Exodus from the Long Sun

Chapter 14 — The Best Thieves in the Whorl

“Patera?” Horn inquired softly. “Calde?”

Silk sat up. “What is it?”

“Nettle’s asleep. Just about everybody is, but I knew you weren’t. I could see your eyes.”

Silk nodded, the motion almost invisible in the darkness of the freezing tent. “You’re right, I wasn’t; and you’re afraid, as we all are, and want reassurance. I’ll reassure you as much as I can, though that isn’t very much.”

“I have some questions, too.”

Silk smiled, his teeth flashing in the gloom. “So do I, but you can’t answer mine. I may be able to answer a few of yours. I’ll try.”

Nettle whispered, “I’m not asleep. Horn thought I was, but I was pretending so he’d sleep.” Horn took her hand as she said, “I’ve got a question too.”

“Reassurance first,” Silk told them. “You may need it more than you realize. It’s quite unlikely that Generalissimo Siyuf will have you executed or even imprisoned. Hossaan — that’s Willet’s real name, he’s a Trivigaunti — knows that you and Horn were at the palace to help Moly. Besides, you’re hardly more than children. Siyuf’s a harsh woman, but not a cruel one from what I’ve seen; she wouldn’t command the loyalty she does if she were. I can only guess, but I believe that you and Horn will be questioned and released.”

Horn asked, “Is there anything you don’t want us to tell?”

“No, tell them everything. Nothing you can say can harm Hyacinth or Moly or me. Or Patera Remora and Patera Incus, or even Spider. Nor can anything you say harm you. The better they understand your place in all this, the more likely it is that you’ll be set free once they’ve learned all they can from you — or so it seems to me.”

In a whisper, Nettle asked, “Does this mean we’ve failed, Patera?”

“Of course not. I’m not sure what you’re asking about whether you’re afraid we’ve failed as human beings—”

“Failed the gods.”

“No.” There was resolution in Silk’s voice. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I’m eight years older. It seems an enormous separation to me, as no doubt it does to you. How does it appear to His Cognizance, do you think?”

Horn said, “Like nothing. His Cognizance was an old, old man when we were born.”

“When I was, too. Consider then how young we must appear to Pas, who built the whorl — or to the Outsider, who shaped our forebears from the mud of the Short-Sun Whorl.” Silk fell silent, listening to the slow pacing of the sentries outside, and Remora’s soft snores.

“Since the Outsider began us, let us begin with him. I’ve never seen him, except in a dream, and even then I couldn’t see his face clearly; but he’s seen me from the beginning — from before my own beginning in fact. He knows me far better than I know myself, and he chose me to perform a small task for him. I was to save our manteion from Blood.

“Blood is dead. Musk, who was the owner of record and who I once considered worse than Blood, is dead too. Patera Remora over there is the new augur on Sun Street — I believe that may be the Outsider’s way of telling me the task is done. You both helped do it, and I’m sure he’s grateful, as I am.”

Horn muttered, “We didn’t do anything, Patera.”

“Of course you did — but listen. I may be wrong, wrong about having saved our manteion, and wrong about the sign. I may fail after all; I can’t be sure. But I can be sure of this — he will forgive me if I fail, and he would surely forgive you. I know him more than well enough to be certain of that.”

Nettle said, “I was mostly thinking about Echidna. I saw her, when she talked to Maytera Mint, I was there.”

“So was I. Echidna told her to destroy the Alambrera. It has been destroyed, and the convicts have been freed. I freed them.”

“Yes, but—”

“Echidna also ordered the destruction of the Ayuntamiento. It is still in existence, if you like, but consider: Lemur, who headed it so long, is dead; so is Loris, who succeeded him.”

“Maytera says that wasn’t really him,” Nettle objected. “She says Maytera Mint said Potto just works the councillors that we see, like you’d work a puppet.”

Silk chuckled, a small, cheerful sound in the darkness. “Like the wooden man that Horn had when you were small.”

“Yes, Patera.”

“That’s true, I’m sure; and I’m equally sure that at one time it was true of all five councillors. Before Doctor Crane killed Lemur, however, we learned that the real Lemur had died some time before — years before, probably. The manipulated body had become Lemur, the only Lemur in existence, though it thought itself still manipulated by the corpse in Lemur’s bed. Do you follow this, Horn? Nettle?”

Nettle said, “I think so, Patera.”

“When I had time to think about that, which wasn’t until Doctor Crane and I had been pulled out of the water, I wondered about the other councillors. If Councillor Loris had remained with us as I asked, and if he had found it impossible to divert his consciousness to another chem, I would have known — and we would have held the presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento. As it was, I would guess that Loris himself knew before he came to treat with us; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have snatched up the needler Generalissimo Oosik offered to Councillor Potto and begun firing. He understood Generalissimo Siyuf well enough to realize that she would have him executed on some pretense, and knew he had his life to lose like any other man. In the event, he lost it sooner; but he had the satisfaction of a combatant’s death, which may have meant something to him.”

“One of those women shot him?”

Maytera Marble’s voice reached them out of the darkness, spectrally reminiscent of old Maytera Rose’s. “Yes. I watched it. I saw him fall.”

Silk told her, “I’ve been expecting you to join us, Moly. I would have invited you, but I wasn’t sure where you were, and it wouldn’t do to go stumbling around waking up people.”

“Certainly not, Patera.”

Nettle said, “I’m glad you’re here, Maytera. I want to ask something. Everybody says we run things in Trivigaunte. The Rani’s a woman and so’s Generalissimo Siyuf. I saw her. So who were the women that Willet let in, the ones that shot Councillor Loris? Why did they take orders from him?”

Maytera Marble sniffed. “You’ve a great deal to learn, Nettle. Doesn’t Horn do what you tell him, sometimes, even when he doesn’t want to?”

“I don’t believe I can improve on that,” Silk said, “but I’ll enlarge upon it a trifle. They are spies, of course — agents of the Rani’s, as Hossaan himself is. I’m reasonably sure that they’re Vironese as well. Hossaan has told me that he and Doctor Crane were the only Trivigauntis in the ring they built up here, and I believe he was telling the truth.”

Horn began another question, but Silk stopped him. “I ought to tell you that before I went into the tunnels by the lake I saw someone ahead of me. Later I saw footprints, and still later I came across the body of someone who Hammerstone told me had been a woman.”

“Don’t even talk about that place,” Nettle said, “every time I hear about it, it sounds so awful.”

“It is. But if I may talk about the dead woman, I would imagine she traveled here from Trivigaunte from time to time, probably in the guise of a trader. Chenille carried messages to a woman in the market, and the dead woman I found may well have been the same person. Hossaan wouldn’t have counted her as a part of Doctor Crane’s ring, since she wasn’t subject to Doctor Crane’s orders. I’d imagine she stayed here no more than a few weeks — a month at most — when she came.”

“Does anybody know about him?” Nettle inquired. “About Hammerstone? Is he, you know, all right?”

Maytera Marble murmured, “You want to know if I’m a widow so soon. I don’t know, but I doubt it. He was away searching for materials when Willet and his women came in, but he might have saved us all if he’d been there. He would certainly have saved Patera Incus and me, and the daughter we had begun to build, if he could.

Horn said, “There were two hundred Trivigauntis coming, Maytera. Patera had me out in the street watching for them. They would’ve killed Hammerstone, unless he gave up.”

“We’ll never know.” Maytera Marble seated herself beside Nettle.

“He may rescue you still,” Silk told Maytera Marble. “He may well rescue us all. From what I’ve seen of him, he will surely try, and that worries me — but I’d like to return to Nettle’s question.

“Because women have more power than men in Trivigaunte, Nettle, most people would expect that most or all of the Rani’s agents would be women — that’s as good a reason for employing men as I can think of. But it would be natural for male agents from Trivigaunte to recruit women here. Women would be more sympathetic to their point of view — Hyacinth said something like that when we first met — and men from Trivigaunte would naturally seek out courageous, assertive women like the ones among whom they had lived at home.

“We all tend to generalize too much, I’m afraid. If most augurs are pious and naive, for example, we imagine that every augur is, though if we were to reflect we would see immediately that it cannot be true. In the same way, there are bound to be bold men in Trivigaunte and brave and forceful women here — in fact there is a fine example of the latter sitting with us now. As for those women following Hossaan’s instructions, it really doesn’t matter if they were Vironese or Trivigauntis. If they wouldn’t obey, they would have been of no value to Doctor Crane and Hossaan, and would have been eliminated long ago.”

“I want to ask about something else, Calde, but I’m afraid Maytera will be mad at me.”

“That’s the risk you run, Nettle dear.”

Horn said, “Tell me and I will.”

“No. If those women could spy and shoot a coundilor, I can do this. Calde, I was listening at the door. Maytera caught me and made me quit, but when she went to work on her child again I came back.”

“I’m not angry,” Maytera Marble told her, “but you should be angry with yourself. It was wrong, and you knew it.”

Silk said, “It hardly matters now.”

“Yes, it does. Because I heard something fight at the end, and it’s why I got up when I heard you talking to Horn. You — you just… Gave up. The councillor they shot? Loris? He was talking about giving away slug guns…”

“And I said that we could discuss terms later. That we surrendered.”

“Uh-huh.”

Horn objected, “We were winning. Everybody said so.”

“Horn, he said they were, because the farmers would fight the Trivigauntis and they’d have to leave. Then the Calde said all right we give up, we’ll settle the arrangements when we’ve got more time. Only Maytera said he had to be calde, because if he wasn’t it wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Patera Silk has never been vindictive, dear.”

“I know, Maytera, and I know that word, but I don’t know what you mean by it. Didn’t you want to kill the councillors, Calde?”

“Of course not. As far as our insunection is concerned, what I’ve always wanted to do is end it. I want peace, and a reunited Viron. Echidna ordered Maytera Mint to destroy the Ayuntarniento and return the city to Scylla. Haven’t you ever thought about what that last instruction meant, Nettle?”

