _Impetuous_ at
times, perhaps. But _never_ brutal, oppressive, or _domineering_." Incus
sighed again, removed his shoes, and caressed his blistered feet.
    "_Those_ evil traits, I say, my daughter, _cannot_ have been _Scylla's_.
They were present _in you_ when she arrived, and so deeply rooted
that she found it, I dare say, quite impossible to _expunge_ them.
_Some_ there are, or so I have heard it said, who actually _prefer_
domineering women, _unhappy_ men twisted by nature beyond the
natural. Our poor friend Auk, with all his manifest excellencies of
_strength_ and _manly_ courage, is one of those unfortunates, so it
would seem. I am _not_, my daughter, and I thank Sweet Scylla for it!
Understand that for _my_ part, and for our tall friend's here, as I dare
to say, we have not sought Auk for your sake, but for _his own_."
    "Talk talk," Oreb muttered.
    "As for _you_," Incus shifted his attention to Urus, "_you_ appear to
believe that it is only because of my loyal friend _Hammerstone_ that
you obey me. It that not so?"
    Urus stared sullenly at the tunnel wall to the left of Incus's face.
    "You are _silent_," Incus continued. "Talk and more talk, complains
our small _feathered_ companion, and again, talk, talk and _talk_. Not
impossibly you concur. No, my son, you _deceive_ yourself, as you
have deceived yourself throughout what I feel _certain_ must have
been a most unhappy life." Incus drew Auk's needler and leveled it
at the silent Urus. "I have but little _need_ of my tall friend
Hammerstone, where _you_ are concerned, and should this endless _talk_ that
you complain of end, you may find yourself less pleased _than ever_
with that which succeeds it. I invite a _comment_."
    Urus shook his head. Hammerstone clenched his big fists, clearly
itching to batter him insensible.
    "Nothing? In that case, my son, I am going to take the opportunity
to tell you something of _myself_ because I have been pondering that,
with many other things, while we walked, and it will bear upon what
I mean to do, as you will see.
    "I was born to poor yet _upright_ parents, their _fifth_ and _final_ child.
At the time they were _wed_, they had made _solemn pledge_ to Echidna
that they would furnish the immortal gods with an augur or a sibyl,
the ripest _fruit_ of their union and the most _perfect_ of all _thank
offerings_ for it. Of my older brothers and sisters, I shall say nothing.
_Nothing_, that is to say, except that there was nothing to be hoped for
from _them_. No more _holy piety_ was to be discovered in the four of
them than in four of those _horrid beasts_ with which you, my son,
proposed to attack us. I was born some _seven years_ after my
youngest sibling, Femur. Conceive of my parents' _delight_, I invite
you, when the passing _days, weeks, months_, and _years_ showed ever
more plainly my _predilection_ for a life of _holy contemplation_, of
_worship_ and _ritual_, far from the _bothersome exigencies_ that trouble
the hours of most men. The schola, if I may say it, welcomed me
with _arms outspread_. Its _warmth_ was no less than that with which I,
in my turn, rushed to _it_. I was together _pious_ and _brilliant_, a
combination not often found._ Thus endowed_, I gained the friendship
of _older men_ of tastes like to _my own_, who were to extend
themselves _without stint_ in my behalf following my _designation_.
    "I was informed, and you may conceive of my _rapture_, my _delight_,
that no less a figure than the _coadjutor_ had agreed to make me his
prothonotary. With all my heart I entered into my _duties_, drafting
and summarizing letters and depositions, stamping, filing, and
retrieving files, managing his _calendar of appointments_, and a
hundred like tasks."
    Incus fell silent until Chenille said, "By Thelxiepeia I could sleep
for a week!" She leaned back against the tunnel wall and closed her eyes.
    "Where Auk?" Oreb demanded, but no one paid him the least attention.
    "We are all _exhausted_, my daughter. I not _less_ than you, and
perhaps with more _reason_, because my legs are not so _long_, nor am
I, by a decade and _more_, so young, nor so well fed."
    "I'm not even a little bit well fed, Patera." Chenille did not open
her eyes. "I guess none of us are. I haven't had anything but water
since forever."
    "When we were on that _wretched_ little fishing boat, you _appropriated_
to yourself what food you _wished_, and _all_ that you wished, my
daughter. You left to _Auk_ and Dace, and even to _me_, an anointed
augur, only such _scraps_ as you disdained. But you have _forgotten_
that, or say you have. I wish that I might forget it, too."
    "Fish heads?"
    Chenille shrugged, her eyes still closed. "All right, Patera, I'm
sorry. I don't suppose we'll ever find any food down here, but if we
do, or when we get back home, I'll let you have first pick."
    "I would _refuse_ it, my daughter. That is the _point_ I am _striving_ to
make. I became His Eminence's prothonotary, as I said. I entered the
_Prolocutor's Palace_, not as an awestruck _visitor_, but as an _inhabitant_.
Each morning I sacrificed _one squab_ in the _Private chapel_ below the
reception hall, chanting my prayers to empty chairs. Afterward, I enjoyed
that same _bird_ at my luncheon. _Upon a monthly basis_, I shrove Patera
Bull, His Cognizance's prothonotary, as _he me_. That was the whole compass
of my duties as an augur.
    "But from time to time, His Eminence assigned to _me_ such
errands as he felt, or _feigned_ to feel, overdifficult for a _boy_. One
such brought me to that miserable village of _Limna_, as you know. I
was to search for _you_, my daughter, and it was my _ill luck_ to
succeed. Your own life, I suppose, has been, I will not say
_adventurous_, but _tumultuous_. Is that not so?"
    "It's had its ups and downs," Chenille conceded.
    "_Mine_ had not, with the result that I had assumed myself
_incapable_. Had some god informed me," Incus paused to thrust
Auk's needler back into his waistband, then contemplated his
scabbed hands, "that I should be forced to serve as the _entire crew_ of
a fishing vessel, _bailing, making sail, reefing_, and all the rest, and
this during a _tempest_ as severe as any the Whorl has ever seen, I
should have called it _quite impossible_, declaring roundly that I
should _die_ within an hour. I would have informed this wholly
supposititious divinity that I was a man of _intellect_, now largely
affecting to be a man of prayer, for my early piety had long since
given way to an advancing _scepticism_. Had he suggested that I might
_yet_ become a man of action, I would have declared it to be _beneath_
me, and thought myself profound."
    Urus said, "Well, if you didn't have a needler 'n this big chem,
we'd see."
    Incus nodded his agreement, his round, plump little face serious
and his protuberant teeth giving him something of the look of a
resolute chipmunk. "We would _indeed_. Therefore, I shall _kill_ you,
Urus my son, or order Hammerstone to, whenever it appears that I
am liable to lose either."
    "Bad man!" It was not immediately apparent whether Oreb
intended Incus or Urus.
    Chenille said, "You don't really mean that, Patera."
    "Oh, but I do, my daughter. Tell them, Corporal. Do I mean what I say?"
    "Sure, Patera. See, Chenille, Patera's a bio like you, and bios like
you and him are real easy to kill. You can't take chances, or him
either. You got a prisoner, he's got to toe the line every minute,
cause if you let him get away with anything, that's it. If it was up to
me, I'd kill him right now, and not chance something happening to Patera."
    "We need him to show us how to get to the pit, and that door that
opens into the cellar of the Juzgado."
    "Only we're not going to either one now, are we? And I know
where the Juzgado is if I can get myself located. So why shouldn't I
quiet him down?" As if by chance, Hammerstone's slug gun was
pointing in Urus's direction; his finger found its trigger.
    "We _have not_ been going to the pit, I am happy to say," Incus told
them. "It was _Auk_ who wished to go there, for no good reason that _I_
could ever understand. _Unfortunately_, we haven't been going to the
Juzgado, _either_, though it was to the Juzgado that Surging Scylla
directed us. _I_ am the sole person present who _recollects_ her
instructions, possibly. But I _assure you_ it is so."
    "All right," Chenille said wearily, "I believe you."
    "As you _ought_, my daughter, because it was _through your mouth_
that Scylla spoke. That very _fact_ brings me to another point. She
made Auk, Dace, and _myself_ her prophets, specifying that I am to
replace His Cognizance as _Prolocutor_. Dace has _departed_ this whorl,
so grievously infected by evil, for the richer life of Mainframe.
Succoring Scylla might recall him _if she chose_, perhaps. I _cannot_. If
our search for _Auk_ is to be given up, or at least _postponed_, and I
confess there is _much_ that appeals to me in that, only _I_ remain of
Scylla's three.
    "Earlier, _bedeviled_ by multiple interruptions, I _strove_ to explain
my position. Because neither of you has _patience_ for that explanation,
though it would occupy but a _few moments_ at most, I shall _state_
it. Pay _attention_, both of you."
    Incus's voice strengthened. "I have awakened to _myself_, both as
_man_ and as augur. A servant of Men, if you will. A servant of the
_gods_, most particularly. You are three. One loves, two _hate_ me. I
am not unaware of it."
    "I don't hate you," Chenille protested. "You let me wear this when
I got cold. Auk doesn't hate you either. You just think that."
    "Thank you, my daughter. I was about to remark that from what
I've learned from my brother augurs concerning manteions, the
proportion implied is the one most frequently seen, though our
_congregation_ is so much less numerous. Very well, _my good people_,
I accept it. I shall do my best for each and for all, nonetheless,
trusting in a reward from the east."
    "See?" Hammerstone nudged Chenille. "What'd I tell you? The
greatest man in the _Whorl_."
    Oreb cocked his head at Incus. "Where Auk?"
    "Nowhere to be found in that shining city we name _Reason_, I
fear," Incus told him half humorously. "He hailed someone. _I_ saw
him do it, though there was no one to be seen. After saluting this
_unseen being_, he dashed away. Our good corporal pursued him, as
you saw, but lost him in the _darkness_."
    "These green lights don't work the way people think, see,
Chenille. People think they just crawl around all the time and don't
care where they're at, only they're not really like that. If it's bright
one way and dark the other, they'll head for the dark, see? Real
slow, but that's how they go. It's what keeps them spread out."
    Chenille nodded. "Urus said something about that."
    "In a little place, they get everything worked out among themselves
after a while and don't hardly move except to get away from
the windows in the daytime, but in a big place like this they don't
ever settle down completely. Only they don't ever go down much,
'cause if they did, they'd get stepped on and broken real fast."
    "Lots of these tunnels slope down besides the one Auk ran down,"
she objected, "and I've seen lights in them."
    "Depends on how dark it is down there, and how steep the slope
is. If it's too steep, they won't go in there at all."
    "It was pretty steep," Chenille conceded, "and we went down it
quite a ways, but later we took that one that went up, remember? It
didn't go up as steep as the dark one went down, and it had lights,
but it climbed like that for a long time."
    "I _think_, my daughter - "
    "So what I've been wondering is would Auk have gone back up
like we did? He was kind of out of it."
    "He was _deranged_," Incus declared positively. "I would hope that
condition was only temporary, but temporary or _not_, he was not
_rational_."
    "Yeah, and that's why we took the tunnel that angled back up that
I was talking about, Patera. We're not abram and we knew we
wanted to get back up to the surface, besides finding Auk. But if
Auk was abram... To let you have the lily word, all you bucks
seem pretty abram to me, mostly, so I didn't pay much attention.
Only if he was, maybe he'd just keep on going down, because that's
easier. He was running like you say, and it's pretty easy to run
downhill."
    "There _may_ be something in what you suggest, my daughter. We
must keep it in mind, _if_ our discussion concludes that we should
continue our pursuit.
    "Now, may _I_ sum up? The _question_ is whether we are to continue,
or to break off our search, _at least temporarily_, and attempt to return
to the sufface. Allow me, please, to state both cases. I shall strive
for _concision_. If any of you has an _additional point_, you are free to
advance it when I have _concluded_.
    "It would seem to me that there is only one _cogent_ reason to
_protract_ our search, and I have touched upon that _already_.
It is that Auk is one of the _triune prophets_ commissioned by
_Scylla_. As a _prophet_ he is a _theodidact_ of _inestimable_ value, as
was Dace. It is for that reason, and for it alone, that I _instructed_
Hammerstone to pursue him following his precipitate departure. It is for that
reason _solely_ that I have prolonged the pursuit so far. For _I_, also, am
such a prophet. The only such prophet remaining, as I have said."
    "He's one of us," Chenille declared. "I was with him at Limna
before Scylla possessed me, and I remember him a little on the boat.
We can't just go off and leave him."
    "Nor do _I_ propose to do so, my daughter. Hear me out, I beg you.
We are _exhausted and famished_. When we return to the _surface_ with
Scylla's messages, in _fulfillment_ of her will, we can gain rest and
food. _Furthermore_, we can enlist others in the search. We will - "
    Urus interrupted. "You said we could put in stuff of our own,
right? All right, how about me? Do I get to talk, or are you goin' to
have the big chem shoot me?"
    Incus smiled gently. "You must understand, my son, that as your
spiritual guide, I _love_ you no less and no more than the others. I
have threatened your life only as the _law_ does, for your correction.
_Speak_."
    "Well, I don't love Auk, only if you want to get him back it looks
to me like you're goin' about it wrong. He wanted us to go to the pit,
remember? So maybe now that he's gone off by himself that's
where. We could go 'n see, 'n there's lots of bucks there that know
these tunnels as well as me, so why not tell 'em what happened 'n
get 'em to look too?"
    Incus nodded, his face thoughtful. "It is a suggestion worthy of
consideration."
    "They'll eat us," Chenille declared.
    "Fish head?" Oreb fluttered to her shoulder.
    "Yeah, like you'd eat a fish head, Oreb. Only we'd have to have
fish heads to do it."
    "They won't eat me," Hammerstone told her. "They won't eat
anybody I say not to eat, either, while I'm around."
    "Now let us _pray_." Incus was on his knees, hands clasped behind
him. "Let us petition the _immortal gods_, and Scylla _particularly_, to
rescue both Auk and _ourselves_, and to guide us in the ways they
would have us go."
    "I twigged you don't buy that any more."
    "I have _encountered_ Scylla," Incus told Urus solemnly. "I have seen
for myself the _majesty_ and _power_ of that very great goddess. How
could I lack belief now?" He contemplated the voided cross suspended
from his prayer beads as if he had never seen it before. "I
have suffered, too, on that wretched boat and in these _detestable_
tunnels. I have been in terror of my life. It is hunger and fear that
direct us toward the gods, my son. I have learned that, and I wonder
that _you_, suffering as you clearly have, have not turned to them long
ago.
    "How do you know I haven't, huh? You don't know a shaggy
thing about me. Maybe I'm holier than all of you."
    Tired as she was, Chenille giggled.
    Incus shook his head. "No, my son. It won't do. I am a _fool_,
perhaps. Beyond dispute I have not infrequently been a fool. But
not such a fool as that." More loudly he added, "On your _knees_. Bow
your heads."
    "Bird pray! Pray Silk!"
    Incus ignored Oreb's hoarse interruption, his right hand making
the sign of addition with the voided cross. "Behold us, lovely Scylla,
_wonderful of waters_. Behold our love and our need for thee. Cleanse
us, O Scylla!" He took a deep breath, the inhalation loud in the
whispering silence. "Your prophet is bewildered and dismayed,
Scylla. Wash clear my _eyes_ as I implore you to cleanse my _spirit_.
Guide me in this confusion of darkling passages and obscure
responsibilities." He looked up, mouthing: "_Cleanse us, O Scylla_."
    Chenille, Hammerstone, and even Urus dutifully repeated, "Cleanse us, O
Scylla."
    Bored, Oreb had flown up to grip a rough stone protrusion in his
red claws. He could see farther even than Hammerstone through
the yellow-green twilight that filled the tunnel, and clinging thus to
the ceiling, his vantage point was higher; but look as he might, he
saw neither Auk or Silk. Abandoning the search, he peered hungrily
at Dace's corpse; its half-open eyes tempted him, though he felt sure
he would be chased away.
    Below, the black human droned on: "Behold us, fair Phaea, _lady
of the larder_. Behold our love and our need for thee. _Feed_ us, O
Phaea! Famished we wander in need of your nurture." All the
humans squawked, "Feed us, O Phaea!"
    "Talk talk," Oreb muttered to himself; he could talk as well as
they, but it seemed to him that talking was of small benefit in such
situations.
    "Behold us, fierce Sphigx, _woman of war_. Behold our love and
our need for thee. _Lead_ us, O Sphigx! We are lost and dismayed, O
Sphigx, hemmed _all about_ by danger. Lead us in the ways we should
go." And all the humans, "Lead us, O Sphigx!"
    The black one said, "Let us now, with heads bowed, put ourselves
in _personal communion_ with the Nine." He and the green one and
the red one looked down, and the dirty one got up, stepped over the
dead one, and trotted softly away.
    "Man go," Oreb muttered, congratulating himself on having hit on
the right words; and because he liked announcing things, he
repeated more loudly, "Man go!"
    The result was gratifying. The green one sprang to his feet and
dashed after the dirty one. The black one shrieked and fluttered
after the green one, and the red one jiggled after them both, faster
than the black one but not as fast as the first two. For as long as it
might have taken one of his feathers to float to the tunnel floor,
Oreb preened, weighing the significance of these events.
    He had liked Auk and had felt that if he remained with Auk, Auk
would lead him to Silk. But Auk was gone, and the others were not
looking for him any more.
    Oreb glided down to a convenient perch on Dace's face and
dined, keeping a wary eye out. One never knew. Good came of bad,
and bad of good. Humans were both, and changeable in the
extreme, sleeping by day yet catching fish whose best parts they
generously shared.
    And - so on. His crop filled, Oreb meditated on these points
while cleaning his newly-bright bill with his feet.
    The dead one had been good. There could be no doubt about
that. Friendly in the reserved fashion Oreb preferred alive, and
delicious, dead. There was another one back there, but he was no
longer hungry. It was time to find Silk in earnest. Not just look.
Really find him. To leave this green hole and its living and dead humans.
    Vaguely, he recalled the night sky, the gleaming upside-down
country over his head, and the proper country below.
    The wind in trees. Drifting along with it looking for things of
interest. It was where Silk would be, and where he could be found.
Where a bird could fly high, see everything, and find Silk.
    Flying was not as easy as riding the red one's launcher, but flying
downwind through the tunnel permitted rests in which he had only
to keep his wings wide and sail along. There were twinges at times,
reminding him of the blue thing that had been there. He had never
understood what it was or why it had stuck to him.
    Downwind along this hole and that, through a little hole (he
landed and peered into it cautiously before venturing in himself)
and into a big one where dirty humans stretched on the ground or
prowled like cats, a hole lidded like a pot with the remembered sky
of night.

Sword in hand, Master Xiphias stood at the window looking at the
dark and empty street. Go home. That was what they'd told him.
    Go home, though it had not been quite so bluntly worded. That
dunce Bison, a fool who couldn't hold a sword correctly! That dunce
Bison, who seemed in charge of everything, had come by while he
was arguing with that imbecile Scale. Had smiled like friend and
admired his sword, and had only pretended - pretended! - to
believe him when he had stated (not boasting, just supplying a plain,
straightforward answer in response to direct, uninvited questions)
that he had killed five troopers in armor in Cage Street.
    Then Bison had - the old fencing master grinned gleefully - had
gaped like a carp when he, Xiphias, had parted a thumbthick rope
dangling from his, Bison's, hand. Had admired his sword and waved
it around like the ignorant boy he was, and had the gall to say in
many sweet words, go home like Scale says, old man. We don't need
you tonight, old man. Go home and eat, old man. Go home and
sleep. Get some rest, old man, you've had a big day.
    Bison's sweet words had faded and blown away, lighter and more
fragile than the leaves that whirled up the empty street. Their
import, bitter as gall, remained. He had been fighting - had been a
famous fighting man - when Bison was in diapers. Had been fighting
before Scale's mother had escaped her kennel to bump tails with
some filthy garbage-eating cur.
    Xiphias turned his back to the window and sat on the sill, his head
in his hands, his sword at his feet. He was no longer what he had
been thirty years ago, perhaps. No longer what he had been before
he lost his leg. But there wasn't a man in the city - not one! - who
dared cross blades with him.
    A knock at the front door, floating up the narrow stair from the
floor below.
    There would be no students tonight; his students would be
fighting on one side or the other; yet somebody wanted to see him.
Possibly Bison had realized the gravity of his error and come to
implore him to undertake some almost suicidal mission. He'd go,
but by High Hierax they'd have to beg first!
    He picked up his sword to return it to its place on the wall, then
changed his mind. In times like these - 
    Another knock.
    There had been somebody. A new student down for tonight,
came with Auk, tall, left-handed. Had studied with somebody else
but wouldn't admit it. Good though. Talented! Gifted, in fact.
Couldn't be here for his lesson, could he? With the city like this?
    A third knock, almost cursory. Xiphias returned to the window
and peered out.

Silk sighed. The house was dark; when he had been here before, the
second floor had blazed with light. He had been foolish to think that
the old man might be home after all.
    He knocked for the last time and turned away, only to hear a
window thrown open above him. "It's you! Good! Good!" The
window banged down. With speed that was almost comic, the door
flew wide. "Inside! Inside! Bolt it, will you? Is that a bird? A pet
bird? Upstairs!" Xiphias gestured largely with a saber, his shadow
leaping beside him; whipped by the night wind, his wild white hair
seemed to possess a life of its own.
    "Master Xiphias, I need your help."
    "Good man?" Oreb croaked.
    "A very good man," Silk assured him, hoping he was right; he
caught the good man's arm as he turned away. "I know I was
supposed to come tonight for another lesson, Master Xiphias. I
haven't. I can't, but I need your advice."
    "Been called out? Have to fight? What did I tell you? What
weapons?"
    "I'm very tired. Is there a place where we can sit down?"
    "Upstairs!" The old man bounded up them himself just as he had
on Sphixday night. Wearily, Silk followed.
    "Lesson first!" Lights kindled at the sound of the old man's voice,
brightened as he beat the wall with a foil.
    The traveling bag now held only the yellow tunic, yet it seemed as
heavy as a full one; Silk dropped it into a corner. "Master Xiphia - "
    He snatched down another foil and beat the wall with that as well.
"Been fighting?"
    "Not really. In a manner of speaking I have, I suppose."
    "Me too!" Xiphias tossed Silk the second foil. "Killed five. Ruins
you, fighting! Ruins your technique!"
    Oreb squawked, "Look out!" and flew as Silk ducked.
    "Don't cringe!" Another whistling cut, this one rattling on the
bamboo blade of Silk's foil. "What do you need, lad?"
    "A place to sit." He was tired, deadly tired; his chest throbbed and
his ankle ached. He parried and parried again, sickened by the
realization that the only way to get this mad old man to listen was to
defeat him or lose to him; and to lose (it was as if a god had
whispered it) tonight was death: the thing in him that had kept him
alive and functioning since he had been shot would die at his defeat,
and he soon after.
    Feinting and lunging, Silk fought for his life with the bamboo sword.
    Its hilt was just long enough for him to grip it with both hands,
and he did. Cut right and left and right again, beating down the old
man's guard. He was still stronger than any old man, however
strong, however active, and he drove him back and again back,
slashing and stabbing with frenzied speed.
    "Where'd you learn that two-handed thrust, lad? Aren't you
left-handed?"
    Dislodged from his waistband, Musk's needler fell to the mat. Silk
kicked it aside and snatched a second foil from the wall, parrying
with one, then the other, attacking with the free foil, right, left, and
right again. A vertical cut, and suddenly Xiphias's foot was on his
right-hand foil. The blunt tip of Xiphias's foil thumped his wound,
bringing excruciating pain.
    "What'll you charge, lad? For the lesson?"
    Silk shrugged, trying to hide the agony that lightest of blows had
brought. "I should pay you, sir. And you won."
    "Silk win!" Oreb proclaimed from the grip of a yataghan.
    Silk die, Silk thought. So be it.
    "I learned, lad! Know how long it's been since I had a student who
could teach me anything? I'll pay! Food? You hungry?"
    "I think so." Silk leaned upon his foil; in the same way that faces
from his childhood swam into his consciousness, he recalled that he
had once had a walking stick with the head of a lioness carved on its
handle - had leaned upon it like this the last time he had been here,
although he could not remember where he had acquired such a thing
or what had become of it.
    "Bread and cheese? Wine?"
    "Wonderful." Retrieving the traveling bag, he followed the old
man downstairs.
    The kitchen was at once disorderly and clean, glasses and dishes
and bowls, pots and ladles anywhere and everywhere, an iron
bread-pan already in the chair Xiphias offered, as if it fully expected
to join in their conversation, though it found itself banished to the
woodbox. Mismatched glasses crashed down on the table so violently
that for a moment Silk felt sure they had broken.
    "Have some? Red wine from the veins of heroes! Care for some?"
It was already gurgling into Silk's glass. "Got it from a student! Fact!
Paid wine! Ever hear of such a thing? Swore it was all good! Not so!
What do you think?"
    Silk sipped, then half emptied his glass, feeling that he was indeed
drinking from the flask that had dangled from his bedpost, drinking
new life.
    "Bird drink?"
    He nodded, and when he could find no napkin patted his mouth
with his handkerchief. "Could we trouble you for a cup of water,
Master Xiphias, for Oreb here?"
    The pump at the sink wheezed into motion. "You been out? City
in an uproar! Dodging! Throwing stones! Haven't thrown stones
since I was a sprat! Had a sling! You too? Better armed!" Crystal
water rushed forth like the old man's words until he had filled a
battered tankard. "This new cull, Silk! Going to show 'em! We'll
see... Fighting, fighting! Threw stones, ducked and yelled! Five
with my sword. I tell you? Know how to make a sling?"
    Silk nodded again, certain that he was being gulled but unresentful.
    "Me too! Used to be good with one!" The tankard arrived with a
cracked green plate holding a shapeless lump of white-rinded cheese
only slightly smaller than Silk's head. "Watch this!" Thrown from
across the room, a big butcher knife buried its blade in the cheese.
    "You asked whether I'd been out much tonight."
    "Think there's any real fighting now?" Abruptly, Xiphias found
himself siding with Bison. "Nothing! Nothing at all! Snipers shooting
shadows to keep awake." He paused, his face suddenly thoughtful.
"Can't see the other man's blade in the dark, can you? Interesting.
Interesting! Have to try it! A whole new field! What do you think?"
    The sight and the rich, corrupt aroma of the cheese had awakened
Silk's appetite. "I think that I'll have a piece," he replied with sudden
resolution. He was about to die - very well, but no god had
condemned him to die hungry. "Oreb, you like cheese, too, I know.
It was one of the first things you told me, remember?"
    "Want a plate?" It came with a quarter of what must have been a
gargantuan loaf on a nicked old board, and a bread knife nearly as
large as Auk's hanger. "All I've got! You eat at cookshops, mostly? I
do! Bad now! All shut!"
    Silk swallowed. "This is delicious cheese and wonderful wine. I
thank you for it, Master Xiphias and Feasting Phaea." Impelled by
habit, the last words had left his lips before he discovered that he did
not mean them.
    "For my lesson!" The old man dropped into a chair. "Can you
throw, lad? Knives and whatnot? Like I just did?"
    "I doubt it. I've never tried."
    "Want me to teach you? You're an augur?"
    Silk nodded again as he sliced bread.
    "So's this Silk! You know Bison? He told me! Told us all!"
Xiphias raised his glass, discovered he had neglected to fill it, and
did so. "Funny, isn't it? An augur! Heard about him? He's an
augur too!"
    Although his mouth watered for the bread, Silk managed, "That's
what they say."
    "He's here! He's there! Everybody knows him! Nobody knows
where he is! Going to do away with the Guard! Half's on his side
already! Ever hear such nonsense in your life? No taxes, but he'll
dig canals!" Master Xiphias made a rude noise. "Pas and the rest!
Could they do all that people want by this time tomorrow? You
know they couldn't!"
    Oreb hopped back onto Silk's shoulder. "Good drink!"
    He chewed and swallowed. "You should have some of this cheese,
too, Oreb. It's marvelous."
    "Bird full."
    Xiphias chortled. "Me too, Oreb! That's his name? Ate when I got
home! Ever see a shoat? Like that! All the meat, half the bread, and
two apples! Why'd you go out?"
    Silk patted his lips. "That was what I came to talk to you about,
Master Xiphias. I was on the East Edge - "
    "You walked?"
    "Walked and ran, yes."
    "No wonder you're limping! Wanted to sit, didn't you? I remember!"
    "There was no other way by which I might hope to reach the
Palatine," Silk explained, "but there were Guardsmen all along one
side of Box Street, and the rebels - General Mint's people - had
three times as many on the other, young men mostly, but women
and even children, too, though the children were mostly sleeping. I
had trouble getting across."
    "I'll lay you did!"
    "Maytera - General Mint's people wanted to take me to her when
they found out who I was. I had a hard time getting away from
them, but I had to. I have an appointment at Ermine's."
    "On the Palatine? You should've stayed with the Guard! Thousands
there! Know Skink? Tried about suppertime! Took a pounding! Two brigades!
Taluses, too!"
    Silk persevered. "But I must go there, without fighting if I can. I
must get to Ermine's." Before he could rein in his tongue he added,
"She might actually be there."
    "See a woman, eh, lad?" Xiphias's untidy beard rearranged
itself in a smile. "What if I tell old whatshisname? Old man,
purple robe?"
    "I had hoped - "
    "I won't! I won't! Forget everything anyhow, don't I? Ask
anybody! We going tomorrow? Need a place to sleep?"
    "Day sleep," Oreb advised.
    "Tonight," Silk told the old man miserably, "and only I am going.
But it has to be tonight. Believe me, I would postpone it until
morning if I could."
    "Drinking wine? No more for us!" Xiphias recorked the bottle and
set it on the floor beside his chair. "Watch your bird! Watch and
learn! Knows more than you, lad!"
    "Smart bird!"
    "Hear that? There you are!" Xiphias bounced out of his chair.
"Have an apple? Forgot 'em! Still a few." He opened the oven door
and banged it shut. "Not in there! Had to move 'em! Cooked the
meat! Where's Auk?"
    "I've no idea, I'm afraid." Silk cut himself a second, smaller piece
of cheese. "I hope he's home in bed. May I put that apple you're
looking for in my pocket? I appreciate it very much - I feel a great
deal better - but I must go. I wanted to ask whether you knew a
route to the Palatine that might be safer than the principal street - "
    "Yes, lad! I do, I do!" Triumphantly, Xiphias displayed a bright
red apple snatched from the potato bin.
    "Good man!"
    "And whether you could teach me a trick that might get me past
the fighters on both sides. I knew there must be such things, and
Auk would certainly know them; but it's a long way to the Orilla,
and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to find him. It occurred to me that
he'd probably learned many from someone else, and that you were a
likely source."
    "Need a teacher? Yes, you do! Glad you know it! Where's your
needler, lad?"
    For a moment Silk was nonplussed. "My - ? Right here in my
pocket." He held it up much as Xiphias had the apple. "It isn't
actually mine, however. It belongs to the young woman I'm to meet
at Ermine's."
    "Big one! I saw it! Fell out of your pants! Left it upstairs! Want me
to get it? Eat your cheese!"
    Xiphias darted through the kitchen door, and Silk heard him
clattering up the stair. "We must go, Oreb." He rose and dropped
the apple into a pocket of his robe. "He intends to go with us, and I
can't permit it." For a second his head spun; the walls of the kitchen
shook like jelly and revolved like a carousel before snapping back
into place.
    A dark little hallway beyond the kitchen door led to the stair, and
the door by which they had entered the house. He steadied himself
against the newel post, half hoping to hear the old man on the floor
above or even to see him descending again, but the old house could
not have been more silent if he and Oreb had been alone in it; it
puzzled him until he recalled the canvas mats on the floor of the salon.
    Unbolting the door, he stepped into the empty, skylit street. The
tunnels through which he had trudged for so many weary hours
presumably underlay the Palatine, as they seemed to underlie
everything; but they would almost certainly be patrolled by soldiers
like the one from whom he had escaped. He knew of no entrance
except Scylla's lakeshore shrine in any case, and was glad at that
moment that he did not. A big hole, Oreb had said. Was it possible
that Oreb, also, had wandered in those dread-filled tunnels?
    Shuddering at the memories he had awakened, Silk limped away
toward the Palatine with renewed determination, telling himself
that his ankle did not really hurt half so much as he believed it did.
His gaze was on the rutted potholed street, for he knew that despite
what he might tell himself, twisting his ankle would put an end to
walking; but regardless of all the self-discipline he brought to bear,
his thoughts threaded the tunnels once more, and hand-in-hand with
Mamelta reentered that curious structure (not unlike a tower, but a
tower thrust into the ground instead of rising into the air) that she
had called a ship, and again beheld below it emptiness darker than
any night and gleaming points of light that the Outsider - at his
enlightenment! - had indicated were whorls, whorls outside the
whorl, to which dead Pas and deathless Echidna, Scylla and her
siblings had never penetrated.

