Calde of the Long Sun

Chapter 2 -- Silk's Back!

"It would be better," Maytera Marble murmured to Maytera Mint,

"if you did it, sib."

Maytera Mint's small mouth fell open, then firmly closed.

Obedience meant obeying, as she had told herself thousands of times;

obedience was more than setting the table or fetching a plate of

cookies. "If you wish it, Maytera. High Hierax knows I have no

voice, but I suppose I must."

Maytera Marble sighed to herself with satisfaction, a hish from

the speaker behind her lips so soft that no ears but hers could hear it.

Maytera Mint stood, her cheeks aflame already, and studied the

congregation. Half or more were certainly thieves; briefly she

wondered whether even the images of the gods were safe.

She mounted the steps to the ambion, acutely conscious of the

murmur of talk filling the manteion and the steady drum of rain on

its roof; for the first time since early spring, fresh smelling rain was

stabbing through the god gate to spatter the blackened altartop--though

there was less now than there had been earlier.

Molpe, she prayed, Marvelous Molpe, for once let me have a

voice. "Some--" Deep breath. "Some of you do not know me..."

Few so much as looked at her, and it was apparent that those who

did could not hear her. How ashamed that gallant captain who had

showed her his sword would be of her now!

Please Kypris! Sabered Sphigx, great goddess of war .

There was a strange swelling beneath her ribs; through her mind a

swirl of sounds she had never heard and sights she had not seen: the

rumbling hoofbeats of cavalry and the booming of big guns. the

terrifying roars of Sphigx's lions, the silver voices of trumpets, and

the sharp crotaline clatter of a buzz gun. A woman with a bloodstained

rag about her head steadied the line: _Form up! Form Up!

Forward now! Forward! Follow me!_

With a wide gesture, little Maytera Mint drew a sword not even

she could see. "_Fr_iends!" Her voice broke in the middle of the word.

Louder, girl! Shake these rafters!

"Friends, some of you don't know who I am. I am Maytera Mint, a.

sibyl of this manteion." She swept the congregation with her eyes,

and saw Maytera Marble applauding silently; the babble of several

hundred voices had stilled altogether.

"The laws of the Chapter permit sacrifice by a sibyl when no augur

is present. Regrettably, that is the case today at our manteion. Few

of you, we realize, will wish to remain. There is another manteion

on Hat Street, a manteion well loved by all the gods, I'm sure,

where a holy augur is preparing to sacrifice as I speak. Toward the

market, and turn left. It's not far."

She waited hopefully, listening to the pattering rain; but not one

of the five hundred or so lucky enough to have seats stood, and none

of the several hundred standers in the aisles turned to go.

"Patera Silk did not return to the manse last night. As many of you

know, Guardsmen came here to arrest him&151"

The angry mutter from her listeners was like the growl of some

enormous beast.

"That was yesterday, when Kind Kypris, in whose debt we shall

always be, honored us for a second time. All of us feel certain that

there has been a foolish enor. But until Patera Silk comes back, we

can only assume that he is under arrest. Patera Cub, the worthy

augur His Cognizance the Prolocutor sent to assist Patera Silk,

seems to have left the manse early this morning, no doubt in the

hope of freeing him."

Maytera Mint paused, her fingers nervously exploring the

chipped stone of the ancient ambion, and glanced down at the

attentive worshipers crouched on the floor in front of the foremost

bench, and at the patchy curtain of watching faces that filled the

narthex arch.

"Thus the duty of sacrifice devolves upon Maytera Marble and

me. There are dozens of victims today. There is even an unspotted

white bull for Great Pas, such a sacrifice as the Grand Manteion

cannot often see." She paused again to listen to the rain, and for a

glance at the altar.

"Before we begin, I have other news to give you, and most

particularly to those among you who have come to honor the gods

not only today but on Scylsday every week for years. Many of you

will be saddened by what I tell you, but it is joyful news.

"Our beloved Maytera Rose has gone to the gods. in whose

service she spent her long life. For reasons we deem good and

proper, we have chosen not to display her mortal remains. That is

her casket there, in front of the altar.

"We may be certain that the immortal gods are aware of her

exemplary piety. I have heard it said that she was the oldest

biochemical person in this quarter, and it may well have been true.

She belonged to the last of those fortunate generations for which

prosthetic devices remained, devices whose principles are lost even

to our wisest. They sustained her life beyond the lives of the

children of many she had taught as children, but they could not

sustain it indefinitely. Nor would she have wished them to. Yester

day they failed at last, and our beloved sib was freed from the

sufferings that old age had brought her, and the toil that was her

only solace."

Some men standing in the aisles were opening the windows there;

little rain if any seemed to be blowing in. The storm was over,

Maytera Mint decided, or nearly over.

"So our sacrifice this morning is not merely that which we offer to

the undying gods each day at this time if a victim is granted us. It is

our dear Maytera Rose's last sacrifice, by which I mean that it is not

just that of the white bull and the other beasts outside, but the

sacrifice of Maytera herself.

"Sacrifices are of two kinds. In the first, we send a gift. In the

second, we share a meal. Thus my dear sib and I dare hope it will

not shock you when I tell you that my dear sib has taken for her use

some of the marvelous devices that sustained our beloved Maytera

Rose. Even if we were disposed to forget her, as I assure you we are

not, we could never do so now. They will remind us both of her life

of service. Though I know that her spirit treads the Aureate Path, I

shall always feel that something of her lives on in my sib."

Now, or never.

"We are delighted that so many of you have come to honor her, as

it is only right you should. But there are many more outside, men

and women, children too, who would honor her if they could, but

were unable to find places in our manteion. It seems a shame, for

her sake and for the gods' as well.

"There is an expedient, as some of you must stirely know, that can

be adopted on such occasions as this. It is to move the casket, the

altar, and the Sacred Window itself out into the street temporarily."

They would lose their precious seats. She half expected them to

riot, but they did not.

She was about to say, "I propose--" but caught herself in time; the

decision was hers, the responsibility for it and its execution hers.

"That is what we will do today." The thick, leather-bound Chrasmologic

Writings lay on the ambion before her; she picked it up.

"Horn? Horn, are you here?"

He waved his hand, then stood so she could see him.

"Horn was one of Maytera's students. Horn, I want you to choose

five other boys to help you with her casket. The altar and the Sacred

Window are both very heavy, I imagine. We will need volunteers to

move those."

Inspiration struck. "Only the very strongest men, please. Will

twenty or thirty of the strongest men present please come forward?

My sib and I will direct you."

Their rush nearly overwhelmed her. Half a minute later, the altar

was afloat upon a surging stream of hands and arms, bobbing and

rocking like a box in the lake as a human current bore it down the

aisle toward the door.

The Sacred Window was more difficult, not because it was

heavier, but because the three-hundred-year-old clamps that held it

to the sanctuary floor had rusted shut and bad to be hammered. Its

sacred cables trailed behind it as it, too, was carried out the door, at

times spitting the crackling violet fire that vouched for the immanent

presence of divinity.

"You did wonderfully, sib. Just wonderfully!" Maytera Marble had

followed Maytera Mint out of the manteion; now she laid a hand

upon her shoulder. "Taking everything outside for a viaggiatory!

However did you think of it?"

"I don't know. It was just that they were still in the street, most of

them, and we were in there. And we couldnn't let them in as we

usually do. Besides," Maytera Mint smiled impishly, "think of all the

blood, sib. It would've taken us days to clean up the manteion

afterward."

