Return to the Whorl

2. GREAT PAS'S GODLING

Her husband held the lamp while the woman poured warm water on his wounds. "What happened to you?"

He shook his head, and her husband snorted.

She said, "He doesn't know. Can't you see his face?" Then to him: "You can put that one down now. Hold out the other one. Over the bucket."

He obeyed as meekly as a child.

"Your cousin Firefly-"

"Firebrat," her husband said.

"He didn't know his name after he fell that time."

"You fall?" the husband asked. "Hit your head?"

"What's your name?"

He hesitated. "Horn."

"Don't want us to know," the husband remarked.

"They're clean now," the woman said. "Lots of people say wash them in wine, but water that's boiled is about as good, and wine costs."

He nodded gratefully.

She picked up the bucket, which was of wood bound with iron, carried it to the sink, and poured out pink water. "Where you from?"

"Lizard." (It had slipped out.)

"Lizard sent you? Who is he?"

"Are we in the Whorl?"

Her husband said, "Still here. They're tryin' to run us out, but we'll run them out 'fore we're through."

The woman sniffed. "Big talk."

"Then I'm from Viron. I was born there, and I grew up there." He felt a twinge of fear. "You're not at war with Viron here?"

The husband said, "They don't care about us out here."

"Where are we?" He looked around the kitchen as if the hulking black stove or the strings of onions suspended from the ceiling might provide a clue.

"Endroad." The wife tore a clean rag with a sound that made him think of blood and smoke and the rattle of buzz guns.

The husband nodded confirmation. "Endroad. 'Bout as far from Viron as you can get, without you go into the wild."

"We're not really there," the woman said briskly. "Hold out your arm. That one's starting to bleed again." She wound clean, worn cloth about it. "Take you about an hour to get to Endroad when the sun comes back."

"Nearest place, though," her husband explained.

"Only place," she corrected him.

"I don't want to become a burden to you."

Neither answered.

"I suppose I am already, but when you've finished bandaging those, I'll go."

"Knife cuts?" The husband sounded a trifle more friendly.

"I don't-" He recalled the knife on the floor. How threatening it had looked! "Yes," he said. "I believe so."

"Ah! Tried to fight him off." Slyly, "Was it a godlin'?"

That was a new word to him.

The woman said, "A godling would've killed him."

"Big one would've," her husband agreed.

He wanted to ask her what godlings were, but sensed that he should not. "I saw your light." That seemed safe. "I had gone to sleep in a field. In one of your fields, I suppose. When I woke, it was the only light that I could see anywhere, and so I walked toward it. I-I hope-"

"If you drink you get into these fights," the woman told him severely. "Leave that to the young ones."

"Only house hereabouts," her husband said, "'cept manse."

Surprised, he looked up. "Is there an augur here?"

"Not no more."

The woman tied the last knot and straightened up. "There used to be. Still belongs to the Chapter, they say." She eyed him narrowly. "Some woman's there now. Came out from the city, I guess. You know her?"

"I don't know." He stood. "What's her name?"

"Don't talk much," the woman said.

Her husband lowered the lamp and set it on the battered table. "She went over there to be friends, but she just shut the door on her. Said she was sick."

"She looked sick, too." The woman hesitated. "Want something to eat? I guess we could spare something."

He shook his head. "I don't wish to impose on you any more. I'll leave now." He glanced at the open window, wincing inwardly at the utter darkness beyond it. "Have you any idea how long it will be until shadeup?"

"Shadeup?" The husband spat through the window.

The woman said, "Forgotten, haven't you."

"Forgotten what?" There was a stick in the corner, a rough stick far from straight that he decided must be his.

"Darkday. Sun goes out. Gone out now."

Vaguely he recalled an incident on Sun Street, the altar in the middle of the street, with the sacred window in which Echidna had appeared, the heat that had followed the darkness, and the blazing fig tree. "I know," he said.

"You'll get hurt." The woman spoke as if the words had been forced from her. "You'll get hurt again. You stay here until the sun comes back."

He looked from one to the other. "Don't you know…?"

"No tellin'." There was anger as well as resignation in the husband's voice. "Gods been blowin' it out to make us go."

The woman sighed. "Something's wrong in your head, or you'd know."

"I'm going to tell you the truth. I mean all the truth. Everything, as I should have from the beginning."

There was a silence. At last the woman said, "Go on."

"I haven't lied to you. I was born and brought up in Viron, exactly as I said. But I've spent over twenty years on Blue."

The lack of any expression on their plain, work-worn faces seemed to show they had not understood. He said, "Blue is what we call one of the whorls outside the Whorl."

Neither spoke.

"Because it looks blue, you see, when you're high above it in a lander. Blue with streaks of white cloud, really, but you have to be close to see them. From Green it's just a blue dot, when the sky is clear enough for you to see it. I lived on Blue for years, as I said. After that I was on Green for a long time. Or at least, it seemed like a long time to me. I suppose it was actually only half a year or so; but I've been away from this whorl a long time. That's all I'm trying to say."

