Return to the Whorl

10. THROUGH QUADRIFONS' DOOR

Pig stopped whistling to say, "Nae sae far noo, bucky. Lookin' forward ter h'it?"

"To revisiting the city in which I was born?" (By an effort he had avoided the word seeing.) "To tell the truth, I dread it. It will have changed, and not for the better I'm afraid. It can scarcely be for the better. Hound, you said that Silk is no longer calde-"

"Good Silk!" Oreb, who had been riding atop the second packdonkey, flew to his shoulder, a sudden blossoming of black and scarlet in the bright sunshine.

"So who is?"

"Who's calde now?" From his seat on the lead donkey, Hound looked over his shoulder. "General Mint's husband. His name's Bison. Calde Bison."

"That's good. I know him slightly."

"You're going to talk to him?"

Oreb muttered, "Talk Silk."

"I'm going to try." He was silent after that, his mind occupied with the empty houses they had passed, and the houses (many empty too, presumably) they were approaching. Up this road Silk had ridden with Auk, and down it he had ridden in a flyer driven by Willet; but he had not said much about it. He tried to recall whether he himself had ever traveled it, concluded he had not, and then, at the sight of a narrow old house whose pink paint had faded to near invisibility and whose shiprock was crumbling, was inundated by a rush of memories. Nettle, and a slug gun on his shoulder, Maytera Marble and the ragged crowd of volunteers singing to keep their spirits up.

There had been other songs, many of them, but that was the only one he could remember. Nettle would know them all.

He turned to look back at the house, but it had vanished behind trees. How long had it stood empty? Twenty years, or fifteen, or ten. Its roof had leaked with no one to repair it, letting water into cracks in the shiprock. That water had frozen in winter, splitting the walls farther each year.

"Talk talk," Oreb suggested. "Talk good."

He smiled. "If you wish. You asked whether I was happy to be returning to my native city, Pig. I said I was saddened by the thought of what must have happened to it in my absence. We just passed a house that I recalled."

"Ken ther people?"

"No. But I marched past it once, when I was a boy, and we were singing a song about a house with an apple tree in the garden. I saw that one, and it did indeed have a small garden with an apple tree. I seem to remember that there were a few apples on the upper branches, though I can't be sure. It seemed a marvelous coincidence at the time, a magical coincidence and a good omen. We were hungry for good omens just then. We weren't even amateur troopers, though we thought we were."

"Ho, aye."

"Masons and carpenters with slug guns they scarcely knew how to fire, and mortar and sawdust on their knees. I had one, and a needler, and was immensely proud of both. You were a trooper, Pig. I hope you had more training than I did."

"Nae muckle."

"No talk." Oreb had caught something in Pig's tone.

"I've been wondering-I hope you won't think I'm prying, though perhaps I am-whether you weren't given some sort of ceremony of initiation. A sacrifice to Sphigx at some manteion to dedicate you and your comrades to the art of war."

Pig did not reply.

"In some ways you remind me of a man called Auk; and Auk was quite religious, in spite of all his violence and swagger."

"Would yer gods a' let 'em take me een, bucky? Prayed ter proper an' h'all?"

He shrugged. "I suppose they could have stepped in to prevent such cruelty, but it seems they rarely do. When was the last time you were in a manteion, Pig?"

To fill the silence that followed the question, Hound said, "Tansy and I almost never go anymore. We'll have to start if she's pregnant, otherwise there'll be all sorts of trouble about having the baby washed, won't there?"

"Gi'e somethin'. That'll fix h'it."

"I'm not a wealthy man." Hound sounded apologetic. "I wish I were."

And I wish there were a great mountain here, he thought. A great mountain along whose winding pass we had been traveling all morning, so that there could be a sudden turn around a stone outcrop. We would find ourselves looking down at Viron then, Viron spread like a carpet below us, streets running northeast and southwest, and southeast and northwest, with the broad slash of Sun Street cutting across them, east to west, right through the oldest part of the city. That part was built by Pas, like the old pink house, houses and shops built before there were people here to live in them, anyone here to buy or sell. We should have declared them sacred and kept them in repair; we found a hundred things to complain of instead, and let them go one by one, and built new ones we said were better even when they were not.

The apple tree was gone, too. Cut for firewood now that candles cost so much, now that lamp oil is hard to find. Had Pas planted it? He could not have, apple trees live no longer than a man. But now that it was gone, now that it had been cut down and sawn into onecubit logs and burned, would anyone ever plant another?

Aloud he said, "It was the first time I ever heard that song, I believe. It was a new song to me then, and I'm sure I never supposed it would be important to me."

Hound said, "Will you be going to the Juzgado, Horn? You said you wanted to talk to the calde."

"I know I did." A rush of new thoughts.

Hound cleared his throat. "I'm going to go to that inn I told you about. Since I'm going to get a room, I might as well eat there, and they have good food. If you and Pig would like to come, I'd be happy to treat you to a meal. Then you'd know where it was, in case you can't find another place tonight."

Having come to a decision, he shook his head. "That's very kind of you, but I know where it is. I want to go to the Sun Street Quarter first, where I used to live, not to the Juzgado. Unless Viron's changed even more than I anticipate, I'll probably have to wait most of a day before I can get in to see the calde; and if I were to come in the afternoon, I'd probably wait the rest of the day and not get in at all. So I won't go to the Juzgado until morning. What about you, Pig?"

"Wi' yer, bucky. Yer dinna mind me h'askin' h'about een?"

"Of course not. To the Sun Street Quarter?"

"Where yer gang."

"Bird go," Oreb announced. "Go Silk."

There were more houses now, not all empty, until they lined the road. Hound pointed out those that had belonged to friends and acquaintances, recounting some anecdote or describing some eccentricity. "There's the manteion for this quarter. That's where we went when we were living here."

"Thought yer did nae," Pig protested mildly.

"Oh, sometimes. Sometimes we go now with Tansy's mother, and she'd like us to go more often, I know. But in those days, we always went when her mother and father came to visit. Her father was still alive then. I think I told you that it was when he died and left us the shop that we moved back to Endroad." He hesitated. "I suppose it's abandoned now. There can't be many people left. If it's been given up, it will be locked, I'm afraid. Would you like to look inside for a minute if it isn't?"

