"Patris," said the younger one, "you have said that if a certain event occurs, I may enter his cave to remove the hoard that awaits him there and add it to my own."
The older one opened one eye. Minutes passed.
Then, "I have said that," Patris acknowledged.
More minutes passed.
Finally, "You say nothing more, Chantris," the older one stated. "Has it occurred?"
"No, not yet..."
"Then why do you trouble me?"
"Because I feel that it may soon come to pass."
"Feel?"
"It seems likely."
"Likelies and their uns have seldom concerned us here. I know your desire, and I say that you may not yet have his hoard."
"Yes," said Chantris, showing many of her teeth. "Yes," Patris repeated in their sibilant tongue, and he opened his other eye. "And you have just spoken one
"
word too many. You know my will and you seek to toy with it." He raised his head. The other drew back. "Do you challenge me?"
"No," said Chantris.
"... And by that you say 'not yet.'"
"I would not be so foolish as to choose this time and this spot."
"Good sense. Though I doubt it will save you in the end. Face the north wind and depart."
"I was about to anyway, Lord Patris. And I bid you remember we need no Road. Farewell!"
"Hold, Chantris! If you go to damage these chains you have seen, if you go to harm this one in his other form, then you may have chosen your time and your place!"
But the other had already departed, to seek and stop one who would return to the wind but knew it not wholly, yet.
Patris revolved his eyes. Times and places moved behind them. He found the channel of his desire and adjusted the fine tuning.
One
Red sat on his bed, Mondamay on the floor. Flowers on the table between them. Cigar smoke twisted about the room. Red raised an ornate goblet from the table and sipped a dark wine.
"All right Where were we?" he asked, unlacing his boots and dropping them beside the bed.
"You had said that you did not want to come home with me and make pots," Mondamay stated.
"That's true."
"... And you agreed that it would be difficult for you to leave the Road and stay in hiding indefinitely."
"Yes."
"You also conceded that remaining on the Road and going about your business could be hazardous."
"Right."
"Then the only course of action I can see is for you
to go on the offensive. Get Chadwick before he gets you."
"Hmm." Red closed his eyes. "That would be an interesting variation," he said. "But he's pretty far from here, and it would certainly not be easy .. ." Where is he now?"
"The last I knew, he'd put down pretty firm roots
in C Twenty-seven. He is a very wealthy and powerful man."
"But you could find him?"
"Yes."
"How well do you know his time and place?" Mondamay asked.
"I lived there for over a year."
"Then your best course of action seems obvious: go after him."
"I suppose you are right."
Red suddenly put down his goblet, rose to his feet and began pacing rapidly.
"You suppose! What else is there left to do?"
"Yes, yes!" Red replied, unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it onto the bed. "Listen, we'll have to finish talking about it tomorrow."
He unbuckled his belt, stepped out of his trousers, threw them next to the shirt. He resumed pacing.
"Red!" Flowers said sharply. "Are you having one of your spells?"
"I don't know. I feel a little peculiar, that's all. Possibly. I think you'd better go now. We'll talk more in the morning."
"I think we'd better stay," Flowers answered. "I'd like to know what happens, and perhaps—"
"No! I mean it! I'll talk to you later! Leave me!" .
"All right. As you say. Let's go, Mondy."
Mondamay rose and removed Flowers from the table.
"Is there anything at all that I can do, that I can get you?" he asked.
"No."
"Good night, then."
"Good night."
He departed. As he moved down the stairs, Mondamay asked Flowers, "What is it? I've known him for some time, but I never knew of any illness—any spells... What's he got?"
"I have no idea. He does not get them often, but
when he does, he always manages to be alone. I believe he has recurrent bouts of insanity—some sort of manic thing.
"How so?
"You will know what I mean if you get a look at his room in the morning. He is going to have a big bill here. He'll tear that place apart."
"Hasn't he ever seen a physician about it?"
"Not that I know of."
"There must be some very good ones in the high Cs."
"Indeed. But he won't see one. He'll be all right in the morning, though—a little tired, perhaps, and there may even be a personality change. But he'll be all
right."
"What sort of personality change?" "Hard to say. You'll see."
"Here's our room. You sure you want to try this?" "I'll tell you inside."
Two
In the room with walls bound like books in large. grained, crushed morocco, Chadwick and Count Donatien Alphonse Francois, marquis de Sade, sat in high-backed chairs playing chess at a C Fifteen moneychanger's table. Standing, Chadwick was six feet in height. Standing or sitting, he weighed about twentyfive stone. His hair was a helmet of pale curls above a low brow over gray eyes with dark smudges beneath them, blue eyeshadow above; broken veins crossed his
wide nose and underlay his cheeks like bright webs. His neck was thick, his shoulders broad; his sausage-like fingers were steady and deft as he removed the other's. pawn from the board and dropped his bishop onto its square.
He turned to his right, where a pale-blue lazy Susan containing a circular rack of aperitif glasses drifted. Turning it, he sipped in quick succession of an orange a green, a yellow and a smoky gold, almost in time to the music of horns and strings. The glasses were instantly refilled as he replaced them.
He stretched and regarded his companion, who was reaching for his own beverage carousel.
"Your game is improving," he said, "or mine is degenerating. I'm not certain which."
His guest sipped from the clear, the bright red, the amber and again the clear liqueurs.
"In light of your activities on my behalf, he replied, "I could never acknowledge the latter."
Chadwick smiled and flipped his left hand palmupward for a moment.
"I try to bring interesting people to teach at my writing workshops," he said. "It is extremely rewarding when one of them also proves such fine company."
The marquis returned his smile.
"I do find it a considerable improvement over the circumstances from which you removed me last month, and I must confess I would like to extend my absence from my own milieu for as long as possible—preferably indefinitely."
Chadwick nodded.
"I find your views so interesting that it would be hard to part with you."
"... And I am enthralled by the development of letters since my own time. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Verlaine—and that wonderful man Artaud! I saw it all coming, of course."
"I am certain."
"Particularly Artaud, as a matter of fact."
"I would have guessed as much."
"His call for a theater of cruelty—what a fine and noble thing!"
"Yes. There is much merit to it."
"The cries, the sudden terror! I—"
The marquis produced a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and blotted his brow. He smiled weakly.
"I have my sudden enthusiasms," he stated.
Chadwick chuckled.
... Such as the game in which you are engaged— this, this black decade. It makes me think of the wonderful Jan Luyken plates you showed me the other evening. From your descriptions, I almost feel party to it...."