Return to the Whorl

8. SAD EXPERIENCE TEACHES ME

"Horn!" As he stumbled, dripping, into the cavernous room that had been Blood's reception hall, Hound goggled.

"Bucky?" Pig's blind face looked not quite at him. "That yer, bucky?" Donkeys more than half asleep raised their heads and turned long ears to hear the moist scuffle of his shoes on the scarred and stained parquet floor.

"Yes, it's me." He sat down between Pig and Hound, wiping water from his hair and eyes. "Tired and exceedingly wet."

"Bird too!"

"Yes. Dry your feathers. But not on my shoulder, please. It can scarcely support its own weight."

"A godling had you…" Hound sounded as if he did not believe it himself. "I told Pig."

"Did you? And what did Pig say?"

"Prayed fer yer, bucky."

He glanced at Pig, then laid a shivering hand on one of Pig's enormous knees. "You're wet, too."

"Aye, bucky. Been rainin' h'out there? H'it has!"

He turned to study Hound. "So are you."

Hound did not reply.

"It's raining outside, Pig, exactly as you said. But not in here. There's a tile roof, and tile lasts if it isn't broken."

"H'in through ther winders, bucky."

"Bird too," Oreb remarked.

His owner stroked him. "Do you mean that you fly into the house through its broken windows as the rain does, Oreb? Or that you are as wet as Hound and Pig?"

"Bird wet!" Oreb spread his wings, warming them at the dying fire.

"Indeed you are, and for very the same reason-that is to say, because you were out there with me."

"I wasn't." Hound spoke to the fire. "I've got to tell you that, and there it is. I heard the godling when it spoke to you, and I hid in here, in one of the little rooms off this one, until Pig came."

"I don't blame you."

"I tried to get him to hide too, but he wouldn't. He went out into the rain to help you."

"Good man!" Oreb exclaimed.

"Then you went out to bring him back?"

Hound nodded, still looking at the fire.

"Hung h'on me h'arm," Pig explained.

"I made him listen. And you and the godling were talking, were conversing, really, like a man and his servant. We-I couldn't make out what you were saying. Could you, Pig?"

"Nae ter speak a'."

"We could only catch a word here and there, but we knew from your voices that it wasn't going to hurt you. So Pig put away his sword again and came back here."

"Good Silk!"

"He most certainly is, Oreb, which is why we must find him. But you and Hound and Pig are good, too, each in your own wayfriends far better than I deserve. You came to me while I sat in the godling's hand, and that took a great deal of courage. Hound's hiding in here was merely good sense, since he couldn't have achieved anything if he had tried to save me from what was actually a nonexistent threat. When there was a life to be saved, he acted as courageously as any man could.

"As for Pig, what he was ready to do leaves me speechless. I've sat cross-legged in the palm of that godling's hand, Pig, and the mere notion of attacking it in any way, of firing on it with a slug gun from a window of this house, for example, much less rushing at it with a sword…" He shook his head.

Pig chuckled. "Candy fer me, bucky. Could nae see h'it."

"But you saw Mucor? I mean the second time, when I sent her out to you?"

"Ho, aye." Pig's tone was no longer bantering.

Hound said, "Without offense, Horn. I hesitate to ask, but… I was terrified. I admit it."

"So was I," he said.

"I still am." Hound looked him in the face for the first time. "I'd like to know what the two of you were talking about. It wasn't… It isn't going to kill us or anything?"

He shook his head. "It's trying to help us, actually."

"Auld Pig'd like ter hear ter, bucky."

"I'll be happy to tell you, and in fact it's my duty to; but there are other questions. Perhaps Hound has asked them already. If so, I didn't get to hear your answers."

Hound said, "I haven't."

"Then I will. Can you tell us what Mucor said to you, Pig? It may be important."

There was a silence so long that Oreb croaked, "Pig talk!"

"Nae easy ter get h'it right," Pig muttered apologetically. "H'asked h'about me een. Knew I would, dinna yer?"

"Yes, I assumed so."

"Said she dinna know. A wee chat then, an' she said ter stay wi' yer, an' I might get 'em. Sae when Hound said h'it had yer, 'twas hoot sword, an' h'at 'em."