You was goin' to get me out. Said you would. Promised.
    Auk, who could not quite see Gelada, heard him crying in the
wind that filled the pitch-black tunnel, while Gelada's tears dripped
from the rock overhead. The two-card boots he had always kept
well greased were sodden above the ankle now. "Bustard?" he called
hopefully. "Bustard?"
    Bustard did not reply.
    You had the word, you said. Get me out O' here. "I saw you that
time, off to one side." Unable to remember when or where he had
said it last, Auk repeated, "I got eyes like a cat."
    It was not quite true because Gelada had vanished when he had
turned his head, yet it seemed a good thing to say. Gelada might
walk wide if he thought he was being watched.
    Auk? That your name? Auk? "Sure. I told you." Where's the
Juzgado, Auk? Lot o' doors down here. Which 'uns that 'un, Auk?
"I dunno. Maybe the same word opens 'em all."
    This was the widest tunnel he had seen, except he couldn't see
it. The walls to either side were lost in the dark, and he might, for
all he knew, be walking at a slant, might run into the wall
slantwise with any step. From time to time he waved his arms,
touching nothing. Oreb flapped ahead, or maybe it was a bat, or
nothing.
    (Far away a woman's voice called, "_Auk? Auk?_")
    The tunnel wall was aglow now, but still dark, dark with a
peculiar sense of light - a luminous blackness. The toe of one boot
kicked something solid, but his groping fingers found nothing.
    "Auk, my noctolater, are you lost?"
    The voice was near yet remote, a man's, deep and laden with sorrow.
    "No, I ain't. Who's that?"
    "Where are you going, Auk? Truthfully."
    "Looking for Bustard." Auk waited for another question, but none
came. The thing he had kicked was a little higher than his knees, flat
on top, large and solid feeling. He sat on it facing the luminous
dark, drew up his legs, and untied his boots. "Bustard's my brother,
older than me. He's dead now, took on a couple Hoppies and they
killed him. Only he's been down here with me a lot, giving me
advice and telling me stuff, I guess because this is under the ground
and it's where he lives on account of being dead."
    "He left you."
    "Yeah, he did. He generally does that if I start talking to
somebody else." Auk pulled off his right boot; his foot felt colder
than Dace had after Gelada killed him. "What's a noctolater?"
    "One who worships by night, as you worship me."
    Auk looked up, startled. "You a god?"
    "I am Tartaros, Auk, the god of darkness. I have heard you
invoke me many times, always by night."
    Auk traced the sign of addition in the air. "Are you standing over
there in the dark talking to me?"
    "It is always dark where I stand, Auk. I am blind."
    "I didn't know that." Black rams and lambs, the gray ram when
Patera Silk got home safely, once a black goat, first of all the pair of
bats he'd caught himself, surprised by day in the dark, dusty attic of
the palaestra and brought to Patera Pike, all for this blind god.
"You're a god. Can't you make yourself see?"
    "No." The hopeless negative seemed to fill the tunnel, hanging in
the blackness long after its sound had faded. "I am an unwilling god,
Auk. The only unwilling god. My father made me do this. If, as a
god, I might have healed myself, I would have obeyed very
willingly, I believe."
    "I asked my mother... Asked Maytera to bring a god down here
to walk with us. I guess she brought you."
    "No," Tartaros said again; then, "I come here often, Auk. It is the
oldest altar we have."
    "This I'm sitting on? I'll get off."
    (Again the woman's voice: "_Auk? Auk?_")
    "You may remain. I am also the sole humble god, Auk, or nearly."
    "If it's sacred..."
    "Wood was heaped upon it, and the carcasses of animals. You
profane it no more than they. When the first people came, Auk,
they were shown how we desired to be worshiped. Soon, they were
made to forget. They did, but because they had seen what they had
seen, a part of them remembered, and when they found our altars
on the inner surface, they sacrificed as we had taught them. First of
all, here."
    "I haven't got anything," Auk explained. "I used to have a bird,
but he's gone. I thought I heard a bat a little while ago. I'll try to
catch one, if you'd like that."
    "You think me thirsty for blood, like my sister Scylla."
    "I guess. I was with her awhile." Auk tried to remember when that
had been; although he recalled incidents - seeing her naked on a
white stone and cooking fish for her - the days and the minutes
slipped and slid.
    "What is it you wish, Auk?"
    Suddenly he was frightened. "Nothing really, Terrible Tartaros."
    "Those who offer us sacrifice always wish something, Auk. Often,
many things. Rain, in your city and many others."
    "It's raining down here already, Terrible Tartaros."
    "I know, Auk."
    "If you're blind..."
    "Can you see it, Auk?"
    He shook his head. "It's too shaggy dark."
    "But you hear it. Hear the slow splash of the falling drops kissing
the drops that fell."
    "I feel it, too," Auk told the god. "Every once in a while one goes
down the back of my neck."
    "What is it you wish, Auk?"
    "Nothing, Terrible Tartaros." Shivering, Auk wrapped himself in
his own arms.
    "All men wish for something, Auk. Most of all, those who say
they wish for nothing."
    "I don't, Terrible Tartaros. Only if you want me to, I'll wish for
something for you. I'd like something to eat."
    Silence answered him.
    "Tartaros? Listen, if this's a altar I'm sitting on and you're here
talking to me, shouldn't there be a Sacred Window around here
someplace?"
    "There is, Auk. You are addressing it. I am here."
    Auk took off his left boot. "I got to think about that."
    Maytera Mint had taught him all about the gods, but it seemed to
him that there were really two kinds, the ones she had told about,
the gods in his copybook, and the real ones like Scylla when she'd
been inside Chenille, and this Tartaros. The real kind were a lot
bigger, but the ones in his copybook had been better, and stronger
somehow, even if they were not real.
    "Terrible Tartaros?"
    "Yes, Auk, my noctolater, what is it you wish?"
    "The answers to a couple questions, if that's all right. Lots of times
you gods answer questions for augurs. I know I'm not no augur. So
is it all right for me to ask you, 'cause we haven't got one here?"
    Silence, save for the ever-present splashings, and the woman's
voice, sad and hoarse and very far away.
    "How come I can't see your Window, Terrible Tartaros? That's
my first one, if that's all right. I mean, usually they're sort of gray,
but they shine in the dark. So am I blind, too?"
    Silence fell again. Auk chafed his freezing feet with his hands.
Those hands had glowed like molten gold, not long ago; now they
were not even warm.
    "I guess you're waiting for the other question? Well, what I
wanted to know is how come I hear words and everything? At this
palaestra I went to, Maytera said when we got bigger we wouldn't
be able to make sense out of the words if a god ever came to our
Sacred Window, just sort of know what he meant and maybe catch a
couple of words once in a while. Then when Kypris came, it was just
like what Maytera'd said it was going to be. Sometimes I felt like I
could practically see her, and there was a couple words she said that
I heard just as clear as I ever heard anybody, Terrible Tartaros. She said
_love_ and _robbery_, and I knew it. I knew both those words. And
I knew she was telling us it was all right, she loved us and she'd
protect us, only we had to believe in her. But when you talk, it's like
you were a man just like me or Bustard, standing right here with me."
    No voice replied. Auk let out his breath with a whoosh, and put
his freezing fingers in armpits for a moment or two, and then began
to wring out his stockings.
    "You yourself have never seen a god in a Window, Auk my noctolater?"
    Auk shook his head. "Not real clear, Terrible Tartaros. I sort of
saw Kindly Kypris just a little, though, and that's good enough for me."
    "Your humility becomes you, Auk."
    "Thanks." Lost in thought, Auk reflected on his own life and
character, the limp stocking still in his hand. At length he said, "It's
never done me a lot of good, Terrible Tartaros, only I guess I never
really had much."
    "If an augur sees the face and hears the words of a god, Auk, he
sees and hears because he has never known Woman. A sibyl, also,
may see and hear a god, provided that she has not known Man.
Children who have never known either may see us as well. That is
the law fixed by my mother, the price that she demanded for
accepting the gift my father offered. And though her law does not
function as she intended in every instance, for the most part it
functions well enough."
    "All right," Auk said.
    "The faces we had as mortals have rotted to dust, and the voices
we once possessed have been still for a thousand years. No augur,
no sibyl in the _Whorl_, has ever seen or heard them. What your
augurs and sibyls see, if they see anything, is the self-image of the
god who chooses to be seen. You say that you could nearly make
out the face of my father's concubine. The face you nearly saw was
her own image of herself, her self as she imagines that self to
appear. I feel confident that it was a beautiful face. I have never met
any woman more secure in her own vanity. In the same fashion, we
sound to them as we conceive our voices to sound. Have I made
myself clear to you, Auk?"
    "No, Terrible Tartaros, 'cause I can't see you."
    "What you see, Auk, is that part of me which can be seen. That is
to say, nothing. I came blind from the womb, Auk, and because of it
I am incapable of formulating a visual image for you. Nor can I show
you the Holy Hues, which are my brother's and my sisters' thoughts
before they have coalesced. Nor can I exhibit to you any face at all,
whether lovely or terrible. You see the face I envision when I think
upon my own. That is to say, nothing. When I depart, you will
behold once more the luminous gray you mention."
    "I'd rather you stayed around awhile, Terrible Tartaros. If
Bustard ain't going to come back, I like having you with me." Auk
licked his lips. "Probably I oughtn't to say this, but I don't mean any
harm by it."
    "Speak, Auk, my noctolater."
    "Well, if I could scheme out some way to help you, I'd do it."
    There was silence again, a silence that endured so long that Auk
feared that the god had returned to Mainframe; even the distant
woman's voice was silent.
    "You asked by what power you hear my words as words, Auk, my noctolater."
    He breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, I guess I did."
    "It is not uncommon. My mother's law has lost its hold on you,
because there is something amiss with your mind."
    Auk nodded. "Yeah, I know. I fell off our tall ass when he got hit
with a rocket, and I guess I must've landed on my head. Like, it
don't bother me that Bustard's dead, only he's down here talking to
me. Only I know it would've in the old days. I don't worry about
Jugs, either, like I ought to. I love her, and maybe that cull Urus's
trying to jump her right now, but she's a whore anyhow." Auk
shrugged. "I just hope he don't hurt her."
    "You cannot live in these tunnels, Auk, my noctolater. There is
no food for you here."
    "Me and Bustard'll try to get out, soon as I find him," Auk promised.
    "If I were to possess you, I might be able to heal you, Auk."
    "Go ahead, then."
    "We would be blind, Auk. As blind as I. Because I have never had
eyes of my own, I could not look out through yours. But I shall go
with you, and guide you, and use your body to heal you, if I can.
Look upon me, Auk."
    "There's nothing to see," Auk protested.
    But there was: a stammering light so filled with hope and pleasure
and wonder that Auk would willingly have seen nothing else, if only
he could have watched it forever.

"If you're actually Patera Silk," the young woman at the barricade
told him, "they'll kill you the minute you step out there."
    "No step," Oreb muttered. And again, "No step."
    "Very possibly they would," Silk conceded. "As in fact they almost
certainly will - unless you're willing to help."
    "If you're Silk you wouldn't have to ask me or my people for
anything." Uneasily she studied the thin, ascetic face revealed by the
bright skylight. "If you're Silk, you are our commander and even
General Mint must answer to you. You could just tell us, and we'd
have to do whatever you said."
    Silk shook his head. "I am Silk, but I can't prove that here. You
would have to find someone you trust who knows me and can
identify me, and that would consume more time than I have; so I'm
begging you instead. Assume - though I swear to you that this is
contrary to fact - that I am not Silk. That I am - this, of course, is
entirely factual - a poor young augur in urgent need of your
assistance. If you won't help me for my sake, or for that of the god I
serve, do so for your own, I implore you."
    "I can't launch an attack without an order from Brigadier Bison."
    "You shouldn't," Silk told her, "with one. There's an armored
floater behind those sandbags. I can see the turret above them. If
your people attacked, they would be advancing into its fire, and I've
seen what a buzz gun can do."
    The young woman drew herself up to her full height, which was a
span and a half less than his own. "We will attack if we are ordered
to do so, Calde."
    Oreb bobbed his approbation. "Good girl!"
    Looking at the sleeping figures behind the barricade, children
of fifteen and fourteen, thirteen and even twelve, Silk shook his head.
    "They're pretty young." (The young woman could not have been
more than twenty herself.) "But they'll fight if they're led, and I'll
lead them." When Silk said nothing, she added "That's not all. I've
got a few men, too, and some slug guns. Most of the women - the
other women, I ought to say - are working in the fire companies.
You were surprised to find me in command, but General Mint's a woman."
    "I am surprised at that, as well," Silk told her.
    "Men want to fight a male officer. Besides, the women of
Trivigaunte are famous troopers, and we women of Viron are in no
way inferior to them!"
    Recalling Doctor Crane, Silk said, "I'd like to believe that our
men are as brave as theirs, as well."
    The young woman was shocked. "They're slaves!"
    "Have you been there?"
    She shook her head.
    "Neither have I. Surely then it's pointless for us to discuss their
customs. A moment ago you called me Calde. Did you mean
that...?"
    "Lieutenant. I'm Lieutenant Liana now. I used the title as a
courtesy, nothing more. If you want my opinion, I think you're who
you say you are. An augur wouldn't lie about that, and there's the
bird. They say you've got a pet bird."
    "Silk here," the bird informed her.
    "Then do as I ask. Do you have a white flag?"
    "For surrender?" Liana was offended. "Certainly not!"
    "To signal a truce. You can make one by tying a white rag to a
stick. I want you to wave it and call to them, on the other side. Tell
them there's an augur here who's brought the pardon of Pas to your
wounded. That's entirely true, as you know. Say he wants to cross
and do the same for theirs."
    "They'll kill you when they find out who you are."
    "Perhaps they won't find out. I promise you that I won't volunteer
the information."
    Liana ran her fingers through her tousled hair; it was the same
gesture he used in the grip of indecision. "Why me? No, Calde, I
can't let you risk yourself."
    "You can," he told her. "What you cannot do is maintain that
position with even an appearance of logic. Either I am calde or I am
not. If I am, it is your duty to obey any order I give. If I'm not, the
life of the calde is not at risk."
    A few minutes later, as she and a young man called Linsang
helped him up the barricade, Silk wondered whether he had been
wise to invoke logic. Logic condemned everything he had done since
Oosik had handed him Hyacinth's letter. When Hyacinth had
written, the city had been at peace, at least relatively. She had no
doubt expected to shop on the Palatine, stay the night at Ermine's,
and return - 
    "No fall," Oreb cautioned him.
    He was trying not to. The barricade had been heaped up from
anything and everything: rubble from ruined buildings, desks and
counters from shops, beds, barrels, and bales piled upon one
another without any order he could discern.
    He paused at the top, waiting for a shot. The troopers behind the
sandbag redoubt had been told he was an augur, and might know of
the Prolocutor's letter by this time. Seeing Oreb, they might know
which augur he was, as well.
    And shoot. It would be better, perhaps, to fall backward toward
Liana and Linsang if they did - better, certainly, to jump that way if
they missed.
    No shot came; he began a cautious descent, slightly impeded by
the traveling bag. Oosik had not killed him because Oosik had taken
the long view, had been at least as much politician as trooper, as
every high-ranking officer no doubt had to be. The officer commanding
the redoubt would be younger, ready to obey the orders of
the Ayuntamiento without question.
    Yet here he was.
    Once invoked, logic was like a god. One might entreat a god to
visit one's Window; but if a god came it could not be dismissed, nor
could any message that it vouchsafed mankind be ignored, suppressed,
or denied. He had invoked logic, and logic told him that he
should be in bed in the house that had become Oosik's temporary
headquarters - that he should be getting the rest and care he needed
so badly.
    "He knew I'd go, Oreb." Something closed his throat; he coughed
and spat a soft lump that could have been mucus. "He'd read her
letter before he came in, and he's seen her." Silk found that he could
not, even now, bring himself to mention that Oosik had lain with
Hyacinth. "He knew I'd go, and take his problem with me."
    "Man watch," Oreb informed him.
    He paused again scanning the sandbag wall but unable to
distinguish, at this distance, rounded sandbags from helmeted
heads. "As long as they don't shoot," he muttered.
    "No shoot."
    This stretch of Gold Street had been lined with jewelers, the
largest and richest shops nearest the Palatine, the richest of all
clinging to the skirts of the hill itself, so that their patrons could
boast of buying their bangles "uphill." Most of the shops were empty
now, their grills and bars torn from their fronts by a thousand arms,
their gutted interiors guarded only by those who had died defending
or looting them. Beyond the redoubt, other richer shops waited, still
intact. Silk tried and failed to imagine the children over whose
recumbent bodies he had stepped looting them. They would not, of
course. They would charge, fight, and very quickly die at Liana's
order, and she with them. The looters would follow - if they
succeeded. This body (Silk crouched to examine it) was that of a boy
of thirteen or so; one side of his face had been shot away.
    He had not been on Gold Street often; but he was certain that it
had never been this long, or half this wide.
    Here a trooper of the Guard and a tough-looking man who might
have been the one who had questioned him after Kypris's
theophany lay side-by-side, their knives in each other's ribs.
    "Patera!" It was the rasping voice that had answered Liana's hail.
    "What is it, my son?"
    "Hurry up, will you!"
    He broke into a trot, though not without protest from his ankle.
When he had feared a shot at any moment, this lowest slope of the
Palatine had been very steep; now he was scarcely conscious of its grade.
    "Here. Grab my hand."
    The Guard's redoubt was only half the height of the rebel
barricade, although it was (as Silk saw when he had scrambled to the
top) rather thicker. Its front was nearly sheer, its back stepped for
the troopers who would fire over it.
    The one who had helped him up said, "Come on. I don't know
how long he'll last."
    Silk nodded, out of breath from his climb and afraid he had torn
the stitches in his lung. "Take me to him."
    The trooper jumped from the sandbag step; Silk followed more
circumspectly. There were sleepers here as well, a score of armored
Guardsmen lying in the street wrapped in blankets that were
probably green but looked black in the skylight.
    "They going to rush us, over there?" the trooper asked.
    "No. Not tonight, I'd say - tomorrow morning, perhaps."
    The trooper grunted. "Slugs'll go right through a lot of that stuff in
their fieldwork. I been lookin' it over, and there's a lot of furniture
in there. Boards no thicker than your thumb in junk like that. I'm
Sergeant Eft."
    They shook hands, and Silk said, "I was thinking the same thing as
I climbed over it, Sergeant. There are heavier things as well,
though, and even the chairs and so forth must obstruct your view."
    Eft snorted. "They got nothin' I want to see."
    That could not be said of the Guard, as Silk realized as soon as he
looked past the floater. A talus had been posted at an intersection a
hundred paces uphill, its great, tusked head (so like that of the one
he had killed beneath Scylla's shrine that he could have believed
them brothers) swiveling to peer down each street in turn. Liana
would have been interested in it, he thought, if she did not know
about it already.
    "In here." Eft opened the door of one of the dark shops; his voice
and the thump of the door brightened lights inside, where troopers
stripped of parts of their armor and more or less bandaged lay on
blankets on a terrazzo floor. One moaned, awakened by the noise
or the lights; two, it seemed, were not breathing. Silk knelt by the
nearest, feeling for a pulse.
    "Not him. Over here."
    "All of them," Silk said. "I'm going to bring the Pardon of Pas to all of
them, and I won't do it en masse. There's no justification for that."
    "Most's already had it. He has."
    Silk looked up at the sergeant, but there was no judging his
truthfulness from his hard, ill-favored face. Silk rose. "This man's
dead, I believe."
    "All right, we'll get him out of here. Come over here. He's not."
Eft was standing beside the man who had moaned.
    Silk knelt again. The injured man's skin was cold to his touch.
"You're not keeping him warm enough, Sergeant."
    "You a doctor, too?"
    "No, but I know something about caring for the sick. An augur must."
    "No hurt." Oreb hopped from Silk's shoulder to the injured man's
chest. "No blood."
    "Leave him alone, you silly bird."
    "No hurt!" Oreb whistled. "No blood!"
    A bald man no taller than Liana stepped from behind one of the
empty showcases. Although he held a slug gun, he was not in armor
or even in uniform. "He - he isn't, Patera. Isn't wounded. At least
he doesn't - I couldn't find a thing. I think it must be his heart."
    "Get a blanket," Silk told Eft. "Two blankets. Now!"
    "I don't take orders from any shaggy butcher."
    "Then his death will be on your head, Sergeant." Silk took his
beads from his pocket. "Bring two blankets. Three wouldn't be too
many. The men watching the rebels can spare theirs, surely. Three
blankets and clean water."
    He bent over the injured man, his prayer beads dangling in the
approved fashion from his right hand. "In the names of all the gods
you are forgiven forever, my son. I speak here for Great Pas, for
Divine Echidna, for Scalding Scylla, for Marvelous Molpe..."
    The names rolled from his tongue, each with its sonorous
honorific, names empty or freighted with horror. Pas, whose Plan
the Outsider had endorsed, was dead; Echidna a monster. The
ghost that haunted Silk's mind now, as he spoke and swung his
beads, was not Doctor Crane's but that of the handsome, brutal
chem who had believed himself Councillor Lemur.
    "The monarch wanted a son to succeed him," the false Lemur had
said. "Scylla was as strong-willed as the monarch himself but female.
Her father allowed her to found our city, however, and many
others. She founded your Chapter as well, a parody of the state
religion of her own whorl. His queen bore the monarch another
child, but she was worse yet, a fine dancer and a skilled musician,
but female, too, and subject to fits of insanity. We call her Molpe.
The third was male, but no better than the first two because he was
born blind. He became that Tartaros to whom you were recommending
yourself, Patera. You believe he can see without light. The
truth is that he cannot see by daylight. Echidna conceived again,
and bore another male, a healthy boy who inherited his father's
virile indifference to the physical sensations of others to the point of
mania. We call him Hierax now - "
    And this boy over whom he bent and traced sign after sign of
addition was nearly dead. Possibly - just possibly - he might derive
comfort from the liturgy, and even strength. The gods whom he had
worshiped might be unworthy of his worship, or of anyone's; but the
worship itself must have counted for something, weighed in some
scales somewhere, surely. It had to, or else the Whorl was mad.
    "The Outsider likewise forgives you, my son, for I speak here for
him, too." A final sign of addition and it was over. Silk sighed,
shivered, and put away his beads.
    "The other one didn't say that," the civilian with the slug gun told
him. "That last."
    He had waited so long in fear of some such remark that it came
now as an anticlimax. "Many augurs include the Outsider among the
minor gods," he explained, "but I don't. His heart? Is that what you
said? He's very young for heart problems."
    "His name's Cornet Mattak. His father's a customer of mine." The
little jeweler leaned closer. "That sergeant, he killed the other one."
    "The other - ?"
    "Patera Moray. He told me his name. We chatted awhile when
he'd said the prayers of the Pardon, and I - I -  And I - " Tears
flooded the jeweler's eyes, abrupt and unexpected as the gush from
a broken jar. He took out a blue handkerchief and blew his nose.
    Silk bent over the cornet again, searching for a wound.
    "I said I'd give him a chalice. To catch the blood, you know what I mean?"
    "Yes," Silk said absently. "I know what they're for."
    "He said theirs was yellow pottery, and I said - said - "
    Silk rose and picked up the small traveling bag. "Where is his
body? Are you certain he's dead?" Oreb fluttered back to his shoulder.
    The jeweler wiped his eyes and nose. "Is he dead? Holy Hierax! If
you'd seen him, you wouldn't ask. He's out in the alley. That
sergeant came in while we were talking and shot him. In my own
store! He dragged him out there afterward."
    "Show him to me, please. He brought the Pardon of Pas to all
these others? Is that correct?"
    Leading Silk past empty display cases toward the back of the
shop, the jeweler nodded.
    "Cornet Mattak hadn't been wounded then?"
    "That's right." The jeweler pushed aside a black velvet curtain,
revealing a narrow hallway. They passed a padlocked iron door and
stopped before a similar door that was heavily barred. "I said when
all this is over and things have settled down, I'll give you a gold one.
I was still emptying out my cases, you see, while he was bringing
them the Pardon. He said he'd never seen so much gold, and they
were saving for a real gold chalice. They had one at his manteion, he
said, before he came, but they'd had to sell it."
    "I understand."
    The jeweler took down the second bar and stood it against the wall.
"So I said, when this is over I'll give you one to remember tonight by.
I've got a nice one that I've had about a year, plain gold but not plain
looking, you know what I mean? He smiled when I said that."
    The iron door swung open with a creak of dry hinges that
reminded Silk painfully of the garden gate at the manse.
    "I said, you come into the strong room with me, Patera, and I'll
show it to you. He put his hand on my shoulder then and said, my
son, don't consider yourself bound by this. You haven't sworn by a
god, and - and - "
    "Let me see him." Silk stepped outside into the alley.
    "And then the sergeant came in and shot him," the jeweler
finished. "So don't you go back inside, Patera."
    In the chill evil-smelling darkness, someone was murmuring the
prayer that Silk himself had just completed. He caught the names of
Phaea and Sphigx, followed by the conventional closing phrase. The
voice was an old man's; for an eerie moment, Silk felt that it was
Patera Pike's.
    His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the alley by the time the
kneeling figure stood. "You're in terrible danger here," Silk said,
and bit back the stooped figure's title just in time.
    "So are you, Patera," Quetzal told him.
    Silk turned to the jeweler. "Go inside and bar the door, please. I
must speak to the - to my fellow augur. Warn him."
    The jeweler nodded, and the iron door closed with a crash,
leaving the alley darker than ever.
    For a few seconds, Silk assumed that he had simply lost sight of
Quetzal in the darkness; but he was no longer there. Patera Moray - of
an age, height, and weight indeterminable without more light - lay
on his back in the filthy mud of the alley, his beads in his hands
and his arms neatly folded across his torn chest, alone in the final
solitude of death.

               Chapter 7  -  Where Thelx Holds Up a Mirror

Silk stopped to look at Ermine's imposing facade. Ermine's had
been built as a private house, or so it appeared - built for someone
with a bottomless cardcase and a deep appreciation of pillars,
arches, friezes, and cornices and the like; features he had previously
seen only as fading designs painted on the otherwise stark fronts of
shiprock buildings were real here in a jungle of stone that towered
fully five stories. A polished brass plaque of ostentatiously modest
proportions on the wide green front door announced: "Ermine's
Hotel."
    Who, Silk wondered almost idly, had Ermine been? Or was he
still alive? If so, might Linsang be a poor relation - or even a rich
one who had turned against the Ayuntamiento? And what about
Patera Gulo? Stranger things had happened.
    Though he felt cold, his hands were clammy; he groped for his
robe before remembering that it was back in the borrowed traveling
bag with the borrowed blue tunic, and wiped his hands on the yellow
one he was wearing instead.
    "Go in?" Oreb inquired.
    "In a minute." He was procrastinating and knew it. This was
Ermine's, the end of dreams, the shadeup of waking. If he was
lucky, he would be recognized and shot. If he was not, he would find
Thelxiepeia's image and wait until Ermine's closed, for even
Ermine's must close sometime. An immensely superior servant
would inform him icily that he would have to leave. He would stand,
and look about him one last time, and try to hold the servant in
conversation to gain a few moments more.
    After that, he would have to go. The street would be gray with
morning and very cold. He would hear Ermine's door shut firmly
behind him, the snick of the bolt and the rattle of the bar. He would
look up and down the street and see no Hyacinth, and no one who
could be carrying a message from her.
    Then it would be over. Over and dead and done with, never to
live again. He would recall his longing as something that had once
occupied an augur whose name chanced to be his, Silk, a name not
common but by no means outlandish. (The old calde, whose bust his
mother had kept at the back of her closet, had been - what? Had he
been Silk, too? No, Tussah; but tussah was another costly fabric.)
He would try to bring peace and to save his manteion, fail at both,
and die.
    "Go in?"
    He wanted to say that they were indeed going in, but found
himself too dismayed to speak. A man with a pheasant's feather in
his hat and a fur cape muttered, "Pardon me," and shouldered past.
A footman in livery (presumably the supercilious servant envisioned
a few seconds before) opened the door from inside.
    Now. Or not at all. Leave or send a message. Preserve the illusion.
    "Are you coming in, sir?"
    "Yes," Silk said. "Yes, I am. I was wondering about my pet,
though. If there are objections, I'll leave him outside."
    "None, sir," A faint, white smile touched the footman's narrow
lips like the tracery of frost upon a windowpane. "The ladies not
infrequently bring animals, sir. Boarhounds, sir. Monkeys. Your
bird cannot be worse. But, sir, the door..."
    It was open, of course. The night was chill, and Ermine's would
be comfortably warm, rebellion or no rebellion. Silk climbed the
steps to the green door, discovering that Liana's barricade had been
neither higher nor steeper.
    "This is your first visit to Ermine's, I take it, sir?"
    Silk nodded. "I'm to meet a lady here."
    "I quite understand, sir. This is our anteroom, sir." There were
sofas and stiff-looking chairs. "It is principally for the removal of
one's outer garments, sir. They are left in the cloakroom. You may
check your bag there, if you so desire. There is no hospitality here in
the anteroom, sir, but one can observe all the guests who enter or depart."
    "Good man?" Oreb studied the footman through one bright, black
eye. "Like bird?"
    "Tonight, sir," the footman leaned nearer Silk, and his voice
became confidential, "I might be able to fetch you some refreshment
myself, however. We've little patronage tonight. The unrest."
    "Thank you," Silk said. "Thank you very much. But no."
    "Beyond the anteroom, sir, is our sellaria. The chairs are rather
more comfonable, sir, and there is hospitality as well. Some
gentlemen read."
    "Suppose I go into your seilaria and turn to the right," Silk
inquired, "where would I be then?"
    "In the Club, sir. Or if one turns less abruptly, in the Glasshouse,
sir. There are nooks, sir. Benches and settees. There is hospitality,
sir, but it is infrequent."
    "Thank you," Silk said, and hurried away.
    Strange to think that this enormous room, a room that held fifty
chairs or more, with half that many diminutive tables and scores of
potted plants, statues, and fat-bellied urns, should be called by the
same name as his musty little sitting room at the manse. Swerving to
his right he wound among them, worrying that he had turned too
abruptly and feeling that he walked in a dream through a house of
giants - while politely declining the tray proffered by a deferential
waiter. All the chairs he saw were empty; a table with a glass top
scarcely bigger than the seat of a milking stool held wads of
crumpled paper and a sheet half covered with script, the only signs
of human habitation.
    A wall loomed before him like the face of a mountain, or more
accurately, like a fog bank through rents in which might be glimpsed
scenes of unrelated luxury that were in truth its pictures. He veered
left, and after another twenty strides caught sight of a marble arch
framing a curtain of leaves.
    It had been as warm as he had expected in the sellaria; passing
through the arch he entered an atmosphere warmer still, humid, and
freighted with exotic perfumes. A moth with mauve-and-gray wings
larger than his palms fluttered before his face to light on a purple
flower the size of a soup tureen. A path surfaced with what seemed
precious stones, narrower even than the graveled path through the
garden of his manteion, vanished after a step or two among vines
and dwarfish trees. The music of falling water was everywhere.
    "Good place," Oreb approved.
    It was, Silk thought. It was stranger and more dream-like than the
sellaria, but more friendly and more human, too. The sellaria had
been a vision of opulence bordering on nightmare; this was a gentler
one of warmth and water, sunshine and lush fertility, and though
this glass-roofed garden might be used for vicious purposes, sunshine
and fertility, water and warmth were things in themselves
good; their desirability could only be illustrated more clearly by the
proximity of evil. "I like it," he whispered to Oreb. "Hyacinth must
too, or she wouldn't have told me to meet her here, where all this
would surely dim the beauty of a woman less lovely."
    The sparkling path divided. He hesitated, then turned to his right.
A few steps more, and there was no light save that from the skylands
floating above the whorl. "His Cognizance would like this as much as
we do, I believe, Oreb. I've been in his garden at the Palace, and
this reminds me of it, though that's an open-air garden, and this
can't be nearly as large."
    Here was a seat for two, masterfully carved from a single block of
myrtle. He halted to stare at it, longing to sit but restrained by the
fear that he would be unable to stand again. "We have to find this
image of Thelxiepeia," he muttered, "and there must be places to sit
there. Hyacinth won't come. She's at Blood's in the country, she's
bound to be. But we can rest there awhile."
    A new voice, obsequious and affected, murmured, "I _beg_ your
pardon, sir."
    "Yes, what is it?" Silk turned.
    A waiter had come up behind him. "I'm rather embarrassed, sir. I
really don't know quite how to phrase it."
    "Am I not supposed to be in here now?" As Silk asked, he
resolved not to leave without a fight; they might overwhelm him
with a mob of waiters and footmen, but they would have to - no
mere order or argument would suffice.
    "Oh, no, sir!" The waiter looked horrified. "It's quite all right."
    The desperate struggle Silk had visualized faded into the mist of
unactualized eventualities.
    "There is a gendeman, sir. A very tall gentleman, sir, with a long
face? Rather a sad face, if I may say so, sir. He's in the Club."
    "No go," Oreb announced firmly.
    "He would not give me his name, sir. He said it was not relevant."
The waiter cleared his throat. "He would not give your name either,
sir, but he described you. He said that I was to say nothing if you
were with someone, sir. I was only to offer to bring you and anyone
who might be in your company refreshment, for which he would
pay. But that if I found you alone, I was to invite you to join him."
    Silk shook his head. "I have no idea who this gentleman is. Do
you?"
    "No, sir. He is not a regular patron. sir. I don't think I've ever
seen him before."
    "Do you know the figure of Thelxiepela, waiter? Here in the
Glasshouse?"
    "Certainly, sir. The tall gentleman instructed me to look for you
there, sir."
    Colonel Oosik was tall, Silk reflected, though so massive that his
height had not been very noticeable; but Oosik could scarcely be
called long-faced. Since only he and Captain Gecko had read
Hyacinth's letter, the long-faced man was presumably Gecko. "Tell
him I can't join him in the Club," Silk said, choosing his words.
"Express my regrets. Tell him I'll be at the figure of Thelxiepeia. and
I'm alone. He may speak to me there if he chooses."
    "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. May I get you anything, sir? I could
bring it there."
    Silk shook his head impatiently.
    "Very well, sir. I will deliver your message."
    "Wait a moment. What time is it?"
    The waiter looked apologetic. "I have no watch, sir."
    "Of course not. Neither do I. Approximately."
    "I looked at the barman's clock, sir, only a minute or two before I
came here. It was five until twelve then, sir."
    "Thank you," Silk said, and sat down on the carved wooden seat
without a thought about the difficulty of getting up.
    _Hieraxday_, Hyacinth's letter said. He tried to recall her exact
words and failed, but he remembered their import. She had
mentioned no time, perhaps intending late afternoon, when she
would have finished her shopping. The barman's clock was in the
Club, no doubt; and the Club would be a drinking place, primarily
for men - a rich man's version of the Cock, where he had found
Auk. The waiter was unlikely to have glanced at the barman's clock
after speaking to the long-faced man, whoever he was; so it had
probably been ten minutes or more since he had noticed the time.
Hieraxday was past. This was Thelxday, and if Hyacinth had waited
for him (which was highly unlikely) he had not come.

