Return to the Whorl

9. BEFORE MY TRIAL

It would be impossible for me to write down everything that has occurred since I last wrote. When I was back on the Whorl, and Silk spoke to me through my friend Pig, I was eager to hear all that had befallen him since we had gone to Mainframe. He never complied, although I was permitted a few glimpses; and now I understand why he did not. There are things that would be so long in the telling that the Whorl might go before any account was well begun. This is like that, but I will do what I can.

Before I start, I should say that we are very comfortably situated now in the house that was Judge Hamer's. At present it belongs to me, having been given to me by the town. Before we leave I hope to sell it; Nettle and I will need money, Hide and Vadsig want to build a house as well as a boat, and it is likely Hoof will marry before long. I have noticed that when one twin does something the other is not far behind.

Speaking of Vadsig, I should say that before my trial I questioned her at length, having observed at the hearing that she was possessed. I supposed-hoped, I should say-that Jahlee was her possessor. In that I was disappointed.

"Who are you? I know you're not really Vadsig. If you want to make us think you are, you must learn to talk as she does."

She gave me the defiant glance I had seen earlier when she had described her quarrel with "Cook." "We came to help. You should thank us."

"I certainly need help. Thank you very much."

"That's better." She smiled.

"You speak of yourselves as we. How many of you are there?"

She giggled. "What does it matter?"

Hide said, "So I can tell when you're all gone. I want Vadsig back."

"She's still here." Her voice changed tone. "We'll have to go soon. Onorifica will come in and wake me up." A return to the previous tone. (I will not continue to mark these changes; they were too frequent.) "That's the good thing about this. I can eat."

To entertain them I said, "You're not Mucor in that case. I thought you might be; but Mucor would be alone, I believe."

Vadsig giggled again.

Hide said, "We don't think it's funny, do we Father? Who's Onorifica? Was that the girl who thought you could make your stick talk?"

"He can!" More giggling from Vadsig.

"She was a servant at General Inclito's," I told Hide, "so Vadsig's possessors are Inclito's daughter Mora-you remember her, I'm sure-and her friend Fava."

"You said Fava was dead. You said we sat on her grave that one time, and-"

Vadsig interrupted. "Well, I like that!"

I told her, "I hope you'll remember, Fava, that without me your body would have gone unburied, and would, I believe, have been devoured by wild animals that very night. I buried you alone, digging stony ground in the bitter cold. Would you have done as much for me?"

Vadsig was silent.

Hide said, "I still don't understand about Fava. Isn't she really dead?"

"Death isn't a hard and fast line like the edge of a table. It is a process, and it can be a long time before the dead person is entirely gone-indeed, it may not end in total dissolution at all. Fava and Mora were close, so it's not surprising that Fava figures in Mora's dreams. The surprising thing is that both figure in yours."

He gawked, and I laid a hand upon his shoulder. "The three whorls are stranger places than you can imagine, my son. As you mature you will come upon less and less of that strangeness if you stay close to home, honor no god much, and busy yourself with prosaic affairs. Then you can scoff at such things."

Vadsig said, "Cruel to him you are, mysire."

"No, Vadsig. I'm causing him pain. Only children believe that there is no difference between cruelty and education."

Hide asked, "Are they gone now?" and she giggled.

"No, my son, they are not. Vadsig loves you so much that when she sensed that what I'd said had left you confused and unhappy she broke through to protest. Suppose you were on a mare, and the mare heard her foal cry out. You might be able to get her back under control, but you'd have to do it. For a moment you would have lost control, as Mora and Fava did then."

"I want them gone, Father!" Hide's fists clenched.

I said, "I would ask who it is you think that you're about to strike, but it would be useless, I'm sure. You may strike me, if you like, but I'll restrain you-if I can-should you attempt to strike Vadsig. It will not drive out her possessors, and she's done nothing to deserve it."

"I won't hit you."

"Thank you. As for making Mora and Fava leave, I suppose we might be able to if we tried, but there's little point in trying. They'll go when Onorifica wakes Mora for breakfast, as Mora told us. Meanwhile we must confer with them, and with Vadsig as well.

