Return to the Whorl

12. PALACES

"You should not come in here, Olivine!" A glance showed that the tepid water was reassuringly obscured by suds and clouded with soap.

"You don't have to duck down like that… You don't have to duck down like that, Patera…"

He snorted. "Nor do you have to look in on me every five minutes. I'm not going to drown."

"I just wanted to tell you your new clothes are out… I just wanted to tell you your new clothes are out here."

The door shut softly, and he stood up. The towel, like everything else in the tiny room, was within easy reach. As he dried himself, he realized that his old clothing was gone, save for his shoes. She had taken his tunic, his trousers, his filthy stockings, and his underdrawers the first time she had opened the door, beyond a doubt; he had been too busy hiding to notice. His corn, the precious seed corn he had obtained so easily, had been in a trousers pocket; but presumably his old clothes were in the bedroom. He stepped out of the tub, took the plug from the drain, and sat on the necessary stool to dry his feet.

That done, he wrapped his loins in his towel. "Are you out there, Olivine?" He followed the words with three sharp raps on the door, but there was no reply. Cautiously, he opened it.

Clean drawers, black trousers, and a black tunic waited on the bed. Beside them lay what appeared to be an augur's black robe, neatly folded; his seed corn was on that, with a clean handkerchief, new stockings, his spectacles, two cards, and his newly found pen case, the whole surrounded by his prayer beads. His old clothes and the enameled lantern were nowhere to be seen. Sighing, he dressed.

The bedroom door opened as he was tying his shoes. "Can we go up now… Can we go up now, Patera?"

"You were watching me, weren't you, Olivine? You came in much too promptly."

She said nothing, shifting from one foot to the other; for the first time he realized that she herself had no shoes, only strips of the coarse cloth tied around her feet.

"Through the keyhole? That was very wrong of you."

Wordlessly, she showed him a chink in the paneling that separated the room in which they stood from the next.

"To see when I was finished? Was that it?"

"If you'd put them… If you'd put them on. And…"

"And what? I promise not to get angry with you." It was an easy promise to make when he knew that pity would overwhelm whatever anger he might feel.

"And I'd never seen a bio… And I'd never seen a bio man. Only… Only father."

"Who is not a bio. I didn't think so. You're a chem yourself, aren't you, Olivine?"

She nodded.

"Hold out your hands, please. I wish to examine them both, here at the window."

"I took our bread… I took our bread up? While you were… While you were washing?"

"And got me clean clothing. Also you disposed of my old ones, no doubt. You must have been very busy."

"You took a long… You took a long time."

"Perhaps I did." He glanced out, thinking to gauge the distance between the setting sun and horizon, then recalled that the Long Sun never set. How profoundly unnatural a sun that moved had seemed when they reached Blue!

"I'll wash them for… I'll wash them for you?"

"Thank you. Now hold out your hands as I asked. I will not ask again."

One hand was an assembly of blocks and rods, the otherapparently-living flesh. He said, "Since you spied on me while I was dressing, Olivine, it wouldn't be inappropriate for me to ask you to strip, now would it?"

She cowered.

"It would be fair, and it might even be an eminently just punishment for what you did; but I won't demand it. I only ask that you take off the cloth you've wrapped around your head and face. Do it, please. At once."

She did, and he embraced her for a time, feeling her deep sobs and stroking her smooth metal skull.

When ten minutes or more had passed, he said, "You look like your mother. Doesn't Hammerstone-doesn't your father-tell you that? Surely he must."

"Sometimes…"

He sat down upon the bed. "Do you imagine that you're so ugly, Olivine? You're not ugly to me, I assure you. Your mother is an old and dear friend. No one who resembled her as much as you do could ever seem ugly to me."

"I don't move… I don't move right."

Reluctantly, he nodded.

"I can't do what a woman… I can't do what a woman does. She went… She went away."

"She was captured by the Trivigauntis, Olivine, just as I was myself. When she got back here she went to Blue, because it was her duty to do so-the service she owed Great Pas. Do you understand?"

Slowly the shining metal head turned from side to side.

"I've been trying to remember what you were like when we left. You were still very small, however, and I'm afraid I didn't give you as much attention as I should."

"I didn't have a name… I didn't have a name yet. I couldn't talk… I couldn't talk, Patera."

Nor could she talk well now, he reflected. Hammerstone had been forced to construct her vocal apparatus alone, clearly, and the result had left something to be desired.

"Patera…"

He nodded. "You want me to go upstairs with you now, and to sacrifice for you and bless you, as Silk must have."

She nodded.

"For which you have dressed me in these clothes-clothes that I really should not have consented to wear, since I'm not entitled to them-and are fidgeting as we speak." He tried to recall whether he had ever seen a chem fidget before, and decided he had not. "But, Olivine, you're not going to divert me from my purpose. I'm going to the room I mentioned earlier, and you aren't coming with me. If its door is unlocked, I intend to stay there some time. Have you a pressing engagement?"