“Not enough, I guess.”

“Then think now.” Silk’s fingers groped for Ins ambion. “Returning to Scylla means returning to our Charter Scylla wrote it, and no quantity of prayers and sacrifices would be a convincing demonstration of loyalty as long as we violate it. The Charter demands an Ayuntamiento. Did you know that?”

Horn said, “I did, Patera.”

“From that, it’s clear Echidna does not want us to do away with the institution of the Ayuntamiento. There can be nothing wrong, surely, with a board of advisors elected at three-year intervals, which is what the Ayuntarniento is intended to be — a council of experienced men and women to whom the calde can turn in time of trouble. Echidna was demanding that the present and quite clearly illegitimate Ayuntamiento be dissolved, a demand entirely in harmony with her implied demand that our government return to the Charter.

“That being the case, the way to peace was clear, as I had seen from the beginning. I would remain as calde as long as the people wanted it. I could declare the present Ayuntamiento ended, announce an election, and urge everyone to support the surviving members of the previous Apintamiento. Those who still favored their cause would vote for them as well, and they would be reelected. Would have been, to be realistic.”

“You sound so sad, Calde.” Nettle shivered, snuggling against Horn. “It might happen yet.”

“Yes, it may. I was thinking of the time at Blood’s when Councillor Loris presented a list of demands to Moly and me.”

“Absurd demands,” Maytera Marble declared.

“Extreme demands, certainly. He wanted hostages from the Rani, and he would have put Generalissimo Oosik and the other high-ranking officers on trial. I defied him.”

“You offered to resign, too,” Maytera Marble said. “You were very brave, Patera.”

“I was very stupid, very tired, and very frightened. If I hadn’t been, I would have realized that the thing to do was to agree, stop the fighting, and go to work on the details. Have you ever talked with the clerks in the Juzgado, Nettle?”

“No, Calde.”

“I have. I made it a point to, because I knew Hyacinth’s father was a head clerk; she hates him, yet she will always be his daughter. I located him, and wliile we were talking about reforming the Fisc he said that the devils are in the details.

Silk chuckled, cheered by the memory. “Later, one of the officers of the Fisc made the same remark; and I recalled what we were taught in the schola — that the malice of devils is such that they destroy even evil people. My teachers didn’t really believe in them, as Patera Pike did; but I believe that what they said was true, and that what Hyacinth’s father and the official from the Fisc said was true as well.

“MI right, let the Ayuntamiento accommodate the devils. Peace would mean that nine-tenths of Siyufs horde could go home. Thousands of innocent women would be spared horrible deaths in the tunnels, we could buy enough food for those who remained here, and the Ayuntamiento’s chief weapon would be snatched from its hands — let it give our farmers slug guns, those guns would only make us stronger.”

“You were going to win by giving up?”

Silk shook his head. “No one wins by giving up, Nettle, though many fights are not worth winning. I was going to gain what I wanted — peace — by persuading my enemy that he gained by letting me have it, which happened to be the truth. I still hope to do it, though the prospect isn’t bright at the moment.”

Horn said, “General Mint and Colonel Bison got away. So did Generalissimo Oosik.” Nettle added, “The fat councillor did, too, I think. Is there going to be peace now because of what you said?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it.” Silk sighed. “It will depend mostly on the Trivigauntis; and as long as they hold us, Generalissimo Oosik and General Mint are liable to regard them as enemies as bad as the Ayuntamiento, if not worse.

Maytera Marble sniffed. “I don’t see why they want us.”

“His Cognizance is fond of giving short and long answers,” Silk told her. “In this case, he’d probably say that the short answer was that Siyuf has a bad conscience. She came to Viron as an ally, ostensibly, but with the secret hope of making it dependent upon Trivigaunte — a servant city.”

“Did she actually say that, Patera?”

“Of course not; but she was quick to believe that we were plotting against her, and people who always suspect they’re being cheated are generally trying to cheat. When General Mint and Patera Remora tried to treat with the Ayuntamiento, Siyuf feared we’d come to an agreement unfavorable to Trivigaunte. By taking our Juzgado, she showed clearly that she intended to govern Viron. Today — though that’s yesterday now, I suppose — I made the mistake of telling Councillor Loris that he and Potto could confer in person with us, since that was what they wanted. I thought it was safe, because Hossaan would report everything we said to Colonel Abanja, and I was resolved to say nothing that Siyuf could object to.

“I don’t think you did, Calde, except there at the end.”

“Thank you. There at the end it no longer rnattered. Horn and Mucor had told me the Trivigauntis were on their way, and I knew I’d overplayed my hand just by letting the councillors into the Calde’s Palace. Unfonunately, Hossaan overplayed his as well. If he and his spies had simply kept us from leaving until the troopers arrived, something might have been gained. I doubt it, but it might have been. As things are, a great deal has been lost — peace first of all. Peace is always a great deal, but now it’s more urgent than ever, because of Pas’s threat.”

Silk wiped his eyes. “Having saved our manteion, I tried to save Viron and the whorl, Nettle; and now all I can do is sit here crying.”

“That’s a awfully bigjob for just one man, Calde, saving the whorl. Do you really think Pas is going to destroy us?”

As if he had not heard her, Silk said, “We were talking about those who escaped, and no one mentioned Oreb. Did he get out? Did anyone see him?”

A horse voice croaked, “Bird here!”

“Oreb! I should’ve known. Come down here.”

Wings beat in the darkness, and Oreb landed with a thump.

“His Cognizance reminded me once that there are people who love birds so much they cage them, and others who love them so much i they free them. Then he said that Echidna and the Seven were people of the first kind, and Pas a person of the second kind. When I bought Oreb, he was in a cage; and when I freed him I smashed that cage — never thinking that it might have seemed a place of refuge to him.”

“Horn said, “I never thought of the whorl being a cage.”

“I never had either, until the Outsider showed me what lies outside it.”

“Maybe Auk and Chenille can steal General Saba’s airship, Calde, and take Sciathan back to Mainframe like he wants.”

“Good man,” Oreb informed them. “Man fly.”

“He is, Oreb, in both senses, I believe. So is Auk, and even Chenille is a very competent person in her way. But to tell you the truth I have no confidence in them at all when it comes to this — less than I would have in Potto and Spider, if anything. Frankly, I’ve never imagined that there was any way to get Auk and his followers to Mainframe other than getting General Saba and her crew to fly them there.

“That was another reason for wanting peace, and in fact it was the most pressing one — as long as there was war, Siyuf would want to keep the airship here. It couldn’t be used in the tunnels, of course, but eventually the Aytintamiento would have to send troops to the surface if it hoped to win, and the airship would be a terrible adversary.

“With the war ended, it might — I say might — have been possible to persuade her to do what we wanted. Now we’ll have to wait for it to end, I’m afraid, or at least for Pas to do whatever he plans to do first to drive humanity out. I can think of a dozen possibilities, none pleasant.”

Silk awaited another question, but even Oreb was silent. At length he said, “Now let’s sleep if we can. We’ll have a trying day tomorrow, I’m afraid.”

“Ah — Calde?” Remora’s nasal voice floated out of the darkness.

“Yes, Patera. I’m sorry we woke you. We tried to keep our voices down.”

“I have listened with great, um, edification. Sorry I did not wake sooner, eh? But there is one, um, point. Eland, eh? I knew him. You said — ah—”

“I said I had a vague description of his killer. Vague from our point of view, anyway. I believe it was Hossaan, whom you may have met as Willet, my driver. I won’t tell you at present how I obtained it. Let us sleep, Patera.”

“Good girl,” Oreb confided.

“Add cot end add word,” Tick commented sleepily from his place at Hyacinth’s side.

Staring up at the still-distant airship, Silk clenched his teeth, determined equally that the icy wind that whipped his robe would not make them chatter and that the airship would not make him gape, though so immense a flying structure seemed less an achievement than a force of nature. Ever so slowly, it edged its vast, mummy-colored bulk across the gray midday sky, lost at times among low clouds dark with snow, always reappearing nearer the winter-wet meadow where he and his companions waited under guard.

Maytera Mint’s grip on his arm tightened, and she uttered a sound like a raindrop falling into a scrub bucket, then another, and another. He turned from his contemplation of the airship to her. “Why are you making that noise, Maytera?”

Hyacinth whispered, “She’s crying. Let her alone.”

“Wise girl!” Oreb approved.

“You won’t be able to take your bird, Calde.” Dismounting and dropping her reins, Saba strode over to them, her porcine face sympathetic and severe. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.” She indicated Hyacinth with her riding crop. “You had some sort of animal too, girly. Where is it?”

“A c-catachrest,” Hyacinth told her through chattering teeth. “I gave him a little of my food this morning and sent him away.”

Silk said, “You’ll have to leave, Oreb. Fly back to the place where you were caught if you can.”

“Good Silk!”

“Good bird too, but you must go. Go back to the Palustrian Marshes, that’s where the man in the market said you came from.”

“Bird stay,” Oreb announced, then squawked and took wing as Saba cut at him with her quirt.

“Sorry, Calde, I didn’t try to hit it. Have a nice breakfast?”

“Baked horse-fodder,” Hyacinth told her.

“Horde bread, you mean. We turn little girls like you into troopers with it.”

Silk said, “I had assumed that we would be questioned by Generalissimo Siyuf.”

Behind him, Incus began, “We are holy augurs. You cannot simply—” He was jointed by Remora, and Remora by Spider.

“Quiet!” Saba snapped. “I’ll have the lot of you flogged. By Sphigx, I’ll flog you myself!” She counted them, her lips twitching. “Eight, that’s right.”