"Aye," Pig sounded pleased. "Can he look? He canna. Like ter see h'it, though. What h'about yer, bucky?"

"If it won't delay us."

"Oh, it's not big. Not big at all. Just the usual sort of place, I'm sure, but I thought you might be interested."

"No cut," Oreb muttered.

Pig cocked his head. "What's H'oreb h'on h'about?"

"What is he saying? He's saying, `No cut,' something the original Oreb, Patera Silk's pet, always used to say. Possibly this is the same bird."

"No cut!" Oreb repeated more distinctly.

"Do you know why he says it?" Hound inquired.

"He knows animals are sacrificed there and is afraid he may be sacrificed as well. If we understood what more animals are trying to tell us, no doubt we'd find they say the same."

Just then a flock of crows passed overhead, wheeling and cawing; hearing them, Pig asked, "What're they sayin', bucky? Yer h'always ken what H'oreb's says, sae what h'about those?"

He looked toward the skylands, and seemed for a moment to have forgotten his companions and himself. " `Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.' I think they mean I'll find Silk tomorrow, though I've found him already; but they may also mean you'll find new eyes tomorrow. I hope so."

Hound looked back curiously. "You've found Silk already? I'm surprised you didn't tell us."

"I found the god last night, after you had told me about him; and I should not have said even that much, Hound. Please forget I mentioned it."

Hound was silent as they passed more vacant houses. Then he said, "You can read the future in the flight of birds? I've heard of that, but I forget what it's called."

"If you want a word to impress your friends, auspicatory. If you're seeking knowledge for yourself, it is simply augury, the original form of augury, now much neglected."

"Silk know," Oreb assured them.

"He very well may," he said, "but I do not."

Soon they reached the manteion; its wide front entrance was firmly locked, but Pig's questing fingers easily pulled the hasp from the side door. "Prized h'out 'fore we come," he explained. "Screws pushed back h'in but nae wood ter hold 'em."

The interior seemed dark and cavernous after the sunshine of the street. Pig made his way to the back, the scabbard rapping pews, found the altar, and laid his sword aside to grope its edges and corners for a moment.

"No cut!" Oreb declared more adamantly than ever.

"You needn't worry," his master told him. "There's no Sacred Window here. It's what they were after, I'm afraid. Was that what you're searching for back there, Pig?"

"Aye, bucky."

Hound said, "There are several manteions that are still open. Horn could take you to one, since you're going with him. Or I will, if he's busy with other matters."

"Thank yer. Thank yer kin'ly."

"Would you like me to? We can stop someplace on our way to the inn."

Pig turned toward them, the brass tip of the leather-covered scabbard tapping the side of the altar again. "Gang ter yer Sun Street Quarter, yer said, bucky?"

"Yes. I'll stop at the manteion there, though I have no way of knowing whether it's still standing-or whether it's still open if it is. I must warn you that much of the quarter burned twenty years ago."

"Gae wi' yer," Pig decided. He was standing at the ambion, his thick black nails seeming to stab its carven sides.

"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you? You needn't, of course; I'll do whatever I can whether you confide in me or not, though I may be able to assist you more intelligently if you do."

"Wad nae swaller h'it."

"Poor Pig!" Oreb flew to his shoulder, and there was a silence in which it seemed that the ghosts of sacrifices past had returned. Almost, one could smell the incense, mingled with the odors of burning hair and cedar; almost, one could hear the augur's chant and the bleat of a lamb whose time had come.

Hound coughed. "Can't you help him, Horn?"

"You went to a manteion shortly before you lost your sight." He spoke gently, just loudly enough to be heard. "You knelt there in prayer-prayers, perhaps, of which you're now ashamed, though you shouldn't be. Your gaze was fixed upon the Sacred Window. No god came at the moment of sacrifice-or at least, no visible theophany took place, no Holy Hues, none of that. But you felt peace and a deep joy that you cannot explain. You would like to recapture those, if you could."

"Were lootin'," Pig said. "Me an' na braithrean."

"I understand."

"Yer dinna. H'ever loot yerself?"

"No, Pig."

"Been h'in a toon bein' looted?"

"No, never."

"Some goes fer ther women, some fer drink, some fer cards h'or what fetches 'em. Done ane an' t'other. Said yer ken, bucky. Ken that? H'or do yer need mair? What drunk an' what ther woman was?"

His right hand made the sign of addition in the air. "It's not necessary."

"Thank yer. Fetch noo, ther Winders do. Yer right. Auld Pig dinna know h'it then, but they do. Thinkin' a' gowd cups was h'all. Ter big fer doors, bucky. Yer seen h'it. Had ter gae h'on me knees ter get h'in ter yer house, Hound. Have ter, ter get h'in ter most. Dinna like ter, but there 'tis. Dinna fash, but see ane ter stand h'in, an' 'tis h'in every time."

"We could enlarge ours," Hound told him. "I could do the work myself."

"Good a' yer. Saunt, ain't yer, bucky?"

"No," he said gently. "No, I'm not, Pig. I've told you I'm not."

"He were, ter."

"Did you kill him, Pig?"

"Ho, aye. Stood by his Winder, he did."

Pig's drew his sword as he spoke, and Oreb squawked with fear and flew back to his master.

"Had a yeller cup ter gae me. Threw it down an' broke. 'Twas chiner."

"Poor Pig."

"Did fer him. Cut doon wi' me whin." Pig held up his long blade, which gleamed faintly in the dusty sunlight.

"And then?"

"Ain't yer goin' ter say nae thing h'about h'it, bucky? Figured yer would."

He shook his head, although Pig could not have seen the gesture. "Later, perhaps."

"Suit yerself. That's ther bad a' h'it."

"It is the good of it I wish to hear, Pig."

"None ter tell."

"After you had killed him, the Sacred Window behind him caught your attention. Am I correct?"

"Nae. Told yer h'about ther doors, reck h'it? Big h'enough ter gae h'in wi'hout kneelin'. Sae did he? He did."

