Return To The Whorl Part 26

"I'm going to try." He was silent after that, his mind occupied with the empty houses they had pa.s.sed, and the houses (many empty too, presumably) they were approaching. Up this road Silk had ridden with Auk, and down it he had ridden in a flyer driven by Willet; but he had not said much about it. He tried to recall whether he himself had ever traveled it, concluded he had not, and then, at the sight of a narrow old house whose pink paint had faded to near invisibility and whose s.h.i.+prock was crumbling, was inundated by a rush of memories. Nettle, and a slug gun on his shoulder, Maytera Marble and the ragged crowd of volunteers singing to keep their spirits up.

Trampin' outwards from the city, No more lookin' than was she, No more lookin' than was she, 'Twas there I spied a garden pretty, 'Twas there I spied a garden pretty, A fountain and an apple tree. A fountain and an apple tree. These fair young girls live to deceive you, These fair young girls live to deceive you, Sad experience teaches me. Sad experience teaches me.

There had been other songs, many of them, but that was the only one he could remember. Nettle would know them all.

He turned to look back at the house, but it had vanished behind trees. How long had it stood empty? Twenty years, or fifteen, or ten. Its roof had leaked with no one to repair it, letting water into cracks in the s.h.i.+prock. That water had frozen in winter, splitting the walls farther each year.

"Talk talk," Oreb suggested. "Talk good."

He smiled. "If you wish. You asked whether I was happy to be returning to my native city, Pig. I said I was saddened by the thought of what must have happened to it in my absence. We just pa.s.sed a house that I recalled."

"Ken ther people?"

"No. But I marched past it once, when I was a boy, and we were singing a song about a house with an apple tree in the garden. I saw that one, and it did indeed have a small garden with an apple tree. I seem to remember that there were a few apples on the upper branches, though I can't be sure. It seemed a marvelous coincidence at the time, a magical coincidence and a good omen. We were hungry for good omens just then. We weren't even amateur troopers, though we thought we were."

"Ho, aye."

"Masons and carpenters with slug guns they scarcely knew how to fire, and mortar and sawdust on their knees. I had one, and a needler, and was immensely proud of both. You were a trooper, Pig. I hope you had more training than I did."

"Nae muckle."

"No talk." Oreb had caught something in Pig's tone.

"I've been wondering--I hope you won't think I'm prying, though perhaps I am--whether you weren't given some sort of ceremony of initiation. A sacrifice to Sphigx at some manteion to dedicate you and your comrades to the art of war."

Pig did not reply.

"In some ways you remind me of a man called Auk; and Auk was quite religious, in spite of all his violence and swagger."

"Would yer G.o.ds a' let 'em take me een, bucky? Prayed ter proper an' h'all?"

He shrugged. "I suppose they could have stepped in to prevent such cruelty, but it seems they rarely do. When was the last time you were in a manteion, Pig?"

To fill the silence that followed the question, Hound said, "Tansy and I almost never go anymore. We'll have to start if she's pregnant, otherwise there'll be all sorts of trouble about having the baby washed, won't there?"

"Gi'e somethin'. That'll fix h'it."

"I'm not a wealthy man." Hound sounded apologetic. "I wish I were."

And I wish there were a great mountain here, he thought. A great mountain along whose winding pa.s.s we had been traveling all morning, so that there could be a sudden turn around a stone outcrop. We would find ourselves looking down at Viron then, Viron spread like a carpet below us, streets running northeast and southwest, and southeast and northwest, with the broad slash of Sun Street cutting across them, east to west, right through the oldest part of the city. That part was built by Pas, like the old pink house, houses and shops built before there were people here to live in them, anyone here to buy or sell. We should have declared them sacred and kept them in repair; we found a hundred things to complain of instead, and let them go one by one, and built new ones we said were better even when they were not.

The apple tree was gone, too. Cut for firewood now that candles cost so much, now that lamp oil is hard to find. Had Pas planted it? He could not have, apple trees live no longer than a man. But now that it was gone, now that it had been cut down and sawn into one-cubit logs and burned, would anyone ever plant another?