"I understand-or at least I understand more than I did. Did she tell you why she thought you might regain your sight in my company?"

"Did she, bucky? She did nae."

"After I left Mucor's room, Pig, I wanted to go into the suite that Silk's wife Hyacinth once occupied. It took me some while to find it, and when I did you were already there. You were angry, I believe, because I threatened to intrude."

"Aye, bucky."

For a moment or two he stared at the broad, fleshy face, made pitiable by the damp gray rag across its eyes. "May I ask what you were doing there, Pig?"

"A place ter think's h'all."

"You didn't know that the room you chose to think in had been Hyacinth's bedroom?"

"Did he? He dinna."

"You were outdoors, standing on the lawn, when you spoke with Mucor."

"Aye."

"It wasn't raining then-it can't have been, because it hadn't begun to rain yet when Hound and I went out to look for firewood sometime later. Why did you go back into the house, Pig? Was it to get out of the wind?"

"Why, bucky? Why nae? Dinna think h'about h'it."

"Did you come back here where Hound was waiting for us?"

Hound touched his knee and mouthed the word no.

"Dinna think sac," Pig murmured. "Crawlt h'in a winder."

"And went up to the second floor, which is where Hyacinth's suite was, to think?"

"Aye, bucky."

He felt his face and found that it had been dried by the fire, then ran his hand through his untidy hair, which was damp still. "You're fencing with me, Pig."

"H'is he?" It was not followed by the expected "he h'is nae!"

"Yes, he is. You are, and I'm too tired to fence. I've never taken fencing lessons, Pig, but Silk did and I got to know his fencing teacher, an old man named Xiphias. It seemed a glamorous business then, fencing."

"Did h'it noo?"

"Yes. Yes, it did." He recalled the ruined sword-stick, leaning forgotten in a corner of the Calde's Palace. He (or had it been Silk?) had drawn its hidden blade to feel the place where Blood's azoth had notched it. He recalled the moment, and with it the texture of a bamboo practice sword and the swift pattering steps when there was no time to boast, time only for the mock-deadly business of winning or losing, thrust and parry, advance and retreat. "Later," he said, "when I was building my mill, I wondered why anyone bothered. Other than by arrangement, the occasions when two combatants with swords fight it out must be very rare. On Green-have I told you I went to Green, Pig?"

"Aye."

He lay down, hands behind his head. "I got a sword there; and after I had used it to clear a sewer clogged with corpses, I used it to kill red leapers and animals of that kind. There's an art to that, if you will allow-but it isn't fencing."

Pig's deep, rough voice seemed to come from very far away. "Want ter tell yer, bucky. Truly do."

"You've sworn not to?"

"Dinna know meself. Somethin' h'inside, ca'in' me. Kept goin' an' goin', till h'it felt hamy. Believe h'in ghaists?"

Hound said, "No."

"Yes. Certainly."

"Ane h'in there, bucky. Felt a' her."

A half-strangled sob elicited, "Poor Pig," from Oreb.

"Winded perfume. Kissed me, ter. Believe h'it?"

"Yes. She kissed a great many men in there, Pig."

"If yer'd come h'in…" The long, brass-tipped scabbard stirred, scraping the hearthstone.

There was a long silence, broken by Hound. "You said you'd tell us what the godling told you."

"So I did. It's bad news for you, I'm afraid; and bad news for me as well. I should tell you first, however, that I haven't the least intention of doing what I was instructed to do."

"You're going to disobey it?"

"I am indeed. What right has it to expect obedience from me?" Again he felt the pelting rain, the freezing wind that had driven it like sleet, and the faint warmth of the huge hand. He opened his eyes. "It is not a rhetorical question, Hound. Pig, I ask it of you, too. What gives that godling-or any other-a moral right to our obedience? You've been here for the past twenty years, as I have not. Answer me if you can."

"They speak for the gods." Hound sounded more diffident than ever.

"They say they do, perhaps; but the one who spoke to me didn't even bother to say it. I might add that augurs often make the same assertion, on dubious grounds."

"Holdin' yer, wasn't h'it, bucky? Could a' killed yer."

"That's correct. I was seated on the palm of its hand, and if I had jumped, I might've been badly hurt."

"Be dead, bucky."

