but by High Hierax they'd have to beg first!
He picked up his sword to return it to its place on the wall, then
changed his mind. In times like these--
Another knock.
There had been somebody. A new student down for tonight,
came with Auk, tall, left-handed. Had studied with somebody else
but wouldn't admit it. Good though. Talented! Gifted, in fact.
Couldn't be here for his lesson, could he? With the city like this?
A third knock, almost cursory. Xiphias returned to the window
and peered out.
Silk sighed. The house was dark; when he had been here before, the
second floor had blazed with light. He had been foolish to think that
the old man might be home after all.
He knocked for the last time and turned away, only to hear a
window thrown open above him. 'It's you! Good! Good!' The
window banged down. With speed that was almost comic, the door
flew wide. 'Inside! Inside! Bolt it, will you? Is that a bird? A pet
bird? Upstairs!' Xiphias gestured largely with a saber, his shadow
leaping beside him; whipped by the night wind, his wild white hair
seemed to possess a life of its own.
'Master Xiphias, I need your help.'
'Good man?' Oreb croaked.
'A very good man,' Silk assured him, hoping he was right; he
caught the good man's arm as he turned away. 'I know I was
supposed to come tonight for another lesson, Master Xiphias. I
haven't. I can't, but I need your advice.'
'Been called out? Have to fight? What did I tell you? What
weapons?'
'I'm very tired. Is there a place where we can sit down?'
'Upstairs!' The old man bounded up them himself just as he had
on Sphixday night. Wearily, Silk followed.
'Lesson first!' Lights kindled at the sound of the old man's voice,
brightened as he beat the wall with a foil.
The traveling bag now held only the yellow tunic, yet it seemed as
heavy as a full one; Silk dropped it into a corner. 'Master Xiphia--'
He snatched down another foil and beat the wall with that as well.
'Been fighting?'
'Not really. In a manner of speaking I have, I suppose.'
'Me too!' Xiphias tossed Silk the second foil. 'Killed five. Ruins
you, fighting! Ruins your technique!'
Oreb squawked, 'Look out!' and flew as Silk ducked.
'Don't cringe!' Another whistling cut, this one rattling on the
bamboo blade of Silk's foil. 'What do you need, lad?'
'A place to sit.' He was tired, deadly tired; his chest throbbed and
his ankle ached. He parried and parried again, sickened by the
realization that the only way to get this mad old man to listen was to
defeat him or lose to him; and to lose (it was as if a god had
whispered it) tonight was death: the thing in him that had kept him
alive and functioning since he had been shot would die at his defeat,
and he soon after.
Feinting and lunging, Silk fought for his life with the bamboo sword.
Its hilt was just long enough for him to grip it with both hands,
and he did. Cut right and left and right again, beating down the old
man's guard. He was still stronger than any old man, however
strong, however active, and he drove him back and again back,
slashing and stabbing with frenzied speed.
'Where'd you learn that two-handed thrust, lad? Aren't you
left-handed?'
Dislodged from his waistband, Musk's needler fell to the mat. Silk
kicked it aside and snatched a second foil from the wall, parrying
with one, then the other, attacking with the free foil, right, left, and
right again. A vertical cut, and suddenly Xiphias's foot was on his
right-hand foil. The blunt tip of Xiphias's foil thumped his wound,
bringing excruciating pain.
'What'll you charge, lad? For the lesson?'
Silk shrugged, trying to hide the agony that lightest of blows had
brought. 'I should pay you, sir. And you won.'
'Silk win!' Oreb proclaimed from the grip of a yataghan.
Silk die, Silk thought. So be it.
'I learned, lad! Know how long it's been since I had a student who
could teach me anything? I'll pay! Food? You hungry?'
'I think so.' Silk leaned upon his foil; in the same way that faces
from his childhood swam into his consciousness, he recalled that he
had once had a walking stick with the head of a lioness carved on its
handle--had leaned upon it like this the last time he had been here,
although he could not remember where he had acquired such a thing
or what had become of it.
'Bread and cheese? Wine?'
'Wonderful.' Retrieving the traveling bag, he followed the old
man downstairs.
The kitchen was at once disorderly and clean, glasses and dishes
and bowls, pots and ladles anywhere and everywhere, an iron
bread-pan already in the chair Xiphias offered, as if it fully expected
to join in their conversation, though it found itself banished to the
woodbox. Mismatched glasses crashed down on the table so violently
that for a moment Silk felt sure they had broken.
'Have some? Red wine from the veins of heroes! Care for some?'
It was already gurgling into Silk's glass. 'Got it from a student! Fact!
Paid wine! Ever hear of such a thing? Swore it was all good! Not so!
What do you think?'
Silk sipped, then half emptied his glass, feeling that he was indeed
drinking from the flask that had dangled from his bedpost, drinking
new life.
'Bird drink?'
He nodded, and when he could find no napkin patted his mouth
with his handkerchief. 'Could we trouble you for a cup of water,
Master Xiphias, for Oreb here?'
The pump at the sink wheezed into motion. 'You been out? City
