"To colonize Blue and Green, Pas had to make certain that some human beings reached them alive. He pretty well assured that by dividing us into the two groups-ourselves, and the sleepers. If the sleep process, whatever it was, couldn't keep them alive for three hundred years, we would supply colonists. If we were wiped out by some disease as you suggested, the sleepers could be roused by Mainframe, or by the chems that Pas put in this whorl as well.

"But though our surviving until we reached Blue and Green was necessary, it was not sufficient. We had to survive on those whorls afterward. Blue is a hospitable one; we are our own worst enemies there. Green is much harsher. It's where the inhumi breed, and there are diseases and dangerous animals. Pas felt we ordinary people might not be able to deal with those, so he took steps to see that we'd have some extraordinary ones as well, people like Mucor, who can send out her spirit without dying; and people like Silk, who was the sort of leader we weave legends about but seldom get-or deserve, I might add."

Hound stared at the fire before he spoke. "You said most of those embryos had been stolen or destroyed."

"I'm afraid so."

"Does that mean we'll fail?"

"Perhaps. On Green at least."

"I'd like to go. Am I crazy? I've never felt this way way before."

"The crossing is very dangerous-I don't deny that. But you and Tansy might make a better life for yourselves and your children on Blue than you will ever have here, and you would be doing the will of Pas."

"Not Blue," Hound said. "I want to go to Green. I want to go where I'm needed, Horn."

Before he replied, he stretched out on the floor, his hands behind his head. "You're a brave man."

"I'm not! I know I'm not. But-but…"

"You are."

"But I'm steady, and I've got a good head on my shoulders, and I don't drink or get so angry I ruin everything. I'm no troublemaker. I can work with my hands, and I drive a hard bargain. They could use me. I know they could!"

"I'm sure you're right."

"I'm going to have think about it. I'm going to have to think for a long time, probably until after the baby's born."

Silence descended on the ruined villa, a silence broken only by the moaning of the wind outside, the crackling of the fire, and the soft breathing of the man stretched on the floor.

When some time had passed, Hound rose, took a burning stick from the fire, and went outside again. When he returned, he got a blanket and spread it over the man on the floor, who opened his eyes and murmured, "Thank you."

"You're awake," Hound said.

"I fear I am."

"You said some things tonight that sounded pretty, I don't know, not religious. You admitted it yourself."

"The joke about the dead farmer."

"Yes, and other things too. I've got a question, Horn. It's going to sound bad, or anyhow I'm afraid it will. And it may be pretty silly."

"You're afraid I may not take you seriously."

Hound sat down. "I guess so."

"If you ask it seriously, I'll answer seriously, or try to. What is it?"

"You said that there are two gods we don't know. I mean, we know that there are gods like that, but we don't know their names. You said too that the Outsider had made Pas?"

"Yes. Both gods and Men-the human race-were created by the O•itsider. It's explicitly stated in the Chrasmologic Writings, and I'm confident that it's true."

"The other nameless god, is that Thyone's son? Does anybody know who his father was?"

"Pas, supposedly. It's said that Thyone is one of his inferior concubines, less favored than Kypris."

"Then what I was going to ask about is pretty silly. I was going to ask if it isn't possible they're really the same."

The man lying on the floor said nothing.

"Since we don't know the names. That the Outsider is Thyone's son, the wine god, too."

"That isn't silly at all; it's extremely perceptive. You've amazed me twice within a few minutes. Yes, it's possible and it may well be true. I don't know."

"But if the Outsider made Pas, and Pas is the wine god's father…?"

"Have you ever seen Thyone, Hound? In a Sacred Window or anyplace else?"

Hound shook his head.

"Neither have I. What about Pas? I have not."

"No."

"Then what do either of us know about the parentage of the wine god, and what such parentage may entail? What limitations the Outsider may be subject to or free from? I told you about Auk-how he was told by Scylla that Pas's name had been Typhon on the Short Sun Whorl."

Hound nodded.

"Scylla was in possession of a woman named Chenille when that conversation took place; Chenille told my wife a good deal about it not long afterward. Do you think that because Scylla was possessing Chenille she was absent from Mainframe? Or that Scylla can't have been in another woman-or a man, for that matter-at the same time?"

"I guess she could have if she wanted to."

"Certainly she could." The man who had been lying on the floor sat up. "I was going to tell you what happened to me, and to Pig, after I left you. Then I decided that it might better be left unsaidthat I'd let Pig tell both of us, if he would, and let it pass in silence if he wouldn't. Now I've changed my mind again. You need to hear this. You and your wife welcomed us, and I would be neglecting a duty if I withheld it."

"Does this have something to do with the gods?" Hound asked.

"I think it may. We went outside, as you know, and I spoke with Mucor, and asked her to talk to Pig when I was finished."

Hounded nodded.

"After that, I couldn't decide whether to come back here or visit the room that had been Hyacinth's."

"Silk's wife's?"

"Yes. She had lived in this house for a time. She was a very beautiful woman, the most beautiful I'd ever seen. I've seen one other since who might rival her, despite being maimed."

"Go on, Horn."

"Recalling her, and how beautiful I'd thought her then, I felt a sort of itch to stand in the suite she'd occupied, and touch the walls. She'd split her stone windowsill with an azoth. I wanted to feel that windowsill, if it was still there, and stand for a time at the very window Silk had jumped from. I told myself over and over how foolish it was, and that I should return here. Have I told you Oreb had left?"

Hound shook his head.

"He had. Mucor frightens him, as I should have remembered. It was utterly dark, of course, and I had to feel my way with my stick. It must have taken me five minutes to cross Mucor's room and find the door. I decided I'd try to return here to you, and if I blundered on a set of rooms that fit Silk's description of Hyacinth's, so much the better."

"That sounds sensible."

"Thank you. It may have been sensible, but it did me little good. Soon after I had left Mucor's room, I was completely lost, and bitterly regretted having left my lantern behind with you. I stumbled around helplessly for a long while. I was looking for stairs and tried to stay out of the rooms-after I had explored a few-because I felt certain one would enter the staircases from a corridor."

"I understand."

"I blundered into a suite just the same, and for a minute or two I didn't know I had done it. When I realized what must have happened, I found a door and went through, thinking I'd be in the corridor again; but it was another room, bigger than the first and, as well as I could judge, almost triangular. I don't know whether the geome- te-s have a name for that shape, a wide triangle with two corners cut off. I felt certain then-absolutely certain, Hound-that I was standing in what had been Hyacinth's dressing chamber. I had never been there before in my life, though I was in this house long ago as I told you; but I have thought of it a thousand times, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was standing there. You're free to doubt me if you wish-I don't blame you."