"Will you please let Vadsig speak? It is late already, we have a lot to talk over, and if Fava wants to eat and Vadsig allows it, I'll have to arrange for food-"

"Fish heads?"

I looked up in surprise, and found Oreb in his accustomed place on the chimney corner.

"Bird back!"

Vadsig said, "Speaking to you I am, mysire. What wanting you are?"

"First, your consent to the possession, Vadsig. Is it all right for Mora and Fava to remain with you till sunrise? It will help you and Hide in the long run, I'm sure."

She did not reply.

"Bird find." Oreb announced. "Find hus."

"That's right, I sent you after Babbie. Thank you. I haven't time to ask where he is, but I will later. Meanwhile, please don't forget."

"Hus good!"

"If helps it does, all right it is. Friends we are."

"Fine. Thank you, Vadsig. You're not only helping Hide and yourself, you're helping me, too. Now I must ask one more thing of you. Fava-I believe it's Fava-would like you to eat. I may be mistaken, but I think she'll make you eat voraciously. Is that all right? Have you objection to a big meal?"

"No, mysire."

"You'll have to talk more than that, I'm afraid. I can't be certain after hearing only two words."

"Sorry I am, mysire. Stupid I feel."

Hide said, "That was her. They couldn't fool me."

"Speaking I am, kandij. Late it is and hungry we are. If eating too much I am, stop me you can. But I won't make her hurt herself or drink blood like I used to, Incanto. I won't let Fava make her sick."

"Good. Thank you, all three. I'm hungry myself-"

Oreb croaked, "Bird eat?" from the chimney corner.

"Yes, Oreb. Certainly."

I turned back to Vadsig, wondering whose facial expression I was studying. "No doubt Hide's hungry too, and we might as well eat while we talk. Hide, would you go down and arrange for food with Aanvagen, if she hasn't gone to bed?"

"Right away, Father." Hide blew Vadsig a kiss.

"What do you want to talk about, Incanto?"

"Overthrowing the judges who rule Dorp."

Oreb whistled sharply.

"It seems to be the only course open to me. Nat is well connected and vindictive, and if I'm tried I'll certainly be found guilty and punished severely. I may be executed, and I'll certainly be flogged. Hide, Jahlee, and I will be deprived of our property. When they discover much of it missing-I've taken it out and sold it-Beroep and Aanvagen will be ruined, as Strik has been."

"A good man he is, mysire," Vadsig assured me. "This Master often says. This Parel also says. A hard trader Strik is, but as he says his goods are. Do you think we can really do it, Incanto? We overthrew the Duko, and I like to think Eco and I had something to do with that, but we had the Horde of Blanko, and they had a lot more to do with it than we did."

I told them, "Let me say first that if we succeed we should be able to restore Captain Strik's property. He helped me when I was just set ting out, and I certainly intend to try; in fact I'll try to restore all the property that's been unjustly confiscated. The judges have been using their positions to enrich themselves; we will deprive them of both riches and position-if we can.

"Second, these judges recall the Ayuntamiento, the council we overthrew in Viron. By `we' I mean not only Maytera Mint and Patera Silk, and Seawrack and I, but several hundred others who formed the nucleus of our rebellion. There were five councilors, too-Lemur, Loris, Potto, Galago, and Tarsier-and they controlled the Army and the Guard, immense advantages that the judges here lack. The Horde of Dorp is largely made up of reservists."

Vadsig looked doubtful. "These names not knowing, I am, mysire. This knowing I am. Legermen there are, and slug guns they have."

"We have weapons, too, Vadsig. The difficulty is to find men and women who'll use them with determined courage."

"She'll fight if she's fighting for Hide and a house of her own, Incanto. Mora and I will too, but then it won't be so dangerous for us."

"Boy come!" Oreb announced; and in a few seconds we heard Hide's feet on the stairs.

"The lady here… Aanvagen? Is that her name?"

We nodded.