The woman muttered, "You been where they keep trying to get us to go."

"The gods? Yes. Yes, I have."

The husband asked, "Why'd you come back?"

"To find Silk. Do either of you know Patera Silk? Calde Silk of Viron?"

Neither spoke. They edged closer together, regarding him through slitted eyes.

The rest seemed remote and unimportant, but he included it anyway. "Also to bring back new strains of corn and seeds of other kinds, and to study certain manufacturing processes. But mostly to bring Silk to New Viron, on Blue."

"Seed corn? Can't give you much, need it for us."

He nodded humbly. "A few would be enough. Six, perhaps."

The husband shook his head like a mule that does not want to take the bit. "Can't spare six ears."

"Six seeds, I meant. Six grains of corn."

"That'd be enough?"

"Yes, I'd be very grateful."

The woman asked, "How'd you get back?"

"I don't know." He found that he was staring at the wide, warped boards of the floor, his head between his hands; he forced himself to straighten up and look at her. "The Neighbors did it. The Neighbors are the Vanished People, the people who used to live on Blue a thousand years ago. They brought me here in some fashion, but I don't know how."

"When did you get here?"

"Yesterday. At least, I've slept once since I got here." He strove to remember. "There was sunlight when I arrived. I'm quite certain of that."

The husband nodded. "Days don't matter much. It's sun, or no sun. If you find Silk, how're you going to take him back?"

"In a lander, I suppose. You said the gods were trying to make you go."

Both nodded, their faces grim.

"So there must be landers left, perhaps landers that have come back for more people. The gods wouldn't try to force you out if there were no way for you to leave."

The husband spat out the window again. "They don't work. That's what I hear."

"I've had some experience of that on Green." He crossed the kitchen, finding his legs stronger than he had anticipated, and picked up his stick.

The woman said, "I'm going to fry some bacon. Haven't done it much on account of the heat. But I'm going to fry some soon as I get the stove going."

"That's very kind of you." As he spoke, he realized that he was more sincere than he had imagined. "I'm grateful-really I am. But I don't need food, and certainly don't need luxuries."

She had pushed back a curtain that had once been a sheet to search nearly empty shelves, and seemed not to have heard him. "I'll make coffee, too. Coffee's dear, but there's enough left for another pot."

He recalled the beverage of his childhood. "Mate, please. I'd like some. I haven't drunk mate in a long while."

Her husband said, "You want that seed corn? We got to fetch it out of the barn." He held a stick of his own, a thick staff more like a club than a cane.

"Yes, I do. Very much."

"All right." The husband leaned his staff against a chair, and rummaged under the table.

The woman asked him to pump, and he did so, heaving the big iron handle up and down until the rusty water was past and she had enough clean water to fill her coffeepot.

The husband pulled out a clumsy tin lantern and lit it from the lamp. "We'll go now. That'll take her a bit." An inclination of his head indicated the stove.

The woman murmured, "Coffee, bacon, and bread." She turned to face them. "That be enough?"

"More than enough. And I'd prefer mate, I really would."

The husband opened the door (letting in the ink-black dark), retrieved his staff, and raised his lantern. "Come on," he said, and they went out together.

"Is it dangerous out here? When the sun has gone out, I mean." He was thinking of the husband's staff.

"Sometimes. Horn, that's your name?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm afraid I didn't catch yours."

"Didn't throw it." The husband paused, chuckling at his joke. "You want that seed?"

"Very much." Something or someone was watching them, he felt-some cool intelligence greater than his own who could see in darkness as in daylight. He pushed the thought aside, and followed the husband, walking rapidly across dry, uneven soil as hard as iron.

"Know how to grow corn?"

"No." He hesitated, fearful that the admission would cost him the seed. "I tried once, and learned that I didn't-I had thought I did. But the seeds you give me will be planted by men who know a great deal. My task is to bring it to them."

"Won't grow in the dark."

He recalled speculating that those denied the Aureate Path might grow crops, and smiled. "Nothing does, I suppose."

"Oh, there's things. But not corn." The husband opened a wide wooden door, evoking scandalized protests from chickens. "Sun don't come back, that's the end for us. You comin'?"

He was staring upward into the pitch-black sky. "There's a point of light up there. One very small point of red light. Is it in the skylands? You have skylands here."

"That's right."

"On Blue the night sky is full of stars, thousands upon thousands of them. I'm surprised to see even one here."

"That's a city burnin'."

He looked down, horrified.

"Some city burns up there just about every time they blow the sun out. You want that corn? You come along."

He hurried into the barn.

"I grow my own seed. Two kinds. You can't let 'em cross. Or cross with any other kind, either. You know about that?"

He nodded humbly. "I think so."

"Cross 'em, and you'll get good seed. Plant it to grind and feed the stock. Don't plant the next, though. You got to go back to these old kinds and cross again. Six, you said."

