Go willingly…

The dying woman's head rolls upon her pillow. "Nettle? Where's Nettle? Nettle?"

She rises and takes the dying woman's hand. "I'm here. I'm right here, Grandma."

"I loved you, Nettle."

"I know, Grandma. I love you, too."

He watched them through two pairs of eyes.

"I want you to know, Nettle, that you've been loved. I want you to remember it. Someone loved you once. Someone may love you again, Nettle."

It echoed and re-echoed: someone may love you, Nettle.

He blinked and woke, not certain that he was not still dreaming. And at last sat up, shivering.

Their fire was nearly out. Hound had rolled himself in his blanket and was breathing deeply and heavily. Oreb was nowhere to be seen. Blood had said, "Did you walk out here, Patera? My floater'll take you back. If you tell about our little agreement…"

Arm in arm they had staggered and stumbled through this very room, he eager-no, Patera Silk eager to keep Blood beside him so that Blood would not take note of Hyacinth's azoth tucked into the back of his waistband and covered by his tunic, Musk escorting them to a floater driven by Willet, a Trivigaunti spy.

From up there (he could barely see the place) he had looked down into this room, where middle-aged men in evening clothes had stood drinking and talking while blood from the gash the whiteheaded one had made in his arm dripped unseen onto the carpeting.

Had stood with his back against a white statue of Thyone. He strained to see it in the darkness, and had made it out at last and started toward it when it moved.

Leaning over the balustrade, Thyone became Mucor, then faded like mist. Nodding to himself, he took out the lantern Hound had given him and lit its candle with a stick from the fire.

He heard Pig's muttered exclamation as he turned in to the suite that had been Hyacinth's and called softly, "Silk? Silk? Where are you, Silk?," reminding himself forcibly of Oreb.

"Lookin' ter get killed?" There was no friendship in Pig's voice.

"Silk, I know you're in him, and I must talk with you."

The long blade slithered from the brass-tipped scabbard. Looking through the doorway into the bedroom, he saw Pig's blind and terrible face, and the sword blade tasting the air like the steel tongue of a great iron snake.

"I have a light. I know you can't see it, but I do. Without it-"

Pig was coming toward him, guided by his voice and groping for him with that terrible blade.

"I wouldn't have had the courage. If you kill me, my ghost will remain here with Hyacinth's. Have you thought of that?"

Pig hesitated.

"Whenever you come looking for her, you'll find me, too."

"Bucky

"I like you, Pig, but I don't want to talk to you at the moment. I came here at the risk of my life to speak with your rider. Talk to me, Patera, or kill me here and now. I have no weapon, and those are the only choices open to you."

"Then I'll talk with you," Pig said, and sheathed his sword. "You knew because I couldn't help coming here, didn't you? You say you have a lantern?"

"Yes." He felt that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "No, and yes. That's what I ought to say. If it had only been that Pig wanted very much to be alone in this room, I don't believe I'd have guessed. I would have thought of Silk the god, of Silver Silk as the augurs call you, with Kypris and dismissed the thought. You're not with her now, I realize. As long as Pig is blind, you can't go back to her."

"Correct. Though I would try to have his sight restored in any case, just as you yourself are making a praiseworthy effort to restore Maytera's."

"You even sound like yourself, Patera." He held up his lantern, letting its glow fill the whole sad, empty room. "It's uncanny, hearing your voice from Pig's lips and larynx. The voice is surely much more a function of the spirit than I ever realized. Chenille must have sounded very different indeed when she was possessed by Kypris."

"She did. You said it wasn't merely my coming here, Horn. What was it?"

He sighed. "I wish I'd known when Nettle and I wrote our book. I would have emphasized the changes in voice more. If I didn't have a light, I'd be ready to swear Patera Silk was standing before me in person."

"Standing before you and quizzing you, Horn. How did you know? I won't make you reply, though I probably could. I'll be grateful for an answer, just the same."

"I wish I had a good one. Last night I dreamed that Pig took off his bandage; and when he did, his face was yours. So I must have sensed something. We call him Pig, and talk about him as if that were really his name; but it's just a name of the Vironese type that he chose for himself yesterday."

"I remember."

"You would of course. Tonight Hound said our names were linked-Hound and Horn, like a hunting inn. That started me thinking about Pig's name, because I feel closer to Pig than to Hound, though Hound has been so kind to us, and I recalled the old saying, that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A silk purse generally means a purse made of silk, but it could also be purse to contain Silk."

Pig chuckled.

"Pig, or you in Pig, might have thought it amusing to give the proverb the lie-so it seemed to me. Then too, men rarely like the men they fear; but Hound likes Pig and fears him, too. You were the only man I'd known who had that kind of unconscious charm; but Pig has it. And, as you say, Pig had sought out this room, which used to be Hyacinth's, and was enraged at the prospect of being disturbed here."

"It was Pig who was angry," Pig said.

"I know. In one sense you're Silk-but ultimately you're really Pig, exactly as you appear to be. A Pig to whom certain new instructions have been given."

"What's that yer said, bucky?"

"I said that I had no wish to disturb your privacy, that I was extremely grateful to you for permitting me to spend even a few minutes in this room, and that I will return to Hound now and leave you to your thoughts."

"Never had none, bucky." Pig chuckled again. "Gae wi' yer, h'if yer dinna h'object ter me company."

"I'd be delighted to have it, and perhaps we can find some firewood. Do you think that might be possible?" He gasped.

"What yer catch yer breath like that fer, bucky?"

"This room has several windows. No doubt you discovered them for yourself."

"Did he? He did. Seadh."

"Well, the clouds parted just then-just as I finished speakingand I saw a flash of skylight. It means that the sun is burning again. When we leave, it will be by daylight. I-I realize it makes no difference to you, Pig, but it will make an enormous difference to Hound and me, and even to the donkeys, I imagine."

"Huh! Want h'it ter make a difference ter me, bucky. Gang ter help me find een, hain't yer?"

He said, "I will do everything in my power, Pig. You have my solemn promise."

The doorway was much too small for them to leave arm in arm, though both would have liked to. As it was he hung back, letting Pig kneel to crawl through before him. For an instant then it almost seemed to him that the bare floor and mildewing walls had been swept aside and he saw again the luxury and splendor that had been: the rich, figured carpet, the pictured women of pink and gold, and the huge bed of scented wood with its black and crimson sheets. Wine and chocolate perfumed the air, and glowing lights clearer than the one he held swarmed over the ceiling, their refulgence held in check by the discretion of the murmuring couple in the bed.

Then Pig's boots were through the doorway, leaving behind them only silence, ruin, and himself. Sighing, he too went out, pursued by the mockery of Hyacinth's soundless laughter.