There were far too many victims to pen in Maytera Marble's little

garden. Their presenters had been told very firmly that they would

have to hold them until it was time to lead them in, with the result

that Sun Street looked rather like the beast-sellers quarter in the

market. How many would be here, Maytera Mint wondered, if it

hadn't been for the rain? She shuddered. As it was, the victims and

their presenters looked soaked but cheerful, steaming in the sunshine

of Sun Street.

"You're going to need something to stand on," Maytera Marble

warned her, "or they'll never hear you."

"Why not here on the steps?" Maytera Mint inquired.

"Friends..." To her own ears, her voice sounded weaker than

ever here in the open air; she tried to imagine herself a trumpeter1

then a trumpet. "Friends! I won't repeat what I said inside. This is

Maytera Rose's last sacrifice. I know that she knows what you've

done for her, and is glad.

"Now my sib and her helpers are going to build a sacred fire on the

altar. We will need a big one today--"

They cheered, surprising her.

"We'll need a big one, and some of the wood will be wet. But the

whole sky is going to be our god gate this afternoon, letting in Lord

Pas's fire from the sun."

Like so many brightly-colored ants, a straggling line of little girls

had already begun to carry pieces of split cedar to the altar, where

Maytera Marble broke the smallest pieces.

"It is Patera Silk's custom to consult the Writings before sacrificing.

Let us do so too." Maytera Mint held up the book and opened it at random.

Whatever it is we are, it is a little flesh, breath, and the ruiing

part. As if you were dying, despise the flesh; it is blood, bones, and

network, a tissue of nerves and veins. See the breath also, what

kind of thing it is: air, and never the same, but at every moment sent

Out and drawn in. The third is the ruling part. No longer let this part

be enslaved, no longer let it be pulled by its strings like a

marionette. No longer complain of your lot, nor shrink from the future.

"Patera Silk has told us often that each passage in the Writings

holds two meanings at least." The words slipped out before she

realized that she could see only one in this one. Her mind groped

frantically for a second interpretation.

"The first seems so clear that I feel foolish explaining it, though it

is my duty to explain it. All of you have seen it already, I'm sure. A

part, two parts as the Chrasmologic writer would have it, of our dear

Maytera Rose has perished. We must not forget that it was the baser

part, the part that neither she nor we had reason to value. The

better part, the part beloved by the gods and by us who knew her,

will never perish. This, then, is the message for those who mourn

her. For my dear sib and me, particularly."

Help me! Hierax, Kypris, Sphigx, please help!

She had touched the sword of the officer who had come to arrest

Silk; her hand itched for it, and something deep within her, denied

until this moment, scanned the crowd.

"I see a man with a sword." She did not, but there were scores of

such men. "A fine one. Will you come forward, sir? Will you lend

me your sword? It will be for only a moment."

A swaggering bully who presumably believed that she had been

addressing him shouldered a path through the crowd. It was a

hunting sword, almost certainly stolen, with a shell guard, a stag

grip, and a sweeping double-edged blade.

"Thank you." She held it up, the polished steel dazzling in the hot

sunshine. "Today is Hieraxday. It is a fitting day for final rites. I

think it's a measure of the regard in which the gods held Maytera

Rose that her eyes were darkened on a Tarsday, and that her last

sacrifice takes place on Hieraxday. But what of us? Don't the

Writings speak to us, too? Isn't it Hieraxday for us, as well as for

Maytera? We know they do. We know it is.

"You see this sword?" The denied self spoke through her, so that

she--the little Maytera Mint who had, for so many years, thought

herself the only Maytera Mint--listened with as much amazement as

the crowd, as ignorant as they of what her next word might be. "You

carry these, many of you. And knives and needlers, and those little

lead clubs that nobody sees that strike so hard. And only Hierax

himself knows what else. But are you ready to pay the price?"

She brandished the hunting sword above her head. There was a

white stallion among the victims; a flash of the blade or some note in

her voice made him rear and paw the air, catching his presenter by

surprise and lifting him off his feet.

"For the price is death. Not death thirty or forty years from now,

but death now! Death today! These things say, _I will not cower to

you! Jam no slave, no ox to be led to the butcher! Wrong me, wrong

the gods, and you die! For I fear not death or you!_"

The roar of the crowd seemed to shake the street.

"So say the Writings to us, friends, at this manteion. That is the

second meaning." Maytera Mint returned the sword to its owner.

"Thank you, sir. It's a beautiful weapon."

He bowed. "It's yours anytime you need it, Maytera, and a hard

hand to hold it."

At the altar, Maytera Marble had poised the shallow bowl of

polished brass that caught falling light from the sun. A curl of smoke

arose from the splintered cedar, and as Maytera Mint watched, the

first pale, almost invisible flame.

Holding up her long skirt, she trotted down the steps to face the

Sacred Window with outstretched arms. "Accept, all you gods, the

sacrifice of this holy sibyl. Though our hearts are torn, we, her

siblings and her friends, consent. But speak to us, we beg, of times

to come, hers as well as ours. What are we to do? Your lightest word

will be treasured."

Maytera Mint's mind went blank--a dramatic pause until she

recalled the sense, though not the sanctioned wording, of the rest of

the invocation. "If it is not your will to speak. we consent to that,

too." Her arms fell to her sides.

From her place beside the altar, Maytera Marble signaled the first

presenter.

"This fine white he-goat is presented to..." Once again, Maytera

Mint's memory failed her.

"Kypris," Maytera Marble supplied.

To Kypris, of course. The first three sacrifices were all for Kypris.

who had electrified the city by her theophany on Scylsday. But what

was the name of the presenter?

Maytera Mint looked toward Maytera Marble, but Maytera

Marble was, strangely, waving to someone in the crowd.

"To Captivating Kypris, goddess of love, by her devout

supplicant--?"

"Bream," the presenter said.

"By her devout supplicant Bream." It had come at last, the

moment she had dreaded most of all. "Please, Maytera, if you'd do

it, please...?" But the sacrificial knife was in her hand, and

Maytera Marble raising the ancient wail, metal limbs slapping the

heavy bombazine of her habit as she danced.

He-goats were supposed to be contumacious, and this one had

long, curved horns that looked dangerous; yet it stood as quietly as

any sheep, regarding her through sleepy eyes. It had been a pet, no

doubt, or had been raised like one.

Maytera Marble knelt beside it, the earthenware chalice that had

been the best the manteion could afford beneath its neck.

I'll shut my eyes, Maytera Mint promised herself, and did not.

The blade slipped into the white goat's neck as easily as it might

have penetrated a bale of white straw. For one horrid moment the

goat stared at her, betrayed by the humans it had trusted all its life;

it bucked, spraying both sibyls with its lifeblood, stumbled, and

rolled onto its side.

"Beautiful," Maytera Marble whispered. "Why, Patera Pike

couldn't have done it better himself."

Maytera Mint whispered back, "I think I'm going to be sick," and

Maytera Marble rose to splash the contents of her chalice onto the

fire roaring on the altar, as Maytera Mint herself had so often.

The head first, with its impotent horns. Find the joint between the

skull and the spine, she reminded herself. Good though it was, the

knife could not cut bone.

