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“I’m still pretty scared.”
“You would have climbed that cliff, given the chance. You would be no more dead falling from here.”
“All right.” Gingerly, Horn edged forward until his legs dangled over the abyss of air. Oreb settled on his shoulder.
“As I said, I’ve neglected my duty to teach you. Now I can actually show you part of the Plan. I find it enlightening, and you may, too. See the city ahead? The mountains we crossed isolate it from the west. Soon we’ll see what isolates it from the east; and if we were to turn north or south, we’d come upon barriers there as well. Some are more formidable than others, of course.”
“Their houses are like people, Calde. Look, there’s Pas, with the two heads. Even the little ones are like people lying down, see? The thatch makes it look like they’ve got blankets.”
“Good place.” Oreb bobbed on Horn’s shoulder.
“It is,” Silk agreed, “but if we weren’t used to seeing Pas pictured like this, we’d think this image the more horrible — and it is horrible — for being so large. I won’t ask if you’ve lain with a woman, Horn; it’s too personal a matter to broach save in shriving, and I know you too well to shrive you. Should you wish to be shriven, I hope you’ll go to Patera Remora.”
“All right.”
“I had not until my wedding night. Indeed, it remains my only such experience. You needn’t tell me that Hyacinth has lain with scores of men. I knew it and was acutely conscious of it; so was she. I can’t say what our experience meant to her, and perhaps it meant little or nothing. To me it was wonderful. Wonderful! I came to her as one starving. And yet—”
Still very frightened, Horn jerked his head. “I know.”
“Good. I’m glad you understand. There was a taint that came from neither Hyacinth nor me, but from the act itself. After two hours, or about that, I rested. We had done what men and women do more than once, and more than twice. I was happy, exhausted, and soiled. I felt that Echidna, particularly, was displeased; and I doubt that I would have had the courage if I had not rejected her in my heart after her theophany. You were there, I know.”
Horn nodded again. “She’s a very great goddess, Calde.”
“She is. Great and terrible. It may be that I was wrong to reject her — I won’t argue the point. I only say that I had, and felt as I did. As I’ve said, the Outsider enlightened me a second time then. I won’t tell you all that he told me — I couldn’t. But one thing was that he created Pas. The Seven, as everyone knows, are the children of Pas and Echidna; it had never occurred to me to wonder whence they themselves came. Why do you think Pas built barriers between our cities, Horn?”
The sudden question caught him off guard. “To keep them from fighting, Calde?”
“Not at all. Not only do they fight, but he knew that they would; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have provided them with armies. No, he erected mountains and dug rivers and lakes so they could not combine against him. More specifically, so they couldn’t combine against Mainframe, the home he was to set over them.”
“Did the Outsider tell you that, Calde?”
Silk shook his head. “Hammerstong did, and Hammerstone is right. The Outsider, as he showed me, has no reason to fear our leaguing against him. We’ve done it i
“Like a mule that kicks whenever it gets a chance.”
“Exactly. That mule is harnessed like the rest and draws the wagon, however unwillingly. Given the freedom of the whorl — and even of those beyond it — evil directs us back to the Outsider. I told you I rejected Echidna; I thought I did it because she is evil, but the truth is that I did it because he is better. A child who burns its hand says the fire’s bad, as the saying goes; but the fire itself is saying, ‘Not to me, child. Reach out to him.’”
“I think I see. Calde, I’m getting pretty cold.”
“Fish heads?” Oreb inquired.
Silk nodded. “We’ll go in soon, so you and Oreb will be warm and can get something to eat; but first, have you been looking at our whorl, Horn? This is winter wheat below us, I believe. See how the sunlight plays on it, how it ripples in the wind, displaying every conceivable shade of green?”
“You still haven’t told me — maybe I shouldn’t ask you—”
“Why I was tempted to jump? It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Oreb squawked, “Look out!”
Already, Horn was sliding from the edge of the deck; the face he turned toward Silk displayed Mucor’s deathly grin.
“You know where Silk is?” Auk stepped into the cockpit and shut the flimsy door behind him.
Sciathan pointed to the ceiling, his urchin face all sharp V’s. “Upstairs, which is what you call me. I saw shoes and stockings, and the legs of trousers at the top.” He gestured toward the slanted pane before him. “The trousers were black, the shoes and stockings the same, the legs too long for the smallest augur. The tallest, I think, would not do this.”
“They ain’t there any more.” Auk bent, craning his neck to peer upward. “I ought to tell you, too. Number Seven ought to work if you start it.”
Sciathan flicked two switches and nodded appreciatively as a needle rose. “You have removed his clamp.”
“There was more to it than that. We’re working on Number Five now. They got ’em out on booms, see?”
“I have observed this. In a moment I shall tell you what else I have observed.”
“Only you can haul the booms in to fix the engines. It’s a pretty good system. We had to yank the heads and beat on the pistons some, but we didn’t hurt ’em much. What’d you see?”
“Another seated beside Silk. It is hazardous to sit thus.”
“You said it.”
“The other was almost chilled…” Sciathan paused, his head cocked. “Calde Silk comes now to General Saba’s cabin. I hear his voice.”
Leaving the cockpit, Auk saw that Saba’s curtain was drawn back. Silk stood where it had hung, and a perspiring Horn had crowded into the cubicle beside Nettle.
“ — don’t know how to put this, exactly,” Silk was saying. “I ought to have given that more thought while I was up on the roof a moment ago.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Hello, Auk. I’m glad you’re here; I was going to send Nettle for you. We’re about to return her airship to General Saba.”
Oreb bobbed in assent as Auk stared.
“I don’t mean, of course, that we’re not going to take you to Mainframe — you and Sciathan, and the rest. We are. Or rather, she is; Hyacinth and I will accompany her, with Nettle, Horn, His Eminence, Patera Remora, and Moly.”
Saba gri
“Of course you do,” Silk told her, “and so will Auk. We all should, because it will help every one of us.”
He turned back to Auk. “A small ceremony at which you return General Saba’s sword might be appropriate. Would you like that?”
Auk shook his head.
“It wasn’t taken from her, in any event. It’s still in that box at the foot of her bed, she tells me.”
Nettle displayed her needler. “Can I put this up?”
Auk snapped, “Keep it!”
“A very small ceremony, then — here and now. Would you get out your sword for me, General? I’ll give it to Auk, who will give it back to you. You should wear it thereafter. It will hearten your troopers, I’m confident.”