"I doubt it. The distance from his palm to the ground must have been two or three times my height-approximately the fall Silk suffered when he drove through Hyacinth's window. Do you know about that, either of you?"

Hound said, "No."

"I won't bore you with the details, but Silk jumped out of her window and landed on flagstones, breaking his ankle. If I'd jumped from the godling's hand, I would've landed on wet ground. That might have been almost as bad-I doubt very much, however, that it could have been worse."

"S'pose h'it'd shut h'its han' h'on yer?"

Oreb squawked in dismay.

"I would've been crushed, no doubt. Still, I doubt that it could have. They move slowly. Even in the short time I talked with it, I couldn't help noticing that. Each of its fingers must weigh as much as you do. If that's correct, closing its hand entails moving the weight of four very large men."

" "Bucky…

He chuckled. "Oreb told me a big man was behind the house. I thought he meant you, and Hound and I had been worried about you, so I went with him. Afterward-while I was sitting in the handI was inclined to be angry with him for saying big man instead of godling, giant, or something of that kind that would've told me what I was to encounter. Then I realized that to him we're as gigantic as a godling is to us-that Oreb sees little difference between a large man like you and a larger one like the godling because there really isn't much, from his standpoint. What could a godling do to him that you couldn't?"

"Would nae hurt yer, H'oreb," Pig rumbled.

"No. But neither would the godling. You and Hound thought I was very brave for talking to it as I did-"

"I still think it," Hound announced.

"But Oreb's being just as brave every time he perches on my wrist and talks with me. A wild bird wouldn't do that, and I can't blame it in the least…" The birds suggested trees, immense trees like mountains and graceful fern-foliaged trees that swayed in every breeze and burned like incense; the trees, islands and continents, and smiling lakes, deep blue seas, and storm-tossed oceans.

"What yer thinkin' h'about, bucky?"

"The three whorls. Two large and low, by which I mean near the Short Sun. This one near the stars. I don't know whether Green's bigger than Blue, or Blue's bigger than Green; but both are much bigger than this whorl we're in, the Long Sun Whorl. When we came to Blue, we scarcely noticed that. I didn't notice it at all, in fact, and doubt that many of us did. Both this whorl and that one were very large places to us, and that was all that mattered; yet I would guess that Blue is ten or twenty times larger-that there's more difference in size between Blue and this whorl than between the godling and ourselves. In this whorl, Pas took care to separate us with rivers and mountain ranges. On Blue there isn't much need for that. Distance itself makes us keep our distance." He closed his eyes again, seeing league upon league of open water, and feeling the gentle rocking of his sloop.

"Horn? You said you had bad news for us. What is it?"

"Not for Pig-at least, I don't believe so. For you and me, Hound. You wanted to take your family to Green after your child was born. So it sounded. Have you changed your mind?"

"No. I-no."

"Then it's bad news, as I said. For me, too, because I must find Silk and take him home with me, and that means we must find a Lander in working order and places on it. The godling told me it has been decided-I don't know by whom-that enough people have left the Whorl now, and everyone who's still on board is to remain aboard."

Oreb whistled sharply.

"It came as a shock to me, as you may imagine, and I'm by no means certain it conforms to the will of Pas. When Patera Silk and the sleeper he had awakened went down to the surface of the whorl where the landers are, he saw the inscription Pas had caused to be cut into the steps. It read, `He who descends serves Pas best.' My understanding has always been that everyone-the entire population of the whorl-is to leave it."

"Nae mair, bucky?"

"Correct. At least, according to the godling. Everyone in the Whorl is to remain. They hope to repair it." Closing his eyes again, he added softly, "That was what Echidna and Hierax wanted. It would seem they have won after all, although the godling claimed to be speaking for Patera Silk."

"Don't you think that it might be the divine Silk issuing these orders, Horn?"

He sat up a second time, eyes wide. "What did you say?"

"The minor god that augurs call Silent Silk? Or Silver Silk?" Hound cleared his throat. "I don't know much about your religious beliefs, Pig…"

"Nae me," Pig told him. "'Fraid ter get me wind h'up? H'all pals. Right, H'oreb?"

"Good Silk!"

Hound said, "He really is," then added hastily, "not that they all aren't. There are no bad gods. I know that."

