may be ill.'
'All right, sib.'
'That was obedience, wasn't it?' The pamphlet drifted past Maytera Marble's face; it bore a watery picture of Scylla frolicking with sunfish and sturgeon, but carried no cooling. Deep within Maytera Marble, an almost- forgotten sensor stirred dangerously. 'You don't have to obey me, sib.'
'You're senior, sib.' Normally the words would have been nearly inaudible; this morning they were firm and clear.
Maytera Marble was too hot to notice. 'I won't make you eat now if you don't want to, but I've got to take it off the stove.'
'I want what you want, sib.'
'I'm going to go upstairs. Maytera may require my help.' Maytera Marble had an inspiration. 'I'll take her bowl up on a tray.' That would make it possible for Maytera Mint to eat her breakfast without waiting for the eldest sibyl. 'First I'm going to give you porridge, and you must eat it all.'
'If that's what you wish, sib.'
Maytera Marble opened the cupboard and got Maytera Rose's bowl and the old, chipped bowl that Maytera Mint professed to prefer. Climbing the stair would overheat her; but she had not thought of that in time, so she would have to climb. She ladled out porridge until the ladle dissolved into a cloud of digits, then stared at it. She had always taught her classes that solid objects were composed of swarming atoms, but she had been wrong; every solid object, each solid thought, was swarming numbers. Shutting her eyes, she forced herself to dip up more porridge, to drop the pamphlet and find the lip of a bowl with her fingers and dump more porridge in.
The stair was not as onerous as she had feared, but the second story of the cenoby had vanished, replaced by neat rows of wilting herbs, by straggling vines. Someone had chalked up a message: SILK FOR CALDE!
'Sib?' It was Maytera Mint, her voice faint and far. 'Are you all right, sib?'
The crude letters and the shiprock wall fell into digits.
'Sib?'
'Yes. Yes, I was going upstairs, wasn't I? To look in on Maytera Betel.' It would not do to worry timorous little Maytera Mint. 'I only stepped out here for a minute to cool down.'
'I'm afraid Maytera Betel's left us, sib. To look in on Maytera Rose.'
'Yes, sib. To be sure.' These dancing bands of numbers were steps, she felt. But steps leading to the door or to an upper floor? 'I must have become confused, Maytera. It's so hot.'
'Be brave, sib.' A hand touched her shoulder. 'Perhaps you'd like to call me that? We're sisters, you and I.'
Now and again she saw actual stairs, the strip of brown carpet with its pattern worn away that she had swept so often. Maytera Rose's door ended the short corridor: the corner room. Maytera Marble knocked and found that her knuckles had smashed the panel; through the splintered wood she glimpsed Maytera Rose still in bed, her mouth and eyes open and her face dotted with flies.
She entered, ripped Maytera Rose's threadbare nightgown from neck to hem, and opened Maytera Rose's chest; then she pulled off her habit, hung it neatly over a chair, and opened her own. Almost reluctantly, she began to exchange components with her dead sib, testing each as it went into place, and rejecting a few. This is Tarsday, she reminded herself, but Maytera's gone, so this can't be theft. I won't need these any more.
The glass on the north wall showed a fishing boat under full sail; a naked woman standing beside the helmsman wore a flashing ring. Maytera, naked herself, averted her eyes.
Silk's head throbbed, and his eyes seemed glued shut. Short and fat yet somehow huge, Councillor Potto loomed over him, fists cocked, waiting for his eyes to open. Somewhere-somewhere there had been peace. Turn the key the other way, and the dancers would dance backward, the music play backward, vanished nights reappear . . .
Darkness and a steady thudding, infinitely reassuring. Knees drawn up, arms bent in prayer. Wordless contemplation, free of the need to eat or drink or breathe.
The tunnel, dark and warm but ever colder. Anguished cries, Mamelta beside him, her hand in his and Hyacinth's tiny needler yapping like a terrier.
How much did they give you? Blows that rocked him.
Ashes, unseen but choking.
'This is the place.'
How much did you tell Blood?
A shower of fire. Morning prayers in a manteion in Limna that was perhaps thirty cubits, .yet a thousand leagues away.
'Behind you! Behind you!' Whirl and shoot.
The dead woman's lantern, its candle three-quarters consumed. Mamelta blowing on a glowing coal to light it.
'I am a loyal cit-'
'Councillor, I am a loyal cit-'
Spitting blood.
'Those who harm an augur-'
How much-
Silk's right eye opened, saw a wall as gray as ash, and closed again.
He tried to count his shots-and found himself in the eating house again. 'Well, Patera, for one thing mine holds a lot more needles. ... All of them good and thick, this was the Alambrera in the old days.' The door opened and Potto came in with their dinners on a tray, Sergeant Sand behind him with the box and the terrible rods.
Back! Back! Kneeling in the ashes, digging with his hands. A god who took five needles and still stood at the edge of the lantern light, snarling, blood and slaver running from its mouth. The boom of a slug gun, loud in the tunnel and very near.
. . . did you give him?
Metal rods jammed into his groin. Sand's arm spinning the crank, his expressionless face washed away by unbearable pain.
He bought your manteion.
'Yes. I'm a-'
Indefinitely? He let you stay indefinitely?
'Yes.'
Indefinitely.
'Yes. I don't know . . .'
(Back, oh, back, but the current is too strong.)
Silk's left eye opened. Painted steel, gray as ash. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, his head aching and his stomach queasy. He was in a gray-walled room of modest size, without windows. He shivered. He had been lying on a low, hard, and very narrow cot.
A voice from the edge of memory said, 'Ah, you're awake. I need somebody to talk to.'
He gasped and blinked. It was Doctor Crane, one hand raised, eyes sparkling. 'How many fingers?'
'You? I dreamed ...'
'You got caught, Silk. So did I. How many fingers do you see?'
'Three.'
'Good. What day is it?'
Silk had to consider; it was an effort to remember. At last he said, 'Tarsday? Orpine's obsequies were on Scylsday; we went to the lake on Molpsday, and I went down. . .'
'Yes?'
'Into these tunnels. I've been down here a long time. It might even be Hieraxday by now.'
'Good enough, but we're not in the tunnels.'
'The Alambrera?'
Crane shook his head. 'I'll tell you, but it'll take some explaining, and I ought to warn you first that they've probably locked us up together hoping we may say something useful. You may not want to oblige them.'
Silk nodded and found it a mistake. 'I wish I had some water.'
