“I see,” Silk murmured, and with the words the entire scene returned, glowing with the vivid colors and hot shame of youth: the whizzing stones, his futile defense and final flight, the blood that had streamed from his face down his best white tunic to dye its embroidered flowers.
“All right, a needle’s just a tiny little thing, but when it’s shot out it goes so fast that the rock might just as well be traveling backwards. So it makes that noise you heard. If it had got slewed around before it hit that jug you shot, it would have screeched like a tomcat.” Auk swept his needles into a pile with his hands. “They drop down inside the handle. See? All right. Right under my finger is a little washer with a hole in the middle and a lot of sparks in it.”
Silk raised his eyebrows, more than ready to grasp at any distraction. “Sparks?”
“Just like you see if you pet a cat in the dark. They got put into the washer when this needler was made, and they chase each other around and around the hole in that washer till you need them. When I close the breech, that’ll stick the first needle into the barrel, see?” Auk flicked on the safety. “If I’d have pulled the trigger, that would tap off some sparks for the coil. And as long as it’s got sparks, that coil works like a big lodestone. It’s up front here looped around the barrel, and it sucks the needle to it real fast. You’d think it would stay right there after it gets there, wouldn’t you?”
Silk nodded again. “Or be drawn back to the coil, if it overshot.”
“Right. Only it don’t happen, because the last spark is through the coil before the needle ever gets there. Are you finished, Patera? I’ve told you just about everything I know.”
“Yes, and the entire meal was delightful. Superb, in fact. I’m extremely grateful to you, Auk. However, I do have one more question before we go, though no doubt it will seem a very silly one to you. Why is your needler so much bigger than this one? What advantages are secured by the increase in size?”
Auk weighed his weapon in his hand before thrusting it away. “Well, Patera, for one thing mine holds a lot more needles. Full up, there’s a hundred and twenty-five. I’d say your little one there most likely only holds fifty or sixty. Mine are longer, too, which is why I can’t give you some of mine to use in yours. Longer needles mean a wider cut when they slew around, and a wider cut takes your cull out of the fight quicker. My barrel’s longer, too, and the needles are a hair thicker. All that gives ’em half a dog’s cheek more speed, so they’ll go in deeper.”
“I understand.” Silk had drawn back the loading knob of Hyacinth’s needler and was peering at the rather simple-looking mechanism revealed by the open breech.
“A needler like yours is all right inside a house or a place like this, but outside you’d better be up close before you pull the trigger. If you’re not, your needle’s going to start slewing around in the air before it ever gets to your cull, and once it starts doing that, don’t even Pas’s sprats—your pardon, Patera—know where it’s going to end up.”
Looking thoughtful, Silk got out one of Blood’s cards. “If you would allow me, Auk. I’m heavily indebted to you.”
“I already paid, Patera.” Auk rose, pushing back his chair until it thumped the wall. “Some other time, maybe.” He grinned. “Now then. You remember I said don’t even the gods know where your needles are going?”
“Of course.” Silk rose as well, finding his ankle less painful than he had anticipated.
“Well, maybe they don’t. But I do, and I’ll tell you soon as we get outside. I know where you and me are going to go, too.”
“I should return to my manteion.” By an effort of will, Silk was able to walk almost normally.
“This won’t take more than a couple hours, and I got two or three surprises I want to show you.”
The first was a litter for one, with a pair of bearers. Silk climbed into it with some trepidation, wondering whether there would be any such conveyance to carry him to the manse when the business of the evening was done. The shade had risen until no sliver of gold remained, and a dulcet breeze whispered soothingly that the dust and heat of vanquished day had been but empty lies. It fanned Silk’s flushed cheeks, and the sensual pleasure it gave him told him he had drunk one goblet of wine too many. Sadly, he resolved to watch himself more strictly in the future.
Auk strode along beside the litter, his grin flashing in the semidarkness. Silk felt something small, squarish, and heavy thrust into his hand.
“What we was talking about, Patera. Put ’em in your pocket.”
By that time, Silk’s fingers had told him that it was a paper-wrapped packet, tightly tied with string. “How…?”
“The waiter. I had a word with him when I stepped out, see? They ought to fit, but don’t try them here.”
Silk dropped the packet of needles into the pocket of his robe. “I—Thank you again, Auk. I don’t know what to say.”
“I had him whistle out this trot-about for you, and he sent a pot boy off after those. If they don’t fit, tell me tomorrow. Only I think they will.”
The litter halted much sooner than Silk had expected, before a tall house whose lower and third stories were dark, though the windows between them blazed with light. When Auk knocked, the door was opened by a lean old man with a small, untidy beard and white hair more disordered even than Silk’s own.
“Aha! Good! Good!” The old man exclaimed. “Inside! Inside! Just shut the door. Shut the door, and follow me.” He went up the stair two steps at a time, with a speed that Silk would have found astonishing in someone half his age.
“His name’s Xiphias,” Auk told him when he had finished paying the bearers. “He’s going to be your teacher.”
“Teacher of what?”
“Hacking. Thirty years ago, he was best. The best in Viron, anyhow.” Turning, Auk led Silk inside and closed the door. “He says he’s better now, but the younger men won’t accept his challenges. They say they don’t want to show him up, but I don’t know.” Auk chuckled. “Think how they’d feel if the old goat beat them.”
Nodding and content to wonder for a few minutes longer what “hacking” might be, Silk seated himself on the second step and removed Crane’s wrapping; it was cold, and though he could not be certain in the dimness of the
