Return to the Whorl

Hound stared at the fire before he spoke. "You said most of those embryos had been stolen or destroyed."



"I'm afraid so."



"Does that mean we'll fail?"



"Perhaps. On Green at least."



"I'd like to go. Am I crazy? I've never felt this way way before."



"The crossing is very dangerous-I don't deny that. But you and Tansy might make a better life for yourselves and your children on Blue than you will ever have here, and you would be doing the will of Pas."



"Not Blue," Hound said. "I want to go to Green. I want to go where I'm needed, Horn."



Before he replied, he stretched out on the floor, his hands behind his head. "You're a brave man."



"I'm not! I know I'm not. But-but..."



"You are."



"But I'm steady, and I've got a good head on my shoulders, and I don't drink or get so angry I ruin everything. I'm no troublemaker. I can work with my hands, and I drive a hard bargain. They could use me. I know they could!"



"I'm sure you're right."



"I'm going to have think about it. I'm going to have to think for a long time, probably until after the baby's born."



Silence descended on the ruined villa, a silence broken only by the moaning of the wind outside, the crackling of the fire, and the soft breathing of the man stretched on the floor.



When some time had passed, Hound rose, took a burning stick from the fire, and went outside again. When he returned, he got a blanket and spread it over the man on the floor, who opened his eyes and murmured, "Thank you."



"You're awake," Hound said.



"I fear I am."



"You said some things tonight that sounded pretty, I don't know, not religious. You admitted it yourself."



"The joke about the dead farmer."



"Yes, and other things too. I've got a question, Horn. It's going to sound bad, or anyhow I'm afraid it will. And it may be pretty silly."



"You're afraid I may not take you seriously."



Hound sat down. "I guess so."



"If you ask it seriously, I'll answer seriously, or try to. What is it?"



"You said that there are two gods we don't know. I mean, we know that there are gods like that, but we don't know their names. You said too that the Outsider had made Pas?"



"Yes. Both gods and Men-the human race-were created by the O•itsider. It's explicitly stated in the Chrasmologic Writings, and I'm confident that it's true."



"The other nameless god, is that Thyone's son? Does anybody know who his father was?"



"Pas, supposedly. It's said that Thyone is one of his inferior concubines, less favored than Kypris."



"Then what I was going to ask about is pretty silly. I was going to ask if it isn't possible they're really the same."



The man lying on the floor said nothing.



"Since we don't know the names. That the Outsider is Thyone's son, the wine god, too."



"That isn't silly at all; it's extremely perceptive. You've amazed me twice within a few minutes. Yes, it's possible and it may well be true. I don't know."



"But if the Outsider made Pas, and Pas is the wine god's father...?"



"Have you ever seen Thyone, Hound? In a Sacred Window or anyplace else?"



Hound shook his head.



"Neither have I. What about Pas? I have not."



"No."



"Then what do either of us know about the parentage of the wine god, and what such parentage may entail? What limitations the Outsider may be subject to or free from? I told you about Auk-how he was told by Scylla that Pas's name had been Typhon on the Short Sun Whorl."



Hound nodded.



"Scylla was in possession of a woman named Chenille when that conversation took place; Chenille told my wife a good deal about it not long afterward. Do you think that because Scylla was possessing Chenille she was absent from Mainframe? Or that Scylla can't have been in another woman-or a man, for that matter-at the same time?"



"I guess she could have if she wanted to."



"Certainly she could." The man who had been lying on the floor sat up. "I was going to tell you what happened to me, and to Pig, after I left you. Then I decided that it might better be left unsaidthat I'd let Pig tell both of us, if he would, and let it pass in silence if he wouldn't. Now I've changed my mind again. You need to hear this. You and your wife welcomed us, and I would be neglecting a duty if I withheld it."



"Does this have something to do with the gods?" Hound asked.



"I think it may. We went outside, as you know, and I spoke with Mucor, and asked her to talk to Pig when I was finished."



Hounded nodded.