She raised her voice. “You’re going up in my airship. The calde said he’d like to see it, and he’s going to. So are the rest of you, as soon as they drop the ’ishsh. We’re taking you home so the Rani and her ministers can have a look at you, but anybody who gives us trouble might not get there. She might sort of fall off first. Understand? If you — if…”

Seeing Saba’s eyes sink and grow dull, Silk took his arm from Hyacinth’s shoulders. “Can you and I walk a step or two, General? I’d like a word with you in private.”

Saba’s head nodded like a marionette’s. “I’ve been in here all morning, Silk. She thinks you won’t come back.”

“I see.” He drew Saba aside. “But she isn’t going to kill us, or she wouldn’t have threatened to. I’m not worried about myself, Mucor; the Outsider will take care of me in one way or another. I’m worried about Hyacinth, and about you.”

“Grandmother will take care of her, Silk.”

“At the moment, Hyacinth’s taking care of her; but no doubt you’re right. With your grandrnother gone, however, there’s no one to take care of you.”

Saba laughed, a mirthless noise that made Silk shudder even as he worried that the watching troopers had heard it. “I’m going with you, Silk, way up in the air. The man who broke his wings is there already.”

“You can’t! Can’t you understand? You absolutely cannot!” Assistant Day Manager Feist trotted at Sand’s side, snapping and yelping.

“It’s right up there, Sarge.” Hammerstone waved toward the sentries before Siyufs door. “See the twist troopers? Got to be it.” The “twist troopers” in question were moving the safety catches of their slug guns to the ‹font size=2›FIRE‹/font› position.

Ignoring them, Sand grasped the front of Feist’s tunic and separated his highly polished shoes from Ermine’s three-finger-thick stair runner. “You say we can’t go barging in, right?”

Feist gasped and choked.

“Fine, we’ve got it. So you’re going first. You’ve got to talk your way past those girls and get inside.”

Sand paused at the top of the stair, displaying Feist to the sentries while covering them with his slug gun, gripped in one hand like a needler. “When you get in, tell the Generalissimo we got big news to trade real cheap, and if—”

The intricately-carved sandalwood door of the Lyrichord Room had opened; a tall and strikingly handsome brunette in a diaphanous gown peered out. “Hi. You want to see Generalissimo Siyuf?”

“You got it, Plutonium.” Sand strode toward the door, as an afterthought tossing Feist over the ornate railing. “You tell her the First Squad, First Platoon, Company ‘S,’ Army of Viron’s here. You got all that?”

The handsome young woman nodded. “Close enough, Soldier. I’m Violet.”

“Sergeant Sand, pleased. You tell her we won’t take much of her time and we aren’t asking much, and she’ll be shaggy glad she talked to us.”

“Wait a minute, she’s getting dressed.” The door closed.

“What do you think?” Slate asked Hammerstone. “She goin’ to see us?”

“One way or the other,” Hammerstone told him; almost too swiftly for the eye to follow, his hands shot out, grasped the barrels of the sentries’ slug guns, and crushed them.

At length, when repeated knockings had produced no result, Maytera Marble’s friend Scleroderma employed the butt of her new needler to pound the rearmost door of the Calde’s Palace. A second floor window flew open with a bang, and a cracked male voice called, “Who’s there? Visitor? Want to see the Calde? So do I!”

“I’m here to see Moly,” Scleroderma announced firmly. “I’m going to. Is she all right?”

“Mollie? Mollie? Good name! Fish name! Relative of mine? Don’t know her! Wait.”

The window slammed down. Scleroderma dropped her needler into the pocket of her winter coat, drawing the coat so tightly about her that for a moment it appeared buttonable.

The door flew open. “Come in! Come in! Cold out there! In here, too! Wall’s down! Terrible! No Mollie. You mean Mucor? She’s here, skinny girl! Know her?”

“I certainly do, she’s Moly’s granddaughter. Maybe—”

“Won’t talk,” the lean old man who had opened the door declared. “Asked about Mollie. She talk to you? Not to me! Upstairs! Want to see her? Maybe she will!”

Scleroderma, whose weight gave her a pronounced aversion to stairs, shook her head emphatically as she pushed the door shut behind her. “She’ll catch her death up there, the poor starved little thing. You bring her down here right away.” Waddling after him through the scullery and into the kitchen, she called to the old man’s fast-vanishing back, “I’ll build a fire in the stove and start her dinner.”

High above the Trivigaunti airship, Oreb eyed the cage-like enclosure swinging below it. The question, as Oreb saw it, was not whether he should rejoin Silk, but when. It might be best to wait until Silk was alone. It might also be best to find something to eat first. There was always food at the big house on the hill, but Oreb had a score to settle.

Bright black eyes sharper than most telescopes examined the good girl pressing herself against Silk without result, then scanned the orderly rows of pointed houses. The target sighted, Oreb began a wingover that quickly became a dive.

“You,” Pterotrooper Nizam told her new pet, “are going to have to be as quiet as a mouse in this barracks bag.”

“Ess, laddie.”

“As quiet as two mice. As soon as we get aboard—”

A red-and-black projectile shot between them with a rush of wind and a hoarse cry. The new pet bared small teeth and claws in fury. “Add, add word! Laddie, done by scarred.”

Sand’s soldiers filled the Lyrichord Room’s luxurious sellaria with polite clankings as Siyuf returned his salute. “I have hear of you, Sergeant. Why do you come?”

“You got a couple prisoners — “, he began.

“More than this.”

“Two I’m talking about. This’s Corporal Hammerstone.”

Hammerstone stiffened to attention.

“He’s married, only you got his wife and his best buddy. We want ’em back, and what we got to tell you’s worth ten of ’em. So here’s what I say. We tell you, and we leave it up to you, sir. If you don’t think it’s worth it, say so and we’ll clear off. If you do, give ’em back. What do you say?”

Siyuf clapped her hands; when the monitor appeared in her glass she said, “Get Colonel Abanja.

“To begin, Sergeant, I do not know that I hold the wife or the friend of this soldier. Violet my darling, bring for me the list that was last night from Colonel Abanja.”

Violet grinned and winked at Hammerstone. “Sure thing.”

“The wife, the friend, they are soldiers also?”

Hammerstone said, “No, sir. My wife’s a civilian. Her name’s Moly. She’s no bigger’n you, sir, maybe smaller. My friend’s a bio, a augur, His Eminence Patera Incus. People think he’s the coadjutor. Really he’s the Prolocutor, only people don’t know yet.”

The monitor’s face gained color, reshaping itself to become that of Siyuf’s intelligence officer.

“There is here too much of warlockery, Colonel. You see here soldiers, marvels we should have in museums but here fight us, and for us also. They are come to offer a bargain. Am I not a woman of honor?”

Violet nodded enthusiastically and Abanja said, “You are indeed, Generalissimo.”

“Just so. I do not cheat, not even these soldiers. So I must know. Do we have the holy man Incus? Violet, my darling, read the names. How many now, Colonel?”

“Eighty-two, sir. There were some other holy men besides the calde, and I suppose this might be one of them.” Abanja leafed through papers below the field of her glass.

Leaning over Violet’s shoulder, Hammerstone pointed with a finger thrice the size of hers.

“I don’t really read so good,” she whispered. “What’s that second word? It can’t — Sweetheart, there’s a Chenille in here. Is that the Chen we know?”

Abanja looked up. “The paramour of the Vironese who was plotting to steal our airship, sir. She was seated across the table from me at that dinner at the calde’s residence.”

Hammerstone said, “It says, ‘Maytera Marble a holy woman,’ on here, sir. That’s my wife, Moly. Patera’s here, too. You got them all right.”

“Then you must give me your information,” Siyuf told Sand. “If it is worth their freedom, I will free them as soon as I can. I do not say at once. At once may not be possible. But as soon as is possible. You do not betray your city when you do this?”

Sand shook his head. “Help it, is what we figure. See, if you’re smart you’ll let the calde go when we tell you. And with us, it’s him. He’s the top of the chain of command, and we know you got him.”

“Sir, the airship…” Abanja’s face was agitated.

Siyuf motioned her to silence. “We speak of that later, Colonel. First I must learn what this soldier knows.”

She turned back to Sand. “I will release your calde, you say. I do not say this. With regard to Calde Silk, I give no promise. You do not bargain for him; I notice this.”

“Because we know you wouldn’t, sir. You’d say you were going to keep him, and dismissed. But you’ll let him go if you’re smart. It’ll be better for us and better for you, too. You’re going to, is what we think. Only we want to see to it Hammerstone’s wife and his buddy get loose too.”

Sand hesitated, glancing at Abanja’s face in the glass, then back to Siyuf. “The insurrection’s over. That’s what we’re here to tell you, sir. Give us your word on Moly and Patera What’shisnarne—”

“Incus,” Hammerstone prompted.

“And Patera Incus, and we’ll give you the details. Have we got it?”

“I will release both as soon as I am able. Have I not said? Bring to me the image of the sole great goddess, and I swear on it. There is not one here, I think.”

“Your word’s good enough for us, sir.” Sand glanced at Harnmerstone, who nodded.

“All right. You want me to tell you, or you want to ask questions, sir?”

“First I ask one question. Then you tell, and after I ask more if I wish. When I am satisfied, I give the order, and if there is a place to which you wish them brought, we will do it. But not more than a day’s travel.

Hammerstone said, “The Calde’s Palace. That’s where me and Moly have been living.” Shale asked, “You got any problem with that, sir?”

“No. This is within reason. My question. You say I will let go your calde, the head of your government. I do not think so, so I am curious. Why do you say this?”

“Cause out of all the people you got to deal with here, he’s the one that likes you the most,” Hammerstone told her. “I know him pretty well. Me and Sarge picked him up one time on patrol, and I shot the bull with him before he gave me the slip. Then too, I been living in his palace like I said, and I heard a lot from Moly.”

