she knew the intense relief of passing responsibility to someone else.
'Friends, neither my dear sib nor I will read this fine lamb for you.
Nor need you endure the irregularity of sacrifice by sibyls any
longer. Patera Gulo has returned!'
He was at her side before she pronounced the final word,
disheveled and sweating in his wool robe, but transported with
triumph. 'You will, all you people--everybody in the city--have a
real augur to sacrifice for you. Yes! But it won't be me. Patera Silk's
back!'
They cheered and shouted until she covered her ears.
Gulo raised his arms for silence. 'Maytera, I didn't want to tell
you, didn't want to worry you or involve you. But I spent most of
the night going around writing on walls. Talking to--to people.
Anybody who'd listen, really, and getting them to do it, too. I took
a box of chalk from the palaestra. _Silk for calde! Silk for
calde! Here he comes!_'
Caps and scarves flew into the air. '_SILK FOR CALDE!_'
Then she caught sight of him, waving, head and shoulders
emerging from the turret of a green Civil Guard floater--one that
threw up dust as all floaters did, but seemed to operate in ghostly
silence, so great was the noise.
'_I am come?_' the talus thundered again. '_In the service of Scylla!
Mightiest of goddesses! Let me pass! Or perish!_' Both buzz guns
spoke together, filling the tunnel with the wild shrieking of ricochets.
Auk, who had pulled Chenille flat when the shooting began,
clasped her more tightly than ever. After a half minute or more the
right buzz gun fell silent, then the left. He could hear no answering
fire.
Rising, he peered over the talus's broad shoulder. Chems littered
the tunnel as far as the creeping lights illuminated it. Several were
on fire. 'Soldiers,' he reported.
'Men fight,' Oreb amplified. He flapped his injured wing uneasily.
'Iron men.'
'The Ayuntamiento,' Incus cleared his throat, 'must have called
out the _Army_.' The talus rolled forward before he had finished, and
a soldier cried out as its belts crushed him.
Auk sat down between Incus and Chenille. 'I think it's time you
and me had a talk, Patera. I couldn't say much while the goddess
was around.'
Incus did not reply or meet his eyes.
'I got pretty rough with you, and I don't like doing that to an
augur. But you got me mad, and that's how I am.'
'Good Auk!' Oreb maintained.
He smiled bitterly. 'Sometimes. What I'm trying to say, Patera, is
I don't want to have to pitch you off this tall ass. I don't want to have
to leave you behind in this tunnel. But I will if I got to. Back there
you said you went out to the lake looking for Chenille. If you knew
about her, didn't you know about me and Silk too?'
Incus seemed to explode. 'How can you sit here talking about
_nothing_ when _men_ are _dying_ down there!'
'Before I asked you, you looked pretty calm yourself.'
Dace, the old fisherman, chuckled.
'I was _praying_ for them!'
Auk got to his feet again. 'Then you won't mind jumping off to
bring 'em the Pardon of Pas.'
Incus blinked.
'While you're thinking that over,' Auk frowned for effect and felt
himself grow genuinely angry, 'maybe you could tell me what your
jefe wanted with Chenille.'
The talus fired, a deafening report from a big gun he had not
realized it possessed; the concussion of the bursting shell followed
without an interval.
'You're _correct_.' Incus stood up. His hand trembled as he jerked a
string of ranling jet prayer beads from a pocket of his robe. 'You're
right, because Hierax has _prompted_ you to recall _me_ to my duty.
I--I _go_.'
Something glanced off the talus's ear and ricocheted down the
tunnel, keening like a grief-stricken spirit. Oreb, who had perched
on the crest of its helmet to observe the battle, dropped into Auk's
lap with a terrified squawk. 'Bad fight!'
Auk ignored him, watching Incus, who with Dace's help was
scrambling over the side of the talus. Behind it, the tunnel stretched
to the end of sight, a narrowing whorl of spectral green varied by fires.
When he caught sight of Incus crouched beside a fallen soldier,
Auk spat. 'If I hadn't seen it... I didn't think he had the salt.' A
volley pelted the talus like rain, drowning Dace's reply.
The talus roared, and a gout of blue flame from its mouth lit the
tunnel like lightning; a buzz gun supported its flamer with a long,
staccato burst. Then the enormous head revolved, an eye emitting a
pencil of light that picked out Incus's black robe. '_Return to me!_'
Still bent over the soldier, Incus replied, although Auk could not
make out his words. Ever curious, Oreb fluttered up the tunnel
toward them. The talus stopped and rolled backward, one of its
extensile arms reaching for Incus.
This time his voice carried clearly. '_I'll_ get back on if you take
_him_, too.'
There was a pause. Auk glanced behind him at the metal mask
that was the talus's face.
'_Can he speak!_'
'_Soon_, I hope. I'm _trying_ to repair him.'
The huge hand descended, and Incus moved aside for it. Perched
on the thumb, Oreb rode jauntily back to the talus's back. 'Still
live!'
Dace grunted doubtfully.
The hand swept downward; Oreb fluttered to Auk's shoulder.
'Bird homer'
With grotesque tenderness fingers as thick as the soldier's thighs
deposited him between bent handholds.