"You're telling me that there's a god called Silk?"

"Why, yes." Hound drew his jacket more tightly about him, and edged a finger's breadth nearer the dying fire. "I thought you must know about him. You're looking for Calde Silk, and I suppose Calde Silk must have been named for him, since it's a name people can use, too. Men, I mean, or boys. It's sort of a stretch, not like Hound or Horn or Pig. But Wool's a common name." Hound fell silent, clearly afraid he was offending one or both his companions.

"Good name! Good Silk!"

"Be quiet, Oreb. Hound, I'd like to know a great deal more about this god named Silk. I haven't been here, remember."

"I shouldn't have brought him up." Hound was clearly sorry he had.

"Like ter know ter," Pig rumbled. "Yer said h'it Nought ter be Silk's tellin'? Why sae?"

"Well, because the godling spoke to Horn, that's all, and Horn's looking for Calde Silk and… and it seems like there's some connection, doesn't it? Because the names are the same."

He asked, "Why do the augurs call him Silent Silk and Silver Silk, Hound? Do you know?"

"I think so. But there's a disagreement about him. I should tell you that in case you talk to other people about him. Did I call him a minor god?"

"Yes, you did."

Oreb snapped his bill in protest.

"Well, some people don't agree with that. They say he's not a minor god at all, that he's an aspect of Pas. I don't understand aspects."

Pig stirred impatiently. "S'pose he was ter gae 'round callin' himself somethin', sae folk wadna know."

Hound nodded. "I see."

"I don't like to disagree, Pig," he said, "and hesitate to in a matter of no importance. But what you're describing is a mere lie, not an aspect. The gods are known by foreign names in many foreign cities, Hound. Are you aware of it?"

"I haven't traveled, I mean like you have, or Pig. But I've heard something about it."

"It is so. Those, too, are their names; and they have as much right to them as we have to ours. There is also the matter of personality, both the kinds of persons we are at base and the way we seem to others. You have your personality; you are always Hound, whether you are kind or cruel, whether you act well or badly. Pig is always Pig, Oreb-"

"Good bird!"

"Is always Oreb, a good bird just as he says; and I'm always myself. But the immortal gods, whose powers are so much greater than ours, can incorporate many different personalities, and do. This not some special insight of mine, by the way. Merely what I was taught in the schola."

"I see," Hound said again. "You're going to say that when a god uses a new name and a new personality, that's an aspect. Isn't that right, Horn?"

He nodded. "And a new appearance. The god is still Pas, Molpe, or whoever; but this is a view of Pas or Molpe that we haven't been privileged to see before-a new aspect of Pas or Molpe. Now, why has the god called Silk been awarded the epithet Silent?"

"Because he told the Prolocutor that he looked out of the Sacred Windows without showing himself there, like Tartaros. But Tartaros generally turns them black and speaks. Silk said he didn't speak or make the window change at all, pretty often. He just looked on."

"Thank you." He yawned and stretched. "Thank you very much, Hound. Believe me, I appreciate your information more than I can say. Is everyone ready to sleep? I confess I am-more than ready."

"No sleep. Night good!"

"It may or may not be night, Oreb. We have no way of knowing, and certainly no one should feel compelled to sleep who doesn't want to."

Hound said hastily, "You don't have to lie on the bare floor, Horn. I've got a blanket you can lie on. Folded in threes, it'll be a lot more comfortable."

"Thank you," he said. "That's very kind of you; but what we really need is firewood, I'm afraid. It's certainly getting cooler. I'll go outside and look for some, if both of you will promise to remain in here."

Pig prepared to rise. "Be ter wet ter burn, bucky."

"He's right," Hound told him. "You could catch pneumonia if you went out there again, and it would be for nothing."

"Dry, we need, bucky." Laboriously, Pig stood up. "Here's ther lad ter fetch h'it, ter. Dirma yer gae wi'."

"Pig-"

The long sword was only half drawn from its brass-tipped scabbard, but the swift hiss of the steel was like the hiss of a coiler big enough to crush and devour five men at once. Oreb squawked with dismay.

"I wasn't going to try to stop you, Pig-nor was I going to insist on going with you."

"Guid h'on yer, bucky." Pig grinned as the sword shot back into its scabbard. "Get yer rest while auld Pig tears h'up boards ter warm yer."