"She and her husband and that fellow Strik have gone to Strik's to get some things so he can make himself comfortable, but I told the cook what we wanted, and she said she'd do it if I'd carry it up. She'll yell when it's ready."

"Down to help her I will go," Vadsig offered.

I shook my head. "We have a great deal to discuss. I mentioned the rebellion in Viron, in which I took part; I was one of General Mint's runners, was shot in the chest, and so on and so forth-none of which I need go into. The point is that it succeeded, though it faced opposition far more serious than the rebellion we will foment here in Dorp. It was sparked by a theophany, Echidna's appearing in the Sacred Window of my manteion. I doubt that any of you have seen a Sacred Widow."

Hide and Vadsig shook their heads. Oreb piped tentatively, "Bird see?"

"That's right, you were with me in the Grand Manteion, so you did indeed. You'll have to excuse me though, Oreb, while I explain to the young people."

Vadsig said, "I've heard about them." (It was probably Mora who spoke.) "Can you climb through them, like a real window?" That was certainly Fava.

"An interesting point. In a sense, the gods can. They can leave the Sacred Window in the form of unnoticed flashes of light to possess us, very much as you and Mora are possessing Vadsig. You don't do it like that, do you?"

"I don't know, Incanto. I don't think so. Into me they have walked, mysire, as one into this house might walk. Me they did not ask, but friends become we have."

"What I was going to say is that to anyone who hadn't been brought up to reverence the gods-and even in Viron many people had not-a god in a Sacred Window was nothing more than a large picture that spoke. Even so, that single theophany set off a rebellion that many had longed for but no one had prepared for. I believe something of the same sort might have the same effect here, with a little preparation."

Hide asked, "Do you, Father? Are you sure?" The simple words fail to convey his expression and voice; it was one of the few times I have felt absolutely certain that he loves me.

"No," I told him, "but I'm going to bet my life on it. I have no choice."

All of this took place before Hide went to Strik's house in hope of reclaiming his old bed and was beaten by Strik and his wife, and before Hoof joined us and Jahlee rejoined us in the dram shop. Now I would like to pray for a few minutes, and after that I must get to court. This High Judge business is becoming very reminiscent of Gaon, save that I have no wives here and want none.

Rereading, I see that I promised to describe my search for Jahlee. This would be a good time to do it; but first I should say that I was puzzled for some time after I arrived. I could not imagine how I had gotten to Green from Judge Hamer's sellaria when trips of the kind had previously required the presence of an inhuma. My initial feeling was that what I had experienced was impossible, and thus that I was not really on Green at all but was experiencing a dream or hallucination. This lasted for what seemed an hour or two, although it cannot really have been long.

Subsequently, I realized that there were at least three explanations. The first and certainly the most attractive is that Fava was possessing Vadsig. The difficulty is that the "Fava" possessing Vadsig may be nothing more than Mora's dream of Fava; if that is so, the web of difficulties becomes worse than ever.

The second (which I am loath to adopt though I think it the most plausible of the three) is that an inhumu was present but unknown to me. I write "an inhumu," despite the fact that my previous partners in bilocation have been female; it is possible that a male might serve as well. If this explanation is the true one, it would be interesting-and useful, perhaps-to know who it was. Hide, Vadsig, Aanvagen, Beroep, and Azijin can be dismissed; I have been too close to all of them far too often to be thus deceived. In my judgment Cijfer can be dismissed as well. That leaves Judge Hamer himself (surely the most interesting possibility), various troopers, and others, any of whom could be an inhuma or an inhumu.

The third is that I was assisted by the Neighbors, from whom the inhumi must originally have gained this power. I have been seeing and speaking to them, although this is not the proper time to write about it. It seems possible that Seawrack's ring not only identifies me as a friend, but actually attracts them-although we are all attracted to friends, with a ring or without one. (I may be making too much of this.)

Whether or not the ring has such a power, the Neighbors may have found me before they made themselves known to me, which was not until after Hide and I questioned Vadsig-indeed, after Hoof and I met Wapen in the dram shop. They were willing to help us, and indeed their testimony was of great value to us during my trial, as I shall describe in a moment or two.