“I helped Councillor Potto interrogate him the next time we got him,” Sand said, “so I know him pretty well too. He’s big for peace. He was trying to stop the insurrection before you got here.”

For a second or more, Siyuf studied Sand as if she hoped to find a clue to his thoughts in his blank metal face. “You have kill this man Potto. After, I suppose? This Mint tells. But you have not kill him well. He is now back.”

“I been dead too,” Sand told her, and Violet gasped. “I could give you the scoop on that, but it’d take a while.”

“Rather I would hear of the end of the insurrection. This you proposed.”

“Good here. Last night there was a confab at the Calde’s place. None of us were there, but we heard from General Mint. Your people tried to grab everybody, only four made it out, and Councillor Loris is K. The ones that gave you the slip was her and Colonel Bison, and the Generalissimo and Councillor Potto.”

“I know of this.” Siyuf delivered a withering glance to Abanja’s image in the glass.

Schist said, “Tell her about surrendering, Sarge. That’s pretty important.”

“Yeah, he did. The calde did. Maybe you don’t know that, sir. It was before your people came in.”

Siyuf nodded. “Colonel Abanja have report this. She has had an informant in your calde’s household, a most praiseworthy accomplishment.”

Abanja said, “Thank you, Generalissimo.”

“So the four that got clear put their heads together, see? Our generalissimo, he’d come in a Guard floater, and they piled in and took off, Councillor Potto too. Naturally he said, well, your calde’s called quits so we’re in charge again. Councillor Loris’s dead so I’m the new presiding officer. You’re working for me, and if you do what I say maybe I won’t shoot you.”

Schist interjected, “He figured they all had it coming, I guess. What we figure is, not just them. He’ll probably stop Sarge’s works real good.”

Violet said, “Ah!” and Siyuf laughed. “Shadeup, after so long a night. Potto is not friend to this soldier who not one month past shoot him. Potto has the… What is this word?”

“He’ll have it in for him.”

Sand nodded. “But he can’t hand out anything that I can’t take. I been dead already, just like I said. You want to talk about me, or you want to hear the rest?”

Hammerstone said, “They went around quite a bit, to hear Colonel Bison tell it. Only there was one thing they didn’t have any trouble with. Tell ’em, Sarge.”

“You foreigners, sir.” Sand leveled his huge forefinger at Siyuf. “Councillor Potto’s mean as a bad wrench, and he hates you worse’n dirt in his pump. General Mint, she hates Councillor Potto, but you’re number two on her list.”

“She is the central, to be sure. The sole woman.” Siyuf looked thoughtful. “Colonel, what is it you say of this?”

In the glass, Abanja’s image shrugged. “It doesn’t run counter to any information I have, Generalissimo.”

“You have leave off two, Sergeant. What of those?”

“I didn’t leave ’em out, sir,” Sand protested, “I hadn’t got to ’em yet. Colonel Bison’s General Mint’s man. If she says spit oil, he says how far?”

“I grasp this. Proceed.”

“We haven’t seen Generalissimo Oosik, but Corporal Slate here chewed things over with his driver this morning, the one that brought him and got them clear. Tell her, Slate.”

“He brought a slug gun to the meetin’, sir,” Slate began. “That’s what his driver says, ’n he says he don’t usually have nothin’ but a needler ’n his sword, see? So who was that for? Then when they was talkin’ in back — you know how them armed floaters are laid out, sir? There’s no wall or nothin’ between the seats up front and the back, so he tuned in. General Mint said somethin’ about how Councillor Loris was the head of the Ayuntamiento, and it was Generalissimo Oosik that said he was dead. He thinks maybe Generalissimo Oosik did it himself, he seemed so happy about it.”

Sand looked from Violet to Abanja, then at Siyuf. “Only Councillor Potto’s got it in for him, and he knows it. He was like a brigadier back before the insurrection, so he had to be one of the Ayuntamiento’s floor bolts. But when Calde Silk came along, he went over right away and got made head of the whole host of Viron. He knows Councillor Potto, so he’s got to know how pissed off he is about that.”

Siyuf, who had been slouching in her chair, straightened up. “You desire me to set free your calde to save your Viron, so much is plain. I do not care about your Viron.”

Violet said, “I do, a little. Besides, I know his wife.”

“You’re thinking it’s going to go back the way it was,” Sand told Siyuf. “Them in the tunnels and us on top. Stuff it. Like we say, there’s one thing they’re together on.”

He paused and Abanja said, “That we must return to our own city, I’m sure. He’s probably right, Generalissimo.”

“I am, only you’re not. What they’re saying, all four of them, is that they can’t let you go back. Or won’t. To start off, they don’t think you’ll go.”

Sand wanted for Siyuf to speak, but she did not.

“So they’re thinking let’s take care of this, wipe ’em out — that’s you, sir — before they can get reinforcements from Trivigaunte.”

Hammerstone declared, “The calde wouldn’t do that, or I don’t think so, sir. They’re getting set now, getting General Mint’s troopers together again, and lining up the Guard and getting the Army into position. If we weren’t detached, we’d be with it this minute. You got maybe a day, maybe two. But if you let the calde go, he’ll put a lid on it.”

“You are wise,” Siyuf said. “I agree. Colonel Abanja, you have our friend Calde Silk? Bring him to my Juzgado, I meet him there. This holy woman Marble, and the holy man, also. Saba’s airship have not depart?”

“I’m afraid it left an hour ago, Generalissimo,” Abanja sounded regretful. “I’ll contact General Saba on the glass, however, and convey your request that she return to Viron.”

Hammerstone edged closer, his hard features and scratched paint incongruous among so much satin, porcelain, and polished rosewood. “We don’t want a request. We want a order. Tell them to turn around!”

“This I cannot do,” Siyuf explained. “When the airship has leave Viron, it come under control of our War Minister in Trivigaunte. She will send it back, I think, when I ask.”

“Get her now. Tell her!”

“This I cannot either. Monitor, this is sufficient of Abanja. She know what she is to do.”

Siyuf turned back to Sand and Hammerstone. “Abanja must speak to General Saba, then Saba to our War Minister. While they speak I must make prepares for this attack. It may be we attack first. This we see.”

As Abanja’s face faded to gray, Violet murmured, “I’d help if I could, only—”

“Sure, Plutonium.” Slinging his slug gun, Sand stooped, grasped an astonished Siyuf about the waist, and tossed her headfirst onto his broad steel shoulder. “You come too. You can keep her company.”

Shale caught Violet’s arm. “You make one more for us to trade, see? That don’t ever hurt.”

Sitting crosslegged on one of the ridiculous bladders that served as mattresses aboard the airship, Silk found it almost impossible to remain upright without holding onto the swaying, whispering bamboo grill that substituted for a floor. “You’re wonderfully cheerful,” he told Auk. “I admire it more than I can say. Cheerfulness is a sacred duty.” He swallowed. “A cheerful agreement with the will of the gods is a — a—”

“I been sick already,” Auk told him. “Had the dry heaves, too. Worst thing since I busted my head down in the tunnels.”

The Flier smiled impishly. “I heard no cheerful agreement to the wishes of Mainframe at that time, however. Cursing is not a new thing to me, and my own tongue is a superior vehicle to this Common Tongue we speak. But never have I heard curses such as that.”

Face down and miserable behind Auk, Chenille muttered, “Just don’t talk about it, all right?”

“I do not. Instead I talk of cursing, a different thing. Should I say in this Common Tongue, may your pubic hair grow longer than your lies and become entangled in the working of a mill, it is but laughable. In my own tongue, it soars to the sun and leaves each hearer awed. Yet the cursing of Auk was new to me, grand and hideous as the birth of devils.”

Silk managed to smile. “I have been sick, actually. I was sick in the cage that swings so horribly in the wind, and we were so tightly packed into it that I couldn’t help soiling myself and Hyacinth, and Patera Remora, too; they bore it with such fortitude and good will that I felt worse.”

Hyacinth smiled as she sat down beside him. “You didn’t get a whole lot on me, but you filled up one of his shoes. If you’re feeling better now, you should take a look around. Gib showed me, and it’s pretty interesting.”

“Not yet.” Silk found his handkerchief and wiped his nose.

“It’s not like the Juzgado at all, no bars on the windows.”

“Sure.” Auk winked. “We can climb right out.”

“I opened one and looked outside. Not long, because it’s so cold. I wish you could see better through the white stuff.”

“That’s sheep’s hide stretched and scraped till it’s real thin,” Auk told her. “When you get it the way you want it, you rub fat on it, and it lets the daylight in. They use it in the country ’cause they can make it themselves, but glass costs. It’s a lot lighter, too, so that’s why they got it here.

“See, Patera, even with this as big as it is, everything’s got to be real light, ’cause it’s lifting the guns and those charges they blew up the Alambrera with, and food and water, and palm oil for the engines. That’s going to make it easy for us.”

“To do what?”

Gib sat down so violently that Silk feared the grill would give way. “To hook it, Patera. We got to. Only I wish I had Bongo here. He’d be abram about this place.”

Chenille groaned. “You’re all abram. Me, too.”

“This ain’t bad,” Auk told her. “See, Patera, after they loaded us on in the city, it had to go northeast to get you, lousewise into the wind. It was doing this.” He illustrated with gestures. “We all got pretty sick. Only now—”

“I did not,” Sciathan objected. “I am accustomed to the vagaries of winds.”

“Me neither,” Hyacinth told Auk. “I never have been.”

“You weren’t on it then. This is nicer, ’cause there’s a north wind and we’re heading south. That’s why you can’t hear the engines much. They don’t have to work hard.”

“We’re out over the lake,” Hyacinth told Silk, who felt (but did not say) that it would be a blessing if the airship crashed into the water.