They sat in silence, watching Pig's broad back vanish into the surrounding gloom; then Hound said, "I'll get that blanket," and proceeded to do so.

"That is your bedding, Hound, and I decline to deprive you of it. I slept in a field night before last."

"I've got another one for myself." Hound smiled. "You ought to know me better than that by now. You'd give another man your only blanket and think nothing of it, I know. But I wouldn't. Neither would Pig."

"Good Pig?" Oreb was puzzled.

"Yes, Oreb. Pig is a good man-an extraordinarily good man, I'm sure. One who might give someone else his only blanket, unless I miss my guess."

Hound looked up from the pack from which he was extracting a second blanket. "Well, most men wouldn't."

"Of course not. That's why I said that Pig, who might, was an extraordinarily good man-among other reasons. It wasn't a tactful thing to say, I suppose, particularly while I was preparing to lie down on a blanket you loaned me; but it wasn't intended as criticism of you-far from it. May I say something personal, Hound? Without giving offense?"

Refolding his blanket, Hound nodded. "I wish you would."

"Very well. If you'd had only one blanket, you might have discovered something extraordinary about yourself. It would've surprised you, I believe; but it wouldn't have surprised me."

Hound did not reply until he had arranged his own blanket before the fire. "You said something personal to me, Horn, and it was ve-y flattering. Can I say something like that to you? You won't think it's flattering, or I don't think you will. I'd rather that you didn't get too angry."

"Watch out!" Oreb exclaimed.

Oreb's master reached out to stroke him, smoothing the glossy black feathers with gentle fingers. "Which of us are you warning, Oreb?"

"You, I'm sure. He thinks I'm going to involve you in some sort of-of plot against Pig. I'm not."

"Good."

"I simply wanted to say that I like you. I like you a lot. So does Tansy. Pig…"

"Yes?"

"Never mind." Hound lay down upon his side, looking at the fire. "I talk too much. It isn't my only fault, but it's the worst one and the hardest to stop. Good night, Horn."

"Please. What you were going to say may be very important. I mean that. You asked my permission to say it, and received it. I want to hear it. I ask it as a favor."

"You said you were going to tell us what the godling told you to do, but you never did. Just that you weren't going to do it. What about that?"

"Did I? It wasn't intentional. If I tell you now, will you tell me what it was you were going to say about Pig? I'm perfectly sincere about its importance to me."

"All right. What was it the godling wanted you to do?"

"Go all over the city announcing that no one else is to leave-that they are to rebuild the tunnels beneath it, and to repair the remaining landers, if they can."

"But not use them?"

"Correct."

Hound waited for him to say more; but he did not, and at length Hound asked, "Did the godling tell you why?"

"In order that the Whorl can be re-launched. I confess I don't understand how such a thing is possible, but then I don't understand how it was launched originally either."

There was a second lengthy silence, which lasted until Hound ventured, "It's the will of the gods, I suppose."

"Perhaps it is. The godling didn't say so, but it may be-it's quite probable."

Oreb croaked; it was difficult to tell whether it was a croak of sympathy or a croak of skepticism.

"Aren't you going to do it, Horn? That's what you said."

"I know." Stretched on his back upon the borrowed blanket, he fingered his beard. "I said it because it's true. I'm not. I won't repeat what I said before, except to add that size and strength confer no moral authority. A strong man-Pig, for instance-may compel us to obey him; but we're entitled to resist if we can."

"No fight!" Oreb advised.

"Tell it to the strong man. You're a wise bird and a good talker, but you're talking to the wrong person."

"But the gods…" Hound's voice faded away.

"The gods possess moral authority, granted. Great Pas, particularly, possesses it; and in fact the rest have it only because he accords it to them. If a god were to-but if is a children's word. No god has spoken to me. What were you about to say about Pig?"

"Horn…"

He could not see Hound's face from where he lay, or much of anything other than Blood's domed and painted ceiling, writhing figures less than half illuminated by the flickering firelight; but Hound sounded alarmed.

"Horn, you ought to at least consider obeying, even so. I mean, a godling… They don't talk to us much, but most people accept that they're relaying the gods' orders whenever they do. Everybody I know does. Didn't you promise?"