Aloud he said, "It was the first time I ever heard that song, I believe. It was a new song to me then, and I'm sure I never supposed it would be important to me."

Hound said, "Will you be going to the Juzgado, Horn? You said you wanted to talk to the calde."

"I know I did." A rush of new thoughts.

Hound cleared his throat. "I'm going to go to that inn I told you about. Since I'm going to get a room, I might as well eat there, and they have good food. If you and Pig would like to come, I'd be happy to treat you to a meal. Then you'd know where it was, in case you can't find another place tonight."

Having come to a decision, he shook his head. "That's very kind of you, but I know where it is. I want to go to the Sun Street Quarter first, where I used to live, not to the Juzgado. Unless Viron's changed even more than I antic.i.p.ate, I'll probably have to wait most of a day before I can get in to see the calde; and if I were to come in the afternoon, I'd probably wait the rest of the day and not get in at all. So I won't go to the Juzgado until morning. What about you, Pig?"

"Wi' yer, bucky. Yer dinna mind me h'askin' h'about een?"

"Of course not. To the Sun Street Quarter?"

"Where yer gang."

"Bird go," Oreb announced. "Go Silk."

There were more houses now, not all empty, until they lined the road. Hound pointed out those that had belonged to friends and acquaintances, recounting some anecdote or describing some eccentricity. "There's the manteion for this quarter. That's where we went when we were living here."

"Thought yer did nae," Pig protested mildly.

"Oh, sometimes. Sometimes we go now with Tansy's mother, and she'd like us to go more often, I know. But in those days, we always went when her mother and father came to visit. Her father was still alive then. I think I told you that it was when he died and left us the shop that we moved back to Endroad." He hesitated. "I suppose it's abandoned now. There can't be many people left. If it's been given up, it will be locked, I'm afraid. Would you like to look inside for a minute if it isn't?"

"Aye," Pig sounded pleased. "Can he look? He canna. Like ter see h'it, though. What h'about yer, bucky?"

"If it won't delay us."

"Oh, it's not big. Not big at all. Just the usual sort of place, I'm sure, but I thought you might be interested."

"No cut," Oreb muttered.

Pig c.o.c.ked his head. "What's H'oreb h'on h'about?"

"What is he saying? He's saying, 'No cut,' something the original Oreb, Patera Silk's pet, always used to say. Possibly this is the same bird."

"No cut!" Oreb repeated more distinctly.

"Do you know why he says it?" Hound inquired.

"He knows animals are sacrificed there and is afraid he may be sacrificed as well. If we understood what more animals are trying to tell us, no doubt we'd find they say the same."

Just then a flock of crows pa.s.sed overhead, wheeling and cawing; hearing them, Pig asked, "What're they sayin', bucky? Yer h'always ken what H'oreb's says, sae what h'about those?"

He looked toward the skylands, and seemed for a moment to have forgotten his companions and himself. " 'Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.' I think they mean I'll find Silk tomorrow, though I've found him already; but they may also mean you'll find new eyes tomorrow. I hope so."

Hound looked back curiously. "You've found Silk already? I'm surprised you didn't tell us."

"I found the G.o.d last night, after you had told me about him; and I should not have said even that much, Hound. Please forget I mentioned it."

Hound was silent as they pa.s.sed more vacant houses. Then he said, "You can read the future in the flight of birds? I've heard of that, but I forget what it's called."

"If you want a word to impress your friends, auspicatory. If you're seeking knowledge for yourself, it is simply augury, the original form of augury, now much neglected."

"Silk know," Oreb a.s.sured them.

"He very well may," he said, "but I do not."

Soon they reached the manteion; its wide front entrance was firmly locked, but Pig's questing fingers easily pulled the hasp from the side door. "Prized h'out 'fore we come," he explained. "Screws pushed back h'in but nae wood ter hold 'em."

The interior seemed dark and cavernous after the suns.h.i.+ne of the street. Pig made his way to the back, the scabbard rapping pews, found the altar, and laid his sword aside to grope its edges and corners for a moment.

"No cut!" Oreb declared more adamantly than ever.

"You needn't worry," his master told him. "There's no Sacred Window here. It's what they were after, I'm afraid. Was that what you're searching for back there, Pig?"