"Yes. I believe that should be sufficient."

"I'm going to give you twelve. Six ain't enough." Butter-yellow lantern light revealed dry ears hanging in bunches.

"This is very, very kind of you."

"See here? This black kind?" The husband had detached an ear.

"Yes. I thought at first that it only looked black because it's so dark; but it really is black, isn't it?"

"You take it and pull off six. Not no more. I need it."

The ear was small and rough, the seeds small too, but smooth and hard. He rubbed and tugged six free.

The husband retrieved the black ear. "See this?" It was a second ear, slightly bigger and much lighter in color. "This's the other kind I got. Red and white. You see that?"

He nodded.

"The red ones and the white ones are both the same. Don't matter what color you take."

"I understand."

"You can have three red and three white, if you want 'em. Make you feel better. Color don't make no difference though."

"I will, just to be on the safe side."

"Figured. You plant 'em in the same hill so they'll cross. You don't feed that or grind it either. Plant it. Corn'll be yellow or white. Not never red nor black."

He nodded, struggling to detach the first grain.

"Plant it, and next year you'll have a real good crop."

"Thank you. I pray that I can get this seed you're giving me back to Blue safely."

"Your lookout. Thing is, every year you got to grow some black and some red-and-white off by themselves. Got to keep 'em apart and don't let no other corn near 'em. Do like that, and you can grow more seed next year for the year after."

"I understand." He held his hand closer to the lantern, seeing in the mingled grains waving green fields, sleek horses both black and white, and fat red cattle.

The husband retrieved the seed ear. "We're goin' out now."

"All right." Carefully depositing the twelve grains of corn in a pocket, he helped the husband close the big door.

"Wolves come in closer, darkdays," the husband said almost conversationally. "Kill my sheep. Not many left."

He said, "I'm sorry to hear that," and meant it.

"Got two dogs watchin' them. Good dogs. Kick up a fuss if there's wolves around, but I don't hear 'em. Now this Silk."

It had come too suddenly. "Yes. Yes-Silk."

"He was their head man down in the city."

"Calde. Yes, he was."

"He was good out here. Got my slug gun off him. Years ago it was. Still got it, and three shells I'm savin'. He's not there no more. City people run him out."

"I see. Do you know where he went? Please-this is very important to me."

"Nope." The husband set the lantern on the ground between them. "He was head man a long time. Had a wife. Pretty woman's what I heard."

"Yes, she was. Beautiful."

"Whore, too. That's what they said. That why you want to find him?"

"No, I want him. I want to take him to New Viron, as I saidand Hyacinth too, if she'll come. Don't you have any idea where they are?"

The husband shook his head.

"I'm sure you'd tell me if you knew. You and your wife have been extremely kind to me. Is there anything that I can for you in return? Some sort of work I could do?"

The husband said nothing, standing in silence with legs slightly separated. His heavy, knobbed staff, grasped in his right hand at the balance, tapped the thickly callused palm of his left. The odors of coffee and frying bacon diffused from the open window of the kitchen, tantalizing them both.

"You want me to leave."

The husband nodded. "Go. Go or fight, old man. You got your stick. I got mine, and I'm tellin' you. You goin'?"

"Yes, I am." He held up the dead branch he had picked up the night before and flexed it between his hands. "I certainly won't fight you-it would be the height of ingratitude, and I've offered to leave several times already. I would greatly prefer to leave in friendship."

"Get!"

"I see. Then I must tell you something. I could defeat you with this, and beat you with it afterward if I chose. I won't-but I could."

The husband took a measured step toward him. "It'd break, and you're older than me."

"Yes, I suppose I am. But this stick wouldn't break, not the way I'd use it. And if you really believe the difference in our ages would give me an insurmountable handicap, it is base-very base-of you to threaten me."

When the better part of a minute had passed, he took a step backward. "Thank your wife for me, please; she was kind to a stranger in need. So were you. Tell her, if you will, that I left of my own accord, having no wish to deplete your meager store of food."

He turned to go.

He could not have said afterward whether he had heard the blow or merely known that it would come. He swayed to his right. Whistling down, the knobbed head scraped his arm and bruised the side of his knee. He pivoted as it struck the ground beside his left foot, pinned it with his foot, thrust his bloodstained stick into the husband's face and threw it aside. Half a second and the knobbed staff was in his hands. A quick, measured blow knocked the husband flat. Another put out the lantern.

Once he turned back to look at the lighted windows of the farmhouse he was leaving; but only once.

"Need practice!" exclaimed a man older than himself who popped unbidden into his mind. "Ruins you, fighting! Spoils your technique!"

He had white whiskers and jumped about in an alarming way, but his thrusts and cuts were as precise as a surgeon's with lancet and scalpel, and incomparably faster.

I can't practice now, Master Xiphias. I need this to feel my way along.

That had been the old man's name. He repeated it under his breath, then said more loudly, "Xiphias. Master Xiphias."