"Yes."

"Wasn't nae where he lay, but on me knees just ther same. Fou' ter. Most fou'. Could nae hardly, wi'hout fallin'."

"Did you speak then, Pig? Did you pray, or try to pray?"

"Nae. Tried ter. Couldn't. Could he? He could nae! Blubbed like ter a big girl. Blubbin' noo."

"Weeping, you mean. So you are, but Hound and I are not laughing."

"Guid a' yer." Pig sighed deeply and wiped his nose on a sleeve already phenomenally dirty. "'Tis h'all, bucky. Ther lot a' h'it."

"No, it isn't. Not quite, and it will always be unfinished-incomplete-unless you tell the rest. Unless you do it now. It cannot be postponed any longer."

"Horn…" Hound gripped his arm.

"I'll address your concerns in a few minutes," he said. "They can wait, believe me. Go on, Pig."

"Somethin' tetched me." Pig sounded as though he had forgotten anyone was listening. "Had me een."

"Yes. Of course."

"Touched me shoulders an' me head, like h'it were standin' behind. Looked h'around. Wasn't nae thing there."

"And then…?"

"Felt h'it, bucky. What yer said. Wanted ter feel h'it h'allways, but nae felt h'it nae mair."

"And you were changed, somewhat, after that. You found yourself doing things that surprised you."

"Aye."

From his shoulder, Oreb muttered, "Good Silk."

"This has been a shriving, Pig. I didn't announce it but it has been. I'm a layman, as I said; but a layman may shrive when there is need. I'd like you to kneel now. I know you don't like to, but you shouldn't withhold from the Outsider-it was he who touched you from behind, I'm sure-the obeisance you pay so many doors. Will you kneel?"

"Think he might gi'e back me een?"

"I have no idea. Will you kneel?"

Pig did.

"Good. That was the worst hurdle, the one I feared we could not get over." A swift gesture sent Hound to the front of the manteion. "Now say what I say. Cleanse me, friend."

Dutifully, Pig repeated it.

"You don't like to say I, do you, Pig? I mean the pronoun, not the aye that signifies assent. Is it a superstition?"

"Dinna sound weel h'in ther light lands," Pig muttered.

"Impolite? Then you may say, `for the Outsider and other gods have been offended by me.' After that you must recount to me everything you have done that was seriously wrong, other than the looting and murder you have already described. Oreb, you must stay with Hound until I call you both."

At the rear of the manteion, Hound had watched the kneeling Pig (so huge that even on his knees he was nearly as tall as the erect man in the worn brown tunic) until embarrassment rendered it impossible.

"Man talk," Oreb explained, lighting on the back of the pew in front of Hound's. "Talk Silk." He whistled to emphasize the importance of that talk, and added, "Bird go. Go Hound."

Hound nodded absently. Statues of the Nine still stood in niches along the walls. Who was that with the owl, he wondered? Some were only minor gods, he felt certain. Since there were more than nine statues, they had to be. He had always dismissed the minor gods as unimportant; for the first time it occurred to him that he was unimportant as well, and the important gods like Echidna (over there, holding up a viper in each hand) might concern themselves with important men and things. "Echidna, and Molpe with the thrush. But who's that with the doves?"

"Man talk," Oreb repeated in a different context.

"To myself," Hound said. "I was trying to name these gods, that's all."

One of the murmuring voices at the front of the manteion rose to intelligibility. "Then I bring to you, Pig, the pardon of the gods. In the name of the Outsider, you are forgiven. In the names of Great Pas and Silver Silk, you are forgiven. And in the name of all lesser gods you are forgiven, by the power entrusted to me." A quick gesture described the sign of addition over Pig's bowed head.

Hound went to rejoin them, watching the huge Pig rise and straighten his shoulders. When Pig's blind face turned toward the noise of his shoes on the cracked stone floor, he said, "I didn't hear any of that. I think I ought to tell you so, Pig. I tried not to hear, and I didn't. I was way at the back, and you both spoke softly."

"H'all right h'ifyer did," Pig said. "'Struth, bucky?"

"Why, no." He shook his head. "Neither of you are correct. Hound, you heard a part of what Pig said about looting the town in the Mountains That Look at Mountains. You also heard me say that what Pig had told me was part of a shriving, although it had not been so announced at the time."

Hound nodded.

"You may be concerned about your duty as a citizen and a member of the Chapter. Nevertheless, you must understand where your duty lies. Whenever anyone, whether an augur, a sibyl, or a layperson, overhears part of a shriving by accident, that person is honor bound to reveal nothing that he-or she-has heard. He is not to hint at it or allude to it in any way. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes." Hound nodded again. "You certainly are."

"Then let me say this. I've said it already to Pig, but I want to say it to you. You know, just as Pig and I do, what was said earlier; and we're none of us children. For an augur to die before his Sacred Window, and particularly for him to die by a steel blade as sacrifices die, is a great honor. It is the death every augur yearns for. I don't intend to imply that it isn't wrong to kill an augur under those circumstances; but when an augur dies in such a manner, other augurs and many pious laymen must wonder whether that death was not arranged by Hierax, as a reward."

Pig said, "Hierax is dead."

Hound stared at him.

"I see. I didn't know that, though I surmised that it might be the case. No doubt it's for the best."

"Horn?"

He nodded. "Yes. What is it?"

"Before we leave-" Hound began. "Are you worried about getting into the city late? You said you wouldn't go to the Juzgado till tomorrow."

"I would like to revisit the quarter in which I used to live this afternoon. But no, I'm not. Not unless whatever you're about to propose will take hours."

"Fifteen minutes or half an hour, I hope. While…"

Thick with muscle and armed with thick black nails, Pig's hand engulfed Hound's shoulder. "H'out wi' h'it, mon. H'all pals."

Hound nodded gratefully. "While I was back there in the back, I was trying to name the gods. The… These images." He indicated them by a gesture. "You know a lot about them. I've seen that already. Tansy saw it, too. Anyway, I couldn't, or only a few. I was hoping you'd take me around and talk a little about each of them? It would give me something to tell Tansy. And Mother. I'd like it myself, too, if it would be all right with Pig."

