Let me go back to the beginning.
There was a knock at the door. At first I did not answer, fearing I would quickly have a dozen drunken revelers to deal with; he knocked again, pounding the panels like a man in fear. "Rajan! Dervis!"
No one here calls me either, so I opened. At first I did not recognize him, unshaven, starved and frenetic as he looked; in the ten days since I had last seen him, the dapper officer had vanished. I told him brusquely that Atteno's shop was closed, and asked what he wanted.
"I must talk to you, Rajan. I call you that because it won't put us in a false position now."
I knew him then, but it took me a second or two to recall his name. "Sfido? Captain Sfido?"
"Yes." He drew himself up, heels clicking and shoulders squared, and saluted me. I suppose I must have asked him to come in and sit down; certainly I got out the old wooden chair that my host keeps by the till for him.
"Poor man." Oreb regarded him through one jet-bead eye and snapped his crimson beak as though to say, Behold the straits to which the wicked have fallen!
Sfido tried to smile; I have seldom seen a grown man appear so pathetic. "You have your little pet back, I see."
I told him that Oreb was under no restraint and had returned to me of his own will.
"None save your magic."
"I have none; but if I had any, I surely would not use it for that."
"None at all." It was not a question.
"No. None."
"You transported us to Green in the twinkling of an eye, then to Soldo, then to Green again, and brought us back as soon as it suited your purpose to do so." He sighed. "That sounds as if I'm arguing with you. I suppose I am, but I didn't seek you out to argue. Have you ever heard of a man called Gagliardo, Rajan? He's a citizen of my own Soldo."
"I don't believe so."
"He's rich and can live on his rents, so he studies the stars, which interest him, and he's had some strange instruments built for that purpose. You gave me a horse and sent me home, remember? I was to inform our Duko that Kupus and his troopers had turned coat."
"Certainly."
"I tried to see Duko Rigoglio at once, but he was too busy; so I went to see Gagliardo and asked how far it is to Green. When it's as close as it ever comes, it's thirty-five thousand leagues. I can't understand how anybody can measure a distance that great, and Gagliardo admits he may be in error by a thousand leagues or so, but that's what he said."
I thanked him, adding, "I've wondered about that from time to time, and I'm glad to get the information."
"Talk, talk," Oreb commented dryly.
I said, "It's astonishing that anybody should be able to make such a measurement, I agree; but I find it still more astonishing that the inhumi should be able to make the crossing from their whorl to ours, hurling their naked bodies thousands of leagues through the abyss."
"Green's nowhere near its closest now," Sfido said. "It's more than eighty thousand leagues away."
I shook my head. "They don't dare attempt such distances. They come only when the two whorls are at their closest, and even then many perish-or so I've been told."
"Bad things," Oreb declared piously.
"No worse than we are," I told him. When Sfido did not speak, I said, "It's true that there are inhumi in the Long Sun Whorl; but they made the trip on board returning landers, apparently."
"You carried a couple of hundred men across eighty thousand leagues, four times, in the winking of an eye." Sfido sighed. "That's what I told Duko Rigoglio. I said that he had seen you himself and had to know that as long as Blanko had you on its side it was suicide to fight."
"Did he agree to peace?"
Sfido shook his head.
"So he sent you here to kill me," I hazarded.
"When will you make the attempt?"
"No cut!" Oreb exclaimed.
Sfido took up the word, after a momentary pause repeating, "No."
"Then he will send someone else, I presume. He tried to have Fava poison Inclito."
"I wanted him to bribe you, that was my suggestion. I told him that I doubted you could be killed at all, and an assassin would just lose his own life and whatever part of his reward the Duko had advanced him. But I said that you might help us for gold and power, and that he should offer you a great deal of both. Women, horses, troopers, and whatever his emissary sensed you wanted. A throne in Blanko or Olmo."
"You were wrong," I said, "since I have already died once. But you proposed that Duko Rigoglio offer me a throne?"
