Pig did not reply.

"Of course someone may have been living in some of those that looked empty to me. That's entirely possible, and I hope it is true."

"Yer said ther h'empty place was ther H'outsider's."

"A cheering thought-thank you. To answer your question, a few of these houses are clearly occupied, though not many."

Pig cocked his head. "Cartwheels, bucky!"

"I can't hear them. Your ears are more acute than mine, as I have observed before. I'm glad you do, however, and I don't doubt in the least that you do. May I tell a story, Pig? You reminded me of it, and even if you have no particular pleasure in hearing it, it will give me pleasure to recount it."

"Does he mind? He does nae!"

"Thank you again. I should say at the outset that I'm not sure the manteions are the same, though I suspect they are. Hound said he couldn't recall the name of the augur who'd been in charge when he and Tansy attended sacrifice occasionally. This would have been his predecessor, I expect, if it really was the same manteion. His name was Patera Ray."

"Good man?"

"Ah, that's the point of my story, Oreb. A boy-I've forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter-and his mother were returning to the city after living for a year or so in the country. You'll recall, Pig, that Hound and Tansy moved from Endroad to the city after they were married, because there was no work for Hound in Endroad. Later, they returned.

"In much the same way, this boy and his mother had moved to the country, living in a remote farmhouse where the boy, who was still quite small, was happy in the possession of a wood and a stream too wide to jump; but lonely all the same. Now they had decided to return to the city. It was a long journey as the boy measured journeys then, though he had ridden most of the way in a sort of cart pushed by his mother that carried their belongings.

"She was very tired, and they stopped on the outskirts to spend the night with a friend before going into the city to the neat little house that another kind friend-a male friend who I suppose must have slept there from time to time, since he kept a razor there-had arranged for them to occupy some years earlier. After dinner, the poor woman went to bed and to sleep almost at once, but the boy did not."

"Good boy?"

"Not particularly, Oreb, though he thought he was, because his mother loved him. He was not old enough to understand that she would always love him, whether he behaved well or badly."

They were passing empty cellar-holes, rectangular pits edged with charred wood and filled with black water. "This quarter burned twenty years ago," he told Pig. "I'm sorry that more of it has not been rebuilt. I've been in the City of the Inhumi on Green, and it's not much more desolate than this. Here's String Street, I believe. I'm sorry to see that the fire got this far."

"Wi' yer, bucky."

"I want to finish my little tale. I'll interrupt it if I see anything worth commenting on."

He paused, collecting his thoughts. "The boy decided to take a short walk. He was hoping to find another child; but he was very conscious of the danger of becoming lost, so he walked only along the road upon which the house in which he and his mother were staying stood, reasoning that he could always retrace his steps and return to her. You will have guessed what happened already. Distracted by something or other, he became confused about the direction in which he had been walking. Thinking that he was returning to his mother and the house in which they were staying, he walked a long way until he saw an old man in black weeping upon the steps of a manteion. Until that time, the boy had been afraid to ask for help; but the old man looked so good and kind that the boy approached him and, after a minute or two of silent squirming, and taking deep breaths and letting them out, and deciding on one beginning after another and abandoning each before it was begun, he said, `Why are you crying?'

"The old man looked up, and seeing him pointed to the carts, wagons, and litters that passed them every few seconds. `If the wrongs I have done the gods were visible,' he said, `there would be more than those, and four men would not be enough to weep for them all.' "

They walked on in silence after that. Occasionally they passed hovels built of salvaged timbers, so that they appeared (until they were examined closely) to have been painted black. A game among children was in progress in the next street over; the shrill cries of the participants reached them like the twittering of sparrows in a distant tree.

At last Pig asked, "That ther h'end, bucky?"

He swallowed and forced himself to speak. "It is."

"Somethin' fashin' yer?"

"Boy home?" Oreb demanded. "Find home?"

"Yes, he did." He wiped his eyes. "But he was not the same boy." Under his breath he added, "And that is not the same home."

Soft though the words had been, Pig had overheard them. "See yer house, dinna yer?"

Unable to speak, he nodded; Oreb translated: "Say yes."

"This is Silver Street. We-we were walking along Silver Street, and I didn't know it. I couldn't be sure. Pig?"

"Aye?"

"Pig, I spoke of offenses against the gods. I don't really care whether Sphigx and Scylla and the rest like what I do."

"Said yer would nae break ther statues."

`Because they didn't belong to me. And because they wereare-art, and to wantonly destroy art is always evil. But, Pig…" He halted.

"Auld Pig's yer pal, bucky."

"I know. That is what makes this so very hard. You were blind when you left your home in the Mountains That Look at Mountains. So you told me."

"When he left na braithrean. Aye."

"You came all this way on foot, though you are blind."

"Aye, bucky. Ho, he had some tumbles."

"Then, Pig, I am going to ask a favor, one I have no right to ask. It is something I will always reproach myself-"

"No talk!"

"For. But I'm going to ask it just the same. I brought you here. I know that. You wouldn't be in this ruined quarter if it were not for me. You might not be in Viron at all."

"H'out wi' h'it, bucky."

"I thought I was going to-to show you where I used to live. The manse, and the house where I grew up. My father's shop. Where those things once stood. I would tell you something about them, what they-those places meant to me."

He wanted to shut his eyes, but made himself watch Pig's face. "Instead, I'm asking this. Hound is getting a room in an inn, and would welcome either of us-both of us, I ought to say, together or separately. The inn is Ermine's, and it's on a hill, the Palatine, in the center of the city. Would you be willing to make your way there alone? Please?"

Pig smiled. "That h'all, bucky?"

"I'll join you there, I swear, before shadelow. But I want to-I must be alone here. I simply have to."

Pig's long arms groped for him, one big hand still grasping the sheathed sword. " 'Tis h'all right, bucky. Needed me h'on ther roads. Noo yer need me ter be gone. Dinna fash yerself. Ter much hurtin' h'in they whorl h'already, an' sae guid-bye." Pig turned away.

"I'll rejoin you, I promise," he repeated. "Tell Hound I'm coming, please, but tell him that he is not to wait supper for me.

"Go with Pig, Oreb. Help him."

Oreb croaked unhappily, but flew.

His master stood in the street, leaning on the knobbed staff, and watched them go, unable to take a single step until they were out of sight, the big man moving so slowly while towering over the few badly dressed men and women he passed, the black bird seeming unwontedly small and vulnerable upon the big man's shoulder, its dabs of scarlet the only spots of color in the ruined landscape of blacks and grays.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the tap-tap-tapping of the brass-tipped scabbard faded. The big man stopped a passerby and spoke, too distant already to be overheard. The passerby answered, pointing up Silver Street toward the market, pointing, it seemed likely, to inform the blind man who had stopped him, possibly for the bird. Their slow progress resumed until at last they were gone, faded into the black, the gray.