Silk nodded.
"All right, there wasn't a bang like with a slug gun, was there? It was just a rock, and the other sprat threw it with his sling. What you heard was the rock going through the air, just like you might hear the wind in the chimney. The bigger the rock was, and the faster it was going, the more noise it would make."
"I see," Silk murmured, and with the words the entire scene returned, glowing with the vivid colors and hot shame of youth: the whizzing stones, his futile defense and final flight, the blood that had streamed from his face down his best white tunic to dye its embroidered flowers.
"All right, a needle's just a tiny little thing, but when it's shot out it goes so fast that the rock might just as well be traveling backwards. So it makes that noise you heard. If it had got slewed around before it hit that jug you shot, it would have screeched like a tomcat." Auk swept his needles into a pile with his hands. "They drop down inside the handle. See? All right. Right under my finger is a little washer with a hole in the middle and a lot of sparks in it."
Silk raised his eyebrows, more than ready to grasp at any distraction. "Sparks?"
"Just like you see if you pet a cat in the dark. They got put into the washer when this needier was made, and they chase each other around and around the hole in that washer till you need them. When I close the breech, that'll stick the first needle into the barrel, see?" Auk flicked on the safety. "If I'd have pulled the trigger, that would tap off some sparks for the coil. And as long as it's got sparks, that coil works like a big lodestone. It's up front here looped around the barrel, and it sucks the needle to it real fast You'd think it would stay right there after it gets there, wouldn't you?"
Silk nodded again. "Or be drawn back to the coil, if it overshot"
"Right Only it don't happen, because the last spark is through the coil before the needle ever gets there. Are you finished, Patera? I've told you just about everything I know."
"Yes, and the entire meal was delightful. Superb, in fact. I'm extremely grateful to you, Auk, However, I do have one more question before we go, though no doubt it will seem a very silly one to you. Why is your needier so much bigger than this one? What advantages are secured by the increase in size?"
Auk weighed his weapon in his hand before thrusting it away. "Well, Patera, for one thing mine holds a lot more needles. Full up, there's a hundred and twenty-five. I'd say your little one there most likely only holds fifty or sixty. Mine are longer, too, which is why I can't give you some of mine to use in yours. Longer needles mean a wider cut when they slew around, and a wider cut takes your cull out of the fight quicker. My barrel's longer, too, and the needles are a hair thicker. All that gives 'em half a dog's cheek more speed, so they'll go in deeper."
"I understand." Silk had drawn back the loading knob of Hyacinth's needier and was peering at the rather simple-looking mechanism revealed by the open breech.
"A needier like yours is all right inside a house or a place like this, but outside you'd better be up close before you pull the trigger. If you're not, your needle's going to start slewing around in the air before it ever gets to your cull, and once it starts doing that, don't even Pas's sprats-your pardon, Patera-know where it's going to end up."
Looking thoughtful, Silk got out one of Blood's cards. "If you would allow me, Auk. I'm heavily indebted to you."
"I already paid, Patera." Auk rose, pushing back his chair until it thumped the wall. "Some other time, maybe." He grinned. "Now then. You remember I said don't even the gods know where your needles are going?"
"Of course." Silk rose as well, finding his ankle less painful than he had anticipated.
"Well, maybe they don't. But I do, and I'll tell you soon as we get outside. I know where you and me are going to go, too."
"I should return to my manteion." By an effort of will, Silk was able to walk almost normally.
"This won't take more than a couple hours, and I got two or three surprises I want to show you."
The first was a litter for one, with a pair of bearers. Silk climbed into it with some trepidation, wondering whether there would be any such conveyance to carry him to the manse when the business of the evening was done. The shade had risen until no sliver of gold remained, and a dulcet breeze whispered soothingly that the dust and heat of vanquished day had been but empty lies. It fanned Silk's flushed cheeks, and the sensual pleasure it gave him told him he had drunk one goblet of wine too many. Sadly, he resolved to watch himself more strictly in the future.
Auk strode along beside the litter, his grin flashing in the semidarkness. Silk felt something small, squarish, and heavy thrust into his hand.
