may be dead. I can't say."
"Tell me what happened, please."
Slowly, Quetzal's hairless head swung from side to side. "It would
be better, Patera Calde, for you to tell me. You've been very near
death. I need to know what you've forgotten."
"There's water in these tunnels. I was in them before, Your
Cognizance. In places there was a great deal."
"This is not one of those places. If you have recovered enough to
grasp how ill you are and keep a promise, I'll find some. Do you
remember blessing the crowds with me? Tell me about that."
"We were trying to bring peace--peace to Viron. Blood had
bought it--Musk, but Musk was only a tool of Blood's."
"Had bought the city, Patera Calde?"
Silk's mouth opened and closed again.
"What is it, Patera Calde?"
"Yes, Your Cognizance, he has. He, and others like him. I hadn't
thought of that until you asked. I'd been confusing the things."
"What things, Patera Calde?"
"Peace and saving my manteion. The Outsider asked me to save
it, and then the insurrection broke out, and I thought I would have
saved it if only I could bring peace, because the people made me
calde, and I would save it by an order." For a second or two, Silk lay
silent, his eyes half closed. "Blood--men like Blood--have stolen
the city, every part of it except the Chapter, and the Chapter has
resisted only because you are at its head, Your Cognizance. When
you're gone..."
"When I die, Patera Calde?"
"If you were to die, Your Cognizance, they'd have it all. Musk
actually signed the papers. Musk was the owner of record--the man
whose body we burned on the altar, Your Cognizance. I remember
thinking how horrible it would be if Musk were the real owner and
clenching my teeth--puffing myself up with courage I've never
really had and telling myself over and over that I couldn't allow it to
happen."
"You're the only man in Viron who doubts your courage, Patera
Calde."
Silk scarcely heard him. "I was wrong. Badly mistaken. Musk
wasn't the danger, was never the danger, really. There are scores of
Musks in the Orilla, and Musk loved birds. Did I tell you that, Your
Cognizance?"
"No, Patera Calde. Tell me now, if you wish."
"He did. Mucor told me he liked birds, and he'd brought her a
book about the cats she carried for Blood. When he saw Oreb, he
said I'd gotten him because I wanted to be friends, which wasn't
true, and threw his knife at him. He missed, and I believe he
intended to miss. Blood, with his money and his greed for more, has
done Viron more harm than all the Musks. Everything I've done has
been trying to pry bits of the city from Blood. I was trying to save
my manteion, I said; but you can't save just one manteion--I can't
save our quarter and nothing else. I see that now. And yet I like
Blood, or at least I would like to like him."
"I understand, Patera Calde."
"Little pieces--the manteion, and Hyacinth and Orchid, and Auk,
because Auk matters so much to Maytera Mint. Auk..."
"Yes, Patera Calde?"
"Auk pushed me, Your Cognizance. We had been together in the
floater, Hyacinth and I. Your Cognizance, too, and--and others.
We were coming down, and Colonel Oosik--"
"You've made him Generalissimo Oosik," Quetzal reminded Silk
gently.
"Yes. Yes, I did. He passed me the ear, and I talked to the
convicts, telling them they were free, and then we hit the ground.
We opened a hatch and Hyacinth and I climbed out--"
"I'm satisfied, Patera Calde. Promise me you won't try to stand
until I come back, and I'll look for water."
Silk detained him, clasping one boneless, bloodless hand. "You
can't tell me what's happened to her, Your Cognizance?"
Again Quetzal's head swung from side to side, a slow and almost
hypnotic motion.
"Then Auk has her, I don't know why, and I must get her back
from him. What happened to me, Your Cognizance?"
"You were buried alive, Patera Calde. When the floater crashed,
some of us climbed out. I did, as you see, and you and your young
woman, as you say. The fencing master, too, and your physician.
I'm sure of those. The convicts were running to a hole in the ground
to escape the shooting and explosions. Do you remember them?"
This time Silk was able to nod without much difficulty, although
his neck was stiff and painful.
"There was a ramp down the side of the hole, and a break in this
tunnel at the bottom. The fencing master and I ducked through.
Almost at once there was another explosion, and the hole fell in
behind us. We were lucky to have gotten in. Do you know my
coadjutor's prothonotary, Patera Calde?"
"I've met him, Your Cognizance. I don't know him well."
"He's here. I was surprised to see him, and he to see me. There is
a woman with him called Chenille who says she knows you. They
went into the tunnel yesterday, at Limna. They had been trying to
reach the city."
"Chenille, Your Cognizance? A tall woman? Red hair?"
"Exactly so. She's an extraordinary woman. Soon after the
explosion, the convicts attacked us. They were friendly at first, but
soon demanded we give them Patera and the woman. We refused,
and Xiphias killed four. Xiphias is the fencing master. Am I making
myself clear?"
"Perfectly, Your Cognizance."