She was silent, and he was not sure she had understood. He added, "Another place to which you must go? Something else you have to do?"

She shook her head.

"Then you can wait, and you will have to. I-I'll try not to be too long."

She did not reply.

"When I come out, I'll sacrifice for you and give you my blessing, exactly as you wish. Then I would like to tell you about the errands that have brought me here and enlist your help, if you'll provide it." Unable to endure her silent scrutiny any longer, he turned away. "I'll come up to your floor and look for you, I promise."

Night waited outside the narrow window when he rose, dusted the knees of his new black trousers, and glanced around the room for the last time. Blowing out the candle, he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor again. It seemed empty at first, but as soon as he had closed the door behind him, a bit of grayish brown darkness detached itself from the shadows of another doorway and limped toward him. "You had a long wait," he said. "I'm sorry, Olivine."

"It's all right… It's all right, Patera."

Her head and face were swaddled in the sackcloth again; he touched it when she was near enough to touch, stroking her head as he might have stroked the head of any other child. "Do you think yourself so hideous, Olivine? You're not."

"I can't… I can't, Patera. Men-"

"Male chems?"

"Want me to when they see… Men want me to when they see me. So I try to look like one… So I try to look like one of you." The last word was succeeded by a strange, high squeal; after a moment he realized she was laughing.

The fifth-floor door she opened for him was five fingers thick, old and losing its varnish flake by flake but still sturdy. As he followed her into the darkness beyond it, he reflected that the room she called hers had surely been a storeroom originally. She snapped her fingers to kindle the bleared green light on its ceiling, and he saw that it still was. Boxes and barrels stood in its corners and against its walls, and metal bars, drills and files, spools of wire, and bits of cannibalized machinery littered the floor. He said, "This is where your father finished making you."

"Where we work on… Where we work on me." She had taken a pale figurine, a half bottle of wine, and a clean white cloth from some crevice among the boxes; unfolding the cloth disclosed the small loaf she had taken from the kitchen. She spread the cloth on the floor and arranged the other items on it.

He said, "You'll have to tell me how Silk sacrifices these things for you. We don't have a fire."

"The wine is the blood… The wine is the blood, Patera. The bread is the… The bread is the meat."

He began to protest, but thought better of it and traced the sign of addition over them, then looked up to see that Olivine was holding a book. "Is that the Chrasmologic Writings?"

"I keep it here… For you."

To his own surprise, he discovered that he was smiling. "I pointed out that we have no fire, Olivine. With equal or greater relevance, I might have said that we have no Sacred Window. But we can consult gods anyway, thanks to you, and perhaps they'll be in that book for us, as they are sometimes. Afterwards, I'll talk to you a little, if I may; then I'll sacrifice as you wish. Is that all right?"

She nodded, kneeling.

The Writings were small and shabby-the sort of copy, he thought, that a student might use in the schola. He opened them at random.

" `There, where a fountain's gurgling waters play, they rush to land, and end in feast the day: they feed; then quaff; and now (their hunger fled) sigh for their friends and mourn the dead; nor cease their tears till each in slumber shares a sweet forgetfulness of human cares. Now far the night advances her gloomy reign, and setting stars roll down the azure plain: At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' "

It was customary to observe a few seconds of silence when a pas sage from the Writings had been read; it seemed a blessing now, although it could hardly be called silent, so beset was it with swirling thoughts.

"What does that mean, Patera…?"

"I can't possibly tell you everything it means. The meanings of every passage in the Writings are infinite." (It was a stock reply.) "As for what it means to us here tonight-well, I'll try. It begins by telling us plainly that it concerns our immediate situation. `Where a fountain's waters play,' must refer to my bath, for which I thank you again. `There' presumably designates this palace, since I bathed here. `They rush to land' refers to your impatience, when you wished me to end my bath and come up here with you."

"The gods are mad at… The gods are mad at me?"

"At you?" He shook his head. "I doubt it very much. I would say that they are offering a gentle and somewhat humorous correction, as a parent corrects a beloved child." He paused to collect his thoughts, glancing down at the book. "Next is, `And end in feast the day.' You want me to sacrifice this bread and wine, and the day has indeed ended, which assures us that our sacrifice is what is meant. `Feast' is probably ironic. We have no animal to offer-no real meat. We should eat a little of the bread, of course, so that it will be a shared meal. Or at least I should. And-"

"Drink some wine… Drink some wine, too," she suggested. "You always do… You always do that."

"Silk does? I'm not Silk, as I've explained several times. My name is Patera Horn-or rather just Horn, though I feel like an augur in these clothes. Now, where were we?"

