I had expected that the altar would be a mere flat stone not much different from the one beneath which I had laid Fava to rest, a rough slab of fire-blacked slate resting on three or four boulders. What I found instead was a wide rectangle of some white mineral so fine in grain it might almost have been a kind of glass, supported by twelve graceful pillars of a metal that I am going to call bronze until we can speak face-to-face. The Neighbors had danced around it once; I knew that as soon as I saw it and the floor of living rock that they had leveled and smoothed with so much care. They had danced, and their watching gods, with their feet upon the stars, had smiled and bent in honest friendship to accept a morsel from a table fit for gods.
Sinew had found an altar of the Vanished People in a wood, and had tried to persuade me to visit it without exposing himself to the humiliation of my refusal. Now I wonder what wonders I missed by my surly rejection of his implied invitation. Was it an altar like the one to which Oreb guided me today? If not, in what respects did it differ, and why? Did Sinew himself worship there? If he did, did he experience what I experienced today, or anything of the kind? Have you visited the place, Nettle? I am eager to talk to you about all this.
Sinew is still on Green, assuming that he is (unlike his father) still alive. On Green and so unreachable, as Sfido's friend Gagliardo would doubtless tell us. But I and others will visit Green's jungles tomorrow night if my experiment succeeds. If I can locate Sinew, I will ask him about the altar he found in order that we can find it ourselves, assuming that Hide and I succeed in returning to the Lizard; if it is as remarkable as the altar to which Oreb led me, it will be well worth visiting more than once.
Ever since my boyhood, it has seemed to me that it is a species of insult to the immortal gods to pray at their altars without sacrificing, provided that sacrifice is possible. If I still had the long, straight, single-edged knife I used to carry when I was Rajan of Gaon, I would have thought seriously about sacrificing Oreb. I do not believe that I could have nerved myself to do it, but I cannot help wondering what the result would have been. My horse would have made a sacrifice worthy of the Grand Manteion, to be sure; but I could not spare him, and I had no knife other than the azoth (as I said), and no means of getting him onto the hilltop.
There will be a barn for him tomorrow, poor creature. A barn and hay-corn or oats if I can find them, though I have little hope of that.
When I had rejected both sacrifices, my next thought was to pray as I would have at a shrine. I tried, kneeling on the level living rock with my head swathed in my scarf, and mumbling a few of the prayers I have not yet forgotten. When I have failed in prayer in the past, I have generally felt myself ludicrous, like the little boy in the story who prayed that Hierax would fly off with the larger boy next door and drop him on the head of some evildoer.
Not so today-my prayers were beneath even Comus's good-natured raillery. When I was in the schola, I once asked why those spirits who had been thrust from the Aureate Path could not save themselves by prayer; and I was told that they could not pray-that although we, the living, might pray for them, they themselves could only mouth the words of prayers, words that left their lips without effecting any interior change. So it was with me, as I knelt before that cold altar and felt its hunger. I was like a barren woman who longs to conceive, but cannot conceive although she lies with three-score men.
At last I rose and lifted my face to the dark winter sky. "I have no knife for a sacrifice," I said, and I spoke aloud as one man does to another. "Even if I had my old knife back, I would not give you Oreb, who has led me here to you. You will reclaim us both quickly enough. But you did not condemn me-or at least I dare to hope that you did not-when I sacrificed for Olivine."
I opened the leather burse that Volanta gave me when we left Blanko, found the piece of Soldese flatbread I had put there before setting out, and struck by the idea of sharing the simple meal we shared with our prisoners at midday, climbed down and fetched the last of my wine from my saddlebag. The second climb should have been worse than the first, yet it was not. I was tired, my ankle pained me; and my fingers, which had been cold from the beginning, were colder than ever. But all the emptiness I had felt when I had tried to pray, had vanished so completely I could almost believe they had never been. I was happy and more, and if an old instructor had appeared and demanded to know the reason for my joy, I would only have laughed at him for needing causes and explanations in so simple a matter. I was alive, and the Outsider-who knows very well what sort of creature I am-cared about me in spite of all.
