He whispered something and the vessel began to move. It glided forward slowly at first, but it was picking up speed.

“True courtesy,” he continued, “earns the name. It is courtesy that is truthful. When the plebeian kneels to the monarch, he is offering his neck. He offers it because he knows his ruler can take it if he wishes. Common people like that say — or rather, they used to say, in older and better times — that I have no love of truth. But the truth is that it is precisely truth that I love, an open acknowledgment of fact.”

All this time we were lying at full length, with hardly the width of a hand between us. The idiotic head the other had called Piaton goggled at me and moved its lips as he spoke, making a confused mumbling.

I tried to sit up. The two-headed man caught me with an arm of iron and pulled me down again, saying, “It’s dangerous. These things were built to lie in. You wouldn’t want to lose your head, would you? It’s nearly as bad, believe me, as getting an extra one.”

The boat nosed down and plunged into the dark. For a moment I thought we were going to die, but the sensation became one of exhilarating speed, the kind of feeling I had known as a boy when we used to slide on evergreen boughs among the mausoleums in winter. When I had become somewhat accustomed to it, I asked, “Were you born as you are? Or was Piaton actually thrust upon you in some way?” Already, I think, I had begun to realize that my life would depend on finding out as much as I could about this strange being.

The head that spoke laughed. “My name is Typhon. You might as well call me by it. Have you heard of me? Once I ruled this planet, and many more.”

I was certain he lied, so I said, “Rumors of your might echo still… Typhon.”

He laughed again. “You were on the point of calling me Imperator or something of the sort, weren’t you? You shall yet. No, I was not born as I am, or born at all, as you meant it. Nor was Piaton grafted to me. I was grafted to him. What do you think of that?”

The boat moved so rapidly now that the air was whistling above our heads, but the descent seemed less steep than it had been. As I spoke, it became nearly level. “Did you wish it?”

“I commanded it.”

“Then I think it very strange. Why should you desire to have such a thing done?”

“That I might have life, of course.” It was too dark now for me to see either face, though Typhon’s was less than a cubit from my own. “All life acts to preserve its life — that is what we call the Law of Existence. Our bodies, you see, die long before we do. In fact, it would be fair to say that we only die because they do. My physicians, of whom I naturally had the best of many worlds, told me it might be possible for me to take a new body, their first thought being to enclose my brain in the skull previously occupied by another. You see the flaw in that?”

Wondering if he were serious, I said, “No, I’m afraid I do not.”

“The face — the face! The face would be lost, and it is the face that men are accustomed to obey!” His hand gripped my arm in the dark. “I told them it wouldn’t do. Then one came who suggested that the entire head might be substituted. It would even be easier, he said, because the complex neural connections controlling speech and vision would be left intact. I promised him a palatinate if he should succeed.”

“It would appear to me—” I began.

Typhon laughed once more. “That it would be better if the original head were removed first. Yes, I always thought so myself. But the technique of making the neural connections was difficult, and he found that the best way — all this was with experimental subjects I provided for him — was to transfer only the voluntary functions by surgery. When that was done, the involuntary ones transferred themselves, eventually. Then the original head could be removed. It would leave a scar, of course, but a shirt would cover it.”

“But something went wrong?” I had already moved as far from him as I could in the narrow boat.

“Mostly it was a matter of time.” The terrible vigor of his voice, which had been unrelenting, now seemed to wane. “Piaton was one of my slaves — not the largest, but the strongest of all. We tested them. It never occurred to me that someone with his strength might be strong, too, in holding to the action of the heart…”

“I see,” I said, though in truth I saw nothing.

“It was a period of great confusion as well. My astronomers had told me that this sun’s activity would decay slowly. Far too slowly, in fact, for the change to be noticeable in a human lifetime. They were wrong. The heat of the world declined by nearly two parts in a thousand over a few years, then stabilized. Crops failed, and there were famines and riots. I should have left then.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked.

“I felt a firm hand was needed. There can only be one firm hand, whether it is the ruler’s or someone else’s…

“Then too, a wonder-worker had arisen, as such people do. He wasn’t really a troublemaker, though some of my ministers said he was. I had withdrawn here until my treatment should be complete, and since diseases and deformities seemed to flee from him, I ordered him brought to me.”

“The Conciliator,” I said, and a moment later could have opened my own wrist for it.

“Yes, that was one of his names. Do you know where he is now?”

“He has been dead for many chiliads.”

“And yet he remains, I think?”

That remark startled me so that I looked down at the sack suspended from my neck to see if azure light were not escaping from it.

At that moment, the vessel in which we rode lifted its prow and began to ascend. The moaning of the air about us became the roaring of a whirlwind.

PERHAPS THE BOAT was controlled by light — when light flashed about us, it stopped at once. In the lap of the mountain I had suffered from the cold, but that was nothing to what I felt now. No wind blew, but it was colder than the bitterest winter I could recall, and I grew dizzy with the effort of sitting up.

Typhon sprang out. “It’s been a long time since I was here last. Well, it’s good to be home again.”

We were in an empty chamber hewn from solid rock, a place as big as a ballroom. Two circular windows at the far end admitted the light; Typhon hastened toward them. They were perhaps a hundred paces apart, and each was some ten cubits wide. I followed him until I noticed that his bare feet left distinct, dark prints. Snow had drifted through the windows and spilled upon the stone floor. I fell to my knees, scooped it up, and stuffed my mouth with it.

I have never tasted anything so delicious. The heat of my tongue seemed to melt it to nectar at once; I truly felt that I could remain where I was all my life, on my knees devouring the snow. Typhon turned back, and seeing me, laughed. “I had forgotten how thirsty you were. Go ahead. We have plenty of time. What I wanted to show you can wait.”

Piaton’s mouth moved too as it had before, and I thought I caught an expression of sympathy on the idiot face. That brought me to myself again, possibly only because I had already gulped several mouthfuls of the melting snow. When I had swallowed again, I remained where I was, scraping a new heap together, but I said, “You told me about Piaton. Why can’t he speak?”

“He can’t get his breath, poor fellow,” Typhon said. Now I saw that he had an erection, which he nursed with one hand. “As I told you, I control all the voluntary functions — I will control the involuntary ones too, soon. So although poor Piaton can still move his tongue and shape his lips, he is like a musician who fingers the keys of a horn he cannot blow. When you’ve had enough of that snow, tell me, and I’ll show you where you can get something to eat.”