“Thing is, Patera, Terrible Tartaros is setting this lay up for us. It’s like we got somebody inside. The fat councillor said they’d do it in a month, remember? Then I said I got the best thieves in the city, we can do it quicker. I was thinking two or three weeks, ’cause we’d have to get clothes like these troopers’ and get pals up so they could pull up the rest—”

Spider joined the group around Silk, sliding across the woven bamboo as he shook his head.

“You got a better way? Dimber here. I don’t say mine’s best, just that’s how I was thinking. The queer was it’d have to be mostly morts, likely all morts. Wouldn’t be rum, finding morts that wouldn’t up tail if there was a row up here.”

“We’d be too sick.” Chenille sat up, pale under her tan.

Silk began, “If this is indeed the hand of Tartaros—”

“Got to be. What I was saying, I was figuring maybe three weeks, and the fat one maybe a month. Then Upstairs here says we only got a couple days.”

Sciathan nodded.

“Tartaros heard it and he says, Auk needs a hand. Willet, you tell the Trivigauntis Auk’s knot’s going to be at the Cock. They nab us and haul us up. How long was it? Under a day. So right there’s the difference between a god and a buck like me. Twenty-one to one.”

For a moment there was silence, fined by the distant talk of the other prisoners, the whispered complaints of the bamboo, the almost inaudible hum of the engines, and a hundred nameless groanings and creakings. Silk said, “They have slug guns, Auk. And needlers, I suppose. You — we — have nothing.”

“Wrong, Patera. We got Tartaros. You watch.”

Chenille stood up; sitting at her feet, Silk found himself a trifle shocked by her height. She said, “I’m feeling better, I guess. Want to show me around, Hy? I’d like to see it.”

“Sure. Wait till you look outside.”

He made himself stand. “May I come? I’ll try not to…” He groped for words, reminding himself of Remora.

“Puke,” Chenille supplied.

“See their beds?” Hyacinth kicked the side of a bladder. “There’s four rows, and twenty-five in a row, so this gondola’s meant for a hundred pterotroopers. Gondola’s what you call this thing we’re in, Gib says.”

Silk nodded.

“Look through the floor and you can see the guns. Their floor’s got to be solid, I guess, so it’s iron or anyhow some kind of a metal. There’s three on each side, and the barrels stick out through those holes. That’s why it’s so cold here, it comes up through the floor.”

“How do you get them open?” Chenille was wresting with the fastenings of a port.

Silk rapped the wall with his knuckles. “Wood.”

“You’ve got to pull out both pins, Chen. You’re right, they’re wood, bent like on a boat, but really thin.”

Chenille slid back the frame of greased parchment to reveal what looked like a snow-covered plain bright with sun.

“There’s another gondola ahead of ours,” Hyacinth told her, “and two in back. You can see them if you stick your head out. I don’t know why they don’t just have one big, long one.”

“It would break, I imagine,” Silk told her absently. “This airship must bend a good deal at times.” He looked out as she had suggested, peering above him as well as to left and right.

“Remember when we were up in the air in that floater? I was scared to death.” Her thigh pressed his with voluptuous warmth, and his elbow was somehow pushing her breast. “But you weren’t scared at all! This is kind of like that.”

“I was terrified.” Silk backed away, fighting with all his strength against the thoughts tugging at his mind.

Chenille put her head through the port as he had; she spoke and Hyacinth said, “Because we’re blowing along, or that’s what I think. Going with it, you can’t feel anything.”

Chenille retreated. “It’s beautiful, really beautiful, only I can’t see the lake. You said we were over it, but I guess the fog’s too thick. I was hoping to see the place Auk and me bumped out to, that little shrine.” She turned to Silk. “Is this how the gods see everything?”

“No,” he said. The gods who were in some incomprehensible fashion contained in Mainframe saw the whorl only through their Sacred Windows, he felt sure, no matter what augurs might say.

His sweating hands fumbled the edge of the open port.

Through Windows and the eyes of those whom they possessed, although Tartaros could not even do that, Auk said; born blind, Tenebrous Tartaros could never see.

Over the snowy plain the long sun stretched from Mainframe to the end of the whorl — a place unimaginable, though the end of the whorl must come very soon.

Through Sacred Windows and other eyes, and perhaps through glasses, too. No, certainly through glasses when they chose, since Kypris had spoken through Orchid’s glass, had manifested the Holy Hues in Hyacinth’s glass while Hyacinth slept.

“The Outsider,” he told Chenille. “I think the Outsider must be able to see the whorl this way. The rest of the gods can’t — not even Pas. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with them.” A shoelace had knotted, as it always did when he tried to take off his shoes quickly. He jerked the shoe off anyway.

Hyacinth asked, “What are you doing?”

“Earning you, I hope.” He pulled off his stockings and stuffed them into the toes of his shoes, recalling the chill waters of the tunnels and Lake Limna.

“You don’t have to earn me! You’ve already got me, and if you didn’t I wouldn’t charge you.”

He had her, perhaps, but he had not deserved her — he despaired of explaining that. “Doctor Crane and I shared a room at the lake. I doubt that I’ve mentioned it.”

“I don’t care what you did with him. It doesn’t matter.”

“We did nothing. Not the way you mean.” Memories flooded back. “I don’t believe he was inclined that way; certainly I’m not, though many augurs are. He told me you’d urged him to give me the azoth, and said something I’d forgotten until now. He said, ‘When I was your age, it would have had me swinging on the rafters.’ ”

Hyacinth told Chenille, “Half the time I don’t understand a thing he says.”

She grinned. “Does anybody?”

“One does, at least. I looked out the window of that room just as we’ve been looking out this opening.” Silk put his foot on its edge and stepped up and out, holding the upper edge to keep from falling. “I was afraid the Guard would come.”

He had feared the Civil Guard, and had been willing to try to pull himself up onto the roof of the Rusty Lantern to escape it; yet very little had been at stake: if he had been taken, he would have been killed at worst.

The roof of the gondola was just out of reach; but the side slanted inward, as the sides of large boats did.

Much, much more was at stake now, because Auk’s faith might kill them all. How many pterotroopers were on this airship? A hundred? At least that many, and perhaps twice that many.

Hyacinth was looking out at him, saying something he could not understand and did not wish to hear; her hand or Chenille’s grasped his left ankle. Absently, he kicked to free it as he waited, gauging the rhythm of the airship’s slight roll.

Auk and his followers would wait, biding their time until shadelow probably, if shadelow came before the airship reached Trivigaunte — break the hatch that barred them from its body, climb the rope ladder through the canvas tube that he could just glimpse, and strike with a rush, breaking necks and gouging out eyes…

At the next roll. It was useless to wait. Hyacinth would have called for help already; Auk and Gib would grapple his legs and pull him inside.

He jumped, caught the edge of the top of the gondola, and to his delight found it a small coaming. In some remote place, someone was screaming. The noise entered his consciousness as he scrambled frantically up the clinker-laid planks, hooking his leg over the coaming when the slow roll favored him most.

A final effort, and he was up, lying on the safe side of the coaming and almost afraid to look at it. Rolling onto his back put half a cubit between him and the edge; he pressed his chest with both hands and shut his eyes, trying to control the pounding of his heart.

Almost he might have been on top of Blood’s wall, with its embedded sword blades at his shoulder. Almost, except that a fall from Blood’s wall would have been survivable — he had survived one, in fact.

He sat up and wiped his face with the hem of his robe.

How foolish he had been not to take off his robe and leave it with his shoes! The gondola had been cold, the draft from the port colder still; and so he had kept his robe, and never so much as considered that he might have lightened himself by some small amount by discarding it. Yet it was comforting to have it now, comforting to draw its soft woolen warmth around him while he considered what to do next.

Stand up, though if he stood he might fall. Muttering a prayer to the Outsider, he stood.

The top of the gondola was a flat and featureless deck, painted mummy-brown or perhaps merely varnished. Six mighty cables supported the gondola, angled out and stabbing upward into the airship’s fabric-covered body. Forward, the canvas tube snaked up like an intestine; aft was a hatch secured with lashings, a hatch that would return him to the gondola — that would, equally, permit those inside it to leave. Once again he pictured the stealthy advance and wild charge, a score of young pterotroopers dead, the rest firing, disorganized at first.

Soon, shouted orders would render them a coherent body. A few Vironese would have weapons by then, and they might kill more pterotroopers; but they would be shot down within a minute or two, and the rest shot as well. Auk and Chenille and Gib would die, and with them Horn and Nettle and even poor Maytera Marble, who called herself Moly now. And not long after that, unless he and Hyacinth were lucky indeed -

“Hello, Silk.”

He whirled. Mucor was sitting on the deck, her shins embraced by her skeletal arms; he gasped, and felt the pain of his wound deep in his chest.

She repeated her greeting.

“Hello.” Another gasp. “I’d nearly forgotten you could do this. You did it in the tunnel, sitting on the water — I should have remembered.”

She bared yellow teeth. “Mirrors are better. Mirrors scare more. This isn’t, is it? I’m just here.”

“It was certainly frightening to hear your voice.” Silk sat too, grateful for the chance.

“I didn’t mean to. I wanted to talk to you, but not where there were so many people.”

He nodded. “There would have been a riot, I suppose.”

“You were worried about me with so many people gone. My grandfather came to see if I was all right. The old man and the fat woman are taking care of me. He wanted to know where Grandmother and the little augur went, and I told him.”

My grandfather was Hammerstone, clearly; Silk nodded and smiled. “Does the old man have a beard and jump around?”

“A little beard, yes.”

Xiphias in that case, not His Cognizance; no doubt the fat woman was a friend of Xiphias’s, or a servant.

“I’ve been eating soup.

“That’s very good — I’m delighted to hear it. Mucor, you possessed General Saba, and there’s something that you can tell me that’s very, very important to me. When does she expect us to arrive in Trivigaunte?”

“Tonight.”

Silk nodded, he hoped encouragingly. “Can you tell me how long after shadelow?”

