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"My friends will not look. Mota and Roti? Those fellows? They came up here for as long as it takes to eat a banana. It was enough for them. I ca
Oreb had been left out of the conversation long enough. "No eat," he declared.
"No," his master told him, "you ca
"What is it Rajan?" Han Mau leaned toward him and touched his neck, as though to gauge its temperature or feel his pulse.
"I just realize that the Whorl is no longer my home. I grew up there, Hari Mau, and Nettle and I, in our real home on Lizard Island, used to say `home' when we spoke of it. In those days, we never thought it would be possible to go back. Now I have, and if I had not, perhaps she would have gone instead." He was tempted to say that she might even have succeeded in finding Silk; but he knew it would make Hari Mau angry.
"It did not make you happy, Rajan?"
"It did at first, and often after that." He sighed. "Or at least I would have told you I was if you had asked me."
"But you weren't?"
"Perhaps I should say that what I had, when I realized I was not only back in the Whorl but near Viron-and when I re-entered the city-was not true happiness. Only the anticipation of it."
"So I feel when everything is settled back there," Hari Mau jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "and I can come up here. Here I am happy. But looking at happiness is no bad thing, Rajan."
"No," he agreed, "it isn't. Nor is it happiness we ought to seek in life. For one thing, only those who seek something else find it."
"Work or war?"
"Yes, sometimes. Peace, too, and home. I don't mean to say that wherever one lives is good. Sometimes people try all their lives to make a home, and succeed just before the end, and are happy. Some-like me-succeed much earlier, but are not happy because they don't know. When you came here, I almost said that I didn't think a man who never saw the stars could ever be truly happy."
"There is much truth."
"Then I realized that there are millions like Hound-"
"Good Hound!" Oreb explained.
"Yes, he is. He's honest and humble; and he works hard, I believe. His wife wants children, and so does he, and he will love them when they get them. But he lives in the Whorl and has never seen the stars. In all probability he never will, though it is he and others like him who will touch them for us all."
"I do not understand, Rajan."
"The Whorl will leave our Short Sun," he pointed to it, "when the repairs are completed. I'm surprised you didn't learn about it when we were at the pole. After we had finished talking about Pig, it was one of the first things they told me."
"Oh, that." Hari Mau shrugged.
"Yes, that. It may take twenty years, or fifty. Or several hundred. There's still a great deal they have to learn. But the raw materials are there, and there's an abundance of labor. They will conquer the heat, rain will fall as it never has in living memory, and Lake Limna-all the lakes-will be sweet again. Streams that have not flowed in a hundred years will run as pure and clear as on the day when Pas's finger traced their courses."
"Perhaps. But you and I will never see it, Rajan."
"No. For us a little point of light in the sky will brighten, then fade until at last it vanishes."
"You will be happy in Gaon, Rajan."
Oreb clucked unhappily.
"No doubt I will. Certainly I will try to be. What about you, Hari Mau? Will you be happy, too?"
"Delighted, Rajan. Elated." Hari Mau's tone left no room for doubt. "I will be the one who found you, who brought you to our town. You will be our foremost citizen, and I will be second only to you. We will be respected and admired, and all of us will live in peace and justice for the rest of our lives. It is not a small thing to be second in a such a town."
"No," he agreed, "it isn't. Indeed, it may well be better than being first."
Hari Mau laughed. He had a warm laugh, full of joy. "You would not talk like that, Rajan, if you could see the house we are building for you. The work had begun before we left, and it will be finished by now. We have been in Gaon only fourteen years. Perhaps I told you?" He paused, counting on his fingers. "Fifteen now. It became fifteen while we were looking for you in the foreign city."
"You mean Viron?"
"Yes. We were there only eleven days. Were we not fortunate to find you so quickly?"
The man he called Rajan looked mildly surprised. "Why no."
"But we were, Rajan. Not fortunate, to find you so quickly out of so many thousands? Echidna favored us greatly."
Oreb cocked his head. "Good luck?"
"Certainly not, Oreb-or at least it wasn't lucky as luck is usually reckoned." His master turned back to the bronzed young hero beside him. "First of all, you were not lucky because you did not find the man you were looking for. I know you think I'm Silk; many people do. Nevertheless, I'm not. I've stopped objecting where your friends may overhear me, but I know who I am."
Hari Mau started to protest, but was silenced by a gesture.
"Second, because it was carefully arranged that you should find me and take me away. I believe Calde Bison must have had a hand in it, and quite certain His Cognizance the Prolocutor did."
"Are you sure, Rajan? If you are, Gaon owes them much."
"Gaon owes them nothing, because they were not concerned to benefit it. They wanted me out of the way, and being decent men at base were happy to accomplish their end without murder. They thought I was Silk, you see, just as you do; and as Silk I was an embarrassment, an encroachment on their authority. Calde Bison, I would guess, sent the merchant who conveniently offered my friend Hound candles at a bargain price."
"Rajan…?"
He sighed. "I sincerely hope they carried through their ruse, and Hound actually got the candles to take back to Tansy and her mother in Endroad. What is it?"
"Your temple. Trumpeters were sent through the city to a
"Did they? I hadn't heard about that. It was while I was talking with His Cognizance and General Mint, I suppose. In that case, Calde Bison's involvement-"
"Bad man!"
"Is quite certain. The Chapter doesn't have trumpeters, but the Calde's Guard does. No, he isn't, Oreb. That's what I've been telling you. A bad man would have had me killed. Councilor Potto would have been delighted to arrange it, and giggled over it afterward."
"If they wished you away, Rajan, why pay you such honors?"
"So they would not be blamed for my disappearance, to begin with." He laughed, and there was something of a gleeful child in that laughter. "We plot and plan so very hard to do the Outsider's will, Hari Mau. We think ourselves, oh, so wise! I understood at the end. Have I told you?"
"No, Rajan." Hand together, Hari Mau made him a little seated bow. "I would be pleased to learn."
"They took away Hound, you see. Or at least Bison did, and it's even possible his wife helped, though I doubt it. They left me Pig, thinking he would be easy for you to deal with. Because he was blind, he would be no protection to me."
"Nor was he, Rajan."
"I didn't want protection, I wanted Pig's sight restored, and I knew that if the Fliers said it could be done at the West Pole, it could be. Most people have never spoken to a Flier, but I knew one once. They are Crew, and know a great deal we do not." He paused, chuckling. "Patera Gulo came to Ermine's to warn me. I'm sure I haven't told you about that."
Hari Mau shook his head.
"I didn't think so. Patera Gulo was my acolyte long ago. Pardon me-I misspoke. He was Silk's acolyte. I don't know how I came to make such a mistake."
Hari Mau said, "One that I can easily forgive, Rajan."