"Hello, Jugs," Auk said, emerging from the darkness of a side
tunnel. "He wants us to work on Pas's Plan."
    Chenille whirled. "Hackum! I've been looking all over for you!"
She ran to him, surprising him, threw her arms around him, and
wept.
"Now," he said. "Now, now, Jugs. Now, now." She had been
unhappy, and he knew it and knew that in some ill-defined and
troubling way it was his fault, although he had meant her no harm,
had wished her well and thought of her with kindness when he bad
thought of her at all. "Excuse," he muttered, and let go of Tartaros's
hand to embrace her with both arms.
    When at last she ceased sobbing, he kissed her as tenderly as he
could, a kiss she returned passionately. She wiped her eyes, sniffled,
and gulped, "Oh, Hierax! Hackum, I missed you so much! I've been
so lonesome and scared. Hug me."
    This baffled him, because he already was. He tried, "I'm sorry,
Jugs," and when it seemed to do no good, "I won't ever leave you
again unless you want me to."
    She nodded and swallowed. "It's all right, as long as you keep
coming back."
    He noticed her ring. "Didn't I give you that?"
    "Yeah, thanks." Stepping back, she held it up to show it off better,
although the bleared greenish lights could never do it justice. "I love
it, but you can have it back anytime if you need the gelt."
    "I'm flush, but I gave it to you?"
    "You forget, huh?" She looked at him searchingly. "On account of
hitting your head. Or maybe a god got you like Kypris did me? It's
still pretty hard for me to remember lots of things that happened
when she was boss, or Scylla."
    Auk shook his head, and found that it no longer ached. "I've
never had no god bossing me, Jugs, or wanted to either. That's lily.
I never even knew about Kypris, but you were a lot different when
you were Scylla."
    "Some of that was me, I think. Hold me tighter, won't you? I'm
really cold."
    "Your sunburn don't hurt any more?"
    She shook her head. "Not much. I'm starting to peel a little.
The bird was pulling on the peels before he left, only I made him
stop."
    Auk looked around. "Where is he?"
    "With Patera and Stony, I guess. That Urus beat the hoof and they
took off after him. Me, too, only we came to a split in the tunnel,
you know?"
    "Sure. I've seen a lot of them."
    "And then I thought, they're not going to look for Auk anymore,
and that's what I want to do. So I sort of slowed down, and when
they went one way I went the other. I guess the bird went with
them."
    "That was you I heard calling me."
    Chenille nodded. "Yeah. I yelled until my pipe gave out. Oh,
Hackum, I'm so glad I found you!"
    "We found you," he told her seriously. "Why I ran off, Jugs..."
He fell silent, massaging his big jaw.
    "You saw somebody, Hackum. Or anyhow you thought you did. I
could see that, and Patera said so, too."
    "Yeah. My brother Bustard. He's dead, see? Only he was down
here talking to me. I was going to say he wasn't really, I just sort of
dreamed it, only now I'm not so sure. Maybe he was. Know what I mean?"
    The gray shiprock walls seemed to press in upon her. "I think so,
Hackum."
    "Then he went away, and I missed him a lot, just like when he
died. So then when I saw him again, maybe it was a couple, three
hours later, I waved and yelled and tried to catch up, only I never
did. Then I got lost, but I didn't care because I was looking for
Bustard, and he could've been anywhere. Then I ran into this god.
Into Tartaros. Mostly I call him Terrible Tartaros, 'cause I can't say
the other right."
    "You met a god, Hackum? Like you'd meet somebody in the
street, you mean?"
    "Sort of." Auk sat down on the tunnel floor. "Jugs, will you sit on
my lap, the way you used to do in the old days? I'd like that."
    "All right." She did, laying her launcher flat, crossing her long
legs, and leaning back in his arms "This is really better, Hackum.
It's a lot warmer Except I don't do it much any more because I
know I'm a pretty good load. Orchid says I'm getting fat. She's been
telling me for a couple of months now."
    He held her closer, reveling in her softness. "She's fat. Real fat.
Not you, Jugs."
    "Thanks. This god you met. Tartaros, right? He's for you like
Kypris is for us."
    "Yeah, except he's one of the Seven."
    "I know that. Tarsday."
    "He's got a whole bunch of stuff besides us. The main thing is, he's
the night god. Anywhere it's dark, that's a special place for him.
Sleep and dreams, too. I mean, any god can send a dream if he
wants to, but the regular kind that seem like nobody sent 'em are
his. I call him Terrible Tartaros 'cause you had to say terrible or the
other, or Maytera'd stomp you. I'd lay he could cut up rough, but
he's been a bob cull with me. He came along to show how to find
you and get out of here, and all that. He's next to us right now, only
you can't see him 'cause he's blind."
    "You mean he's here with us?" Chenille's eyes were wide.
    "Yeah, he's sitting right here with me, only I wouldn't try to reach
over and feel. Maybe he wouldn't do anything - "
    She had already, waving her free arm through the empty space on
Auk's right.
    He shook her, not roughly. "Don't, Jugs. I told you."
    "He's not there. There's nothing there."
    "All right, there's nothing there. I was shaving you."
    "You shouldn't do that." She got up. "You don't know how shaggy
scared I am down here, or how shaggy hungry."
    Auk rose too. "Yeah, it wasn't very funny, I guess. I'm sorry,
Jugs. I won't do it again. C'mon."
    "Where are we going?"
    "Out."
    "Really, Hackum?"
    "Sure. You're hungry. So am I. We're going to go out and get a
dimber dinner, probably at Pork's or one of those places. After that,
we can rent a room and get a little rest. He says I got to rest. After
that, maybe we'll do what Scylla said, only I don't know. I'll have to
ask him."
    "Tartaros? That's who you're talking about? You really met him?"
    "Yeah. It's real dark in there and pretty wet. Water's sort of
raining through the roof. If you saw it, you probably didn't go in,
but there's nothing in there that'll hurt you. I don't think so,
anyhow."
    "I've still got this lantern that Gelada had, Hackum, only there's
no way to light it."
    "We don't have to," he told her. "It's not very far."
    "You said we were going out."
    "It's on our way." He stopped and faced her. "Only we'd be going
even if it wasn't, 'cause he's got something to show us. He just told
me, see? Now listen up."
    She nodded, drawing Incus's robe around her.
    "This's a real god. Tartaros, just like I told you. My head's not
right 'cause I got a bruise in there and a big gob of blood, too, he
says. He's trying to fix it, and I been feeling better ever since he
started. Only we got to do like he says, so you're coming if I got to
carry you."

"Wood girl," Oreb called. "Here girl!"
    Silk sat up; the 'girl' might be Hyacinth. If there was the least
chance, one in a thousand or ten million - if there was any chance at
all - he had to go. He made himself stand, picked up the bag,
coughed, spat, and stumbled away. The path wound right then left,
dropped into a tiny vale, and forked. White as ghosts, enormous
blossoms dripped moisture. "I'm coming, Oreb. Tell her I'm coming."
    "Here, here!"
    The bird sounded very near. He stepped off the glittering path,
his feet sinking in soft soil, and parted the leaves; the face that
stared into his own might have been that of a corpse, hollow-cheeked
and dull-eyed. He gasped, and saw its bloodless lips part. Oreb flew
to him, becoming two birds.
    He advanced another step, sparing the crowding plants as much
as he could, and found himself standing upon red stones that
bordered a clear pool no bigger than a tablecloth, which a path
approached from the opposite side.
    "Here girl!" Oreb hopped to the wooden figure's head and rapped
it smartly with his beak.
    "Yes," Silk said, "that's Thelxiepeia." No other goddess had those
tilted eyes, and a carved marmoset perched upon the figure's
shoulder. He tapped his reflected face with a finger and clapped his
hands, but no monitor appeared in the silvered globe she held. "It's
just a mirror," he told Oreb. "I hoped it might be a glass - that
Hyacinth might call me on it."
    "No call?"
    "No call on this, alas." With help from a friendly tree, he walked
the stony rim of the pool to a swinging seat facing the water. Here,
as Oosik had said, one saw the pool reflected in Thelxiepeia's
mirror, and her mirror reflected in it.
    Hieraxday had been the day for dying and for honoring the dead.
Crane had died; but he, Silk, had done neither. Today, Thelxday,
was the day for crystal gazing and casting fortunes, for tricks and
spells, and for hunting and trapping animals; he resolved to do none
of those things, leaned back in the swing, and closed his eyes.
Thelxiepeia was at once the cruelest and kindest of goddesses, more
mercurial even than Molpe, though she was said - it would be why
her image was here - to favor lovers. Love was the greatest of
enchantments; if Echidna and her children succeeded in killing
Kypris, Thelxiepeia would no doubt, would doubtless...
    _Become the goddess of love in a century or less_, said the Outsider,
standing not behind Silk as he had in the ball court, but before
him - standing on the still water of the pool, tall and wise and kind, with a
face that nearly came into focus. _I would claim her in that case, long
before the end. As I have so many others. As I am claiming Kypris
even now because love always proceeds from me, real love, true love.
First romance_.
    The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the
polished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth
and Mother, too. _First romance_, sang the Outsider with the music
box. _First romance_. It was why he was called the Outsider. He was
outside - 
    "I, er, hope and - ah - trust I'm not disturbing you?"
    Silk woke with a start and looked around wildly.
    "Man come," Oreb remarked. "Bad man." Oreb was perched on a
stone beside Thelxiepeia's pool; when he had concluded his
remarks, he pecked experimentally at a shining silver minnow that
darted away in terror.
    "Names are not - um - requisite, eh? I know who you are. You
know me, hey? Let that be enough for both of us."
    Silk recognized his swaying visitor, started to speak, and assimilating
what had been said remained silent.
    "Capital. I - ah - we are taking a risk, you and I. An - ah - rash
gamble. Simply by, urp, being where we belong. Here on the hill, eh?"
    "Won't you sit down?" Silk struggled to his feet.
    "No. I - ah - no." His visitor belched again, softly. "Thank you. I
have been waiting in the - ah - bar. Where, ump, I have been
compelled to buy drinks. And - um - drink. Standing's best. Um, at
present, eh? I'll just, er, lean on this, if I may. But please - ah - be
seated yourself, Pa - " He covered his mouth with his hand. "Seated
by all means. It is I who should - and I do. I, um, am. As you see, eh?"
    Silk resumed his place in the swing. "May I ask - "
    His visitor raised a hand. "How I knew I should find you here? I did not,
Pa - Did not. Nothing of the sort. But while I was - rup! - sitting in
that, er, whatchamacallit, I observed you to enter the
room. Not the - um - one I sat in, that, ah, darksome and paneled
drinking place, hey? The other. The outer room, much bigger."
    "The sellaria," Silk supplied.
    "Ah - quite. I, um, went to the door. Spied upon you."
    The visitor shook his head in self-reproach.
    "It was excusable, surely, under the circumstances. I have recently
done far worse things."
    "Good of you to say so. I - um - waylaid that waiter. You spoke
with him."
    Silk nodded.
    "I had, um, observed you to pass under - ah - through the arch. I
had never had the, er, pleasure myself, eh? I, ah, apprehended that
it was - ah, is - some sort of garden, however. I inquired about it.
He, um, indicated that it was - is, I surmise - employed for, um,
discussions of a - ah - amorous nature."
    "You knew that I would be here, at this particular spot." Silk
found it extremely inconvenient to be unable to say _Your Eminence_.
"You told him to look for me here."
    "No, no!" His visitor shook his head emphatically. "I, ah, anticipated
you might, um, possibly have an appointment. As he had,
um, inadverted. But I - ah - in addition, um, however, ah,
considered that you might wish to, um, petition the immortal gods.
As I, ah, myself. I inquired about such a place in this, um,
conservatory. He mentioned the present, ah, xylograph." The visitor
smiled "That's the spot, I told him. That's where you'll find him.
Would you mind if I, um, sat myself, now? There by you? I'm - ah - quite
fatigued."
    "Please do." Hastily, Silk moved to one side.
    "Thank you - ah - thank you. Most thoughtful. I have had no
supper. Hesitated to order anything in - ah - that place. With the
wine. Parsimony. Foolish - ah - imbecile, actually."
    "Catch fish," Oreb suggested.
    Silk's visitor ignored him. "I've funds, eh? You?"
    "No, nothing."
    "Here, Pa - My boy. Hold out your hands." Golden cards
showered into Silk's lap. "No, no! Take them! Others - ah - more.
Where they came from, eh? Wait for the waiter. Buy yourself a bit
of food. For me, ah, in addition. I am, um, in need. Of help. Of - ah - succor.
Such is, um, the long and short of it. I cast myself - um.
Ourselves. I - we - cast ourselves upon your - ah - commiseration."
    Silk looked searchingly at Thelxiepeia, who returned his look with
wooden aplomb. Was this enchanted gold that would (figuratively at
least) melt at a touch? If not, what had he done to earn her favor?
"Thank you," he managed at last. "If I can be of any service to Your - to
you, I will be only too happy to oblige you." He counted them by
touch: seven cards.
    "They came to the Palace. To the - ah - Palace itself, if you can,
um, credit that." His visitor sat with his head in his hands. "I was,
um, dining. At dinner. In came a, ah, page, eh? One of the boys
who runs with messages for us, hey? You do that?"
    "No. I know of them, of course."
    "Some of us did, eh? I, myself. Many years ago. We - ah - matriculate
to schola. Ah - afterwards. Some of us. Fat little boy.
Not I. He was. Is. Said they'd arrest me. Arrest His Cognizance! I
said, ah, balderdash. Ate my sweet, eh? They - um - arrived.
Unannounced. Officer - um - captain, lieutenant, something.
Troopers with him, Guardsmen everywhere, eh? Looked everywhere for
His Cog - Turned the whole place upside down. Couldn't
find him though. Took me. Bound my hands. Me! Hands tied
behind me under my robe."
    "I'm very sorry," Silk said sincerely.
    "They, er, carried me to the headquarters of the Second Brigade.
A temporary headquarters. Do I make myself - ah - intelligible?
Brigadier's house. No more - ah - titular generals in the Civil
Guard, hey? No generalissimo any more. Only this, er, brigadiers.
Quizzed me, eh? Hours and hours. Absolutely. Old Quetzal's
letter, hey? You know about it?"
    "Yes, I've seen it."
    "I - ah - composed it. I didn't - ah - inform the brigadier, eh?
Didn't 'fess up. Would have shot me, eh? We - ah - I'd expected
trouble. Labored to phrase it softly. His - He wouldn't hear of it."
His visitor looked around at Silk with the expression of a whipped
hound, his breath thick with wine. "You apprehend whom I - ah - intend?"
    "Of course."
    "He sent it back. Twice. Hadn't happened in years, eh? The third
stuck. 'How readily here might I, ah, inscribe - ' Yes, inscribe. Ah,
'Let us welcome him and obey him as one of ourselves. With what
delight do - shall I inscribe in its place, let us welcome him and, ump,
obey him, for he is one of ourselves!" That's what got the third draft past
His - ah - past the person known to us both, eh? So I - um - presume.
Proud of it, hey? Still am. Still am."
    "With reason," Silk told him. "But the Civil Guard can't have
cared for it. I'm surprised they let you go." He yawned and rubbed
his eyes, discovering that he felt somewhat better, refreshed by his
few moments of sleep.
    "Talked my way out, hey? Eloquent. No one speaks of me like
that. Dull at the ambion, eh? What they say. I know, I know.
Eloquent tonight, though. Swim or sink, and I did Pa - I did. Go
between. Peacemaker. End rebellion. Used their glass to talk to
Councillor Loris. Harmless, ump! Let him go. Bad feeling in the
ranks, hey? Augurs shot, eh? A sibyl, too. The - um - missive. Lay
clothing, as you, er, wise. Fearful still. Terribly frightened. Not, er,
shamed by the accusation - admission. Still afraid, sitting in there
sipping. Looking over my shoulder, hey? Afraid they'd come for
me. Sprang up like a rabbit when a porter dropped something in the
street."
    "I suppose that every man is frightened when his life is threatened.
It's very much to Your - to your credit that you are willing to admit it."
    "You will - ah - assist me? If you can?"
    Oreb looked up from his fishing. "Watch out!"
    "I'm tired and very weak," Silk said, "but yes, I will. Will we have
to walk far?"
    "Won't have to walk at all." His visitor thrust his hand beneath his
cream-colored tunic. "I've, ah, informed you it wasn't me they
wanted, eh? After old Quetzal, actually. The Prolocutor. His
Cognizance. Signed the letter, hey?"
    Silk nodded.
    "They'd have shot him, eh? Earlier. Earlier. When they - ah - constrained
me. That was then, hum? This is - er - the present
instant. After midnight. Nearly one, eh? Nearly one. Late when
they released me. I've said it? Suppertime - after suppertime,
really. They know your - um - profession. Vocation, hey? Mint's a
sibyl. You take my meaning?"
    "Of course," Silk said.
    His visitor produced an elegant ostrich-skin pen case. "On the
other side, old Quetzal is, hey? Unmistakable. The letter shows it.
And there is that - ah, um - other matter. Vocation, eh? Brigadier
thinks he and I might arrange an - urp - hiatus in hostilities. A
truce, hey? His word. Been one alread, eh? So why not?"
    Silk straightened up. "There has? That's wonderful!"
    "Little thing, eh? Few hundred involved. Didn't last. But an augur - see
the connection? This augur, one of our - ah - of the Chapter's
own, crossed the lines. One side to the other, eh? Got them to stop
shooting so he could. Colonel's son, wounded. Nearly dead. This - ah - holy
augur brought him the Pardon. So far so good? Rebels - ah - tendered an
extension. Both sides, um, sweep up bodies. Claim
their dead, hey? They did. So why not longer? Old Quetzal might
do it. Respected by both sides. Man of peace. You follow me?"
    Silk nodded to himself.
    "If your, ah, supporters learn the brigadier sent me, eh? What
then? Shoot, eh? Possibly. Very possibly. So I require some, um,
document from you, Pa - From, ah, you. Signed," the visitor's voice
faded to a whisper, "with your - ah - as the - um - your civil
title."
    "I see. Certainly."
    "Capital!" He took a sheaf of paper from the pen case. "These, um,
fanciful leathers are not - ah - conducive to penmanship. But the
paper should help, hey? I'll hold the ink bottle for you. Brief, ah,
inconsiderable. Concise. The, um, bearer, eh? Respect his - ah - um..."
    "No shoot," Oreb suggested.
    He handed Silk a quill. "Point suit you? Not too fine, eh? My
prothonotary, Pa - Incus. You know him?"
    "I met him once when I was trying to see you."
    "Ah? Hm."
    The pen case braced on both knees, Silk dipped the quill.
    "He - ah - Incus. He points them for me. Had him do it, ah,
Molpsday. Too fine, though. Hairsplitters. I shall rid myself of
Incus, ah, presently. Could be dead this moment. 'Mongst the gods,
eh? Haven't laid eyes on him for days. Gave him a - um - errand.
Never came back. All this unrest."
    Bent above the paper, Silk hardly heard him.
<blockquote>
To General Mint, her officers and troopers.
    The bearer, Patera Rernora, is authorized by me and by...
</blockquote>

Silk looked up. "To whom did you speak? Who was this brigadier
who released you?"
    "Brigadier, er, Erne. Signed for me, too, eh? His side."
<blockquote>
Brigadier Erne to negotiate a truce. Please show him every
courtesy.
</blockquote>

The wavering tip of the quill stopped and began to blot; there
seemed to be no more to say. Silk forced it to move on.
<blockquote>
If the whereabouts of His Cognizance the Prolocutor are
known to you, please conduct the bearer to him in order that
he may assist His Cognizance in conducting negotiations.
</blockquote>

Oreb dropped a struggling goldfish and pinned it with one foot. "No
shoot," he repeated. "Man hide."
<blockquote>
I hold you responsible for the safety of the bearer, and that
of His Cognizance. Both are to be permitted to pass
unharmed. Their movements are not to be restricted in any
fashion.
    A truce made and kept in good faith is greatly to be
desired.
    I am Pa. Silk, of Sun Street, Calde
</blockquote>

"Capital! Yes, capital, Pa - Thank you!"
    With his beak pointed to the glass roof, Oreb gulped down a
morsel of goldfish and announced loudly, "Good man!"
    "There is a - um - dispenser in here someplace." The visitor
retrieved his pen case and took out a silver shaker. "If you require
sand, eh?"
    Silk shuddered, added the date, blew upon the paper, then spat
congealing blood into the moss at his feet.
    "I thank you. I have - ah - so expressed myself, um, previously. I,
er, recognize. I am, um, in your, ah, books, eh? Your debtor."
    Silk handed him the safe-conduct.
    "I, ah, surmise that I can stand now, er, walk. All the rest.
Taken a bit dizzy there, eh? For an, er, momentarily." He
climbed to his feet, holding tightly to the chain from which their
seat was suspended. "I shall partake of an, er, morsel of food, I
believe. An, um, collation. Much as I should like - ah - may be
imprudent..."
    "I had a good supper," Silk told him, "and it might be dangerous
for us to be seen together. I'll stay here."
    "I, um, consider it would be best myself." His visitor released the
chain and smiled. "Better, hey? Be all right with a bite to eat. Too
much wine. I - ah - concede it. More than I ought. Frightened, but
the wine made it worse. To think that we, ump, we pay - " He fell
silent. Slowly his smile widened to a death's-head rictus. "Hello,
Silk," he said. "They made me find you."
    Silk nodded wearily. "Hello, Mucor."
    "It's smoky in here. All smoky."
    For a moment he did not understand what she meant.
    "Dark, Silk. Like falling down steps."
    "The fumes of the wine, I suppose. Who made you find me?"
    "The councillors will burn me again."
    "Torture, unless you do as they say?" Silk tried to keep the anger
he felt out of his voice. "Do you know their names, these councillors
who threaten to burn you?"
    The visitor's grinning head bobbed. "Loris. Tarsier. Potto. My
father said not, but the soldier made him go."
    "I see. His Eminence - the man you're possessing - told me he'd
talked with Councillor Loris through a glass. Is that why you
possessed him when you were sent to look for me?"
    "I had to. They burned me like Musk."
    "Then you were right to obey, to keep from being burned again. I
don't blame you at all."
    "We're going to kill you, Silk."
    Foliage beside the pool shook, spraying crystal droplets as warm
as blood; a white-haired man stepped into view. In one hand be held
a silver-banded cane with which he had parted the leaves. The other
poised a saber, its slender blade pointed at the visitor's heart.
    "Don't!" Silk told him.
    "No stick," Oreb added with the air of one who clarifies a difficult
situation.
    "You're Silk yourself, lad! You're him!"
    "I'm afraid I am. If you left your place of concealment to protect
me, I would be somewhat safer if you didn't speak quite so loudly."
Silk turned his attention back to the death-mask that had supplanted
his visitor's face. "Mucor, how are you supposed to kill me? This
man has Musk's needler now; he followed me here to return it to
me, I imagine. Do you - does the man you're possessing have a
weapon?"
    "I'll tell them, and they'll come."
    "I see. And if you won't, they'll burn you."
    The visitor's head bobbed again. "It brings me back. I can't stay
gone when they burn me."
    "We must get you out of there." Silk raised the ankle he had
broken jumping from Hyacinth's window and rubbed it. "I've said
you're like a devil - I told Doctor Crane that, I know. I thought it,
too, when I saw the dead sleepers; I forgot that devils, who torment
others, are themselves tormented."
    The saber inched forward. "Shall I kill him, lad?"
    "No. He's as good a chance for peace as our city has, and I doubt
that killing him would ensure Mucor's silence. You can do no good
here."
    "I can protect you, lad!"
    "Before I left you, I knew that I'd meet Hierax tonight." Silk's face
was somber. "But there's no reason for you to die with me. If you've
tracked me through half the city to return the needler I dropped,
give it to me and go."
    "This, too!" He held out the silver-banded cane. "Lame, aren't
you? Lame when we fought! Take it!" He threw the cane to Silk,
then drew Musk's needler and tossed it into Silk's lap as well.
"You're the calde, lad? The one they tell about?"
    "I suppose I am."
    "Auk told me! How'd I forget that? Gave your name! I didn't
know until this augur said it. Councillors! Loris? Going to kill you?"
    "And Potto and Tarsier." Silk laid Musk's needler aside, thought
better of it, and put it into his waistband. "I'm glad that you brought
that up. I'd lost sight of it, and it strains probability. Mucor, do you
have to return to Loris right away? I'd like you to do me a favor, if
you can."
    "All right."
    "Thank you. First, did Councillor Loris tell you about the man
you're possessing? Did he ask you to find him?"
    "I know him, Silk. He talks to the man who's not there."
    "To Pas, you mean. Yes, he does, I'm sure. But Loris told you.
Did he say why?"
    The visitor's head shook. "I have to go soon."
    "Go to Maytera Mint first - to General Mint, they're the same
person." Silk's forefinger traced a circle on his cheek. "Tell her
where I am, and that they'll come here to kill me. Then tell Maytera
Marble - "
    "Girl go," Oreb remarked.
    The corpse-grin was indeed fading. Silk sighed again and rose.
"Sheath that sword, please. We've no need of it."
    "Possession? That's what you call this, lad?"
    "Yes. He'll come to himself in a moment."
    Silk's visitor caught hold of the chain to steady himself. "You
proferred a comment, Pa - ? I was taken, ah, vertiginous again, I
fear. Please accept my - um - unreserved apology. This - ah - gentleman
is..."
    "Master Xiphias. Master Xiphias teaches the sword, Your Eminence.
Master Xiphias, this is His Eminence Patera Remora,
Coadjutor of the Chapter."
    "Really, ah, Patera, you might be more circumspect, hey?"
    Silk shook his head. "We're past all that, I'm afraid, Your
Eminence. You're in no danger. I doubt that you ever were. My
own is already so great that it wouldn't be much greater if you
and Master Xiphias were to run up to the first Guardsman you
could find and declare that Calde Silk was at Ermine's awaiting arrest."
    "Really! I - ah - "
    "You spoke to Councillor Loris, so you told me, through Brigadier
Erne's glass."
    "Why, er, yes."
    "For a moment - while you were dizzy, Your Eminence - I
thought that Loris might have told you where to find me; that a
certain person in the household he's visiting had told him that I
might be here, or had confided in someone else who did. It could
have come about quite innocently - but it can't be true, since Loris
sent someone to you in order to locate me. Clearly the information
traveled the other way: you knew that I might come here tonight. I
doubt that you actually told Loris that you knew where to find me;
you couldn't have been that certain I'd be here. You said something
that led him to think you knew, however. In his place, I'd have
ordered Brigadier Erne to have you followed. Thanks to some
careless remarks of mine Tarsday, he didn't need to. Will you tell
me - quickly, please - how you got your information?"
    "I swear - warrant you, Patera - "
    "We'll have to talk about it later." Silk stood up less steadily than
Remora had, leaning on the silver-banded cane. "A moment ago I
told Master Xiphias not to kill you; I'm not certain it would have
been wrong for me to have told him to go ahead, but I don't have
time for questions - we must go before the Guard gets here. You,
Master Xiphias, must return home. You're a fine swordsman, but
you can't possibly protect me from a squad of troopers with slug
guns. You, Your Eminence, must go to Maytera Mint. Don't bother
filling your belly. If - "
    "Girl come!" Oreb flew to Silk's shoulder, fluttered his wings, and
added, "Come quick!"
    For a wasted second, Silk stared at Remora, searching for signs of
Mucor in his face. Hyacinth was in sight before he heard the rapid
pattering of her bare feet on the path of false gems and saw her,
mouth open and dark eyes bright with tears above the rosy
confusion of a gossamer dishabille, her hair a midnight cloud behind
her as she ran.
    She stopped. It was as if the sight of him had suspended her in
amber. "You're here! You're really here!"
    By Thelxiepeia's spell she was in his arms, suffocating him with
kisses. "I didn't - I knew you couldn't come, but I had to. Had to, or
I'd never know. I'd always think - "
    He kissed her, clumsy but unembarrassed, trying to say by his kiss
that he, too, had been forced by something in himself stronger than
himself.
    The pool and the miniature vale that contained it, always dark,
grew darker still. Looking up after countless kisses, he saw idling
fish of mottled gold and silver, black, white, and red, hanging in air
above the goddess's upraised hand, and for the first time noticed
light streaming from a lamp of silver filigree in the branches of a
stunted tree. "Where did they go?" he asked.
    "Was - somebody - else here?" She gasped for breath and smiled,
giving him sweeter pain than he had ever known.
    "His Eminence and a fencing master." Silk felt that he should look
around him, but would not take his eyes from hers.
    "They must have done the polite thing," she kissed him again, "and
left quietly."
    He nodded, unable to speak.
    "So should we. I've got a room here. Did I tell you?"
    He shook his head.
    "A suite, really. They're all suites, but they call them rooms. It's a
game they play, being simple, pretending to be a country inn." She
sank to her knees with a dancer's grace, her hand still upon his arm.
"Will you kneel by the pool here with me? I want to look at myself,
and I want to look at you, too, at the same time." Abruptly. the tears
overflowed. "I want to look at _us_."
    He knelt beside her.
    "I knew you couldn't come," a tear fell. creating a tiny ripple, "so I
have to see us both. See you beside me."
    As in the ball court (though perhaps only because he had
experienced it there) it seemed that he stood outside time.
    And when they breathed again and turned to kiss, it seemed to
him that their reflections remained as they had been in the quiet
water of the pool, invisible but forever present. "We - I have to
go," he told her. It had taken an enormous effort to say it. "They
know I'm here, or they soon will if they don't already. They'll
send troopers to kill me, and if you're with me, they'll kill you, too."
    She laughed, and her soft laughter was sweeter than any music.
"Do you know what I went through to get here? What Blood will do
to me if he finds out I took a floater? By the time I got onto the hill,
past the checkpoints and sentries - Are you sick? You don't look at
all well."
    "I'm only tired." Silk sat back on his heels. "When I thought about
having to run again, I felt... It will pass." He believed it as soon as
he had said it, himself persuaded by the effort he had made to
compel her belief.
    She rose, and gave him her hand. "By the time I got to Ermine's, I
thought I'd been abram to come at all, drowning in a glass of water.
I didn't even look in here," happy again, she smiled, "because I
didn't want to see there wasn't anyone waiting. I didn't want to be
reminded of what a putt I'd been. I got my room and started getting
ready for bed, and then I thought - I thought - "
    He embraced her; from a perch over the filigree lamp, Oreb
croaked, "Poor Silk!"
    "What if he's there? What if he's _really down there_, and I'm up
here? I'd unpinned my hair and taken off my makeup, but I dived
down the stairs and ran through the sellaria, and you were here, and
it's only a dream but it's the best dream that ever was."
    He coughed. This time the blood was fresh and red. He turned
aside and spat it into a bush with lavender flowers and emerald
leaves and felt himself falling, unable to stop.