I am loath to mention it, but there remains a fourth-

Oreb has returned. I heard him tapping at the window just now. In he flew and gave me his usual jaunty greeting, although he was cold and hungry. Blackbirds fatten best in cold weather, according to the saying, but it doesn't seem to apply to Oreb; in any event, I doubt that he is strong enough to get much food from a frozen corpse.

I had sent him with a message for Nettle, something I ought to have done long before. She must be worried about Hoof and Hide, as well as me, and very worried indeed about Sinew. In a small hand, on half a sheet of this paper, I explained that he is living happily on Green where we have two grandsons, and is calde of a thriving village. I also assured her that the twins are safe with me, and told her that we have an adopted daughter and that Krait, whom I also adopted, is dead. (This last was unwise perhaps; besides, if Jahlee was Krait's mother, he was properly a grandson-but one may adopt a grandson, surely.)

I see I have confused the rings. The one I am wearing is not the one Seawrack gave me, although it resembles it closely. This is Oreb's ring. It seems the stone changes color when it is worn; it was originally much darker, surely. I should go back and line out my mistake, I suppose, but I hate lining things out-it gives the page such an ugly appearance. Besides, to line out is to accept responsibility for the correctness of all that is let stand. To correct that or any other error would be to invite you to ask me (when you read this, as I hope you soon will) why I failed to correct some other. And I cannot correct all or even most of them without tearing the whole account to shreds and starting again. My new account, moreover, would be bound to be worse than this, since I could not prevent myself from attributing to myself knowledge and opinions I did not have at the time the events I recorded occurred. No, there really are such things as honest mistakes; this account is full of them, and I intend to leave it that way.

Having been clubbed during a session of Judge Hamer's court, I found myself again in the abandoned tower in the cliff face in which I had left Jahlee. I was overjoyed at first, thinking it would be easy to find her and return her to her sleeping body.

I searched the tower, discovering many strange devices and a locked door that appeared to lead into the cliff itself, no doubt opening upon some cleft in the rock. Jahlee was nowhere to be found, however, and at last I was forced to admit that during the time she had been alone she had left the tower, abandoning hope of rescue and flying out the circular port-I described it a good deal earlier-and down to the fog-shrouded swamps in which she was born.

I have been talking with Oreb, who has recovered himself somewhat after his exhausting trip. (Yesterday he seemed very tired and weak, and tucked his head under his wing as soon as he had been fed.) I questioned him closely about my letter.

"Bird take."

"I'm well aware that you took it, Oreb. But did you take it to Nettle? Did you deliver it as I asked?"

"Yes, yes! Take girl. Girl cry."

"I see." I rose and paced the room for some while, pausing at one window or another-there are seven in all-to peer between the leading and the bull's-eye at the center of each diamond-shaped pane of bluish glass. This house is admirably situated atop a small hill and commands a fine view of Dorp; but I could not have told you what I had seen five seconds after I saw it. If the Sun Street Quarter as it was before the fire had been re-created there, I doubt that I would have noticed.

Oreb was hopping back and forth, snapping his bill and whistling softly in the way that betokens nervousness; and at last I turned back to him. "What did she tell you to tell me, Oreb? There must have been something."

"No tell."

"Nothing? Surely she said something-she must have. Are you saying she sent you back without even a word?"

"No tell," he insisted.

"This is Nettle we're talking about? The woman in the log house at the southern end of Lizard? Near the tail?"

"Yes, yes." He bobbed affirmation. I described her, and he repeated, "Yes, yes."

"Was it day or night when you found her, Oreb? Do you remember?"

"Sun shine."

"Day then. What was she doing? I mean, before you gave her my letter."

"Look sea."

" `Look see'? At what was she looking?"

"Look wet. Big wet. Look sea."

"Ah, I see-I mean I understand. Was she looking out the window, or was she standing on the beach?" Foolish as it may seem, these details were important to me. I wanted very much to picture her as she had been when Oreb arrived.

"No stand. Girl sit."