"After that, I couldn't decide whether to come back here or visit the room that had been Hyacinth's."



"Silk's wife's?"



"Yes. She had lived in this house for a time. She was a very beautiful woman, the most beautiful I'd ever seen. I've seen one other since who might rival her, despite being maimed."



"Go on, Horn."



"Recalling her, and how beautiful I'd thought her then, I felt a sort of itch to stand in the suite she'd occupied, and touch the walls. She'd split her stone windowsill with an azoth. I wanted to feel that windowsill, if it was still there, and stand for a time at the very window Silk had jumped from. I told myself over and over how foolish it was, and that I should return here. Have I told you Oreb had left?"



Hound shook his head.



"He had. Mucor frightens him, as I should have remembered. It was utterly dark, of course, and I had to feel my way with my stick. It must have taken me five minutes to cross Mucor's room and find the door. I decided I'd try to return here to you, and if I blundered on a set of rooms that fit Silk's description of Hyacinth's, so much the better."



"That sounds sensible."



"Thank you. It may have been sensible, but it did me little good. Soon after I had left Mucor's room, I was completely lost, and bitterly regretted having left my lantern behind with you. I stumbled around helplessly for a long while. I was looking for stairs and tried to stay out of the rooms-after I had explored a few-because I felt certain one would enter the staircases from a corridor."



"I understand."



"I blundered into a suite just the same, and for a minute or two I didn't know I had done it. When I realized what must have happened, I found a door and went through, thinking I'd be in the corridor again; but it was another room, bigger than the first and, as well as I could judge, almost triangular. I don't know whether the geome- te-s have a name for that shape, a wide triangle with two corners cut off. I felt certain then-absolutely certain, Hound-that I was standing in what had been Hyacinth's dressing chamber. I had never been there before in my life, though I was in this house long ago as I told you; but I have thought of it a thousand times, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was standing there. You're free to doubt me if you wish-I don't blame you."



"Go on," Hound said again. "What did you do?"



"Well, I thought that since I was there I might as well find the bedroom, which is where the window Silk had jumped through had been, and touch that windowsill and stand at the window and so on. I was tapping around with my stick, looking for the door, when I heard the sound of a tremendous blow, a blow and the sound of wood splintering. I can't begin to convey to you how frightening I found that, alone in the dark."



Hound raised his eyebrows. "Do you know, I think I may have heard it too. There was a loud bang way off in the house someplace, a long time before you came back. I thought Pig might have fallen down."



"Perhaps that was what it was, though I doubt it. My guess-and it is merely a guess, nothing more-is that Pig struck a wall, either with the sword that he uses in this darkness as I use my stick, or with his fist."



"That he struck the wall?"



"Yes. I doubt that there's furniture left in this house, or that there has been for many years. Blood would have had fine furniture, from what I've heard of him, and I feel sure it must have been carted away long ago. We pile up treasures, Hound, and believe in our folly that we are piling them up for ourselves, when in fact we are accumulating them for those who will come after us. May I confide something personal and rather disreputable concerning my own family?"



"Absolutely, if you want to."



"My oldest son was often difficult. He felt he was far wiser than Nettle and I-that we should do as he said, and be grateful that he condescended to rule and advise us."



Hound smiled. "I gave my own father some headaches, too."



"Once when he was angry at Nettle, he punched a cabinet I made so violently that he broke the door, as well as hurting his hand pretty badly. Have I clarified the sound you heard?"



Hound scratched his head. "What made Pig so angry?"



"The tapping of my stick, I assume."



"He was in Calde Silk's wife's bedroom?"



"And thought that he was about to be interrupted. It's all guesswork; but yes, I believe that's what must have happened."



"I understand now why you didn't want to send Oreb to look in on him." Hound scraped together the twigs and bark that were all that remained of their firewood and added them to the fire. "What I don't understand is what Pig was doing there."



"In an empty room in this dark, empty house? It seems to me that there's very little he could have been doing, other than what I planned to do myself-listen to the silence, touch the walls and the windowsill, and try to guess where the bed and the rest of Hyacinth's furnishings had been."