He lay on moss beside the pool. She was gone; but their reflections
remained in the water, fixed forever.
    When he opened his eyes again, she was back with an old man
whose name he had forgotten, the waiter who had offered him
wine in the sellaria, the one who had told him of Remora, the
footman who had opened the door, and others. They rolled him
onto something and picked him up, so that he seemed to float
somewhere below the level of their waists, looking up at the belly
of the vast dark thing that had come between the bright skylands
and the glass roof. His hand found hers. She smiled down at him
and he smiled too, so that they journeyed together, as they had
on the deadcoach in his dream, in the companionable silence of
two who have overcome obstacles to be together, and have no
need of noisy words, but rest - each in the other.

                       Chapter 8  -  Peace

Maytera Marble smiled to herself, lifting her head and cocking it to the
right. Her sheets were clean at last, and so was everything else - Maytera
Mint's things, a workskirt that had been badly soiled at the
knees, and the smelly cottons she had dropped into the hamper
before dying.
    After strenuous pumping, she rinsed them in the sink and wrung
them out. Her dipper transferred most of the sink water to the wash
boiler before she took out the old wooden stopper and let the rest
drain away; when it had cooled, the water in the wash boiler could
be given to her suffering garden.
    With her clever new fingers, she scooped the white bull's congealing
fat from the saucepan. A rag served for a strainer; a chipped cup
received the semiliquid grease. Wiping her hands on another rag,
she considered the tasks that still confronted her: grease the folding
steps first, or hang out this wash?
    The wash, to be sure; it could be drying while she greased the steps.
Very likely, it would be dry or nearly dry by the time she finished.
    Beyond the doorway, the garden was black with storm. That
wouldn't do! Rain (though Pas knew how badly they needed it)
would spot her clean sheets. Fuming, she put aside the wicker
clothes-basket and stepped out into the night. a hand extended to
catch the first drops.
    At least it wasn't raining yet; and the wind (now that she came to
think of it, it had been windier earlier) had fallen. Peering up at the
storm cloud, she realized with a start that it was not a real cloud at
all - that what she had taken for a cloud was in fact the uncanny
flying thing she had glimpsed above the wall, and even stared at
from the roof.
    A memory so remote that it seemed to have lain behind her
curved metal skull stirred at this, her third view. Dust flew, as dust
always does when something that has remained motionless for a
long time moves at last.
    "_Why don't you dust it?" (Laughter.)_
    She would have blinked had she been so built. She looked
down again, down at her dark garden, then up (but reasonably
and prudently up only) at the pale streaks of her clotheslines.
They were still in place, though sometimes the children took
them for drover's whips and jump ropes. Started upward thus
prudently and reasonably, her gaze continued to climb of its own
volition.
    "_Why don't you dust it?_"
    Laughter filled her as the summer sunshine of a year long past
descends gurgling to fill a wineglass, then died away.
    Shaking her head, she went back inside. It was a trifle windy yet
to hang out wash, and still dark anyway. Sunshine always made the
wash smell better; she would wait till daylight and hang it out before
morning prayer. It would be dry after.
    When had it been, that sun-drenched field? The jokes and the
laughter, and the overhanging, overawing shadow that had made
them fall silent?
    Grease the steps now, and scrub them, too; then it would be light
out and time to hang the wash, the first thin thread of the long sun
cutting the skylands in two.
    She mounted the stair to the second floor. Here was that
picture again, the old woman with her doves, blessed by Molpe.
A chubby postulant whose name she could not recall had admired
it; and she, thin, faceless, old Maytera Marble, flattered, had said
that she had posed for Molpe. It was almost the only lie she had
ever told, and she could still see the incredulity in that girl's eyes,
and the shock. Shriven of that lie again and again, she nevertheless
told Maytera Betel at each shriving - Maytera Betel, who was dead now.
    She ought to have brought something, an old paintbrush, perhaps, to dab
on her grease with. Racking her brain, she recalled her
toothbrush, retained for decades after the last tooth had failed. (She
wouldn't be needing _that_ any more!) Opening the broken door to
her room... She should fix this, if she could. Should try to,
anyhow. They might not be able to afford a carpenter.
    Yet it seemed tonight that she remembered the painter, the little
garden at the center of his house, and the stone bench upon which
the old woman (his mother, really) had sat earlier. Posing gowned
and jeweled as the goddess with a stephane, the dead butterfly
pinned in her hair.
    It had been embarrassing, but the painter had wonderful brushes,
not in the least like this worn toothbrush of hers, whose wooden
handle had cracked so badly, whose genuine boar bristles, once so
proudly black, had faded to gray.
    She pushed the old toothbrush down into the bull's soft, white fat,
then ran it energetically along the sliding track.
    She could not have been a sibyl then, only the sibyls' maid; but
the artist had been a relative of the Senior Sibyl's, who had agreed
to let her pose. Chems could hold a pose much longer than bios. All
artists, he had said, used chems when they could, although he had
used his mother for the old woman because chems never looked
old...
    She smiled at that, tilting her head far back and to the right. The
hinges, then the other track.
    He had given them the picture when it was done.
    She had a gray smear on one black sleeve. Dust from the steps,
most likely. Filthy. She beat the sleeve until the dust was gone, then
started downstairs to fetch her bucket and scrub brush. Had the
bull's grease done what it was supposed to? Perhaps she should have
paid for real oil. She lifted the folding steps tentatively. The grease
had certainly helped. All the way up!
    Grafifyingly smooth, so she had saved three cardbits at least,
perhaps more. How had she gotten them down? With the crochet
hook, that was it. But if she did not push the ring up she would not
need it. The steps would have to come down again anyway when she
scrubbed them, and she itched to see them work as they should. An
easy tug on the ring, and down they slid with a puff of dust that was
hardly noticeable.
    "_Why don't you dust it?_"
    Everyone had laughed, and she had too, though she had been so
shy. He had been tall and - what was it? Five-point-two-five times
stronger than she, with handsome steel features that faded when she
tried to see them again.
    All nonsense, really.
    Like believing she had posed, after she had told Maytera over and
over that she had lied. She would never have taken these new parts
if... Though they were hers, to be sure.
    One more time up the steps. One final time, and here was her old trunk.
    She opened the gable window and climbed out onto the roof. If
the neighbors spied her, they would be shocked out of their wits.
_Trunk_ evoked only her earlier search for its owner.
    _Footlocker_, that was it. Here was a list of the dresses she had worn
before they had voted to admit her. Her perfume. The commonplace
book that she had kept for the mere pleasure of writing in it,
of practicing her hand. Perhaps if she went back into the attic and
opened her footlocker, she would find them all, and would never
have to look at the thrumming thing overhead again.
    Yet she did.
    Enormous, though not so big you couldn't see the skylands on
each side of it. Higher up and farther west now, over the market
certainly and nosing toward the Palatine, its long axis bisected by
Cage Street, where convicts were no longer exposed in cages. Its
noise was almost below her threshold of hearing, the purr of a
mountain lion as big as a mountain.
    She should go back down now. Get busy. Wash or cook - though
she was dead, and Maytera Betel and the rest dead, too, and
Maytera Mint gone only Pas knew where, and nobody left to cook
for unless the children came.
    Enormous darkness high overhead, blotting the sun-drenched
field, the straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the
soldiers' precise column. She had seen it descend from the sky, at
first a fleck of black that had seemed no bigger than a flake of soot;
had said, "It looks so dirty." A soldier had overheard her and called,
"Why don't you dust it?"
    Everyone had laughed, and she had laughed, too, though she had
been humiliated to tears, had tears been possible for her. Angry and
defiant, she had met his eyes and sensed the longing there.
    And longed.
    How tall he had been! How big and strong! So much steel!
    Winged figures the size of gnats sailed this way and that below the
vast, dark bulk; something streaked up toward them as she watched - flared
yellow, like bacon grease dripping into the stove. Some fell.

"Here we are," Auk told Chenille. It was a break in the tunnel wall.
    "This leads into the pit?"
    "That's what he says. Let me go first, and listen awhile. Beat the
hoof if it sounds a queer lay."
    She nodded, resolving that she and her launcher would have
something to say about any queer lay, watched him worm his way
through (a tight squeeze for shoulders as big as his), listened for
minutes that seemed like ten, then heard his booming laugh, faint
and far away.
    It was a tight squeeze for her as well, and it seemed her hips
would not go through. She wriggled and swore, recalling Orchid's
dire warnings and that Orchid's were twice - at least twice! - the size
of hers.
    The place she was trying so hard to get into was a pit in the pit,
apparently - as deep as a cistern, with no way to go higher, though
Auk must have found one since he was not there.
    Her hips scraped through at last. Panting as she knelt on the
uneven soil, she reached back in and got her launcher.
    "You coming, Jugs?" He was leaning over the edge, almost
invisible in the darkness.
    "Sure. How do I get out of here?"
    "There's a little path around the sides." He vanished.
    There was indeed - a path a scant cubit wide, as steep as a stair.
She climbed cautiously, careful not to look down, with Gelada's
lantern rattling on the barrel of her launcher. Above, she heard Auk
say, "All right, maybe I will, but not till she gets here. I want her to
see him."
    Then her head was above the top and she was looking at the pit. a
stade across, its reaches mere looming darkness, its sheer sides
faced with what looked like shiprock. A wall rose above it on the
side nearest her. She stared up at it without comprehension. turned
her head to look at the shadowy figures around Auk, and looked up
at it again before she recognized it as the familiar, frowning wall of
the Alambrera, which she was now seeing from the other side for
the first time.
    Auk called, "C'mere, Jugs. Still got that darkee?"
    A vaguely familiar voice ventured, "Might be better not to light it, Auk."
    "Shut up."
    She took Gelada's lantern off the barrel of her launcher and
advanced hesitantly toward Auk, nearly falling when she tripped
over a roll of rags in the darkness.
    Auk said, "You do it, Urus. Keep it pretty near shut," and one of
the men accepted the lantern from her.
    The acrid smell of smoke cut through the prevailing reek of
excrement and unwashed bodies; a bearded man with eyes like
the sockets in a skull had removed the lid of a firebox. He puffed
the coals it held until their crimson glow lit his face - a face she
quickly decided she would rather not have seen. A wisp of flame
appeared. Urus held the lantern to it, then closed the shutter,
narrowing the yellow light to a beam no thicker than her
forefinger.
    "You want it, Auk?"
    "I got no place to put it," Auk told him; and Chenille, edging
nearer, saw that he had his hanger in his right hand and a slug gun in
his left. The blade of the hanger was dark with blood. "Show her
Patera first," he said.
    On legs as thin as sticks, the shadowy figures parted; a pencil of
light settled on a dark bundle that stared up at her with Incus's
agonized eyes. A rag covered his mouth.
    "Looks cute, don't he?" Auk chuckled.
    She ventured, "He really is an augur..."
    "He shot a couple of 'em with my needler, Jugs. It got 'em mad,
and they jumped him. We'll cut him loose in a minute, maybe.
Urus, show her the soldier."
    Hammerstone was bound as well, though no rag had been tied
over his mouth; she wondered whether it would work on a chem
anyway, and decided that it might not. "I'm sorry, Stony," she said.
"I'll get you out of this. Patera, too."
    "They were going to stab him in the throat," Hammerstone told
her. "They'd grabbed him from behind." He spoke slowly and
without rancor, but there was a whorl of self-loathing in his voice, "I
got careless."
    "Those ropes are made out of that muscle in the back of your leg,"
Auk told her conversationally. "That's what they got him tied up
with. They're pretty strong, I guess."
    Neither she nor Hammerstone replied.
    "Only I don't think they'd hold him. Not if he really tried. It'd
take chains. Big ones, if you ask me."
    "Hackum, maybe I shouldn't say this - "
    "Go ahead."
    "What if they jump you and me like they did Patera?"
    "I was going to tell you why Hammerstone here don't break loose.
Maybe I ought to do that first."
    "Because you've got his slug gun?"
    "Uh-huh. Only they had it then, see? They got hold of Incus, and
they made Hammerstone give it to 'em. It takes a lot to kill a
soldier, but a slug gun'll do it. So'll that launcher you got."
    She scarcely heard him. When she had struggled through the
narrow opening in the side of the tunnel, the deep humming from
above had so merged with the rush of blood in her ears that she had
assumed it was one with it; now she realized that it actually
proceeded from the dark bulk in the sky that she (like Maytera
Marble) had thought a cloud. She peered up at it, astonished.
    "We'll get to that in a minute," Auk told her, looking upward too.
"Terrible Tartaros says it's a airship. That's a thing kind of like the
old man's boat, see? Only it sails through the air instead of water.
The Rani of Trivigaunte's invaded Viron. That's another reason for
us to do like he showed us down there - "
    Hammerstone heaved himself upright, throwing aside four stick-limbed
men who tried to hold him down. The sinews that bound his
wrists and ankles broke in a rattattoo of poppings, like the burning
of a string of firecrackers.
    Almost casually, Auk thrust his hanger into the ground at his feet
and leveled the slug gun. "Don't try it."
    "We got to fight," Hammerstone told him. "Patera and me. We got
to defend the city."
    Reluctantly, Chenille trained the launcher Hammerstone had
taught her to load and fire at his broad metal chest. He knelt to tear
off Incus's gag, snapping the cords that had secured Incus's hands
and feet between his fingers.
    "Look! Look!" Urus shouted and pointed, then futilely directed
the beam of Gelada's lantern upward. Others around him shouted
and pointed, too.
    Another voice, remote but louder than the loudest merely human
voice silenced them, filling the pit with its thunder: "_Convicts, you
are free! Viron has need of every one of you. In the name of all the - in
the Outsider's name, forget your quarrel with the Civil Guard,
which now supports our Charter. Forget any quarrel you may have
with your fellow citizens. Most of all, forget every quarrel among
yourselves!_"
    Chenille grasped Auk's elbow. "That's Patera Silk! I recognize his voice!"
    Auk could only shake his head, unbelieving. Something - a
tumbling, flying thing that appeared, incredibly, to have a turret and
a buzz gun - had cleared the parapet on the wall and was drifting
into the pit, dropping lower and lower, an armed floater blown
upwind by a wind that was none, hundreds of cubits above the Alambrera.
    Chenille's launcher was snatched from her hands and fired as
soon as it had left them, Hammerstone aiming at the immense shape
far above the floater, directing a single missile at it (or perhaps at
the winged figures that streamed from it like smoke), and watching
it expectantly to observe the strike and correct his aim.
    "_There Auk!_" thundered a hoarse voice from the floater tumbling
slowly overhead. "_Here girl!_"
    A second missile, and Auk was firing the slug gun that had been
Hammerstone's, too, shooting winged troopers who swooped and
soared above the pit firing slug guns of their own.
    A minute dot of black fell from the vast flying thing Auk had
called an airship. She saw it streak through the milling cloud of
winged troopers. An instant later, the dark wall of the Alambrera
exploded with a force that rocked the Whorl.

Silk stood in his boyhood bedroom, looking down at the boy who
had been himself. The boy's face was buried in his pillow; by an
effort of will he made it look toward him; each time it turned, its
features dissolved in mist.
    He sat down on the sill of the open window, conscious of the
borage growing under it and of lilacs and violets beyond it. A
copybook lay open, waiting, on the sleeping boy's small table; there
were quills beside it, their ends more or less chewed. He ought to
write, he knew - tell this boy who had been himself that he was
taking his blue tunic, and leave him advice that would be of help in
the troubles to come.
    Yet he could not settle upon the right words, and he knew that the
boy would soon wake. It was shadeup, and he would be late at his
palaestra; already Mother approached the bed.
    What could he say that would have meaning for this boy? That
this boy might recall more than a decade later?
    Mother shook his shoulder, and Silk felt his own shoulder
touched; it was strange she could not see him.
    _Fear no love_, he wrote; and then: _Carry out the Plan of Pus_.
But Mother's hand was shaking him so hard that the final words were
practically unreadable; _of Pas_ faded from the soft, blue-lined paper
as he watched. Pas was, after all, a thing of the past. Like the boy.
    Xiphias and the Prolocutor were standing at the foot of the boy's
bed, which had become his own.
    He blinked.
    As if to preside over a sacrifice at the Grand Manteion, the
Prolocutor wore mulberry vestments crusted with diamonds and
sapphires, and held the gold baculus that symbolized his authority;
Xiphias had what appeared to be an augur's black robe folded over
his arm. It seemed the wildest of dreams.
    His blankets were pushed away; and the surgeon, standing next to
his bed beside Hyacinth, rolled him onto his side and bent to pull off
the bandages he had applied earlier. Silk managed to smile up at
Hyacinth, and she smiled in return - a shy, frightened smile that was
like a kiss.
    From the other side of the bed, Colonel Oosik inquired, "Can you
speak, Calde?"
    He could not, though it was his emotions that kept him silent.
    "He talked to me last night before he went to sleep," Hyacinth told Oosik.
    "Silk talk!" Oreb confirmed from the top of a bedpost.
    "Please don't sit up." The surgeon laid his hand - a much larger
and stronger one than the hand that had awakened him - upon Silk's
shoulder to prevent it.
    "I can speak." he told them. "Your Cognizance. I very much regret
having subjected you to this."
    Quetzal shook his head and told Hyacinth, "Perhaps you'd better
get him dressed."
    "No time to dawdle, lad!" Xiphias exclaimed. "Shadeup in an hour!
Want them to start shooting again?"
    Then the surgeon who had held him down was helping him to rise,
and Hyacinth (who smelled better than an entire garden of flowers)
was helping him into a tunic. "I did this for you last Phaesday night,
remember?"
    "Do I still have your azoth?" he asked her. And then, "What in the
Whorl's going on?"
    "They sent Oosie to kill you. He just came back and he doesn't
want to."
    Silk was looking, or trying to look, into the corners of the room.
Gods and others who were not gods waited there, he felt certain.
watching and nearly visible, their shining heads turned toward him.
He remembered climbing onto Blood's roof and his desperate
struggle with the whiteheaded one, Hyacinth snatching his hatchet
from his waistband. He groped for it, but hatchet and waistband had
vanished alike.
Quetzal muttered, "Somebody will have to tell him what to tell
them. How to make peace."
    "I don't expect you to believe me, Your Cognizance - " Hyacinth began.
    "Whether I believe you or not, my child, will depend on what you say."
    "We didn't! I swear to you by Thelxiepeia and Scalding Scylla - "
    "For example. If you were to say that Patera Calde Silk had
violated his oath and disgraced his vocation, I would not believe you."
    Standing upon the arm of his mother's reading chair, he had
studied the calde's head, carved by a skillful hand from hard brown
wood. "Is this my father?" Mother's smile as she lifted him down,
warning him not to touch it. "No, no, that's my friend the calde."
Then the calde was dead and buried, and his head buried, too - buried
in the darkest reaches of her closet, although she spoke at
times of burning it in the big black kitchen stove and perhaps
believed eventually that she had. It was not well to have been a
friend of the calde's.
    "I know our Patera Calde Silk too well for that," Quetral was
telling Hyacinth. "On the other hand, if you were to say that nothing
of the kind had taken place, I would believe you implicitly, my child."
    Xiphias helped Silk to his feet, and Hyacinth pulled up a pair of
unbicached linen drawers that had somehow appeared around his
ankles and were new and clean and not his at all, and tied the cord
for him.
    "Calde - "
    At that moment, the title sounded like a death sentence. He said,
"I'm only Patera - Only Silk. Nobody's calde now."
    Oosik stroked his drooping, white-tipped mustache. "You fear
that because my men and I are loyal to the Ayuntamiento, we will
kill you. I understand. It is undoubtedly true, as this young woman
has said - "
    In the presence of the Prolocutor, Oosik was pretending he did
not know Hyacinth, exactly as he himself had tried to pretend he
was not calde;; Silk found wry amusement in that.
    " - and already you have almost perished in this foolish fighting,"
Oosik was saying. "Another dies now, even as we speak. On our side    
or yours, it does not matter. If it was one of us, we will kill one of
you soon. If one of you, you will kill one of us. Perhaps it will be me.
Perhaps my son, though he has already - "
    Xiphias interrupted him. "Couldn't get home, lad! Tried to! Big
night attack! Still fighting! Didn't think they'd try that. You don't
mind my coming back to look out for you?"
    Kneeling with his trousers, Hyacinth nodded confirmation. "If
you listen at the window, you can still hear shooting."
    Silk sat on the rumpled bed again and pushed his feet into the
legs. "I'm confused. Are we still at Ermine's?"
    She nodded again. "In my room."
    Oosik had circled the bed to hold his attention. "Would it not be a
great thing, Calde, if we - if you and I, and His Cognizance - could
end this fighting before shadeup?"
    With less confidence in his legs than he tried to show, Silk stood
to pull up and adjust his waistband. "That's what I'd hoped to do."
He sat as quickly as he could without loss of dignity.
    "We will - "
    Quetzal interposed, "We must strike fast. We can't wait for you to
recover, Patera Calde. I wish we could. You were startled to see me
vested like this. My clothes always shock you. I'm afraid."
    "So it seems, Your Cognizance."
    "I'm under arrest, too, technically. But I'm trying to bring peace,
just as you are."
    "We've both failed, in that case, Your Cognizance."
    Oosik laid his hand upon Silk's; it felt warm and damp. thick with
muscle. "Do not burden yourself with reproaches, Calde. No!
Success is possible still. Who had you in mind as commander of your
Civil Guard?"
    The gods had gone, but one - perhaps crafty Thelxiepeia. whose
day was just beginning - had left behind a small gift of cunning. "If
anyone could put an end to this bloodshed, he would surely deserve
a greater reward than that."
    "But if that were all the reward he asked?"
    "I'd do everything I could to see that he obtained it."
    "Wise Silk!" Oreb cocked a bright black eye approvingly from the
bedpost.
    Oosik smiled. "You are better already, I think. I was greatly
concerned for you when I saw you." He looked at the surgeon.
"What do you think, Doctor? Should our calde have more blood?"
    Quetzal stiffened, and the surgeon shook his head.
    "Achieving peace, Calde, may not be as difficult as you imagine.
Our men and yours must be made to understand that loyalty to the
Ayuntamiento is not disloyalty to you. Nor is loyalty to you
disloyalty to the Ayuntamiento. When I was a young man we had
both. Did you know that?"
    Xiphias exclaimed, "It's true, lad!"
    "There is a vacancy on the Ayuntamiento. Clearly it must be
filled. On the other hand, there are councillors presently in the
Ayuntamiento. Their places are theirs. Why ought they not retain them?"
    A compromise; Silk thought of Maytera Mint, small and
heartrendingly brave upon a white stallion in Sun Street. "The
Alambrera - ?"
    "Cannot be permitted to fall. The morale of your Civil Guard
would not survive so crushing a humiliation."
    "I see." He stood again, this time with more confidence; he felt
weak, yet paradoxically strong enough to face whatever had to be
faced. "The poor, the poorest people of our quarter especially, who
began the insurrection, are anxious to release the convicts there.
They are their friends and relatives."
    Quetzal added, "Echidna has commanded it."
    Oosik nodded, still smiling. "So I have heard. Many of our
prisoners say so, and a few even claim to have seen her. I repeat,
however, that a successful assault on the Alambrera would be a
disaster. It cannot be permitted. But might not our calde, upon his
assumption of office, declare a general amnesty? A gesture at once
generous and humane?"
    "I see," Silk repeated. "Yes, certainly, if it will end the fighting - if
there's even the slightest chance that it will end it. Must I come with
you, Generalissimo?"
    "You must do more. You must address both the insurgents and
our own men, forcefully. It can be begun here, from your bed. I
have a means of transmitting your voice to my troops, defending
the Palatine. Afterward we will have to put you in a floater and
take you to the Alambrera, in order that both our men and Mint's
may see you, and see for themselves that there is no trickery. His
Cognizance has agreed to go with you to bless the peace. Many
know already that he has sided with you. When it is seen that my
brigade has come over to you as a body, the rest will come as well."
    Oreb crowed, "Silk win!" from the bedpost.
    "I'm coming, too," Hyacinth declared.
    "You must understand that there is to be no surrender, Calde.
Viron will have chosen to return to its Charter. A
calde - yourself - and an ayuntamiento."
    Oosik turned ponderously to Quetzal. "Is that not the system of
government stipulated by Scylla. Your Cognizance?"
    "It is, my son, and it is my fondest desire to see it reinstated."
    "If we're paraded through the city in this floater," Silk said, "many
of the people who see us are certain to guess that I've been
wounded." In the nick of time he remembered to add, "Generalissimo."
    "Nor will we attempt to conceal it, Calde. You yourself have
played a hero's part in the fighting! I must tell Gecko to work that
into your little speech."
    Oosik took two steps backward. "Now someone must attend to all
these things, I fear, and there is no one capable of it but myself.
Your pardon, my lady." He bowed. "Your pardon, Calde. I will
return shortly. Your pardon, Your Cognizance."
    "Bad man?" mused Oreb
    Silk shook his head. "No one who ends murder and hatred is evil,
even if he does it for his own profit. We need such people too much
to let even the gods condemn them. Xiphias, I sent you away last
night at the same time that I sent away His Eminence. Did you leave
at once?"
    The old fencing master was shamefaced. "Did you say at once, lad?"
    "I don't think so. If I did, I don't recall it."
    "I'd brought you this, lad, remember?" He bounded to the most
remote corner of the room and held up the silver-banded cane.
"Valuable!" He parried an imaginary opponents's thrust. "Useful!
Think I'd let them leave it behind in that garden?"
    Hyacinth said, "You followed when we carried him up here, didn't
you? I saw you watching us from the foot of the stairs, but I didn't
know you from a rat then."
    "I understand." Silk nodded almost imperceptibly. "His Eminence
left at once, I imagine. I had told him to find you if he could, Your
Cognizance. Did he?"
    "No," Quetzal said. With halting steps, he made his way to a red
velvet chair and sat, laying the baculus across his knees. "Does it
matter, Patera Calde?"
    "Probably not. I'm trying to straighten things out in my mind,
that's all." Silk's forefinger traced pensive circles on his beard-rough
cheek. "By this time, His Eminence may have reached
Maytera Mint - reached General Mint, I should say. It's possible
they have already begun to work out a truce. I hope so, it could
be helpful. Mucor reached her in any event; and when General
Mint heard Mucor's message, she attacked the Palatine hoping to
rescue me - I ought to have anticipated that. My mind wasn't as
clear as it should be last night, or I would never have told her
where I was."
    Hyacinth asked, "Mucor? You mean Blood's abram girl? Was she
here?"
    "In a sense." Silk found that by staring steadfastly at the yellow
goblets and chocolate cellos that danced across the carpet, it was
possible to speak to Hyacinth without choking, and even to think in
a patchy fashion about what he said. "I met her Phaesday night, and
I talked to her in the Glasshouse before you found me. I'll explain
about her later, though, if I may - it's appalling and rather complex.
The vital point is that she agreed to carry a message to General Mint
for me, and did it. Colonel Oosik's brigade was being held in reserve
when I spoke to him earlier; when the attack came, it must have
been brought up to strengthen the Palatine."
    Hyacinth nodded. "That's what he told me before we woke you.
He said it was lucky for you because Councillor Loris ordered him
to send somebody to kill you, but he came himself instead and
brought you a doctor."
    "I operated on you yesterday, Calde," the surgeon told Silk, "but I
don't expect you to remember me. You were very nearly dead." He
was horse-faced and balding; his eyes were rimmed with red, and
there were bloodstains on his rumpled green tunic.
    "You can't have had much sleep, Doctor."
    "Four hours. I wouldn't have slept that much, if my hands hadn't
started to shake. We have over a thousand wounded."
    Hyacinth sat on the bed next to Silk. "That's about what we got,
too - four hours, I mean. I must look a hag."
    He made the error of trying to verify it, and discovered that his
eyes refused to leave her face. "You are the most beautiful woman in
the Whorl," he said. Her hand found his, but she indicated Quetzal
by a slight tilting of her head.
    Quetzal had been dozing - so it appeared - in the red chair; he
looked up as though she had pronounced his name. "Have you a
mirror, my child? There must be a mirror in a suite like this."
    "There's a glass in the dressing room, Your Cognizance. It'll show
you your reflection if you ask." Hyacinth nibbled at her full lower
lip. "Only I ought to be in there getting dressed. Oosie will come
back in a minute, I think, with a speech for Patera and one of those
ear things."
    Quetzal rose laboriously with the help of his baculus, and Silk's
heart went out to him. How feeble he was! "I've had four hours
sleep, Your Cognizance; Hyacinth less than that, I'm afraid, and the
doctor here about the same; but I don't believe Your Cognizance
can have slept at all."
    "People my age don't need much, Patera Calde, but I'd like a
mirror. I have a skin condition. You've been too well bred to
remark upon it, but I do. I carry paint and powder now like a
woman, and fix my face whenever I get the chance."
    "In the balneum, Your Cognizance." Hyacinth rose, too. "There's
a minor, and I'll dress while you're in there."
    Quetzal tottered away. Hyacinth paused with one hand on the
latch-bar, clearly posing but so lovely that Silk could have forgiven
her things far worse. "You men think it takes women a long while to
get dressed, but it won't take me long this morning. Don't go
without me."
    "We won't," Silk promised, and held his breath until the boudoir
door closed behind her.
    "Bad thing," Oreb muttered from a bedpost.
    Xiphias displayed the silver-banded cane to Silk. "Now I can show
you this, lad! Modest? Proper? Augur can't wear a sword, right?
But you can carry this! Had a stick first time you came, didn't you?"
    "Bad thing!" Oreb dropped down upon Silk's shoulder.
    "Yes, I had a walking stick then. It's gone now, I'm afraid. I broke it."
    "Won't break this! Watch!" Between Xiphias's hands, the cane's
head separated from its brown wooden shaft, exposing a straight,
slender, double-edged blade. "Twist, and pull them apart! You try it!"
    "I'd much rather put them back together." Silk accepted the cane
from him; it seemed heavy for a walking stick, and somewhat light
for a sword. "It's a bad thing, as Oreb says."
    "Nickel in that steel! Chrome, too! Truth! Could parry an azoth!
Believe that?"
    Silk shuddered. "I suppose so. I had an azoth once and couldn't
cut through a steel door with it."
    The azoth reminded him of Hyacinth's gold-plated needler;
hurriedly, he put his hand in his pocket. "Here it is. I've got to return
this to her. I was.afraid that it would be gone, somehow, though I
can't imagine who might have taken it, except Hyacinth herself." He
laid it on the peach-colored sheet.
    "I gave your big one back, lad. Still got it?"
    Silk shook his head, and Xiphias began to prowl around the
room, opening cabinets and examining shelves.
    "This cane will be useful, I admit," Silk told him, "but I really don't
require a needler."
    Xiphias whirled to confront him, holding it out. "Going to make
peace, aren't you?"
    "I hope to, Master Xiphias, and that's exactly - "
    "What if they don't like the way you're making it, lad? Take it!"
    "Here you are, Calde." Oosik bustled in with a sheet of paper and
a black object that seemed more like a flower molded from synthetic
than an actual ear. "I'll turn it on before I pass it to you, and all
you'll have to do is talk into it. Do you understand? My loudspeakers
will repeat everything that you say, and everyone will hear you.
Here's your speech."
    He handed Silk the paper. "It would be best for you to read it over
first. Insert some thoughts of your own if you like. I would not
deviate too far from the text, however."
    Words crawled across the sheet like ants, some bearing meaning
in their black jaws, most with none. _The insurgent forces. The Civil
Guard. The rebellion. The commissioners and the Ayuntamiento.
The Army. The arms in the Alambrera. The insurgents and the
Guard. Peace_.
    There it was at last. _Peace_.
    "All right." Silk let the sheet fall into his lap.
    Oosik signaled to someone in the outer room, waited for a reply
that soon came, cleared his throat, and held the ear to his lips. "This
Is Generalissimo Oosik of the Calde's Guard. Hear me all ranks,
and especially you rebels. You're fighting us because you want to
make Patera Silk Calde, but Calde Silk is with us. He is with the
Guard, because he knows that we are with him. Now you soldiers.
Your duty is to obey our calde. He is sitting here beside me. Hear
his instructions."
    Silk wanted his old chipped ambion very badly; his hands sought
it blindly as he spoke, rattling the paper. "My fellow citizens, what
Generalissimo Oosik has just told you is true. Are we not - " The
words seemed predisposed to hide behind his trembling fingers.
    "Are we not, every one of us, citizens of Viron? On this historic
day, my fellow citizen - " The type blurred, and the next line began
a meaningless half sentence.
    "Our city is in great danger," he said. "I believe the whole Whorl's
in great danger, though I can't be sure."
    He coughed and spat clotted blood on the carpet. "Please excuse
me. I've been wounded. It doesn't matter, because I'm not going to
die. Neither are you, if only you'll listen."
    Faintly, he heard his words re-echoed in the night beyond
Ermine's walls: "_You'll listen_." The loudspeakers Oosik had
mentioned, mouths with stentorian voices, had heard him in some
fashion, and in some fashion repeated his thoughts.
    The door of the balneum opened. Framed in the doorway,
Quetzal gave him an encouraging nod, and Oreb flew back to his
post on the bedpost.
    "We can't rebel against ourselves," Silk said. "So there is no
rebellion. There is no insurrection, and none of you are insurgents.
We can fight among ourselves, of course, and we've been doing it. It
was necessary, but the time of its necessity is over. There is a calde
again - I am your calde. We needed rain, and we have gotten rain."
He paused to look across the room at the rich smoke-gray drapes.
"Master Xiphias, will you open that window for me, please? Thank you."
    He drew a deep and somewhat painful breath of cool, damp air.
"We've had rain, and if I'm any judge of weather, we'll get more.
Now let's have peace - it's a gift we can provide ourselves, one more
precious than rain. Let's have peace."
    (What was it the captain had said whole ages ago in that inn?)
"Many of you are hungry. We plan to buy food with city funds and
sell it to you cheaply. Not free, because there are always people who
will waste anything free. But very cheaply, so that even beggars will
be able to buy enough. My Guard will release the convicts from the
pits. Generalissimo Oosik, His Cognizance the Prolocutor, and I are
going to the Alambrera this morning, and I'll order it. All convicts
are pardoned as of this moment - I pardon them. They'll be hungry
and weak, so please share whatever food you have with them."
    He recalled his own hunger, hunger at the manse and worse
hunger underground, gnawing hunger that had become a sort of
illness by the time Mamelta located the strange, steaming meals of
the underground tower. "We had a poor harvest this year." he said.
"Let us pray, every one of us, for a better one next year. I've prayed
for that often, and I'll pray for it again; but if we want to have
enough to eat for the rest of our lives, we must have water for our
fields when the rains fail.
    "There are ancient tunnels under the city. Some of you can
confirm that because you've come upon them while digging foundations.
They reach Lake Limna - I know that, because I've been in them. If we can
break through near the lake - and I'm sure we can - we can use them to
carry water to the farms. Then we'll all have
plenty of food, cheaply, for a long time." He wanted to say, until it's
time for us to leave this whorl behind us, but he bit the words back,
pausing instead to watch the gray drapes sway in the breeze and
listen to his own voice through the open window.
    "If you have been fighting for me, don't use your weapons again
unless you're attacked. If you're a Guardsman, you have sworn that
you'll obey your officers." (He could not be sure of that, but it was
so probable that he asserted it boldly.) "Ultimately, that means
Generalissimo Oosik, who commands both the Guard and the
Army. You've already heard what he has to say. He's for peace. So am I."
    Oosik pointed to himself, then to the ear; and Silk added, "You'll
hear him again, very soon."
    He felt that the shade should be up by now - indeed that it was
past that time, the hour of first light, and time for the morning
prayer to Thelxiepeia; yet the city beyond the gray drapes was still
twilit. "To you whose loyalty is to the Ayuntamiento, I have two things to
say. The first is that you're fighting - dying, many of you - for an
institution that needs no defense. Neither I nor Generalissimo Oosik nor
General Mint desires to destroy it. So why shouldn't
there be peace? Help us make peace!
    "The second is that the Ayuntamiento was created by our Charter.
Were it not for our Charter, it would have no right to exist, and
wouldn't exist. Our Charter grants to you - to you, the people of
Viron, and not to any official - the right to choose a new calde
whenever the position is vacant. It then makes the Ayuntamiento
subject to the calde you have chosen. I need not tell you that our
Charter proceeds from the immortal gods. All of you know that.
Generalissimo Oosik and I have been consulting His Cognizance the
Prolocutor on this matter of the calde and the Ayuntamiento. He is
here with us, and if I have misinformed you he will correct me, I feel
certain."
    With his left hand Quetzal accepted the ear; his right traced a
trembling sign of addition. "Blessed be you in the Most Sacred
Name of Pas, the Father of the Gods, in that of Gracious Echidna,
His consort, in those of the Sons and their Daughters alike, this day
and forever, in the name of their eldest child, Scylla, Patroness of
this - "
    He continued to speak, but Silk's attention deserted him; the
door of the dressing room had opened. Hyacinth stepped through it,
radiantly lovely in a flowing gown of scarlet silk. In a low voice she
said, "The glass in there just told me the Ayuntamiento's offering
ten thousand to anybody who kills you and two thousand each for
Oosie and His Cognizance. I thought you should know."
    Silk nodded and thanked her; Oosik muttered, "It was only to be
expected."
    "Consider, my children," Quetzal was saying, "how painful it must
be to Succoring Scylla to see the sons and daughters of the city that
she founded clawing one another's eyes. She has provided everything
we require. First of all our Charter, the foundation of peace
and justice. If we wish to regain her favor we need only return to it.
If we wish to reclaim the peace we have lost, again we need only
return to her Charter. We wish justice, I know. I wish it myself, and
the wish for it has been planted in every bosom by Great Pas. Even
the worst of us wish to live in holiness, too. Perhaps there are a few
ingrates who don't, but they are very few. We wish all these things,
and we can make them ours by one simple act. Let us return to our
Charter. That is what the gods desire. Let us accept this anointed
augur, Patera Calde Silk. The gods desire that, too. To conform to
Sustaining Scylla's Charter, we must have a calde, and the smallest
of our children know on whom the choice has fallen. If you have any
doubts on these topics, my children, I beg you to consult the
anointed augur into whose care you are given. There is one, you
know, in every quarter. Or you may consult the next you see, or any
holy sibyl. They will tell you that the path of duty is not difficult but
simple and plain."
    Quetzal paused, exhaling with a slight hiss. "Now, my children, a
most painful matter. Word has come to me that devils in human
shape are seeking our destruction. Falsely and evilly. they promise
money they have not got and will not pay, for our blood. Do not
believe their lies. Their lies offend the gods. Anyone who slays good
men for money is worse than a devil, and anyone who slays for
money he will never see is a fool. Worse than a fool, a dupe."
    Oosik reached for the ear, but Quetzal shook his head.
    "My children, it will soon be shadeup. A new day. Let it be a day
of peace. Let us stand together. Let us stand by the gods, by their
Charter, and by the calde they have chosen for us. I bid you farewell
for the present, but soon I hope to talk to you face-to-face and bless
you for the peace you've given our city. Now I believe Generalissimo
Oosik wants to speak to you again."
    Oosik cleared his throat. "This is the Generalissimo. Operations
against the rebels are canceled, effective at once. Every officer will
be held responsible for his obedience to my order and for the actions
of his troopers or soldiers, as the case may be. Calde Silk and His
Cognizance are going through the city on one of our floaters. I
expect every officer, every trooper, and every soldier to receive
them in a manner fully in accordance with loyalty and good discipline.
    "My Calde, have you anything further to say?"
    "Yes, I do." Silk leaned toward him, speaking into the ear. "Please
stop fighting. It was needful, as I said; but it's become senseless.
Stop them if you can, Maytera Mint. General Mint, please stop
them. Peace is within our grasp - from the moment we accept it, all
of us have won."
    He straightened up, savoring the wonder of the ear. It really does
look like a black flower, he thought, a flower meant to bloom at
night; and because it's bloomed, shadeup is on the way, even if the
night looks nearly as dark as ever.
    To the ear he added, "We'll be with you in a few minutes, on the
floater Generalissimo Oosik told you about. Don't shoot us, please.
We certainly won't shoot you. No one will." He turned to Oosik for
confirmation, and Oosik nodded vigorously.
    "Not even if you shoot me. I'll stand up if I can, so you can see
me." He paused. Was there more to say?
    Attenuated like distant thunder, his words flew back to him
through the window, an ebbing storm: "_Can see me_."
    "Those who fought for Viron will be rewarded, regardless of the
side on which they fought. Maytera Marble, if you can hear this,
please come to the floater. I need you badly, so please come. Auk,
too, and Chenille." Had Kypris possessed Hyacinth, rendering her
irresistible? Could she possess two women simultaneously? For a
second he pondered the question among the remembered faces of
his teachers at the schola. He ought to end this, he thought, by
invoking the gods; but the time-worn honorifics caught in his throat.
    "Until I see you," he said at last, "please pray for me - for our city,
and for all of us. Pray to Kind Kypris, who is love. Pray especially to
the Outsider, because he is the god whose time is coming and I am
the help he's sent us."
    He let the hand that held the ear fall, and Oosik took it from him.
"For which we all give thanks," Oosik said, and Oreb muttered,
"Watch out."
    No one spoke after that. Although Oosik and his surgeon,
Xiphias, and Quetzal were all present, the bedroom felt empty.
Beyond the window, a hush hung over the Palatine. No street
vendor hawked his wares and no gun spoke.
    Peace.
    Peace here, at least; for those on the Palatine and those surrounding
it, there was peace. Incredible as it seemed, hundreds - thousands - had
ceased fighting, merely because he, Silk, had told them to.
    He felt better; perhaps peace, like blood, made one feel better.
He was stronger, though he was still not strong. The surgeon had
poured blood - more blood - into him while he slept, and that sleep
must have been something akin to a coma, because the needle had
not awakened him. Another's blood - another's life - had let him
live, though he had been certain the night before that he would die
that night. Premonitions born of weakness could be frustrated,
clearly; he would have to remember that. With friends to help, a
man could make his own fate.

