"I suppose so, Your Eminence."
Remora stalked across the room to a tall bookcase. "I knew him, eh? The last. A loud, tyrannical, tumultuous sort of man. The mob-um-doted upon him, hey? They always love that kind." He extracted a thin volume bound in russet leather and recrossed the room to drop it into Gulo's lap. "The Charter, eh? Written in-ah-deity by Scylla and corrected by Pas. So it-um-asserts. Have a look at clause seven. Quickly, hey? Then tell me what you find-um- outre in it."
Silence settled over the spacious, somberly furnished room once more as the young augur bent over the book. In the street, litter bearers fought like sparrows with much shouting and a few blows; as the minutes ticked by, Remora watched their dispute though the open window.
Gulo looked up. "It provides for the election of new councillors, Your Eminence. Every three years. I assume that this provision has been suspended?"
"Delicately-um-phrased, Patera. You may-ah-attain Palustria yet. What else?"
"And it says the calde is to hold office for life, and may appoint his successor."
Remora nodded. "Reshelve it, will you? Not done now, eh? No calde at all. Yet it's still law. You know of the frozen embryo trade, Patera? New breeds of cattle, exotic pets, slaves, too, in places like Trivigaunte, eh? Where do they come from, hey?"
Gulo hurried to the bookcase. "From other cities, Your Eminence?"
"Which say the same, Patera. Seeds and cuttings that grow plants of-um-bizarre form. They die, hey? Or most do. Or, um, thrive beyond nature."
"I've heard of them, Your Eminence."
"Most of the beasts, and men, are-ah-commonplace. Or nearly, eh? A few-um-monstrosities, eh? Pitiful. Or fearful. Extraordinary prices for those. Give ear now, Patera." "I'm listening, Your Eminence."
Remora stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, nearly whispering. "This was common knowledge, eh? Fifteen years ago. The calde's folly, we called it. Forgotten now, hum? And you're not to speak about it to anyone, Patera. Not to stir it up, hey?"
Craning his neck to meet the eyes of the coadjutor, Gulo declared, "Your Eminence can rely upon me absolutely."
"Capital. Before he-ah-collected his reward from the gods, Patera, the calde paid out a sum of that-um-magnitude, hey? Bought a human embryo. Something-ah-extraordinary."
"I see." Gulo moistened his lips. "I appreciate your confidence in me. Your Eminence."
"A successor, eh? Or an-ah-weapon. Nobody knows, Patera. The Ayuntamiento's no-ah-wiser than yourself, Patera, now that I've told you." "If I may inquire, Your Eminence . . .?"
"What became of it? That is the-ah-crux, Patera. And what could it do? Extraordinary strength, perhaps. Or hear your thoughts, eh? Move things without touching them? There are rumors of such people. Ayuntamiento searched, eh? Never stopped, never gave up."
"Had it been implanted, Your Eminence?"
"No one knew. Still don't, eh?" Remora returned to his escritoire and sat down. "A year passed. Then two, five-ah-ten. They came to us. Wanted us to test every child in every palaestra in the city, and we did it. Memory, eh? Dexterity. All sorts of things. There were a few we-ah-took an interest in. No good, hey? The harder we, er, scrutinized them, the less-ah-outlandish they looked. Early development, eh? A few years and the rest caught up."
Remora shook his head. "Not-ah-um-unforeseen, we said, and the-ah-Lemur, Loris, and the rest likewise. They're not always what they're cracked up to be, these frozen embryos. Die in the womb, more often than not. Everybody forgot it. You follow me?"
Though Gulo was seldom subject to flashes of insight, he had one at that moment. "Y-y-your Eminence has located this person! It's this woman Chenille!"
Remora pursed his lips. "I did not-ah-asseverate anything of the kind, Patera."
"Indeed not, Your Eminence."
"Patera has become an-ah-popular figure, Patera, as I, er, implied to you yesterday. This theophany, to be sure. "'Silk for calde' daubed upon walls forest-to-lake. Bound to attract all sorts, eh? Me must be watched over by an acolyte of-um-sagacity. And large discretion. His associates must be watched likewise. A weighty-um-obligation for one so young. But for the future coadjutor for Palustria, a fitting devoir."
Sensing his dismissal, Gulo rose and bowed. "I will do my best, Your Eminence."
"Capital. See Incus about that letter, and my note to Patera."
Greatly daring, Gulo inquired, "Do you think that Patera himself may have guessed, Your Eminence? Or that this woman may have told him outright?"
Remora nodded gloomily.
Here, at its loftiest point, the cliff jutted into the lake like the prow of a giant's boat. Here, according to a modest bronze plaque let into its side next to the entrance, Lacustral Scylla's most humble petitioner Lemur, Presiding Officer of the Ayuntamiento, had erected to her glory this chaste hemispherical dome of milky, translucent, blue stone, supported on the wavering tips of these (Silk counted them) ten tapering, fragile-looking pillars, themselves resting upon a squat balustrade. There were fine-lined drawings other exploits, both factual and legendary, traced in bronze on the balustrade. Most impressive of all, there was her representation, with floating hair and bare breasts, inlaid in bronze in the stone floor, with ten coiling arms extended toward the ten pillars.
And there was nothing else.
"There's no one here, Oreb," Silk said. "Yet I know we saw somebody."
The bird only muttered.
Still shaking his head in perplexity, Silk stepped into the deep shadow of the dome. As his dusty black shoe made contact with the floor, he thought he heard a faint groan from the solid rock beneath him.
And very much to Silk's surprise, Oreb flew. He did not fly well or far, merely out between two pillars to alight heavily upon a spur of naked rock eight or ten cubits from the shrine; but fly he did, Crane's little splint a bright blue against his sable plumage.
"What are you afraid of, silly bird? Falling?"
Oreb cocked his sleek head in the direction of Limna. "Fish heads?"
"Yes," Silk promised. "More fish heads just as soon as we get back."
"Watch out!"
Fanning himself with his wide straw hat, Silk turned to admire the lake. A few friendly sails shone here and there, minute triangles of white against the prevailing cobalt. It was cooler here than it had been among the rocks, and would be cooler still, no doubt, in a boat like those he watched. If he preserved the manteion as the Outsider wished, perhaps he might some summer bring a party from the palaestra here, children who had never seen the lake or ridden in a boat or caught a fish. It would be an experience that they would never forget, surely; an adventure they would treasure for the whole length of their lives.
"Watch arm!"
Orcb's voice came on the land breeze, faint but shrill. Silk glanced up automatically at his own left hand, lifted nearly to the low dome as he leaned against one of the bent pillars; it was perfectly safe, of course.
He looked around for Oreb, but the bird seemed to have vanished in the jumble of naked rock inland.
Oreb was returning to the wild now, Silk told himself-to freedom, exactly as he himself had invited him to do on that first night. To think of the once-caged bird happy and free should not have been painful, yet it was.
Scanning the rocks for Oreb, he saw, from the comer of one eye, the delicately curved pillars nearest the entrance drop from the dome. One barred the entrance with a double S. The other reached for him, its sinuous motion seemingly casual and almost careless. He dodged and struck at it with Blood's walking stick.
Effortlessly, the pillar looped about his waist, a noose of stone. Blood's stick shattered at the third blow.
In the floor, Scylla opened stony lips; irresistibly the tentacle carried him toward her gaping mouth, and as he hung struggling above the dark orifice, dropped him into it.