red apple snatched from the potato bin.
'Good man!'
'And whether you could teach me a trick that might get me past
the fighters on both sides. I knew there must be such things, and
Auk would certainly know them; but it's a long way to the Orilla,
and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to find him. It occurred to me that
he'd probably learned many from someone else, and that you were a
likely source.'
'Need a teacher? Yes, you do! Glad you know it! Where's your
needler, lad?'
For a moment Silk was nonplussed. 'My--? Right here in my
pocket.' He held it up much as Xiphias had the apple. 'It isn't
actually mine, however. It belongs to the young woman I'm to meet
at Ermine's.'
'Big one! I saw it! Fell out of your pants! Left it upstairs! Want me
to get it? Eat your cheese!'
Xiphias darted through the kitchen door, and Silk heard him
clattering up the stair. 'We must go, Oreb.' He rose and dropped
the apple into a pocket of his robe. 'He intends to go with us, and I
can't permit it.' For a second his head spun; the walls of the kitchen
shook like jelly and revolved like a carousel before snapping back
into place.
A dark little hallway beyond the kitchen door led to the stair, and
the door by which they had entered the house. He steadied himself
against the newel post, half hoping to hear the old man on the floor
above or even to see him descending again, but the old house could
not have been more silent if he and Oreb had been alone in it; it
puzzled him until he recalled the canvas mats on the floor of the salon.
Unbolting the door, he stepped into the empty, skylit street. The
tunnels through which he had trudged for so many weary hours
presumably underlay the Palatine, as they seemed to underlie
everything; but they would almost certainly be patrolled by soldiers
like the one from whom he had escaped. He knew of no entrance
except Scylla's lakeshore shrine in any case, and was glad at that
moment that he did not. A big hole, Oreb had said. Was it possible
that Oreb, also, had wandered in those dread-filled tunnels?
Shuddering at the memories he had awakened, Silk limped away
toward the Palatine with renewed determination, telling himself
that his ankle did not really hurt half so much as he believed it did.
His gaze was on the rutted potholed street, for he knew that despite
what he might tell himself, twisting his ankle would put an end to
walking; but regardless of all the self-discipline he brought to bear,
his thoughts threaded the tunnels once more, and hand-in-hand with
Mamelta reentered that curious structure (not unlike a tower, but a
tower thrust into the ground instead of rising into the air) that she
had called a ship, and again beheld below it emptiness darker than
any night and gleaming points of light that the Outsider--at his
enlightenment!--had indicated were whorls, whorls outside the
whorl, to which dead Pas and deathless Echidna, Scylla and her
siblings had never penetrated.
You was goin' to get me out. Said you would. Promised.
Auk, who could not quite see Gelada, heard him crying in the
wind that filled the pitch-black tunnel, while Gelada's tears dripped
from the rock overhead. The two-card boots he had always kept
well greased were sodden above the ankle now. 'Bustard?' he called
hopefully. 'Bustard?'
Bustard did not reply.
You had the word, you said. Get me out O' here. 'I saw you that
time, off to one side.' Unable to remember when or where he had
said it last, Auk repeated, 'I got eyes like a cat.'
It was not quite true because Gelada had vanished when he had
turned his head, yet it seemed a good thing to say. Gelada might
walk wide if he thought he was being watched.
Auk? That your name? Auk? 'Sure. I told you.' Where's the
Juzgado, Auk? Lot o' doors down here. Which 'uns that 'un, Auk?
'I dunno. Maybe the same word opens 'em all.'
This was the widest tunnel he had seen, except he couldn't see
it. The walls to either side were lost in the dark, and he might, for
all he knew, be walking at a slant, might run into the wall
slantwise with any step. From time to time he waved his arms,
touching nothing. Oreb flapped ahead, or maybe it was a bat, or
nothing.
(Far away a woman's voice called, '_Auk? Auk?_')
The tunnel wall was aglow now, but still dark, dark with a
peculiar sense of light--a luminous blackness. The toe of one boot
kicked something solid, but his groping fingers found nothing.
'Auk, my noctolater, are you lost?'
The voice was near yet remote, a man's, deep and laden with sorrow.
'No, I ain't. Who's that?'
'Where are you going, Auk? Truthfully.'
'Looking for Bustard.' Auk waited for another question, but none
came. The thing he had kicked was a little higher than his knees, flat
on top, large and solid feeling. He sat on it facing the luminous
dark, drew up his legs, and untied his boots. 'Bustard's my brother,
older than me. He's dead now, took on a couple Hoppies and they
killed him. Only he's been down here with me a lot, giving me
advice and telling me stuff, I guess because this is under the ground
and it's where he lives on account of being dead.'
'He left you.'
'Yeah, he did. He generally does that if I start talking to
somebody else.' Auk pulled off his right boot; his foot felt colder
than Dace had after Gelada killed him. 'What's a noctolater?'
'One who worships by night, as you worship me.'
Auk looked up, startled. 'You a god?'
'I am Tartaros, Auk, the god of darkness. I have heard you
invoke me many times, always by night.'
Auk traced the sign of addition in the air. 'Are you standing over
there in the dark talking to me?'