Next the hooves, gay with gold paint. Faster! Faster! They would

be all afternoon at this rate; she wished that she had done more of

the cooking, though they had seldom had much meat to cut up. She

hissed, "You must take the next one, sib. Really, you must!"

"We can't change off now!"

She threw the last hoof into the fire, leaving the poor goat's legs

ragged, bloody stumps. Still grasping the knife, she faced the

Window as before. "Accept, O Kind Kypris, the sacrifice of this fine

goat. And speak to us, we beg, of the days that are to come. What

are we to do? Your lightest word will be treasured." She offered a

silent prayer to Kypris, a goddess who seemed to her since Scylsday

almost a larger self. "Should you, however, choose otherwise..."

She let her arms fall. "We consent. Speak to us, we beg, through

this sacrifice."

On Scylsday, the sacrifices at Orpine's funeral had been

ill-omened to say the least. Maytera Mint hoped fervently for better

indicants today as she slit the belly of the he-goat.

"Kypris blesses..." Louder. They were straining to hear her.

"Kypris blesses the spirit of our departed sib." She straightened up

and threw back her shoulders. "She assures us that such evil as

Maytera did has been forgiven her."

The goat's head bunt in the fire, scattering coals: a presage of

violence. Maytera Mint bent over the carcass once more, struggling

frantically to recall what litfie she knew of augury--remarks

dropped at odd moments by Patera Pike and Patera Silk, half-hearted

lessons at table from Maytera Rose, who had spoken as

much to disgust as to teach her.

The right side of the beast concerned the presenter and the augur

who presided, the giver and the performer of the sacrifice; the left

the congregation and the whole city. This red liver foretold deeds of

blood, and here among its tangled veins was a knife, indicating the

augur--though she was no augur--and pointing to a square, the

square stem of mint almost certainly, and the hilt of a sword. Was

she to die by the sword? No, the blade was away from her. She was

to hold the sword, but she had already done that, hadn't she?

In the entrails a fat little fish (a bream, presumably) and a jumble

of circular objects, necklaces or rings, perhaps. Certainly that

interpretation would be welcomed. They lay close to the bream, one

actually on top of it, so the time was very near. She mounted the

first two steps.

"For the presenter. The goddess favors you. She is well pleased

with your sacrifice." The goat had been a fine one, and presumably

Kypris would not have indicated wealth had she not been gratified.

"You will gain riches, jewels and gold particularly. within a short

time."

Grinning from ear to ear, Bream backed away.

"For all of us and for our city, violence and death, from which

good will come." She glanced down at the carcass, eager to be

certain of the sign of addition she had glimpsed there; but it had

gone, if it had ever existed. "That is all that I can see in this victim,

though a skilled augur such as Patera Silk could see much more, I'm

sure."

Her eyes searched the crowd around the altar for Bream. "The

presenter has first claim. If he wishes a share in this meal, let him

come forward."

Already the poor were struggling to get nearer the altar. Maytera

Marble whispered, "Burn the entrails and lungs, sib!"

It was wise and good and customary to cut small pieces when the

congregation was large, and there were two thousand in this one at

least; but there were scores of victims, too, and Maytera Mint had

little confidence in her own skill. She distributed haunches and

quarters, receiving delighted smiles in return.

Next a pair of white doves. Did you share out doves or burn them

whole? They were edible, but she remembered that Silk had burned

a black cock whole at Orpine's last sacrifice. Birds could be read,

although they seldom were. Wouldn't the giver be offended,

however, if she didn't read these?

"One shall be read and burned," she told him firmly. "The other

we will share with the goddess. Remain here if you would like it for

yourself."

He shook his head.

The doves fluttered desperately as their throats were cut.

A deep breath. "Accept, O Kind Kypris, the sacrifice of these fine

doves. And speak to us, we beg, of the times that are to come. What

are we to do? Your lightest word will be treasured." Had she really

killed those doves? She risked a peek at their lifeless bodies. "Should

you, however, choose otherwise..."

She let her arms fall, conscious that she was getting more blood

on her habit. "We consent. Speak to us, we beg, through this

sacrifice."

Scraping feathers, skin, and flesh from the first dove's right

shoulder blade, she scanned the fine lines that covered it. A bird

with outspread wings; no doubt the giver's name was Swan or

something of the sort, though she had forgotten it already. Here was

a fork on a platter. Would the goddess tell a man he was going to eat

dinner? Impossible! A minute drop of blood seemed to have seeped

out of the bone. "Plate gained by violence," she announced to the

presenter, "but if the goddess has a second message for me, I am too

ignorant to read it."

Maytera Marble whispered, "The next presenter will be my son,

Bloody."

Who was Bloody? Maytera Mint felt certain that she should

recognize the name. "The plate will be gained in conjunction with

the next presenter," she told the giver of the doves. "I hope the

goddess isn't saying you'll take from him."

Maytera Marble hissed, "He's bought this manteion, sib."

She nodded without comprehension. She felt hot and sick,

crushed by the scorching sunlight and the heat from the blaze on the

altar, and poisoned by the fumes of so much blood, as she bent to

consider the dove's left shoulder blade.

Linked rings, frequently interrupted.

"Many who are chained in our city shall be set free," she

announced, and threw the dove into the sacred fire, startling a little

girl bringing more cedar. An old woman was overjoyed to receive

the second dove.

The next presenter was a fleshy man nearing sixty; with him was a

handsome younger one who hardly came to his shoulder; the

younger man carried a cage containing two white rabbits. "For

Maytera Rose," the older man said. "This Kypris is for love, right?"

He wiped his sweating head with his handkerchief as he spoke,

releasing a heavy fragrance.

"She is the goddess of love, yes."

The younger man smirked, pushing the cage at Maytera Mint.

"Well, roses stand for love," the older man said, "I think these

should be all right.

Maytera Marble sniffed. "Victims in confinement cannot be

accepted. Bloody, have him open that and hand one to me."

The older man appeared startled.

Maytera Marble held up the rabbit, pulling its head back to bare

its throat. If there were a rule for rabbits, Maytera Mint had

forgotten it; "We'll treat these as we did the doves," she said as

firmly as she could.

The older man nodded.

Why, they do everything I tell them, she reflected. They accept

anything I say! She struck off the first rabbit's head, cast it into the

fire, and opened its belly.

Its entrails seemed to melt in the hot sunshine, becoming a

surging line of ragged men with slug guns, swords, and crude pikes.

The buzz gun rattled once more, somewhere at the edge of

audibility, as one stepped over a burning rabbit.

She mounted the steps again, groping for a way to begin. "The

message is very clear. Extraordinarily clear. Unusual."

A murmur from the crowd.

"We--mostly we find separate messages for the giver and the

augur. For the congregation and our city, too, though often those

are together. In this victim, it's all together."

The presenter shouted. "Does it say what my reward will be from

the Ayuntamiento?"

"Death." She stared at his flushed face, feeling no pity and

surprised that she did not. "You are to die quite soon, or at least the

presenter will. Perhaps your son is meant."

She raised her voice, listening to the buzz gun; it seemed strange

that no one else heard it. "The presenter of this pair of rabbits has

reminded me that the rose, our departed sib's nameflower, signifies

love in what is called the language of flowers. He is right, and

Comely Kypris, who has been so kind to us here on Sun Street, is

the author of that language, by which lovers may converse with

bouquets. My own nameflower, mint, signifies virtue. I have always

chosen to think of it as directing me toward the virtues proper to a

holy sibyl. I mean charity, humility, and--and all the rest. But

_virtue_ is an old word, and the Chrasmologic Writings tell us

that it first meant strength and courage in the cause of right."