"Good Silk!" Oreb announced loyally.

"No, I didn't. The godling issued its orders and I asked some questions and nodded. That's as far as it went."

"But your nodding implied-"

"That I had heard its answers and understood them. That's all. My task is to find Silk-the godling said he was here- and take him to New Viron. I want to get home to Seawrack and the two sons who remain to us, Hound. I think I've been away for about a year. How would you feel if you'd been separated from Tansy for a year?"

"Is your wife's name Seawrack? I thought you called her something else."

"Did I say Seawrack? I'm sorry. My wife's name is Nettle. We're getting off the point, however. The point is that I gave my solemn word. To keep my oath, I've risked everything-and lost. Are you looking at my face, Hound? I feel your eyes."

"Yes."

"This is not my face. I've had little chance to study my reflection, but I don't need to-my fingers tell me so. Nor are these my fingers. I am neither so tall nor so slender. I have lost myself, you see, in service to my town. I won't turn aside after all I've been through. No, not if all the gods in Mainframe were to command it.

"Now, what were you about to say about Pig?"

"You lost your yourself?"

"I'm not prepared to discuss it. First, because you would credit nothing I said; and second, because we have a bargain. I've carried out my part. I've told you what the godling wanted me to do. Furthermore, I've explained why I won't do it. What were you on the point of saying about Pig?"

"This isn't it, but he's been gone an awfully long time."

"I know. I don't know whether he'll return to us tonight, and he may not return at all. Fulfill your part of our bargain."

"I will, but first let me say that some of it isn't true, all right? I'll tell you what I was going to say, but I've had time to think about it, so afterward I'm going to take some of it back." Hound paused.

"This is what I was going to say. I was going to say that you and I get along fine. Hound and Horn, right? It's the name of an inn up in the mountains. But I was going to say I don't like Pig. That's the part I want to take back. I was going to say that I didn't like Pig, and I thought he was dangerous-"

"Good Pig!"

"And I was going to give you the name of the inn I'm going to put up at. It's Ermine's, and I was going to say that after we say good bye and go our separate ways you could come there and stay with me, as long as you didn't bring Pig."

"That was generous of you. I certainly appreciate it." Still regarding the ceiling, the speaker smiled.

"Like I said, that about not liking Pig isn't really true. I'm afraid of him. He's huge and very strong, and I think his blindness makes him savage. It might make me savage too, being blind." Hound giggled nervously. "So I can't blame Pig for it. Just the same, he scares me. I'm still young and Tansy may be carrying our first child, and I don't want to get killed."

"Nor do we older people, I assure you. You say you don't dislike Pig. Do you like him?"

"I-" Hound hesitated. "Yes. Yes, I do. I'm still afraid of him, but I like him a lot."

"So do I. Thank you very much, Hound. For your offer of a place to sleep-I appreciate it, and may take you up on it-but most of all for confiding in me."

Hound swallowed. "You can bring Pig, if you want to."

"I thank you again, this time on his behalf. You are extremely generous."

"You said what I almost said might be important. It wasn't, and I realize it. But that's what it was. That's everything I was about to say."

"You're mistaken. It was fully as important as I thought it might be. Will you do me one more favor, Hound? You've done so many already that I hate to ask it, but I will. I do."

"Yes, absolutely. What is it?"

"Go to sleep."

"I was thinking… Pig's not coming back. I think we both know that. So I was thinking maybe I ought to go and see if I couldn't do what he said he was going to, find some old furniture to burn or tear off a couple of boards somewhere."

"Feed fire," Oreb elucidated.

"No. Go to sleep, please."

"It's getting colder."

"We must bear it. Please go to sleep."

Lying on his back with his hands behind his head, he talked to himself, telling himself how the Outsider had touched Patera Silk on the ball court between one moment and the next, and how he himself had played on, all unconscious of the momentous thing that had occurred, conscious only of the game, conscious that the ball had been snatched away as he was about to shoot, conscious that Patera Silk was a much better player than he would ever be, conscious of the sun-bright sky through which a flier floated, a black cross against the sun, a sign of addition that signed that something had been added to a whorl that would never be quite the same again, that the gods' god who had been outside for so long had come in, a whispering breeze stronger than Pas's howling, whirling storm.

