Somethin' there, bucky." Pig's hand, groping through darkness that for Pig had no shadeup, found his arm and closed around it, pointed nails digging into his flesh. "Hoose, maybe."

"Do you think they might let us sleep there? I don't see any lights."

"Was nae lights ter Hound's, neither, yet said."

A short distance ahead Hound remarked, "Oil that will burn in lamps is very dear, and candles almost impossible to find at any price." After a moment he added, "I really can't say how near the city we are, but we've come a long way. I for one am ready for a rest. What about you, Horn?"

Pig released his arm, and the tapping of Pig's scabbard indicated that Pig was moving to his right. He said, "Pig's been walking, while I've done nothing but sit upon the back of this wonderfully tolerant donkey of yours. I feel sure that Pig-and my donkey-must be far more fatigued than I am."

'Wall." Pig's voice sounded nearby. "Nae winders, nor nae doors neither." There was a pause. "Here's ther gate. Wide h'open, ter."

"No gate!" Oreb informed him.

"There's a vacant mansion back there," Hound explained. "I've passed it many times. We could camp in it, if everybody's willing. It should keep off the rain, and rain's likely after this heat. How do you feel about it, Horn? Would you be willing to stop?"

"Yes." He got out the striker Tansy had given him. "I'd like to see it, if it belonged to a man named Blood. Did it?"

"I haven't the least notion who it belonged to. All I can tell you is that nobody's lived in it for as long as I've been taking this road. It's pretty remote, and there are a lot of empty houses. Most are in better shape than this one."

"Then I want to stop, if you and Pig are willing." The striker flared.

"I wouldn't use up more of that candle than you can help."

Pig's voice came from a greater distance. "Gang h'in, bucky. Yer comin'?"

"Yes, I am." He dismounted.

The wall was ruinous; the tangled iron through which Maytera Marble had picked her way had vanished. "I fought in a battle here, Oreb," he whispered to the bird on his shoulder.

"No fight!"

"Sometimes one must. Sometimes you do yourself."

Oreb fidgeted, his bill clacking unhappily. "Bad place."

"Oh, no doubt. They were holding Silk here, and Chenille, Patera Incus, and Master Xiphias. Not so long ago, I imagined Xiphias was walking along beside me. I wish he'd come back." He led his donkey through the gate and raised his lantern, hoping for a glimpse of the villa that had been Blood's; but the feeble light of the candle scarcely revealed the distant, pale bulk of Scylla's fountain. Under his breath he added, "Or that Silk would."

"Bad place!"

Behind them, Hound chuckled. "It's haunted, naturally. All these old places are supposed to be."

"It is indeed." The man Hound addressed waved his knobbed staff before him, although the light from his lantern showed no obstruction. "There should be a dead talus right here. I wonder what has become of it."

"Well, I wonder what's become of your friend Pig. I don't see him up ahead."

"You're right. Oreb, will you look for him, please? If he's in trouble, come back and tell us at once."

"Now that's a handy pet." Hound caught up. "You've been here before?"

"Twenty years ago. I had a slug gun instead of a stick then, and a thousand friends instead of two. No doubt I should say I like this better, because no one's trying to kill me; but the truth is I don't." He pointed back to the gate with his staff. "The Guard floaters broke through there and came in with buzz guns blazing at the same time we swarmed over the wall-volunteers like me, and Guardsmen, and even Trivigaunti pterotroopers. There were taluses in here, but between the floaters and us, they never had a chance. Others did much more, I'm sure; but I got off a shot before-"

Oreb returned, dropping onto his shoulder. "Pig come."

"He's all right then?"

Oreb croaked deep in his throat, and Hound said, "I couldn't understand him that time."

"He didn't say anything, just made a noise. It means he doesn't know what to say or doesn't know how to say it. So something's the matter with Pig that Oreb can't explain, or that he doesn't know how to tell us. Is he bleeding, Oreb?"

"No hurt."

"That's good. He didn't fall, I hope?"

"No, no."

The fountain was dry, its basin filled with rotting leaves and its once-white stone dirty gray. One of Scylla's arms had been broken off.

"Do people still worship her, Hound?"

Hound hesitated. "Sometimes. I'm not religious myself, so I don't pay a lot of attention, but I don't think it's like it used to be. They offer ducks now, mostly, or that's what Tansy's mother told me once."

"What about theophanies?"

"I'm afraid I don't know that word."

"Girl come," Oreb explained.

"Does Scylla appear in your Sacred Windows?"

"Oh, that." Hound urged his donkey forward, and jerked the rope of those he led. "Not like it used to be, I suppose. She comes to the window in the Grand Manteion two or three times a year, or the augurs say she does."

"It wasn't like that at all, really. No god ever visited us in all the time that I was growing up, not until just before we left for Blue."

"I didn't know that," Hound said.

"What I wanted-"

Oreb interrupted them. "Man come. Pig man."

"Good." He raised his lantern. "Pig? Are you all right?"

"Ho, aye."

"We were worried about you." He hurried forward.

The fitful light of the swinging lantern revealed the huge Pig, his dirty black trousers and dirty gray shirt, his big sword just now exploring the wide doorway of Blood's villa as Pig prepared to step out.

"We're going to camp in there. There are fireplaces, I'm sure, or there used to be."

"Aye, bucky."

He turned back to Hound. "Do you require our help with the donkeys?"

"No," Hound called. "But you could start that fire."

"I will. There-I'm going to blow out my candle, Pig. Hound doesn't want me to waste it, and he's right. I haven't seen any firewood around here anyway, and I imagine all the furniture was stolen or burned long ago."

"Aye."

Oreb muttered, "Poor man."

"So would you guide me to the back of the house and help look for wood? The trees overhang the wall there, as I remember, and there must be fallen branches."

Pig's big hand found his arm, and although Pig did not reply, he followed Pig docilely.

"This is where they had the sheds for Blood's floaters, and where the horned cats were penned. A talus cared for them, the one Silk killed in the tunnels. I suppose the others, the ones we killed when we stormed the house, were the Ayuntamiento's. The rabbit hutches must have been back here, too, though I don't remember seeing them."

"Seein'?" Pig's hand tightened. "Did yer say seein', bucky?"

Oreb fidgeted on his master's shoulder uneasily, wings half extended. "Watch out."

"Yes, Pig, I did."

"Pals, hain't we?"

"Certainly I am your friend, Pig. I hope you're mine as well."

"Then tell me somethin', bucky. Tell me what yer see."

"Right now? Nothing at all. It's totally dark."

"Yer said yer'd blow h'out yer glim, an' yer did. Heard yer. Heard yer h'open, an' blow, an' shut h'up."

"That's right. I can light it again if you wish, and use it to look around for wood."

"Nae sunshine, bucky?"

"No. None."

The hand on his shoulder, tight already, tightened still more. "What h'about ther skylands? Onie light h'up there?"

"No-wait." He lifted his head, scanning the sky. "One little pinpoint of red. It's a city burning, I suppose, though just a spark to us. That's what someone told me they were."