‘You should accommodate her,’ Pie remarked when the boy had headed out. ‘If Tasko doesn’t want the car we may have to sell your body.’
‘I thought you were the expert on that, not me,’ Gentle replied.
‘Now, now,’ Pie said, with a grin. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to mention my dubious past.’
‘So go,’ Gentle said. ‘Leave me to her tender mercies. But you’ll have to pick the fluff from between my teeth.’
He found Mother Splendid in the kitchen, kneading dough for the morrow’s bread.
‘You’ve honoured our home, coming here and sharing our table,’ she said as she worked. ‘And please, don’t think badly of me for asking, but …’ Her voice became a frightened whisper. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing,’ Gentle replied. ‘You’ve already been more than generous.’
She looked at him balefully, as though he was being cruel teasing her in this fashion.
‘I’ve dreamt about somebody coming here,’ she said. ‘White and furless, like you. I wasn’t sure whether it was a man or a woman, but now you’re here sitting at the table, I know it was you.’
First Tick Raw, he thought, now Mother Splendid. What was it about his face that made people think they knew him? Did he have a doppelgänger wandering around the Fourth?
‘Who do you think I am?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘But I knew that when you came everything would change.’
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears as she spoke, and they ran down the silky fur on her cheeks. The sight of her distress in turn distressed him, not least because he knew he was the cause of it, but he didn’t know why. Undoubtedly she had dreamt of him - the look of shocked recognition on her face when he’d first stepped over the threshold was ample evidence of that - but what did that fact signify? He and Pie were here by chance. They’d be gone again by morning, passing through the millpond of Beatrix leaving nary a ripple. He had no significance in the life of the Splendid household, except as a subject of conversation when he’d gone.
‘I hope your life doesn’t change,’ he said to her. ‘It seems very pleasant here.’
‘It is,’ she said, wiping the tears away. ‘This is a safe place. It’s good to raise children here. I know Efreet will leave soon. He wants to see Patashoqua and I won’t be able to stop him. But Emblem will stay. He likes the hills, and tending the doeki.’
‘And you’ll stay too?’
‘Oh yes. I’ve done my wandering,’ she said. ‘I lived in Yzordderrex, near the Oke T’Noon, when I was young. That’s where I met Eloign. We moved away as soon as we were married. It’s a terrible city, Mr Gentle.’
‘If it’s so bad, why did he go back there?’
‘His brother joined the Autarch’s army, and when Eloigh heard he went back to try and make him desert. He said it brought shame on the family to have a brother taking a wage from an orphan-maker.’
‘A man of principle.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Larumday, with fondness in her voice. ‘He’s a fine man. Quiet, like Emblem, but with Efreet’s curiosity. All the books in this house are his. There’s nothing he won’t read.’
‘How long has he been away?’
Too long,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid perhaps his brother’s killed him.’
‘A brother kill a brother?’ Gentle said. ‘No. I can’t believe that.’
‘Yzordderrex does strange things to people, Mr Gentle. Even good men lose their way.’
‘Only men?’ Gentle said.
‘It’s men who make this world,’ she said. ‘The Goddesses have gone, and men have their way everywhere.’
There was no accusation in this. She simply stated it as fact, and he had no evidence to contradict it with. She asked him if he’d like her to brew tea, but he declined, saying he wanted to go out and take the air, perhaps find Pie’oh’pah.
‘She’s very beautiful,’ Larumday said. ‘Is she wise as well?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘She’s wise.’
‘That’s not usually the way with beauties, is it?’ she said. ‘It’s strange that I didn’t dream her at the table too.’
‘Maybe you did, and you’ve forgotten.’
She shook her head. ‘Oh no, I’ve had the dream too many times, and it’s always the same. A white, furless someone sitting at my table, eating with me and my sons.’
‘I wish I could have been a more sparkling guest,’ he said.
‘But you’re just the beginning, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘What comes after?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe your husband, home from Yzordderrex.’
She looked doubtful. ‘Something,’ she said. ‘Something that’ll change us all.’
3
Efreet had said the climb would be easy, and measuring it in terms of incline, so it was. But the darkness made an easy route difficult, even for one as light-footed as Pie’oh’pah. Efreet was an accommodating guide, however, slowing his pace when he realized Pie was lagging behind, and warning him of places where the ground was uncertain. After a time they were high above the village, with the snow-clad peaks of the Jokalaylau visible above the backs of the hills in which Beatrix slept. High and majestic as those mountains were, the lower slopes of peaks yet more monumental were visible beyond them, their heads lost in cumulus. Not far now, the boy said, and this time his promises were good. Within a few yards Pie spotted a building silhouetted against the sky, with a light burning on its porch.
‘Hey, Wretched!’ Efreet started to call. ‘Someone to see you! Someone to see you!’
There was no reply forthcoming, however, and when they reached the house itself the only living occupant was the flame in the lamp. The door stood open; there was food on the table. But of Wretched Tasko there was no sign. Efreet went out to search around, leaving Pie on the porch. Animals corralled behind the house stamped and muttered in the darkness; there was a palpable unease. Efreet came back moments later, and said:
‘I see him up the hill! He’s almost at the top.’
‘What’s he doing there?’ Pie asked.
‘Watching the sky maybe. We’ll go up. He won’t mind.’
They continued to climb, their presence now noticed by the figure standing on the hill’s higher reaches. ‘Who is this?’ he called down.
‘It’s only Efreet, Mr Tasko. I’m with a friend.’
‘Your voice is too loud, boy,’ the man returned. ‘Keep it low, will you?’
‘He wants us to keep quiet,’ Efreet whispered.
‘I understand.’
There was a wind blowing on these heights, and its chill put Pie in mind of the fact that neither Gentle or itself had clothes appropriate to the journey that lay ahead of them. Coaxial clearly climbed here regularly; he was wearing a shaggy coat, and a hat with fur ear-warmers. He was very clearly not a local man. It would have taken three of the villagers to equal his mass or strength, and his skin was almost as dark as Pie’s.
‘This is my friend Pie’oh’pah,’ Efreet whispered to him when they were at his side.
‘Mystif,’