"About you drinking the wine… About you drinking the wine, Patera."

He was tempted to insist she call him Horn, but this was not the moment for it. He nodded instead. "You say Silk does, and that accounts for the word quaff in the next section, `They feed; then quaff; and now (their hunger fled) sigh for their friends and mourn the dead.' With this it would appear that the god who speaks to us has moved from our present situation to prophesy. I will sacrifice for you, the god says, and satisfy my hunger with your bread and wine. After that, we will mourn dead friends. At present I have no idea who these friends are, but no doubt it will be made clear to us when the time comes. Have you friends who are no longer with us, Olivine?"

"I don't think… I don't think so."

"My adopted son, Krait, is dead. He may be meant. Or someone like my late friend Scleroderma. We'll see."

He looked at the book again. " `Nor cease their tears till each in slumber shares a sweet forgetfulness of human cares.' We will sleep then-so it appears. I know that you chems sleep at times, Olivine. Are you going to sleep tonight?"

"If you say… If you say to."

"Not I, but the gods. You should at least consider it. I will sleep, surely, if I can."

"My father told me to sleep while he was… My father told me to sleep while he was gone."

"But you didn't?"

"Over… Over there." She pointed to the window. "Where I could see… Where I could see out?"

"I didn't know you could sleep standing up."

"If I can… If I can lean. But I saw… But I saw you."

"In the street below. You have good eyes."

"I can't shut… I can't shut them." There were tears in the thick voice. "The… The rest?"

"You're right. It's my duty to explain it, not to gossip about sleeping habits." He looked down at the Writings once more, re-read the passage and closed the book. "This is by no means easy. Presumably it reflects the gods' concern for us. `Now far the night advances her gloomy reign, and setting stars roll down the azure plain: At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' "

"Stars… Stars, Patera?"

"Tiny lights in the night sky," he explained absently. "We have them on Blue. You have them here, too, in a sense; but you cannot see them because they're outside the whorl. This is a difficult passage, Olivine. Why this mention of stars, when our sacrifice is taking place in the Long Sun Whorl?"

She stared at him, and although he could not discern her expression he could feel her expectancy.

"I believe it is what is called a signature; that is, a sign by which the god who has favored us identifies himself. Most frequently, signatures take the form of an animal-a vulture for Hierax, for example, or a deer for Thelxiepeia."

"There weren't… There weren't any…"

"No, there weren't. No animal of any sort was mentioned."

He fell silent for almost half a minute, struggling with his conscience. "In honesty I must tell you that a real augur would say this passage was inspired by Pas. We have his image, to begin with; and when a god is mentioned by name, he or she is assumed to have inspired the passage. That's not invariably correct, however, and I don't believe it is in this case. The stars, which at first seem so out of place, are outside this whorl as I told you. As objects found outside it-and only outside it-they may well be signatures of the Outsider, as I feel quite sure they were in a dream I had long ago." He waited for her to protest, but she did not.

"There were horses in my dream, and horses are said to be signatures of Scylla's; but I've never felt the dream came from her. So let us look at the stars, as my wife and I used to do so often when we were younger." He tried to smile.

" `Setting stars roll down the azure plain.' The azure plain is the sky-the sky by day, as we see it on Blue. Notice that azure itself is a shade of blue."

Olivine nodded.

"Since the stars are setting on Blue, we are warned that the influence of the Outsider will diminish there, though Blue, also, lies outside this whorl."

"Is that… Is that bad?"

"For the people there it is beyond doubt, and I believe I can guess why it's happening. Last night I was told by a godling that no more colonists are to leave for Blue or Green-that enough have gone, and everyone who is still here is to remain."

"I didn't know… I didn't know that."

"Very few people can. I was told to proclaim it, but I have not done so. At least, not yet."

He was silent again, recalling New Viron and Pajarocu. "We have very little respect for any god on Blue, Olivine. Little piety, hence little decency. Wealth is our god-land and cards and gold. What little reverence for the gods we have is found only in the newest colonists, who bring it with them. On Blue they tend to lose it. The Outsider, who is little regarded here, is virtually forgotten there."

"Don't cry… Don't cry, Patera…"

"I used to upbraid myself, Olivine, because I paid him no proper honor. Once a year, perhaps, I tried to make some gesture of regard. Nobody else, not even my own sons-well, never mind." He wiped his face on the wide sleeve of his robe. "Your mother still honors the gods. I must mention that."

"Do you know… Do you know her?"

"Yes, I do. I saw her and spoke with her before I went to Green. I've hesitated to tell you so because-because-"

Olivine reached across the cloth; small, hard fingers sheathed in something that appeared to be flesh closed on his.

"She has gone blind."

The fingers relaxed; the thin metal arm fell to her side.

