He paused. 'I regret that I cannot _quote_ the passage. I must
paraphrase it, I'm afraid. But it is written there that _each_ new year
Pas brings is like a _fleet_. You are familiar with boats, my daughter.
You were upon that _wretched_ little fishing boat with _me_, after all.'
'Sure.'
'Each year, as I have indicated, is likened to a fleet of boats that
are its days, _gallant_ craft loaded with the _young men_ of that year.
Each of these day-boats is _obliged_ to pass _Scylla_ on its voyage to
_infinity_. Some sail very near to her, while others remain at a greater
_distance_, their youthful crews crowding the side _most distant_ from
her loving embrace. None of which _signifies_. From each of these
boats, she selects the young men who most _please_ her.'
'I don't see--'
'_But_,' Incus continued impressively, 'how is it that these _boats_
pass her at all? Why do they not remain safe in harbor? Or sail
_someplace else?_ It is because there is a minor goddess whose
function it is to direct them to her. _Thetis_ is that goddess, and thus a
most suitable _tessera_ for us. A _key_, as you said. A _ticket_ or _inscribed
tile_ that will admit _us_ to the Juzgado, and incidentally _release_ us from
the cold and dark of these _horrid_ tunnels.'
'You think we might be close to the Juzgado now, Patera?'
Incus shook his head. 'I do not know, my daughter. We traveled
_some distance_ on that _unfortunate_ talus, and he went
_very_ fast. I dare _hope_ we are beneath the city now.'
'I doubt if we're much past Limna,' Chenille told him.
Auk's head ached. Sometimes it seemed to him that a wedge had
been pounded into it, sometimes it felt more like a spike; in either
case, it hurt so much at times that he could think of nothing else,
forcing himself to take one step forward like an automaton, one
more weary step in a progression of weary steps that would never be
over. When the ache subsided, as it did now and then, he became
aware that he was as sick as he had ever been in his life and might
vomit at any moment.
Hammerstone stalked beside him, his big, rubber-shod feet
making less noise than Auk's boots as they padded over the damp
shiprock of the tunnel floor. Hammerstone had his needler, and
when the pain in his head subsided, Auk schemed to recover it,
illusory schemes that were more like nightmares. He would push
Hammerstone from a cliff into the lake, snatching his needler as
Hammerstone fell, trip him as they scaled a roof, break into
Hammerstone's house, find him asleep, and take his needler from
Hammerstone's strong room... Hammerstone falling headlong,
somersaulting, rolling down the roof as he, Auk, fired needle after
needle at him, viscous black fluid spurting from every wound to
paint the snowy sheets and turn the water of the lake to black blood
in which they drowned.
No, Incus had his needler, had it under his black robe; but
Hammerstone had a slug gun, and even soldiers could be killed with
slugs, which could and often did penetrate the mud-brick walls of
houses, the thick bodies of horses and oxen as well as men, slugs
that left horrible wounds.
Oreb fluttered on his shoulders, climbing with talon and crimson
beak from one to the other. Peering though his ears Oreb glimpsed
his thoughts; but Oreb could not know, no more than he himself
knew, what those thoughts portended. Oreb was only a bird, and
Incus could not take him from him, no more than his hanger, no
more than his knife.
Dace had a knife as well. Under his tunic Dace had the old
thick-bladed spear-pointed knife he had used to gut and fillet the
fish they had caught from his boat, the knife that had worked so
quickly, so surely, though it looked so unsuited to its task. Dace was
not an old man at all, but a flunky and a toady to that old knife, a
thing that carried it as Dace's old boat had carried them all when
there was nothing inside it to make it go, carrying them as they
might have been carried by a child's toy, toys that can shoot or fly
because they are the right shape though hollow and empty as Dace's
boat, as crank as the boat or solid as a potato; but Bustard would see
to Dace.
His brother Bustard had taken his sling because he had slung
stones at cats with it, and had refused to give it back. Nothing about
Bustard had ever been fair, not his being born first though his name
began with _B_ and Auk's with _A_, not his dying first either. Bustard
had cheated to the end and past the end, cheating Auk as he always
did and cheating himself of himself. That was the way life was, the
way death was. A man lived as long as you hated him and died on
you as soon as you began to like him. No one but Bustard had been
able to hurt him when Bustard was around; it was a privilege that
Bustard reserved for himself, and Bustard was back and carrying
him, carrying him in his arms again, though he had forgotten that
Bastard had ever carried him. Bustard was only three years older,
four in winter. Had Bustard himself been the mother that he,
Bustard, professed to remember, that he, Auk, could not? Never
could, never quite, Bustard with this big black bird bobbing on his
head like a bird upon a woman's hat, its eyes jet beads, twitching
and bobbing with every movement of his head, a stuffed bird
mocking life and cheating death.
Bustards were birds, but bustards could fly--that was the Lily
truth, for Bustard's mother had been Auk's mother had been Lily
whose name had meant truth, Lily who had in truth flown away with
Hierax and left them both; therefore he never prayed to Hierax, to
Death or the God of Death, or anyhow very seldom and never in his
heart, though Dace had said that he belonged to Hierax and
therefore Hierax had snatched Bustard, the brother who had been a
father to him, who had cheated him of his sling and of nothing else
that he could remember.
'How you feelin', big feller?'
'Fine. I'm fine,' he told Dace. And then, 'I'm afraid I'm going to
puke.'
