Horn muttered, and Silk laughed. 'I couldn't hear you that time, either. Surely I don't sound like that. When I'm at the ambion, I can hear my bray echo from the walls.'
'No, Patera.'
'Then say it again, just as I would. I won't be angry, I promise you.'
'I was only . . . You know. Like the things you say.'
'No talk?' Oreb inquired.
Silk ignored him. 'Fine. Let me hear it. That's what you came to talk about, and I feel sure it will be a valuable corrective for me. I tend to get above myself, I'm afraid.'
Horn shook his head and stared at the carpet.
'Oh, come now! What sorts of things do I say?'
'To always live with the gods, and you do it any time you're happy with the life they've given you. Think about who's wise and act like he does.'
'That was well said, Horn, but you didn't sound in the least like me. It's my own voice I want to hear, just as I heard it on the step. Won't you do that?' 'I guess I've got to stand up, Patera.' 'Then stand, by all means.' 'Don't look at me. All right?' Silk shut his eyes.
For half a minute or more there was silence. Through his eyelids, Silk could detect the fading of the light (the best in the manse) behind his chair. He welcomed it. His right forearm, torn by the hooked beak of the white-headed one the night before, felt hot and swollen now; and he was so tired that his entire body ached.
'Live with the gods,' his own voice directed, 'and he does live with the gods who consistently shows them that his spirit is satisfied with what has been assigned to him, and that it obeys all that the gods will-the spirit that Pas has given every man as his guardian and guide, the best part of himself, his understanding and his reason. As you intend to live hereafter, it is in your power to live here. But if men do not permit you...'
Silk stepped on something that slid beneath his foot, and fell with a start to the red clay tiles.
'. . . think of wisdom only as great wisdom, the wisdom of a prolocutor or a councillor. That itself is unwise. If you could talk this very day with a councillor or His Cognizance, either would tell you that wisdom may be small, a thing quite suited to the smallest children here, as well as great. What is a wise child? It is a child who seeks out wise teachers, and hears them.'
Silk opened his eyes. 'What you said first was from the Writings, Horn. Did you know it?'
'No, Patera. It's just something I've heard you say.' 'I was quoting. It's good that you've got that passage by heart, even if you learned it only to make fun of me. Sit down. You were talking about wisdom. Well, no doubt I must have spouted all that foolishness, but you deserve to learn better. Who are the wise, Horn? Have you really considered that question? If not, do so now. Who are they?'
'Well . . . you, Patera.'
'NO!' Silk rose so abruptly that the bird squawked. He strode to the window and stood staring out through the bars at the ruts of Sun Street, black now under a flood of uncanny skylight. 'No, I'm not wise, Horn. Or at least, I've been wise for a moment only-one moment out of my whole life.' He limped across the room to Horn's chair and crouched before it, one knee on the carpet. 'Allow me to tell you how foolish I have been. Do you know what I believed when I was your age? That nothing but thought, nothing except wisdom, mattered. You're good at games, Horn. You can run and jump, and you can climb. So was I and so did I, but I had nothing but contempt for those abilities. Climbing was nothing to boast of, when I couldn't climb nearly as well as a monkey. But I could think better than a monkey-better than anyone else in my class, in fact.' He smiled bitterly, shaking his head. 'And that was how I thought! Pride in nonsense.'
'Isn't thinking good, Patera?'
Silk stood. 'Only when we think rightly. Action, you see, is the end that thought achieves. Action is its only purpose. What else is it good for? If we don't act, it's worthless. If we can't act, useless.'
He returned to his chair, but did not sit down. 'How many times have you heard me talk about enlightenment, Horn? Twenty or thirty times, surely, and you remember very well. Tell me what I said.'
Horn glanced miserably at Oreb as though for guidance, but the bird merely cocked his head and fidgeted on Silk's shoulder as if eager to hear what Horn had to say. At last he managed, 'It-it's wisdom a god sort of pours into you. That doesn't come from a book or anything. And-and-'
'Perhaps you'd do better if you employed my voice,' Silk suggested. 'Stand up again and try it. I won't watch you if it makes you nervous.'
Horn rose, lifting his head, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, and drawing down the coiners of his mouth. 'Divine enlightenment means you know without thinking, and that isn't because thinking's bad but because enlightenment is better. Enlightenment is sharing in the thinking of the god.'
He added in his normal voice, 'That's as close as I can come, Patera, without more time to remember.'
'Your choice of words might be improved upon,' Silk told him judiciously, 'but your intonation is excellent, and you have my speech mannerisms almost pat. What is of much, much more importance, nothing that you said was untrue. But who gets it, Horn? Who receives enlightenment?'
'People who've tried to live good lives for a long time. Sometimes they do.'
'Not always?'
'No, Patera. Not always.'
'Would you believe me, Horn-credit me fully without reservation-if I told you that I myself have received it? Yes or no.'
'Yes, Patera. If you say so.'
'That I received it only yesterday?'
Oreb whistled softly.
'Yes, Patera.'
Silk nodded, mostly to himself it seemed. 'I did, Horn, and not through any merit of mine. I was about to say that you were with me, but it wouldn't be true. Not really.'
'Was it before manteion, Patera? Yesterday you said you wanted to make a private sacrifice. Was it for that?'
'Yes. I've never made it, and perhaps I never will-'
'No cut!'
'If I do, it won't be you,' Silk told Oreb. 'Probably it won't be a live animal at all, although I'm going to have to sacrifice a lot of them tomorrow, and buy them as well.'
'Pet bird?'
'Yes, indeed.' Silk lifted Blood's lioness-headed stick to shoulder height; Oreb hopped onto it, turning his head to watch Silk from each eye.
Horn said, 'He wouldn't let me touch him, Patera.'
'You had no reason to touch him, and he didn't know you. All animals hate the touch of a stranger. Have you ever kept a bird?'
'No, Patera. I had a dog, but she died.'
'I was hoping to get some advice. I wouldn't want Oreb to die-although I'd imagine that night choughs are hardy creatures. Hold out your wrist.' Horn did, and Oreb hopped onto it. 'Good boy!'
'I wouldn't try to hold him,' Silk said. 'Let him hold you. You can't have had many toys as a child, Horn.'
'Not many. We were-' Suddenly, Horn smiled. 'There was one. My grandfather made it, a wooden man with a blue coat. It had strings, and if you did them right, you could make him walk and bow.'
'Yes!' Silk's eyes flashed, and the tip of the lioness-headed stick thumped the floor. 'That's exactly the sort of toy I mean. May I tell you about one of mine? You may think I'm straying from the topic, but I won't be, I promise you.'
'Sure, Patera. Go ahead.'
'There were two dancers, a man and a woman, very neatly painted. They danced on a little stage, and when I wound it up, music played. And they danced, the little woman quite gracefully, and the little man somersaulting and spinning and cutting all sort of capers. There were three tunes-you moved a lever to choose the one you wanted-and I used to play with it for hours, singing songs I'd made up for myself and imagining things for him to say to her, and for her to say to him. Silly things, most of them, I'm afraid.'
'I understand, Patera.'
'My mother died during my last year at the schola, Horn. Possibly I've already told you that. I'd been
