Pig swallowed soup-soaked bread. "Dinna fash me, bucky."

"Thank you. Yet I know it must be painful. Have either of you any idea where I might find new eyes for a chem? Any idea at all?"

Hound shook his head.

"Oddly enough, I do. Do you know where I might find a male chem?"

"There should be some in the city. It's been years since I've seen a chem here in Endroad, male or female."

Tansy murmured, "Except for the soldiers."

"That's right." Hound snapped his fingers. "Twenty or thirty soldiers went through here about, let's see, a couple months ago. They were male chems, naturally, so I was wrong. But they didn't stay and they haven't come back."

"Where bound ter?" Pig inquired.

"I have no idea. Why are you looking for a male chem?"

Oreb had a question too, and stopped demolishing the slice of bread Pig had given him to voice it. "Iron man?"

"Yes, we want to find an iron man. Let me know if you see one, please."

Tansy asked, "But why?"

"Because chems can reproduce, just as bios such as you and your husband can. It's a point I should have raised with Maytera Marble the last time I spoke with her."

Hound said, "A male and a female chem can get together and build a child. I've heard that."

"It's not like we do," Tansy protested. "They have to make the parts and put them together, so it's not the same thing. Our child's going to grow in me. That's what we hope and pray for."

"Exactly. You and Hound can make a son or a daughter for your selves. If I had time I'd look for a better word than make, but for the moment that will have to do. The point is that what you make is a child, not pieces that can be assembled to make up one. You don't make eyes, and afterward a nose, and then a heart or liver; so that even if-I hope you'll excuse this, Pig-even if there were a great surgeon sitting with us who could put new eyes into Pig's sockets in such a way that he could see again, you two couldn't make a pair of new eyes for him to use.

"Chems are made quite differently, of course. Each parent carries half the information necessary to make the parts and assemble them. Now follow me closely, please. When my friend Maytera Marble plucked out one of her eyes-both, as I say, had stopped functioning-she took it out quite easily, and she took it out as a unit. Am I making myself clear?"

Hound said, "Yes. Certainly."

"Both her eyes had gone blind; but they did not go blind at the same moment. If they had, she would have known, I feel sure, that the real trouble lay deeper and new eyes would not permit her to see again. What actually happened was that one failed first, and the other failed a short time afterward. I know that Maytera inherited certain new parts when Maytera Rose died; Maytera Rose was also a sibyl, and was the senior sibyl at our manteion at the time of her death. I do not believe, however, that either eye was among those parts. If I am correct, Maytera Marble had been using the eyes that failed her for more than three hundred years-presumably they simply wore out."

Pig put down his spoon. "Huh. Didn't try ter make herself no new ones, bucky?"

"You're ahead of me, clearly. No, I do not believe she did. If she had, she said nothing about that effort to me, and I feel sure she would have."

"She'd a' tried, h'anyhow. Yer can take such from me, an' lily, ter."

"I agree. Why didn't she at least attempt it? Surely it must have been because she didn't know how, and since new chems clearly require new eyes, they must be among the parts made by the male. If I can find a male chem, I'll try to persuade him to make eyes for her, and give them to me to take back to her."

Pig said slowly, "H'or yer could find a dead 'un, bucky, an' pluck his h'out."

"Yes, provided I can remove them without damaging them." He endeavored unsuccessfully to sit up straighter and square his shoulders. "I've no wish to end your conversation, friends, but I'm very tired indeed, and you say it will soon be shadeup. With your permission, I'd like to excuse myself."

Hound said, "Yes, certainly," and Tansy, "You can sleep in the house, if you'd rather do that. Or I can bring out some blankets for you to lie down on."

"I shall be quite comfortable wherever I lie down, you may be sure." He took three steps back from the table, sank to his knees, and stretched out on the coarse, dry grass.

Pig groped for his sword, found it, and rose. "Wi' yer, bucky. Guid night ter Nall."

"Horn," Hound asked, "would you and your friend like to go with me tomorrow?"

There was no reply.

"I'll be riding one of our donkeys, Pig, and leading the other two. You-now that I see you standing up…"

Pig's chuckle rumbled in his chest. "Nae donkey fer me, but thank yer kindly. Bucky can, an' he'll thank yer better'n Pig. Yer a buck an' a brathair."

Tansy touched Hound's elbow. "The shade's nearly up already, dear."

"I'll wait for them to get some rest," he told her. "We can camp, if we have to."

He turned back to Pig. "But there's something else we ought to talk about. You two haven't known each other long, have you?"

"Have we? We've nae. Met h'up h'on ther road ternight, we did. Yer need nae fash. Yer nae gang ter tittle naethin' what's news ter auld Pig."

"It's just…" Hound glanced helplessly at his wife. "We werewere all sitting there pretending. You and Tansy were, and I was, too. All of us except his bird."

"Good bird!" Oreb's tone declared that matter settled.

Tansy asked, "Do you really know what we know, Pig? You're not from around here."

"Aye."

"I do too. I think so. I-I know Hound better than anybody, and I could tell from the way he opened our house to you, and the way he talked. I think I could, I mean, I did. I really do."

Hound drew a deep breath. "He kept saying and saying he was looking for Calde Silk. But that's Calde Silk right there. That's Calde Silk himself, Pig. You never saw him, but people have told me he's living with his wife in the old manse, quite near here."

"Aye, laddie. Meant ter call h'on him, but he was nae ter home. Door h'open an' wife dead, layin' h'in a box. Felt a' her. Met h'up wi' him an' H'oreb Wafter. Kenned who he was an' he dinna." Slowly and heavily Pig sank to the grass. "Lucky fer Pig, yer say. Huh. Lucky fer him? Time'll say. Pig dinna ken nae more'n H'oreb there."

He lay back, his sheathed sword clasped to his chest. "Yer best ter call him Horn when he wakes. An' rouse me, will yer?"

In a moment more he was snoring. Hound and Tansy stared at each other, but found nothing to say.

He was in a boat, and there was a monster greater and more terrible than the leatherskin below it, its face showing through the long smooth swell. He opened his old black pen case, dipped a black quill into the little ink bottle and began to write furiously, conscious of how short-how terribly short-a time was left to him.

I am just setting out for Pajarocu, he wrote, knowing nothing of what is about to transpire there, not even knowing that my son Sinew has decided to track me down and go to Green with me, or that mygrand- son, Krait, the son of my daughter Jahlee, will soon join me as a son.

The scratching of the quill slowed and died. He stared at the paper. Who was Krait? He had no daughter, no sons.

To the west, a lonely bird flew over the water, black as it crossed and recrossed the sun; he knew the bird was Oreb, and that Oreb was calling, "Silk? Silk? Silk?" as he flew. The bird was too far, its hoarse voice too faint to be heard. He thought of standing and waving, of calling Oreb to him, of lighting the lantern and running it up the mast for Oreb to see, so that the leatherskin or something else in the water would come to him, would come called by his burning prayer at sunset. He thought of looking over the side at the monstrous face beneath the water, of challenging it to emerge and destroy him if it could. He did none of these things.