"Silk talk?" Oreb fixed him with a bright black eye.

"Ho, aye. Do h'it, bucky. Like ter hear yer meself."

"Very well." He glanced around at the images set into the walls. "Where do you want me to begin?"

"Well, that one." Hound pointed to the nearest. "It's Phaea, isn't it?"

"Yes, you're quite correct. Phaea's one of the Seven, Pas's fourth daughter. Now that think of it, we couldn't have begun at a more appropriate place, since we hope to find new eyes for a man called Pig, and I'm carrying seed corn to Blue. Feasting Phaea's the goddess of healing, and of foodstuffs generally. She presides over banquets and infirmaries alike. You can generally recognize her images by the boar at her side."

"Yes," Hound said eagerly. "That's how I got it."

"Then I ought to add that when the boar is absent Phaea is customarily shown holding a young pig, that when the piglet is omitted as well you may know her by her thick waist, and that she is the generous patroness of cooks and physicians. Is that sufficient?"

Hound nodded. "I couldn't get this next one at all. Who is she?"

"Let me ter feel a' her." Pig's thick fingers brushed the top and sides of the image and explored the area about its feet. "Wearin' a helmet, hain't she bucky?"

"Yes, she is. A helmet with a low crest." He bent closer examining the statue. "I was about to say that the customary lion was absent, which was why you were unable to identify her, Hound-but that isn't actually the case. She wears a medallion with a lion's head, though it is too small to be distinguished at any distance. Pig, who has been a trooper, knew her by her helmet, of course; but I believe he feared-needlessly-that I might take offense if he named her before I did. She is Sphigx, the youngest of the Nine."

Hound stepped nearer to look at the medallion. "I'm glad she's still here. A lot of her statures were smashed when we were fighting Trivigaunte."

"This may be a replacement-it looks a little newer than the others. If so, that's very likely the reason her lion was reduced to a bit of jewelry. The augur here may have hoped that vandals would take her for a minor goddess."

"Good god?" Oreb inquired.

His master shrugged. "I wouldn't say so, but she's no worse than the Seven as a whole. She's reputed to be brave, at least, and in the course of my life I've found that people who possess one virtue usually have several. One can imagine an individual who's admirably brave, yet grasping, unscrupulous, drunken, envious, cruel, lewd, violent and all the rest of that sad catalogue; but one never actually meets with such a monster-or at least, I haven't."

Pig said, "Thank yer kindly, bucky."

He was taken aback. "You can't mean that seriously. I haven't known you long, but no one who's been in your company for an hour could suppose you were a mass of vices. You're generous, kind, and good-natured, Pig; and I could easily rattle off a dozen more virtues-patience and tenacity, for example."

"Guid a' yer."

Hound cleared his throat and seemed almost to choke. "I want to say that Horn speaks for me, too. I couldn't have said it as well as he did, but I feel the same way." There was an embarrassed silence.

"Shall we go on to the next? I'm anxious to get to it, I admit."

"The woman holding the snakes? I wanted to ask something else about Sphigx, but I've forgotten what it was."

"She's actually a rather interesting figure. When I was a boy, I considered her the least attractive of the Nine, and there's some truth in that; but she's by no means the least complex. One can think of her as the mirror image of her sister Phaea. If that is the case, then Phaea is Sphigx's mirror image as well, which makes her the goddess of peace. The title suits her even though she doesn't get it, at least in Viron."

Pig touched Sphigx's image again, finding the medallion. "They fight, bucky? Sounds like they Nought ter."

"No." Leaning on his staff, he studied the image. "Despite the swords she holds, Sphigx is not merely the goddess of war, as I should have made clear. She also governs obedience, courage, watchfulness, and hardihood-all of the virtues that a trooper must have, even cleanliness and order. I mentioned that Phaea was the physicians' goddess, the goddess of healing. I used to know a Doctor Crane from Trivigaunte-this was before they went to war with us. He was a tough, brave little man; and he would tell us in no uncertain terms how much a good diet and clean hands have to do with health and healing. We have need of both Phaea and her sister, you see. One way to put that is that they need each other."

Straightening up, he turned back to Hound, smiling. "Have you remembered what you wanted to ask?"

Hound shook his head.

"Then I have a question for you. When you said that many of Stabbing Sphigx's images had been smashed, I assumed you meant by angry Vironese who saw them as symbols of Trivigaunte. A moment ago, it occurred to me that the vandals might have been Trivigauntis themselves. Statues like this are prohibited in the City of Trivigaunte and its territories, supposedly by her order, as are pictures of her; and I suppose that a deeply religious Trivigaunti might be tempted to destroy them wherever she found them. Was that what happened?"

"Mostly in the city, I think. In the Grand Manteion."

Pig chuckled. "Both sides breakin' 'em?"

Hound nodded with a rueful smile. "I'd heard that about the Trivigauntis, I suppose because they did it there. And I hoped Horn could tell us why they wanted to. That was what I was meaning to ask, what I forgot for a minute. Can you, Horn?"

He stared off into the dimness of the shuttered manteion, where a single bar of sunlight had stabbed the dusty air.

"Silk talk!"

"Oreb means me, I'm afraid." He turned back to them. "Who am I to resist a bird's demands? They wanted to because they thought it was what their goddess wanted, of course; but you understand that, surely. The real questions are whether she did, and if so why she did." He fell silent again, his clear blue eyes lost in thought.

"If she did not, then her supposed demand is presumably a lie put forth by the Chapter of Trivigaunte-whatever it's called-or the Rani's government. If that is the case, they probably say what they do to separate their people more firmly from those of other cities. Have I mentioned that there is a Trivigaunti town south of New Viron? There is."

Hound said, "I didn't know that."

"There's been a certain degree of mixing, which some on both sides have sought to prevent-Trivigaunti women marrying Vironese, and Vironese women marrying Trivigaunti men."

"Feel sorry fer ther four," Pig said.

"So do I, in a way; yet I doubt that they're much more-or much less-discontented than other couples.