“About midnight. This will float over the city, and in the morning they’ll let you down.”

“Thank you. Auk intends to try to take control of this airship and fly it to Mainframe.”

Mucor looked pleased. “I didn’t know that.”

“He won’t be able to. He’ll be killed, and so will others I like. The only way that I’ve been—” He heard voices and paused to listen.

“They’re in there.” Mucor looked over her shoulder at the dangling canvas tube.

“Going down into the gondola? Can they hear us?”

“They haven’t.”

He waited until he heard the hatch thrown back. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know.”

His forefinger traced small circles on his cheek. “When you go, will you try to find out, please? It may be important, and I would be very, very grateful.”

“I’ll try.”

“Thank you. You can fly, I know. You told me so in that big room underground where the sleepers are. Have you been all over this airship?”

“Most of it, Silk.”

“I see. The only way that I could think of to stop Auk from trying to take it and being killed was to disable it some way — that was why I climbed up here, and you may be able to tell me how to do it. In a moment I’m going to try to tear the seam of that tube and climb up.”

“There’s a trooper up there.”

“I see. A sentry? In any case, I must find a way to open the seam first. I should have gotten new glasses; I could have broken them and cut it with a piece of glass. But Mucor,” Silk made his tone as serious as he could to emphasize the urgency of his request, “you’ve given me another way now, at least for the time being. Will you possess General Saba again for me?”

She was silent, and as seconds crept by he realized that she had not understood. “The fat woman,” he said, but Mucor would surely confuse that with the woman Xiphias had found to care for her. “The woman that you frightened in the Calde’s Palace. She spilled her coffee, remember? You talked to me through her before Hyacinth and I went into the cage.”

“Oh, her.”

“Her name is General Saba, and she’s the commander of this airship. I want you to possess her and make her turn east. As long as it’s going in the direction that Auk—”

Mucor had begun to fade. For a second or two a ghostly image remained, like a green glimmer upon a pool; then it was gone and he was alone.

Condemning himself, he rose again. There had been half a dozen things — eight or ten, and perhaps more — he should have asked. What was taking place in Viron? Was Maytera Mint alive? What were Siyuf’s plans? The answers had melted into the fabled city of lost opportunities.

He walked forward to the tube and examined it. The canvas was thinner than he had feared, but looked strong and nearly new. His pockets yielded only his new prayer beads and a handkerchief, the only items that his captors had let him retain. He detached an arm of Pas’s voided cross and tried to tear the canvas with it, but its sharpest corner slipped impotendy along the surface. Many men, he reminded himself angrily, carried small knives for just such occasions as this — although any such knife would presumably have been taken from him.

Even if he had possessed a knife, there was a sentry at the top of the ladder. If he was able to poke a hole in the canvas and enlarge it enough to climb through, he would almost certainly be captured or killed by that sentry when he emerged from the tube. Saba had no doubt worried that her prisoners might break one of the hatches; but a single pterotrooper there would be able to hold her position until she exhausted her ammunition, and her shots would have brought reinforcements long before then. Saba’s prisoners had not escaped through either hatch — not yet. But Saba’s logic confined him as though he had been its object.

Shaking his head, he crossed the deck of the gondola to the nearest cable. Woven of many ropes, it was as thick as a young tree, and its surface was rougher than the bark of many. Still more significantly, its angle, here where it was bent through a huge ringbolt, slanted noticeably off the vertical.

Removing his robe, he put it over his shoulder and tied it at his waist. Once he had finished praying and begun to climb, he found it relatively easy; as a boy he had climbed trees and poles far more difficult. The key was to fix his eyes on the surface of the cable, never stealing even a glance at the snowy plain of cloud so achingly far below.

He had boasted of his climbing to Horn, while conceding only that he had climbed less adroitly than a monkey; it was time to make good that boast…

Gib missed the companionship of his trained baboon — what would Bongo think, if Bongo could see him crawling upward with chattering teeth and sweating palms? Could baboons laugh?

The airship was, just possibly, turning ever so slightly to its left. To look down was death, but to look up?

The whir of the engines sounded louder, but of course he was somewhat nearer them. He reminded himself sharply that he had not yet climbed far…

The airship’s southward course must necessarily have put its long axis across the great golden bar of the sun. If he looked up — if he risked it, and it was not much risk, surely, he might be able to catch sight of the sun to one side of the vast hull from which the gondola hung…

Momentarily, he halted to rest the aching muscles in his thighs, and glanced upward. Scarcely ten cubits overhead, the cable entered the monstrous belly of the airship proper; beyond the opening, he glimpsed the beam to which it was attached.

“Done try, laddie.”

“Tick!” Hyacinth stared, blinking away tears. “Tick, how in the whorl—”

Auk handed him to her. “Came in through the window, didn’t you, cully? A dimber cat burglar, ain’t you?”

“My see, wears she putty laddie?” Tick explained. “An Gawk sees, hue comb wit may. Den my — add word!”

“Lo, girl.” flapping in advance of Silk, Oreb ignored the little catachrest. “Lo, Auk.”

Auk swore. Hyacinth dropped Tick (who landed on his feet) and Silk embraced her.

To him, so lost in the ecstasy of her kiss that he scarcely knew that her right leg had twined about his left, or that her loins ground his, Horn’s distant shout meant less than nothing.

“So what?” Auk inquired from the West Pole. “Let ’em come.”

After what seemed an eternity of love, something tapped Silk’s arm and Hyacinth backed away.

“Calde Silk!” The harsh voice belonged to a gaunt, hard-faced Trivigaunti officer of forty or more; he blinked, certain that he should recognize her.

“You’re Calde Silk. Let’s not waste time in evasions.”

“Yes, I am.” She had clicked into place in his memory, her hand around a wineglass, her back straight as a slug-gun barrel. “Major Hadale, this is my wife, Hyacinth. Hyacinth, my darling, may I present Major Hadale? She’s one of General Saba’s most trusted officers. Major Hadale consented to join me for dinner Thelxday, before we were reunited.”

Oreb eyed Hadale apprehensively. “Good girl?”

The major herself addressed the lieutenant on her right. “You were in here an hour ago looking for him. Are you saying he wasn’t here then?”

“No, sir.” The lieutenant’s face was set like stone. “He was not. I’m familiar with his appearance, and I examined every prisoner in this gondola. He was not present.”

Hadad turned to a trooper with a slug gun. “How long have you been on post?”

Silk began, “If I may—”

“In a moment. How long, Matar?”

The trooper had stiffened to attention. “Almost my whole watch, sir.”

Auk spoke into Silk’s ear; but if Silk heard him — or anything — he gave no indication of it. “You’re going to ask her if anyone left this gondola,” he told Hadale. “She’ll say no, and then I suppose you’ll call her a liar, or the lieutenant will. Can’t we—”

“Before we came down here I asked if she’d seen anybody,” Hadale interrupted. “She said she did. She saw a Vironese holy man. He went down into this gondola, and he had an order from General Saba that let him. Is that right, Matar?”

“Yes, sir.”

Silk fished a folded paper from his pocket. “Here it is. Do you want to see it?”

“No!” Angrily, Hadale took it from him. “I want to keep it. I intend to. Calde, you were careful to remind me that I’ve been your guest. You welcomed me and fed me well. That puts me in an uncomfortable position.” She glanced at the crowd that had formed around them. “Get out of here! Go to the other end of the gondola, all of you.”

Auk smiled and shook his head. Sciathan tugged the sleeve of Silk’s robe. “Now you wish it? If not, you must stop it.”

“You’re right, of course.” Silk raised both hands. “Auk! All of you! Go to the other end. You’re very brave, and there are only three of them; but there are at least a hundred others on this airship.” He took Hyacinth’s hand.

“Go ’way!” Oreb seconded him.

Maytera Marble added her voice to theirs, the crisp tones of a teacher bringing her classroom to order. “Hear that bird? He’s a night chough, sacred to Tartaros. Trust Tartaros!”

“I speak for the gods.” Incus stood on tiptoe, making wide gestures. “We must obey the calde, whom the immortal gods have chosen for all of us.”

“Thank you,” Silk told the little Flier. “Thank you very much. Moly — thank you. Thank you, Your Eminence.”

Hadale exhaled, a weary sigh that recalled Maytera Marble. “And I thank you, Calde. They wouldn’t have succeeded, but there would’ve been a lot of killing. By Scarring Sphigx, I don’t like this! A few days ago, we were drinking toasts.”

“I like it less,” Silk told her. “I propose that we put an end to it. May I speak with General Saba?”

Hadad shook her head. “Lieutenant, you and Matar go over there and keep an eye on those people. They may try to jump you. Shoot if they do.”

Silk watched them go. “I’d imagine you’ve got a glass on this airship. If you won’t let me speak with General Saba, may I use it to speak to your generalissimo?”

“No.” Hadad paused to listen. “We just lost an engine.”

“The second one,” Hyacinth told her. “That was what Auk whispered to my husband, that the first one had stopped. I’ve been paying attention to them ever since.”

“Auk’s the man who was talking to my wife and me when you came,” Silk explained. “I apologize for not introducing you.”

“I should be in the cockpit, they’ll be going crazy up there. Calde, are you doing this?”

“Good man!” Oreb assured Hadale. “Good Silk!”

She gave him a look intended to fry him. “Your bird’s an oracle of Tartaros, so if he says you’re good that settles it. Don’t you know that many of us don’t believe in Tartaros, Calde? We have a faction that teaches that Sphigx is the only true god, and Pas and the rest are just legends. A lot of us believe it.”

Silk nodded, looking at the dangling ladder behind her. “I can sympathize with that — no doubt it’s nearer the truth than many of our beliefs. May I offer a suggestion, Major?”

“I’ve got one, too, but let’s hear yours. What is it?”