They stood in awed silence listening to her; she herself listened

for the buzz gun, but it had ceased to sound if it had ever really

sounded at all.

"I haven't much of either, but I will do the best I can in the fight to

come." She looked for the presenter, intending to say something

about courage in the face of death, but he had vanished into the

crowd, and his son with him. The empty cage lay abandoned in the

street.

"For all of us," she told them, "victory!" What silver voice was this,

ringing above the crowd? "We must fight for the goddess! We will

win with her help!"

How many remained. Sixty or more? Maytera Mint felt she had

not strength enough for even one. "But I have sacrificed too long.

I'm junior to my dear sib, and have presided only by her favor." She

handed the sacrificial knife to Maytera Marble and took the second

rabbit from her before she could object.

A black lamb for Hierax after the rabbit; and it was an indescribable

relief to Maytera Mint to watch Maytera Marble receive it and

offer it to the untenanted gray radiance of the Sacred Window; to

wail and dance as she had so many times for Patera Pike and Patera

Silk, to catch the lamb's blood and splash it on the altar--to watch

Maytera cast the head into the fire, knowing that everyone was

watching Maytera too, and that no one was watching her.

One by one, the lamb's delicate hoofs fed the gods. A swift stroke

of the sacrificial knife laid open its belly, and Maytera Marble

whispered, "Sib, come here."

Startled, Maytera Mint took a hesitant step toward her; Maytera

Marble, seeing her confusion, crooked one of her new fingers.

"Please!"

Maytera Mint joined her over the carcass, and Maytera Marble

murmured, "You'll have to read it for me, sib."

Maytera Mint glanced up at the senior sibyl's metal face.

"I mean it. I know about the liver, and what tumors mean. But I

can't see the pictures. I never could."

Closing her eyes, Maytera Mint shook her head.

"You must!"

"Maytera, I'm afraid."

Not so distant as it had been, the buzz gun spoke again, its rattle

followed by the dull boom of slug guns.

Maytera Mint straightened up; this time it was clear that people

on the edge of the crowd had heard the firing.

"Friends! I don't know who's fighting. But it would appear--"

A pudgy young man in black was pushing through the crowd,

pracfically knocking down several people in his hurry. Seeing him,

she knew the intense relief of passing responsibility to someone else.

"Friends, neither my dear sib nor I will read this fine lamb for you.

Nor need you endure the irregularity of sacrifice by sibyls any

longer. Patera Gulo has returned!"

He was at her side before she pronounced the final word,

disheveled and sweating in his wool robe, but transported with

triumph. "You will, all you people--everybody in the city--have a

real augur to sacrifice for you. Yes! But it won't be me. Patera Silk's

back!"

They cheered and shouted until she covered her ears.

Gulo raised his arms for silence. "Maytera, I didn't want to tell

you, didn't want to worry you or involve you. But I spent most of

the night going around writing on walls. Talking to--to people.

Anybody who'd listen, really, and getting them to do it, too. I took

a box of chalk from the palaestra. _Silk for calde! Silk for

calde! Here he comes!_"

Caps and scarves flew into the air. "_SILK FOR CALDE!_"

Then she caught sight of him, waving, head and shoulders

emerging from the turret of a green Civil Guard floater--one that

threw up dust as all floaters did, but seemed to operate in ghostly

silence, so great was the noise.

"_I am come?_" the talus thundered again. "_In the service of Scylla!

Mightiest of goddesses! Let me pass! Or perish!_" Both buzz guns

spoke together, filling the tunnel with the wild shrieking of ricochets.

Auk, who had pulled Chenille flat when the shooting began,

clasped her more tightly than ever. After a half minute or more the

right buzz gun fell silent, then the left. He could hear no answering

fire.

Rising, he peered over the talus's broad shoulder. Chems littered

the tunnel as far as the creeping lights illuminated it. Several were

on fire. "Soldiers," he reported.

"Men fight," Oreb amplified. He flapped his injured wing uneasily.

"Iron men."

"The Ayuntamiento," Incus cleared his throat, "must have called

out the _Army_." The talus rolled forward before he had finished, and

a soldier cried out as its belts crushed him.

Auk sat down between Incus and Chenille. "I think it's time you

and me had a talk, Patera. I couldn't say much while the goddess

was around."

Incus did not reply or meet his eyes.

"I got pretty rough with you, and I don't like doing that to an

augur. But you got me mad, and that's how I am."

"Good Auk!" Oreb maintained.

He smiled bitterly. "Sometimes. What I'm trying to say, Patera, is

I don't want to have to pitch you off this tall ass. I don't want to have

to leave you behind in this tunnel. But I will if I got to. Back there

you said you went out to the lake looking for Chenille. If you knew

about her, didn't you know about me and Silk too?"

Incus seemed to explode. "How can you sit here talking about

_nothing_ when _men_ are _dying_ down there!"

"Before I asked you, you looked pretty calm yourself."

Dace, the old fisherman, chuckled.

"I was _praying_ for them!"

Auk got to his feet again. "Then you won't mind jumping off to

bring 'em the Pardon of Pas."

Incus blinked.

"While you're thinking that over," Auk frowned for effect and felt

himself grow genuinely angry, "maybe you could tell me what your

jefe wanted with Chenille."

The talus fired, a deafening report from a big gun he had not

realized it possessed; the concussion of the bursting shell followed

without an interval.

"You're _correct_." Incus stood up. His hand trembled as he jerked a

string of ranling jet prayer beads from a pocket of his robe. "You're

right, because Hierax has _prompted_ you to recall _me_ to my duty.

I--I _go_."

Something glanced off the talus's ear and ricocheted down the

tunnel, keening like a grief-stricken spirit. Oreb, who had perched

on the crest of its helmet to observe the battle, dropped into Auk's

lap with a terrified squawk. "Bad fight!"

Auk ignored him, watching Incus, who with Dace's help was

scrambling over the side of the talus. Behind it, the tunnel stretched

to the end of sight, a narrowing whorl of spectral green varied by fires.

When he caught sight of Incus crouched beside a fallen soldier,

Auk spat. "If I hadn't seen it... I didn't think he had the salt." A

volley pelted the talus like rain, drowning Dace's reply.

The talus roared, and a gout of blue flame from its mouth lit the

tunnel like lightning; a buzz gun supported its flamer with a long,

staccato burst. Then the enormous head revolved, an eye emitting a

pencil of light that picked out Incus's black robe. "_Return to me!_"

Still bent over the soldier, Incus replied, although Auk could not

make out his words. Ever curious, Oreb fluttered up the tunnel

toward them. The talus stopped and rolled backward, one of its

extensile arms reaching for Incus.

This time his voice carried clearly. "_I'll_ get back on if you take

_him_, too."

There was a pause. Auk glanced behind him at the metal mask

that was the talus's face.

"_Can he speak!_"

"_Soon_, I hope. I'm _trying_ to repair him."

The huge hand descended, and Incus moved aside for it. Perched

on the thumb, Oreb rode jauntily back to the talus's back. "Still

live!"

Dace grunted doubtfully.

The hand swept downward; Oreb fluttered to Auk's shoulder.

"Bird homer'

With grotesque tenderness fingers as thick as the soldier's thighs

deposited him between bent handholds.