"I thought Pig hadn't ever been in this part of the whorl before. He said so, I think. So did you, Horn."



"I probably did." He stood, dusting his knees and the seat of his trousers. "We need more wood. With your permission, I'm going to try to find some."



Hound said, "You don't want to talk about this any more."



"You can put it like that if you choose to. I've nothing sensible left to say about it, and I don't like sounding foolish, though I often do. Would you like examples of my foolishness?"



Hound reached for his lantern. "Yes, I would."



"It wasn't Pig I heard, but someone else. That suite wasn't Hyacinth's but someone else's. Pig's connection wasn't with her, but with someone who had occupied her suite before she did."



"Do you believe any of that?"



"Not a word of it. When-if-Pig returns, I may ask, very diplo matically, what Mucor said to him, and why he went to the suite that Hyacinth once occupied. I may-but I may not. I advise you not to question him at all, though I can't forbid it. Are you coming with me to look for wood?"



"Yes." Hound had opened his lantern and was kneeling by the fire to light its candle. "I'll take this, too. If we go outside the wall we ought to be able to find any amount of dead wood, blown out of the trees by that wind."



It was blowing hard when they left the flickering firelight and the smell of woodsmoke, and stepped through the opening that had been Blood's door, a gale with a hint of autumn in it that swung Hound's lantern like a feather on a string.



Hound went at once to his huddled donkeys. "I'm going to bring them inside. It'll pour in a minute or two."



His companion was about to tell him to go ahead, and to remark that the coming storm was probably what the donkeys had been afraid of earlier, when Oreb swooped to a hard landing upon his shoulder, croaking, "Man come! Big man!"



"Pig? Where is he?"



"Big big! Watch out!"



"Believe me, I'll be as careful as possible. Where is he?"



"No, no!" Oreb fluttered to keep his balance in the wind.



"You don't have to come with me, but where did you see him?"



"In back. Bird show." Oreb darted forward, flapping hard into the wind's eye, no higher than his owner's knees. The faint light of the lantern faded and was gone as Hound led his donkeys into the ruined villa.



"Come bird!" Oreb called through the darkness.



"Yes! I am!"



"Good Silk!" The hoarse croak was almost lost in the roaring of the wind. "Watch out!"



His probing staff found nothing until a huge hand closed around him, its grip enveloping him from shoulder to waist.



"Would you have light?" The godling's voice mingled with distant thunder; it was as if the coming storm had spoken.



The man the godling had addressed gasped.



"I will burn this house for you, holy one, if you wish."



He found it impossible to think, almost impossible to speak. "If you tighten your grip, I'll be killed."



"I will not tighten my grip. Will you sit upon my palm, holy one? You must not fall."



"Yes," he said. "I-yes."



Something pressed his feet; his knees, which he could not have kept straight, bent. The hand that had grasped him relaxed, sliding upward and away. He groped the hard, uneven surface on which he had been seated, discovering that it fell away half a cubit to his left and right, found the great fingers (each as wide as his head) curled behind him. "Oreb?"



It had emerged as a whisper; he had intended a shout. He filled his lungs and tried again. "Oreb!"



"Bird here." Here was clearly a considerable distance.



"Oreb, come to me, please."



He was conscious of the wind, cool and violent, threatening with gusts to blow him from his precarious seat.



"Hurt bird?"



"No!" He cleared his throat. "You know I won't hurt you."



"Big man. Hurt bird?"



The deep voice rumbled out of the darkness again. "If you fall..." Lightning gleamed on the horizon. For a fraction of a second it revealed a face as large as Echidna's had been in the Sacred Window so long ago: tiny eyes, nostrils like the lairs of two beasts, and a cavernous mouth. "I cannot catch you."



"Please." He gasped for breath, fighting the feeling that the wind blew every word to nothing. "You said I could have light. If I wanted it. I have a lantern. May I light it?"