future torn to shreds. Thygater! Who will win the war?'
'Wolves and ravens win all wars.'
'Will Khshayarsha, whom your people call the Great King, ever rule this country?'
'The Great King has ruled our country.'
'That's what the oracle of Dolphins said,' Pindaros told Eurykles.
'Wait not for horse and war, But quit the land that bore you. The eastern king shall rule your shore, And yet give way before you.'
I do not think Eurykles heard him. 'Thygater! How may I become rich?'
'By becoming poor.'
Hypereides announced, 'I've seen a wonder tonight, but it was something I'd sooner not have seen, and I can't believe the gods smile on such things. I'm going back to Tieup. Anybody who wants to hear more can do it and take the consequences for all I care. Eurykles, tell Kalleos I lost and went back to my ships; I'll tell her myself the next time I see her.'
'I'm coming with you,' the kybernetes said, and Acetes and both captains nodded.
'Not so fast,' Pindaros put in. 'Hypereides, you bet me two owls, and Kalleos isn't holding those stakes.'
Hypereides dropped them into Pindaros's outstretched palm. 'If you want to come with us, you can share my room in Tieup.'
Pindaros shook his head. 'Latro and I are going back to Kalleos's. Tomorrow I'll come for Hilaeira and Io.'
It was on my tongue to tell him Io was already there, but I bit it back.
Eurykles spat on his hands and rubbed them together. 'As you desert us, Thygater and I are going into the city. I've certain patrons there who'll be most gratified to behold my victory. Come, Thygater!'
'Wait,' Pindaros told me. 'Our way lies with theirs, but we need not walk with the dead woman.'
I watched them go, and Hypereides and the other to the west. 'Pindaros,' I asked, 'why am I so afraid?'
'Who wouldn't be? I was terrified myself. So is Eurykles, I think, but ambition overrules it.' He laughed nervously. 'You saw through his little trick, I hope? I meant you to give Eurykles more than he bargained for, but you came over us both and gave me more than I'd bargained for as well.'
'I'm not afraid of the dead woman,' I said. 'But I'm afraid of something. Pindaros, look at the moon. What do you see?'
'It's very thin,' he said. 'And it's setting behind the sacred hill. What about it?'
'Do you see where some columns are still standing? The moon is tangled in them-some are before her, but others are behind her.'
'No,' Pindaros said. 'No, Latro, I don't see that. Shall we go now?'
I agreed. When we had left the burial ground and were about halfway to Kalleos's, Pindaros said, 'No wonder you weren't frightened by the dead girl, Latro. You're more frightening than she. The wonder is that she didn't seem afraid of you. But perhaps she was.'
The door was barred, and our knocking brought no one to open it; but it was not difficult to find a place where the wall had been thrown down and not yet rebuilt. 'My room has half a roof,' Pindaros told me. 'Kalleos showed it to me earlier. The best in the house, she said; and except for her own it probably is. You're welcome to share it if you like.'
'No,' I told him. 'I have a place.'
'As you wish.' He sighed and smiled. 'You got a cloak out of our adventures tonight, at least. I got two owls, and I had a woman; I've gone farther and come away with less. Good night, Latro.'
I went to this room where the black man and Io are sleeping. Io woke and asked if I was all right. When I said I was, she told me Phye had come back sometime earlier, and Kalleos had beaten her terribly.
I assured her that no one had beaten me, and we lay down side by side. She was soon asleep, but I was still frightened and could not sleep. Against all reason, the moon that had been setting when Pindaros and I were walking had climbed high in the heavens again, looking like the dead woman's eye when it opened a slit to see Eurykles.
Dawn came through the broken roof, and I sat up and wrote all that has happened since I wrote before. This is the last, and I see that upon the outside of my scroll it is written that I am to read it each day, and so I begin. Perhaps then I will understand what the dead woman meant, and where I am to go.
CHAPTER XVII-On the Way to Advent
There are many inns. Though we arrived by daylight, it was too late to go to the house of the god; Pindaros has taken a room for us in this one only a few stades away. The inn is a hollow square with two stories all the way around. We have a double room-like a man's bent arm, but wider.
The first thing I can remember from this day is eating the first meal with Kalleos and the other women. I knew her name then from some earlier time, for I called her by it when I brought out the boiled barley meal and fruit, and the wine and water, asking Kalleos whether I could carry food to Io and the black man. Kalleos said to bring them to the courtyard, where the long table stood. (I think the black man and I must have put it there, because when the time came to take it down we knew how to do it.)
The women were talking about how happy they were to be in the city again, and of going to the market to buy jewelry and new clothes. Though the sun was at its zenith, I think most had just risen. Another man came, still yawning and rubbing his teeth with a cloth. I made room for him, and he said, 'I'm Pindaros. Do you remember me, Latro?'
I answered, 'Yes. I remember our parting last night, and this morning I read my scroll. Your name is written there often. Pindaros, I must find the healer from Riverland.'
When I mentioned Riverland, the women fell quiet to listen. Pindaros said, 'Who is that?'
'The man who treated me just after the battle. He told me my name; he'd learned it from the men of my maniple. Do you see how important that is? Those men knew who I was, so they must know where I came from.'
'And you want to find out?' Pindaros asked. 'You haven't talked about it much before.'
'Yes!'
He said to Kalleos, 'He's been getting better all the time. This is the best yet. Latro, you must go to the Great Mother. Did you read that in your book too?'
I told him I had read the words of the Shining God: 'By the shrine of the Great Mother you fell, to a shrine of hers you must return.'
'There you are, then.'
One of the women asked, 'Who's the Great Mother?' But Pindaros waved her to silence.
'I don't trust the gods of this land,' I said.
Pindaros shrugged. 'A man must trust the gods. There's nobody else.'
'If the scroll is true, I've seen many more than you,' I told him. 'You've only seen the Black God-'
The black man nudged me and opened and closed his hands to show that there were twenty black gods at least.
'I believe you,' I said. 'But the scroll tells only of your seeing one, and the same for Pindaros. Have you seen more?'
He shook his head.
Kalleos asked, 'Are you saying you've actually seen a god, Latro? Like they used to appear to people in the old days?'
'I don't know,' I told her. 'I've forgotten, but I wrote of many in my scroll.'
'He has,' Pindaros told her. 'He's seen one at least, because I was there and saw him too. So did little Io-