"Still live?" Oreb repeated plaintively.

Certainly it did not seem so. The fallen soldier's arms and legs, of

painted metal now scratched and lusterless, lay motionless, bent at

angles that appeared unnatural; his metal face, designed as a model

of valor, was filled with the pathos that attaches to all broken things.

Singled out inquiringly by one of Oreb's bright, black eyes, Auk

could only shrug.

The talus rolled forward again as Incus's head appeared above its

side. "I'm going to--he's not _dead_," the little augur gasped. "Not

completely."

Auk caught his hand and pulled him up.

"I was--was just reciting the _liturgy_ you know. And I saw--The

gods provide us such graces! I looked into his _wound_, there where

the chest plate's sprung. They train us, you know, at the schola, to

repair Sacred Windows."

Afraid to stand near the edge of the talus's back, he crawled

across it to the motionless soldier, pointing. "I was quite good at it.

And--And I've had occasion since to--to _help_ various chems.

_Dying_ chems, you understand."

He took the gammadion from about his neck and held it up for

Auk's inspection. "This is Pas's voided cross. You've seen it many

times, I'm sure. But you can undo the catches and open up a chem

with the pieces. _Watch_."

Deftly he removed the sprung plate. There was a ragged hole near

its center, through which he thrust his forefinger. "Here's where a

flechette went in."

Auk was peering at the mass of mechanisms the plate had

concealed. "I see little specks of light."

"Certainly you do!" Incus was triumphant. "What you're seeing is

what _I_ saw under this plate when _I_ was bringing him the Pardon of

Pas. His primary cable had been severed, and those are the ends of

the fibers. It's _exactly_ as if your spinal cord were cut."

Dace asked, "Can't you splice her?"

"_Indeed!_" Incus positively glowed. "Such is the mercy of Pas! Such

is his _concern_ for us, his adopted sons, that here upon the back of

this valiant talus is the one man who can _in actual fact_ restore him to

health and strength."

"So he can kill us?" Auk inquired dryly

Incus hesitated, his eyes wary, one hand upraised. The talus was

advandng even more slowly now, so that the chill wind that had

whistled around them before the shooting began had sunk to the

merest breeze. Chenille (who had been lying flat on the slanted

plate that was the talus's back) sat up, covering her bare breasts with

her forearms.

"Why, ah, _no_," Incus said at last. He took a diminutive black

device rather like a pair of very small tongs or large tweezers from a

pocket of his robe. "This is an opticsynapter, an _extremely_ valuable

tool. With it--Well, look there."

He pointed again. "That black cylinder is the triplex, the part

corresponding to _your_ heart. It's idling right now, but it pressurizes

_his_ working fluid so that he can move his limbs. The primary cable

runs to his microbank--this big silver thing below the triplex--conveying

instructions from his postprocessor."

Chenille asked, "Can you really bring him back to life?"

Incus looked frightened. "If he were _dead_, I could not, Superlative

Scylla--"

"I'm not her. I'm me." For a moment it seemed that she might

weep again. "Just me. You don't even know me, Patera, and I don't

know you."

"I don't know you either," Auk said. "Remember that? Only I'd

like to meet you sometime. How about it?"

She swallowed, but did not speak.

"Good girl!" Oreb informed them. Neither Incus nor Dace

ventured to say anything, and the silence became oppressive.

With an arm of his gammadion, Incus removed the soldier's skull

plate. After a scrutiny Auk felt sure had taken half an hour at least,

he worked one end of a second gamma between two thread-like wires.

And the soldier spoke: "K-thirty-four, twelve. A-thirty-four,

ninety-seven. B-thirty-four..."

Incus removed the gamma, telling Dace, "He was scanning, do

you follow me? It's as if _you_ were to consult a physician. He might

listen to your chest and tell you to cough."

Dace shook his head. "You make this sojer well, an' he could kill

all on board, like the big feller says. I says we shoves him over the

side."

"He _won't_." Incus bent over the soldier again.

Chenille extended a hand to Dace. "I'm sorry about your boat,

Captain, and I'm sorry I hit you. Can we be friends? I'm Chenille."

Dace took it in his own large, gnarled hand, then released it to tug

the bill of his cap. "Dace, ma'am. I never did hold nothin' agin you."

"Thank you, Captain. Patera, I'm Chenille."

Incus glanced up from the soldier. "You asked whether I could

restore _life_, my daughter. He isn't dead, merely unable to actuate

those parts that require fluid. He's unable to move his head, his

arms, and his legs, in other words. He can _speak_, as you've heard. He

_doesn't_ because of the shock he's suffered. That is my _considered_

opinion. The problem is to reconnect all the severed fibers correctly.

Otherwise, he'll move his _arms_ when he _intends_ to take a

step." He tittered.

"I still say--" Dace began.

"In _addition_, I'll attempt to render him _compliant_. For our safety.

It's not _legal_, but if we're to do as _Scylla_ has commanded..." He

bent over the recumbent soldier again.

Chenille said, "Hi, Oreb."

Oreb hopped from Auk's shoulder to hers. "No cry?"

"No more crying." She hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. "Other

girls are always tellirig me how tough I am, because I'm so big. I

think I better start trying to live up to it."

Incus glanced up again. "Wouldn't you like to borrow my robe,

my daughter?"

She shook her head. "It hurts if anything touches me, and my back

and shoulders are the worst. I've had men see me naked lots.

Usually I've had a couple, though, or a pinch of rust. Rust makes it

easy." She turned to Auk. "My name's Chenille, Bucko. I'm one of

the girls from Orchid's."

Auk nodded, not knowing what to say, and at length said, "I'm

Auk. Real pleased, Chenille."

That was the last thing he could remember. He was lying face down

on a cold, damp surface, aware of pervasive pain and soft footsteps

hastening to inaudibility. He rolled onto his back and sat up, then

discovered that blood from his nose was dribbling down his chin.

"Here, trooper." The voice was unfamiliar, metallic and harshly

resonant. "Use this."

A wad of whitish cloth was pressed into his hand; he held it

gingerly to his face. "Thanks."

From some distance, a woman called, "Is that you?"

"Jugs?"

The tunnel was almost pitch dark to his left, a rectangle of black

relieved by a single remote fleck of green. To his right, something

was on fire--a shed or a big wagon, as well as he could judge.

The unfamiliar voice asked, "Can you stand up, trooper?"

Still pressing the cloth to his face, Auk shook his head.

There was someone nearer the burning structure, whatever it

was: a short stocky figure with one arm in a sling. Others, men with

dark and strangely variegated skins... Auk blinked and looked

again.

They were soldiers, chems that he had sometimes seen in parades.

Here they lay dead, their weapons beside them, eerily lit by the

flames.

A small figure in black materialized from the gloom and gave him

a toothy grin. "_I_ had sped you to the _gods_, my son. I see _they_

sent you back."

Through the cloth, Auk managed to say, "I don't remember

meeting any," then recalled that he had, that Scylla had been their

companion for the better part of two days, and that she had not

been in the least as he had imagined her. He risked removing the

cloth. "Come here, Patera. Have a seat. I got to have a word with you."

"Gladly. _I_ must speak with _you_, as well." The little augur lowered

himself to the shiprock floor. Auk could see the white gleam of his teeth.

"Was that really Scylla?"

"_You_ know better than _I_, my son."