Conscious too that he himself was a painted wooden figure in a blue coat moved by strings, a blue-coated figure atop a music box, whose blue coat was a coat of paint, unconscious of all that passed when the box was silent, when the clever, shiny spring inside no longer uncoiled to move him and his partner through the mad gyrations prescribed for the tune played by the steel comb that sang to itself of a virgin braiding her hair by candlelight, a virgin glimpsed by a vagrant stealing his supper from her father's garden, apples more precious because he had glimpsed her then, seated on her bed in her chemise, and she was the most beautiful woman in the whorl, was Kypris and Hyacinth because she had yet to learn how beautiful she was and the power of her smile.

Dark hair braided like a crown, and a smile that tore the heart. The mandola had not been played particularly well, and the sweet, soft voice of had been of limited range. And yet-and yet…

"Poor Silk!"

He sat up, then rose quietly and tossed the smoldering stubs of burned sticks into the fire. From the sound of his breathing, Hound was not yet asleep. He lay down again.

"Patera? Patera, are you awake?" He is Horn calling beneath Silk's bedroom window.

He is Silk replying from the window. "Yes, but Patera Pike's still asleep, I believe. Keep your voice down."

"… dying, Mother says. She sent me to get you."

He knelt in prayer beside the bedside while Silk swung his beads in the sign of addition, knelt beside the praying boy while bringing the Peace of Pas to the gray-faced old woman in the bed. "I convey to you, my daughter, the forgiveness of the gods. Recall now the words of Pas, who said, `Do my will, live in peace, multiply, and do not disturb my seal. Thus you shall escape my wrath. Go willingly-' "

Go willingly-

Go willingly…

The dying woman's head rolls upon her pillow. "Nettle? Where's Nettle? Nettle?"

She rises and takes the dying woman's hand. "I'm here. I'm right here, Grandma."

"I loved you, Nettle."

"I know, Grandma. I love you, too."

He watched them through two pairs of eyes.

"I want you to know, Nettle, that you've been loved. I want you to remember it. Someone loved you once. Someone may love you again, Nettle."

It echoed and re-echoed: someone may love you, Nettle.

He blinked and woke, not certain that he was not still dreaming. And at last sat up, shivering.

Their fire was nearly out. Hound had rolled himself in his blanket and was breathing deeply and heavily. Oreb was nowhere to be seen. Blood had said, "Did you walk out here, Patera? My floater'll take you back. If you tell about our little agreement…"

Arm in arm they had staggered and stumbled through this very room, he eager-no, Patera Silk eager to keep Blood beside him so that Blood would not take note of Hyacinth's azoth tucked into the back of his waistband and covered by his tunic, Musk escorting them to a floater driven by Willet, a Trivigaunti spy.

From up there (he could barely see the place) he had looked down into this room, where middle-aged men in evening clothes had stood drinking and talking while blood from the gash the whiteheaded one had made in his arm dripped unseen onto the carpeting.

Had stood with his back against a white statue of Thyone. He strained to see it in the darkness, and had made it out at last and started toward it when it moved.

Leaning over the balustrade, Thyone became Mucor, then faded like mist. Nodding to himself, he took out the lantern Hound had given him and lit its candle with a stick from the fire.

He heard Pig's muttered exclamation as he turned in to the suite that had been Hyacinth's and called softly, "Silk? Silk? Where are you, Silk?," reminding himself forcibly of Oreb.

"Lookin' ter get killed?" There was no friendship in Pig's voice.

"Silk, I know you're in him, and I must talk with you."

The long blade slithered from the brass-tipped scabbard. Looking through the doorway into the bedroom, he saw Pig's blind and terrible face, and the sword blade tasting the air like the steel tongue of a great iron snake.

"I have a light. I know you can't see it, but I do. Without it-"

Pig was coming toward him, guided by his voice and groping for him with that terrible blade.

"I wouldn't have had the courage. If you kill me, my ghost will remain here with Hyacinth's. Have you thought of that?"

Pig hesitated.

"Whenever you come looking for her, you'll find me, too."

"Bucky

"I like you, Pig, but I don't want to talk to you at the moment. I came here at the risk of my life to speak with your rider. Talk to me, Patera, or kill me here and now. I have no weapon, and those are the only choices open to you."