"She was sitting on the beach? Is that what you're saying? On the shingle?" When we were much younger, we used to spread a blanket there and sit on it to look at the stars; but we had not done that for a long time.

"Chair sit!" He was growing impatient.

"So she'd carried a chair out of the house, and was sitting in it and staring out to sea. I suppose it's natural enough-both Sinew and I left by boat. Naturally she would expect us to return the same way. Was anyone with her, Oreb?"

"No, no."

"She was alone? There was nobody with her?"

He picked up my word, as he often does. "Nobody."

"I don't suppose you landed on her shoulder, so how did you deliver it? Did you talk to her first-tell her who you were, and who I am?"

Oreb looked thoughtful, cocking his head to one side and then to the other, bright black eyes half closed.

"It's not important, I suppose. Do you recall what she said to you?"

"Bird drop!"

"You flew over her and dropped my letter? Not into the sea, I hope."

"Yes, yes! No wet."

"In any event, she got my letter and read it. She must have, because you said she cried."

"Yes, yes."

"But then, Oreb," I shook my finger at him, "she must surely have given you some reply. You didn't leave as soon as you had delivered my letter, did you? You must have been tired, and though I suppose you could have gotten a drink from the stream that turns our mill, I'd expect you to ask her for food."

"Fish heads."

"Yes, exactly like that."

"Bird say. Fish heads?"

I nodded. "She was always very generous, and she must surely have recalled the earlier Oreb, Silk's pet."

He flew to the window and tapped one of the panes, a sign that he wanted to leave. "Bye-bye!"

"If you wish it." I unfastened the latch and pushed back the casement for him. "But it's cold out, so be careful."

"Girl write. Give bird." Then he was gone.

Now I should complete my account of my search for Jahlee. When I had satisfied myself that she was no longer in the tower where I had left her, I went to the circular opening in the tower wall, telling myself that I was here only in spirit, and that spirits could not be harmed by a fall; yet I could not forget what had happened to the Duko on the Red Sun Whorl, and the mindless thing we awakened when we returned to Blue.

(Another mistake. I should have written spiritless, or some such. The Duko's mind remained, at least in some sense. It was the thing that hopes and dreams that had gone forever. I will not line it out, although I am tempted.)

When men and women die, their spirits may go to Mainframeso we once believed. Perhaps the Outsider or some other god sends his servants to enlist them, as they taught in Blanko. But when a man's spirit dies, that is the death beyond death.

A dozen times I told myself to jump, that no harm could come to me, and a dozen times I held back. I have written that I was afraid because of what had befallen Duko Rigoglio; but the truth is that I was afraid first, and only later discovered the reason for my fear-or if not the true reason, a rationale to justify it. Jahlee had flown, I told myself, but I could not.

As soon as my mind had formed the words, I realized they were mistaken; here, Jahlee had not been an inhuma's imitation of a human being but an actual human being, and as such she could no more have flown than I. It was possible, of course, that she had jumped-I felt certain that her fear of heights would be much less than mine.

That recalled the white-headed one, whose clipped wings had prevented him from flying away. He had tried to fly when he and Silk had fought on Blood's roof, and had fallen to his death. Standing in the circular opening I actually pushed back my sleeve to look for the scars his beak had left on Silk's arm. Needless to say, they were not there-it was Silk, not I, who fought the white-headed one, just as it was Silk who killed Blood when Blood severed his mother's arm, no matter how vividly I imagined either scene.

Frightening as it had been to stand in the opening looking down at the jungle so far below, the climb on the cliff face was worse because it took so much longer. I had thought at first to climb out the aperture itself, but I saw at once that the gray stone wall of the tower was too smooth for me to climb down. I might have done it as a boy, or Silk, who told me once that he could climb like a monkey when he was younger-but I might have fallen to my death as well. I went down toward the base of the tower, and when I judged that I was at the bottom of the outer wall, I tried to tear aside the stones, using a long pointed tool I discovered in one of the workshops. I failed, but after some time shut my eyes and leaned against the wall, telling myself that I must somehow do this, and felt it soften behind me.