Auk nodded slowly. His head ached, and the pain made it

difficult to think. "Yeah1 only I don't know. Was it her, or just a

devil pretending?"

Incus hesitated, grinning more toothily than ever. "This is rather

difficult to explain."

"I'll listen." Auk groped his waistband for his needler; it was still in

place.

"My son, if a devil were to _personate_ a goddess, it would become

that goddess, in a way."

Auk raised an eyebrow.

"Or that _god_. Pas, let us say, or _Hierax_. It would run a grave risk

of merging into the total god. Or so the science of _theodaimony_

teaches us."

"That's abram." His knife was still in his boot as well, his hanger at

his side.

"Such are the _facts_, my son." Incus cleared his throat impressively.

"That is to say, the facts as far as they can be expressed in purely

_human_ terms. It's there averred that devils do not often dare to

personate the gods for _that very reason_, while the immortal gods, for

their part, _never_ stoop to personating devils."

"Hoinbuss," Auk said. The man with the injured arm was circling

the fire. Changing the subject, Auk asked, "That's our talus, ain't it?

The soldiers got it?"

The unfamiliar voice said, "That's right, we got it."

Auk turned. There was a soldier squatting behind him.

"I'm Auk," Auk said; he had reintroduced himself to Chenille with

the same words, he remembered, before whatever had happened

had happened. He offered his hand.

"Corporal Hammerstone, Auk." The soldier's grip stopped just

short of breaking bones.

"Pleased." Auk tried to stand, and would have fallen if Hammerstone

had not caught him. "Guess I'm still not right."

"I'm a little rocky myself, trooper."

"Dace and _that young woman_ have been after me to have

Corporal Hammerstdne carry you, my son. I've _resisted_ their

importunities for his sake. He would _gladly_ do it if I asked. He and I

are the _best of friends_."

"More than friends," Hammerstone told Auk; there was no hint of

humor in his voice. "More than brothers."

"He would do _anything_ for me. I'm tempted to _demonstrate_ that,

though I refrain. I prefer you to think about it for a while, always

with some element of _doubt_. Perhaps I'm teasing you, merely

_blustering_. What do you think?"

Auk shook his head. "What I think don't matter.

"Exactly. Because you _thought_ that you could throw me from that

filthy little boat with _impunity_. That I'd _drown_, and you would be

well rid of me. We see _now_, don't we, how _misconceived_ that was.

You have fodeited any right to have your opinions heard with the

_slightest_ respect."

Chenille strode out of the darkness carrying a long weapon with a

cylindrical magazine. "Can you walk now, Hackum? We've been

waiting for you."

From his perch on the barrel, Oreb added, "All right?"

"Pretty soon," Auk told them. "What's that you got?"

"A launcher gun." Chenille grounded it. "This is what did for our

talus, or that's what we think. Stony showed me how to shoot it.

You can look, but don't touch."

Although pain prevented Auk from enjoying the joke, he managed,

"Not till I pay, huh?"

She grinned wickedly, making him feel better. "Maybe not even

then. Listen here, Patera. You too, Stony. Can I tell all of you what

I've been thinking?"

"Smart girl!" Oreb assured them.

Incus nodded; Auk shrugged and said, "I'm not getting up for a

while yet. C'mere, bird."

Oreb hopped onto his shoulder. "Bad hole!"

Chenille nodded. "He's right. We heard some real funny noises

while I was back there looking for something to shoot, and there's

probably more soldiers farther on. There's more lights up that way

too though, and that might help."

Hammerstone said, "Not if we want to dodge their patrols."

"I guess not. But the thing is, Oreb could say what he did about

anyplace down here, and he wouldn't be wrong. Auk, what I was

going to tell you is I used to have a cute little dagger that I strapped

onto my leg. It had a blade about as long as my foot, and I thought it

was just right. I thought your knife or your needler or whatever

should fit you, like shoes. You know what I'm saying?"

He did not, but he nodded nevertheless.

"Remember when I was Scylla?"

"It's whether you remember. That's what I want to know."

"I do a little bit. I remember being Kypris, too, maybe a little

better. You didn't know about that, did you, Patera? I was. I was

them, but underneath I was still me. I think it's like a donkey feels

when somebody rides him. He's still him, Snail or whatever his

name is, but he's you, too, going where you want to and doing what

you want to do. And ifhe doesn't want to, he gets kicked till he does

it anyhow."

Oreb cocked his head sympathetically. "Poor girl!"

"So pretty soon he gives up. Kick him and he goes, pull up and

he stops, not paying a lot of attention either way. It was like that

with me. I wanted rust really bad, and I kept thinking about it

and how shaggy tired I was. And all at once it was like I'd been

dreaming. I was in a manteion in Limna, then up on an altar in a

cave and fit for sod. And I didn't remember anything. or if I did I

wouldn't think about it. But when I was bumping out to the

shrine, up on those high rocks, stuff started coming back. About

being Kypris, I mean."

Incus sighed. "_Scylla_ mentioned it, my daughter, so I did know.

Sharing your _body_ with the _goddess of love!_ How I _envy_ you!

It must have been _wonderful!_"

"I guess it was. It wasn't nice. It wasn't fun at all. But the more I

think, the more I think it really was wonderful in a abram sort of

way. I'm not exactly like I used to be, either. I think when they left,

the goddesses must have left some crumbs behind, and maybe they

took some with them, too."

She picked up the launcher, running her fingers along the pins

protruding from its magazine. "What I started to say was that after

the talus got hit I saw I'd been wrong about things fitting, my dagger

and all that. This stuff isn't really like shoes at all. The smaller

somebody is, the bigger a shiv she needs. Scylla left that behind, I

think, or maybe something I could use to see it myself.

"Anyway, Auk here plucks a dimber needler, but I doubt he

needs it much. If I lived the way he does, and I chose to do, I'd need

it just about every day. So I found this launcher gun, and it's bigger.

It was empty, but I found another one with the barrel flat where the

talus had gone over it, and it was full. Stony showed me how you

load and unload them."

Auk said, "I think I'll get something myself, a slug gun, anyhow.

There's probably a bunch of 'em lying around."

Incus shook his head and reached for Auk's waist. "You'd better

allow me to take your needler this time, my son."

At once Auk's arms were pinned from behind by a grip that was

quite literally of steel.

With evident distaste, Incus lifted the front of Auk's tunic and

took his needler from his waistband. "This wouldn't harm Corporal

Hammerstone, but it would _kill_ me, I suppose." He gave Auk a

toothy smile. "Or _you_, my son."

"No shoot," Oreb muttered; it was a moment or two before Auk

understood that he was addressing Chenille.

"If you see him with a _slug gun_, Corporal, you're to take it from

him and break it _immediately_. A slug gun or any other such

weapon."

"_Ahoy! Ahoy there!_" The old fisherman was shouting and waving,

silhouetted by orange flames from the burning talus. "_He says he's

dyin'! Wants to talk to us!_"

Silk lifted himself until he could sit almost comfortably upon the

turret, then waved both hands. His face was smeared with the mud

of the storm, mud that was cracking and falling away now; the gaudy

tunic that Doctor Crane had brought him in Limna was daubed with

mud as well, and he wondered how many of those who waved and

cheered and jumped and shouted around the floater actually

recognized him.

_SILK FOR CALDE!_

_SILK FOR CALDE!_

Was there really to be a calde again, and was this new calde to be

himself? Calde was a title that his mother had mentioned occasionally,

a carved head in her closet.