"We tried to dig our way out and found you. We thought you
were dead, and Patera and I brought you the Peace of Pas.
Eventually we stopped digging, having realized that the effort
was hopeless. For a dozen men with shovels and barrows, two
days might be enough."
"I understand, Your Cognizance.
"By then I was exhausted, though I had dug less than the woman.
The others left to look for another way out. She and Patera are
famished, and they have a tessera that they believe will admit them
to the Juzgado. They promised to return for your body and me. I
prayed for you after they had gone."
"Your Cognizance distrusts the gods."
"I do." Quetzal nodded, his hairless head bobbing on its long neck.
"I know them for what they are. But consider. I believe in them. I
have faith. You mentioned your quarter. How many there really
believe in the gods? Half?"
"Less than that, I'm afraid, Your Cognizance."
"What about you, Patera Calde? Look into your heart."
Silk was silent.
"I'll give you my thoughts, Patera Calde. This young man
believes, and he loves the gods even after seeing Echidna. I too
believe, though I distrust them. He would want me to pray for him,
and that's my office. I've done it often, hoping I wouldn't be heard.
This time it's possible one will restore him, to prove she's not at bad
as I think."
Faint yet unmistakable, the crack of a needler echoed down the tunnel.
"That will be Patera, Patera Calde. We've been lucky in the
matter of weapons. Xiphias has a sword, and had a small needler he
said w
as yours. You left it on your bed, and he took charge of it for
you. He gave it to the woman. We found a large one in your
waistband. Patera took it, surprising me again. Our clergy have
hidden depths."
In spite of pain and weakness, Silk smiled. "Some do, perhaps,
Your Cognizance."
"Last night before you saw me in the alley, Patera Calde. I met
your acolyte, young Gulo. He is most embarrassed."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Your Cognizance."
"You shouldn't be. His uncle is a major in the Second Brigade.
One uncle of many. Were you aware of it?"
"No, Your Cognizance. I don't know much about Patera."
"Neither do I, though he was one of our copyists until my
coadjutor sent him to you. He commands several thousand now. It's
a great responsibility for someone so young. More join every hour,
he tells me, because they know he's your acolyte."
Silk managed to swallow. "I hope he won't waste their lives, Your
Cognizance."
"So do I. I asked if it was hard. He said he discussed each
operation with those who would have to fight. He finds them
sensible, and he knows something of war from his uncle's table talk.
He fights in the front rank afterward, he says."
"Your Cognizance mentioned that he was embarrassed."
"So he is, Patera Calde." Quetzal shook himself, lifting one
corner of his mouth by the thickness of a thread. "He has
captured his uncle. Our clergy have hidden depths. The older
man is humiliated. It's an awkward situation, I'm afraid, but I
was amused."
"So am I, Your Cognizance. Thank you."
Quetzal rose. "We'll find our own amusing, when we find our way
out. May I look for water?"
"Of course, Your Cognizance."
"You won't try to stand until I'm back? Give me your word,
Patera Calde."
Silk sat up.
"Please, Patera--"
"I have to go with you, Your Cognizance. I have to find water,
wash, and drink, so I can do whatever I can for Viron and Hyacinth.
You've got nothing to carry water in, and all four of you couldn't
possibly carry me far."
"You've been suffocated, Patera Calde," Quetzal bent over him.
"We merely thought you dead, and I shouldn't have hinted at a
miracle. No god can turn back death, and if they could, no god
would to please us. You were still alive when we dug you out. You
revived naturally--"
Unaided, Silk staggered to his feet. "I had a cane, Your Cognizance.
Master Xiphias gave it to me. I didn't need it then, or at least
not much. Now I do."
Quetzal offered him the baculus. "Use this."
"Never, Your Cognizance. Councillor Lemur called me--No, I won't."
The tunnel behind them was nearly choked with earth; a trampled
path led Silk to an opening in the wall. "Is this where you found me,
Your Cognizance? In there?"
"Yes, Patera Calde. But if your young woman is in there, she is
surely dead by now."
"I realize that." Silk put his head through the opening, "and I
believe she's in the pit with Auk, anyway; but Master Xiphias values
that cane, I need it, and it's probably very close to the place where
you found me." He began to work his shoulders through.
"Be careful, Patera Calde."
The wall was shiprock, little more than a cubit thick. Beyond it
lay a cavity hollowed from the tumbled soil that seemed utterly
dark. When Silk tried to stand, he found his head capped by a rough
dome; earth and small stones showered him invisibly. "This could
collapse any moment," he told the swaying figure in the tunnel.
"So it could, Patera Calde. Come out, please."
His questing fingers had come upon stubby protuberances he
assumed were roots. Exploring his pockets, he discovered the cards
Remora had given him and used one to scrape away the soil. One
root wore a ring. He cleared away more soil until he could get a firm
grip on the hand, tugged, dug farther, and tugged again.