Sfido nodded.
"You're too old to have been born here. How old were you when you left Grandecitta?"
"Fifteen."
"That was my own age at the time I left Viron. You should remember boarding the lander and crossing the abyss, exactly as I do. Were any of you rich?"
He laughed, the weary laugh of one who has witnessed the ironic conclusion of his efforts. "We thought then that some of us were, Rajan. And there were others that we thought were. Neighborhood rich. Do you know what I mean?"
"I think so. My father owned a little shop very much like this in a poor neighborhood."
"That's it. Some of us were as rich as this."
"How long ago, Captain Sfido? Twenty years?"
"Not quite."
"And now we, who complained so bitterly about the rich when we were poor, have taken up every practice and custom we hated in them. Thrones! One for Duko Rigoglio and another for me. I can't begin to tell you how many complaints I heard about the rich when I was growing up, Captain."
"Don't call me that anymore, Rajan." He smiled bitterly. "It puts us in a false position."
I smiled back at him, while laughing to myself at myself.
"Certainly I've put myself in the reprehensible position of keeping a tired man talking because I wanted to. You've come to me for help, obviously, and I'll give it to you if I can. How can I help you?"
He squared his shoulders again and threw his head back. "Sfido needs no one's help. I'm here to help you."
I said that it was good of him, and waited.
"General Inclito will be defeated. You may deny it, but it's true."
"I believe it's true that you believe it. Can we leave it at that?"
"No. I've been in the hills and watched the fighting. I have no supernatural powers, but I've an eye for war. It was not for nothing that I was chosen to command our advance guard."
I said truthfully that I had never supposed it was.
He sat in silence for a moment, struck by a new thought. "You, with all your magic, Rajan. You should be at the front with the troops. Why are you here?"
"To raise the money I promised the mercenaries. I have enough now, or nearly enough. For one month's pay, that is."
"They offered to serve you for nothing. I was there, and that was when you ordered them to take my needier..."
"Yes?"
"I had it again when we returned to this whorl. You had them take it from me a second time. And those troopers, the great worm tore them to bits. Horrible! But they were alive again, and the General's daughter was dead."
"You said you had come to help me," I reminded him.
"Yes. Can you foresee the future? That's what one of the men from your own town told me."
"Not always."
"But sometimes. Often, I think. Do you agree that Blanko's horde will be defeated?"
I said (patiently, I hope) that he had said so, and that I deferred to his greater knowledge of military matters.
"Girl come," Oreb cautioned us.
"That will be my host's wife," I said. "I hope we haven't disturbed her."
"Who will win the war? You must know! Tell me quickly and truthfully." Sfido swallowed. "I do not plead. Never! Not even when our Duko condemned me. But tell me, Rajan, if you will, and I'll be in your debt till Hierax takes me."
"Blanko."
I had already heard Volanta's feet on the stairs going down into the shop. She came in before I could say more. "Incanto? Is this man bothering you?"
I shook my head. "I'm bothering him, I'm afraid. I've been keeping him from the rest he needs."
"Fish heads?" Oreb suggested.
"And the food too, you're right. I doubt that he can buy anything this late, but a lot of people are still celebrating. Someone might give a hungry man something, if he were approached in the right way."
Volanta had started for her kitchen before I finished. "There's some soup left, I'll heat it up for him. Bread and soup, that's the best supper."
"I'm too tired to eat," Sfido murmured, and licked his lips.
For the first time I was able to make out the narrow mustache that had almost faded into his sprouting beard. I declared that he would have to eat something, a few bites of bread and a little of the soup, so that Volanta would not be disappointed.
"Blanko will win? You're quite sure?"
I shrugged.
"Our best troops are at Olmo. Do you know about that? Olmo was plotting to turn against us, and in war one takes the weaker enemy first, so he can't put his knife in your back while you're fighting the stronger one. Besides, sacking Olmo will steady Novella Citta."
