"But your nodding implied-"

"That I had heard its answers and understood them. That's all. My task is to find Silk-the godling said he was here- and take him to New Viron. I want to get home to Seawrack and the two sons who remain to us, Hound. I think I've been away for about a year. How would you feel if you'd been separated from Tansy for a year?"

"Is your wife's name Seawrack? I thought you called her something else."

"Did I say Seawrack? I'm sorry. My wife's name is Nettle. We're getting off the point, however. The point is that I gave my solemn word. To keep my oath, I've risked everything-and lost. Are you looking at my face, Hound? I feel your eyes."

"Yes."

"This is not my face. I've had little chance to study my reflection, but I don't need to-my fingers tell me so. Nor are these my fingers. I am neither so tall nor so slender. I have lost myself, you see, in service to my town. I won't turn aside after all I've been through. No, not if all the gods in Mainframe were to command it.

"Now, what were you about to say about Pig?"

"You lost your yourself?"

"I'm not prepared to discuss it. First, because you would credit nothing I said; and second, because we have a bargain. I've carried out my part. I've told you what the godling wanted me to do. Furthermore, I've explained why I won't do it. What were you on the point of saying about Pig?"

"This isn't it, but he's been gone an awfully long time."

"I know. I don't know whether he'll return to us tonight, and he may not return at all. Fulfill your part of our bargain."

"I will, but first let me say that some of it isn't true, all right? I'll tell you what I was going to say, but I've had time to think about it, so afterward I'm going to take some of it back." Hound paused.

"This is what I was going to say. I was going to say that you and I get along fine. Hound and Horn, right? It's the name of an inn up in the mountains. But I was going to say I don't like Pig. That's the part I want to take back. I was going to say that I didn't like Pig, and I thought he was dangerous-"

"Good Pig!"

"And I was going to give you the name of the inn I'm going to put up at. It's Ermine's, and I was going to say that after we say good bye and go our separate ways you could come there and stay with me, as long as you didn't bring Pig."

"That was generous of you. I certainly appreciate it." Still regarding the ceiling, the speaker smiled.

"Like I said, that about not liking Pig isn't really true. I'm afraid of him. He's huge and very strong, and I think his blindness makes him savage. It might make me savage too, being blind." Hound giggled nervously. "So I can't blame Pig for it. Just the same, he scares me. I'm still young and Tansy may be carrying our first child, and I don't want to get killed."

"Nor do we older people, I assure you. You say you don't dislike Pig. Do you like him?"

"I-" Hound hesitated. "Yes. Yes, I do. I'm still afraid of him, but I like him a lot."

"So do I. Thank you very much, Hound. For your offer of a place to sleep-I appreciate it, and may take you up on it-but most of all for confiding in me."

Hound swallowed. "You can bring Pig, if you want to."

"I thank you again, this time on his behalf. You are extremely generous."

"You said what I almost said might be important. It wasn't, and I realize it. But that's what it was. That's everything I was about to say."

"You're mistaken. It was fully as important as I thought it might be. Will you do me one more favor, Hound? You've done so many already that I hate to ask it, but I will. I do."

"Yes, absolutely. What is it?"

"Go to sleep."

"I was thinking… Pig's not coming back. I think we both know that. So I was thinking maybe I ought to go and see if I couldn't do what he said he was going to, find some old furniture to burn or tear off a couple of boards somewhere."

"Feed fire," Oreb elucidated.

"No. Go to sleep, please."

"It's getting colder."

"We must bear it. Please go to sleep."

Lying on his back with his hands behind his head, he talked to himself, telling himself how the Outsider had touched Patera Silk on the ball court between one moment and the next, and how he himself had played on, all unconscious of the momentous thing that had occurred, conscious only of the game, conscious that the ball had been snatched away as he was about to shoot, conscious that Patera Silk was a much better player than he would ever be, conscious of the sun-bright sky through which a flier floated, a black cross against the sun, a sign of addition that signed that something had been added to a whorl that would never be quite the same again, that the gods' god who had been outside for so long had come in, a whispering breeze stronger than Pas's howling, whirling storm.

Conscious too that he himself was a painted wooden figure in a blue coat moved by strings, a blue-coated figure atop a music box, whose blue coat was a coat of paint, unconscious of all that passed when the box was silent, when the clever, shiny spring inside no longer uncoiled to move him and his partner through the mad gyrations prescribed for the tune played by the steel comb that sang to itself of a virgin braiding her hair by candlelight, a virgin glimpsed by a vagrant stealing his supper from her father's garden, apples more precious because he had glimpsed her then, seated on her bed in her chemise, and she was the most beautiful woman in the whorl, was Kypris and Hyacinth because she had yet to learn how beautiful she was and the power of her smile.

Dark hair braided like a crown, and a smile that tore the heart. The mandola had not been played particularly well, and the sweet, soft voice of had been of limited range. And yet-and yet…

"Poor Silk!"

He sat up, then rose quietly and tossed the smoldering stubs of burned sticks into the fire. From the sound of his breathing, Hound was not yet asleep. He lay down again.

"Patera? Patera, are you awake?" He is Horn calling beneath Silk's bedroom window.

He is Silk replying from the window. "Yes, but Patera Pike's still asleep, I believe. Keep your voice down."

"… dying, Mother says. She sent me to get you."

He knelt in prayer beside the bedside while Silk swung his beads in the sign of addition, knelt beside the praying boy while bringing the Peace of Pas to the gray-faced old woman in the bed. "I convey to you, my daughter, the forgiveness of the gods. Recall now the words of Pas, who said, `Do my will, live in peace, multiply, and do not disturb my seal. Thus you shall escape my wrath. Go willingly-' "

Go willingly-