                      Chapter 9  -  Victory

Xiphias, it transpired, had gone to the Palace, bringing back one
of Remora's fine robes. It fit Silk surprisingly well, although it
carried in its soft fabric a suggestion of somber luxury he found
detestable. "They won't know you outside of this, lad," Xiphias
said. He, shaking his head, wondered how they could possibly
know him in it.
    Oosik returned. "I have had more lights mounted on your floater,
Calde. There will be a flag on its antenna as well. Most will be on
you, two on the flag." Without waiting for a reply, he asked the
surgeon, "Is he ready?"
    "He shouldn't walk far," the surgeon said.
    "I can walk around the city if need be," Silk told them.
    Hyacinth declared, "He should lie down again till it's time to go,"
and to please her, he did.
    Within half a minute, it seemed, Xiphias and the surgeon were
lowering him into a litter. Hyacinth walked beside him as she had
when the waiters had carried him out of the Glasshouse, and it
seemed to him that his mother's garden walked with her; from the
other side, Quetzal asperged him with benedictions, his robe of
mulberry velvet contributing the mingled smells of frankincense and
something else to the cool and windy dark. At his ears, the
_frou-frou-frou_ of Hyacinth's skirt and the _whish-shish_
of Quetzal's robe sounded louder than the snap of Oosik's flag. Troopers
saluted, clicking their heels. One knelt for Quetzal's blessing.
    "It would be better," Oosik said, "if you did not have to be carried
into the floater, Calde. Can you do it?"
    He could, of course, rising from the litter with the help of
Xiphias's cane. A volley of shots crackled in the distance; it was
followed by a faint scream, rarefied and unreal. "Men fight," Oreb
commented.
    "Some do," Silk told him. "That's why we're going."
    The entry port let spill a sallow light; the surgeon was crouching
inside to help him in. "Blood's floater was open," Silk remarked,
remembering. "There was a transparent canopy - a top that you
could see through almost as well as air - but when it was down, you
could stand up."
    "You can stand in this, too," the surgeon said, "right here." He
steered Silk toward the spot. "See? You're under the turret here."
    Straightening up, Silk nodded. "I rode in one of these yesterday - on the
outside, when the rain stopped. It wasn't nearly as roomy as this." Corpses,
including Doctor Crane's, had taken up most of the space inside.
    "We took out a lot of ammo, Calde," the trooper at the controls
told him.
    Silk nearly nodded again, although the trooper could not see his
head. He had found the ladder he recalled, a spidery affair of metal
rods, and was climbing cautiously but steadily toward the open
hatch at the top of the turret.
    "Bad thing," Oreb informed him nervously. "Thing shine."
    To his own astonishment Silk smiled. "This buzz gun, you
mean?" It was dull black, but the open breech revealed bright
steel. "They won't shoot us with it, Oreb. They won't shoot
anyone, I hope."
    The surgeon's voice floated up from below. "There's a saddle for
the gunner, Calde, and things to put your feet in."
    "Stirrups." That voice had been Oosik's, surely.
    Silk swung himself onto the leather-covered seat, almost but not
quite losing his grip on Xiphias's cane. There were officers on
horseback around the floater, and what seemed to be a full company
of troopers standing at ease half a street behind it. The footman who
had admitted him to Ermine's was watching everything from his
station by the door; Silk waved to him with the cane, and he waved
in return, his grin a touch of white in the darkness.
    It's going to rain again, Silk thought. I don't believe we've had a
morning this dark since spring.
    Quetzal's head rose at his elbow. "I'm going to be besides you,
Patera Calde. They're finding a box for me to stand on."
    With as much firmness as he could muster, Silk said, "I can't
possibly sit while your Cognizance stands."
    A hatch opened at the front of the floater; Oosik's head and
shoulders emerged, and he spoke to someone inside.
    Quetzal touched Silk's hand with cold, dry fingers that might have
been boneless. "You're wounded, Patera Calde, and weaker than
you think. Stay seated. That is my wish." His head rose to the level
of Silk's own.
    "As Your Cognizance desires." With both hands on the rim of the
hatch, Silk heaved up his unwontedly uncooperative body. For an
instant the effort seemed too great; his heart pounded and his arms
shook; then one foot found a corner of the box on which Quetzal
stood, and he was able to hoist himself up enough to sit on the
coaming of the open turret hatch. "The gunner's seat remains for
Your Cognizance," he said.
    The floater lifted beneath them, gliding forward. Louder than the
roar of its engine, Oosik's voice seemed to reach into every street in
the city: "_People of Viron! Our new calde is coming among you as we
promised. At his side is His Cognizance the Prolocutor, who has
confirmed that Calde Silk has the favor of all the gods. Hail him!
Follow him!_"
    Brilliant white lights glared to left and right, less than an arm's
length away, more than half blinding him.
    "Girl come!" Oreb exclaimed.
    A black civilian floater had nosed between their floater and the
troopers, and was pushing through the mounted officers. Hyacinth
stood on its front seat beside the driver; and while Silk watched
open mouthed, she stepped over what seemed to be a low invisible
barrier, and onto the waxed and rounded foredeck. "Your stick!" she
called.
    Silk tightened the handle, leaned as far back as he dared, and held
it out to her; the civilian floater advanced until its cowling touched
the back of the floater upon which he rode.
    And Hyacinth leaped, her scarlet skirt billowing about her bare
legs in the updraft from the blowers. For an instant he was certain
she would fall. Then she had grasped the cane and stood secure on
the sloping rear deck of his floater, waving in triumph to the
mounted officers, most of whom waved in return or saluted. As the
floater in which she had come turned away and vanished into the
twilight beyond the lights on their own, Silk recognized the driver
who had returned him to his manse Phaesday night.
    Hyacinth gave him a mischievous grin. "You look like you've seen
a ghost. You didn't expect company, did you?"
    "I thought you were inside. I should've - I'm sorry, Hyacinth.
Terribly sorry."
    "You ought to be." He had to put his ear to her lips to hear her,
and she nipped and kissed it. "Oosie sent me away. Don't tell him
I'm up here."
    Lost in the wonder of her face, Silk could only gasp.
Quetzal raised the baculus to bestow a benison, although Silk
could see no one beyond the glare that enveloped the three of them
except the mounted officers. The roar of their floater was muted
now; an occasional grating hesitation suggested that its cowling was
actually scraping the cobbles.
    "You said you took a floater," Silk told Hyacinth. "I thought you
meant that you just, well, took it."
    "I wouldn't know how to make one go." Sitting, she edged nearer,
grasping the coaming of the turret hatch. "Would you? But that
driver's my friend, and I gave him a little money."
    They rounded a corner, and innumerable throats cheered from
the dimness beyond the lights. Someone shouted, "We've gone over
to Silk!"
    A thrown chrysanthemum brushed his cheek, and he waved.
Another voice shouted, "Live the calde!" It brought a storm of
cheering, and Hyacinth waved and smiled as if she herself were that
calde, evoking a fresh outburst. "Where are we going? Did Oosie
tell you?"
    "To the Alambrera." Silk had to shout to make himself heard.
"We'll free the convicts. The Juzgado afterward."
    A jumble of boxes and furniture opened to let them pass - Liana's
barricade.
    Beside him, Quetzal invoked the Nine: "In the name of Marvelous
Molpe, you are blessed. In the name of Tenebrous Tartaros..."
They trust the gods, Silk thought, all these wretched men; and
because they do, they have made me their leader. Yet I feel I can't
trust any god at all, not even the Outsider.
    As if they had been chatting over lunch, Quetzal said, "Only a fool
would, Patera Calde."
    Silk stared.
    "Didn't I tell you that I've done everything I could to prevent
theophanies? Those we call gods are nothing more than ghosts.
Powerful ghosts, but only because they entailed that power to
themselves in life."
    "I - " Silk swallowed. "I wasn't aware that I had spoken aloud,
Your Cognizance. I apologize; my remark was singularly inappropriate."
Oreb stirred apprehensively on his shoulder.
    "You didn't, Patera Calde. I saw your face, and I've had lots of
practice. Don't look at me or your young woman. Look at the
people. Wave. Look ahead. Smile."
    Both waved, and Silk tried to smile as well. His eyes had adjusted
to the lights well enough now for him to glimpse indistinct figures
beyond the mounted officers, many waving slug guns just as he
waved the cane. Through clenched teeth he ventured, "Echidna told
us Pas was dead. Your Cognizance confirmed it."
    "Dead long ago," Quetzal agreed, "whoever he really was, poor
old fellow. Murdered by his family, as was inevitable." Deftly he
caught a bouquet. "Blessings on you, my children. Blessings,
blessings... May Great Pas and the immortal gods smile upon you
and all that you own, forever!"
    "Silk is calde! Long live Silk!"
    Hyacinth told him happily, "We're getting a real tour of the city!"
    He nodded, feeling his smile grow warm and real.
    "Look at them, Patera Calde. This is their moment. They have
bled for this."
    "Peace!" Silk called to the shadowy crowds, waving the cane.
"Peace!"
    "Peace!" Oreb confirmed, and hopped up onto Silk's head flapping
his wings. The day was brightening at last, Silk decided, in spite
of the storm-black cloud hanging over the city. How appropriate
that shadeup should come now - peace and sunlight together! A
cheering woman waved an evergreen bough, the symbol of life. He
waved in return, meeting her eyes and smiling, and she seemed
ready to swoon with delight.
    "Don't start throwing flowers to yourself," Hyacinth told him with
mock severity. "They'll be blaming you soon enough."
    "Then let's enjoy this while we can." Seeing the woman with the
bough had recalled one of the ten thousand things the Outsider had
shown him - a hero riding through some foreign city while a
cheering crowd waved big fan-like leaves. Would Echidna and her
children kill the Outsider too? With a flash of insight, he felt sure
they were already trying.
    "Look! There's Orchid, throwing out the house."
    A light directed at the flag showed her plainly, leaning so far from
the second-story window through which Kypris had called to him
that it seemed she might fall any moment. They were floating down
Lamp Street, clearly; the Alambrera could not be far.
    As Hyacinth blew Orchid a kiss, something whizzed past Silk's
ear, striking the foredeck like a gong. A high whine and a booming
explosion were followed by the rattle of a buzz gun. Somebody
shouted for someone to come down, and someone inside the floater
caught his injured ankle and pulled.
    He looked up instead, to where something new and enormous
that was not a cloud at all filled the sky. Another whine, louder,
mounting ever higher, until Lamp Street exploded in front of them,
peppering his face and throwing something solid at his head.
    Oosik shouted, "Faster!" and disappeared down his hatch, slamming
it behind him.
    "Inside, Patera Calde!"
    He scooped Hyacinth into his arms instead, dropping the cane
into the floater. It was racing now, careering along Lamp Street and
scattering people like chaff. She shrieked.
    Here was Cage Street, overlooked by the despotic wall of the
Alambrera. Hanging in the air in front of it was a single trooper with
wings - a female trooper, from the bulge at her chest - who leveled a
slug gun. He slid off the coaming and dropped, still holding
Hyadnth, onto the men below.
    They sprawled in a tangle of arms and legs, like beetles swept into
a jar. Someone stepped on his shoulder and swarmed up the spidery
ladder. The turret hatch banged shut. At the front of the floater
Oosik snapped, "Faster, Sergeant!"
    "We're getting a vector now, sir."
    Silk tried to apologize, to tug Hyacinth's scarlet skirt (about
which Hyacinth herself seemed to care not a cardbit) over her
thighs, and to stand in a space in which he could not possibly have
stood upright, all at once. Nothing succeeded.
    Something struck the floater like a sledge, sending it yawing into
something else solid; it rolled and plunged and righted itself, its
straining engine roaring like a wounded bull. Reeking of fish, a wisp
of oily black smoke writhed through the compartment.
    "_Faster!_" Oosik shouted.
    The turret gun spoke as if in response, a clatter that went on and
on, as though the turret gunner were intent on massacring the whole
city.
    Scrambling across Xiphias and the surgeon, Silk peered over
Oosik's shoulder. Fiery red letters danced across his glass:
<font size=2>VECTOR UNACCEPTABLE</font>.
    Something banged the slanted foredeck above their heads, and
the thunder of the engine rose to a deafening crescendo; Silk felt
that he had been jerked backwards.
    Abruptly, their motion changed.
    The floater no longer rocked or raced. The noise of the engine
waned until he could distinguish the high-pitched song of the
blowers. It ascended to an agonized scream and faded away. A red
light flared on the instrument panel.
    For the second time in a floater, Silk felt that he was truly
floating; it was, he thought, like the uncanny sensation of the
moving room in which he had ridden with Mamelta.
    Behind him, Hyacinth gasped. A strangely-shaped object had
risen from Oosik's side. Before Silk recognized it, it had completed
a leisurely quarter revolution, scarcely a span in front of his nose. It
was a large needler, similar to the one in his own waistband; and it
had bobbed up like a cork, unimpelled, from Oosik's holster.
    "Look! Look! They're picking us up!" Hyacinth's full breasts
pressed his back as she stared at the glass.
    He plucked Oosik's needler out of the air and returned it to its
holster. When he looked at the glass again, it showed a sprawling
pattern of crooked lines, enlivened here and there by crimson
sparks. It looked, he decided, like a city in the skylands, except that
it seemed much closer. Intrigued, he undogged the hatcheover over
Oosik's seat and threw it back. As he completed the motion, both
his feet left the floor; he snatched at the hatch dog, missed it by a
finger, and drifted up like Oosik's needler until someone inside
caught his foot.
    The pattern he had seen in the glass was spread before him
without limit here: a twilit skyland city, ringed by sunbright brown
fields and huddled villages; and to one side, a silver mirror anchored
by a winding, dun-colored thread Oreb fluttered from his shoulder
as he gaped and disappeared into the twilight.
    "We're flying." Incredulity and dismay turned the words to a sigh
that dwindled with the black bird. Silk coughed, spat congealed
blood, and tried again. "We are flying upside down. I see Viron and
the lake, even the road to the lake."
    Quetzal spoke from inside the floater. "Look behind us, Patera
Calde."
    They were nearer now, so near that the vast dark belly of the
thing roofed out the sky. Beneath it, suspended by cables that
appeared no thicker than gossamer, dangled a structure like a boat
with many short oars; Silk's lungs had filled and emptied before he
realized that the oars were the barrels of guns, and half a minute
crept by before he made out the blood-red triangle on its bottom.
"Your Cognizance..."
    "You don't understand why they're not shooting at us." Quetzal
shook himself. "I imagine it's only that they haven't noticed us yet.
A wind is forcing them to hold their airship parallel to the sun, so
they're peering down at a dark city. At the moment our floater's
presenting its narrowest aspect to them. But we're turning, and soon
they'll be looking straight down at us. Let's duck inside and shut the
hatch."
    The glass showed Lake Limna now. Watching its shoreline creep
from one corner to the other, Silk thought of Oosik's needler; their
floater seemed to be tumbling through the sky in the same dilatory
fashion.
    Clinging to him, Hyacinth whispered, "You're not afraid at all,
are you? Are we up terribly high?" She trembled.
    "Of course I am; when I was out there, I was terrified." He
examined his emotional state. "I'm still badly frightened; but
thinking about what's happening - how it can possibly have come
about except by a miracle - keeps my mind off my fear." Watching
the glass, he tried to describe the airship.
    "Pulling us up, lad! That's what she said! Think we could cut it?"
    "There's nothing to cut; if there were, they'd know where we were
and shoot us, I believe. This is something else. Was it you who held
my foot, by the way? Thank you."
    Xiphias shook his head and indicated the surgeon.
    "Thank you," Silk repeated. "Thank you very much indeed,
Doctor." He grasped the operator's shoulder. "You said we were
getting a vector. Exactly what does that mean?"
    "It's a message you get if you float too fast, My Calde, either north
or south. You're supposed to slow down. The monitor's supposed to
make you if you don't, but that doesn't work any more on this
floater."
    "I see." Silk nodded, encouragingly he hoped. "Why are you
supposed to slow down?"
    Oosik put in, "Going too fast north makes you feel as if someone
were shoveling sand on you. It is not good for you, and makes
everyone in the floater slow to react. Going south too fast makes
you giddy. It feels like swimming."
    Almost too softly to be heard, Quetzal inquired, "Do you know
the shape of the whorl, Patera Calde?"
    "The whorl? Why, it's cylindrical, Your Cognizance."
    "Are we on the outside of the cylinder, Patera Calde? Or on the
inside?"
    "We're inside, Your Cognizance. If we were outside, we'd fall
off."
    "Exactly. What is it that holds us down? What makes a book fall if
you drop it?"
    "I can't remember the name, Your Cognizance," Silk said, "but it's
the tendency that keeps a stone in a sling until it is thrown."
    Hyacinth had released him; now her hand found his, and he
squeezed it. "As long as the boy keeps twirling his sling, the stone in
it can't fall out. The Whorl turns - I see! If the stone were a - a
mouse and the mouse ran in the direction the sling was going, it
would be held in place more securely, as though the sling were being
twirled faster. But if the mouse were to run the other way, it would
be as if the sling weren't twirling fast enough. It would fall out."
    "Gunner!" Oosik was staring at the glass. "Your gun should bear."
As he flicked off his own buzz gun's safety, the red triangle crept
into view.
    "Trivigaunte," Hyacinth whispered. "Sphigx won't let them make
pictures of anything. That mark's on their flag."

