would...?'
Silk picked up the foot of the coffin, finding it lighter than he had
expected. 'Shouldn't we petition the gods, Your Cognizance? On
her behalf?'
'I already have, Patera Calde. You were deep in thought. Now
then, as high as you can, then quickly down upon the fire. Without
dropping it, please. One, two, _three!_'
Silk did as he was told, then stepped hurriedly away from the
lengthening flames. 'Possibly we ought to have waited for Maytera,
Your Cognizance.'
Quetzal shook his head again. 'This way is better, Patera Calde. It
would be better for you to keep from looking at the fire, too. Do
you know why coffins have that peculiar shape, by the way? Look at
me, Patera Calde.'
'To allow for the shoulders, Your Cognizance, or so I've
heard.'
Quetzal nodded. 'That's what everyone's told. Would this sibyl of
yours need extra room for her shoulders? Look at me, I said.'
Already the thin, stained wood was blackening honestly, charring
as the flames that licked it brought forth new flames. 'No,' Silk said,
and looked away again. (It was strange to think that this bent, bald
old man was in fact the Prolocutor.) 'No, Your Cognizance. Nor
would most women, or many men.'
There was a stench of burning flesh.
'They do it so that we, the living, will know at which end the head
lies, when the lid's on. Coffins are sometimes stood on end, you see.
Patera!'
Silk's gaze had strayed to the fire again. He turned away and
covered his eyes.
'I would have saved you that if I could,' Quetzal told him, and
Maytera Marble, arriving with the sheet, inquired, 'Saved him from
what, Your Cognizance?'
'Saved me from seeing Maytera Rose's face as the flames
consumed it,' Silk told her. He rubbed his eyes, hoping that she
would think he had been rubbing them before, that he had gotten
smoke in them.
She held out one end of the sheet. 'I'm sorry I took so long,
Patera. I--I happened to see my reflection. Then I looked for
Maytera Mint's mirror. My cheek is scratched.'
Silk took corners of the sheet in tear-dampened fingers; the wind
tried to snatch it from him, but he held it fast. 'So it is, Maytera.
How did you do it?'
'I have no idea!'
To his surprise, Quetzal lifted Musk's half-consumed body easily.
Clearly, this venerable old man was stronger than he appeared.
'Spread it flat and hold it down,' he told them. 'We'll lay him on it
and fold it over him.'
A moment more, and Musk, too, rested among the flames.
'It's our duty to tend the fire until both have burned. We don't
have to watch, and I suggest we don't.' Quetzal had positioned
himself between Silk and the altar. 'Let us pray privately for the
repose of their spirits.'
Silk shut his eyes, bowed his head, and addressed himself to the
Outsider, without much confidence that this most obscure of gods
heard him or cared about what he said, or even existed.
'_And yet I know this_.' (His lips moved, although no sound issued
from them.) '_You are the only god for me. It is better for me that I
should give you all my worship, though you are not, than that I
should worship Echidna or even Kypris, whose faces l have seen.
Thus I implore your mercy on these, our dead. Remember that I,
whom once you signally honored, ought to have loved them both but
could not, and so failed to provide the impetus that might have
brought them to you before Hierax claimed them. Mine therefore is
the guilt for any wrong they have done while they have known me. I
accept it, and pray you will forgive them, who burn, and forgive me
also, whose fire is not yet lit. Obscure Outsider, be not angry with us,
though we have never sufficiently honored you. All that is outcast,
discarded, and despised is yours. Are this man and this woman, who
have been neglected by me, to be neglected by you as well? Recall the
misery of our lives and their deaths. Are we never to find rest? I have
searched my conscience, Outsider, to discover that in which l have
displeased you. I find this: That I avoided Maytera Rose whenever I
could, though she might have been to me the grandmother I have
never known; and that I hated Musk, and feared him too, when he
had not done me the least wrong. Both were yours, Outsider, as I
now see; and for your sake I should have been loving with both. I
renounce my pride, and I will honor their memories. This I swear.
My life to you, Outsider, if you will forgive this man and this woman
whom we burn today_.'
Opening his eyes he saw that Quetzal had already finished, if he
had ever prayed. Soon Maytera Marble raised her head as well, and
he inquired, 'Would Your Cognizance, who knows more about the
immortal gods than anyone else in the whorl, instruct me regarding
the Outsider? Though he's enlightened me, as I informed your
coadjutor, I would be exceedingly grateful if you could tell me
more.'
'I have no information to give, Patera Calde, regarding the
Outsider or any other god. What little I have learned in the course
of a long life, regarding the gods, I have tried to forget. You saw
Echidna. After that, can you ask me why?'
'No, Your Cognizance.' Silk looked nervously at Maytera
Marble.
'I didn't, Your Cognizance. But I saw the Holy Hues and heard
her voice, and it made me wonderfully happy. I remember that she
exhorted all of us to purity and confirmed Scylla's patronage,
nothing else. Can you tell me what else she said?'
'She told your sib to overthrow the Ayuntamiento. Let that be
enough for you, Maytera, for the present.'
'Maytera Mint? But she'll be killed!'