Some distance away, a bird called, "Silk? Silk?"-its hoarse cry shaped by chance or, as was more probable, his own mind, into the familiar name.

"Yes," he said aloud. "Silk. Patera Silk. And old Patera Pike, who must have been eighty. Also the sibyls, Maytera Rose, Maytera Marble, and General Mint."

The whorl had turned upside down, and suddenly-ever so suddenly-there had been Patera Quetzal, Patera Gulo, and Patera Incus; and Auk and Chenille, Hammerstone, Mucor, Willet, the lovely Hyacinth, and dozens of others. Running and shooting for Maytera Mint, who had continued to wear her sibyl's black bombazine gown, with a needler and an azoth in the big side pockets in which she had carried chalk.

Ginger's hand blown off, and Maytera Marble's cut off. "My mind's slipping," he confided aloud; it was comforting to hear a human voice, even if it was only his own. This rutted, grassless ground on which he walked was probably a road, a road going whoknew-where.

"It's like that first book Nettle tried to sew, the thread has broken and the pages have fallen out. They are gone now-all gone, except for Nettle and me. And Maytera, out there on her rock with Mucor, Marrow, and a few others. Old classmates. Sisters and brothers."

Calf, Tongue, and Tallow had wanted help from him, a great deal of help that his mother had urged him to provide, when he and Nettle had nothing to eat. It was a bitter memory, one that he counseled himself to forget.

"Got to practice!" That was Xiphias in the Blue Room.

How can I get to be a good swordsman, sir? I don't have anybody to practice with.

The sword out at once and pushed into his hand. Xiphias's old, veined hands (still astonishingly strong) positioning him before a pier glass. "See him? Fight him! Good as you are, every bit! Up point, and guard! Parry! Hilt, boy! Use the hilt! Think you've got it?"

He had said yes and thought no. Now he halted, making quartering cuts with the lighter end of the knobbed staff and parrying each the moment that he made it.

"Not so bad," he muttered. "Better than I did down on Green, though that sword was a better weapon."

"No cut," a harsh voice overhead advised. Startled, he terminated his practice; and something large, light, and swift lit upon his shoulder. "Bird back!"

"Oreb, is that you?"

"Good Silk."

"It can't be! By Bright Pas's four eyes, I wish I could see you."

"Bird see."

"I know you do, but that's not much help to me. Not unless something's lying in wait for us like the convicts did for Auk. Is there anything of that kind?"

"No, no."

"Armed men? Or wolves?"

"No man. No wolf."

He recalled the new word that the husband had used. "What about godlings, Oreb? Can you see any of those?"

The bird fluttered, his beak clacking nervously.

"You see those. You must. Are they close by?"

"No close."

"I'd ask you what they are, if I thought there was any hope of getting a sensible answer out of you."

"No talk."

"It's unlucky to speak of them? Is that what you mean?"

A hoarse croak.

"I'll take that for a yes, and take your advice, too-for the time being at least. Are you really Oreb? The Oreb who used to belong to Patera Silk?"

"Good bird!"

"You're a good talker at any rate, just as Oreb was. Did he teach you? That's what I heard long ago about you night choughs, that when one of you learns a new word he teaches the rest."

"Man come."

"Toward us?" He sought to peer ahead into the darkness, but might as effectively have peered into a barrel of tar. Recalling the husband's slug gun and three remaining shells, he turned to look behind him; the darkness there was equally impenetrable.

He faced about again. "Now, Oreb, I want to keep going the way I was before I turned around. Am I headed right?" He tapped the ground before him with the staff as he spoke.

"Good. Good."

"There isn't a pit at my feet, by any chance? Or a tree that I'm about to knock my head against?"

"Road go."

"And so will I." He stepped forward confidently, cutting and thrusting as he walked-and seemed to hear the staff that slashed the air tapping the roadway still. Stopping, he called, "Hello!"

A distant voice answered, "Heard me, did yer?"

"Yes. Yes, I did. I heard your stick."

The methodical tapping continued, but there was no further reply.

Under his breath he asked, "Can you see him, Oreb?"

"Bird see."

"That's the way. Keep your voice down. One man alone?"

"Big man. No men."

"Does he have a slug gun, or anything of that nature?"

"No see."

Deep and rough and somewhat nearer now, the distant voice said, "Dinna have such. Yer neither, bucky."

"You're right," he said. There was a faint, metallic rattle, and he added, "What was that?"

"Yer got gude h'ears."

"Tolerably so."

Nearer still. "How's yer een, bucky?"

"My eyes?"

Oreb muttered, "Man big. Watch out."

"Ho! Won't hurt him." The roughness of the approaching voice suggested a second night chough hopping along the road, its depth a huge bird as tall as a man.

"I heard something that sounded almost like the sling swivels of slug gun."

"Did yet, bucky?" A second rattle followed the final word.

"Yes," he said. "What is it?"

"How's yer een?"

