"This is Efreet Splendid," Pie said. "He tells me—wait for this—he tells me his mother has dreams about white furless men and would like to meet you."

The grin that broke through Efreet's facial thatch was crooked but beguiling.

"She'll like you," he announced.

"Are you sure?" Gentle said.

"Certainly!"

"Will she feed us?"

"For a furless whitey, anything," Efreet replied.

Gentle threw the mystif a doubtful glance. "I hope you know what we're doing," he said.

Efreet led the way, chattering as he went, asking mostly about Patashoqua. It was, he said, his ambition to see the great city. Rather than disappoint the boy by admitting that he hadn't stepped inside the gates, Gentle informed him that it was a place of untold magnificence.

"Especially the Merrow Ti' Ti'," he said.

The boy grinned and said he'd tell everybody he knew that he'd met a hairless white man who'd seen the Merrow Ti' Ti'. From such innocent lies, Gentle mused, legends came.

At the door of the house, Efreet stood aside, to let Gentle be first over the threshold. He startled the woman inside with his appearance. She dropped the cat she was combing and instantly fell to her knees. Embarrassed, Gentle asked her to stand, but it was only after much persuasion that she did so, and even then she kept her head bewed, watching him furtively from the corners of her small dark eyes. She was short—barely taller than her son, in fact—her face fine-boned beneath its down. Her name was Larumday, she said, and she would very happily extend to Gentle and his lady (as she assumed Pie to be) the hospitality of her house. Her younger son, Emblem, was coerced into helping her prepare food while Efreet talked about where they could find a buyer for the car. Nobody in the village had any use for such a vehicle, he said, but in the hills was a man who might. His name was Coaxial Tasko, and it came as a considerable shock to Efreet that neither Gentle nor Pie had heard of the man.

"Everybody knows Wretched Tasko," he said. "He used to be a king in the Third Dominion, but his tribe's extinct."

"Will you introduce me to him in the morning?" Pie asked.

"That's a long time off," Efreet said.

"Tonight then," Pie replied, and it was thus agreed between them.

The food, when it came, was simpler than the fare they'd been served along the highway but no less tasty for that: doeki meat marinated in a root wine, accompanied by bread, a selection of pickled goods—including eggs the size of small loaves—and a broth which stung the throat like chili, bringing tears to Gentle's eyes, much to Efreet's undisguised amusement. While they ate and drank—the wine strong, but downed by the boys like water—Gentle asked about the marionette show he'd seen. Ever eager to parade his knowledge, Efreet explained that the puppeteers were on their way to Patashoqua ahead of the Autarch's host, who were coming over the mountains in the next few days. The puppeteers were very famous in Yzordderrex, he said, at which point Larumday hushed him.

"But, Mams—" he began.

"I said hush. I won't have talk of that place in this house. Your father went there and never came back. Remember that."

"I want to go there when I've seen the Merrow Ti' Ti', like Mr. Gentle," Efreet replied defiantly, and earned a sharp slap on the head for his troubles.

"Enough," Larumday said. "We've had too much talk tonight. A little silence would be welcome."

The conversation dwindled thereafter, and it wasn't until the meal was finished and Efreet was preparing to take Pie up the hill to meet Wretched Tasko, that the boy's mood brightened and his spring of enthusiasms burst forth afresh. Gentle was ready to join them, but Efreet explained that his mother—who was presently out of the room— wanted him to stay.

"You should accommodate her;" Pie remarked when the boy had headed out. "If Tasko doesn't want the car we may have to sell your body."

"I thought you were the expert on that, not me," Gentle replied.

"Now, now," Pie said, with a grin. "I thought we'd agreed not to mention my dubious past."

"So go," Gentle said. "Leave me to her tender mercies. But you'll have to pick the fluff from between my teeth."

He found Mother Splendid in the kitchen, kneading dough for the morrow's bread.

"You've honored our home, coming here and sharing our table," she said as she worked. "And please, don't think badly of me for asking, but..."—her voice became a frightened whisper—"what do you want?"

"Nothing," Gentle replied. "You've already been more than generous."

She looked at him balefully, as though he was being cruel, teasing her in this fashion.

"I've dreamt about somebody coming here," she said. "White and furless, like you. I wasn't sure whether it was a man or a woman, but now you're here, sitting at the table, I know it was you."

First Tick Raw, he thought, now Mother Splendid. What was it about his face that made people think they knew him? Did he have a doppelganger wandering around the Fourth?

"Who do you think I am?" he said.

"I don't know," she replied. "But I knew that when you came everything would change."

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears as she spoke, and they ran down the silky fur on her cheeks. The sight of her distress in turn distressed him, not least because he knew he was the cause of it, but he didn't know why. Undoubtedly she had dreamt of him—the look of shocked recognition on her face when he'd first stepped over the threshold was ample evidence of that—but what did that fact signify? He and Pie were here by chance. They'd be gone again by morning, passing through the millpond of Beatrix leaving nary a ripple. He had no significance in the life of the Splendid household, except as a subject of conversation when he'd gone.

"I hope your life doesn't change," he said to her. "It seems very pleasant here."

"It is," she said, wiping the tears away. "This is a safe place. It's good to raise children here. I know Efreet will leave soon. He wants to see Patashoqua, and I won't be able to stop him. But Emblem will stay. He likes the hills, and tending the doeki."

"And you'll stay too?"

"Oh, yes. I've done my wandering," she said. "I lived in Yzordderrex, near the Oke T'Noon, when I was young. That's where I met Eloign. We moved away as soon as we were married. It's a terrible city, Mr. Gentle."

"If it's so bad, why did he go back there?"

"His brother joined the Autarch's army, and when Eloign heard he went back to try and make him desert. He said it brought shame on the family to have a brother taking a wage from an orphan-maker."

"A man of principle."

"Oh, yes," said Larumday, with fondness in her voice. "He's a fine man. Quiet, like Emblem, but with Efreet's curiosity. All the books in this house are his. There's nothing he won't read."

"How long has he been away?"

"Too long," she said. "I'm afraid perhaps his brother's killed him."

"A brother kill a brother?" Gentle said. "No. I can't believe that."

"Yzordderrex does strange things to people, Mr. Gentle. Even good men lose their way."

"Only men?" Gentle said.

"It's men who make this world," she said. "The Goddesses have gone, and men have their way everywhere."

There was no accusation in this. She simply stated it as fact, and he had no evidence to contradict it with. She asked him if he'd like her to brew tea, but he declined, saying he wanted to go out and take the air, perhaps find Pie 'oh' pah.

"She's very beautiful," Larumday said. "Is she wise as well?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "She's wise."

"That's not usually the way with beauties, is it?" she said. "It's strange that I didn't dream her at the table too."

"Maybe you did, and you've forgotten."

She shook her head. "Oh, no, I've had the dream too many times, and it's always the same: a white furless someone sitting at my table, eating with me and my sons."