Auk stood, unable for a moment to recall where he was or why he
had come. Had he fallen off a roof? Salt blood from his lips trickled
into his mouth. A man with arms and legs no thicker than kindling
and a face like a bearded skull dashed past him. Then another and
another.
    "Don't be afraid," the blind god whispered. "Be brave and act
wisely, and I will protect you." He took Auk's hand, not as Hyacinth
had put her own hand into Silk's a few minutes before, but as an
older man clasps a younger's at a crisis.
    "All right," Auk told him. "I ain't scared, only kind of shook up."
The blind god's hand felt good in his own, big and strong, with long
powerful fingers; he could not think of the blind god's name and was
embarrassed by his failure.
    "I am Tartaros, and your friend. Tell me everything you see. You
may speak or not, as you wish."
    "There's a big hole with smoke coming out in the middle of the
wall," Auk reported. "That wasn't there before, I'm pretty sure.
There's some dead culls around besides the ones Patera killed and
the one I killed. One's a trooper, like, only a mort it looks like. Her
wings broke, I guess, maybe when she hit the ground. Everything's
brown, the wings and pants and a kind of a bandage, like, over her
boobs."
    "Brown?"
    Auk looked more closely. "Not exactly. Yellowy-brown, more
like. Dirt color. Here comes Chenille."
    "That is well. Comfort her, Auk my noctolater. Is the airship still
overhead?"
    "Sure," Auk said, implying by his tone that he did not require a
god to coach him in such elementary things. "Yeah, it is." Chenille
rushed into his arms.
    "It's all right, Jugs," he told her. "Going to be candy. You'll see.
Tartaros is a dimber mate of mine." To Tartaros himself, Auk
added, "There's this hoppy floater that's falling in the pit, only slow,
while it shoots. That's up there, too. And there's maybe a couple
hundred troopers like the dead mort flying around, way up."
    The blind god gave his hand a gentle tug. "We emerged from a
smaller pit into this one, Auk. If you see no other way out, it would
be well to return to the tunnel. There are other egresses, and I know
them all."
    "Just a minute. I lost my whin. I see it." Releasing Chenille, Auk
hurried over, jerked his hanger from the mire, and wiped the blade
on his tunic.
    "_Auk_, my son - "
    He shooed Incus with the hanger. "You get back in the tunnel,
Patera, before you get hurt. That's what Tartaros says, and he's
right."
    The floater was descending faster now, almost as though it were
really falling. Watching it, Auk got the feeling it was, only not
straight down the way other things fell. Until the last moment, it
seemed it might come to rest upright; but it landed on the side of its
cowling and tumbled over.
    Something much higher was falling much faster, a tiny dot of
black that seemed almost an arrow by the time it struck the ruined
battlement of the Alambrera's wall, which again erupted in a gout of
flame and smoke. This time masses of shiprock as big as cottages
were flung up like chaff. Auk thought it the finest sight he had seen
in his life.
    "Silk here!" Oreb announced proudly, dropping onto his shoulder.
"Bird bring!" A hatch opened at the front of the fallen floater.
    "Hackum!" Chenille shouted. "Hackum, come on! We're going
back in the tunnel!"
    Auk waved to silence her. The wall of the Alambrera had taken
its death blow. As he watched, cracks raced down it to reappear as
though by magic in the shiprock side of the pit. There came a growl
deeper than any thunder. With a roar that shook the ground on
which he struggled to stand, the wall and the side of the pit came
down together. Half the pit vanished under a scree of stones, earth,
and shattered slabs. Coughing at the dust, Auk backed away.
    "Hole break," Oreb informed him.
    When he looked again, several men and a slender woman in
scarlet were emerging from the overturned floater; its turret gun,
unnaturally canted but pointing skyward, was firing burst after burst
at the flying troopers.
    "Return to the woman," the blind god told him. "You must protect
her. A woman is vital. This is not."
    He looked for Chenille, but she was gone. A few skeletal figures
were disappearing into the hole from which he and she had emerged
into the pit. Men from the floater followed them; through the
billowing dust he could make out a white-bearded man in rusty
black and a taller one in a green tunic.
    "Silk here!" Oreb circled above two fleeing figures.
    Auk caught up with them as they started down the helical track;
Silk was hobbling fast, helped by a cane and the woman in scarlet.
Auk caught her by the hair. "Sorry, Patera, but I got to do this."
Silk's hand went to his waistband, but Auk was too quick - a push
on his chest sent him reeling backward into the lesser pit.
    "Listen!" urged the blind god beside Auk; he did, and heard the
rising whine of the next bomb a full second before it struck the
ground.

Silk looked down upon the dying augur's body with joy and regret.
It was - had been - himself, after all. Quetzal and a smaller,
younger augur knelt beside it, with a woman in an augur's cloak and
a third man nearly as old as Quetzal.
    Beads swung in sign after sign of addition: "I convey to you,
Patera Silk my son, the forgiveness of all the gods."
    "Recall now the words of Pas - "
    It was good; and when it was over, he could go. Where? It didn't
matter. Anywhere he wished. He was free at last, and though he
would miss his old cell now and then, freedom was best. He looked
up through the shiprock ceiling and saw only earth, but knew that
the whole Whorl was above it, and the open sky.
    "I pray you to forgive us, the living," the smaller augur said, and
again traced the sign of addition, which could not - now that he
came to think of it - ever have been Pas's. A sign of addition was a
cross; he remembered Maytera drawing one on the chalkboard
when he was a boy learning to do sums. Pas's sign was not the cross
but the voided cross. He reached for his own at his neck, but it was
gone.
    The older augur: "I speak here for Great Pas, for Divine Echidna,
for Scalding Scylla."
    The younger augur: "For Marvelous Molpe, for Tenebrous Tartaros,
for Highest Hierax, for Thoughtful Thelxiepeia, for Fierce
Phaea, and for Strong Sphigx."
    The older augur: "Also for all lesser gods."
    The shiprock gave way to earth, the earth to a clearer, purer air
than he had ever known. Hyacinth was there with Auk; in a slanting
mass of stones, broken shiprock rolled and slid to reveal a groping
steel hand. Glorying, he soared.
    The Trivigaunti airship was a brown beetle, infinitely remote, the
Aureate Path so near he knew it could not be his final destination.
    He lighted upon it, and found it a road of tinsel down a whorl no
bigger than an egg. Where were the lowing beasts? The spirits of the
other dead? There! Two men and two women. He blinked and
stared and blinked again.
    "Oh, Silk! My son! Oh, son!" She was in his arms and he in hers,
melting in tears of joy. "Mother!" "Silk, my son!"
    The Whorl was filth and stink, futility and betrayal; this was
everything - joy and love, freedom and purity.
    "You must go back, Silk. He sends us to tell you."
    "You must, my lad." A man's voice, the voice of which Lemur's
had been a species of mockery. Looking up he saw the carved brown
face from his mother's closet.
    "We're your parents." He was tall and blue-eyed. "Your fathers
and your mothers."
    The other woman did not speak, but her eyes spoke truth.
    "You were my mother," he said. "I understand."
    He looked down at his own beautiful mother. "You will always be
my mother. Always!"
    "We'll be waiting, Silk my son. All of us. Remember."
                           *   *   *
Something was fanning his face.
    He opened his eyes. Quetzal was seated beside him, one long,
bloodless hand swinging as regularly and effortlessly as a pendulum.
"Good afternoon, Patera Calde. I would guess, at least, that it may
be afternoon by now."
    He lay on dirt, staring up at a shiprock ceiling. Pain stabbed his
neck; his head, both arms, his chest, both legs, and his lower torso
ached, each in its separate, painful way.
    "Lie quietly. I wish I had water to offer you. How are you
feeling?"
    "I'm back in my dirty cage." Too late, he remembered to add _Your
Cognizance_. "I didn't know it was a cage, before."
    Quetzal pressed down on his shoulder. "Don't sit up yet, Patera
Calde. I'm going to ask a question, but you are not to put it to the
test. It is to be a matter for discussion only. Do you agree?"
    "Yes, Your Cognizance." He nodded, although nodding took
immense effort.
    "This is my question. We are only to speak of it. If I were to help
you up, could you walk?"
    "I believe so, Your Cognizance."
    "Your voice is very weak. I've examined you and found no broken
bones. There are four of us besides yourself, but - "
    "We fell, didn't we? We were in a Civil Guard floater, spinning
over the city. Did I dream that?"
    Quetzal shook his head.
    "You and I and Hyacinth. And Colonel Oosik and Oreb. And..."
    "Yes, Patera Calde?"
    "A trooper - two troopers - and an old fencing master that
someone had introduced me to. I can't remember his name, but I
must have dreamed that he was there as well. It's too fantastic."
    "He is some distance down the tunnel now, Patera Calde. We
have been troubled by the convicts you freed."
    "Hyacinth?" Silk struggled to sit up.
    Quetzal held him down, his hands on both shoulders. "Lie quietly
or I'll tell you nothing."
    "Hyacinth? For - for the sake of all the gods! I've got to know!"
    "I dislike them, Patera Calde. So do you. Why should either of us
tell anyone anything for their sake? I don't know. I wish I did. She
may be dead. I can't say."
    "Tell me what happened, please."
    Slowly, Quetzal's hairless head swung from side to side. "It would
be better, Patera Calde, for you to tell me. You've been very near
death. I need to know what you've forgotten."
    "There's water in these tunnels. I was in them before, Your
Cognizance. In places there was a great deal."
    "This is not one of those places. If you have recovered enough to
grasp how ill you are and keep a promise, I'll find some. Do you
remember blessing the crowds with me? Tell me about that."
    "We were trying to bring peace - peace to Viron. Blood had
bought it - Musk, but Musk was only a tool of Blood's."
    "Had bought the city, Patera Calde?"
    Silk's mouth opened and closed again.
    "What is it, Patera Calde?"
    "Yes, Your Cognizance, he has. He, and others like him. I hadn't
thought of that until you asked. I'd been confusing the things."
    "What things, Patera Calde?"
    "Peace and saving my manteion. The Outsider asked me to save
it, and then the insurrection broke out, and I thought I would have
saved it if only I could bring peace, because the people made me
calde, and I would save it by an order." For a second or two, Silk lay
silent, his eyes half closed. "Blood - men like Blood - have stolen
the city, every part of it except the Chapter, and the Chapter has
resisted only because you are at its head, Your Cognizance. When
you're gone..."
    "When I die, Patera Calde?"
    "If you were to die, Your Cognizance, they'd have it all. Musk
actually signed the papers. Musk was the owner of record - the man
whose body we burned on the altar, Your Cognizance. I remember
thinking how horrible it would be if Musk were the real owner and
clenching my teeth - puffing myself up with courage I've never
really had and telling myself over and over that I couldn't allow it to
happen."
    "You're the only man in Viron who doubts your courage, Patera
Calde."
    Silk scarcely heard him. "I was wrong. Badly mistaken. Musk
wasn't the danger, was never the danger, really. There are scores of
Musks in the Orilla, and Musk loved birds. Did I tell you that, Your
Cognizance?"
    "No, Patera Calde. Tell me now, if you wish."
    "He did. Mucor told me he liked birds, and he'd brought her a
book about the cats she carried for Blood. When he saw Oreb, he
said I'd gotten him because I wanted to be friends, which wasn't
true, and threw his knife at him. He missed, and I believe he
intended to miss. Blood, with his money and his greed for more, has
done Viron more harm than all the Musks. Everything I've done has
been trying to pry bits of the city from Blood. I was trying to save
my manteion, I said; but you can't save just one manteion - I can't
save our quarter and nothing else. I see that now. And yet I like
Blood, or at least I would like to like him."
    "I understand, Patera Calde."
    "Little pieces - the manteion, and Hyacinth and Orchid, and Auk,
because Auk matters so much to Maytera Mint. Auk..."
    "Yes, Patera Calde?"
    "Auk pushed me, Your Cognizance. We had been together in the
floater, Hyacinth and I. Your Cognizance, too, and - and others.
We were coming down, and Colonel Oosik - "
    "You've made him Generalissimo Oosik," Quetzal reminded Silk
gently.
    "Yes. Yes, I did. He passed me the ear, and I talked to the
convicts, telling them they were free, and then we hit the ground.
We opened a hatch and Hyacinth and I climbed out - "
    "I'm satisfied, Patera Calde. Promise me you won't try to stand
until I come back, and I'll look for water."
    Silk detained him, clasping one boneless, bloodless hand. "You
can't tell me what's happened to her, Your Cognizance?"
    Again Quetzal's head swung from side to side, a slow and almost
hypnotic motion.
    "Then Auk has her, I don't know why, and I must get her back
from him. What happened to me, Your Cognizance?"
    "You were buried alive, Patera Calde. When the floater crashed,
some of us climbed out. I did, as you see, and you and your young
woman, as you say. The fencing master, too, and your physician.
I'm sure of those. The convicts were running to a hole in the ground
to escape the shooting and explosions. Do you remember them?"
    This time Silk was able to nod without much difficulty, although
his neck was stiff and painful.
    "There was a ramp down the side of the hole, and a break in this
tunnel at the bottom. The fencing master and I ducked through.
Almost at once there was another explosion, and the hole fell in
behind us. We were lucky to have gotten in. Do you know my
coadjutor's prothonotary, Patera Calde?"
    "I've met him, Your Cognizance. I don't know him well."
    "He's here. I was surprised to see him, and he to see me. There is
a woman with him called Chenille who says she knows you. They
went into the tunnel yesterday, at Limna. They had been trying to
reach the city."
    "Chenille, Your Cognizance? A tall woman? Red hair?"
    "Exactly so. She's an extraordinary woman. Soon after the
explosion, the convicts attacked us. They were friendly at first, but
soon demanded we give them Patera and the woman. We refused,
and Xiphias killed four. Xiphias is the fencing master. Am I making
myself clear?"
    "Perfectly, Your Cognizance."
    "We tried to dig our way out and found you. We thought you
were dead, and Patera and I brought you the Peace of Pas.
Eventually we stopped digging, having realized that the effort
was hopeless. For a dozen men with shovels and barrows, two
days might be enough."
    "I understand, Your Cognizance.
    "By then I was exhausted, though I had dug less than the woman.
The others left to look for another way out. She and Patera are
famished, and they have a tessera that they believe will admit them
to the Juzgado. They promised to return for your body and me. I
prayed for you after they had gone."
    "Your Cognizance distrusts the gods."
    "I do." Quetzal nodded, his hairless head bobbing on its long neck.
"I know them for what they are. But consider. I believe in them. I
have faith. You mentioned your quarter. How many there really
believe in the gods? Half?"
    "Less than that, I'm afraid, Your Cognizance."
    "What about you, Patera Calde? Look into your heart."
    Silk was silent.
    "I'll give you my thoughts, Patera Calde. This young man
believes, and he loves the gods even after seeing Echidna. I too
believe, though I distrust them. He would want me to pray for him,
and that's my office. I've done it often, hoping I wouldn't be heard.
This time it's possible one will restore him, to prove she's not at bad
as I think."
    Faint yet unmistakable, the crack of a needler echoed down the tunnel.
    "That will be Patera, Patera Calde. We've been lucky in the
matter of weapons. Xiphias has a sword, and had a small needler he
said was yours. You left it on your bed, and he took charge of it for
you. He gave it to the woman. We found a large one in your
waistband. Patera took it, surprising me again. Our clergy have
hidden depths."
    In spite of pain and weakness, Silk smiled. "Some do, perhaps,
Your Cognizance."
    "Last night before you saw me in the alley, Patera Calde. I met
your acolyte, young Gulo. He is most embarrassed."
    "I'm sorry to hear that, Your Cognizance."
    "You shouldn't be. His uncle is a major in the Second Brigade.
One uncle of many. Were you aware of it?"
    "No, Your Cognizance. I don't know much about Patera."
    "Neither do I, though he was one of our copyists until my
coadjutor sent him to you. He commands several thousand now. It's
a great responsibility for someone so young. More join every hour,
he tells me, because they know he's your acolyte."
    Silk managed to swallow. "I hope he won't waste their lives, Your
Cognizance."
    "So do I. I asked if it was hard. He said he discussed each
operation with those who would have to fight. He finds them
sensible, and he knows something of war from his uncle's table talk.
He fights in the front rank afterward, he says."
    "Your Cognizance mentioned that he was embarrassed."
    "So he is, Patera Calde." Quetzal shook himself, lifting one
corner of his mouth by the thickness of a thread. "He has
captured his uncle. Our clergy have hidden depths. The older
man is humiliated. It's an awkward situation, I'm afraid, but I
was amused."
    "So am I, Your Cognizance. Thank you."
    Quetzal rose. "We'll find our own amusing, when we find our way
out. May I look for water?"
    "Of course, Your Cognizance."
    "You won't try to stand until I'm back? Give me your word,
Patera Calde."
    Silk sat up.
    "Please, Patera - "
    "I have to go with you, Your Cognizance. I have to find water,
wash, and drink, so I can do whatever I can for Viron and Hyacinth.
You've got nothing to carry water in, and all four of you couldn't
possibly carry me far."
    "You've been suffocated, Patera Calde," Quetzal bent over him.
"We merely thought you dead, and I shouldn't have hinted at a
miracle. No god can turn back death, and if they could, no god
would to please us. You were still alive when we dug you out. You
revived naturally - "
    Unaided, Silk staggered to his feet. "I had a cane, Your Cognizance.
Master Xiphias gave it to me. I didn't need it then, or at least
not much. Now I do."
    Quetzal offered him the baculus. "Use this."
    "Never, Your Cognizance. Councillor Lemur called me - No, I won't."
    The tunnel behind them was nearly choked with earth; a trampled
path led Silk to an opening in the wall. "Is this where you found me,
Your Cognizance? In there?"
    "Yes, Patera Calde. But if your young woman is in there, she is
surely dead by now."
    "I realize that." Silk put his head through the opening, "and I
believe she's in the pit with Auk, anyway; but Master Xiphias values
that cane, I need it, and it's probably very close to the place where
you found me." He began to work his shoulders through.
    "Be careful, Patera Calde."
    The wall was shiprock, little more than a cubit thick. Beyond it
lay a cavity hollowed from the tumbled soil that seemed utterly
dark. When Silk tried to stand, he found his head capped by a rough
dome; earth and small stones showered him invisibly. "This could
collapse any moment," he told the swaying figure in the tunnel.
    "So it could, Patera Calde. Come out, please."
    His questing fingers had come upon stubby protuberances he
assumed were roots. Exploring his pockets, he discovered the cards
Remora had given him and used one to scrape away the soil. One
root wore a ring. He cleared away more soil until he could get a firm
grip on the hand, tugged, dug farther, and tugged again.
    "There are new sounds in this tunnel, Patera Calde. You had
better leave that place."
    "I've found someone, Your Cognizance. Somebody else." Silk
hesitated, unwilling to trust his judgement. "I don't think it's
Hyacinth. The hand is too big."
    "Then it doesn't matter whose it is. We must go."
    Getting a firm grip on the arm, Silk heaved with all the strength
that remained to him, and was rewarded by a cataract of earth and a
dead man's embrace.
    I'm robbing a grave, he thought, spitting grit and wiping his eyes.
Robbing this man's grave from below - stealing his grave as well as
his body.
    It should have been at least as amusing as Gulo's uncle the major,
but was not. Holding onto the jagged edge of the opening in the
tunnel wall, he succeeded in pulling his own partially buried body
free. Back in the tunnel (suddenly very glad of its cold, sighing airs
and watery lights) he was able to extract the corpse from the loose
soil that had reclaimed it. Quetzal was nowhere to be seen.
    "He's gone to look for water," Silk muttered. "Perhaps water could
revive you the way something revived me," but the dead man's ears
were stopped with earth. As he cleaned the pitiful face, Silk added,
"I'm sorry, Doctor."
    He searched his pockets again; his beads were not there, left
behind with his own worn and dirty robe at Ermine's. It seemed a
very long time ago.
    He wriggled back into the dark cavity beyond the tunnel wall.
Hyacinth had bathed him in their bedroom at Ermine's, undressing
him, and scrubbing and drying him bit by bit. He ought to have been
embarrassed (he told himself); but he had been too exhausted to
feel anything beyond vague satisfaction, a weak pleasure at finding
himself the object of so beautiful a woman's attention. Now all her
concern had been undone, and Remora's fine robe, scarcely worn, ruined.
    "You returned me to life, Outsider," Silk murmured as he
resumed digging, "I wish you'd cleaned me up, too." But the
Outsider had doubtless been, as Doctor Crane had maintained, no
more than a vein's bursting.
    Or had Doctor Crane - who had thought himself, or at any rate
called himself, an agent of the Rani - been in truth an agent of the
Outsider? Doctor Crane had made it possible for him to proceed in
his attempt to save the manteion despite his broken ankle; and
Doctor Crane had freed him when he had been taken by the
Ayuntamiento. It was conceivable, even likely, that Doctor Crane's
scepticism had been a test of faith.
    Had he passed?
    Weighing that question, he dug harder than ever, making the
dark, evil-smelling earth fly. If he had, he would almost certainly be
tested again, after this surrender to doubt.
    The card struck something hard. At first he assumed it was a
stone, but it was too smooth; another half minute's work bared the
new find: a slender hook. As soon as he grasped it to pull it free, he
knew that he had found the silver-banded cane Xiphias had brought
to Ermine's for him.
    Without warning, brilliant light flooded the cavity. He turned
away from it, covering his eyes.
    "I see you in there. Come on out."
    There was something familiar about the harsh voice, but it was
not until its owner said, "Put your hands where I can see them," that
Silk recognized it as Sergeant Sand's.

Sitting the white stallion in the middle of Fisc Street, Maytera Mint
surveyed the advancing ranks. Every one of those soldiers would be
worth three of her best, but they were few. Hearteningly few, and
the troopers from Trivigaunte had come. Just a few hundred now,
but thousands more were on the way.
    "Fire and fall back," she called softly, adding under her breath,
"Gracious Echidna, grant that I be heard by our people but not by
those soldiers." Then, a trifle louder, "Not too quickly. But not too
slowly, either. This isn't the time to impress me. Don't get yourselves
killed."
    The first level metal rank was practically within slug-gun range.
She wheeled her stallion and cantered off, hearing the firing break
out behind her, the _whiz...bang!_ of missiles and the dull booming
of slug guns.
    Someone cried out.
    I told them to, she reminded herself. I emphasized it in the briefing.
    Yet she knew the wound had been real. She reined in the stallion
and turned to look again: behind the soldiers, Rook's blocking force
was straggling into position. Too early, she thought. Far too early.
You never appreciated men like Bison and the captain - men who
helped you make plans and carried them out - until you got
something like this.
    One long cable had been looped around each pillar of the Corn
Exchange; it was not taut yet, nor should it have been. She risked a
glance up at the towering facade, another at Wool and his bullock
men, motionless in the shadows half a street away. He and they
stood ready beside their animals, waiting for her signal.
    The bullock men trusted her. So did the ragged men and women
who were shooting and retreating as she had taught them. Shooting
and dying, because they had trusted a weak woman - trusted her
because Brocket had taught her to ride when she was a child.
    She clapped heels to the stallion's sides. He had been used long
and hard yesterday, yet he surged forward, a foaming wave of
strength. Patera Silk's azoth was in her hand; she thumbed the
demon.
    Seeing its terrible blade split the sky, Wool's bullock men
prodded their animals. The cable tightened, a slithering monster of
steel and silence, Echidna's greatest serpent.
    The soldiers halted and faced about at a loud command, their
officer having seen Rook's force and detected the trap. They would
have to attack in earnest now, but her own voice (she told herself)
was incapable of launching troops against the enemy. Her voice
would not inspire anyone, so her person must. She neck-reined the
stallion, and the silver trumpet that was her voice in fact echoed
from every wall.
    Five chains away, the blade of the azoth wrecked a fusion
generator, and the soldier whose heart it had been died.
    Forward! Past her own disorderly line. Another soldier down,
and another! Forward!
    The stallion stumbled, crying out like a man in pain.
    A half-dozen soldiers dashed forward. The stallion fell, too weak
to stand; it seemed to her that the street itself had struck her, casting
all its clods and ridges at her at once. Steel hands laid hold of her,
and bios wrestled with chems in a desperate foolish fight. A woman
three times her size swung a wrecking bar. The soldier she struck,
struck her with the butt of his slug gun; she fell backward and did
not rise.
    Maytera Mint struggled in a soldier's grasp. The azoth was gone - 
No! Was under her shoe. He lifted her, his arms clamping her like
tongs; she stamped on the azoth with all her strength, and its lancing
point sheared off his foot. Smoking black fluid spurted from the
stump of his leg, slippery as so much grease. They fell, and his grip
weakened.
    She tore herself away, stooping for the azoth, and ran, nearly
falling again, pursued with terrifying speed until the facade of the
Corn Exchange frowned above her and she whirled to cut down a
soldier whose blazing, arcing halves tumbled at her feet. "Run! Run!
Save yourselves!"
    Her people streamed past in full flight, though to her, her voice
was a powerless wail.
    "Hierax, accept my spirit." The azoth blade struck the first pillar,
and it shattered like glass. Another, and the facade seemed to hang
in air, an ominous cloud of grimy brick.
    A soldier leveled his slug gun, firing an instant before her blade
split his skullplate. She felt the slug tear her habit, smelled the
powder smoke, and fled, slashing wildly at a third pillar without
breaking stride - stopped and turned back, hot tears streaming.
"You gods, for _twenty years!_ Now let me go!"
    The weightless, endless blade came up. The weightless, endless
blade came down. And the facade of the Corn Exchange was
coming down too, falling like a picture, nearly whole and almost
maintaining its graceless design as it fell, its stone sills falling neither
faster nor slower than its tons of brick and timber. Her right hand,
still clutching the azoth, had begun the sign of addition when Rock
grabbed her from behind and dashed away with her.

                      Chapter 10  -  Calde Silk

"Let me go," Maytera Marble insisted Phaesday morning. "They
won't shoot me."
    Generalissimo Oosik regarded her through his left eye alone; his
right was concealed by a patch of surgical gauze. He shrugged.
General Saba, the commander from Trivigaunte, pursed pendulous
lips. "We've wasted a shaggy hole too much time on this country
house already, when nobody can say - "
    "You're quite wrong, my daughter," Maytera Marble told her
firmly. "Mucor can and does. Our Patera Silk is a prisoner in there,
just as the Ayuntamiento claims."
    "Spirits!"
    "Only hers, really. I'd never seen anyone possessed until she
began doing it to our students. I find it very upsetting." She
beckoned Horn. "You've made me a white flag? Wonderful! Such a
nice long stick, too. Thank you!"
    General Saba snorted.
    "You don't like my bringing our boys and girls."
    "Children shouldn't have to fight."
    "Certainly not." Maytera Marble nodded solemn agreement. "But
they were, and some have been killed. They'd run off with General
Mint, you see, almost all of them. I tried to think who might help me
after Mucor left, and our students were the only ones I could think
of. Horn and a few others are really mature enough already, more
grown up than a great many adults. It got them away from the city,
too, where the worst fighting was." She looked to Oosik for support,
but found none.
    "Where it still is," General Saba snapped. "Where the troops we've
got out here are badly needed."
    "They were fighting your girls, some of them, as well as our Army,
and some are dead. Have I told you that? Some are dead, some hurt
very badly. Ginger's had her hand blown off, I'm told. No doubt
some of your girls are hurt as well."
    "Which is why - "
    "You said we're wasting time." Maytera Marble sniffed; she had
acquired a devastating sniff. "I couldn't agree more. It will only
take a minute to shoot me, if they do. Then you can attack at
once. But if they don't, I may be able to talk to the councillors in
there. They can order the Army and the Guards who are still
fighting you - "
    "The Second," Oosik supplied.
    "Yes, the Second Brigade and our Army." Maytera Marble bowed
in humble appreciation of his information. "Thank you, my son. The
councillors could order them to give up, but no one knows whether
there are really councillors in the Juzgado." Without waiting for a
reply, she accepted the flag from Horn.
    "I'm coming with you, Sib."
    "You are not!"
    He followed her nearly as far as the shattered gate just the same,
ignoring a pterotrooper who shouted for him to stay back, and
watched unhappily as she picked her way through its tumbled stones
and twisted bars, somberly clad but conveniently short-skirted in
Maytera Rose's best habit.
    Two dead taluses smoked and guttered on the close-mown
grassway between the gate and the villa. A few steps past the first,
General Saba's adjutant sprawled face down beside her own flag of
truce. Disregarding all three, Maytera Marble cut across the lush
lawn toward the porticoed entrance, keeping well clear of the
fountain to avoid its windblown spray.
    This was Bloody's house, she reminded herself, this grand place.
This was where the little man with oily hair had come from, the one
she and Echidna had offered to her. It had been practically
impossible, for a time, for her to remember being Echidna; now the
image of the little man's agonized face had returned, framed by
flame as she forced him down onto the altar fire. Would Divine
Echidna help her now, in gratitude for that sacrifice? The Echidna
she had pictured at prayer over so many years might have condemned
her because of it.
    But there had been no shot yet.
    No missile. No sounds at all, save the soughing of the wind and
the snapping of the rag on the stick she held. How young she felt,
and how strong!
    If she stopped here, if she looked back at Horn, would they shoot,
killing her and waking the children? The children were asleep, most
of them. Or at least they were supposed to be, back there beneath
the leafless mulberries. The summer's unrelenting heat, the desert
heat that she had hated so much, had deserted just when the
children needed it, leaving them to sleep in the deepening chill of an
autumn already half spent, to shiver huddled together like piglets or
puppies in unroofed houses with broken windows and slug-pocked,
fire-scarred walls, though most of them had liked that better than
their studies, they said: had preferred killing Ayuntamientados and
pillaging their dead.
    A mottled green face appeared at the window next to the big
door. Only the face, Maytera Marble noted with a little shiver of
relief. No slug gun, and no launcher.
    "I've come to see my son, my son," she called. "My son Bloody.
Tell him his mother's here."
    Shallow stone steps led up to a wide veranda. Before she put her
foot on the last, the door swung back. Through it she saw soldiers,
and bios in silvered armor. (Bios got up like chems, as she put it to
herself, because chems were braver.) Behind them stood another
bio, tall and red-faced.
    "Good morning, Bloody," she said. "Thank you for bringing those
white bunnies. May Kypris smile upon you."
    Blood grinned. "You've changed a little, Mama." Some of the
armored men laughed.
    "Yes, I have. When we can talk in private, I'll tell you all about it."
    "We thought you wanted to cut a deal for Hoppy."
    "I do." Maytera Marble surveyed the hall; though she knew little
about art, she suspected that the misty landscape facing her was a
Murtagon. "I want to talk about that. We've knocked down a good
deal of your wall, I'm afraid, Bloody, and I'd like to see your
beautiful house spared."
    Two soldiers stood aside, and Blood came to meet her. "So would
I, Mama. I'd like to see us spared, too."
    "Is that why you didn't shoot? You killed that poor woman
General Saba sent, so why not me? Perhaps I shouldn't ask."
    Blood glanced to his right. "A shag-up over there. _We_ didn't shoot
the fussock with the flag, and I want that settled right now. If there's
a question about it, there's no point in talking. I didn't shoot her,
and didn't tell anybody to. None of the boys did, either, and they
didn't get anybody to do it. Is that clear? Will you say Pas to that,
nothing back?"
    Maytera Marble cocked and lifted her head, thus raising an
eyebrow. "Someone shot her from a window of your house, Bloody.
I saw it."
    "All right, you saw it, and Trivigaunte's going to make somebody
pay. I don't blame them. What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be me
or the boys. We didn't do it, and that's not open to argument. I want
that settled before the cut."
    Maytera Marble put a hand on his shoulder. "I understand,
Bloody. Do you know who did? Will you point them out to us?"
    Blood hesitated, his apoplectic face growing redder than ever.
"If..." His eyes shifted toward a soldier almost too swiftly to be
seen. "Yes, absolutely." Several of the armored men muttered agreement.
    "In that case it's accepted by our side," Maytera Marble told him.
"I'll report to my principals, Generalissimo Oosik and General
Saba, that you had nothing to do with it and are anxious to testify
against the guilty parties. Who are they?"
    Blood ignored the question. "Good. Fine. They won't attack
while I'm talking to you?"
    "Of course not." Silently, Maytera Marble prayed that she was
being truthful.
    "You'd probably like to sit. I know I would. Come in here, and I
think we can settle this."
    He showed her into a paneled drawing room and shut the door
firmly. "My boys are getting edgy," he explained, "and that gets me
edgy around them."
    "They're my grandchildren?" Maytera Marble sank into a tapestry
chair too deep and too soft for her. "Your sons?"
    "I don't have any. You said you were my mother. I guess you
meant you came to talk for her."
    "I am your mother, Bloody." Maytera Marble studied him, finding
traces of her earlier self in his heavy, cunning face, as well as far too
many of his father. "I suppose you've seen me since you found out
who I was or had somebody look at me and describe me, and now
you don't recognize me. I understand. You're my son, just the same."
    He grasped the advantage by reflex. "Then you wouldn't want to
see me killed, or would you?"
    "No. No, I wouldn't." She let her stick and white flag fall to the
carpet. "If I had been willing to have you die, everything would have
been a great deal easier. Don't you see that? You should. You, of
all people."
    She paused, considering. "I was an old woman before you found
out who I was, and I think I must have looked older. I was already
forty when you were born. That's terribly old for a bio mother."
    "She came a few times when I was little. I remember her."
    "Every three months, Bloody. Once in each season, if I could get
away alone that often. We were supposed to go out out in pairs. and
usually we had to."
    "She's dead? My mother?"
    "Your foster mother? I don't know. I lost track of her when you
were nine."
    "I mean y - ! Rose. Maytera Rose, my real mother."
    "Me." Maytera Marble tapped her chest, a soft click.
    "It was her funeral sacrifice. The other sibyl said so."
    "We burned parts of her," Maytera Marble conceded. "But mostly
those were parts of me in her coffin. Of Marble, I mean, though I've
kept her name. It makes things easier, with the children particularly.
And there's still a great deal of my personality left."
    Blood rose and went to the window. The dull green turret of a
Guard floater showed above a half-ruined section of wall. "You
mind if I open this?"
    "Certainly not. I'd prefer it."
    "I want to hear if they start shooting, so I can stop it."
She nodded. "My thought exactly, Bloody. Some of the children
have slug guns, and nearly all the rest have needlers. Perhaps I
should have taken them, but I was afraid we'd need them on the
walk out." She sighed, the weary _hish_ of a mop across a terazzo
floor. "The worst would have hidden theirs anyway, though none of
the children are really bad."
    "I remember when she lost her arm," Blood told her. "She used to
pat me on the head and say, you know, my, he's getting big. One
day it was a hand like your - "
    "It was this one." Maytera Marble displayed it.
    "So I asked her what happened. I didn't know she was my mother
then. She was just a sibyl that came sometimes. My mother would
have tea and cookies."
    "Or sandwiches." Maytera Marble supplemented his account.
"Very good sandwiches, too, though I was always careful not to eat
more than a fourth of one. Bacon in the fall, cheese in winter,
pickled burbot and chives on toast in spring, and curds and
watercress in summer. Do you remember, Bloody? We always gave
you one."
    "Sometimes it was all I got," Blood said bitterly
    "I know. That's why I never ate more than a founh."
    "Is that really the same hand?" Blood eyed it curiously.
    "Yes, it is, It's hard to change hands yourself, Bloody, because
you have to do it one-handed. It was particularly hard for me,
because by then I already had a great many new parts. Or rather, I
had reclaimed a great many old ones. They worked better, that was
why I wanted them, but I wasn't used to the new assembly yet,
which made changing hands harder. It would have been wasteful to
burn them, though. They were in much better condition than my old
ones."
    "Even if it is, I'm not going to call you Mother."
    Maytera Marble smiled, lifting her head and inclining it to the
right as she always did. "You have already, Bloody. Out there. You
called me Mama. It sounded wonderful."
    When he said nothing, she added, "You said you were going to
open that window. Why don't you?"
    He nodded and raised the sash. "That's why I bought your
manteion, do you know about that? I wasn't just a sprat nobody
wanted any more. I had money and influence, and I got word my
mother was dying. I hadn't spoken to her in fifteen, twenty years,
but I asked Musk, and he said if I really wanted to get even it might
be my last chance. I saw the sense in that, so we went, both of us."
    "To get even, Bloody?" Maytera Marble lifted an eyebrow.
    "It doesn't matter. I was sitting with her, see, and she needed
something, so I sent Musk. Then I said something and called her
Mom, and she said your mother's still alive, I tried to be a mother to
you, Blood, and I swore I wouldn't tell."
    Turning from the window to face Maytera Marble, he added, "She
wouldn't, either. But I found out."
    "And bought our manteion to torment me, Bloody?"
    "Yeah. The taxes were in arrears. I'm real close to the Ayuntamiento.
I guess you know that already or you wouldn't have come
out here shooting."
    "You have councillors here, staying with you. Loris, Tarsier, and
Potto. That was one reason I wanted to talk."
    Blood shook his head. "Tarsier's gone. Who told you?"
    "Like your foster mother, I've sworn not to tell."
    "One of my people? Somebody in this house?"
    "My lips are sealed, Bloody."
    "We'll get into that later, maybe. Yeah, I've got them staying
here. It's not the first time, either. When I found out about you - if
you're who you say you are - I talked to Loris, just one friend to
another, and he let me have it for taxes. Know how much it was?
Twelve hundred and change. I was going to leave you hanging, keep
talking about tearing the whole thing down. Then Silk came out
here. The great Calde Silk himself! Nobody would believe that now,
but he did. He solved my house like a thief. By Phaea, he was a thief."
    Maytera Marble sniffed. It was at once a devastating and a
confounding sniff, the sniff of a destroyer of cities and a confronter
of governments; Blood winced, and she enjoyed it so much that she
sniffed again. "So are you, Bloody."
    "Lily." Blood swallowed. "Only your Silk's no better, is he? Not a
dog's right better. So I saw a chance to turn a few cards and have a
little fun by making the whole wormy knot of you squirm. I'd got
your manteion for twelve hundred like I told you, just a little
thankyou from Councillor Loris, and I was going to tell Silk thirteen
hundred, then double that." Blood crossed the room to an inlaid
cabinet, opened it, and poured gin and water into a squat glass.
    "Only when I'd talked to him a little, I made it thirteen _thousand_,
because he really thought those old buildings in the middle of that
slum were priceless. And I said I'd sell them back to him for
twenty-six thousand."
    Blood chuckled and sat down again. "I'm not really a bad host,
Mama. If I thought that you'd drink it, I'd stand you a drink, even
after you called me a thief."
    "I was speaking of fact, Bloody, not calling names. Here in private
you may call me a trull or a trollop any other such filthy sobriquet.
That is what I am, or at any rate what I've been, although no man
but your father ever touched me."
    "Not me," Blood told her. "I'm above all that."
    "But not above defrauding that poor boy because he valued the
things given to his care, and was so foolish as to imagine you
wouldn't lie to an angur."
    Blood grinned. "If I were above that, Mama, I'd be as poor as he
is. Or as he was, anyhow. I don't remember how much time I gave
him to come up with the gelt. A couple of weeks, maybe, or
something like that. Then when I had him crawling, I said that if he
brought me something next week or whatever, I might let him have
a little more time. Then after a couple days, I sent Musk to tell him
I had to have it all right away. I figured he'd come out here again
and beg me for more time, see? It looked like it was going to be a
nice little game, the kind I like best."
    Maytera Marble nodded sympathetically. "I understand. I suppose
all of us play wicked little games like that from time to time. I
have, I know. But yours is over, Bloody. You've won. You have
him here, a prisoner in your house. The person who told me that the
councillors were here told me that, too. You have me as well. You
say you wanted to avenge yourself on the foster mother we found
for you, and you bought our manteion so you could avenge yourself
on me, because I gave you life and tried to see that you were taken
care of."
    Blood stared at her and licked his lips.
    "You've won both games. Perhaps all three. So go ahead, Bloody.
A single shot should kill me, and I saw a lot of slug guns out there in
your foyer. Then the Trivigauntis can kill you for killing General
Saba's adjutant, or Generalissimo Oosik can shoot you for shooting
me. Possibly you'll be given your choice. Would you rather die
justly? Or unjustly?"
    When Blood did not reply, she added, "Perhaps you ought to ask
your friend Musk about it. He advises you, from what you've said.
Where is he, anyway?"
    "He stayed behind after we brought the doves. He said he had a
couple things to take care of, and he doesn't get into town very
often. I thought maybe your side picked him up when he tried to
come home.
    Maytera Marble shook her head.
    Blood took a liberal swallow from his glass. "I wasn't going to
shoot you, Mama, and I didn't shoot her. You agreed to that
already. Let's pin it down. In about an hour, the Guard could knock
this house down and kill everybody. I know that. They're not doing
it because they know we've got Silk in here. Isn't that right?"
    Maytera Marble nodded. "Free him, turn him over to me, Bloody,
and we'll go away and leave you alone."
    "It's not that easy. He's here all right, right here in my house. But
it's the councillors and their soldiers who've got him, not me."
    "Then I must speak with them. Take me to them."
    "I'll bring them in here," Blood told her, "they're all over." Under
his breath he added, "It's still my hornbussing house, by Phaea's
feast!"