"My vision, is that what you mean? Good enough." Recalling the spectacles he had found in his pocket, he added, "A little worse than most, perhaps, for reading."

"For readin', bucky?" The rough voice was close now. "Yer can read." A deep chuckle. "H'only ther wind's blowed yer candle h'out." Wind rhymed with fiend in the stranger's mouth.

"You're not from Viron, I take it."

"Nae from naewhere." The chuckle came again, followed by the rattle.

"I believe I recognized that sound this time-a sword blade in a brass scabbard. Am I correct?"

"Smack h'on, bucky."

Something-hard leather-touched his fingers, and he was reminded again of Xiphias's pressing the sword upon him, although the hand that gripped his arm was far larger than Xiphias's had been.

"Want ter feel a' her?"

"Yes, I do. May I draw it?" His hands had found the throat of the scabbard, a throat that was covered with leather too, like the rudimentary guard and the rest of the hilt.

"Canna see me whin, can yet, bucky?"

"No. But I'll be able to-to weigh it in my hand, without the scabbard. I needn't, if you'd prefer I wouldn't."

"Yer a h'officer, bucky?"

"A military officer, you mean? No. Nothing of the sort."

"Yer talks like such. Aye, pluck."

The blade hissed from the scabbard, heavier than the knobbed staff and nearly as long. He made a few cuts, ran his fingers gingerly over the flat, then wiped it on the sleeve of his tunic.

"Got h'it h'off a dead coof," the rough voice confided. "He dinna want h'it nae mair."

"But you do, I'm sure." He sheathed it again and held it out, touching something large and solid: leather again, soft old canvas, and cool metal that seemed to be a belt buckle nearly as high as his chin.

" 'Tis me." Taking back the sword, the stranger's outsized hands brushed his. "Want ter feel a' me clock?"

"Watch out!" Oreb fidgeted apprehensively on his shoulder.

"No," he told the stranger. "Certainly not."

"Craw, ain't h'it? Thought 'twas a man. H'on me hunkers sae yer can reach. Have yer feel, bucky." His left wrist was caught between fingers as thick and hard as the staff, and guided toward a mat of coarse hair. He was conscious of a faint reek of sour sweat.

"You have a beard," he said. "So do I." The nose was wide and prominent, the cheekbones high and gaunt, framed in shaggy hair that fell to the stranger's shoulders.

"Took me rag h'off." His hand was freed, then caught again. "Here's me e'e. Stick in yer finger."

"I'd rather not," he said; two fingers were forced into the empty socket nevertheless.

"H'other's ther same. Feel a' her?"

He was forced to. "You're blind," he said. "I-I know how banal it sounds, but I'm sorry."

"Wait till me rag's back h'on," the stranger rumbled. "Want ter feel a' yern. Got ter, an' yer ken why. Yer get a notion a' me clock?"

"Yes," he said, afraid that he would be forced to touch the stranger's face again. "I should warn you, though, that Oreb doesn't like being held. He'll probably fly if you attempt it."

Oreb contradicted him. "Touch bird!"

"Dinna think he never did, not nae live 'un."

"Touch bird!"

"Seen lots, 'fore me een was took. H'oreb's his name?"

"It's what I call him, at least. A friend I had long ago-the friend for whom I'm searching-had a pet night chough he called that. I'm afraid I've given this one the same name to save the trouble of thinking of a new one." He felt Oreb leave his shoulder and added, "He's going to you, I think."

"Lit h'on me whin. A fin'er, H'oreb, an' speak h'up h'if h'it pains yer."

"No hurt."

He felt a pang of jealousy that he quickly suppressed. "I've already introduced Oreb, so I ought to introduce myself as well. My name is Horn."

"Horn. An' H'oreb."

"Yes," he said, and felt Oreb return to his shoulder.

"What would yer say me h'own name might be, bucky?"

"Your name? I just met you. I have no idea."

The tapping resumed. "We might's well walk Was talk. Never heard nae name like Horn. Nor H'oreb neither."

"It means raven," he explained as he strode after the steady tapping of the stranger's sword. "It's from the Chrasmologic Writings. Calde Silk, the friend I spoke of, was an augur."

"H'oreb. Horn. Silk. Common names, like? Maybe me h'own might be Cotton, here."

"Why no, that's a woman's name." He felt vague frustration. "Surely it would be better if we called you as your mother did."

" 'Twas Freak, mostly."

"I see-understand, I mean. No doubt you're right; it would be better if you had a new name among us."

"Aye."

"You asked whether Oreb, Horn, and Silk were common names. Oreb is very unusual-I've never known a man with that name. Silk is fairly unusual, too, although certainly not unheard-of. Horn is common enough."

"Huh!"

"Here in Viron, men are named after animals or parts of animals. Silk is a male name, just as Milk is, because Silk comes from an animal, the silkworm. Addax, Alpaca, and Antbear are all common names. Do you like any of those?"

"H'ox fer me, maybe. Might do. H'or Bull. What h'about 'em, bucky?"