"This is what I have," I told him, and raised my bread and my bottle, displaying them to the low, gray clouds. "I beseech you to share them with me, and I pray that you will not object to me and my animals sharing them with you." Then I broke the bread in two, laid half of it upon his altar, and poured wine over it, cautioning Oreb not to touch it. After that, I wet a bit with a little wine and gave it to Oreb, ate a bite myself, drank deeply from the bottle and recorked it, and put away what remained of the bread.
He came, and stood behind me on the hilltop.
I have been preparing myself to describe that the whole time I have been writing, and now that the moment has come I am as wordless as my horse.
I knew that he was there, that if I turned, I would see them.
I also knew that it was not permitted me, that it would be an act of disobedience for which I would be forgiven but whose consequences I would suffer.
Just now I got up to think, walking around our camp. Oreb is off looking for something to eat. "Bird hunt," he said. It recalled Krait, flying away from our boat after Seawrack and I had gone to bed.
Both Dukos are sleeping. So are Private Cuoio, General Morello, and the coachman and the rest of the troopers. Only Colonel Terzo was awake, staring at me with frightened eyes before pretending to sleep.
None of which matters.
That, I believe, is what I ought to tell you, although it is by no means exact. In the presence of the Outsider, I was conscious of another whorl. Not a remote one like Green or the Long Sun Whorl that you and I grew up in, but a whorl that is as present to us as this one, a place all around us that we cannot see into. Many would say that it is not real, but that is almost the reverse of truth. It is the things of this whorl that are unreal by the standards of that one.
Think of a picture. Do you remember the wonderful pictures in the Calde's Palace, and how we went through all those empty rooms taking off dustcovers and looking wide-eyed at the rich furniture and the pictures? Surely you must.
We are there still, Nettle, as Silk and Hyacinth still kneel by the pool in Ermine's.
There was a picture of a worried man writing at a little table while his wife crocheted, remember that one? Was the man actually present?
He was present in the picture, there can be no doubt of that. If he had not been, we would have seen a picture of a young, unhappy-looking woman crocheting alone.
That is how it is for us. The hill on which I found the altar was really there-in the whorl that we are so prone to believe is the only whorl; but it is no more real than the table at which that man wrote, and for as long as the Outsider remained with me I knew that.
No, I know it now. I was directly aware of it then.
Think of a man who sees a picture and thinks it is real. Here on the wall is a painted door, open, and beyond it another room, in which a ragged child stands weeping. He goes to the child to comfort it, stops, and reaches out until his fingers brush the painted plaster. So it was with me while the Outsider was with me; my fingers touched the plaster, and the illusion lost its power over me.
I cannot explain it better than that. I have tried to think of something more, of some way in which I can tell you what it is to walk with a god and know that the god loves you, as Auk did; and as I did there upon the hill. Perhaps something will come to me later. If so, I will set it down.
Before I proceed I should tell you that although my horse was where I had tied him, and unharmed, I saw the tracks of some great beast all around him in the snow. I was not huntsman enough to identify it, but it was very large and had big soft feet with seven toes. A baletiger? We coursed them in Gaon, but it seems that they are more apt to course men in this part of the whorl. Whatever it was, it had walked about my horse several times, and had left him trembling and sweating, but had not harmed him.
I took out the remaining bread, which was not very much, wet it with wine, gave it to him, and mounted and rode away. I have never left a friend with so high a heart.
Our son is here, as I believe I may have said already. He has been calling himself Cuoio - but let me begin at the beginning.
I found Sfido and the rest scarcely a league from the place where I had left them. I had told them to continue our journey, as you will remember; and so they had, but not very far. They were very glad to see me, or at any rate Sfido was. He called to Cuoio, who joined us and saluted. Sfido said, "Inclito's given this young fellow a horse and sent him to us. He says you wanted to see him."
I acknowledged that I did, and invited him to come with me. "I'm sorry to take you from the fire," I told him as we walked away from it, "but I want to ask you various questions. They are innocent things, but it isn't wise to let other people overhear conversations that do not concern them. You were one of the young troopers behind the hedgerow, weren't you? You set off the fireworks?"