"There are new sounds in this tunnel, Patera Calde. You had
better leave that place."
"I've found someone, Your Cognizance. Somebody else." Silk
hesitated, unwilling to trust his judgement. "I don't think it's
Hyacinth. The hand is too big."
"Then it doesn't matter whose it is. We must go."
Getting a firm grip on the arm, Silk heaved with all the strength
that remained to him, and was rewarded by a cataract of earth and a
dead man's embrace.
I'm robbing a grave, he thought, spitting grit and wiping his eyes.
Robbing this man's grave from below--stealing his grave as well as
his body.
It should have been at least as amusing as Gulo's uncle the major,
but was not. Holding onto the jagged edge of the opening in the
tunnel wall, he succeeded in pulling his own partially buried body
free. Back in the tunnel (suddenly very glad of its cold, sighing airs
and watery lights) he was able to extract the corpse from the loose
soil that had reclaimed it. Quetzal was nowhere to be seen.
"He's gone to look for water," Silk muttered. "Perhaps water could
revive you the way something revived me," but the dead man's ears
were stopped with earth. As he cleaned the pitiful face, Silk added,
"I'm sorry, Doctor."
He searched his pockets again; his beads were not there, left
very long time ago.
He wriggled back into the dark cavity beyond the tunnel wall.
Hyacinth had bathed him in their bedroom at Ermine's, undressing
him, and scrubbing and drying him bit by bit. He ought to have been
embarrassed (he told himself); but he had been too exhausted to
feel anything beyond vague satisfaction, a weak pleasure at finding
himself the object of so beautiful a woman's attention. Now all her
concern had been undone, and Remora's fine robe, scarcely worn, ruined.
"You returned me to life, Outsider," Silk murmured as he
resumed digging, "I wish you'd cleaned me up, too." But the
Outsider had doubtless been, as Doctor Crane had maintained, no
more than a vein's bursting.
Or had Doctor Crane--who had thought himself, or at any rate
called himself, an agent of the Rani--been in truth an agent of the
Outsider? Doctor Crane had made it possible for him to proceed in
his attempt to save the manteion despite his broken ankle; and
Doctor Crane had freed him when he had been taken by the
Ayuntamiento. It was conceivable, even likely, that Doctor Crane's
scepticism had been a test of faith.
Had he passed?
Weighing that question, he dug harder than ever, making the
dark, evil-smelling earth fly. If he had, he would almost certainly be
tested again, after this surrender to doubt.
The card struck something hard. At first he assumed it was a
stone, but it was too smooth; another half minute's work bared the
new find: a slender hook. As soon as he grasped it to pull it free, he
knew that he had found the silver-banded cane Xiphias had brought
to Ermine's for him.
Without
warning, brilliant light flooded the cavity. He turned
away from it, covering his eyes.
"I see you in there. Come on out."
There was something familiar about the harsh voice, but it was
not until its owner said, "Put your hands where I can see them," that
Silk recognized it as Sergeant Sand's.
Sitting the white stallion in the middle of Fisc Street, Maytera Mint
surveyed the advancing ranks. Every one of those soldiers would be
worth three of her best, but they were few. Hearteningly few, and
the troopers from Trivigaunte had come. Just a few hundred now,
but thousands more were on the way.
"Fire and fall back," she called softly, adding under her breath,
"Gracious Echidna, grant that I be heard by our people but not by
those soldiers." Then, a trifle louder, "Not too quickly. But not too
slowly, either. This isn't the time to impress me. Don't get yourselves
killed."
The first level metal rank was practically within slug-gun range.
She wheeled her stallion and cantered off, hearing the firing break
out behind her, the _whiz...bang!_ of missiles and the dull booming
of slug guns.
Someone cried out.
I told them to, she reminded herself. I emphasized it in the briefing.
Yet she knew the wound had been real. She reined in the stallion
and turned to look again: behind the soldiers, Rook's blocking force
was straggling into position. Too early, she thought. Far too early.
You never appreciated men like Bison and the captain--men who
helped you make plans and carried them out--until you got
something like this.
One long cable had been looped around each pillar of the Corn
Exchange; it was not taut yet, nor should it have been. She risked a
glance up at the towering facade, another at Wool and his bullock
men, motionless in the shadows half a street away. He and they
stood ready beside their animals, waiting for her signal.
The bullock men trusted her. So did the ragged men and women
who were shooting and retreating as she had taught them. Shooting
and dying, because they had trusted a weak woman--trusted her
because Brocket had taught her to ride when she was a child.
She clapped heels to the stallion's sides. He had been used long
and hard yesterday, yet he surged forward, a foaming wave of
strength. Patera Silk's azoth was in her hand; she thumbed the
demon.
Seeing its terrible blade split the sky, Wool's bullock men