He smiled. "People would think we were related, but I've no objection to that."

"Gie me some mair."

"Well, let me see. Silk had a friend named Auk. An auk is a kind of water bird, as you probably know."

"Me h'own could be H'owl, maybe. Blind Was a h'owl by daylight, dinna they say?"

"Yes, it could, if you wish it; also there are the various kinds of owls-Hawkowl, for example. I was about to say that Auk had a friend named Gib. A gib is a tomcat, so that's a male name, too. Gib was a large and powerful man, as you are."

"Pig," the stranger rumbled.

"Good name!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Said me name's Pig, bucky. H'oreb, he likes h'it. Dinna yer, H'oreb?"

"Like Pig!"

Pig laughed deep in his chest, clearly pleased. "Never heard a' nae blind pig, bucky?"

"I don't think so, but I suppose there must be some."

"Have ter have a new name when me een's found. H'eagle, h'it could be, h'or Hawk."

"Did you say something about finding eyes?" He was startled.

"Aye. Why Pig come, bucky, doon h'out a' ther light lands. Have een ter gie h'in this Viron, bucky? Een fer me? 'Tis ther muckle place hereabouts? Yer talk like h'it."

"Yes, Viron's the city. It owns, or at least it controls, this land, and all the farms and villages for fifty leagues and more. But as to whether there is any physician in Viron skillful enough to restore your sight, I really have no way of knowing. I doubt that there was when I was here last, but that was about twenty years ago."

Pig seemed not to have heard. "Dinna drink nae mair."

"I seldom do myself. A little wine, occasionally. But I wanted to say that this is an extraordinary coincidence. You're looking for eyes, as you put it. Because I'm looking for eyes also. For one at-"

Pig had caught his shoulder, causing Oreb to flee with a terrified squawk. "Had een, yer said." Questing thumbs found them and pressed gently. "Read, yer said."

"Yes, sometimes. Not lately."

"Gude een, yer got." Fingers and thumbs traversed his cheeks, found the corners of his mouth and the point of his chin under his beard. "Snog clock, bucky. Liked ther girls, dinna yer? When yer was younger?"

"Only one, actually."

The tapping of the leather-covered brass scabbard resumed. "Them that can winna, an' 'em that wad canna. 'Tis a hard grind fer ther h'axe, bucky."

"A hard life, you mean. Yes, it is."

"Een noo. Yer lookin' fer een, yer said."

"Eyes for a chem. I have a friend-a chem who was a co-worker when I was younger-who's gone blind."

"Like auld Pig."

"Yes, precisely, except that she's a chem. Her name is Maytera Marble, and before I left Blue I promised I would find new eyes for her if I could. She gave me one of her old ones to use as a pattern, but I no longer have it."

"Yer lost it?"

"Not exactly. I was forced to leave it behind. I remember how it looked, however, or at least I believe I do; and I'd like very much to find replacements, if I can. Maytera was my teacher when I was a child, you see. I mean-"

"No talk!"

"Dinna fash auld Pig, H'oreb. Bucky, would yer make mock a' me fer h'offerin' me fin'ers ter help yer look?"

"Certainly not."

"Dinna think h'it. Yer nae ther kind. Yer lookin' fer a mon, yer said. Silk's ther name?"

"Yes, Calde Silk. Or Patera Silk. I intend to find him, and to bring him to Blue. That's what I swore to accomplish, and I will not break my oath."

"Ho, aye. An' Silk's cauld?"

"Dead? Then I'll find new eyes for Maytera Marble and return home, if I can."

There was a silence.

"Pig? Is that what you want me to call you?"

"Aye."

"Pig, would you mind if I walked closer to you? If-if I touched you, sometimes, as I walked?"

"Shuttin' yer h'in, h'is h'it? Touch Nall yer want."

"The darkness. This dark. Yes. Yes it is."

"Like dark!"

"I know you do, Oreb. But I don't. Not this, particularly. At home-on Blue, I mean. May I talk about the way it feels, Pig? I certainly don't mean to be offensive, but I believe it might make me feel better."

"Blue's h'outside, bucky?"

"Yes. Yes, it is. It has a-the Short Sun. A round gold sun that walks across the sky during the course of the day, and vanishes into the sea at shadelow. At shadeup it reappears in the mountains and climbs up the sky like a man climbing a hill of blue glass. But before it begins to climb, there's a silent shout-"

Pig chuckled, the good-humored rumble of men rolling empty barrels.

"It's a silly phrase, I realize; but I don't know another way to express it. It's as though the whole whorl, the whorl that we call Blue and say we own, were welcoming the Short Sun with tumultuous joy. I'm making myself ridiculous, I know."

Pig's hand, twice the size of his own, found his shoulder. "Dinna naebody but yer hear what dinna make nae noise, bucky?"

He did not answer.

"Partners?"

"Surely. Partners, if you don't object to having a fool for a partner."

