"Destroyer," she said.

28

Gentle had forgotten his short exchange with Aping about their shared enthusiasm for painting, but Aping had not. The morning after the wedding in Athanasius' cell, the sergeant came to fetch Gentle and escorted him to a room at the other end of the building, which he had turned into a studio. It had plenty of windows, so the light was as good as this region was ever likely to supply, and he had gathered over the months of his posting here an enviable selection of materials. The products of this workplace were, however, those of the most uninspired dilettante. Designed without compositional skill and painted without sense of color, their only real point of interest lay in their obsessiveness. There were, Aping proudly told Gentle, one hundred and fifty-three pictures, and their subject was unchanging: his child, Huzzah, the merest mention of whom had caused the loving portraitist such unease. Now, in the privacy of his place of inspiration, he explained why. His daughter was young, he said, and her mother dead; he'd been obliged to bring her with him when orders from Iahmandhas moved him to the Cradle.

"I could have left her in L'Himby," he told Gentle. "But who knows what kind of harm she'd have come to if I'd done that? She's a child."

"So she's here on the island?"

"Yes, she is. But she won't step out of her room in the daytime. She's afraid of catching the madness, she says. I love her very much. And as you can see"—he indicated the paintings—"she's very beautiful."

Gentle was obliged to take the man's word for it. "Where is she now?" he asked.

"Where she always is," Aping said. "In her room. She has very strange dreams."

"I know how she feels," Gentle said.

"Do you?" Aping replied, with a fervor in his voice that suggested that art was not, after alt, the subject Gentle had been brought here to debate. "You dream too, then?"

"Everybody does."

"That's what my wife used to tell me." He lowered his voice. "She had prophetic dreams. She knew when she was going to die, to the very hour. But I donjt dream at all. So I can't share what Huzzah feels."

"Are you suggesting that maybe I could?"

"This is a very delicate matter," Aping said. "Yzordder-rexian law prohibits all proprieties."

"I didn't know that."

"Especially women, of course," Aping went on. "That's the real reason I keep her out of sight. It's true, she fears the madness, but I'm afraid for what's inside her even more."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid if she keeps company with anyone but me she'll say something out of turn, and N'ashap will realize she has visions like her mother."

"And that would be—"

"Disastrous! My career would be in tatters. I should never have brought her." He looked up at Gentle. "I'm only telling you this because we're both artists, and artists have to trust each other, like brothers, isn't that right?"

"That's right," said Gentle. Aping's large hands were trembling, he saw. The man looked to be on the verge of collapse. "Do you want me to speak to your daughter?" he asked.

"More than that..."

"Tell me."

"I want you to take her with you, when you and the mys-tif leave. Take her to Yzordderrex."

"What makes you think we're going there—or anywhere, come to that?"

"I have my spies, and so does N'ashap. Your plans are better known than you'd like. Take her with you, Mr. Za-charias. Her mother's parents are still alive. They'll look after her."

"It's a big responsibility to take a child all that way."

Aping pursed his lips. "I would of course be able to ease your departure from the island, if you were to take her."

"Suppose she won't go?" Gentle said.

"You must persuade her," he said simply, as though he knew Gentle had long experience of persuading little girls to do what he wanted.

Nature had played Huzzah Aping three cruel tricks. One, it had lent her powers that were expressly forbidden under the Autarch's regime; two, it had given her a father who, despite his sentimental dotings, cared more for his military career than for her; and, three, it had given her a face that only a father could ever have described as beautiful. She was a thin, troubled creature of nine or ten, her black hair cut comically, her mouth tiny and tight. When, after much cajoling, those lips deigned to speak, her voice was wan and despairing. It was only when Aping told her that her visitor was the man who'd fallen into the sea and almost died that her interest was sparked.

"You went down into the Cradle?" she said.

"Yes, I did," Gentle replied, coming to the bed on which she sat, her arms wrapped around her knees.

"Did you see the Cradle Lady?" the girl said.

"See who?" Aping started to hush her, but Gentle waved him into silence. "See who?" he said again.

"She lives in the sea," Huzzah said. "I dream about her—and I hear her sometimes—but I haven't seen her yet. I want to see her."

"Does she have a name?" Gentle asked.

"Tishalulle," Huzzah replied, pronouncing the run of the syllables without hesitation. "That's the sound the waves made when she was born," she explained. "Tishalulle."

"That's a lovely name."

"I think so," the girl said gravely. "Better than Huzzah."

"Huzzah's pretty too," Gentle replied. "Where I come from, Huzzah's the noise people make when they're happy."

She looked at him as though the idea of happiness was utterly alien to her, which Gentle could believe. Now he saw Aping in his daughter's presence, he better understood the paradox of the man's response to her. He was frightened of the girl. Her illegal powers upset him for his reputation's sake, certainly, but they also reminded him of a power he had no real mastery over. The man painted Huzzah's fragile face over and over as an act of perverse devotion, perhaps, but also of exorcism. Nor was the child much better served by her gift. Her dreams condemned her to this cell and filled her with obscure longings. She was more their victim than their celebrant.

Gentle did his best to draw from her a little more information on this woman Tishalulle, but she either knew very little or was unprepared to vouchsafe further insights in her father's presence. Gentle suspected the latter. As he left, however, she asked him quietly if he would come and visit her again, and he said he would.

He found Pie in their cell, with a guard on the door. The mystif looked grim.

"N'ashap's revenge," it said, nodding towards the guard. "I think we've outstayed our welcome."

Gentle recounted his conversation with Aping and the meeting with Huzzah.

"So the law prohibits proprieties, does it? That's a piece of legislation I hadn't heard about."

"The way she talked about the Cradle Lady—"

"Her mother, presumably."

"Why do you say that?"

"She's frightened and she wants her mother. Who can blame her? And what's a Cradle Lady if not a mother?"

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Gentle said. "I'd supposed there might be some literal truth to what she was saying."

"I doubt it."

"Are we going to take her with us or not?"

"It's your choice, of course, but I say absolutely not."

"Aping said he'd help us if we took her."

"What's his help worth, if we're burdened with a child? Remember, we're not going alone. We've got to get Sco-pique out too, and he's confined to his cell the way we are. N'ashap has ordered a general clamp-down."

"He must be pining for you."

Pie made a sour face. "I'm certain our descriptions are on their way to his headquarters even now. And when he gets an answer he's going to be a very happy Oethac, knowing he's got a couple of desperadoes under lock and key. We'll never get out once he knows who we are."