"She is well otherwise, and I-I feel absolutely certain she would send her love to you, if she knew of your existence. But she is blind now, like my friend Pig. To tell you the truth, I sometimes think that Pig may have been sent to me so that I wouldn't forget your mother."

He waited for some word, some comment.

"You'll say it was the judgment of the gods, I'm sure." He cleared his throat. "The judgment of the gods, for abandoning you, as she did in obedience to the gods. But I love her and can't help pitying her. She gave me one of her eyes-a blind eye, of course. They are both blind. But she gave me one in the hope that I might find working eyes for her when I got here. I've lost it. At least, it isn't in my pocket anymore."

He ceased to speak, and the silence of the Calde's Palace closed around them. There had been someone-a cook-in the kitchen, he told himself. There had been a gardener in the garden outside. Bison was calde now, so he and Maytera Mint, who must have renounced her vows to become his wife, lived in this high and secretive building. Yet it seemed that no one did, that not even the shrouded figure across the cloth from him was truly alive, and that the emptiness that had grasped all Viron had its center here.

"Lost… Lost it?" The thick, soft voice might almost have been that of the wind in a chimney.

He told himself he had to speak, and did. "Yes, I have. It's back on Green, I suppose." He wanted to say, "With my bones," but substituted, "With my ring, and other things."

The shrouded figure might not have heard.

"It wasn't any good, you understand. Not to her or to anyone else. She wanted me to have it so that I would know what one looked like."

"I'm… I'm lucky."

He was not certain he had heard her correctly, and said, "I beg your pardon?"

"I don't work very well… I don't work very well, Patera."

"We all have failings. It's far better to-to have a bad leg or something of the sort than a propensity for evil."

"But my eyes are… But my eyes are fine. I can… I can see. You said… You said so. That's lucky… That's lucky, isn't it?"

"Yes, it certainly is. But, Olivine, you've let me get away from the subject again-from the passage that the god-that the Outsider, as I believe-chose for us. There's a colon in it. Do you know what a colon is? Not a semicolon, but a full colon? Two little dots, one above the other?"

She did not answer, and he floundered forward. "A colon is a very strong divider, Olivine, and colons are rarely found in the Writings. I believe-I'm guessing, to be sure, but this is what I believethat it's intended to separate that passage about the stars rolling down the azure sky from the next so that we will understand that they concern two whorls. Blue and this Long Sun Whorl are actually like two little dots themselves, you see, if you think of them from the Outsider's perspective. The higher dot is this whorl, which is farther from the Short Sun; and the lower dot is Blue."

He cleared his throat and searched his memory. "I've shut the book, but I believe I can still quote the passage accurately. It was, `At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' Pas himself is a wild whirlwind. That is to say, he's shown that way in art. The oldest representations of him show a swirling storm."

"I didn't know… I didn't know that. Is the other one… Is the other one-? You don't want me to say his… You-"

"Is he depicted as a whirlwind too? Is that what you're asking me?"

She nodded.

"No. But it's quite an intelligent question, now that I come to think about it. Pas is shown as a man with two heads, or a wind; so it's not unreasonable to think that he, who is shown as a man with four faces, might be depicted as a wind as well. He isn't, though. When a writer hesitates to set down his name-which isn't often, since so little has been written about him-he generally draws the sign of addition, a little straight mark with another little mark across it. I suppose that the idea now is that the god blesses us, though it may originally have been a diagram. Crossroads are associated with the god, as I believe I told you."

"I… I see."

"There's an interesting story about another god as a wind, however, and it may have some bearing on the passage in question. A certain man was hoping to have experience of the Outsider. He prayed and prayed, and a violent storm rose. At first he thought that this storm was the god, and rejoiced and shouted praise; but the storm only became more violent. Rain beat him like hail, and hail like stones. Water poured from the rocks all around, and trees were uprooted. Lightning struck the mountain on which he stood. Soon he grew terrified, and finding a little cave he hid himself and waited for the storm to pass.

"At last it did, and after it came the sun and a faint wind, a gentle breeze. And that faint wind, that gentle breeze, was the god whom he had sought."

Olivine did not speak.

"The point of the story, you see, is that Great Pas is not the Outsider. Gods often have several names and more than one personalityI was talking about this with friends not long ago-and it appears that at some time in the past people believed that the Outsider was merely another aspect of Pas. The story I just told you was probably written to show it was not the case.

"Now back to that passage. As I said, happenings in this whorl are intended-or so I would guess. Pas will manifest himself more than once, and angrily. `Wild whirlwinds' are to rise. Notice the plural."

"Will he hurt… Will he hurt us?"

"That I cannot say. We have been warned by the Outsider, however, and the Outsider is a god-indeed, he may be the best and wisest of all the gods-and thus is certainly a great deal wiser than we. If he didn't believe we needed a warning, I doubt that he would have provided it.

