out one eye of any man they find trying to make off with their treasure; but if he's already one-eyed, they kill him. However, I think it likely my information is mistaken, Highness, and yours correct.'
The regent laughed. 'No, you've the right of it, I feel sure. The best intelligence of such things is always that which puts them farthest from us.'
Tisamenus nodded and smiled. 'I don't suppose you've seen the creatures, sir?'
I shrugged. 'I've no way of knowing. From what I read in my book today, I was already with the regent when we were in Rope. If he's told you about me, he must have told you I don't remember.'
'Yet you remembered the monster, sir. I saw that memory in your eyes.'
I shook my head. 'I don't recall what I learned of them, if I did. Or how I learned it, or where.'
The regent chuckled. 'Sit down, you two. I'm remiss in my duties as your host. Latro, Tisamenus-' He turned to the mantis. 'Which do you prefer, Tisamenus of Elis, or Tisamenus of Rope?'
'As Your Highness chooses to honor his servant.'
'Tisamenus of Elis, then. Latro, Tisamenus got my permission to visit his family after the battle. That was unfortunate, because he wasn't present to interpret my dream when I dreamed about you; but I've told him that dream now, and in general he seems to feel I've caught the meaning without him.'
'To visit my sisters and their husbands, sir. I have not been favored in the matter of sons and daughters.' The mantis sighed. 'And the Inescapable One deprived me of my poor wife at the time of the last Games.'
I cleared my throat. I did not think what I was about to say would lose me my head, but the possibility, however slight, lent a chill to my words. 'With your leave, mantis. Why is it you call me 'sir' when the regent has called me a slave?'
The regent said brusquely, 'That's just his way.'
Almost too softly to be heard, Tisamenus murmured, 'Courtesy is never wasted, sir. Particularly courtesy toward a slave. We slaves appreciate it.' To me he added, 'You will not be able to answer our questions, then. That's a terrible pity, but perhaps you won't object if we beg you to try.'
'Fetch some wine,' the regent told Tisamenus. 'Want a cup, Latro?'
'I can answer that one,' I said. 'Yes. But Io can tell you more about me than I can tell you about myself.'
'I questioned her some time ago,' the regent said. 'And I was able to pass to Tisamenus all I learned in a few words. She met you in Hill. You were badly wounded. You'd tried to embrace a statue of the River God, and they brought you to the oracle there. It gave her to you and assigned a citizen to guide you to Advent. All three of you were imprisoned in Tower Hill until you were freed by a captain from Thought. In Advent, the goddess came to you in a dream and promised to restore you to your friends. Then the lochagos I'd sent looking for you found you and brought you to me.'
Tisamenus poured the wine, so old and good it perfumed even that perfumed air. 'Thank you,' I said, accepting the cup.
'You don't look pleased. What's the matter?'
'You told me a lot, Highness, but none of it was what I wanted to hear.'
'Which is?'
'Who my friends are, where my home is, what happened to me, and how I can be cured.'
'Your friends are here-two of them, at least. I'm your greatest friend, and anyone who stands with me will be your friend as well. Do you know of the promise made me in my dream?'
'Yes. We talked of it this afternoon in the gorge.'
Tisamenus murmured, 'Then perhaps you also know why it should be so. What makes you a talisman of victory?'
'I have no idea.'
The regent said, 'My first notion was that we'd been born at the same instant-it's well known such children are linked. Tisamenus?'
The mantis looked doubtful. 'I'd guess he's the younger.' To me he said, 'I don't suppose, sir, that you know the day of your birth?'
I shook my head, and the regent shrugged. 'So it might be true. I'm in my twenty-eighth year. Think that might be your age, Latro? Speak up. You won't be beaten.'
'Twenty-eight sounds old to me, Highness. So I think I must be less.'
Tisamenus had risen. 'Shrewdly spoken, sir, and I agree. May I call your attention once more to this admirable carving? Can you perhaps inform me as to the name borne by these monsters?'
'They're the Clawed Ones,' I said.
'So,' Tisamenus whispered. 'The god who took away your memory left you that. What man comprehends their ways?'
The regent drank. 'A thousand times I've heard somebody say that: Who understands the ways of the gods? Everybody asks the question, nobody answers it. Now I'm a man and nearly a king-do you know many of our Rope Makers already call me King Pausanias, Tisamenus? So I'll try, Latro. You do.'
As cautiously as I could, I said, 'I'm not sure I follow you, Highness.'
'I called you an idiot once. Since then, I've seen enough of you to know you're anything but.'
'Yet there's an idiot here, Highness, if you believe I'm in the councils of the gods.'
Tisamenus said, 'You're treading on dangerous ground, sir.'
'Because if you believe it, Highness, it must be true; and I would be an idiot not to tell you.'
The regent gave Tisamenus his twisted smile. 'You see what I mean? If this were the pentathlon, he'd win every event.'
'Good,' I said. 'Because if we're linked, Highness, it might be that if I were beaten you'd be beaten too.'
'And the chariot race. But Latro, my friend-and I'll call you my friend and not my slave-you know things you don't know you know. You didn't remember the name of the winged monsters until you were asked, did you?'
I shook my head.
Tisamenus murmured, 'So it is, perhaps, with the councils of the gods. If we recall them to you, will you tell His Highness?'
I said, 'If he wishes it, certainly. But though Io says I once swept floors for a woman in Thought, I don't believe I ever swept the hall of Olympus.'
'Then we'll begin with speculations humbler still. You acknowledge that there are many gods?'
I sipped my wine. 'All men do, I suppose.'
'You once told His Highness, no doubt truly, that you were a soldier of the Great King.'
'I feel I am.'
'Then you must know something of the barbarians, sir. Indeed, you must have marched through Parsa, for the Great King's army did so on its way here. Are you aware that they hold there's only a single god, whom they call Ahuramazda?'
'I know nothing of them,' I said. 'At least, nothing I can remember.'
'And yet they sacrifice to the sun, the moon, and the earth, and to fire and water. It is possible-I speak now as a sophist, sir-that there is but one god. It is possible also that there are many. But it is not possible that there are one and many. You disagree?'
I shrugged. 'Sometimes a word is used for two things. When I loaded the regent's mule, I tied the load with rope.'
Prince Pausanias chuckled. 'Excellent! But now that you've bested poor Tisamenus, let me play Ahuramazda's advocate. I say that just as there's only one king at Persepolis, there can be only one god. Why should he tolerate more? He'll destroy them, then there'll be only one. Show me my error, Latro, if you can.'
'Highness, if you were truly a magus-I mean a priest of this Ahuramazda-I don't think you'd speak like that. You'd say there can't be a single god, but that just as there are two kings in Rope, there must be two gods also.'
The regent held out his cup, and Tisamenus poured him more wine. 'Why do you say that, sir?'
'I don't say it, but I think the magi would. They would reason thus: There's good in the world, so there's a good god, a wise lord. But there's evil too, so there must be an evil lord as well. In fact, one posits the other. There can be no good without evil, no evil without good.'
