15

"The gates used to be painted red," Mellie said from Cashel's shoulder. "That was when there were gates, I mean. And all those niches above had statues in them, King Itaku and his family."

Cashel looked up. The monumental triple gateway was of a rusty sandstone unlike anything on the east side of Haft. He supposed it must be common locally though; even the ancients couldn't have carried such staggering amounts of stone from other islands. . . .

Or could they? Was the city built by wizardry?

"Is the rock from around here?" he asked. His companions were too gogglingly aware of the city they entered behind Benlo and his guards to be concerned that Cashel was talking to himself—if they even noticed it.

"Most of it," Mellie said equably. From the corner of his eye Cashel could see her sitting cross-legged, combing out her brilliant hair with the prongs of a tiny weed seed. "The best marble for building came from the hills to the south. They barged it down the Stroma River and along the coast, then landed it in the harbor."

The gate panels were gone now; so were most of the fittings that had embellished the high structure. Two pillars of yellow-and-brown stone flanked a niche in the third level, and the statue of a woman in flowing garments graced the pergola at the peak. Perhaps she was meant for the Lady; a thousand years had weathered the face featureless.

The streets were crowded with folk wearing dyed clothing who talked loudly, constantly, and in harsh voices. Cashel felt as though he were in a tree under a flock of blackbirds chattering ill-tempered nonsense, all at the same time.

Every few steps a local plucked the sleeve of Cashel's tunic with an offer of some sort. Cashel ignored them except to shift his quarterstaff from one hand to the other. The hucksters and touts went away and usually didn't fasten on any of the others in Cashel's group either.

Garric walked beside Tenoctris on the gelding, just behind Benlo. Ilna and Liane followed them; Liane regally prim, clearly no mark for the sort of city folk who battened on rubes from the country, while Ilna glanced about with the fierce glare of a mother cat defending her kittens. Cashel knew that anybody grabbing his sister would be lucky to get his hand back, and the hustlers seemed to have picked up on that as well.

Cashel was alone at the end of the line. The streets were narrow and he took up a lot of room. His wages in silver coins were in a wash-leather pouch hung from his neck on a thick strap. Even if a thief managed to cut the strap, the purse would drop into the bosom of Cashel's tunic and be held by his belt. It would take more than light fingers to rob him, and nobody taking a look at this rube would think of using force.

When they reached Benlo's inn and the drover paid them the last day's wages, Cashel would be really alone; and alone forever. He turned and smiled toward the point of his shoulder. "Except for you," he said aloud.

"Except for me," Mellie agreed cheerfully, as if she knew what he was talking about.

She waved toward the hillside to their right. A high brick wall, featureless except for simple brick pilasters at intervals to break the sheer line, fronted the street. Over the top of it Cashel could see manicured trees and pavilions with fanciful roofs climbing the slope.

"That all used to be palaces for the King of the Isles and his chief ministers," she said. "Now the buildings are fallen and some new rich man has turned the grounds into a garden. Humans change as fast as clouds do."

Mellie giggled. "Of course, before the kings," she said, "when Carcosa was a fishing village, the whole hillside was covered with black walnut trees. I used to tease the squirrels when I visited. I'd pull their tails and skip under the branch before they could turn around."

A tile-arched walkway zigzagged down into the gardens proper from the hill's craggy top. Cashel thought about how old his companion really was. "Aye, I can see that," he said. "A big old walnut on the ridge and she'd roll her nuts down till they owned the whole slope. Poison other plants out, a walnut will. There's people like that too."

A farrier's stall stood between a pair of open-fronted taverns. Hot iron and the sulfurous smell of coal smoke filled the air. An apprentice walked a treadmill to drive the wheezing bellows, and the street rang with the smith's measured blows. Horses waiting to be shod half-blocked the street; a carter hauling three huge hogsheads of ale shouted threats to drive on through the obstructing animals if they weren't moved.

