Calde of the Long Sun

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.