"At any rate, their custom of refusing to picture the gods clearly isolates the people of Trivigaunte. This manteion would appear blasphemous to them; more importantly, so would the home of any pious person in Viron. My friend Auk, who was what is called a common criminal though he was an uncommon man, had a picture of Scylla tacked to his wall. But I am drifting away from the subject.

"If Sphigx herself issued the prohibition, I think it most likely she acted from pride or shame. She may have felt that no representation we could make could do her justice. I have seen Kypris-"

Pig's hand closed upon his elbow, its thick, pointed nails almost painful.

"Long ago, and I would defy any artist to picture a woman equally lovely. Silk's wife, Hyacinth, was dazzlingly beautiful as a young woman-but even she was not as beautiful as that."

Pig's grip relaxed.

"Or Sphigx may be ashamed of her followers, or of accepting worship at all. None of the other gods seems to feel like that, yet it would be much to their credit if they did."

Hound stared at him. "But… "

"But they are the gods. Is that what you would like to say? That's true. They are our gods-here, at least-and if they demand our worship, we must give it to them or perish. Do you see that niche over there?"

"Yes," Hound said. "It's empty."

Oreb croaked harshly, and his master went to it. "There is a sense in which you're wrong. In that sense, it is the Outsider's. Pig, do you want to put your hand in it? It will do you no harm."

"Nae. "

"Good. Hound, do you understand why this empty niche is the Outsider's? Why it is his now, although it may originally have been intended for one of the Nine? Possibly even for Pas?"

"Because no one knows what he looks like? I think you said something about that once."

"That's one reason, at least, though there are others. I don't mean that he is as the women of Trivigaunte believe Sphigx to be. There is no harm in our trying to make pictures of him, in showing him as a wise and noble man, for example, or as the night sky we see on Blue, a great darkness spangled with points of light. There's no harm, that is to say, unless we come to believe that he actually looks like the thing we've pictured. Then this representation is best."

Hound drew a deep breath. "But this is the way they show Sphigx!"

Later, when they had left Hound at Gold Street and were making their way to the Sun Street Quarter, Pig asked, "Nae folk h'in these hooses, bucky?"

Oreb answered for him. "No man! No girl!"

His master sighed. "After we had gone through the house in which Hound and Tansy used to live, I asked Hound when we would reach the inhabited parts of the city. I spoke softly, I suppose, and perhaps you were too preoccupied to hear us; but he said that we were already there, that the street down which we walked was one of those that had not yet been abandoned. I began counting houses then, and it seemed to me that there were five empty ones for each in which someone appeared to be living."

Pig did not reply.

"Of course someone may have been living in some of those that looked empty to me. That's entirely possible, and I hope it is true."

"Yer said ther h'empty place was ther H'outsider's."

"A cheering thought-thank you. To answer your question, a few of these houses are clearly occupied, though not many."

Pig cocked his head. "Cartwheels, bucky!"

"I can't hear them. Your ears are more acute than mine, as I have observed before. I'm glad you do, however, and I don't doubt in the least that you do. May I tell a story, Pig? You reminded me of it, and even if you have no particular pleasure in hearing it, it will give me pleasure to recount it."

"Does he mind? He does nae!"

"Thank you again. I should say at the outset that I'm not sure the manteions are the same, though I suspect they are. Hound said he couldn't recall the name of the augur who'd been in charge when he and Tansy attended sacrifice occasionally. This would have been his predecessor, I expect, if it really was the same manteion. His name was Patera Ray."

"Good man?"

"Ah, that's the point of my story, Oreb. A boy-I've forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter-and his mother were returning to the city after living for a year or so in the country. You'll recall, Pig, that Hound and Tansy moved from Endroad to the city after they were married, because there was no work for Hound in Endroad. Later, they returned.

"In much the same way, this boy and his mother had moved to the country, living in a remote farmhouse where the boy, who was still quite small, was happy in the possession of a wood and a stream too wide to jump; but lonely all the same. Now they had decided to return to the city. It was a long journey as the boy measured journeys then, though he had ridden most of the way in a sort of cart pushed by his mother that carried their belongings.

"She was very tired, and they stopped on the outskirts to spend the night with a friend before going into the city to the neat little house that another kind friend-a male friend who I suppose must have slept there from time to time, since he kept a razor there-had arranged for them to occupy some years earlier. After dinner, the poor woman went to bed and to sleep almost at once, but the boy did not."

"Good boy?"

"Not particularly, Oreb, though he thought he was, because his mother loved him. He was not old enough to understand that she would always love him, whether he behaved well or badly."

They were passing empty cellar-holes, rectangular pits edged with charred wood and filled with black water. "This quarter burned twenty years ago," he told Pig. "I'm sorry that more of it has not been rebuilt. I've been in the City of the Inhumi on Green, and it's not much more desolate than this. Here's String Street, I believe. I'm sorry to see that the fire got this far."

"Wi' yer, bucky."

"I want to finish my little tale. I'll interrupt it if I see anything worth commenting on."

He paused, collecting his thoughts. "The boy decided to take a short walk. He was hoping to find another child; but he was very conscious of the danger of becoming lost, so he walked only along the road upon which the house in which he and his mother were staying stood, reasoning that he could always retrace his steps and return to her. You will have guessed what happened already. Distracted by something or other, he became confused about the direction in which he had been walking. Thinking that he was returning to his mother and the house in which they were staying, he walked a long way until he saw an old man in black weeping upon the steps of a manteion. Until that time, the boy had been afraid to ask for help; but the old man looked so good and kind that the boy approached him and, after a minute or two of silent squirming, and taking deep breaths and letting them out, and deciding on one beginning after another and abandoning each before it was begun, he said, `Why are you crying?'

"The old man looked up, and seeing him pointed to the carts, wagons, and litters that passed them every few seconds. `If the wrongs I have done the gods were visible,' he said, `there would be more than those, and four men would not be enough to weep for them all.' "

They walked on in silence after that. Occasionally they passed hovels built of salvaged timbers, so that they appeared (until they were examined closely) to have been painted black. A game among children was in progress in the next street over; the shrill cries of the participants reached them like the twittering of sparrows in a distant tree.