The cliff face was rough enough that it seemed possible I might descend in that way. I was making good progress-or so I thoughtwhen I risked a look below me.

It was an extremely foolish thing to do. The rolling green plain that was in fact the tops of trees taller than the tower seemed every bit as remote as it had from the aperture in the tower wall, and the dizzying void that separated me from it was terrifying. I shut my eyes and clung desperately to the stone outcrop I held, telling myself again and again that when I opened them I must not look down.

In a minute or two I tried it, but they were drawn inexorably to that plain of green. I cannot say I froze again, because I had never moved; but motion seemed more impossible than ever.

A dot appeared there, and grew. At first I thought it smoke-that someone far below the plain of leaves had made a fire of wet wood, as we had done so often there; I watched it without seeing it, as a man about to be executed watches the firing squad but sees only the muzzles of the slug guns. Around and up they swirled, drifting (as it seemed) toward me. For a moment or two I thought vaguely that the whole wet and rotting whorl had been set ablaze and was going up in smoke. Then I realized what it was I saw, and began to climb, hoping to regain the safety of the tower.

I had not gotten far before they caught up with me. Some time ago I described the way in which the inhumi who had fought for me in the war with Han laid siege to us when Evensong and I tried to escape down the Nadi. That was bad, and was made worse by the darkness. This was much worse, and was made worse still by the clear daylight that bathed me and the thousands of inhumi. Most were mere animals, like reptilian bats with long fangs and hideous snarling faces. But there were some among them whose parents had fed on human blood, naked and starved-looking, with glittering eyes in faces like our own, trailing legs no bigger than a child's, and hands and arms flattened and broadened into wings. These spoke to me and to one another, cruel words and words of a pretended kindness that was worse than cruelty-words that will haunt my dreams for as long as death spares me. Their wings buffeted my face as I climbed, and the teeth through which they draw blood were plunged into my neck and arms, my back and legs until my hands and feet were slippery with blood, although I defended myself when I had an arm or leg free with which to do it. How long the climb lasted, I cannot say-no doubt it seemed much longer than it was, and although there were times when I was forced to hoist myself from one handhold to the next, there were others when I could scramble up steep slopes of scree, in considerable danger that the whole mass might slide, but making rapid progress just the same.

Eventually I came to realize that in my haste to escape I had missed the tower, and was no longer below it but above it. I continued to climb just the same, feeling certain that a search for the tower (I did not know whether it was to my right or left) would surely doom me. At the top of the cliff, I hoped to find some level ground where I might beat my tormentors off, recalling that although numerous, they had refrained from a direct attack on Evensong and me as long as we remained awake.

That reminded me of the azoth at last, and the azoth of the sword that I had re-created for myself on the Red Sun Whorl, the sword I had flung to the wretched omophagist in the lion pit-the sword that had melted in his hands. I shaped a needler for myself then, and when it felt solid in my grasp fired again and again at the inhumi.

The effects were extraordinary. Some tumbled out of the air and fell to their deaths. Some merely seemed frightened, conscious that they had been injured in some way, wounded but bewildered as to the nature of the wound. Some seemed wholly proof against its needles and prosecuted their attacks until I actually clubbed them with it. If these had rushed me en masse, I would have fallen and been killed, without doubt; but it was my blood they wanted, not my life, and my mangled corpse at the bottom of the cliff could have supplied very little of it. That saved me.

Here I am tempted to write that the cliff-top appeared suddenly above me, for that was how it seemed to me. The truth, of course, was considerably more prosaic-I had been inching toward it without knowing what the distance was, had climbed altogether about three times the height of the tower, and so had reached it. I do not believe I could have done it in the body that lay sprawled on the floor of Judge Hamer's sellaria. Fortunately, I did not have to; the weight I lifted-clawing, sometimes, with bleeding fingers at the red rock-face-although it felt real, was substantially less than my true weight.