"Yes, sir."
"And shot at the cavalry attacking us, after the fireworks were gone?"
"No, sir. I didn't have this," he indicated his slug gun, "until after the battle."
"I see. You came out here from Blanko?"
"Yes, sir."
"Were you born in Blanko?"
"No, sir."
"In Grandecitta?"
"No, sir."
"In Olmo then? Or in Novella Citta? Were you born in Soldo, by any chance? Duko Sfido wasn't either, he was born in Grandecitta, I believe. He has lived most of his life in Soldo, however, although he's been fighting against it."
"I didn't know he was Duko Sfido, sir. I've been calling him Colonel Sfido. That's what General Inclito called him."
"I feel sure he doesn't object; he would have corrected you if he did. Where were you born, Private Cuoio?"
"A long way away, sir." His voice was so soft that I could barely hear him.
I turned and looked back at the fire. Sfido and the rest were huddled about it so closely that it could scarcely be seen. Our horses waited, patient and miserable, their heads to the wind.
"We will find no comfort here," I said. "Not even the slight comfort of blankets and a fire. Winter is no time to fight a war."
Oreb leaned fluttering from the handle of my staff to offer Cuoio his advice. "Boy talk. Talk now."
"Yes, speak, Cuoio. You can dodge my questions for a long time, no doubt." I coughed. "But not all night. Would it help to know that I am not your enemy? Sinew thought I was his-"
Cuoio looked at me sharply.
"But we were friends at the end, even when we fought. What was your name before you came to Blanko? What name were you born with?"
"Hide, sir."
"Thank you, Hide. It seems a good enough name. Why did you change it?"
"Nobody would tell me anything, sir. I mean before I got into town. There was a place, a little village, like, and when I said my name was Hide they sent me to talk to the shoemaker. I mean they told me to talk to this certain man, and he could probably tell me. So I went around looking for him, and he was a shoemaker. He laughed at me, but he helped me anyway. He said to say my name was Cuoio, and showed me how to eat the way they do, and these people were a lot friendlier after that."
"Good! Good!" Oreb bobbed on the handle of my staff.
"They told you what you wanted to know?"
He nodded with his head cocked, listening. "Did you hear that, sir?"
"I didn't hear anything except the wind. What did you hear?"
"A big animal, I think, sir. Not a horse."
"It's a baletiger, I believe, though it seems almost too large for one. I saw its tracks this afternoon-or at least I saw the tracks of a similar animal. You said that the people told you what you wanted to know, after you changed your name. What was it you wanted to know?"
"That isn't exactly right, sir." Hide unslung his slug gun as he spoke and pushed the safety catch off. "But they tried to help me, and they were nicer to me."
"I have found them very friendly."
"Isn't your name really Incanto, sir? It sounds like one of their names."
I ignored the question. "What was it you asked them?"
"I'm trying to find my father, sir. Or a town called Pajarocu, because he went there."
"And has never come back. I see."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't you know where Pajarocu is, Hide?"
"No, sir. Do you?"
I nodded.
"Will you tell me, sir? I-I certainly would appreciate it, sir."
"I may. We'll see. You've been honest and forthright, Hide, and I'm grateful. Before I ask you anything more, I want to assure you that nothing bad is going to happen to you as a result of your honesty-that I wish you well. Do you accept that?"
"Yes, sir. You said Sinew, sir. He thought you were his enemy."
I nodded again. "Sinew was a young man who was with me in Pajarocu, Hide. He cannot have been your father, however. Sinew cannot have been more than nine or ten at the time you were born."
"He's my brother, sir. I mean, I've got a brother named Sinew. It might not be the same person. He's pretty tall, and he's got black hair like mine, sir. Big hands?"
"Many thousands of men would fit that description, Private Hide." A fit of coughing overtook me. "Describe your father."
"His name's Horn, sir. He's about as tall as me, maybe a little bit taller, and kind of stocky. Just about bald."
I untied my scarf and let my hair blow free in the wind. "Like this?"