Benlo's guards held the horses against the wall long enough for their employer's entourage to pass. Cashel brushed the animals with no great affection. He'd always thought horses were too flighty as well as needing an expensive diet of grain, while oxen got along fine on grass and coarse fodder. Horses were quicker at their business, sure; but speed wasn't a virtue about which Cashel troubled overmuch.

"You know . . ." Cashel said. "Walnut's a pretty wood, I grant you. But give me honest oak any day."

Mellie laughed so hard that Cashel lifted his hand in fear that she'd roll off his shoulder in a spasm of silver trills. "What's the matter?" he asked, trying to keep the puzzled hurt out of his voice. "Don't you like oak?"

The sprite stood to pat his earlobe reassuringly. "I like oak very well, Cashel," she said. "I was laughing because you thought you had to tell me that you did."

The street the group was following joined what Cashel supposed was a "square"; though it wasn't square and it was huge—probably as big as all the houses and yards in Barca's Hamlet put together. It wasn't smooth; outcrops of rubble and worked stone stuck out of the ground in several places, debris of the Old Kingdom. Even so, the space was large enough that for the first time since they'd entered Carcosa, traffic didn't crush the drover's party into a long line.

Garric turned and spoke to Liane; the girl called something between a request and a demand to her father. The group closed up beside a slab which once had been a transom of fine-grained limestone. Now the corner had been broken off and the stylized vine-leaf carvings were worn to shadows of themselves.

Garric was surveying the square with a look of amazement. "These are all new," he said in wonder.

The surrounding buildings didn't look new to Cashel, but they were of a type he'd never seen before—even on his winding progress through Carcosa's streets. They were mostly three floors high. The bottom story of each was windowless. Foliage showed over high parapets, indicating that they had roof gardens.

The front doors were solid and set back within narrow entryways. There were liveried guards in front of each house; solid men in half-armor, very much of a type with the folk who guarded Benlo himself.

"Are they new?" Cashel murmured to Mellie. He didn't see anything he wouldn't have guessed was as old as Reise's inn.

The sprite poised on the toes of one foot and raised the other leg vertically. Cashel decided that acrobatics were Mellie's equivalent of a shrug. "They weren't here when I last visited Carcosa," she said. "But that hasn't been for a couple centuries. Even longer, I guess."

Benlo clucked impatiently to his mare. The group started around the square, still close enough together to talk to one another as they walked.

Liane pointed to the nearest building. "These are the houses of the nobility," she said. "There's been trouble in Carcosa, worse even than in Valles. They build this way so that if there's a riot after the midweek sacrifice the mob won't be able to break into their houses and loot them."

Benlo led them out of the square by another of the dozen or so streets feeding it. This one was a broad boulevard with a median divider. The shops of fabric-

sellers and dressmakers lined both sides. Cashel saw his sister's interest perk like that of a fox sighting prey.

"After the sacrifice?" Garric repeated. "Why then?"

"Generally in Carcosa the nobles and their retainers support the Lady," Liane said, "and the laborers follow the Shepherd. It's the same in Valles, though in Erdin it was just the opposite. If somebody wants to make trouble, he can usually stir things up when people gather at the temples for the sacrifice."

"Is that true?" Cashel said to Mellie. Garric and Ilna looked as shocked as Cashel felt.

"Oh, yes," the sprite agreed as she pirouetted. "Sometimes they fight each other, but mostly the mobs go smash things in a district where the other side lives. It's very exciting to watch."

"It's evil!" Cashel said so loudly that everyone heard him. Garric and Ilna nodded agreement; Liane looked sober. "Fighting in the name of the Lady and the Shepherd!"

"It's a symptom of the forces becoming greatly stronger, just as they did in my day," Tenoctris said. "Nothing to do with the gods or religion of course; just dynamic tension too extreme to remain in perfect balance."

"It's evil!" Cashel repeated fiercely.

"Nonnus would certainly agree with you," the old woman said, looking back toward Cashel. "And in human terms you're certainly correct."

She smiled faintly, sadly, and added, "I just don't believe the cosmos thinks in human terms, Cashel."