"Aye, bucky."

Hound said, "There are several manteions that are still open. Horn could take you to one, since you're going with him. Or I will, if he's busy with other matters."

"Thank yer. Thank yer kin'ly."

"Would you like me to? We can stop someplace on our way to the inn."

Pig turned toward them, the bra.s.s tip of the leather-covered scabbard tapping the side of the altar again. "Gang ter yer Sun Street Quarter, yer said, bucky?"

"Yes. I'll stop at the manteion there, though I have no way of knowing whether it's still standing--or whether it's still open if it is. I must warn you that much of the quarter burned twenty years ago."

"Gae wi' yer," Pig decided. He was standing at the ambion, his thick black nails seeming to stab its carven sides.

"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you? You needn't, of course; I'll do whatever I can whether you confide in me or not, though I may be able to a.s.sist you more intelligently if you do."

"Wad nae swaller h'it."

"Poor Pig!" Oreb flew to his shoulder, and there was a silence in which it seemed that the ghosts of sacrifices past had returned. Almost, one could smell the incense, mingled with the odors of burning hair and cedar; almost, one could hear the augur's chant and the bleat of a lamb whose time had come.

Hound coughed. "Can't you help him, Horn?"

"You went to a manteion shortly before you lost your sight." He spoke gently, just loudly enough to be heard. "You knelt there in prayer--prayers, perhaps, of which you're now ashamed, though you shouldn't be. Your gaze was fixed upon the Sacred Window. No G.o.d came at the moment of sacrifice--or at least, no visible theophany took place, no Holy Hues, none of that. But you felt peace and a deep joy that you cannot explain. You would like to recapture those, if you could."

"Were lootin'," Pig said. "Me an' na braithrean."

"I understand."

"Yer dinna. H'ever loot yerself?"

"No, Pig."

"Been h'in a toon bein' looted?"

"No, never."

"Some goes fer ther women, some fer drink, some fer cards h'or what fetches 'em. Done ane an' t'other. Said yer ken, bucky. Ken that? H'or do yer need mair? What drunk an' what ther woman was?"

His right hand made the sign of addition in the air. "It's not necessary."

"Thank yer. Fetch noo, ther Winders do. Yer right. Auld Pig dinna know h'it then, but they do. Thinkin' a' gowd cups was h'all. Ter big fer doors, bucky. Yer seen h'it. Had ter gae h'on me knees ter get h'in ter yer house, Hound. Have ter, ter get h'in ter most. Dinna like ter, but there 'tis. Dinna fash, but see ane ter stand h'in, an' 'tis h'in every time."

"We could enlarge ours," Hound told him. "I could do the work myself."

"Good a' yer. Saunt, ain't yer, bucky?"

"No," he said gently. "No, I'm not, Pig. I've told you I'm not."

"He were, ter."

"Did you kill him, Pig?"

"Ho, aye. Stood by his Winder, he did."

Pig's drew his sword as he spoke, and Oreb squawked with fear and flew back to his master.

"Had a yeller cup ter gae me. Threw it down an' broke. 'Twas chiner."

"Poor Pig."

"Did fer him. Cut doon wi' me whin." Pig held up his long blade, which gleamed faintly in the dusty sunlight.

"And then?"

"Ain't yer goin' ter say nae thing h'about h'it, bucky? Figured yer would."

He shook his head, although Pig could not have seen the gesture. "Later, perhaps."

"Suit yerself. That's ther bad a' h'it."

"It is the good of it I wish to hear, Pig."

"None ter tell."

"After you had killed him, the Sacred Window behind him caught your attention. Am I correct?"

"Nae. Told yer h'about ther doors, reck h'it? Big h'enough ter gae h'in wi'hout kneelin'. Sae did he? He did."

"Yes."

"Wasn't nae where he lay, but on me knees just ther same. Fou' ter. Most fou'. Could nae hardly, wi'hout fallin'."

"Did you speak then, Pig? Did you pray, or try to pray?"

"Nae. Tried ter. Couldn't. Could he? He could nae! Blubbed like ter a big girl. Blubbin' noo."