"Yer misses yer Short Sun."

"I do. It would be a relief, a very great relief to me, to see a light of any kind. A lantern, say. Or a candle. But most of all, the sun. Daylight."

"Aye."

"You must feel the same way. I should have realized it sooner. And if we were to encounter someone with a lantern, I would see it and see him. Even now, even in this terrible darkness, I remain singularly blessed. I should pray, Pig, and I should have thought of that much sooner."

Far away, a wolf howled.

"Yer got 'em h'on yer whorl?" Pig inquired.

"Yes, we do. Ordinary wolves, such as you have here, and fel- wolves, too, which have eight legs and are much larger and more dangerous. But, Pig…"

"H'out wi' h'it."

"That whorl, Blue, had people living upon it long before we came-people who may still be there, some of them at least. One seldom sees them. Most of us never have, and we call them the Vanished People, or the Neighbors, and children are taught that they're wholly legendary; but I've seen them more than once, and even spoken with them. I don't believe I will again, because I've lost something-a silver ring with a white stone-that was left behind with Maytera Marble's eye."

"Huh! "

"But once when I did-when I spoke with the Neighbors-I asked what they had called the whorl we call Blue, what their name for it had been. And they said, `Ours.' "

"No cry!"

"I'm sorry, Oreb." He tried to dry his eyes on the sleeve of his tunic, then clamped the knobbed staff beneath his arm to search himself for a handkerchief. Pig's elbow brushed his ear, and he cor rected his position slightly and began to tap the roadway before him as Pig was.

"When Pig had een," Pig rumbled, "Pig dinna never have nae thin' ter look fer. Dinna tell yer sae?"

"No. Tell me now." He had recalled the bloody tatters of the handkerchief that the woman had discarded in the farmhouse kitchen, and was dabbing at his own eyes with his sleeve once more. (Remora spoke in the recesses of his mind. "No, um, place of permanence for us, eh? For we mortals, no-ah-possessions. Own it, eh? But in time, hey? Another's, and another's. Do you take my meaning, Horn? We've nothing but the gods, in the, um, make a final reckoning.")

"Muckle lasses, prog an' grog." Pig mused not far away, less visible than Remora in the dark. "Nae thin' h'else ter look fer, an' thought h'it livin'."

"No talk."

"Ho, Pig can bake h'it, H'oreb, an' yer can take h'it."

"No talk. Thing hear."

"Somethin' ter hear? What's fashin' him, bucky?"

He had already stopped to listen, his head cocked, both hands grasping the knobbed staff. No wind had blown, or so it seemed to him, since he had been returned to the Long Sun Whorl; but a wind touched both his cheeks, warm and moist and fetid. Hoping Pig could hear him, he whispered, "Something's listening to us or for us, I believe."

"Huh!"

"Where is it, Oreb?"

From his shoulder, Oreb muttered, "Bird see."

"Yes, I know you see it. But where is it?"

"Bird see," Oreb repeated. " 'Bye, Silk."

Feathers brushed the side of his head as Oreb spread his wings. Clawed feet pushed against his shoulder, those wings beat loudly, and Oreb was gone.

Pig said, "Yer corbie's right, bucky. 'Tis a godlin'. Pig winds h'it. H'in ther road h'up h'ahead, most like."

Something hard tapped his shin, and Pig's hand clasped his shoulder, feeling as big as his father's when he himself had been a small child-a sudden, poignant memory. That big hand drew him to one side. At his ear, Pig's hoarse voice muttered, "'Ware ditch, bucky."

It was shallow and dry, although he might easily have been tripped by it if he had not been warned. A twig kissed his hand; he forced himself to close his eyes, although those eyes wanted very badly to stare out uselessly at the utter darkness that wrapped him and them. "Pig?" he breathed; then somewhat more loudly, "Pig?"

"Aye."

"What are they?"

There was no reply, only the big hand drawing him deeper among whispering leaves.

"Oreb wouldn't tell me. What is a godling?"

"Hush." Pig had halted. "Hark." The hand drew him forward again, and for an interval that seemed to him very long indeed, he heard nothing save the occasional snap of a twig. Trees or bushes surrounded them, he felt sure, and from time to time his questing staff encountered a limb or trunk, or some motion of Pig's evoked the soft speech of foliage.

A faint and liquid music succeeded it, waking his tongue and lips to thirst. He hurried forward through the blackness, drawing the towering Pig after him until gravel crunched beneath their feet and he sensed that the water he heard was before him. He knelt, and felt a gracious coolness seep through the knees of his trousers, bent and splashed his face, and tasted the water, finding it cool and sweet. He swallowed and swallowed again.

"It's good," he began. "I'd say-"

Pig's span-across hand tightened upon his arm, and he realized that Pig was drinking already, sucking and gulping the water noisily, in fact.

He drank more, then explored the stream with his fingers, trying to keep their movements gentle so as not to stir up mud. "It's not wide," he whispered. "We could step across it easily, I believe."