"Now the last, and I will be able to sacrifice this bread for you. `Clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' In one respect that is very plain. Double darkness must surely refer to the extinguishing of the Long Sun by night. Night is coming-" He glanced toward the window. "Is already here I ought to say. It may be several days before we see the day again."

"Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave… Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave, Patera."

"That might be wise." His forefinger traced circles on his right cheek. "Clouds? I can't make much of that. It may mean perfectly ordinary clouds, such as we see every day. It may also refer to the god's veiling the minds of those he intends to destroy. I cannot be sure. `Skies' presents the greatest puzzle of them all, at least to me. There have been two skies involved in the entire passage, as we have seen-the sky of Blue, and ours in this whorl. The plural must, I would think, refer to those two. The whirlwinds, clouds, and double darkness therefore refer not merely to this whorl, the Long Sun Whorl, but to Blue as well. It is dark on Blue each night, but how it can be doubly dark there I cannot imagine. An augur might give us a more exact interpretation, of course; it's a shame that there's no real augur present."

He uncorked the wine bottle. "Don't you have a glass for this, Olivine? And a knife to cut the bread?"

"I could get them… I could get them, but…" There was reluctance in the soft, thick voice that went beyond the usual reluctance to speak at all.

"But what? Please tell me."

"Father doesn't like me taking the… Father doesn't like me taking the things."

"I see. And you're not sure that Calde Bison even knows you're up here?"

She shook her head.

"Doubtless your father's right. It's better not to risk your being put out of the palace, though it would seem to me that you might make Calde Bison or General Mint a useful servant. Your father instructed you to sleep while he was away?"

She nodded again.

"I met my own father today. It was the first time I'd seen him in many years. I don't believe I told you."

"No, Patera…"

He smiled and shook his head. "I was walking up Sun Street, looking for the place where our shop used to be; and he asked whether he could help me. He had seen, I suppose, that I was trying to locate a particular spot."

The shiprock walls, washed almost clean by many rains, had been crumbling into the rectangular holes that had been their cellars; cracked shiprock steps returned to the parent sand and gravel before the empty doorways. He looked above each that he passed for the painted sign he recalled so well: SMOOTHBONE STATIONER. It had proved less durable than the soot.

"Maybe I can help you." The passerby was short and stocky; his baldness exaggerated his high forehead.

"If you knew this area before it burned."

The bald man nodded and pointed. "My place was right over there for years."

"Before the fire, there was a little shop that sold, oh, quills and paper, mostly. Ink, notebooks, and so on. Do you know where that was?"

The bald man pointed as before. "That was mine."

Together, they walked to the spot. "I've been away a long time." The words had almost stuck in his throat.

"The quarter burned," the bald man said.

"I wasn't here then."

"Neither was I, I was way up north fighting Trivigauntis. Did you ever come into my shop in the old days?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

The bald man moved half a step to his left, seeking a better angle. "Parietal? Was that your name?"

"No." Better, surely better, not to say too much too soon. "You lived here? In the Sun Street Quarter?"

"That's right. I had a wife here and children, four boys and three girls. Our house over on Silver burned too, but they got away. Went outside to one of the round whorls."

"You had a son named Horn, didn't you?" It was harder than ever to speak.

"That's right, my oldest. You knew him?"

"Not as well as I should have."

"He was good boy, a hard worker and brave as Pas's bull." The bald man held out his hand. "If you were a friend of his back then, I'm pleased to meet you. Smoothbone's my name."

They clasped hands. "I am your son Horn, father."

Smoothbone stared and blinked. "No, you're not!"

"My appearance has changed. I know that."

Smoothbone shook his head and took a step backward.

"There was a loose floorboard, right over there. After we closed, you'd pull it up and put our cashbox under it; and put a box of ledgers on top of it."

Smoothbone's mouth had fallen open.

"You didn't want me to know about it, and you were angry when you found out I had spied on you; but you continued to put it there. I know now you did it to show you trusted me, but at the time-" Tears and embraces prevented him from saying more.

When they separated, Smoothbone said, "You're really Horn? You're my son Horn, come back?"

He nodded, and they went down the street to a tavern in a tent, where the bar consisted of a plank laid across two barrels, and there were three tables, three chairs (one broken) and an assortment of stools and kegs. "You've changed out of all reckoning," Smoothbone said.

"I know. So have you. You were a big man when we went away." Memories came flooding back. "You said I was brave, but I was afraid of you. So was Mother. We all were."

The barman asked, "Wine or beer?" and looked surprised when Smoothbone asked for wine.

"How is she, Horn?"

"Mother? She was well the last time I saw her, but that was some time ago. Oxlip's taking care of her."

"I've married again. I ought to tell you."

