Silk who longed to see her again.
The harsh voice: “Silk good!”
Perhaps. But was it that Silk or this one, himself? Was it this one, with Hyacinth’s azoth in its hand, drawn unconsciously? This Silk who feared and hated Musk, and ached to kill him?
Of whom was he afraid? That other Silk would not have harmed a mouse, had postponed getting the ratsnake he needed again and again, visualizing the suffering of—rats. And yet it would be a fearful thing to meet that Silk whom he had been, and was a fearful thing to meet him now, in voice and memory. Had he truly become someone else?
He tore open the heavy, paper-wrapped packet Auk had put into his hand, dropping several needles. More filled the open breech of the needler like water, he released the loading knob and the breech closed. The needler would fire now if he needed it.
Or perhaps would not.
Patera Silk, and Silk nightside. He found that he, the latter, was contemptuous of the former, though envious, too.
His own voice echoed from the manse. “In the names of all the immortal gods, who give us all we have.”
Strange gifts, at times. He had saved this manteion, or had at least postponed its destruction; now, hearing the voice of its augur, he knew that it had never really been worth saving—though he had been sent to save it. Grim- faced, he rose, thrust the azoth back into his waistband and dropped the needler into his pocket again with what remained of the packet of needles, and dusted the back of his robe.
Everything had changed because he himself was changed. How had it happened? When he climbed Blood’s wall? When he had entered the manteion to get the hatchet? Long ago, when he had helped force the window, with the other boys? Or had Mucor laid some spell on him, there in her filthy, lightless room? Mucor was one who might lay spells, if any did; Mucor was a devil, in so far as devils were. Was it she who had drunk poor Teasel’s blood?
“Mucor,” Silk whispered. “Are you here? Are you still following me?” For a moment he seemed to hear an answering whisper, as the night wind stirred the dry leaves of the fig tree.
Gabbling now, his voice from the window: “Here hear what the Writings here have to Say-ilk. Here hear the high hopes of Horrible Hierax.”
“Here axe,” repeated the harsh voice, as though mocking his finding the hatchet, and Silk recognized it.
No, it had not been Mucor, or his deciding to take the hatchet or any such thing. All gods were good, but might not the unfathomable Outsider be good in a dark way? As Auk was, or as Auk might be? Suddenly Silk remembered the whorl outside the whorl, the Outsider’s immeasurable whorl beneath his feet. So dark.
Yet lit by scattered motes.
With one hand on the needler in his pocket, he opened the door of the manse and stepped inside.