"Aye." There was a hint of fear in the deep, rough voice.

"But the godling-whatever that is-shouldn't be able to hear us as long as we remain here. Or so I think. The noise of the water should cover the sound of our voices."

He bent and drank again. "I pumped water for a woman who had bandaged my wrists not long ago. It was good, cold well water, I believe, and I almost asked her for a glass. But we were about to eat so I thought, at least-and I told myself I wasn't really so thirsty as all that. I must learn to drink when I have the opportunity."

He recalled Pig's chance remark about drinking, and added, "Drink water, I should say. I thought I had learned that on Green, where there was rarely any water that was safe to drink except for what certain leaves caught when it rained."

"Bird find," a harsher voice even than Pig's announced.

"Oreb, is that you? It must be. What have you found?"

"Find thing. Thing hear."

"Did you? Good. Where is it?"

"No show."

"I don't want you to show it to me, Oreb, and I couldn't see it if you did. I want you to tell me how to avoid it. We were going to Viron, or at least I certainly hope we were. Is this thing, this godling, standing in the road waiting for us?"

"No stand. Thing sit."

"But it's in the road? Or sitting beside it?"

"On bridge."

Pig broke in. "H'oreb, me an' Horn's partners. You an' me, H'oreb, why, we're partners ter, h'ain't we? Yer Wallow such?"

"Good man!"

"Not too loudly, please, Oreb." He drank again.

"So, H'oreb, Pig needs yer ter tell where we're h'at. Will yer? 'Tis h'another road, wi' this trickle across?"

"No road."

"A medder, H'oreb? Might find coos hereabouts, would yer say?"

"No cow."

"Huh!" Pig sounded impatient. "How can Pig get him ter tell, bucky? Yer know him."

Oreb answered for himself. "Say woods."

"'Tis where we h'are, H'oreb? H'in a wood? Canna be."

"In woods," Oreb insisted. "Silk say."

"My name is Horn, Oreb-I've told you so. I believe he's correct, Pig. We're in a wood, perhaps on the edge of a forest." He paused to search his memory. "There was an extensive forest north of Viron when I lived there. A man named Blood had a villa in it, as did various other rich men. This may well be the same forest."

"Felt yer trees h'all 'round, bucky. Could nae touch 'em, an' such could nae touch me, h'or would nae."

"No doubt they're large trees, widely separated."

"Ho, aye." Pig's rough voice contrived to pack an immense skepticism into the two words. "Big trees hereabouts, H'oreb?"

"No big."

"Not close, they be? Ane here an' h'other h'over yon?"

"All touch."

"H'oreb can tell where they're h'at an' where they hain't. Do yer h'object ter lendin' him h'out, bucky?"

He rose. "I suggest we follow this stream instead. Streams frequently go somewhere, in my experience. Are you coming?"

"Bird come. Go Silk." Oreb settled upon his shoulder.

"Pig ter, H'oreb. We'll gae h'along wi' Horn."

He heard the big man's knees crack, and said, "Then let us go in silence, if you won't tell me about the godlings."

"Dinna hae naethin' ter tell yer, bucky. 'Struth. Pas sends such ter make folk gae ter yer h'outside places."

For some time after that they walked on without speaking. Now and then the tip of the knobbed staff splashed water; now and then the end of the leather-covered brass scabbard rapped softly against a trunk or a limb; but for the most part there was silence, save for the rasp and rattle of gravel beneath their feet and an occasional warning uttered sotto voce by Oreb, who at length offered, "No see."

"The godling, Oreb? Are you saying you no longer see it?"

"No see," Oreb repeated. "Thing watch. No watch."

Oreb's voice had sounded strangely hollow. The tip of the knobbed staff, exploring left and right, rapped stone. "We're in a tunnel of some sort."

"Aye, bucky." Those words reverberated slightly as well.

He stared into the darkness, half convinced he could make out a lofty semicircle of lighter black before them. "There are tunnels everywhere, do you know about them, Pig? Tunnels of unimaginable length and complexity underlying the entire Long Sun Whorl."

"Huh." Nearby in the darkness, Pig's softly re-echoing voice sounded understandably doubtful.

"I was in them long ago. One must pass through them to reach the landers, which are just below the outside surface. The first Oreb was down there as well, with Auk and Chenille."

"Bad hole!"

"Exactly. But I certainly hope you're right when you say the godling can't see us in here."

"Dinna harm folk," Pig muttered, "h'or nae h'often."

"We may be in those tunnels. If so, we're approaching a cavern such as the sleepers were in. Look up ahead. I can see something there, I swear." Without waiting for Pig, he hurried forward-then halted, stunned with wonder and terror.

To the north and south, the skylands spread in splendor far greater than he recalled. Against their magnificent display, above the bridge under which he had passed, he saw silhouetted shoulders like two hills, a smooth, domed head that might have filled the farm woman's kitchen and sundered all four walls, and bestial, pointed ears.