I explained that a messenger who managed to get through the Soldese lines had told me this afternoon that Olmo was besieged, and that was why the town was celebrating.
"We're not going to starve them out." Sfido spoke like a man certain of his information. "The assault must be nearly ready, if it hasn't already begun. Your horde can't hold the passes. They've been driven back twice, and General Morello's merely amusing himself while he waits for the Duko and our professionals. Those are just conscripts your Inclito's been fighting, and he can't hold them."
"It certainly sounds bad," I admitted.
"Why are you paying Kupus's mercenaries?"
"Because I said we would." I had not yet wiped my pen or put away this untidy collection of loose sheets. I did both while I collected my thoughts.
"You say that I carried them and you-and Oreb, Fava, and Valico, I suppose-to Green. Fava was the girl you called Mora."
He raised his brows. "She wasn't really General Inclito's daughter?"
I started to explain, then shook my head. If Mora had been captured, as I have been assuming, it seemed likely that Sfido would have learned about it when he returned to Soldo, especially since he had apparently been kept waiting for some time.
"Good girl," Oreb told us. I suppose he meant Mora, but I would like very much to think that he intended Fava.
I told Sfido, "If I had the supernatural powers you credit me with, I wouldn't have taken advantage of them in the way that you propose. They were desperate and believed, quite understandably, that I was a miracle worker who could save them.
"Besides, they fought very well when we cleared the ancient city of inhumi-or at least it appeared to me that they did. You have an eye for strategy, and I'm sure you must know far more than I about every aspect of warfare. What did you think of them?"
"I was proud of them."
"So was I. They earned a better reward than I can give them."
Volanta called to us from the kitchen, and Sfido stood up. "I would have led them, if I could. Thanks to you, I had to watch them with my hands bound behind my back. But I told myself that whatever might happen to me, for a few days Sphigx had given me some of the best troopers who ever squeezed the trigger."
We went into the kitchen, and seated ourselves at the little table there. "I'd carry my soup into the store for Incanto," Volanta informed Sfido severely, "but not for anybody else."
"He won't be staying here," I muttered. "Well!"
"It would be too great a burden on you and your husband. On you, particularly. He may not wish to remain in Blanko at all."
As Volanta set his soup before him, Sfido murmured, "You are an employer of mercenaries, Rajan."
"Blanko is." (The steaming bowl was followed by a loaf of new bread, a big, curved knife, and a chipped blue plate nearly filled by an immense pat of butter.) "Technically, I act for the town."
He nodded, sipping the smoking soup, then dipped his spoon back into the bowl. "You're collecting funds to pay them, you say, and since General Inclito has sent you to do that, it's an operation of considerable difficulty. Getting money always is."
"I supposed not. But there have been a few setbacks here, I admit."
"Knowing no trade but the trooper's, I am a mercenary now myself." Sfido indicated his own chest with the butter knife. "Will you employ me?"
"Are you serious, Captain?"
"Entirely, Rajan. Also brave, loyal, and experienced."
I smiled. "I'll certainly consider it. Your Duko was going to execute you?"
He nodded again while he chewed his bread and swallowed. "He did not say so, he merely imprisoned me. But that would have been the upshot. You fear that I am a spy."
"I have to consider the possibility."
"Good man," Oreb remarked conversationally. "Fish eggs?" Sfido held out what was left of the slice, and Oreb swooped to snatch it from his fingers.
"What do your arts say, Rajan? Wouldn't they reveal it if I were?"
"I have none," I told him, "and I'm getting weary of saying so. I doubt that you're a spy, but I can't be absolutely certain that you're not."
"Then keep me with you, under your eye. I've seen men my father's age with slug guns here. Women, even. Couldn't you use a good officer?"
I admitted I could.
"As a mercenary colonel," he spooned up soup that looked too hot to swallow, and swallowed it, "I will be entitled to five times the pay of one of your private troopers. I'm going to ask you for much more than that, but you won't have to give it to me until the war's over."
I waited, watching him eat.