For a moment, there was nothing to say.

"I guess you wondered why I didn't come."

He shook his head. "We thought you'd been killed."

"Not me, Horn."

"That's good." He was sick with embarrassment.

"You did all right out there?"

"Well enough. It was difficult, but then it was difficult here too. Difficult for you, I mean; and it would have been difficult for Nettle and me, if we had stayed here. It was no worse there, just different. Our donkey died." He laughed. "I don't know why I said that, but it did. That was the bottom-the worst time we had. After that things got better, but only slowly. Years of hard work. Nothing to eat, sometimes."

Smoothbone nodded. "I know how that is."

"People say there's always fish. I mean on Lizard they say that. We live on Lizard now."

"I never heard of it. Just Blue or Green is what they say."

"It's on Blue-a little island. We have a house there, a house we built ourselves, and a paper mill." Suddenly he smiled. "You have three grandsons. No, more, but the others aren't mine. Mine are Sinew, Hoof, and Hide."

Smoothbone smiled too. "This is Nettle? Nettle's sprats?"

"That's right. We married. We'd always planned to, and old Patera Remora married us there a few days after the lander put down. Do you remember Patera Remora, Father?"

"Remora?" Smoothbone tugged an earlobe reflectively. "It was Pike. Patera Pike. Then Silk, that was calde after."

He nodded.

"We went to sacrifice with him, I suppose it must have been three or four times."

"More than that."

"You and your mother, maybe." Smoothbone drained his glass. "More wine, son?"

"No, thank you." His glass was half full.

"I'll have another." Smoothbone signaled the barman. "You know, I ought to have written all that down. I wish I had."

"On Blue, I wrote a history of Silk. Nettle and I did, I ought to say."

"Did you now!"

"Yes, Father. Nearly a thousand pages."

"I'd like to see it. My eyes aren't what they were when I was shooting Trivigauntis, but I can still read with a lens. Were you wanting to get paper and pens at our old shop, son?"

He shook his head. "I simply wanted to see it. To stand there for a little while and remember." He paused, considering. "Now that I know just where it was, I'm going to go back there and do it. It may be the only chance I'll ever have."

"Will you now?" The barman brought the wine; Smoothbone paid as before. "If you want something, I could take you to the new place. I'll give you just about anything you want there."

"No, thank you."

"Box of pencils? Pen case, maybe, with a little paper to put in it?"

"That would be nice. You're very kind to me, Father. You were always very kind to me-I'll never be able to thank you enough for all that you did to teach me our trade-but no, I couldn't impose upon you like that."

"Sure now?"

"Yes. I don't need those things, and I wouldn't feel right if I accepted them."

"Well, if you change your mind you just let me know." Smoothbone rose. "I've got to-you know. Excuse me minute?"

"Certainly."

"Promise you won't go away? I want to ask you about my grandchildren and tell you about your brothers. Half brothers, anyway. Antler's ten and Stag's eight. You wait right there."

"I will," he said.

Afterward they had talked for over an hour; and later, when he returned to the place where their shop had stood, he found a pen case, used but still serviceable, on the steps in front of it. It was of thin metal covered with thin black leather, and very like the pen cases that had been sold in that shop twenty years before. It was like the pen cases used by students in the schola, for that matter.

"I am here before you," he told Olivine, "but I am going to offer a funeral sacrifice for myself, nevertheless-for my body on Green, which lies there unburied as far as I know. I couldn't do this in a manteion. In fact I couldn't sacrifice in a manteion at all, though I might assist an augur. There has been an exchange of parts. You, I think, will understand that better than a bio would."

She nodded, perhaps a little doubtfully.

"Very well," he said; he looked up, thinking of the Aureate Path and Mainframe at its termination, although the Long Sun was hidden behind the shade. "My body does not lie here, nor is it to be found in this whorl. We offer it to you, Quadrifons, and to the other gods of this whorl, in absentia. We offer it also to the Outsider, in whose realm it lies. Accept, all you gods, the sacrifice of this brave man. Though our hearts are torn, we-the man himself, and your devoted worshipper Olivine-consent.

"What are we to do? Already your have spoken to us of the times to come. Should you wish to speak further, whether in signs and portents, or in any other fashion, your lightest word will be treasured. Should you, however, choose otherwise-"

He raised his arms, but only silence answered him.

He let them fall. "We consent still. Speak to us, we beg, though these sacrifices."

Picking up the loaf that Olivine had filched from the kitchen in which she had been born, he raised it. "This is my body. Accept, O Obscure Outsider, its sacrifice. Accept it, Great Pas and all lesser gods."

Lowering the loaf, he broke it in two, scattering dun-colored crumbs over the white cloth, then tore away a fragment and ate it.

"This is my blood." He raised the bottle, lowered it, sipped from it, and sprinkled a few drops upon the cloth.