He showed her his hands. “We’re unarmed. You may search us if you wish; and we won’t attack you — we’ll swear to that by Sphigx or any other god you choose. If you were to hand your needler to Hyacinth or me, we wouldn’t employ it against you — though of course I’m not asking you to do anything of the kind. That said, I suggest we go to the place from which this airship is commanded. Where the tiller is, or whatever you call it. Is that the cockpit?”

Hadale nodded, her eyes suspicious.

“First, because we’d like to see it — that’s a selfish reason, I admit, but we would. Second, because they may need you there, you’re clearly anxious to go, and we can talk there as well as anywhere. Third—”

Hadale pointed to the dangling ladder. “That’s enough. All right. You two first, and stay in front.”

“So,” Siyuf began as she sat down in the wooden chair the round-faced stranger pulled out for her, “are we today at war? I hope you are lose, General Mint.” Without evident curiosity, her quick, dark eyes surveyed the spartan room, and the snow-splotched drill field and leaden sky beyond its windows.

Oosik nodded as he took his seat. “That was a point we planned to discuss, Generalissimo. Events have overtaken us.”

“Trivigaunte declared war on Viron an hour ago,” Maytera Mint said briskly. “We feel we owe it to you to explain the situation. Our calde thinks you care nothing for the lives of your troops. He’s told me so. I’m doing something here that’s quite foreign to me, I’m assuming he’s wrong. If he isn’t, no harm will be done by this meeting. If he is,” she smiled, “some good may come of it. Are your troopers’ lives precious to you?”

The elevation and decline of Siyuf’s epaulets was scarcely visible. “Valuable is certain. Precious we must speak about, I think. Do you know how greatly I have desire to meet you, Mint? Do they tell this? Is Bison to sit in one of these empty chairs? He know of this.”

A new voice exclaimed, “So do I! I vouch for her, my dear young general. She’s expressed the wish many times.

Siyuf turned to the fat man who had come in. “You I know from a picture. You are Potto of the Ayuntamiento, that would make war on my city. You have win, I think, if we are at war.”

Potto sat gingerly, unsure of the strength of his chair. “If only a declaration were all it took!”

“I’m Councillor Newt,” the round-faced stranger explained, “the newest member of the Ayuntamiento.” He offered his hand.

She accepted it. “I am your prisoner Siyuf.”

“Not a badly treated one, I hope.”

Potto giggled. “A very well treated one, so far, Cousin. Since you’re a councillor now, I’ve appointed you an honorary cousin. Do you mind?”

Oosik cleared his throat. “Perhaps I should outline the entire situation, Generalissimo.”

“We are at war, you say. I believe this. I therefore give my name and rank. These alone, no other fact. Do you desire to exchange me? I will go.”

Maytera Mint said, “We do, very much.”

“Then I will fight you, after. It is to be regretted, but it is so, You cannot make me answer your questions—”

Potto giggled again.

“No more can I make you to answer mine. I ask anyway. Do you fight me together, Mint? Or do you fight each other also? When I return to my horde, it would be good that I know this.”

“Viron’s reunited. It’s been our calde’s dearest wish, and I’m delighted to say we’ve realized it.”

Potto rocked with mirth. “Wait till he finds out we’re on the same side! I can’t wait to see his face.”

“He’ll be radiant with joy. If you understood him as I do, you’d know it.” Maytera Mint spoke to Siyuf, “Let me explain, because all this hinges on your understanding what your troops are up against. We’ve not only made peace among ourselves, but given the city a new government. There are two main provisions to our agreement. One is that ours is a Charterial government, which means there must be a calde and an Ayuntamiento. We agree mutually that calde Silk is—”

“My prisoner,” Siyuf interrupted.

“Hardly.” Oosik leaned forward, his elbows upon the old deal table, his bass voice dominating the room. “He may be a prisoner of your city. We don’t know that yet. It is one of the things we need to discuss.”

Siyuf looked back to Maytera Marble. “You wish to tell me of the Charter of your city, before this man have interrupt you. I find this of interest.”

“I think it’s vital. If we’re to secure the favor of the gods, we have to govern according to the Charter they gave us. We’ve been trying from the start. Now we’ve succeeded.”

“I would ask who it is who rule this government, but you say Silk, who is not here. Who is commander here? You?”

Maytera Mint shook her head. “In military affairs, my own superior, Generalissimo Oosik. In civil, Councillor Potto, the Presiding Officer of the Ayuntamiento.”

“In this case you are not needed,” Siyuf told her, and turned to Newt. “Neither you, I think. Yet both sit at this table where is one chair more. You take our custom that each bring a subordinate? Is that the explanation I require? You for Potto, Mint for Oosik, Violet for me, perhaps? I do not think this I have say.”

“I’m breaking in,” Newt told her. “I’m the new boy.” He sounded anything but humble.

“I’m here,” Maytera Mint explained, “because we think you may listen to a woman when you won’t really hear a man.”

Oosik rumbled, “You’ve the quickest mind I know. You are present because we are likely to succeed because you are here.”

“I’m less apt to kill him, too,” Potto confided.

“He’s only joking,” Newt assured Siyuf.

“Not, I hope. You are a new councillor, you say. Where is it they find you?”

Maytera Mint said, “In the Juzgado. Councillor Newt was a commissioner there, the one who bought supplies for the calde’s Guard, made out the payroll, and so forth.” She paused.

“When I began, when Echidna called me her sword, I thought all we had to do was fight. I’m learning that fighting is the smallest part of it, and in some ways the easiest.”

Smiling, Siyuf nodded.

“Quite often it’s the other things that count most. You have to get supplies to the people who need them, and not just ammunition but food and bedding, and warm clothes. At any rate, part of our agreement was an acknowledgement by all of us that the Charter demands an Ayuntamiento.”

Potto made her a seated bow.

“But not just an Ayuntamiento, an elected one with a full compliment of councillors. We can’t hold elections because of the state things are in, so we’ve promised them after a year of peace. Meanwhile the present members will continue to serve, with Councillor Potto as Presiding Officer. New councillors are to be appointed as necessary by the calde, or in his absence by a de facto board of those who have his confidence. It consists of the current Ayuntamiento, including Councillor Newt now, with Generalissimo Oosik, His Cognizance, and me. I wanted a woman councillor—”

“You will not have her,” Siyuf put in. “They are all men.”

“So we appointed Kingcup. She’s not here because she’s out explaining all this to our people. I felt we needed—” Maytera Mint groped for words. “An ordinary woman with extraordinary gifts. Kingcup’s from a poor family, but she built a successful livery stable from scratch, so she’s used to managing. Besides, she’s the bravest woman in Viron.”

Oosik muttered, “No one but you would say that, General.”

She brushed the compliment aside. “So Kingcup for the people and Newt for the Juzgado.”

“With such as these you prepare to fight me,” Siyuf mused, “but I am not there. This is sad. I beat you, I think. Does my General Rimah beat you also? I do not know. She is a good officer. You ask of love for my horde. Why is this?”

“Because we hope that you will want to preserve it,” Oosik told her, “as I want to preserve the Guard. There has been some skirmishing already. If we fight in earnest, your horde will be destroyed and my Guard decimated.” Maytera Mint added, “To say nothing of what will happen to our city,” and Oosik nodded.

“We wish victory. None but cowards count life more high.” Maytera Mint started to speak, but Oosik silenced her with a gesture. “I am confident General Rimah is an able officer. You’re not the sort to tolerate anything less. There is a gulf, however, between an able officer and an exceptional leader. The ranks sense it at once, and the public almost as quickly. I will not ask if you care about your troops. We’re too close for that, you and I, so close I can hear my own voice in everything you’ve said. You long for victory, and you know, as I do, that it would be more probable if you were in command of your troops. Wouldn’t you agree that for any other—”

Potto interrupted. “A subject of the Rani’s.”

“That for another citizen of your city,” Oosik continued, “to prevent you from resuming your place would be treason? It is not an idle question.”

“You think someone does this? I wish to know.”

“Let me.” Maytera Mint’s small, not uncomely face shone with energy and resolve. “You want to fight me, Siyuf, because of what you’ve heard about me. I don’t want to fight you, and in fact it’s the last thing I want. I want peace. I want to end this foolish fighting and let everybody in our city and yours go back to their proper lives. But it’s been clear ever since your spies tried to arrest us that as long as you have our calde there can be no peace. I’m going to assume you understand that, because if you don’t there’s no use talking.”

“I am captive also.” Siyuf touched her chest.

“Exactly! You’ve saved me a lot of time. We’ve got you, but in a very important way we don’t want you, since your city will fight to get you back. Clearly the sensible thing is to exchange you for our calde. Peace would be possible then, but if we still couldn’t make peace, you and I would be fighting each other, which is what you want. Now if—”

Siyuf made a quick motion, the gesture of one accustomed to instant obedience. “I have pledged to your Sand that I will free Incus the holy man and Marble. She is your friend?”

“Yes, she is.” Maytera Mint glanced at Oosik, but he did not speak. “You cheated Sergeant Sand and Corporal Hammerstone. You know you did. You knew those prisoners were already on your airship when you promised to let them go.”

“Over this we fight a duel, perhaps, if I am free. It may still be so. I did not know, Mint. If you have deal with Saba and her airship as I, you know that what is to be at shadeup may not be until midday, or not this day or the next. Let me go. I get them again and free them. Calde Silk also.”

For a second or two Maytera Mint studied her with pursed lips. “All right, I’ll accept that. I apologize.”

Potto tittered.

“But your airship doesn’t seem to have reached Trivigaunte yet. Does that bother you?”

Siyuf shook her head. “Tonight, or I think the morning.”

Oosik rumbled, “Suppose I were to say tomorrow afternoon, Generalissimo. Your knowledge, I contend, is not so deep as you pretend. Tomorrow afternoon!”

Siyuf shrugged. “If you say. Perhaps.”