At last Pig asked, "That ther h'end, bucky?"

He swallowed and forced himself to speak. "It is."

"Somethin' fashin' yer?"

"Boy home?" Oreb demanded. "Find home?"

"Yes, he did." He wiped his eyes. "But he was not the same boy." Under his breath he added, "And that is not the same home."

Soft though the words had been, Pig had overheard them. "See yer house, dinna yer?"

Unable to speak, he nodded; Oreb translated: "Say yes."

"This is Silver Street. We-we were walking along Silver Street, and I didn't know it. I couldn't be sure. Pig?"

"Aye?"

"Pig, I spoke of offenses against the gods. I don't really care whether Sphigx and Scylla and the rest like what I do."

"Said yer would nae break ther statues."

`Because they didn't belong to me. And because they wereare-art, and to wantonly destroy art is always evil. But, Pig…" He halted.

"Auld Pig's yer pal, bucky."

"I know. That is what makes this so very hard. You were blind when you left your home in the Mountains That Look at Mountains. So you told me."

"When he left na braithrean. Aye."

"You came all this way on foot, though you are blind."

"Aye, bucky. Ho, he had some tumbles."

"Then, Pig, I am going to ask a favor, one I have no right to ask. It is something I will always reproach myself-"

"No talk!"

"For. But I'm going to ask it just the same. I brought you here. I know that. You wouldn't be in this ruined quarter if it were not for me. You might not be in Viron at all."

"H'out wi' h'it, bucky."

"I thought I was going to-to show you where I used to live. The manse, and the house where I grew up. My father's shop. Where those things once stood. I would tell you something about them, what they-those places meant to me."

He wanted to shut his eyes, but made himself watch Pig's face. "Instead, I'm asking this. Hound is getting a room in an inn, and would welcome either of us-both of us, I ought to say, together or separately. The inn is Ermine's, and it's on a hill, the Palatine, in the center of the city. Would you be willing to make your way there alone? Please?"

Pig smiled. "That h'all, bucky?"

"I'll join you there, I swear, before shadelow. But I want to-I must be alone here. I simply have to."

Pig's long arms groped for him, one big hand still grasping the sheathed sword. " 'Tis h'all right, bucky. Needed me h'on ther roads. Noo yer need me ter be gone. Dinna fash yerself. Ter much hurtin' h'in they whorl h'already, an' sae guid-bye." Pig turned away.

"I'll rejoin you, I promise," he repeated. "Tell Hound I'm coming, please, but tell him that he is not to wait supper for me.

"Go with Pig, Oreb. Help him."

Oreb croaked unhappily, but flew.

His master stood in the street, leaning on the knobbed staff, and watched them go, unable to take a single step until they were out of sight, the big man moving so slowly while towering over the few badly dressed men and women he passed, the black bird seeming unwontedly small and vulnerable upon the big man's shoulder, its dabs of scarlet the only spots of color in the ruined landscape of blacks and grays.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the tap-tap-tapping of the brass-tipped scabbard faded. The big man stopped a passerby and spoke, too distant already to be overheard. The passerby answered, pointing up Silver Street toward the market, pointing, it seemed likely, to inform the blind man who had stopped him, possibly for the bird. Their slow progress resumed until at last they were gone, faded into the black, the gray.

He himself turned then and strode rapidly away, the bare wooden tip of his staff striking at the rutted surface of the street with every step, rapping stones and splattering mud over his shoes and the cuffs of his ragged brown trousers.

Here the children had played, taking Maytera's clotheslines for jump ropes. They had jumped to Blue some time ago, the sad, halfstarved little girls with the black bangs, with the long black pigtails braided with scraps of bright yarn. To Blue, and some to Green; and those would be, largely, dead.

This fire-blackened shiprock wall, these empty, staring windows, had been the cenoby's once. While the whorl slept Maytera had knelt, not to pray but to scrub this stone step so black with ash indistinguishable from mud. Maytera Mint had dressed and undressed in there, in a darkened room behind a locked door and drawn blinds, had mended worn underclothes and covered her virginal bed with an old oilcloth tablecloth, knowing that the merest shower would lend new waters to the sagging belly of her ceiling.

That ceiling would sag no more; the leaking roof on which Maytera had climbed to watch the Trivigaunti airship was all leak now, and the broad, dark door of sturdy oak that Maytera Rose had barred each night before the last thread of sun vanished had been burned long ago-whether for firewood or in the fire that had swept the quarter when the war with Trivigaunte began scarcely mattered. Anyone might go into the cenoby now, and no one wanted to.

The stone wall that had separated the garden from the street was largely intact, though the gate and rusted padlock were gone. Inside, weeds and blackberry brambles, and-yes-a straggling grape vine climbing the blackened stump of the fig tree. Enough of their arbor remained to sit on. He sat, leaned back, and shut his eyes; and in time a youthful sibyl sat down across from him, extracted a recorder from one of the voluminous pockets of her black bombazine habit, and began to play.

Sun Street had taken him to the market, and Manteion Street to the Palatine. Here was the Calde's Palace, its fallen wall repaired with new mortar and stones that almost matched.

"Patera… Patera?" The voice was soft yet thick-oddly wrong. He looked around, not so much to find the woman who spoke as to locate the augur she addressed.

"Patera… Patera Silk?"

He stepped back and scanned the windows. The shadow of a head and shoulders showed at one on the topmost floor. "Mucor?" He tried to keep his voice low, while making it loud enough to be heard fifty or sixty cubits overhead.

"She's not here… She's not here, Patera."

It's the bird, he thought. The bird makes her think I'm Silk. He realized even as he formed the thought that Oreb was gone, that he had sent Oreb away with Pig.

"Please… "

He had not heard the rest, yet he knew what he had been asked to do. The massive doors were locked. He banged them with the heavy brass knocker, each blow as loud as the report of a slug gun.

There was no answering sound from within the palace; and at last he turned away, tramping wearily down the balustraded steps to the street. The high window was empty now, and the thick, soft voice (female but not feminine) silent. He squinted up at the motionless sun. The shade was almost down; the market would be closing. He had told-had promised-Pig that he would rejoin him in Ermine's before evening, but Ermine's was only two or three streets away.