Potto opened the door at the top of the cellar steps and crooked his
finger at Sand. "Bring him up, Sergeant. We're getting them all together."
    Sand saluted with a crash of titanium heels, his slug gun vertical
before his face. "Yes, Councillor!" He nudged Silk with the toe of his
right foot, and Silk rose.
    He fell as he attempted to mount from the second step to the
third, and again halfway up. "Here," Sand told him, and returned
Xiphias's stick.
    "Thank you," Silk murmured. And then, "I'm sorry. My legs feel a
trifle weak, I'm afraid."
    Potto said cheerfully, "We're going to try to give you back to your
friends, Patera, if we can get them to take you." Grabbing the front
of Remora's ruined robe, he jerked Silk up the remaining step.
"You'd like to lie down again, wouldn't you? Get in a little nap?
Maybe something to eat? Help us, and you'll get it."
    He released Silk so suddenly that he fell a third time. "Has he
tried to escape again, Sergeant?"
    Silk did not hear Sand's reply; he was thinking about a great many
things. Among them, names.
    His own and Sand's were similar - each had four letters, each
contained a single vowel, and each began with an S. They could not
be related, however, because Sand was a chem and he a bio. Yet
they were related by the similarity of their names. Not inconceivably
(he found it a tantalizing idea). Sand was a cognate, a version of
himself in some whorl of a higher order. Many things the Outsider
had shown him seemed to imply that there were such whorls.
    Sand prodded him from behind with the barrel of his slug gun,
and he staggered against a wall.
    Since chems were never augurs, it could not be that Sand had
been meant to be an augur. Was it possible then, that he, Silk, had
been meant to be a Guardsman? If he were a Guardsman instead of
a failed augur, the many correspondences (already so marked)
linking them would be much more perfect, and thus this inferior
whorl they inhabited more perfect, too.
    But, no his mother had wanted him to enter the Juzqado, to
become a clerk there like Hyacinth's father and perhaps rise to
commissioner. How glowingly she had spoken of a political career,
almost up until the day he left for the schola.
    "This way," Potto told him, and pushed him through a door and
into a gorgeous room full of lounging soldiers and armored men. "Is
that the calde?" one of the men asked another; the second nodded.
    He was in politics at last, as his mother had wished.
    He had pulled a chair over to her closet and stood on the seat to
examine the calde's bust on its dark, high shelf; and she, finding him
there intent upon it, had lifted it down for him, dusted it, and set it
on her dressing table where he could see it better - wonder at the
wide, flat cheeks, the narrow eyes, the high, rounded forehead, and
the generous mouth that longed to speak. The calde's carved
countenance rose again before his mind's eye, and it seemed to him
that he had seen it someplace else only a day or two before.
    Streaming sunlight, and cheeks that were not smooth wood but
blotched and lightly pocked. Was it possible he had once seen the
calde in person, perhaps as an infant?
    "Now listen to me." Potto was standing before him, his plump,
pleasant face half a head lower than Silk's own.
    ...had seen the calde outside, because even without his lost
glasses he had noticed the powder on the cheeks and the flaws that
the powder tried to cover - had seen him, in that case, under the
auspices of the Outsider, in a sense.
    Blood and Maytera Marble were sitting side-by-side when Potto
shoved Silk into the room; he was so surprised to see her that for a
moment he failed to notice Chenille, Xiphias, and a drooping augur
lined up against the wall.
    A still handsome elderly man standing by the fireplace said, "I'm
Councillor Loris. I take it you're Silk?"
    "Patera Silk. His Cognizance the Prolocutor has not yet accepted
my resignation. May I sit down?"
    Loris ignored the last. "You're the insurgent calde."
    "Others have called me calde, but I'm not involved in an
insurrection." Potto pushed him to the wall beside Chenille.
    Loris smiled, his blue eyes glinting like chips of ice; and the
seduction of his craggy wisdom was so great that even a mocking
smile made it almost irresistible. "You killed my Cousin Lemur, did
you, Calde?"
    Silk shook his head.
    Maytera Marble said, "I don't know these others, except Chenille.
Shouldn't I introduce myself?"
    "I'll do it," Blood told her, "it's my house." With a slight start, Silk
realized that Blood was in the chair he had occupied a week earlier,
and that this was the same room.
    "This is Councillor Loris," Blood began unnecessarily, "the new
presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento. This other councillor's
Councillor Potto."
    "Calde Silk and Councillor Potto are old acquaintances," Loris
purred. "Isn't that right, Calde?"
    "I don't know this soldier myself," Blood continued, and paused to
sip his drink. "It probably doesn't matter."
    "Sergeant Sand," Silk told him. "He and Councillor Potto interrogated
me Tarsday. It was very painful, and I suppose it's quite
possible they're going to do it again."
    Sand came to attention and appeared about to speak, but Silk
stopped him with a gesture. "You were only doing your duty.
Sergeant. I understand. In justice to you, I ought to add that you
had treated me well earlier."
    Potto said, "We won't need you here, Sergeant. You know what
to do." Sand looked at Silk, saluted, executed an about-face, and
left, shutting the door behind him.
    "A very handsome young man," Maytera Marble remarked. "I was
sorry to hear that he behaved badly toward you, Patera."
    Blood indicated her with his glass. "This holy sibyl's Maytera
Rose - "
    Chenille tittered nervously. Maytera Marble said, "I'm Maytera
Marble, Bloody. Remember? I explained about that. Chenille and I
have met, and naturally Patera knows me well."
    "Patera _Silk_, she means," elucidated the small augur in the corner.
"I, _too_, am entitled to the honorific, as well as my more customary ones.
Calde, I have been appointed the new _Prolocutor_ of _Viron_ by
_Subleviating Scylla_, who during that same _theophany_ confirmed
_you_ as its calde. Am _I_, as I _dare hope_, the first
to - "
    Silk managed to smile. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Patera."
    Chenille blurted, "Why weren't you dead? I've just been standing
here... We couldn't, none of us - "
    Xiphias cackled. "He's a tough one! Student of mine, too! Truth!"
    Silk said, "Maytera, do you know Master Xiphias? Master Xiphias
is teaching me to fence. Master Xiphias, this holy sibyl is Maytera
Marble. She's the senior sibyl now at my -  Of the manteion on Sun
Street."
    Maytera Marble added softly, "I'm also the representative of our
Generalissimo Oosik and the Trivigauntis' General Saba, Patera.
I've come to arrange your release."
    His voice thick with mock sincerity, Loris said, "We hold the key
to the crisis now, you see, the generous gods having flung the ring
into our laps. How foolish are those who scorn the power of the
immortal gods!"
    A black shape darted through the open window, landing with a
thump on Silk's shoulder. "Bird back!"
    "Oreb!" Silk looked around at him, surprised and more pleased
than he would have been willing to admit.
    "_Scourging Scylla_," ignoring Oreb, Incus had leveled his forefinger
at Loris, "has given _you_ nothing."
    "In that case, we have gained our present advantage by merit."
Loris smiled. "We thank the undying, ever-generous gods for our
talents."
    Oreb cocked an inquiring head. "Good gods?"
    "She will _destroy_ all of you, should you harm _either_ of the holy
augurs present, or this _sibyl_. We are _sacred_."
    "We'll risk her wrath if need be. Old man, stop reaching for your
sword. It's gone. Were you thinking of overpowering us?"
    Xiphias shook his head. "You think I don't know there's soldiers
out there?"
    "You could not even if there were none." Loris took a bookend
from the mantle; it shattered between his fingers with a sharp
report and an explosion of snowy chips. The door flew open,
revealing Sand and two other soldiers with leveled slug guns.
Oreb whistled.
    Potto told them, "It's all right. Shut it."
    "Calde Silk is a strong young man, but he's been severely
wounded. You are an old one, unarmed, and not as strong as you
suppose. Our new Prolocutor's not physically imposing. Need I
continue?"
    Silk said, "I can understand how you came to be in the tunnel,
Master Xiphias - both you and His Cognizance. You ran for cover
just as Hyacinth and I did - "
    Blood interrupted. "You've got her? Where is she?"
    "I don't. I had her, if you like. We were separated." Turning back
to Xiphias, Silk continued, "After you dug me out of the loose soil,
you went down the tunnel to look for water with Chenille and
Patera, leaving His Cognizance with me - with my body, as you
thought. Is that right?"
    Xiphias nodded.
    "Only we didn't think your body," Chenille told Silk, "We knew
you were alive. His Cognizance said there was a pulse, only we
didn't understand how you could be alive after getting buried like
that."
    Loris rattled what remained of the bookend in his hand. "What
puzzles me - excuse my interrupting your conference - is your
mention of His Cognizance. I take it you don't refer to our friend,
but to the actual head of the Chapter? Was he in the tunnel with
you, Calde?"
    "Yes, he was. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it."
    Potto said happily, "He's an old man. One of the patrols will pick
him up, Cousin."
    "A clever old man." Loris looked grim. "A troublemaker."
    Privately, Silk was trying to reconcile Quetzal's telling Chenille
that he, Silk, was alive with his saying that they had thought him
dead. He had lied in one or the other, but why?
    "Bad thing!" Oreb told everyone.
    Silk ventured, "A patrol headed by Sergeant Sand - one like the
patrol that arrested me originally, I suppose - must have come
across Master Xiphias, Patera Incus, and Chenille. I was surprised
to see them here, but I believe I understand now. Sand must have
sent the other man back here with them and gone on alone until he
found me, perhaps because he'd heard my voice - I'd been talking
to His Cognizance. Is that correct?"
    "Where is this tunnel, Patera?" Maytera Marble asked. "Are you
talking about a tunnel underneath the house?"
    Potto grinned at her, displaying gleaming teeth.
    Blood put down his drink. "Yeah, we're right over it, Mama, and
it hooks up with a bunch of others."
    Loris told her, "That's the first item you ought to pass on to your
principals, Maytera. They think they have us like rats in a cauldron.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We can leave this house,
and them, whenever we wish."
    Blood added, "Only I don't want to. It's my house."
    She looked thoughtful, a finger pressed to her cheek.
    "Bad hole." Oreb ruffled his feathers apprehensively. Chenille
whispered, "Your bird was down there with us. Auk had him on the
boat."
    "You're sunburned!" Inwardly, Silk reproached his own stupidity.
"I've been looking at you - gaping actually, I suppose. I hope you'll
excuse it, but I couldn't imagine how your face had gotten so red, so
close to the red-brown color of a wood-carving my mother used to
have."
    "She wore _nothing_ on the boat," Incus interposed. "Then my robe.
Maytera _forced_ them to give her that gown."
    Loris snapped, "Is this germane?"
    "Perhaps not," Silk admitted. "It's just that Chenille has reminded
me of a childhood incident, Councillor."
    Loris waved aside Chenille's sunburn, tossing the largest fragment
of the bookend onto the rosewood end table at Maytera
Marble's elbow. "Marble? Isn't that your name, Maytera? The calde
just reminded us of that."
    "It is."
    "That was what this knickknack was, I'd say. Real marble from
the Short Sun Whorl, precisely like you." For an instant, Loris's face
was no longer attractive. "I'll leave that chunk there so you don't
forget it."
    "I shan't," Maytera Marble promised. "It would be wise for you to
keep in mind that you're surrounded by thousands of well-armed
troops, Councillor. I suppose most people in my position would be
inclined to exaggerate their numbers, but I won't. I'll tell you the
truth, so you won't be able to say that you were deceived, or even
misled, afterward. There are two companies of Trivigaunti
pterotroopers, almost the entire Third Brigade of the Civil Guard,
and elements of the Fourth. I asked Generalissimo Oosik what he
meant by 'elements' and he said four floaters and the heavy
weapons company. Besides all those, there are about five thousand
of Maytera Mint's people, with more arriving from the city all the
time. They've heard that Patera Silk's in here, and they want to
charge the house. When I left, General Saba and Generalissimo
Oosik were afraid they might not be able to prevent them without
using Guardsmen and creating more friction."
    "Fight now?" Oreb inquired.
    Smiling, Maytera Marble turned to Silk. "That's the bird I saw
hopping into your kitchen when Doctor Crane was treating you,
isn't? Later on my glass, and on your shoulder like that in the
garden. I knew I'd seen him before.
    "No, little bird, no fighting. Not now, or not yet. But Generalissimo
Oosik told me quite frankly that if there's no way to stop
Maytera Mint's insurgents from attacking short of firing on them,
he'll stand back and let them do it. You see, I confided to the
children that your master was in here. They seem to have told a
great many other people before we left the city, so the whole thing's
my fault. I feel very badly indeed about that, and I'm trying to make
amends."
    Blood added, "But she won't say who told her. Or have you
changed your mind about that, Mama?"
    "Certainly not. I gave my word."
    Loris, who had been leaning against the mantel, left it to stand in
front of Maytera Marble. "This little conference has already run too
long. Allow me to tell you what we want, Maytera. Then you can go
back out there and repeat it to the Trivigauntis and Mint's five
thousand rioters, if there are actually that many, which I am
ungentlemanly enough to doubt. Our position is not negotiable.
You accept our terms or we'll kill these prisoners, Silk included, and
crush the rebellion."
    Incus stood again. "You have _no_ authority - "
    Potto's fist striking Incus's cheek sounded almost as loud as the
breaking of the bookend.
    "So, we've come to that." Maytera Marble smoothed the black
skirt covering her metal thighs. "It will be needlers and knives next,
no doubt."
    Silk said, "I warn you, Councillor Potto, not to do that again."
    "Or you'll break my neck?" Potto's smile was that of a fat boy
contemplating a stolen pie. "Beat little butcher, big butcher bark?
We've had some games of strength already. If you've forgotten
them, I can teach you the rules again."
    Incus spat blood. "The just _gods_ avenge the wrongs of _augurs_. A
doom..."
    Potto lifted his hand, and Incus fell silent.
    "No hit," Oreb suggested.
    "The gods may or may not," Silk murmured. "I don't know, and if
I were forced to choose, I'd probably say that they did nothing of
the sort."
    Loris applauded with a sardonic smile; a half-second too late,
Potto joined him.
    Abruptly Silk's voice dominated the room. "The law does,
however. Maytera told you how many troops Generalissimo Oosik
has, saying - very fairly and reasonably, I thought - that she didn't
want you to feel you'd been tricked when all this is over. You should
have listened more carefully."
    "Tell 'em!" Xiphias put in.
    "I'm attempting to." Silk nodded, mostly (it appeared) to himself.
"Because it will be over soon. There will be a trial, and you,
Councillor Potto, and you, Councillor Loris, will hear Maytera,
Chenille, Master Xiphias, and Patera Incus testify to what they saw
and heard - and felt, as well - to a judge who will no longer be afraid
of you."
    Potto giggled and glanced at Loris. "Is this what they picked to
replace us?"
    Surprising everyone, Blood said, "Yeah, I didn't get it at first, but
I'm starting to."
    Maytera Marble told Potto, "All human things wear out and must
be replaced eventually, Councillor."
    "Not me!"
    "I'd think you'd welcome it. How long have you toiled, worrying
and planning, for our ungrateful city? Fifty years? Sixty?"
    "Longer!" Potto dropped into a gilt settee.
    Silk inquired, "Councillor, do you - not the authentic Potto down
in your underwater boat, but you yourself to whom I speak - recall
the Short Sun Whorl? Councillor Loris implied that marble could be
quarried there. I don't know anything about antiques, but I've
heard that it is a stone that's never found in its natural state in our
whorl."
    "I'm not that old."
    Loris snapped, "I was about to outline our demands. I'd like to get
on with it."
    Maytera Marble left her chair to stand beside Silk. "Do, Councillor,
please."
    "As I said, they're not negotiable. The following five conditions
embody them, and we're prepared to accept nothing less." Loris
fished a square of paper from an inner pocket and unfolded it with a
snap.
    "First, Silk must declare publicly, without reservation, that he is
not and has never been calde, that Viron has none, and that the
Ayuntamiento alone is its sole governing body."
    To bring peace I'll be happy to, Silk told him; and only when he
had completed the final word realized that he had not spoken aloud.
    "Second, there must be no new election of councillors. Vacant
seats are to remain vacant, and the present members of the
Ayuntamiento are to remain in office.
    "Third, the Rani of Trivigaunte must withdraw her troops from
Vironese territory and furnish us with hostages - whom we will
name - against further interference in our affairs.
    "Fourth, the Civil Guard must surrender its treasonous officers to
us, the Ayuntamiento, for trial and punishment.
    "Fifth and last, the rioters must surrender their arms, which will
be collected by the Army."
    Through bruised lips, Incus muttered, "I suggest you _pray_ long
and hard over this, my son, and _sacrifice_. The _wisdom_ of the gods
has not enlightened your _councils_."
    "We don't need it," Potto told him.
    "When _Splenetic Scylla_ learns - "
    Maytera Marble interrupted. "What have you to offer the Rani,
the rioters, as you call them, and the Guard in return?"
    "Peace and a general amnesty. The captives you see here,
including Silk, will be released unharmed."
    "I see." Maytera Marble laid a hand on Silk's shoulder. "I'm very
disappointed. It was I who persuaded General Saba and Generalissimo
Oosik that you were reasonable men. They listened because of
the courage of my sib General Mint. And because of her victories,
of which we're all very proud, if I don't offend the good gods who
gave them to her by saying so. Now I find that by interceding for you
I've squandered all the credit she's earned us."
    Loris began, "If you think us unreasonable now - "
    "I do. You say Patera Silk isn't really calde. What good is his
declaration then? What do you want him to tell the people? That the
augur of the Sun Street manteion says that your Ayuntamiento is to
continue to govern the city? You'll only make yourselves ridiculous."
    Potto snapped, "Why didn't you laugh?"
    "Calde?" Loris smiled. "Those are our demands. The Prolocutor
hasn't freed you from your vows, you said, the implication being
that you want him to. Are you willing to resign this caldeship you've
never really had as well?"
    "Yes, I'd like nothing better." Silk had been leaning on Xiphias's
silver-banded cane; he straightened up as he spoke. "I did not
choose to become involved in politics, Councillor. Politics chose
me."
    "Good Silk," Oreb explained.
    Loris returned his attention to Maytera Marble. "You heard that.
You'll want to tell Oosik what you heard."
    "Unfortunately," Silk continued, "the remainder of your terms are
not feasible. Take the second. The people demand that government
return to our Charter, the foundation of the law; and the law
requires elections to fill the empty seat in the Ayuntamiento."
    "We ought to kill you," Potto told him."I will."
    "In which case you would no longer hold the calde. The people - the
rioters, as you call them - will choose a new one, no doubt a
much better and more effective one than I am, since they could
hardly do worse."
    He waited for someone else to speak, but no one did; at length he
added, "I'm not an advocate, Councillors - I wish I were. If I were, I
could easily imagine myself defending you on nearly every charge
that could be brought against you thus far. You suspended the
Charter, but I believe there was some uncertainty regarding the
wishes of the old calde, and it was long ago in any case. You tried to
put down the riots, but in that you were doing your duty. You
questioned Mamelta and me when we were detained for violating a
military area, which could easily be justified."
    "He _hit_ me!" Incus exclaimed. "An _augur!_"
    Silk nodded. "That is an individual matter, concerning Councillor
Potto alone, and I was considering the Ayuntamiento as a whole - or
rather, what remains of that whole. But what you say, Patera, is
quite right; and it's an indication of the road along which this
Ayuntamiento is traveling. I'd like to persuade Councillor Loris, its
presiding officer, to turn back before it's too late."
    Loris fixed him with a malevolent stare. "Then you won't  
to our demands? I can call in the soldiers at once and get this over
with."
    Silk shook his head. "I can't accede. Nor can I speak for the Rani
of Trivigaunte, obviously; but I can and do speak for Viron; and for
Viron all of your demands, except the one for my resignation, are
out of the question."
    "Nevertheless," Maytera Marble put in, "General Mint and Generalissimo
Oosik may accede to them, in part at least, to save Patera
Silk. May I speak to him in private?"
    "Don't be ridiculous!"
    "It isn't ridiculous, I must. Don't you see that General Mint and
Generalissimo Oosik and all the rest of them are only acting on the
authority of Patera Silk? When I report that I've seen him and tell
them you've recognized him as calde, they will certainly want to
know whether he's willing to agree to your terms. They'll have to
know what he wants them to do, but they won't pay the least
attention to it unless I can say that he told me in private. Let me talk
to him, and I'll go back and talk to Generalissimo Oosik and
General Saba. Then, if we're lucky, we'll have real peace in place of
this truce."
    "We have not recognized him as calde," Loris told her coldly. "I
invite you to retract that."
    "But you have! You've called him Calde several times in my
presence, and I could see you congratulating yourselves on having
the calde. You even called him the key to the crisis. You're
threatening to shoot him because he won't agree to your precious
five demands. If he's the calde, that's only cruel. If he isn't, it's
idiotic."
    She raised her hands and time-smoothed face to Loris in supplication.
"He's terribly weak. I've been watching him while the rest of us
were talking, and if it weren't for his stick I think he would have
fallen. Can't you let him sit down? And tell everyone else to leave?
A quarter of an hour should be enough."
    Blood rose, swaying a little. "Over here, Patera. Take my seat.
This's a good chair, better than the one you had in here that other
time."
    "Thank you," Silk said. "Thank you very much. I owe you a great
deal, Blood." Chenille, next to him, took his arm; he wanted to
assure her he did not need her help, but stumbled on the carpet
before he could speak, eliciting an unhappy squawk from Oreb.
    "Get the rest of them out," Loris told Potto.
    Xiphias paused in the doorway, showing Silk both his hands, then
twisting one slightly and separating them.
    Chenille kissed his forehead, the brush of her lips the silken touch
of a butterfly's wing - and was gone, violently pulled away by Potto,
who left with her and shut the door.
    Maytera Marble reoccupied the chair beside the one that had
been Blood's. "Well," she said.
    Silk nodded. "Well indeed. You did very well, Maytera. Much
better than I. But before we talk about - all of the things we'll have
to talk about, I'd like to ask a question. One foolish question, or
perhaps two. Will you indulge me?"
    "Certainly, Patera. What is it?"
    Silk's forefinger traced small circles on his cheek. "I know nothing
about women's clothes. You must know a great deal more - at least,
I hope you do. You got Councillor Loris to bring Chenille her
gown?"
    "She was naked under that augur's robe," Maytera Marble
explained, "and I refused to talk about anything else until they got
her dressed. Bloody called in one of the maids, and she and Chenille
went with a soldier to find her some clothes. They weren't gone
long."
    Silk nodded, his face thoughtful.
    "It's too small for her, but the maid said it was the largest in the
house, and it's only a little bit too small."
    "I see. I was wondering whether it belonged to a woman I met
here."
    "You and Bloody were talking about her, Patera." Maytera
Marble sounded ill at ease. "He asked you where she was, and you
said you'd gotten separated."
    Silk nodded again.
    "I don't want to pry into your personal affairs."
    "I appreciate that. Believe me, Maytera, I appreciate it very
much." He hesitated, staring through the open window at the
wind-rippled green lawn before he spoke again. "I thought it might
be one of Hyacinth's, as I said. In fact, I rather hoped it was; but it
couldn't be. It almost fits Chenille, as you say, and Hyacinth's much
smaller." The circles, which had ceased to spin, reappeared. "What
do you call that fabric?"
    "It's chen... Why, I see what you're getting at, and you're
right, Patera! That gown's chenille, exactly like her name!"
    "Not silk?"
    Maytera Marble snapped her fingers. "I know! She must have told
the maid her name, and it suggested the gown."
    "She kissed me as she left," he remarked. "I certainly didn't invite
it, but she did. You must have seen it."
    "Yes, Patera. I did."
    "I suppose she wanted to signal that she was with us - that she
supported us. Master Xiphias made a gesture of the same sort,
probably something to do with swordplay. Anyway, her kiss made
me think of silk, of the fabric I mean, for some reason. It seemed
strange, but I thought perhaps her skirt had brushed my hand. You
say it's actually called chenille?"
    "Chenille _is_ silk, Patera. Or anyway the best chenille is, and the
other is something else that's supposed to look like silk. Chenille
is a kind of yarn, made of silk, that's furry-looking like a
caterpillar. If they weave cloth of it, that's called chenille too. It's
a foreign word that means caterpillar, and silk threads are spun
by silkworms, which are a kind of caterpillar. But I'm sure you
know that."
    "I must speak to her!" he said. "Not now, but when we're alone,
and as soon as I can."
    "Good girl!"
    "Yes, Oreb. Indeed she is." Silk returned his attention to Maytera
Marble. "A moment ago when you spoke to Loris, you didn't want
us to leave this room. Would you mind telling me why?"
    "Was I as transparent at that?"
    "No, you weren't transparent at all; but I know you, and if you'd
really been so worried about me, you would have asked him to let us
talk in a bedroom where I could lie down, and to send for a doctor.
I don't suppose Blood's got one, now that Doctor Crane's dead; but
Loris might have been able to supply one, or to send someone for
one of the Guard's doctors under a flag of truce, like that white flag
next to your chair."     
    Maytera Marble looked grave. "I should have asked him to do
that. I can still ask, Patera. I'll go out and find him. It won't take a
moment."
    "No, I'm fine. By Phaea's favor - " It was too late to call back the
conventional phrase. "I'll recover. Why did you want to stay here?"
    "Because of this window." Maytera Marble waved a hand at it.
"Bloody had opened it while we were in here by ourselves, and I
worried the whole time that someone would get cold and shut it.
You must know Mucor, Patera. She said you sent her to me."
    Silk nodded. "She's Blood's adopted daughter."
    "Adopted? I didn't know that. She said she was Bloody's daughter.
That was Hieraxday night, terribly late... Do you know
Asphodella, Patera?"
    Silk smiled. "Oh, yes. A lively little thing."
    "That's her. I'd done the wash, you see, and I wanted to pour the
dirty water on my garden. Plants actually like dirty water with
soapsuds in it better than clean. It sounds wrong, I know, but they
do."
    "If you say so, I'm sure it must be true."
    "So I was pouring out the water, so much for each row, when
Asphodella pulled my skirt. I said what are you doing out so late,
child? And she told me she'd gone with the others to fight, but Horn
had sent her back - "
    "Cat come!" Oreb warned. Silk looked for it, seeing none.
    "Horn had sent her home, and quite right, too, if you ask me,
Patera. So now she wanted to know if there'd be palaestra on
Thelxday."
    "Then," Silk said slowly, "her face changed. Is that it, Maytera?"
    "Yes. Exactly. Her face became, well, horrible. She saw I was
frightened, as I certainly was, and said don't be afraid, Grandmother.
My name's Mucor, I'm Blood's daughter." Maytera Marble
paused, not certain that he understood. "Have I told you Bloody's
my son, Patera? Yes, I know I did, right after we sacrificed in the
street."
    "He was Maytera Rose's," Suk said carefully. "You, I know, are
also Maytera Rose - at least, at times."
    "All the time, Patera." Maytera Marble laughed. "I've integrated
our software. As far as we sibyls are concerned, I'm your best friend
and worst enemy, all in one."
    He stirred uncomfortably in Blood's comfortable chair. "I was
never Maytera Rose's enemy, I hope."
    "You thought I was yours, though, Patera. Perhaps I was, a little."
    He leaned toward her, his hands folded over the crook of
Xiphias's cane. "Are you now, Maytera? Please be completely frank
with me."
    "No. Your friend and well-wisher, Patera."
    Oreb applauded, flapping his wings. "Good girl!"
    She added, "Even if I were entirely Maytera Rose, I'd do all I
could to get you out of this."
    Silk let himself fall back. It was astonishing how soft these chairs
of Blood's were. He remembered (vividly now) how badly he had
wanted to rest in his chair, to sleep in it, when he had talked with
Blood in this very room. Yet this one was better, just as Blood had
promised: yielding where it should, firm where firmness was desirable.
He stroked one wide arm, its maroon leather as smooth as
butter beneath his touch.
    "They let me lie down after I was captured," he confided to
Maytera Marble. "Sand did. I'd had to walk all the way to this
house, and it was a very long way. It had seemed long when Auk
and I rode donkeys; and walking with Sand's gun at my back, it
seemed a great deal longer; but once we arrived, once we'd climbed
up through the hatch into the cellar, he let me lie down on the floor.
He isn't a bad man, really - just a disciplined soldier obeying bad
men. There's good in Loris, too, and even in Potto. I know you
must sense it, just as I do, Maytera; otherwise you'd never have
spoken to Potto as you did. That's why - one reason, anyway - I
don't feel that this situation from which you're trying to rescue me is
as bad as it appears, though I'll always be grateful."
    "Cat! Cat!" Oreb flew from Silk's shoulder to the head of an
alabaster bust of Thelxiepeia.
    Maytera Marble smiled. "There's no cat in here, you pretty bird."
    "You were telling me about this room," Slik reminded her, "and
meeting Mucor. I wish you'd continue with that. It may be
significant."
    "I - Patera, I want to tell you first about meeting you. It won't
take long. and it may be more important, maybe a lot more
important. You still think about the day you came to our manteion,
I know. You've mentioned it several times."
    He nodded.
    "Patera Pike was there, and you loved and respected him, but a
man wants a woman to talk to. Most men do, anyway, and you did.
You'd been raised by your mother, and we could see how you
missed her."
    "I still do," Silk admitted.
    "Don't feel bad about that, Patera. No one should ever be
ashamed of love."
    Maytera Marble paused to collect her thoughts; her rapid scan
was back, and she reveled in it. "We were three sibyls, I was about to
say. Maytera Mint was still young and pretty, but so shy that she ran
from you whenever she could. When she couldn't, she would hardly
speak. Maybe she guessed what had happened to me long ago. I've
sometimes thought that, and you were young and good-looking, as
you still are."
    He began a question, but thought better of it.
    "I won't tell you who Bloody's father was, Patera. I've never told
anybody and I won't tell now. But I will tell you this. He never
knew. I don't think he even suspected."
    Silk filled his lungs with the cool, clean breeze from the window.
"I slept with a woman last night, Maytera. With Hyacinth, the
woman Blood asked about."
    "I'm sorry you told me."
    "I wanted to. I've wanted - I want so badly, still, to tell people
who don't know, although a great many people know already. His
Cognizance and Master Xiphias and Generalissimo Oosik."
    "And me." Maytera Marble's forefinger tapped her metal chest
through her habit. "I knew. Or rather, I guessed, as anybody would,
and I wish that you'd left it like that. Some things aren't improved
by talking about them."
    Oreb broke off his inverted examination of Thelxiepeia's features
to applaud Maytera Marble. "Smart girl!"
    "We were three sibyls, as I said. But Maytera Mint wasn't there
for you Patera, so I was the only ones left. I was old. I don't think
you ever grasped how old. My faces had gone long before you were
born. You never realized they weren't there, did you?"
    "What are you talking about? Your face is where it ought to be,
Maytera. I'm looking at it."
    "This?" She drummed her fingers on it, a quick metallic _tap-tap-tap_.
"This is my faceplate, really. I used to have a face like yours. I
would say like Dahlia's, but she was before your time. Like Teasel's
or Nettle's, and there were things in it, little bits of alnico, that let
me really smile or frown when I moved them with the coils behind
my faceplate. But all that's gone except for the coils."
    "It's a beautiful face," Silk insisted, "because it's yours."
    "My other face wasn't, and what it was showed in your own every
time you saw it. I resented that, and you resented my resentment
and turned to me to ease your loneliness. But we were much more
alike than you realized, not that I've ever cared, myself, for
machines like this. I never thought they could be people, really, no
matter how many times they said they were. Now I'm just a message
written on those teeny gold doodads you see in cards. But I'm still
me, a person, because I always was."
    Silk fumbled Remora's ruined robe for a handkerchief, and
finding none blotted his eyes on his sleeve.
    "I didn't tell you that to make you feel sorry for me, Patera.
Neither of me were easy to love, no more than I am now. You were
able to love one just the same, and not very many men could have,
not even many augurs. I thought that if you knew how you came to
love and not like me, it might help you some other time with some
other woman."
    "It will, I know." Silk sighed. "Thank you, Maytera. With myself,
most of all."
    "Let's not talk about it any more. What do you think of the
Ayuntamiento's terms? Still what you told Loris?"
    Silk made a last dab at his eyes, feeling the grit in the cloth,
knowing that he was dirtying his already-soiled face and not caring.
"I suppose so."
    Maytera Marble nodded. "They're perfectly hopeless. Not a single
thing for Trivigaunte, and why should the Guard hand over its
senior officers, why should Generalissimo Oosik allow it? But if we
offered trials, regular ones with judges - "
    "Man back!" A big hand glittering with rings had appeared on the
windowsill. It was followed by a yellow-sleeved arm and a whiff of
musk rose.
    "That's why you wanted to stay here." Silk stood up a trifle
unsteadily, helped by the cane, and crossed the room to the
window. "So your son could join us."
    "Why no, Patera. Not at all."
    Leaning over the sill, Silk spoke to Blood. "Here, hold onto my
hand. I'll help you up."
    "Thanks," Blood said. "I should have brought a stool or something."
    "Take mine, too, Bloody." Maytera Marble braced one foot on the
sill in imitation of Silk.
    Flushed redder than ever with exertion, Blood's face rose on the
other side of the window. With a grunt and a heave, he tumbled into
the room.
    "Now for my granddaughter. She'll be easy after Bloody."
Bending over the sill again, Maytera Marble clasped skeletally
thin hands and lifted in an emaciated young woman with a seared
cheek.
    "Poor girl!"
    Silk nodded his agreement as he returned to his chair. "Hello,
Mucor. Sit down, please, so that I may sit. We're neither of us
strong."
    "Needlers're no good 'gainst the soldiers," Blood puffed. He
brushed off the front of his tunic and reached beneath it. "So I'm
giving you this, Calde Silk."
    "This" was an azoth, its long hilt rough with rubies and chased
with gold; its sharply curved guard was more elaborate than that of
the one Doctor Crane had given him at Hyacinth's urging, and
diamonds ringed its pommel.
    Silk resumed his seat. "I should have anticipated that. Doctor
Crane told me you had two."
    "Don't you want it?" Blood did not trouble to hide his surprise.
    "No. Not now, at least."
    "It's worth - "
    "I know what it's worth, and how effective a weapon it can be in a
strong hand like yours. At the moment, I don't have one, though
that's the least of my reasons for refusing."
    Silk settled back in his chair. "I asked your daughter to sit down,
and she was good enough to oblige me. I can't invite you to sit in
your house, and I'm very aware that I'm occupying your former
seat; but there are many others."
    Blood sat.
    "Thank you. Maytera - "
    "Cat come!"
    It did, almost before Oreb's agitated whoop, springing lightly
over the windowsill to land noiselessly in the middle of the room and
glare at Blood with eyes like burning amber. Maytera Marble
gathered her skirts as if it were a mouse; Silk asked, "Is that Lion? I
seem to remember him."
    The lynx turned its glare on him and nodded.
    "Patera's been making everybody sit," Maytera Marble told
Mucor. "It would be nicer if you had your big kitty sit too, Darling. I
wouldn't mind him so much then."
    Lion lay down obediently, dividing his attention between Blood
and Oreb.
    "Sphigx bless you." Maytera Marble traced the sign of addition.
"I - it's rather amusing now that I come to think of it, the sort of thing
the children enjoy. Patera thought I wanted this window open so
your Papa could come in, and I said, no, I hadn't even thought of it,
which was the plain truth. I wanted it opened because you told me
the first time, Darling, not to stay in rooms with the doors and
windows shut, because you might have to drop in again, and that
would make it harder. So I was happy when he opened this one, and
now you've come in through it, and your long-legged kitty, too."
    "I didn't know she could take over an animal like that." Blood had
his thumb on the demon. "We didn't know she had any power left till
Lemur taped the calde talking to Crane, but it sounds like she's
been paying visits to both of you."
    "Sneaking outside the window, Bloody? You shouldn't do that."
    "I didn't."
    "A listening device." Silk sighed. "I'm disappointed. I'd thought
there might be a secret door behind one of these big paintings.
When I was a sprat, boys' books were full of them, but I've never
actually seen one."
    "You knew I'd come?"
    "I surmised you might. Do you want the entire thing?"
    Maytera Marble sniffed loudly. "I do, Patera."
    "I wish you wouldn't make that noise," he told her.
    "Then I won't, or at least not very often. But Bloody's my son,
and I meant I have a right to know."
    "All right, the entire thing." Silk leaned back in his chair, eyes half
closed. "On Hieraxday, I walked some distance through the city with
His Cognizance, and from the East Edge to Ermine's; it was about
evenly divided between Maytera Mint's insurgents and the Guard. I
slept at Ermine's for a few hours, as I told you; when I woke up, half
the Guard seemed to have gone over to Maytera Mint."
    Maytera Marble said, "All of it but the Second, I'm told."
    "Good. Before I was brought here, I was in the tunnels or in the
cellar, so I didn't see much; but there were councillors here. It
seemed likely they were directing their forces in person, and I didn't
think they'd do that unless the situation was critical. Then too, you
told me you'd walked out here with the children and mentioned a
general from Trivigaunte - "
    "General Saba. A very good woman at heart, from what I saw of
her, though quite large and rather prone to obstinacy."
    "I assume it was her airship that attacked us when His Cognizance
and I were riding in Oosik's floater."
    "Her airship's been over the city, certainly. It's been shooting and
dropping explosives. It's huge."
    "Your Doctor Crane was a spy from Trivigaunte," Silk told Blood.
"You must know that by now. He told me once, joking, that if I were
in need of rescue all I'd have to do was kill him. He had a device in
his chest that let others find him and told them whether his heart
was beating. He was shot Rieraxday morning, due to a misunderstanding.
I imagine the attack on us resulted from a similar mix-up - the
Trivigauntis had been told the Guard was opposing us. When
they saw a Guard floater surrounded by officers on horseback, they
attacked it."
    "I don't see what this has to do with me," Blood grunted.
    "It has everything to do with you," Silk told him, "and I was right
about it, too - the only thing I've been completely right about. You
were fighting in a losing cause; this house was about to be
destroyed, and you might easily be wounded or killed. You knew
about the tunnels, and no doubt you've been down there. So have I,
as I've said - more than I like. I couldn't imagine your leaving this
house in flames and trudging off underground unless there were no
alternative."
    "I worked shaggy hard to get this place."
    "Don't swear, Bloody. It doesn't become you."
    "I did! Your kind thinks it's easy. One wrong move and you're
packed for Mainframe, day after day, and nobody to help me I
could trust till I found Musk, nobody at all. It'd kill both of you in a
week. Shag yes, it would! Twelve years I did it before I ever took my
first crap in this place."
    "Bloody!"
    "It's only a guess," Silk admitted, "and I can't pretend an intimate
familiarity with your mental processes; but I'd imagine you've been
looking for an opportunity to change sides since sometime last night."
    "What's the shaggy Ayuntamiento ever done for me? Worked me
for payoffs and favors every month. Shut me down to make
themselves look good. What the shag do I owe them?"
    "I've no idea. Then - about an hour ago, perhaps - your mother
entered the picture, ostensibly and no doubt principally to help me,
but clearly with influence on the other side and eager to save you as
well. So when I realized Maytera wanted us to stay in this room, I
expected you to step from behind a picture." Silk smiled and
shrugged apologetically.
    Mucor surprised them all by asking, "Would you like me to see
what they're doing?"
    "I'd rather have you eat something," Silk told her, "but I don't
suppose there's anything in here. Go ahead, if Lion will behave
himself."
    He waited for her reply, but none came.
    "Girl go." Oreb's croak was scarcely audible. "No here." Lion
stretched himself on the floor and closed his eyes.
    "Actually, I was surprised you didn't come sooner," Silk told
Blood conversationally, "but of course you had to fetch Mucor and
get her dressed - perhaps even clean her up a bit with the help of
one of your maids, and I hadn't allowed for that. The point that
puzzles me is that Mucor seems to have felt it necessary to send Lion
ahead of her."
    "Did she?" Blood eyed his adopted daughter curiously.
    "So it seems. Oreb - my bird, up there - must have glimpsed him
or, more likely heard him, because he told us several times that
there was a cat about."
    "She probably didn't realize that the soldiers wouldn't be afraid of
him," Maytera Marble suggested.
    "Bad cat," Oreb muttered.
    "Not too loud," Silk cautioned him, "he might hear you."
    "It was nice of you to join us, Bloody." Maytera Marble smoothed
her skirt. "It's to your advantage, no doubt, just as Patera says. But
you're taking a big risk just the same."
    Blood stood. "I know it. You don't think much of me, do you,
Calde?"
    "I think a great deal of your shrewdness," Silk told him. "I'd be
glad to have your cunning mind on our side. I'm aware that you
have no morals."
    "Colonel Oosik," Blood gestured with the azoth. "He's your man,
from what I've heard. This General Saba's there for the Rani,
Colonel Oosik for you."
    "Generalissimo Oosik."
    Blood snorted. "You trust him and you won't trust me, but I've
had him in my pocket for years."
    Maytera Marble said, "Sit down, Bloody. Or are you going to do
something?"
    "I want a drink, but since the calde doesn't want it, I think I'll
hang onto my azoth as long as that cat's in here. Will you fix me one,
Mama?"
    "Certainly." She rose. "A little more gin, I imagine?"
    Silk began, "If it's not too much trouble, Maytera - "
    "And ice. There's ice behind the big doors underneath."
    "I'll be happy to. Brandy, or - " she examined bottles. "Here's a
nice red wine, Patera."
    "Just water and ice, please. The same for Mucor, I think."
    Blood shook his head. "No ice, Mama. She'll throw it. Believe
me,I know."
    "Poor bird!"
    "A cup of plain water for Oreb, if you would, Maytera. I
believe he'll come down to drink it if you leave it on top of the
cabinet."
    "Plain water for Oreb." Revealing two fingers' width of silvery leg
as she stood on tiptoe, she put a brimming tumbler on the cabinet.
"Soda water and ice for Patera, and ice, gin. and soda water for you,
Bloody. Soda water without ice for my granddaughter. It's nice and
cool, though." As she placed the final tumbler before Mucor, she
added, "I must say she doesn't look as if you've been taking good
care of her."
    Blood picked up his drink. "We've got to force-feed her, mostly,
and she tears off her clothes."
    "Who was her mother?" Silk asked.
    "She never had one." Blood sipped his drink and eyed it with
disfavor. "You know about frozen embryos? You can buy them now
and then if you want them, but you don't always get what you paid for."
    Recalling dots of rotting flesh, Silk shuddered.
    "The old calde, Tussah his name was, was supposed to have done
it. That leaked out after he died. So I decided to give it a try. Buy
myself an embryo with spooky powers. I got one of the girls to carry it."
    "And you were actually able to purchase such a thing? An embryo
that would develop into someone with Mucor's powers?"
    Blood nodded unhappily. "Like I said, you don't always get what
you pay for, but I was careful and I did. She's got the stuff, but she's
crazy. Always has been."
    "You engaged a specialist to operate on her brain."
    "Sure, trying to cure her, only it didn't work. If it had, I'd be
calde."
    "She's been my friend," Silk told him, "a difficult one, perhaps, but
helpful just the same. She likes me, I believe, and the good god
knows I'd like to help her in return."
    Oreb caught at the phrase. "Good god?"
    "The Outsider, I ought to have said."
    Mucor herself said, "They're arguing about you." Her voice
sounded faint and far away; the tumbler Maytera Marble had filled
for her waited untouched on the low table before her.
    Silk sipped from his own, careful not to drink too much too fast.
"Men and women breed children from their bodies on impulse. We
augurs rail against it; but although inexcusable, it is at least
understandable. They are swept away by the emotions of the
moment; and if they weren't, perhaps the whole whorl would stand
empty. Adoption, on the other hand, is a considered act, consummated
only with the assistance of an advocate and a judge. Thus an
adoptive parent cannot say, 'I didn't know what I was doing,' or 'I
didn't think it would happen.' Worthless though those protestations
are, he has no claim to them."
    "You think I knew she'd turn out like this? She was a baby." Blood
glared at his daughter. "I'm twice your age, Patera, maybe more.
When you're as old as I am, maybe you'll have a few little things
that you regret too."
    "There are many already."
    "You think there are. Women, you mean. My. Oh shag it, what's
the use?" Blood set his drink aside and wiped his damp left hand on
his thigh. "I don't care much for them. Neither would you, if you'd
been in my business as long as I have. I started when I was seven or
eight, just a dirty little sprat going up to men in the market.
Anyhow, Mucor's the only child I'll ever have, probably."
    Maytera Marble told him, "She's the only granddaughter I'll ever
have, too, Bloody. If you won't take proper care of her, I will."
    Blood looked angrier than ever. "Like you did me?"
    "It would be better if we kept our voices down," Silk said. "You're
not supposed to be here."
    "I wish I wasn't." A smile twisted Blood's mouth. "That would be
the elephant, wouldn't it? Shot for trying to pick up a couple bits
down at the market. Hey, Patera, you want to meet my sister? She'll
give you some hot mutton."
    "Bloody, don't!"
    "It's pretty late to tell me that, Mama. Or don't you think so?"
    Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Silk. "I'm going to
outline a deal. If you take it, I'm in, and I'll do everything I can to
get you out of here in one piece."
    Silk opened his mouth to speak.
    "When I say you, that's you and the other augur, the old man,
Mama here, and that big piece from Orchid's. Even your bird. All
of you. All right?"
    "Certainly."
    "If you don't take it, I'm out the window, understand? No hard
feelings, but no deal either."
    "You could be shot going out the window, too, Bloody," Maytera
Marble warned him. "I'm surprised that you weren't, you and my
granddaughter, before you got back inside."
    Blood shook his head. "There's a truce, remember? And I'll stick
the azoth back under my tunic. They aren't going to shoot an
unarmed man and a girl that never even come close to the wall."
    "As good as a secret passage." Maytera Marble's eyes gleamed
with amusement.
    "Right, it is." Blood went to the window. "Now here's what I say,
Calde. I'll come over to you and Mint, gun, goat, and gut, and try to
see to it that all of us get clear. When we do, I'll sign over your
manteion to you for one card and other considerations, as we say,
and you can owe me the card."
    He waited for Silk to speak, but Silk said nothing.
    "After we get out, I'm still your bucky. I've done plenty of favors
for the Ayuntamiento, see? I can help you too, and I will,
everything that I can. I've got Mucor, remember," Blood nodded
toward her, "and I know what she can do now. Lemur's crowd never
got anything half as good as that."
    Silk sipped from his tumbler.
    "More talk," Oreb muttered; it was not clear whether it was a
suggestion or a complaint.
    "Here's all I want from you, Calde. No gelt, just three things.
Firstly, I get to hang onto my other property. That means my real
estate, my accounts at the fisc, and the rest. Number two, I stay in
business. I'm not asking you to make it legal. I don't even want you
to. Only you don't shut me down, see? Last, I don't have to pay
anybody anything above regular taxes. I'll open my books to you,
but no more payoffs on top of that. You understand what I'm telling you?"
    Blood leaned against the window frame. "Look it over, and you'll
see I'm making you as good a deal as anybody could ask for. I'm
giving you my complete, unlimited support, plus some valuable
property, and all I want from you is that you leave me alone. Let me
keep what's mine and earn my living, and don't come down on me
any harder than you do on anybody else. What do you say?"
    For a few seconds, Silk did not say anything. The tramp of
rubber-shod metal feet came faintly from the wide foyer on the
other side of the carved walnut door, punctuated by Potto's strident
tones; embroidered hangings stirred, whispering, in the cool wind
from the window.
    "I've been expecting to be tested." Silk glanced at his tumbler,
surprised to find that he had drunk more than half his soda water.
"Tested by the Outsider. He's been testing me physically, and I felt
quite confident that he would soon take my measure morally as
well. When you began, I was certain this was it. But this is so easy!"
    Lion raised his head to look at him inquiringly, then rose,
stretched, and padded over to rub his muscled, supple body against
Silk's knees.
    Maytera Marble shook her finger at her son. "What you've been
doing is very wrong, Bloody. You sell rust, don't you? I thought so."
    "To begin," Silk told Blood, "you must turn my manteion over to
me - you're going to do that right now. If you didn't bring along the
deed, you can go out that window and get it. I'll wait."
    "I brought it," Blood admitted. He fished a folded paper from an
inner pocket of his tunic.
    "Good. My manteion, for three cards."
    Blood crossed the room to an inlaid escritoire; after a time,
Mucor stood as well, her mouth working silently as though she were
pronouncing the labored scratchings of Blood's pen.
    "I'm not much of a scholar," he said at length, "but here you are,
Patera. I had to sign for Musk, but it should be all right. I've got his
power of advocacy."
    The ink was not yet dry; Silk waved the deed gently as he read.
"Fine." He took three of Remora's cards from his pocket and handed
them to Blood.
    "You're to do everything in your power to end the fighting
without further loss of life," he told Blood, "and so am I. If I'm calde
when it's over, as you obviously expect, you will be prosecuted for
any crimes you may have committed, in accordance with the law.
No unfair advantage will be taken beyond that which I just took.
That's a large concession, but I make it. I warn you, however, that
nothing that you may have done will be overlooked, either. If you're
found guilty on any charge, as I expect that you will be, I'll ask the
court to take into consideration whatever assistance you've rendered
our city in this time of crisis. Am I making myself clear?"
    Blood glowered. "You extorted that property from me. You took
it under false pretences."
    "I did." Silk nodded agreement. "I committed a crime to right the
wrong done to the people of our quarter by an earlier one. Why
should men like you be free to do whatever you wish whenever you
wish, guaranteed that you yourself will never be victimized? You
may, if you choose, complain about what I've done when peace has
been restored. You have a witness in the person of your mother."
    He gave the lynx a last pat before pushing him away. "I wouldn't
advise you to call your adopted daughter, however. She's not
competent to testify, and she might tell the court about the nativity
of her pets."
    "You had better not ask me to testify, either, Bloody," Maytera
Marble told him. "I'd have to tell the judge that you tried to bribe
our calde."
    "They're coming," Mucor announced to Silk. "Councilior Loris has
finished talking to Councillor Tarsier through the glass. They've
decided to kill you and send your body back with the woman that
killed Musk."
    Silk froze, his eyes on Blood.
    Oreb squawked, "Watch out!"
    Instinctively, Maytera Marble reached out to her son, a plea for
forgiveness and understanding.
    His grip on the azoth tightened, and the shimmering horror that
was its blade divided the cosmos, leaving Maytera Marble on one
side and the hand she had held out to him on the other. It dropped
to the carpet as the hideous discontinuity swung up, showering them
with plaster and sundered lath. Silk shouted a warning; absurdly, he
tried to shield her from Blood's downward cut with Xiphias's cane.
    Its thin wooden casing exploded in blazing splinters; but the
azoth's blade sprang back from the double-edged steel blade the
casing had concealed, having notched it to the spine.
    It seemed to Silk then that his arm moved of itself - that he
merely watched it, a spectator fully as horrified as she, and fully as
separated from his arm's acts. As the door flew in with a crash, that
arm swung the ruined blade.
    From behind Sergeant Sand and a second soldier equally soldier
large, Potto barked, "_Shoot him?_"
    The notched blade slid forward, penetrating Blood's throat as
readily as the manteion's old bone-handled sacrificial knife had ever
entered that of a ram.
    "Shoot the calde?" Sand's hand caught the other soldier's slug gun.
    Blood's knees buckled as the light left his eyes. The double-edged
blade, scarlet to within a hand's breadth of the notch with Blood's
own blood, retreated from his throat.
    "Yes, the calde!"
    For a moment it seemed to Silk that Maytera Marble should have
knelt to catch Blood's blood; perhaps it seemed so to her as well, for
she crouched, her remaining hand extended to her son as he fell.
    Silk turned, the sword still in his hand. Sand's slug gun was no
longer pointed at him, if it had ever been. Sand fired, and the
second soldier a fraction of a second after him. Potto fell, his
cheerful face slack with surprise.
    "Take this, Patera." Maytera Marble was pressing Blood's azoth
into his free hand. "Take it before I kill you with it."
    He did, and she took Xiphias's ruined sword from him, and with
its crook wedged between her small black shoes, contrived to wipe
its blade with a big handkerchief that she shook from her sleeve.
    There was a clash of heels and a crash of weapons as Sand and the
second soldier saluted. Soldiers and men in silvered armor peering
around them began to salute as well. Silk nodded in response, and
when that seemed inadequate traced the sign of addition the air.