“In that case I proffer a further supposition. Not before shadelow next Phaesday. What would you say to that?”

“That you are a fool. The airship could be here once more in such a time.”

“Just so.” Oosik wound his white-tipped mustache about his finger. “We have contacted Trivigaunte by glass, Generalissimo. We have spoken to your Minister of War. We have explained how things stand here, and offered to exchange you for Calde Silk.”

“They won’t,” Newt declared. “Won’t do it or even talk about it, by Scylla! We invite your comments.”

“I offer what is better. Let me speak with her.”

Potto roared, slapping his thigh. “This is too, too rich! My dear young General, you’re not even smiling. How do you do it?” He turned back to Siyuf, speaking across the empty chair. “You already have, and it didn’t help a bit.”

“I have not. Abanja for me, perhaps.”

Maytera Mint said, “We think it’s politics. By we I mean Generalissimo Oosik and I. The internal politics of your city. We’d like confirmation of that, and some suggestions about what to do about it.”

“If this you say is true…” Siyuf shrugged again.

Oosik muttered, “Every city has its feuds, Generalissimo.”

“Mine also. Our War Minister, you do not say her name. This is Ljam? A scar here?” Siyuf touched her upper lip.

Newt and Maytera Mint nodded.

“This is not possible. My city have politics, as your generalissimo say. Feuds, plottings, hatreds. Of these very many. But Ljam is with me most near. If I fail here she fail also. You understand? Lose her ministry, perhaps her head.”

Oosik regarded Siyuf through slitted eyes. “You’re saying it is impossible for her to betray you, Generalissimo?”

“She cannot unless she is betray herself!”

Potto sang, “I told you! I told you!”

“He thinks your airship’s wrecked, or it’s gone off course somehow.” Maytera Mint looked somber. “Naturally they won’t say so, and Generalissimo Oosik and I thought it was more likely they were playing some game, though Councillor Potto received a report implying it’s gone. Now it seems he must be right. This is truly unfortunate.”

“But we’re going to let you go anyhow,” Potto told Siyuf. “Isn’t that nice of us?” He bounced from his chair and went to the door calling, “You can send them in!”

It was opened by a soldier; and Violet and a second Siyuf entered, Violet with her arm linked with the second Siyuf’s. She stared at the first in open-mouthed amazement.

“You’ll have to go now, my dear young strumpet,” Potto told her. “We don’t want you, though I’m sure many do. Have a seat, Generalissimo. I’ll be with you in a half a moment.”

“I am to sit beside this bio?” the second Siyuf inquired. “This I do not like. You say you send me to my horde, I think. When is it you do this?”

“You’ll escape,” Newt explained to the first Siyuf. “Or rather, she will.”

“Too much warlockery for me.” Hadale dropped into one of the cockpit’s black-leather seats. “Too much in your city, and too much on our airship now that you’re here. People at home say you’re all warlocks, but I discounted it. I should have tripled everything. You’re a warlock, Calde, and I’d call you the chief warlock if I hadn’t met the old man who sat between our generalissimo and General Saba.”

“She refers to His Cognizance,” Silk told Hyacinth; awed and delighted, he tried to stare at everything at once. “Like a conservatory…”

Oreb croaked, “Bad thing” as Tick squirmed in Hyacinth’s grasp. “Add word, dew!”

“Three engines gone.” Hadad peered morosely through the nearest rectangle of glass at the parting clouds and the rocky sand scape that they revealed. “What do you want? Surrender? I’ll shoot you first and take my chances with the desert.”

“Then we don’t want it,” Hyacinth declared.

“We don’t in any case,” Silk said, “and I’m no warlock; the truth is that I’m hardly an augur any more — I certainly don’t feel like one.”

“General Saba told me the other day that you read about our advance in sheepguts. Do you deny it?”

“No, though it isn’t true. Denying it would waste time, so you may believe it if you like. There are five engines still in operation. Is that enough to keep us in the air?”

The navigator looked up from her charts, then returned to them; Hadale pointed to the ceiling. “None are needed to keep us up, the gas does it. Are we going to lose all our engines?”

Silk considered. “I can’t promise that. I hope so.”

“You hope so.”

“No shoot,” Oreb advised Hadale nervously. “Good man.”

“It was what I intended.” For a moment, Silk allowed his eyes to feast on Hyacinth’s loveliness. “The risk that gave me most concern was that Hyacinth might be killed as a result of what I was doing; I hoped it wouldn’t happen, and I’m very glad it won’t. I betrayed my god for her — I was horribly afraid that it would recoil on me, as such things do.”

She brought his hand to the soft warmth of her thigh. “You betrayed the Outsider for me? I’d never ask you to do that.”

Hadale turned to the pilot, “We’ve still got five?”

The pilot nodded. “Can’t make much headway against this wind with five, though, sir.”

Hyacinth asked, “Aren’t we going south anyway? Isn’t the wind blowing us south to Trivigaunte? Somebody said something like that.”

“It’s blowing us south,” Hadale told her bitterly, “but not to Trivigaunte. We turned east for about an hour before the first one quit.”

“Veering north-northwest, sir,” the pilot reported.

Having freed himself from Hyacinth’s grasp, Tick stood on his hind legs to pat Hadale’s knee. “Rust Milk, laddie. Milk bill take hit hall tight.”

“He says you can trust my husband,” Hyacinth interpreted. “He’s right, too, and I don’t think you ought to pay too much attention to what my husband says about betraying a god. He — oh, I don’t know how to explain! He’s forever blaming himself for the wrong things. He’s sorry for holding me too tight when I wish he’d hold me tighter. See?”

“Your catachrest’s an oracle of our goddess, so I have to trust him implicitly. Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that.” Hyacinth sat down. “I guess I would have, though, if I thought you’d believe it. Maybe it’s right, and she isn’t telling us.”

“Hat’s shoe!” Tick exclaimed.

Silk smiled. “I take it that General Saba’s no longer in charge. Where is she?”

“In her bunk, with three troopers to watch her. I won’t ask how you drove her mad. I’m sure you wouldn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t.” He leaned over the crescent-shaped instrument panel for a better view of the desert below. “I arranged for her to be possessed, that’s all. You saw the same thing at our dinner. Are you in charge now? There’s no one over you?”

“The War Minister. In a moment I’m going to have to report this situation to her.”

“No talk,” Oreb advised.

“By ‘this situation’ you mean—”

“Three engines out. I’ve told her about Saba turning east already. I had to. I was hoping you’d agree to repair the engines before I had to report them, too. That’s why I let you come up here. Will you?”

“I can’t.” Silk took the seat next to Hyacinth’s. “Nor would I if I could. We’d be back where we began, with Auk’s people trying to seize control, and everyone — all of us, I mean — dying. I said I betrayed the Outsider because that was how I felt—”

“Wind’s due west now, sir,” the pilot reported.

“Course?”

“East by south, sir. We might try dropping down.”

“Do it.” Hadale considered. “A hundred and fifty cubits.” She turned back to Silk. “You were afraid we’d crash. We may. It’s dangerous to fly that low in weather as windy as this. If a downdraft catches us, we could be finished. But the wind won’t be as strong down there.”

Hyacinth gasped, and Silk said, “I can feel the airship descend. I rode in a moving room once that felt like this.”

“You want to go east. That was how you had General Saba steering us.”

He nodded, and smiled again. “To Mainframe. Auk wants to carry out the Plan of Pas, and the Outsider wants it, too, which is why I felt I was betraying him when I did what I did to your engines. But letting Auk try to take your airship wouldn’t have achieved anything, and this was the only way I could think of to prevent him.”

“So now that we don’t have enough engines to fight the wind, you’re working your magic on that.”

Silk shook his head. “I can’t. All that I can do is pray, which isn’t magic at all, but begging. I’ve been doing it, and perhaps I’ve been heard.”

He drew a deep breath. “You want your engines back in operation, Major. You want to preserve this airship, and to deliver me to your superiors in Trivigaunte; the rest of your prisoners don’t matter greatly, as you must know. I do.”

Slowly, Hadale nodded.

“We can do all that, if only you’ll cooperate. Take us to Mainframe, as Pas commands and the Outsider wishes. Auk and his people can leave the whorl and thus begin carrying out the Plan. Hyacinth and I will return—”

“Shut up!” Hadale cocked her head, listening.

The pilot said, “Number seven’s quit, sir.” The absence of all emotion in her voice conveyed what she felt.

“Take her up fast. Just below the cloud cover.”

Hyacinth asked Silk, “Won’t the wind be stronger there?”

Hadale was on her feet, scanning the desert below. “A lot stronger, but I’m going to set her down and try to fix the engines. Even if we can’t, we won’t be blowing farther from Trivigaunte. We want a big level stretch to land on, and an oasis, if we can find one.”

“No land!” Oreb advised sharply; Hyacinth began, “If you’ll go to Mainframe like he—”

Hadale whirled. “He can’t fix them. He admits it.”

Silk had risen, too; almost whispering, he said, “You must have faith, Major.”

“All right, I’ve got faith. Slashing Sphigx, succor us! Meanwhile I need a place to set us down on.”

“I said I couldn’t repair your engines. I said it because it’s the truth. I should have added — as I do, now — that if only we were doing the gods’ will instead of opposing it, a way to repair them—”

“Sir!” The pilot pointed.

“I see them. Can you get us over there?”

“I think so, sir. I’ll try.”

Silk leaned forward, squinting. Hyacinth said, “Something like ants, but they’re leagues and leagues away.”

“That’s a caravan,” Hadale told Silk, “could be one of ours. Even if it isn’t, they’ll have food and water, and a few of us can ride to the city to guide a rescue party.”

“I just hope they’re friendly,” Hyacinth murmured.

Rubbing her hands, Hadale looked ten years younger. “They will be soon. I’ve got two platoons of pterotroopers on board.”