He had just crossed the first when fingers, thin but hard and strong, closed on his elbow. He turned to see a slight, stooped figure no larger than a child, muffled in what appeared to be sacking. "Please… Please, Patera. Please, won't you talk to… Please won't you talk to me?"

"I'm not an augur. You're thinking of somebody else."

"You've forgotten… You've forgotten me." The muffled sound that followed might or might not have been a sob. "Have you forgotten unhappy Olivine… Have you forgotten unhappy Olivine, Patera?"

There was something amiss in the angle of her head, and the high, hunched shoulders. Pity almost choked him. "No," he said, "I haven't forgotten you, Olivine." It was not a lie, he told himself fiercely; one could not forget what one had not known.

"You'll bless… You'll bless me?" There was joy in the voice from the sackcloth. "Sacrifice, the way you used… Sacrifice, the way you used to? Father's gone… Father's gone away. He's been gone a long, long time… He's been gone a long, long time, Patera." She was drawing him after her, back toward the Calde's Palace. "There's a… There's a woman? In the north… In the north, Patera."

Someone who might help her, obviously. Someone who might be able to cure whatever disease afflicted the pathetic figure before him. "A wise woman," he hazarded.

"Oh… Oh, yes! Oh, I hope… Oh, I hope so!"

They dodged down a side street. The wall of the Calde's Palace, elegantly varied with high narrow windows in elaborate stone frames, gave way to the almost equally imposing, windowless wall of the Calde's Garden, a wall of heroic stones, rough and misshapen yet fitted like the pieces of a puzzle.

The diminutive, limping figure drew him on far faster than he would willingly have walked. Leprosy? It had been only a word in the Writings to him. There were running sores, or pus oozing from the skin-something disgusting. Good people in the Writings, theodidacts such as Patera Silk particularly, were exceedingly kind to those who suffered this dread disease, which he had heard was rare-had heard from an augur, probably. From someone such as Patera Remora, who had attended the schola.

Abruptly they stopped. A door of iron so low that he would almost have to crawl through like Pig was deeply set between mammoth stones, in a dark little recess that also held an empty bottle and brown, wind-blown leaves. From some recess equally dark within her sackcloth, Olivine produced a brass key bruised with verdigris; there was a dim flash, as of polished steel. Thrust into the iron door, the key rattled and squealed. A bolt thumped solidly, and Olivine whispered, "Quadrifons…

The iron door swung back.

Ducking through the doorway, he had to bend lower still to pass beneath the massive limbs of an ancient oak. Beyond was a bed of bright chrysanthemums, glorious in the last flickering sunshine. Somewhere a fountain played. "I didn't know there were doors like that," he said, sounding inane even to himself. "I mean doors that had to have a word, and a key as well." And then, "That is a sacred name. So sacred that it's hardly ever used. I'm surprised you know it."

She stopped and looked back him. He thought he caught the gleam of thick spectacles between the rough cloth that covered her head and the fold of rough cloth that masked her face. "It's just a… It's just a word. The one for the… The one for the door. My… My mother." (Something deeply pathetic had entered her voice.) "I don't remember… I don't remember her. She was a… She was a sibyl? That's what my father… That's what my father says. She was a… She was a sibyl."

"Would you like to me to tell you about Quadrifons?"

Olivine nodded, the motion almost imperceptible beneath the shadowing oak limbs and the folds of cloth. "Would you… Would you, Patera?"

"I'm not Patera Silk," he said. "You're wrong about that. But I'll tell you what I know, which isn't much."

His back felt as though it might break; kneeling was a great relief. "Quadrifons is the most holy of the minor gods. I mean, he's called that in the Chrasmologic Writings. If it were left to me-as plainly it is not-I'd say that the Outsider is the most holy god, and indeed that he's the only god, major or minor, who's really holy at all." He laughed, a trifle nervously. "So you see why I'm not an augur, Olivine. But the Writings say it's Quadrifons, and the Chapter says that his name is so holy that it should hardly ever be used, so it won't be profaned."

"Go… Go on."

"I don't know you, so I really don't know whether you would be inclined to profane the name of a god-"

She shook her head.

"But I'm inclined to doubt it. You don't strike me as a fortunate person, and it's commonly the fortunate among us who do that. On the chance that I'm wrong, however, I must tell you that we don't harm the gods when we mingle their names with our curses and obscenities. We harm ourselves. I said that I didn't regard most gods as holy, but they don't have to be for our malice and mockery to recoil upon ourselves." He looked up at her shrouded face, hoping to see he had made his point, but learned nothing. "There is much more I might say, Olivine-things I may say to you another time, when we know each other better. But you wanted to know about Quadrifons."

She nodded.

"I really know very little about him, however, and I doubt that anyone knows much more than I. Just as Pas is said to be a twoheaded god-do you know about that?"

"Oh… Oh, yes." She sounded despondent.

"Quadrifons is a four-faced one. That is to say, he has only one head, but there is a face on every side of it, so that he looks east and west, and north and south, all at the same time. He's the god of bridges, passageways, and intersections, although he's clearly more important than those few and simple things would appear to imply. I told you he had four faces."

There was no sound but the tinkling of the fountain; then she said, "I've got a little statue with the two… I've got a little statue with the two heads."

"I'd like to see it. You do realize, don't you, that it's only a conventional representation? We need to picture Pas to ourselves during our private devotions sometimes, and statuettes and colored prints help us do it. I should tell you that just as Pas is depicted occasionally as a whirlwind, Quadrifons is sometimes shown as a sort of monster, combining Pas's eagle with Sphigx's lion. May I talk about Sphigx for a moment? It will seem to you that I've left the subject, but I assure you that what I want to say bears upon it."

"Go… Go ahead." By a sort of controlled collapse, she sat down opposite him, hugging her knees to her chest. Even through several thicknesses of sackcloth, it was apparent that she had sharp knees.

