'Give me the wine,' I told him.
Without another word he turned and went in again, and I followed him.
His wife came to him, naked and weeping, her face twisted with fear and grief. She tried to speak, but only the noises of grief and fear could pass her lips. He pushed her to one side; when she saw me she clasped me for protection, and I put my arm about her.
The man returned with a wineskin and a cup of unglazed clay. 'This has waited two seasons,' he said. I saw that he himself was no older than I, and perhaps younger.
Telling him to comfort his wife, I went back outside. There I set up the image in its place again, poured a little wine into the cup, and sprinkled a few drops before each of the three figures, calling them Dark Mother, Huntress, and Moon. Before I had finished, silence settled on the house, and an owl hooted from the wood.
The farmer and his wife came out to me, she now wearing a gown and leading a girl younger than Io by the hand. I told them I did not think they would be troubled again. They thanked me many times; and he brought a lamp, another skin of wine, and cups like the one he had given me. We all drank the unmixed wine, the child sipping from her mother's cup that she might sleep soundly, as her mother said. I asked them what they had seen.
The child would say only that it had been a bad thing; I did not question her further, seeing that it made her afraid. The woman said that a hag with staring eyes had sat upon her and held her motionless by a spell; she had been unable to breathe. The man spoke of a winged creature, not a bird nor a bat, that had flapped after him from room to room.
I asked whether any of them had seen a dog. They told me they owned a dog and had heard him bark. We went to look for him in his kennel behind the house and found him dead, though there was no mark upon him. He was old and white at the muzzle. The man asked whether I was an archimage; I told him only for this night.
When I left the farmhouse, a figure moved at the crossroad, and I saw many tiny lights, though the Dark Mother and her torches were gone. It was the Milesian; he started up as though frightened when I approached him, though he relaxed when he saw my face. 'Latro!' he exclaimed. 'There's someone else awake, at least. Do you know the Rope Makers didn't even post a guard? There's confidence for you.'
I asked what he was doing.
'Just a little sacrifice to the Triple Goddess. Road crossings like this are sacred to her, provided there's no house in sight, and the dark of the moon is the best time. I hadn't thanked her properly yet for the great boon she gave me in the city-you were there and saw it, what a pity you don't remember! Anyway, this seemed a good chance to do it. Then this fellow'-he pointed to the sacrifice, a black puppy-'wandered up to me, and I knew it had to be propitious.'
I said, 'If you haven't finished… '
'Oh, no. I completed the last invocation just as I heard your step.' He bent and picked up the glowing things that formed a circle around the puppy, then looked significantly at the wineskin. 'You've been buying from the peasants, I see.'
I nodded and asked whether he was dedicated to the Triple Goddess.
'Yes indeed. Ever since I was a lad. She gives her worshipers all they ask-even old Hesiod says so in his verses, though none of his countrymen seemed to heed him. I admit she has some strange ways of doing it.'
I knew then that he was the one of whom the Huntress had spoken, and I loosened the thongs of the wineskin and poured wine into the cup. 'What is it you have asked of her?'
'Power, of course. Gold is only a kind of power, and not the best kind. As for women, I've had a good many, and I find I prefer boys.'
To fill the time, I said, 'Power will get you all you wish of those. Kings have no difficulty.'
'Of course not. But real power is not of this world, but of the higher one-the ability to call back the dead and summon spirits; the knowledge of unseen things.'
I sipped from the cup, and as I lowered it, felt the little snake stir in the hand that held the skin. When I poured more wine into the cup, I dropped the snake in with it.
The Milesian drained it at a gulp. 'Thanks. I owe you something for that, Latro.' He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 'I'd initiate you into the mystery of the goddess, but you'd forget, and it can't be written down.'
Side by side we walked back to the tents of the Rope Makers. My bed was in Basias's tent; I do not know with whom the Milesian's was. He asked if we might share another cup before we slept. I told him I had drunk all the wine I wanted, but I would gladly give him another. He drank it and wished me a good night.
I tried to wish him the same, but the words stayed in my throat.
'Eurykles,' he told me, thinking that I had forgotten his name.
'Yes, Eurykles,' I said. 'Good luck, Eurykles. I know your goddess is pleased with you.'
He smiled and waved before he went into one of the tents.
I lay down, and after a long time I slept. Now the sky grows light, and though I would sooner forget what happened last night, I think it best to write it here.
CHAPTER XXIII-In the Village
I am writing this in the courtyard of the inn. Eutaktos had been so eager to leave Thought that he did not buy provisions for the return to Redface Island. I think perhaps he believed also that he could get them more cheaply away from the city, and in that I suppose he was right. Anyway, we have halted here, and Eutaktos and some others are bargaining for food in the market. I am writing because I have not yet forgotten what took place last night, though I do not remember how I came to be among these Rope Makers.
The Milesian came to me when we halted here and said, 'Let's find a wineshop. I'll repay you for what you gave me last night.' I pretended to have forgotten, but he pressed me to go anyway, saying, 'Basias can come with us. Then they can't say we were trying to get away.'
Soon the Milesian, Basias, Io, and I were sitting very comfortably at a table in the shade; there was a jar of old wine and one of cold well water in the center of the table, and each of us had a cup before him. 'You will recall that we were discussing the Triple Goddess last evening,' the Milesian said to me. 'At least, I hope you will. That hasn't gone yet, has it?'
I shook my head. 'I can remember our camping outside this village late last night, and everything that came after that.'
Io asked, 'Where are we, anyway? Is this far from Advent?'
'This is Acharnae,' the Milesian told her. 'We're about fifty stades from Advent, which will be our next stop. It would have been a little shorter along the Sacred Way, but I suppose Eutaktos felt there was too much danger of incurring a charge of impiety.' He looked at Basias for confirmation, but the Rope Maker only shrugged and put his cup to his lips.
'I've been to Advent before,' Io told the Milesian. 'With Latro and Pindaros and Hilaeira. Latro slept in the temple.'
'Really? And did he learn anything?'
'That the goddess would soon restore him to his friends.'
I asked Io to tell me about that.
'I don't know much, because you didn't tell me much. I think you told Pindaros more than me, and you probably wrote more than you told Pindaros. All you said to me was that you saw the goddess, and she gave you a flower and promised you'd see your friends soon. We were your friends, Hilaeira and Pindaros and me, but I don't think she meant us. I think she meant the friends you lost when you were hurt.'
Basias was looking at me narrowly. 'She gave you a flower in a dream?'
I said, 'I don't know.'
Io told him. 'He just said she gave him one.'
The Milesian spun an owl on the table as if hoping for an omen. 'You can never tell about goddesses. Or gods either. Possibly a dream with a goddess in it is more real than a day without one. The goddess makes it so. That's what I'd like to be.'
