Cigany said, "Yes, this is my knife, you are right to bring it to me."
The Wolf growled again, puzzled. Cigany struggled to explain as much as he could. "The Fair Lady held the knife. You find Her servant and the old woman will have peace. I cannot help you. Or perhaps I can.I don't know." The Wolf growled again, angry or frustrated, and Cigany said, "I would give you what I have, but I have nothing. Should there come a time,I will feed your pack, with my body if need be. What more can I offer?"
The Wolf seemed to consider this. Cigany picked up the knife and shuddered as he did so. He could feel the cold touch of Luci's fingers on it, and he knew that this knife had killed the old woman. He stared at the Wolf, wondering, but wolves do not kill with knives. Although he could have wished the Wolf would have found it sooner or kept it safer. The Wolf's head twisted, as if it could sense Cigany's discomfort. "No," he said. "You have not known how to keep it from Her hand. It is a knife made from the iron at the heart of the world, iron that never saw the light of day before it was forged; how are you, wolf-brother, to know the care one must take of it? You have done what you could and I do not blame you."
There was a blurring and a sundering and a tearing,and the Wolf was gone; in his place was, once more,the policeman Cigany had known he was from the beginning. "Did you know she was slain?" the policeman demanded.
Cold shivers raced down Cigany's spine. Yes, he almost answered. In my dreams, I knew. Instead he said, "I knew someone died-someone who was bound to me, though I don't know how."
"You didn't know her?"
Know? What does "know" mean? "What was her name?" he said, stumbling to answer.
The policeman snorted and listed several, none of which meant anything to Cigany. He shook his head,wondering desperately how to escape. Why was this man asking about his dreams? How was he to parry questions that the policeman could not have known enough to ask? And it is one thing to set tasks to a dream wolf one meets on a city street; it is quite another to do so for a policeman. Dreams are real to one, not to the other. All Cigany could think of was,this man can confine me again. I'll not let him. I will kill him if I have to. No, I will not. I cannot. By my lost brothers, what am I to do?
The policeman was demanding help, but what help could he give? Was he supposed to lay the burden of his life on this man? But he thought about the dreams,and the old woman who had spoken to him. Had she said anything I could pass on to the old Wolf to satisfy him?No, she left no message for me. What can I-
But the policeman was speaking again. "Only the crystal," he said, as if answering a question Cigany hadn't asked. Or had he? "And all it said was, 'Find out who killed me.' "
A crystal? The woman told fortunes with them,perhaps, but how could that… still. The bargain was plain. He had been given his life and freedom by the policeman on the condition that he discover who had killed the old woman- It was fair, he decided,since she'd been killed with his knife, and, moreover,since she'd as much as told him her death had prevented his, and allowed him to continue his quest.
He nodded, looking the policeman in the eye to secure the bargain, and walked away. He was well around the corner before it came to him that a policeman, not a Wolf, had returned him the knife, and that policemen can use knives to kill old women. He shuddered there,in the dark next to the cemetery, and he hurried on.
Been looking for a sparrow
In a city full of wrens,
Been asking for the cost
So I can make amends,
Been waiting for the questions
So my answers will make sense,
Been looking for the way home
But the snow is much too dense.
"NO PASSENGER"
Maybe it was a mistake to stay sober, for this was certainly not the coach.
Ten years ago their language would have been giggles; now it was full of strange words and hints of things these two couldn't know enough to hint about. But it was really no different. Fourteen? Fifteen? Sixteen? Wishing they were eighteen, which was the age at which they would be trying to be twenty-two. And they were dressed-how? What did it mean here and now? What had it ever meant? Maybe it was a mistake to stay sober, for this was certainly not the coach.
He climbed into the driver's seat, pretending that he was climbing up high on top, above the count and his current mistress, who sat inside, below, with the curtains pulled against the wind from the mountains and-
But never mind. The horses knew him by now, and Bunny's ears flicked back as he spoke to them. Bunny liked his voice, had liked it the first time they'd epsilon was slower, but her neck came up high, like a feeble old grandmother who pretends, for a moment, to her former pride and health. Heh.
There were only the five of them. Bunny, Stallone,and two children as he set off; and, of the five, the two passengers were in their own world, one of cars and boys and stolen cigarettes. He picked up their names from their conversation, but said nothing because they didn't speak to him, and habit is habit,and a job is a job, even if a ride through the park isn't a race against a mountain storm.
"Hey, driver," said the one called Sue. "Can't you make this thing go any faster?"
"Yes," he said, "I can." But he didn't- The question made him realize how much he enjoyed these occasional chances at the seat; he wouldn't risk them for the likes of these.
"Oh come on," said the other one. "Let's really move."
For a moment, something almost snapped, but he held it back. Every time the young "driver" (he couldn't be called a coachman) let him use his "rig"(it couldn't be called a coach) two or three customers would try to make him race the horses, or attempt to bribe him to take them off the regular path. He was always tempted, but he held it back.
The one called Sue began to abuse him, but he stopped listening. The wife of one of his old masters used to do that, two or three times a week, when he refused to take the Bobolos Trail (which his master had forbidden). He was good at ignoring abuse.
But he heard the other one say, "Oh, cut it. Sue.It's his job."
There was a sound like Bunny made when she got food in her nose. "Some job. Shit. Driving snotty assholes around the park all day."
The Coachman remained impassive.
"It's probably all he can get. Right, mister?"
That called for an answer. "It is what I do," he said.
"What," said Sue. "You can't get a taxi gig, so you do this?"
"I am the Coachman," he said.
"So?"
"I am the Coachman."
"Is that s'posed to mean something?"
"My horses are called Vision, Experience, Wisdom,and Love. By the skills of my hands I hold the reins of Will and Desire. I will take you by roads that climb and fall, twist and go straight."
He was no longer speaking to them, didn't care if they listened, or even if they could hear him. "Sometimes the horses try to run wild, and I fight them, or let them run, as may be. Sometimes they go where I guide them,and I can bring you to places of which you have never dreamed, or perhaps you have. Sometimes you, in the coach, may direct me, and then I will bring you where you wish. Perhaps you will be glad to arrive.
"But, always and ever, I drive the coach.
"I am the Coachman. You are here. Ten dollars,please."
He watched sadly as they walked away after paying him and even tipping him a quarter. Across the path,a man who was far too old for them watched them leave with an intensity that, in another place and time,would have gotten him hanged. But this was here and now. The Coachman reached down into the seat for his bottle, thought better of it, shook his head and went around to scratch Bunny between her ears.