He looked up Sun Street, then stared. That was, surely, the

silver-gray of a Sacred Window, nearly lost in the bright sunshine--a

Window in the middle of the street.

The wind carried the familiar odor of sacrifice--cedar smoke,

burning fat, burning hair, and burning feathers, the mixture stronger

than that of hot metal, hot fish-oil, and hot dust that wrapped

the floater. Before the silver shimmer of the Window, a black sleeve

slid down a thin arm of gray metal, and a moment later he caught

sight of Maytera Marble's shining, beloved face below the waving,

flesh-like hand. It seemed too good to be true.

"_Maytera!_" In the tumult of the crowd he could scarcely hear his

own voice; he silenced them with a gesture, arms out, palms down.

"_Quiet! Quiet, please!_"

The noise diminished, replaced by the troubled bleating of sheep

and the angry hissing of geese; as the crowd parted before the

floater, he located the animals themselves.

"Maytera! You're holding a viaggiatory sacrifice?"

"Maytera Mint is! I'm helping!"

"Patera!" Gulo was back, trotting alongside the floater, his black

robe fallow with dust. "There are dozens of victims, Patera! Scores!"

They would have to sacrifice alternately if the ceremony were not

to be prolonged till shadelow--which was what Gulo wanted, of

course; the glory of offering so many victims, of appearing before so

large a congregation. Yet he was not (as Silk reminded himself

sharply) asking for more than his due as acolyte. Furthermore, Gulo

could begin immediately, while he, Silk, would have to wash and

change. "Stop," he called to the driver. "Stop right here." The floater

settled to the ground before the altar.

Silk swung his legs from the turret to stand at the edge of the deck

before it, admonished by a twinge from his ankle.

"_Friends!_" A voice he felt he should recognize at once, shrill yet

thrilling, rang from the walls of every building on Sun Street. "This is

Patera Silk! This is the man whose fame has brought you to the

poorest manteion in the city. To the Window through which the

gods look upon Viron again!"

The crowd roared approval.

"Hear him! Recall your holy errand, and his!"

Silk, who had identified the speaker at the fourth word, blinked

and shook his head, and looked again. Then there was silence, and

he had forgotten what he had been about to say.

An antlered stag among the waiting victims (an offering to

Thelxiepeia, the patroness of divination, presumably) suggested an

approach; his fingers groped for an ambion. "No doubt there are

many questions you wish to ask the gods concerning these unsettled

times. Certainly there are many questions I need to ask. Most of all,

I wish to beg the favor of every god; and most of all to beg Stabbing

Sphigx, at whose order armies march and fight, for peace. But

before I ask the gods to speak to us, and before I beg their favor, I

must wash and change into suitable clothes. I've been in a battle,

you see--one in which good and brave men died; and before I

return to our manse to scrub my face and hands and throw these

clothes into the stove, I must tell you about it."

They listened with upturned faces, eyes wide.

"You must have wondered at seeing me in a Guard floater. Some

of you surely thought, when you saw our floater, that the Guard

intended to prevent your sacrifice. I know that, because I saw you

drawing weapons and reaching for stones. But you see, these

Guardsmen have endorsed a new government for Viron."

There were cheers and shouts.

"Or as I should have said, a return to the old one. They wish us to

have a calde--"

"_Silk is calde!_" someone shouted.

"--and a return to the forms laid down in our Charter. I

encountered some of these brave and devout Guardsmen in Limna,

and because I was afraid we might be stopped by other units of the

Guard, I foolishly suggested that they pretend I was their prisoner.

Many of you will have anticipated what happened as a result. Other

Guardsmen attacked us, thinking that they were rescuing me." He

paused for breath.

"Remember that. Remember that you must not assume that every

Guardsman you see is our enemy, and remember that even those

who oppose us are Vironese." His eyes sought out Maytera Marble

again. "I've lost my keys, Maytera. Is the garden gate unlocked? I

should be able to get into the manse that way."

She cupped her hands (hands that might have belonged to a bio

woman) around her mouth. "I'll open it for you, Patera!"

"Patera Gulo, proceed with the sacrifice, please. I'll join you as

soon as I can."

Clumsily, Silk vaulted from the floater, trying to put as much

weight as he could on his sound left leg; at once he found himself

sunounded by well-wishers, some of them in green Civil Guard

uniforms, some in mottled green conflict armor, most in bright

tunics or flowing gowns, and more than a few in rags; they touched

him as they might have touched the image of a god, in speeches

blurted in a second or two declared themselves his disciples,

partisans, and supporters forever, and carried him along like the

rush of a rain-swollen river.

Then the garden wall was at his elbow, and Maytera Marble at the

gate waving to him while the Guardsmen swung the butts of the slug

guns to keep back the crowd. A voice at his ear said, "I shall come

with you, My Calde. Always now, you must have someone to

protect you." It was the captain with whom he had breakfasted at

four in the morning in Limna.

The garden gate banged shut behind them; on the other side

Maytera Marble's key grated in the lock. "Stay here," the captain

ordered a Guardsman in armor. "No one is to enter." He turned

back to Silk, pointed toward the cenoby. "Is that your house, My

Calde?"

"No. It's over there. The triangular one." Belatedly. he realized

that it did not appear triangular from the garden; the captain would

think him mad. "The smaller one. Patera Gulo won't have locked

the door. Potto got my keys."

"Councillor Potto, My Calde?"

"Yes, Councillor Potto." Yesterday's pain rushed back: Potto's

fists and electrodes, Sand's black box. Scrupulous answers that

brought further blows and the electrodes at his groin. Silk pushed

the memories away as he limped along the graveled path, the

captain behind him and five troopers behind the captain, passing the

dying fig in whose shadow the animals that were to die for Orpine's

spirit had rested, the arbor in which he had spoken to Kypris and

chatted with Maytera Marble, her garden and his own blackberries

and wilting tomato vines, all in less time than his mind required to

recognize and love them.

"Leave your men outside, Captain. They can rest in the shade of

the tree beside the gate if they like." Were they doomed, too? From

the deck of the floater he had talked of Sphigx; and those who

perished in battle were accounted her sacrifices, just as those struck

by lightning were said to have been offered to Pas.

The kitchen was exactly as he recalled it; if Gulo had eaten since

moving into the manse, he had not done it here. Oreb's water cup

still stood on the kitchen table beside the ball snatched from Horn.

"If it hadn't happened, the big boys would have won," he murmured.

"I beg pardon, My Calde?"

"Pay no attention--I was talking to myself." Refusing the captain's

offer of help, he toiled at the pump handle until he could splash his

face and disorderly yellow hair with cold water that he could not

help imagining smelled of the tunnels, soap and rinse them, and rub

them dry with a dish towel.

"You'll want to wash up a bit, too, Captain. Please do so while I

change upstairs."

The stair was steeper than he remembered; the manse, which he

had always thought small, smaller than ever. Seated on the bed that

he had left unmade on Molpseday morning, he lashed its wrinkled

sheets with Doctor Crane's wrapping.

He had told the crowd he would burn his tunic and loose brown

trousers, but although soaked and muddy they were still practically

new, and of excellent quality; washed, they might clothe some poor

man for a year or more. He pulled the tunic off and tossed it into the

hamper.

