The crash of the shot was deafening in the enclosed space of the manteion. Sand rose; for an instant Maytera Mint could not see where the slug had hit him. Spinning to face the Sacred Window, he threw up both arms. There was an uncanny sound that might have been a cry of pain or harsh laughter. Black liquid spurted from his throat, spattering the clean black habit she had just put on.

And the Holy Hues began before Sand fell.

She blinked and stared, then blinked again. Not one face but two crowded the Window, one gaping and gasping, the other radiant with power and majesty, just — and more than just — pitiless and nurturing. “My faithful people,” intoned Twice-headed Pas, “receive the blessing of your god.”

“I see him!” From the voice she thought it must be Spider, although she could not be sure.

Pas’s was thunder and a destroying wind. “Carry this most noble of my soldiers to the Grand manteion. I shall speak—”

Both his faces faded. Tawny yellows and iridescent blacks filled the Window on Mainframe. Serpents writhed across it as scorpions scuttled over their backs; behind them all, Spider and Maytera Mint, Eland and Remora, Slate, Shale, and Schist saw the agonized face of Echidna.

Pas returned as if Echidna had never been. “There our prophet Auk will restore him to us.”

Chapter 11 — Lovers

As the floater rose, Hossaan said, “I’ve a dozen things to tell you, Calde. I know there won’t be time for all of them. It’s only four streets.”

“I know where it is,” Silk snapped. “Hurry!” Xiphias laid a hand on his arm. “Easy, lad!”

Hossaan glanced at the small mirror above his head, and his eyes met Silk’s. “So I’m going to tell the most important one first. You think there won’t be anybody at the Grand Manteion when Hy gets there, and you’re afraid she’ll leave.”

“Yes!”

“That’s not right. I told you I had to talk to General Mint on your glass, and that was what made me late.” Heeling like a close-hauled boat, the floater swerved around a gilded litter with eight bearers.

“I said we’d discuss it later.”

“Right. Only because of what she said, I thought it might be smart to have a look at the Grand Manteion. There’s three augurs in there and a couple thousand people.”

“Did you see Hyacinth?”

Hossaan shook his head. “But I could’ve missed her pretty easily, Calde. She’s not as tall as the redhead, and there was a bunch of women with animals.”

Oreb muttered, “No cut.”

“She’s probably still outside, Calde. If she was climbing the Palatine when Mucor said she was, she can’t have gotten to the Grand Manteion yet.”

Xiphias asked, “Why’s everybody there, lad?”

“There’s been another theophany — there must have been. Do you know about Pas appearing to His Cognizance?”

“No, lad! Never heard about it!”

“I have,” Hossaan said. “There’s a rumor, anyhow. Do you think that’s brought them?”

Silk shook his head. “It was Molpsday, and would be stale news now.” Half to himseif he added, “What does it mean, when a dead god rises?”

No one answered him. The floater sped on.

A surging crowd filled Gold Street. “Stop!” Silk ordered Hossaan. “No! Higher if you can. I saw her. Turn around.”

“Near us, Calde?” They rose, blowers racing.

“Cut!” Oreb exclaimed. “Cut cat!”

“Two or three streets down the slope. Turn!”

The floater darted forward instead. “Your bird’s right,” Hossaan told Silk. “It would take too long to get through that mob, but we can duck down here—” He swerved onto a steep and narrow street bordered by high walls. “And cut across to Gold so we come up behind her. We’ll be moving with them, and that will make it a lot faster.”

Silk drew breath and exhaled. The aching weakness in his chest was fading, but it seemed to him that he had not filled his lungs properly for days. “You told Horn that your name was Willet, Willet. Also you found clothing — somewhere in the Calde’s Palace, I suppose — similar to the waiters’, so that you could help them serve.”

“I like to be useful, calde.”

“I know you do, and it may be useful for you to tell me why you did those things before we locate Hyacinth — if we do. You say you have a dozen items to relate. That should be the next.”

Still steering their floater expertly, Hossaan glanced over his shoulder at Xiphias.

“If Master Xiphias and Maytera Marble can’t be trusted, no one can. If I explain your actions — I believe I can, you see — will you tell me whether I’m correct?”

They spun around a corner as though it were an eddy. “I’m afraid not. General Mint says Siyufs surrounded the Juzgado. That’s why I thought I ought to check on the Grand Manteion.”

“Where was she, and how did she learn of it?”

“I don’t know, calde. She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. She said one of Oosik’s officers told her. Oosik had told him to try and get in touch with her.”

Xiphias said, “He left when Willet here was handing out those appetizers, lad! Another waiter fetched him, remember?”

“Later than that — after I had asked Mucor to find out to which manteion Hyacinth was bringing her offering.”

Their floater tacked on Gold, pushing through chattering pedestrians.

“You know what she looks like,” Silk muttered. “She had on a black coat, and was carrying a large rabbit, I believe.”

“Cat talk,” Oreb informed him. “Talk bad.”

“The bird’s right, lad! The skinny girl said it talks!” Before Xiphias had finished speaking, their floater was slowing and stopping; the canopy slid into its back and sides.

For the space of a breath, Silk thought there had been a mistake. The hurrying young woman with something orange-furred tucked under her arm seemed too tall and too slender until she turned with their cowling nudging her leg, and he saw her face.

“Hyacinth!” He stood up by reflex, and for a moment he was half outside the floater (and she more than half in it) as they kissed.

When that kiss ended, they lay face-to-face on the soft leather seat, she crowded against its back and he practically falling off, with Xiphias standing over them and waving his saber to force passersby to keep their distance. They sat up, but their hands would not part. “I was afraid you were dead,” Silk confessed.

And Hyacinth, “I shaggy near was, and I — but I…” Her eyes swam with tears. “Can’t we put up the top?”

“I don’t know how.”

“I do.” She freed her hand, and with a flurry of skirt and ruffled underskirt, and a flash of legs and spike-heeled scarlet shoes, was in Hossaan’s seat. Xiphias ducked, and the canopy flowed up and darkened until it was nearly opaque.

She wiped her eyes. “Now I’m coming back. Catch me.” She rolled over the back of the front seat so that Silk had to, and lying in his arms kissed him again. With no need of speech, her kiss said, Beat me, shame and starve me. Do as you want with me, but don’t leave me. I’ll never do those things, he thought, and tried to make his own kiss tell her so.

When they parted, he gasped, “Where do we start?”

She smiled. “That WAS the start. I love you. Let’s start from there. I haven’t felt this way since — since you jumped out my window.”

He laughed, and she turned to Xiphias. “This time I know you from a rat. You teach sword fighting, and I want lessons. Do you always go around with him?”

“Much as I can, lass!”

Silk asked her, “Where have you been? I’ve had people searching everywhere.”

“In a horrible old building in the Orilla, with a soldier as big as this floater watching me for Auk. You must know Auk, he says he knows you. Tartaros turned me loose.”

Hyacinth grinned like a twelve-year-old. “You believe in the gods, but you won’t believe that. I don’t, and I know it happened. Do you mind if I don’t call you darling?”