"Can you tell what's going to happen from that… Can you tell what's going to happen from that, Patera?"

"I can try." He bent over the cloth, his lips pursed.

"Will my father ever come back… Will my father ever come back, Patera?"

"The right side-" he tapped it, "concerns the presenter and the augur. Perhaps you were aware of that already."

Olivine nodded.

"Here are two travelers, a man and woman." He smiled as he indicated them. "Converging upon another woman, who can only be yourself. It seems likely that they represent your father and the woman he has gone to seek. Since they are shown coming from opposite directions it may be they will arrive separately. You must be prepared for that."

"I won't mind a… I won't mind a bit!" There was joy in her voice, and it almost seemed that there was joy in her eyes as well, although that was impossible.

"Patera, why are you looking at me like… Patera, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I heard your mother, Olivine. You don't sound like her-not usually, I mean. Just then, you did."

"I've been wanting to talk to you about… I've been wanting to talk to you about her." Olivine's hands were at her face; there was a momentary silence, punctuated by a sharp click. "Here… Here, Patera. Take it to… Take it to her." Her hand held an eye like the one he had left on Green, save that it was not dark; the sackcloth had fallen away from her face, so like her mother's with its empty socket.

He drew back in horror. "I cannot let you do this. You're young! I forbid it. I can't let you sacrifice yourself-"

The eye fell among the crumbs and wine stains. She sprang up, limping and lurching, and fled before he could stop her. For what seemed to him a very long time, he heard her uneven footfalls upon floors bare and carpeted and stairs of wood and marble-always farther from himself, the wine-stained cloth, and the eye she was giving to her mother.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you very much, Hound. Good evening, Pig. I hope you found this place without too much difficulty." Seeing Oreb perched upon a bedpost in the room beyond, he added, "Man back."

"Mon come ter see yer," Pig rumbled. "Gane noo."

Hound nodded. "An augur from the Prolocutor's Palace. He left his card. Where did I put it?" Hound's belongings were scattered over an old rosewood dresser; he moved one, then another, as he searched for it.

"Fashed h'about yer, bucky, him an' me both."

"You had no need to be, though I realize I'm very late. What did this augur want with me? And come to think of it, how did he know I was here?"

"I registered you." Hound put down a striker and picked up a scrap of paper, first to look under it and then to look at the scrap itself. "I had to, it's the law. This is a copy of what I wrote. Do you want to see it?"

He had dropped into a chair. "Read it to me, please. I'm tired, much too tired to do anything except sleep."

"All right. I wrote, `Hound of Endroad, Pig of Nabeanntan, and Horn of Blue.' '

"Is that your town, Pig? That Nabeanntan? I don't believe you've mentioned it."

"From nae toon." Pig was taking off his tunic. "Has ter have a thing ter write, they says."

"Then it seems quite innocent. No doubt Ermine's had to report it to some authority in the Civil Guard-though that must be the Calde's Guard now-and it made its way to the Palace from there by some route or other. What did he want?"

"Ter warn yet, bucky."

"Against what?"

Loudly, Oreb croaked, "No cut!"

Momentarily, Hound abandoned his search. "That was what he said when we asked what he wanted, but I think he really wanted something else."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. I told him that he could leave a message for you with us. Or write a note and seal it, if he preferred, but he wouldn't."

"H'asked h'about yer, ter. What yer look like an' where yer been." Pig rose. "Goin' ter have a wash, bucky. Want ter gae first?"

"No, thank you. I've bathed already."

"Thought sae. Smelt yer scented soap. New kicks, ter?"

"Yes, an augur's robe, and an augur's tunic and trousers-though I'm not an augur, as I have assured you. An explanation would be complex, and I'd prefer to provide one in the morning. Hound, I'm surprised you left it to Oreb to comment on them; and unless Pig understood Oreb, I can't imagine how he knew."

"Wise man," Oreb remarked.

The wise man's smile twitched at his thick black beard and heavy mustache. " 'Twas ther moth flakes, bucky."

Hound held up a modest white calling card. "I thought it might be better to let you bring up the subject yourself, if you wanted to talk about it. But it was quite a shock to see you like that only a little while after the other one left. Here's his card, if you'd like to see it."

PATERA GULO COADJUTOR PROLOCUTOR'S PALACE

"Ken him, bucky?"

"Pig, you perpetually amaze me. How do you do it?"

"Listen's h'all. Yet took a bit a' wind."

Hound said, "I noticed it myself."

"Gasped? I suppose I did. Not because I recognized his namethough I do-but because he's coadjutor. He wanted to warn me, you said? It's a matter of some importance if His Cognizance sent his coadjutor with the warning."

"Good Silk! Fish heads?"