"This morning two friends and I were discussing Sphigx. She's the patroness of Trivigaunte, but she won't let the Trivigauntis make pictures or statues representing her, and we talked about that."

"Uh… Uh-huh."

"That's what I used to say to Patera Silk." He smiled at the memory. "He'd tell me to think of the honor of our Sun Street Palaestra, and say yes instead."

"I remember when… I remember when you were calde."

"When Patera Silk was, you mean. My own name is Horn."

She nodded again.

"In that case, Calde Bison must have let you stay on when he attained to the office. That was good of him."

"I don't think… I don't think he knows I'm here. Were you going to say Sphigx was like Quadrifons, keeping his name… Were you going to say Sphigx was like Quadrifons, keeping his name secret?"

"That's very perceptive of you. Yes, I was. You see, Olivine, there used to be a woman with a table in the market who sold images of Sphigx. They would have been quite similar to your image of Pas, I suppose."

"Mine's ivory… Mine's ivory, Patera."

He nodded thoughtfully. "These were wood. Or at least, they appeared to be wood. This woman was a Trivigaunti spy, and what she was doing-using the little wooden images to send informationwas really very clever, because no one who knew the customs of her city would associate images of Sphigx with Trivigaunte. Later on Blue, I learned that Trivigauntis who go abroad often buy images of Sphigx, which they carry home with them and hide."

"I don't… I don't understand." Olivine cocked her head, and again he caught the glint of glass.

"Why they want them? Because they're not supposed to have them, I suppose. Or because they feel that they provide special access to the goddess. Quadrifons' name-with your key-gives you special access to this lovely garden." He paused, looking beyond the branches that concealed them. "I used to live in the Calde's Palace too, Olivine. It had just been reopened, and this was weeds and a few trees; but Viron itself was thronged with people. When you and Quadrifons opened the door for me, those leaves and weeds were all that I expected to see. It never occurred to me that this garden would be tended as it was in the days of Calde Tussah when so much of the city lies in ruins. I find it heartening."

She had risen, and he rose too. "I merely wanted to say that by prohibiting the possession of her image in Trivigaunte, Sphigx has made it highly valued there. Quadrifons may have had something of the same kind in mind when he restricted the use of his name. Or he may have hoped to link himself to the Outsider, whose true name is unknown."

They left the spreading branches and crossed a bright, soft lawn. Seeing them, a white-haired man dropped his hoe and knelt.

"He wants your blessing…"

There seemed to be no help for it; he sketched the sign of addition over the old man's head. "Blessed be you in the Most Sacred Name of Pas, Father of the Gods, in those of his living children, in that of the patron of doors and crossroads, and in that of the Obscure Outsider, whom we pray will bless this, our Holy City of Viron."

"Come on… Come on, Patera." Olivine tugged his sleeve. "We've got to get some… We've got to get some bread." He followed, reflecting gloomily that the old man had probably noticed how very irregular his blessing had been, although he had kept his voice low and spoken as rapidly as he could.

A door (wooden, this time, although bound with iron) opened on a scullery, the scullery on the kitchen he vaguely remembered. A cook paring carrots froze as they entered, her mouth a perfect circle of surprise. The door of a cupboard rattled and banged; then Olivine was drawing him up a dark stair, her limp more pronounced than ever. Almost running, they passed a landing.

The next had a small window; he stopped before it to gasp for breath. "This floor."

"No… No, Patera. I was born down there… I was born down there, but my room's under the roof."

"I know, my child. I saw you there."

She shifted the small loaf to her other hand, and reached out to stroke his tunic. "You're… You're dirty."

"I've been traveling rough, I'm afraid. Last night I slept on the floor. It was a very dirty floor, too. Besides you were sitting on the ground, remember? And I knelt on it. I don't believe I even dusted my knees when I stood up. But, Olivine, I'd like to ask a personal question. May I?" She was rubbing a double thickness of his soiled tunic between her forefinger and thumb, and he had seen clearly that they were metal.

"Wouldn't you like… Wouldn't you like clean clothes?"

"Very much. I'd like a bath, too; but I'm afraid both are impossible."

She glanced up, her face inscrutable behind its swaddling sackcloth. "I know a… I know a place."

"Where I might take a bath? That's very good of you. It's wonderful of you, in fact; but before we leave this floor, there is something I must see-a certain room into which I must go, if I possibly can. I can find it for myself, I believe, and I'll rejoin you here afterward, or anywhere you choose."

"Here… Here, Patera." She opened a door; and he saw a corridor lined with more. He had forgotten it or thought he had, but the pattern in its carpet was like a blow.

"Yes, there. My-Nettle and I stayed here once. It was only for a few days, though it seemed forever then." He spoke to himself more than to her, but found it impossible to stop. "It was always cold, and we took blankets from other rooms-from empty rooms, I ought to say. There was a little fireplace, and the first one to get back at night would raid the woodbox in the kitchen." He paused to look at the hand that held the bread Olivine had gotten there. "And make a fire. There was an old brass pan you filled with coals to warm the bed, and we'd strip and bathe and huddle naked under the blankets trying to keep warm."

He pushed past her, stepping into the remembered corridor and half afraid it might vanish. They had not used this stair, he decided, but another larger one nearer the front, reaching the kitchen from the ground floor. "We were wonderfully happy here, as happy as we were capable of being-which was very happy indeed in those days-and happier than we were ever to be on Blue, though we were very happy there, too, sometimes."

Olivine pointed to a door.

"No, it was down that way, I'm sure."

"Where you can… Where you can wash? I'll find clean… I'll find clean clothes."

"I can't let you steal for me, my child, if that's what you're proposing."

"From an old storeroom… From an old storeroom, Patera. Nobody… Nobody cares." She stepped back into the stairwell again, and shut the door.

Shrugging, he opened the one she had indicated. A small bedroom, smaller even than the one he had shared with Mother so long ago. The bed, a chest of drawers, and a bedside table so small that it might almost have been a toy. No washstand, which presumably meant that the door that appeared to belong to a closet led to a lavatory. The thought of a bath, even a sponge bath with cold water, was irresistible; removing his tunic with one swift gesture, he threw open the door.