“It is the fuligin of the torturers.”
“Ah!” He cocked his head to one side like a thrush, and hopped about to look at me from various angles. “You're a tall fellow — that's a shame — but all that sooty stuff is very impressive.”
“We find it practical,” I said. “The oubliette is a dirty place, and fuligin doesn't show bloodstains.”
“You have humor! That's excellent! There are few advantages, I'll tell you, that profit a man more than humor. Humor will draw a crowd. Humor will calm a mob or reassure a nursery school. Humor will get you on and get you off, and pull in asimis like a magnet.”
I had only the vaguest idea of what he was saying, but seeing that he was in an affable mood, I ventured, “I hope I didn't discommode you? The landlord said I was to sleep here, and there was room for another person in the bed.”
“No, no, not at all! I never came back — found a better place to pass the night. I sleep very little, I may as well tell you, and I'm a light sleeper too. But I had a good night of it, an excellent night. Where are you going this morning, optimate?”
I was fumbling under the bed for my boots. “First to look for some breakfast, I suppose. After that, out of the city, to the north.”
“Excellent! No doubt my partner would appreciate a breakfast — it will do him a world of good. And we're traveling north. After a most successful tour of the city, you know. Going back home now. Played the east bank down, and playing the west up. Perhaps we'll stop at the House Absolute on our way north. That's the dream, you know, in the profession. Play the Autarch's palace. Or come back, if you've already played there. Chrisos by the hatful.”
“I've met one other person, at least, who dreamed of going back,”
“Don't put on that long face — you must tell me about him sometime. But now, if we're to go to breakfast — Baldanders! Wake up! Come, Baldanders, come! Wake up!” He danced to the foot of the bed and grasped the giant by an ankle.
“Baldanders! Don't take him by the shoulder, optimate!” (I had made no motion to do so.) “He thrashes about sometimes. BALDANDERS!” The giant murmured and stirred.
“A new day, Baldanders! Still alive! Time to eat and defecate and make love all that! Up now, or we'll never get home.” There was no sign that the giant had heard him. It was as if the murmur of the moment before had been only a protest voiced in a dream, or his death rattle. Dr. Talos seized the foul blankets with both hands and swept them back. The monstrous shape of his partner lay revealed. He was even taller than I had supposed, nearly too tall for the bed, though he slept with his knees drawn almost to his chin. His shoulders were an ell across, high and hunched. His face I could not see; it lay buried in his pillow. There were strange scars about his neck and ears.
“Baldanders!”
His hair was grizzled, and despite the innkeeper's pretended error, very thick.
“Baldanders! Your pardon, optimate, but may I borrow that sword?”
“No,” I said. “You may not.”
“Oh, I'm not going to kill him, or anything of that sort. I only want to use the flat of it.”
I shook my head, and when Dr. Talos saw I was still adamant, he began to rummage about the room. “Left my stick downstairs. Vile custom, they'll thieve it. I should learn to limp, I really should. There's nothing here at all.” He darted out the door, and was back in a moment carrying an ironwood walking stick with a gilt-brass knob. “Now then! Baldanders! “ The strokes fell upon the giant's broad back like the big raindrops that precede a thunderstorm. Quite suddenly, the giant sat up. “I'm awake, Doctor.” His face was large and coarse, but sensitive and sad as well. “Have you decided to kill me at last?”
“What are you talking about, Baldanders? Oh, you mean the optimate here. He's not going to do you any hurt — he shared the bed with you, and now he's going to join us at breakfast.”
“He slept here, Doctor?”
Dr. Tabs and I both nodded.
“Then I know whence my dreams rose.”
I was still saturated with the sight of the huge women beneath the monstered sea, and so I asked what his dreams had been, though I was somewhat in awe of him.
“Of caverns below, where stone teeth dripped blood... Of arms dismembered found on sanded paths, and things that shook chains in the dark.” He sat at the edge of the bed, cleaning sparse and surprisingly small teeth with one great finger.
Dr. Tabs said, “Come on, both of you. If we're to eat and talk and get anything done today — why, we must be at it. Much to say and much to do.” Baldanders spat into the corner.
The Rag Shop
It was on that walk through the streets of still slumbering Nessus that my grief, which was to obsess me so often, first gripped me with all its force. When I had been imprisoned in our oubliette, the enormity of what I had done, and the enormity of the redress I felt sure I would make soon under Master Gurloes's hands, had dulled it. The day before, when I had swung down the Water Way, the joy of freedom and the poignancy of exile had driven it away. Now it seemed to me that there was no fact in all the world beyond the fact of Thecla's death. Each patch of darkness among the shadows reminded me of her hair; every glint of white recalled her skin. I could hardly restrain myself from rushing back to the Citadel to see if she might not still be sitting in her cell, reading by the light of the silver lamp.
We found a cafe whose tables were set along the margin of the street. It was still sufficiently early that there was very little traffic. A dead man (he had, I think, been suffocated with a lambrequin, there being those who practice that art) lay at the corner. Dr. Talos went through his pockets, but came back with empty hands.
“Now then,” he said. “We must think. We must contrive a plan.” A waitress brought mugs of mocha, and