He shook his head. "No, no food. To tell the truth, I want nothing but rest. Rest and sleep; and if I can go to bed without a supper, you certainly can. Hound, if you'll show me where I can lie down, I'll try not to trouble you and Pig further."

Hound led him to a pallet in the next room; and when he had removed he shoes and stretched himself on it, said softly, "We fed your bird when we ate. Don't worry about him."

There was no response, and Hound, moved by the sight of that tragic face, added still more softly, "You don't have to worry about anything. Pig and I will take care of it," hoping that he spoke the truth.

"Somebody to see you, Horn." It was Mother's voice from the kitchen; but he was lost in flames and smoke, groping through the fire that had destroyed the quarter, groping backward through time to reach the two-headed man in the old wooden chair Father used at meals.

"Somebody to see you."

He woke sweating, and it was ten minutes at least before he fully accepted the fact that he was older and knew that there was no returning to the past save in dreams.

When he had placed himself in time, he sat up. Hound breathed heavily in the bed; Pig more heavily in the room beyond. The window was open; curtains fluttered in a night breeze, gentle ghosts whispering of the days of Ermine's prosperity. Oreb was silent, asleep if he were present at all; and in all likelihood winging his way over the city.

This was the moment, yet he felt a strange reluctance.

His shoes were half under the bed. He retrieved them and groped in a corner for the knobbed staff, then remembered that he had left it in the Calde's Palace-in the lavatory in which he had bathed, or possibly in the bedroom beyond it. If Hound woke, or Pig, he might say that he was going back for it. He might make the he true, in fact, to salve his conscience; although it seemed doubtful that anyone would come to his knock at the Calde's door at such an hour, even more doubtful that he would be admitted to fetch his staff or anything of the kind.

Neither Hound nor Pig awoke.

The key was in the lock. He turned it as quietly as he could, slipped through the door, and relocked it from outside, dropping the key into his pocket. The years had worn threadbare gray paths down the middle of the luxurious carpets he recalled. Ermine's banisters had lost a baluster here and there.

The cavernous sellaria had been stripped of much of its furniture and most of its lights. At the desk, a lofty young man with a beard as black as Pig's own stood arguing with the clerk. The clerk wore a blue tunic with crimson embroidery that seemed chosen to hold death and the night at bay, the bearded youth a long, curved saber and a white headcloth in place of a cap; neither man so much as glanced at him.

The door to Ermine's Glasshouse was locked, but the lock was small and cheap, the door old and warped.

Where Thelx holds up a mirror.

Dampness and decay scented the air; the broad blossoms were gone, the trees dead or overgrown, the colored glass gems trodden into the mud; improbably, the pond remained-light from distant skylands flashed gold in its depths.

He knelt, and closed his eyes. "It's me, Patera. It's Horn, and I've come to get you, I want to bring you back to Blue with me. You're here-I know you're here."

There was no answering touch, no ghostly voice.

"What Nettle and I wrote about you-we didn't just make it up. You told us on the airship, remember? You said a part of you would always be here." When he opened his eyes, it seemed for a moment that he saw Silk in the water; but it was only his own reflection, a reflection so faint it vanished as he stared.

"You're here; I know you'll always be here and I can't take you away. But you could talk to me, Patera, just for a minute. You always liked me. You liked me better than almost anybody else in the whole palaestra."

Not all the blossoms were gone, it seemed; the cool night air bore a faint perfume.

"Please, Patera? Please? I want this more than I've ever wanted anything. Just for a minute-just for a minute let me see you."

"I loved only you, nobody but you. Not ever." Warm lips brushed his ear. In the pool, an older Silk knelt beside Hyacinth. Both smiled at him.

The yawning maidservant who answered the Calde's door gawked at him and jumped in her haste to get out of his way. When he found the right room at last and the husband's knobbed staff was in his hands, he heard distant shots and opened a window.

There had been three, from a slug gun. While he listened he heard two more, and saw a mounted guardsman gallop by.

The maid had waited in the foyer to let him out, still so sleepy that she called him "Calde" when warning him against the danger of the streets. "One shot means death," he told her, smiling. "Many simply means that someone's missing a lot." He had learned that in worse streets and in the tunnels long ago. He wished for some money to give her for admitting him and for her obvious concern for him; but he had only the two whole cards, and a card was far too much.

"Here." He pushed one into her hand, and got away before she could embarrass him with her thanks.

The street was very dark, and quiet save for five hurrying Guardsmen; Ermine's lobby quieter still, although a small table had been turned over and a vase broken. There was no clerk behind the desk now, no one in the lobby at all. The stairs seemed higher and steeper than he recalled.

As he put the key back into the lock, Pig asked sleepily, "Recollect ther craws, bucky?"

It took a moment. "Why, yes. Yes, I do, Pig."

"Still say ther same?"