                           Epilogue

It had been hastily erected, Calde Silk reflected, studying the
triumphal arch that spanned the Alameda - very hastily. But surely
this new generalissimo from Trivigaunte would understand the
situation, would realize the difficulties they had labored under in
organizing a formal welcome in a city still at war with what remained
of its Ayuntamiento, and make allowances.
    Now, this wind.
    It stirred yellow dust from the gutters, whistled among the
chimneys, and shook the ramshackle arch until it trembled like an
aspen. Flowers covering the arch would have been nice, but that
moment of searing heat on Hieraxday had made flowers out of the
question. So much the better, Silk thought; this wind would surely
have stripped off every petal an hour ago. Even as he watched, a
long streamer of colored paper pulled free, becoming a flying jade
snake that mounted to the sky.
    There the Trivigaunte airship fought its straining tether, so high
that its vast bulk appeared, if not festive, at least unthreatening.
From that airship, it should be simple to gauge the advance of
Generalissimo Siyuf's troops. Silk wished that there had been time
to arrange for signals of some sort: a flag hung from the gondola
when she entered the city, for example, or a smoke pot lit to warn
that she had been delayed. Rather to his own surprise, he discovered
that he was eager to go up in the airship himself, to see Viron
like the skylands again, and travel among the clouds as the fliers did.
    There were a lot of them out today, riding this cold wind. More,
he decided, than he had ever seen before. A whole flock, like a
flight of storks, was just now appearing from behind the airship.
What city sent them forth to patrol the length of the sun, and what
good did those patrols do? Speculation about the Fliers had been
dismissed as bootless at the schola, until the Ayuntamiento had
condemned them as spies.
    Had the Ayuntamiento known? Did Councillor Loris, who
wielded what authority remained to it, know now?
    Might it not be possible to track Fliers in the airship, anchor at
last at that fabled city, learn its name, and offer whatever assistance
in its sacred labor Viron and Trivigaunte could provide?
    (Buried, he had been wherever he had thought to be.)
    A fresh gust, colder and wilder than any before it, roared up the
Alameda, shaking its raddled poplars like rats. To his right General
Saba stiffened, while he himself shivered without shame. He was
wearing the Cloak of Lawful Governance over his augur's robe; it
fell to his shoe-tops and was of the thickest tea-colored velvet, stiff
with gold thread. He ought to have been awash in his own
perspiration; he found himself wishing ardently for some sort of
head-covering instead. General Saba had a dust-colored military
cap and Generalissimo Oosik beyond her a tail helmet of green
leather topped with a plume, but he had nothing.
    He recalled the broad-brimmed straw hat he had worn while
repairing the roof of the manteion - which would be missing more
shingles, surely, thanks to this wind. He had pulled that hat down so
that Blood's talus could not identify him later, and it had known him
by that.
    (Dead by his hand, Blood and the talus both.)
    He had lost that recollected hat somehow. Might not this wind
return it to him? All sorts of rubbish was blowing about, and
stranger things had happened.
    His wound throbbed. Mentally he pushed it aside, forcing himself
to fill his lungs with cold air.
    The shade had not climbed far yet, but what should have been a
bright streak of purest gold seemed faint, and flushed with brownish
purple. The Aureate Path was empty and failing visibly, signally the
end of mankind's dream of paradise, of some inconceivable fraternity
with its gods. For one vivid instant he remembered Iolar, the
dying Flier. But no doubt the sun was merely dimmed at the
moment, stained and darkened by dust. Winter was long overdue in
any event. Was Maytera Mint, who would be so conspicuously
absent from this, her victory parade, cold too? Wherever she was?
    Was Hyacinth? Silk shivered again.
    Far away, a band struck up, and ever so faintly he heard, or
seemed to hear, the sound of bugles, the tramp of marching feet,
and the clatter of cavalry.
    That was a good sign, surely.