The demon was an unfacetted red gem, so it was probably safe to assume it was the azoth he had taken from Hyacinth’s drawer and she had snatched out of the coiled rope around his waist. It occurred to Silk as he examined the azoth that its demon should have been a blue gem, a hyacinth. Clearly the azoth had not been embellished in a style intended to flatter Hyacinth, as the needler in his pocket had been. It was even possible that it was not actually hers.
Rocking almost imperceptibly, the floater slowed, then settled onto the roadway. “Here’s Orchid’s place, Patera.”
“On the right there? Thank you, my son.” Silk slid the azoth into the top of the stocking on his good foot and pulled his trousers leg down over it; it was a considerable relief to be able to lean back comfortably.
“Quite a place, they tell me, Patera. Like I said, I’ve only been inside a couple times.”
Silk murmured, “I very much appreciate your going out of your way for me.”
Orchid’s house seemed typical of the older, larger city houses, a hulking cube of shiprock with a painted façade, its canary arches and fluted pillars the phantasmagoria of some dead artist’s brush. There would be a courtyard, very likely with a dry fishpond at its center, ringed by shady galleries.
“It’s only one story in back, Patera. You can get in that way, too, off of Music Street. That might be closer for you.”
“No,” Silk said absently. It would not do to arrive at the rear entrance like a tradesman.
He was studying the house and the street, visualizing them as they would appear by day. That shop with the white shutters would be the pastry cook’s, presumably. In an hour or two there would be chairs and tables for customers who wished to consume their purchases on the spot, the mingled smells of maté and strong coffee, and cakes and muffins in the windows. A shutter swung back as Silk watched.
“In there,” the driver jerked his thumb at the yellow house, “they’ll be getting set to turn in now. They’ll sleep till noon, most likely.” He stretched, yawning. “So will I, if I can.”
Silk nodded weary agreement. “What is it they do in there?”
“At Orchid’s?” The driver turned to look back at him. “Everybody knows about Orchid’s, Patera.”
“I don’t, my son. That was why I asked.”
“It’s a—you know, Patera. There’s thirty girls, I guess, or about that. They put on shows, you know, and like that, and they have a lot of parties. Have them for other people, I mean. The people pay them to do it.”
Silk sighed. “I suppose it’s a pleasant life.”
“It could be worse, Patera. Only—”
Someone screamed inside the yellow house. The scream was followed at once by the crash of breaking glass.
The engine sprang to life, shaking the whole floater as a dog shakes a rat. Before Silk could protest, the floater shot into the air and sped up Lamp Street, scattering men and women on foot and grazing a donkey cart with a clang so loud that Silk thought for a moment it had been wrecked.
“Wait!” he called.
The floater turned almost upon its side as they rounded a corner, losing so much height that its cowling plowed the dust.
“That might be a—whatever the trouble is.” Silk was holding on desperately with both hands, pain and the damage the white-headed one had done to his arm forgotten. “Go back and let me out.”
Wagons blocked the street. The floater slowed, then forced its way between the wall of a tailor shop and a pair of plunging horses.
“Patera, they can take care of it. It’s happened there before, like I told you.”
Silk began, “I’m supposed—”
The driver cut him off. “You got a real bad leg and a bad arm. Besides, what if somebody saw you going in there—a place like that—at night? Tomorrow afternoon will be bad enough.”
Silk released the leather-covered bar. “Did you really float away so quickly out concern for my reputation? I find that difficult to believe.”
“I’m not going to go back there, Patera,” the driver said stubbornly, “and I don’t think you could walk back if you tried. Which way from here? To get to your manteion, I mean.” The floater slowed, hovered.
This was Sun Street; it could not have been half an hour since they had floated past the talus and out Blood’s gate. Silk tried to fix the Guard post and soiled statue of Councillor Tarsier in his memory. “Left,” he said absently. And then, “I should have Horn—he’s quite artistic—and some of the older students paint the front of our manteion. No, the palaestra first, then the manteion.”
“What’s that, Patera?”
“I’m afraid I was talking to myself, my son.” They had almost certainly been painted originally; it might even be possible to find a record of the original designs among the clutter of papers in the attic of the manse. If money could be found for paint and brushes as well—
“Is it far, Patera?”
“Another six blocks perhaps.”
He would be getting out in a moment. When he had left Blood’s reception hall, he had imagined that the night was already gray with the coming of shadeup. Imagination was no longer required; the night was virtually over, and he had not been to bed. He would be getting out of the floater soon—perhaps he should have napped upon this soft seat after all, when he had the opportunity. Perhaps there was time for two or three hours sleep in the manse, though no more than two or three hours.
A man hauling bricks in a handcart shouted something at them and fell to his knees, but whatever he had shouted could not be heard. It reminded Silk that he had promised to bless the driver when they parted. Should he leave this walking stick in the floater? It was Blood’s stick, after all. Blood had intended for him to keep it, but did he want to keep anything that belonged to Blood? Yes, the manteion, but only because the manteion was really his, not Blood’s, no matter what the law, or even the Chapter, might say. Patera Pike had owned the manteion, morally at least, and Patera Pike had left him in charge of it, had made him responsible for it until he, too, died.
The floater was slowing again as the driver studied the buildings they passed.
Silk decided that he would keep the manteion and the stick, too—at least until he got the manteion back. “Up there, driver, with the shingled roof. See it?” He gripped the stick and made sure its tip would not slide on the floor of the floater; it was almost time to go.
The floater hovered, “Here, Patera?”
“No. One, two, three doors farther.”
“Are you the augur everybody’s talking about, Patera? The one that got enlightened? That’s what somebody told me back at the estate.”
Silk nodded. “I suppose so, unless there were two of us.”
“You’re going to bring back the caldé—that’s what they say. I didn’t want to ask you about it, you know? I hoped it would sort of come up by itself. Are you?”
“Am I going to restore the caldé? Is that what you’re asking? No, that wasn’t in my instructions at all.”
“Instructions from a god.” The floater settled to the roadway and its canopy parted and slid into its sides.
Silk struggled to his feet. “Yes.”
The driver got out, to open the door for him. “I never thought there were any gods, Patera. Not really.”
“They believe in you, however.” Aided by the driver, Silk stepped painfully onto the first worn shiprock step in front of the street entrance to the manteion. He was home. “You believe in devils, it seems, but you do not believe in the immortal gods. That’s very foolish, my son. Indeed, it is the height of folly.”
Suddenly the driver was on his knees. Leaning on his stick, Silk pronounced the shortest blessing in common use and traced the sign of addition over the driver’s head.