"Will you now?" The barman brought the wine; Smoothbone paid as before. "If you want something, I could take you to the new place. I'll give you just about anything you want there."

"No, thank you."

"Box of pencils? Pen case, maybe, with a little paper to put in it?"

"That would be nice. You're very kind to me, Father. You were always very kind to me-I'll never be able to thank you enough for all that you did to teach me our trade-but no, I couldn't impose upon you like that."

"Sure now?"

"Yes. I don't need those things, and I wouldn't feel right if I accepted them."

"Well, if you change your mind you just let me know." Smoothbone rose. "I've got to-you know. Excuse me minute?"

"Certainly."

"Promise you won't go away? I want to ask you about my grandchildren and tell you about your brothers. Half brothers, anyway. Antler's ten and Stag's eight. You wait right there."

"I will," he said.

Afterward they had talked for over an hour; and later, when he returned to the place where their shop had stood, he found a pen case, used but still serviceable, on the steps in front of it. It was of thin metal covered with thin black leather, and very like the pen cases that had been sold in that shop twenty years before. It was like the pen cases used by students in the schola, for that matter.

"I am here before you," he told Olivine, "but I am going to offer a funeral sacrifice for myself, nevertheless-for my body on Green, which lies there unburied as far as I know. I couldn't do this in a manteion. In fact I couldn't sacrifice in a manteion at all, though I might assist an augur. There has been an exchange of parts. You, I think, will understand that better than a bio would."

She nodded, perhaps a little doubtfully.

"Very well," he said; he looked up, thinking of the Aureate Path and Mainframe at its termination, although the Long Sun was hidden behind the shade. "My body does not lie here, nor is it to be found in this whorl. We offer it to you, Quadrifons, and to the other gods of this whorl, in absentia. We offer it also to the Outsider, in whose realm it lies. Accept, all you gods, the sacrifice of this brave man. Though our hearts are torn, we-the man himself, and your devoted worshipper Olivine-consent.

"What are we to do? Already your have spoken to us of the times to come. Should you wish to speak further, whether in signs and portents, or in any other fashion, your lightest word will be treasured. Should you, however, choose otherwise-"

He raised his arms, but only silence answered him.

He let them fall. "We consent still. Speak to us, we beg, though these sacrifices."

Picking up the loaf that Olivine had filched from the kitchen in which she had been born, he raised it. "This is my body. Accept, O Obscure Outsider, its sacrifice. Accept it, Great Pas and all lesser gods."

Lowering the loaf, he broke it in two, scattering dun-colored crumbs over the white cloth, then tore away a fragment and ate it.

"This is my blood." He raised the bottle, lowered it, sipped from it, and sprinkled a few drops upon the cloth.

"Can you tell what's going to happen from that… Can you tell what's going to happen from that, Patera?"

"I can try." He bent over the cloth, his lips pursed.

"Will my father ever come back… Will my father ever come back, Patera?"

"The right side-" he tapped it, "concerns the presenter and the augur. Perhaps you were aware of that already."

Olivine nodded.

"Here are two travelers, a man and woman." He smiled as he indicated them. "Converging upon another woman, who can only be yourself. It seems likely that they represent your father and the woman he has gone to seek. Since they are shown coming from opposite directions it may be they will arrive separately. You must be prepared for that."

"I won't mind a… I won't mind a bit!" There was joy in her voice, and it almost seemed that there was joy in her eyes as well, although that was impossible.

"Patera, why are you looking at me like… Patera, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I heard your mother, Olivine. You don't sound like her-not usually, I mean. Just then, you did."

"I've been wanting to talk to you about… I've been wanting to talk to you about her." Olivine's hands were at her face; there was a momentary silence, punctuated by a sharp click. "Here… Here, Patera. Take it to… Take it to her." Her hand held an eye like the one he had left on Green, save that it was not dark; the sackcloth had fallen away from her face, so like her mother's with its empty socket.

He drew back in horror. "I cannot let you do this. You're young! I forbid it. I can't let you sacrifice yourself-"

The eye fell among the crumbs and wine stains. She sprang up, limping and lurching, and fled before he could stop her. For what seemed to him a very long time, he heard her uneven footfalls upon floors bare and carpeted and stairs of wood and marble-always farther from himself, the wine-stained cloth, and the eye she was giving to her mother.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you very much, Hound. Good evening, Pig. I hope you found this place without too much difficulty." Seeing Oreb perched upon a bedpost in the room beyond, he added, "Man back."

"Mon come ter see yer," Pig rumbled. "Gane noo."

Hound nodded. "An augur from the Prolocutor's Palace. He left his card. Where did I put it?" Hound's belongings were scattered over an old rosewood dresser; he moved one, then another, as he searched for it.

"Fashed h'about yer, bucky, him an' me both."

"You had no need to be, though I realize I'm very late. What did this augur want with me? And come to think of it, how did he know I was here?"

"I registered you." Hound put down a striker and picked up a scrap of paper, first to look under it and then to look at the scrap itself. "I had to, it's the law. This is a copy of what I wrote. Do you want to see it?"

He had dropped into a chair. "Read it to me, please. I'm tired, much too tired to do anything except sleep."

"All right. I wrote, `Hound of Endroad, Pig of Nabeanntan, and Horn of Blue.' '

"Is that your town, Pig? That Nabeanntan? I don't believe you've mentioned it."

"From nae toon." Pig was taking off his tunic. "Has ter have a thing ter write, they says."

"Then it seems quite innocent. No doubt Ermine's had to report it to some authority in the Civil Guard-though that must be the Calde's Guard now-and it made its way to the Palace from there by some route or other. What did he want?"

"Ter warn yet, bucky."

"Against what?"

Loudly, Oreb croaked, "No cut!"

Momentarily, Hound abandoned his search. "That was what he said when we asked what he wanted, but I think he really wanted something else."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. I told him that he could leave a message for you with us. Or write a note and seal it, if he preferred, but he wouldn't."

"H'asked h'about yer, ter. What yer look like an' where yer been." Pig rose. "Goin' ter have a wash, bucky. Want ter gae first?"

"No, thank you. I've bathed already."

"Thought sae. Smelt yer scented soap. New kicks, ter?"

"Yes, an augur's robe, and an augur's tunic and trousers-though I'm not an augur, as I have assured you. An explanation would be complex, and I'd prefer to provide one in the morning. Hound, I'm surprised you left it to Oreb to comment on them; and unless Pig understood Oreb, I can't imagine how he knew."

"Wise man," Oreb remarked.

The wise man's smile twitched at his thick black beard and heavy mustache. " 'Twas ther moth flakes, bucky."

Hound held up a modest white calling card. "I thought it might be better to let you bring up the subject yourself, if you wanted to talk about it. But it was quite a shock to see you like that only a little while after the other one left. Here's his card, if you'd like to see it."