"Then I'll talk with you," Pig said, and sheathed his sword. "You knew because I couldn't help coming here, didn't you? You say you have a lantern?"

"Yes." He felt that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "No, and yes. That's what I ought to say. If it had only been that Pig wanted very much to be alone in this room, I don't believe I'd have guessed. I would have thought of Silk the god, of Silver Silk as the augurs call you, with Kypris and dismissed the thought. You're not with her now, I realize. As long as Pig is blind, you can't go back to her."

"Correct. Though I would try to have his sight restored in any case, just as you yourself are making a praiseworthy effort to restore Maytera's."

"You even sound like yourself, Patera." He held up his lantern, letting its glow fill the whole sad, empty room. "It's uncanny, hearing your voice from Pig's lips and larynx. The voice is surely much more a function of the spirit than I ever realized. Chenille must have sounded very different indeed when she was possessed by Kypris."

"She did. You said it wasn't merely my coming here, Horn. What was it?"

He sighed. "I wish I'd known when Nettle and I wrote our book. I would have emphasized the changes in voice more. If I didn't have a light, I'd be ready to swear Patera Silk was standing before me in person."

"Standing before you and quizzing you, Horn. How did you know? I won't make you reply, though I probably could. I'll be grateful for an answer, just the same."

"I wish I had a good one. Last night I dreamed that Pig took off his bandage; and when he did, his face was yours. So I must have sensed something. We call him Pig, and talk about him as if that were really his name; but it's just a name of the Vironese type that he chose for himself yesterday."

"I remember."

"You would of course. Tonight Hound said our names were linked-Hound and Horn, like a hunting inn. That started me thinking about Pig's name, because I feel closer to Pig than to Hound, though Hound has been so kind to us, and I recalled the old saying, that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A silk purse generally means a purse made of silk, but it could also be purse to contain Silk."

Pig chuckled.

"Pig, or you in Pig, might have thought it amusing to give the proverb the lie-so it seemed to me. Then too, men rarely like the men they fear; but Hound likes Pig and fears him, too. You were the only man I'd known who had that kind of unconscious charm; but Pig has it. And, as you say, Pig had sought out this room, which used to be Hyacinth's, and was enraged at the prospect of being disturbed here."

"It was Pig who was angry," Pig said.

"I know. In one sense you're Silk-but ultimately you're really Pig, exactly as you appear to be. A Pig to whom certain new instructions have been given."

"What's that yer said, bucky?"

"I said that I had no wish to disturb your privacy, that I was extremely grateful to you for permitting me to spend even a few minutes in this room, and that I will return to Hound now and leave you to your thoughts."

"Never had none, bucky." Pig chuckled again. "Gae wi' yer, h'if yer dinna h'object ter me company."

"I'd be delighted to have it, and perhaps we can find some firewood. Do you think that might be possible?" He gasped.

"What yer catch yer breath like that fer, bucky?"

"This room has several windows. No doubt you discovered them for yourself."

"Did he? He did. Seadh."

"Well, the clouds parted just then-just as I finished speakingand I saw a flash of skylight. It means that the sun is burning again. When we leave, it will be by daylight. I-I realize it makes no difference to you, Pig, but it will make an enormous difference to Hound and me, and even to the donkeys, I imagine."

"Huh! Want h'it ter make a difference ter me, bucky. Gang ter help me find een, hain't yer?"

He said, "I will do everything in my power, Pig. You have my solemn promise."

The doorway was much too small for them to leave arm in arm, though both would have liked to. As it was he hung back, letting Pig kneel to crawl through before him. For an instant then it almost seemed to him that the bare floor and mildewing walls had been swept aside and he saw again the luxury and splendor that had been: the rich, figured carpet, the pictured women of pink and gold, and the huge bed of scented wood with its black and crimson sheets. Wine and chocolate perfumed the air, and glowing lights clearer than the one he held swarmed over the ceiling, their refulgence held in check by the discretion of the murmuring couple in the bed.

Then Pig's boots were through the doorway, leaving behind them only silence, ruin, and himself. Sighing, he too went out, pursued by the mockery of Hyacinth's soundless laughter.