_Calde_ after 'Sun Street,' and wiped the quill.
Restoring the quilt to the bed, he opened the door. The hall was
still empty. Back stairs brought him to the kitchen, in which it
appeared at least a company had been foraging for food. The back
door opened on what seemed, from what he could see by skylight,
to be a small formal garden; a white-painted gate was held shut by a
simple hook.
Outside on Basket Street, he stopped to look back at the house he
had left. Most of its windows were lit, including one on the second
floor whose lights were dimming; his, no doubt. Distant explosions
indicated the center of the city as well as anything could.
An officer on horseback who might easily have been the one who
had shot him galloped past without taking the least notice. Two
streets nearer the Palatine, a hurrying trooper carrying a dispatch
box touched his cap politely.
The box might contain an order to arrest every augur in the city,
Silk mused; the galloping officer might be bringing Oosik word of
another battle. It would be well, might in fact be of real value, for
him to read those dispatches and hear the news that the galloping
officer brought.
But he had already heard, as he walked, the most important
news, news pronounced by the muzzles of guns: the Ayuntamiento
did not occupy all the city between this remote eastern quarter and
the Palatine. He would have to make his way along streets in which
Guardsmen and Maytera Mint's rebels were slaughtering each
other, return to the ones that he knew best--and then, presumably,
cross another disputed zone to reach the Palatine.
For the Guard would hold the Palatine if it held anything, and in
fact the captain had indicated only that morning that a full brigade
had scarcely sufficed to defend it Molpsday night. Combatants on
both sides would try to prevent him; he might be killed, and the
exertions he was making this moment might kill him as surely as any
slug. Yet he had to try, and if he lived he would see Hyacinth tonight.
His free hand had begun to draw Musk's needler. He forced it
back to his side, reflecting grimly that before shadeup he might
learn some truths about himself that he would not prefer to
ignorance. Unconsciously, he increased his pace.
Men thought themselves good or evil; but the gods--the Outsider
especially--must surely know how much depended upon circumstance.
Would Musk, whose needler he had nearly drawn a few
seconds before, have been an evil man if he had not served Blood?
Might not Blood, for that matter, be a better man with Musk gone?
He, Silk, had sensed warmth and generosity in Blood beneath his
cunning and his greed, potentially at least.
Something dropped from the sky, lighting on his shoulder so
heavily he nearly fell. 'Lo Silk! Good Silk!'
'Oreb! Is it really you?'
'Bird back.' Oreb caught a lock of Silk's hair in his beak and gave
it a tug.
'I'm very glad--immensely glad you've returned. Where have you
been? How did you get here?'
'Bad place. Big hole!'
'It was I who went into the big hole, Oreb. By the lake, in that
shrine of Scylla's, remember?'
Oreb's beak clattered. 'Fish heads?'
Chapter 6 -- The Blind God
Oreb had eyed Dace's corpse hopefully when Urus let it fall to the
tunnel floor and spun around to shout at Hammerstone. 'Why we
got to find him? Tell me that! Tell me, an' I'll look till I can't shaggy
walk, till I got to crawl--'
'Pick it up, you.' Without taking his eyes off Urus, Hammerstone
addressed Incus. 'All right if I kill him, Patera? Only I won't be able
to carry them both and shoot.'
Incus shook his head. 'He has a _point_, my son, so let us consider
it. _Ought_ we, as he inquires, continue to search for our friend Auk?'
'I'll leave it up to you, Patera. You're smarter than all of us,
smarter than the whole city'd be if you weren't living there. I'd do
anything you say, and I'll see to it these bios do, too.'
'_Thank_ you, my son.' Incus, who was exceedingly tired already,
lowered himself gratefully to the tunnel floor. 'Sit _down_, all of you.
We shall discuss this.'
'I don't see why.' Tired herself, Chenille grounded her launcher.
'Stony there does whatever you tell him to, and he could do for me
and Urus like swatting flies. You say it and we'll do it. We'll have to.'
'Sit _down_. My daughter, can't you see how very _illogical_ you're
being? You _maintain_ that you're forced to obey in _all things_,
yet you will not oblige even the simplest request.'
'All right.' She sat; and Hammemtone, laying a heavy hand on
Urus, forced him to sit, too.
'Where Auk?' Oreb hopped optimistically across the damp gray
shiprock. 'Auk where?' Although he could not have put the feeling
into words, Oreb felt that he was nearer Silk when he was with Auk
than in any other company. The red girl was close to Silk as well, but
she had once thrown a glass at him, and Oreb had not forgotten.
'_Where_ indeed?' Incus sighed. 'My daughter, you invite me to be a
_despot_, but what you say is true. I might lord it over you both if I
chose. I need not lord it over our friend. _He_ obeys me very willingly,
as you have seen. But I am _not_, by inclination, training, or _native
character_ inclined toward despotism. A holy augur's part is to lead
and to advise, to _conduct_ the laity to rich fields and _unfailing_
springs, if I may put it thus _poetically_.