To have attained the top was enough at first. I lay on my back gasping and shuddering, firing the needler at any inhumi who came too near. A woman spoke. I supposed that it was one of the inhumi who had taunted me with lies during my climb, and paid little attention. Then Jahlee was bending over me, her sorrel hair brushing my cheek and her sweet and beautiful face peering into mine. "You came back! I'd given up."

"I was imprisoned," I told her. "We were already under arrest when you left, remember?" Aware that the inhumi were no longer attacking, I sat up with her assistance.

A new voice asked, "Is this your male half, Misted One? His blood does not fill our bellies." The speaker was an inhumu, in form a dwarfish, hairless, emaciated man.

Jahlee nodded. "This is my father."

He began to speak again; but I cannot recall the words; there were only two or three at most. I shot him, my needle piercing the center of his chest, and watched him die.

"Why did you do that?" Jahlee was aghast.

"I have had a sharp reminder of what we are, and what they are."

"These… They worship me, Rajan. They won't use the word, but that's what it is. We… They bring me food I can't eat. Children, and all the while I know my body's starving up there."

I was about to ask what became of the children whose blood she was unable to drink (although I was afraid I knew) when my attention was drawn to a new figure, tall and tightly wrapped in a colorless cloak, approaching us with stiff, bird-like strides. Seeing him, I realized that what I had taken to be a large black boulder was in fact a squat domed building without windows.

Jahlee was telling me (no doubt correctly) that I should not have killed her friend. I said, "Will you forgive me? I've forgiven you a great deal, and made you my daughter though you were once my slave."

It has been days since I wrote. I have been very remiss, but it has been a busy time. We are about to leave. I will pass over the Neighborwhat we said will quickly become apparent. Tomorrow we sail for home; if I wish to record my trial at all, I had better do it today.

It was held in what is called the Palace of Justice, a big, solidly constructed building with courtrooms for all five judges. I had been taken from Aanvagen's house several hours before and locked in a cell in the back of the building. Oreb visited me there, slipping between the bars on my window without difficulty, and on his second visit brought Babbie.

It was very good to see him again. "You've grown," I said. "Why, just look at you! You were no bigger than a big dog when I freed you."

Are you really my old master? (This was said with Babbie's eyes; it is the only way he has of talking, but generally works well enough.)

I put my arm through the bars, and he stood on his four hind legs, with all four forelegs braced against the wall, and snuffled my fingers. His coat-cannot call it fur-was as stiff as the bristles of a hairbrush.

Yes! Yes, you are!

"I am indeed, and very glad to see you, Babbie. I need your help badly. Will you help me? It may be dangerous."

"Bird help!"

I nodded. "You've been of great help already, and I must ask more of you. You must help Babbie find the courtroom when they take me away. It will be in this building, in front."

"Bird find!"

He did, too.

Having written about Oreb, I could not resist the impulse to open the window in the hope that he might have returned. He was not there. I thrust my head out and saw several birds, but he was not among them.

I was brought into the courtroom with manacles on my wrists, which they seemed to think would shame me. I felt no shame, but a sort of urgent joy. Either we would succeed and my troubles here would be ended (as they have been, only to be succeeded by others) or we would fail and I, at least, would be killed. Very likely my daughter and both sons would be killed as well-but then, death waits for all of us, not that I wished to see them die; it was very good indeed to find all three waiting in the courtroom with my advocate.

Now that I have mentioned him, I realize I should have written about him before beginning this description of my trial, but it is too late. His name is Vent, and he is middle-aged, bald, and paunchy. I have appointed him a judge.

He rose to greet me, and Hoof and Hide stood too. Then Hamer entered, robed in black like an augur, and we all had to stand. It was only then, I believe, that I realized how full the courtroom was, and from the noise that penetrated its massive doors that there was a crowd outside clamoring to get in as well. Certainly it was then that Cijfer caught my eye, pointing to the red-faced man with her and mouthing words I did not understand. She looked very happy and almost beside herself with excitement, so that I assumed there was good news of some kind. I smiled at her and tried to look as confident as I could while puzzling over the identity of the red-faced man, whom I felt sure I should recognize.