The azoth he had filched from Hyacinth's boudoir was in the

waistband of the trousers. He pressed it to his lips and carried it to

the window to examine it again. It had never been Hyacinth's, from

what Crane had told him; Crane had merely had her keep it, feeling

that her rooms were less likely to be searched than his own. Crane

himself had received it from an unnamed Idlanum in Trivigaunte

who had intended it as a gift for Blood. Was it Blood's, then? If so,

it must be turned over to Blood without fail. There must be no more

theft from Blood; he had gone too far in that direction on Phaesday.

On the other hand, if Crane had been authorized to dispose of it

(as it seemed he had), it was his, since Crane had given it to him as

Crane lay dying. It might be sold for thousands of cards and the

money put to good use--but a moment's self-examination convinced

him that he could never exchange it for money if he had any right to

it.

Someone in the crowd beyond the garden wall had seen him

standing at the window. People were cheering, nudging each other,

and pointing. He stepped back, closed the curtains, and examined

Hyacinth's azoth again, an object of severe beauty and a weapon

worth a company of the Civil Guard--the weapon with which he had

slain the talus in the tunnels, and the one she had threatened him

with when he would not lie with her.

Had her need really been so great? Or had she hoped to make

him love her by giving herself to him, as he had hoped (he

recognized the kernel of truth in the thought) to make her love him

by refusing? Hyacinth was a prostitute, a woman rented for a night

for a few cards--that was to say, for the destruction of the mind of

some forsaken, howling monitor like the one in the buried tower.

He was an augur, a member of the highest and holiest of professions.

So he had been taught.

An augur ready to steal to get just such cards as her body sold for.

An augur ready to steal by night from the man from whom he had

already bullied three cards at noon. One of those cards had bought

Oreb and a cage to keep him in. Would three have bought

Hyacinth? Brought her to this old three-sided cage of a manse, with

its bolted doors and barred windows?

He placed the azoth on his bureau, put Hyacinth's needler and his

beads beside it, and removed his trousers. They were muddier even

than the tunic, the knees actually plastered with mud, though their

color made their state less obvious. Seeing them, it struck him that

augurs might wear black not in order that they might eavesdrop on

the gods while concealed by the color of Tartaros, but because it

made a dramatic background for fresh blood, and masked stains

that could not be washed out.

His shorts, cleaner than the trousers but equally rain-soaked,

followed them into the hamper.

Rude people called augurs butchers for good reason, and there

was butchery enough waiting for him. Leaving aside his proclivity

toward theft, were augurs really any better in the eyes of a god such

as the Outsider than a woman like Hyacinth? Could they be better

than the people they represented before the gods and still represent

them? Bios and chems alike were contemptible creatures in the eyes

of the gods, and ultimately those were the only eyes that mattered.

Eyes in the foggy little mirror in which he shaved caught his. As

be stared, Mucor's deathly grin coalesced below them; in a travesty

of coquetry, she simpered, "This isn't the first time I've seen you

with no clothes on."

He spun around, expecting to see her seated on his bed; she was

not there.

"I wanted to tell you about my window and my father. You were

going to tell him to lock my window so I couldn't get out and bother

you any more."

By that time he had recovered his poise. He got clean undershorts

from the bureau and pulled them on, then shook his head. "I wasn't.

I hoped that I wouldn't have to."

From beyond the bedroom door: '_My Calde?_"

"I'll be down in a moment, Captain."

"_I heard voices, My Calde. You are in no danger?_"

"This manse is haunted, Captain. You may come up and see for

yourself if you like."

Mucor tittered. "Isn't this how you talk to them? In the glasses?"

"To a monitor, you mean?" He had been thinking of one; could

she read his thoughts? "Yes, it's very much like this. You must have

seen them."

"They don't look the same to me."

"I suppose not." With a considerable feeling of relief, Silk pulled

on clean black trousers.

"I thought I'd be one for you."

He nodded in recognition of her consideration. "Just as you use

your window and the gods their Sacred Windows. I had not thought

of the parallel, but I should have."

Unreflected, her face in his mirror bobbed up and down. "I

wanted to tell you it's no good any more, telling my father to lock

my window. He'll kill you if he sees you, now. Potto said he had to,

and he said he would."

The Ayuntamiento had learned that he was alive and in the city,

clearly; it would learn that he was here soon, if it had not already. It

would send loyal members of the Guard, might even send soldiers.

"So it doesn't matter. My body will die soon anyway, and I'll be

free like the others. Do you care?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. Very much. Why will your body die?"

"Because I don't cat. I used to like it, but I don't any more. I'd

rather be free."

Her face had begun to fade. He blinked, and nothing but the

hollows that had been her eyes remained. A breath of wind stirred

the curtains, and those hollows, too, were gone.

He said, "You must eat, Mucor. I don't want you to die." Hoping

for a reply, he waited. "I know you can hear me. You have to eat."

He had intended to tell her that he had wronged her and her father.

That he would make amends, although Blood might kill him

afterward. But it was too late.

Wiping his eyes, he got out his last clean tunic. His prayer beads

and a handkerchief went into one trouser pocket, Hyacinth's

needler into the other (He would return it when he could, but that

problematic moment at which they might meet again seemed

agonizingly remote.) His waistband claimed the azoth; it was

possible that augury would provide some hint of what he ought to do

with it. He considered selling it again, and thought again of the

howling face that had been so like Mucor's in his minor, and

shuddered.

Clean collar and cuffs on his second-best robe would have to do.

And here was the captain, waiting at the foot of the stair and

looking nearly as spruce as he had in that place--what had it been

called? In the Rusty Lantern in Limna.

"I was concerned for your safety, My Calde."

"For my reputation, you mean. You heard a woman's voice."

"A child's, I thought, My Calde."

"You may search the upper floor if you wish, Captain. If you find

a woman--or a child, either--please let me know."

"Hierax have my bones if I have thought of such a thing, My

Calde!"

"She is a child of Hierax's, certainly."

The Silver Street door was barred, as it should have been; Silk

rattled the handle to make certain it was locked as well. The window

was shut, and locked behind its bars.

"I can station a trooper in here, if you wish, My Calde."

Silk shook his head. "We'll need every trooper you have and

more, I'm afraid. That officer in the floater--"

"Major Civet, My Calde.

"Tell Major Civet to station men to give the alarm if the

Ayuntamiento sends its troopers to arrest me. They should be a

street or two away, I suppose."

"Two streets or more, My Calde, and there must be patrols

beyond them."

"Very well, Captain. Arrange it. I'm willing to stand trial if I must,

but only if it will bring peace."

"You are willing, My Calde. We are not. Nor are the gods."

Silk shrugged and went into the sellaria. The Sun Street door was

locked and barred. Two letters on the mantel, one sealed with the

Chapter's knife and chalice, one with a flame between cupped

hands; he dropped them into the large pocket of his robe. Both the

Sun Street windows were locked.

As they hurried through the garden again and into the street, he

found himself thinking of Mucor. And of Blood, who had adopted

her; then of Highest Hierax, who had dropped from the sky a few

hours ago for Crane and the solemn young trooper with whom he

and Crane had talked in the Rusty Lantern. Mucor wanted to die, to

yield to Hierax; and he, Silk, would have to save her if he could.

Had it been wrong of him, then, to call her a child of Hierax?

Perhaps not. Women as well as men were by adoption the

children of the gods, and no other god so suited Mucor.