"What we was talking about, Patera. Put 'em in your pocket."
By that time, Silk's fingers had told him that it was a paper-wrapped packet, tightly tied with string. "How…?"
"The waiter. I had a word with him when I stepped out, see? They ought to fit, but don't try them here."
Silk dropped the packet of needles into the pocket of his robe. "I- Thank you again, Auk. I don't know what to say."
"I had him whistle out this trot-about for you, and he sent a pot boy off after those. If they don't fit, tell me tomorrow. Only I think they will."
The litter halted much sooner than Silk had expected, before a tall house whose lower and third stories were dark, though the windows between them blazed with light. When Auk knocked, the door was opened by a lean old man with a small, untidy beard and white hair more disordered even than Silk's own.
"Aha! Good! Good!" The old man exclaimed. "Inside! Inside! Just shut the door. Shut the door, and follow me." He went up the stair two steps at a time, with a speed that Silk would have found astonishing in someone half his age.
"His name's Xiphias," Auk told him when he had finished paying the bearers. "He's going to be your teacher."
"Teacher of what?"
"Hacking. Thirty years ago, he was best. The best in Viron, anyhow." Turning, Auk led Silk inside and closed the door. "He says he's better now, but the younger men won't accept his challenges. They say they don't want to show him up, but I don't know." Auk chuckled. "Think how they'd feel if the old goat beat them."
Nodding and content to wonder for a few minutes longer what "hacking" might be, Silk seated himself on the second step and removed Crane's wrapping; it was cold, and though he could not be certain in the dimness of the hallway, he thought that he could feel actual ice crystals in the nap of its cloth covering. He struck the floor with it. "Do you know about these?"
Auk stooped to look more closely. "I don't know. What you got?"
"A truly wonderful bandage for my ankle." Silk lashed the floor again. "It winds itself around the broken bone almost like a serpent. Doctor Crane lent it to me. You're supposed to kick it or something until it gets hot."
"Can I see it for a minute? I can do that better, standing up."
Silk handed him the wrapping.
"I heard of them, and I saw one once, only I didn't get to touch it. Thirty cards they wanted for it." Auk slapped the wall with the wrapping; when he squatted to help Silk replace it, it felt hot enough to smoke.
The stair was as steep and narrow as the house itself, covered with torn carpeting so threadbare as to be actually slick in spots; but helped manfully by Auk and urged forward by curiosity, jaw set and putting as much weight as possible on Blood's lioness-headed stick, Silk climbed it almost as quickly as he might have with two sound legs.
The door at the top opened upon a single bare room that occupied the entire second story; its floor was covered with worn sailcloth mats, its walls decorated with swords, many of them of shapes that Silk had never seen or never noticed, and long cane foils with basketwork hilts.
"You're lame!" Xiphias called. "Limping!" He danced toward them, thrusting and parrying.
"I injured my ankle," Silk told him. "It should be better in a few weeks."
Xiphias pushed his foil into Silk's hands. "But you must start now! Begin your lessons this very evening! Do you know how to hold that? You're left-handed? Good! Very good! I'll teach you the right, too, eventually. Keep your stick in your right, eh? You may parry, but not thrust or cut with it. Is that understood? May I have a stick too? You agree that's fair? No objection? Where-Over there!" An astonishing bound carried him to the nearest wall, from which he snatched two more foils and a yellow walking stick so slender that it was scarcely more than a wand; like the foils it was of varnished bamboo.
Silk told him,' 'I can't engage you with this bad ankle, sir, and the Chapter frowns upon all such activities-not that I'd be an even match or anything like a match for you. Besides, I have no funds to pay for a lesson."
"Aha! Auk's your friend? Your word on his score, Auk? It's not just to get him killed, is it?"
Auk shook his head.
"He's my friend, and I'm his." As soon as Silk spoke, he realized that it was no more than the truth. He added, "Because I am, I won't let him pay."
Xiphias's voice dropped to a whisper. "You won't fight, you say, with your cloth and gimp leg. But what if you were attacked? You'd have to. Have to… And since Auk's your friend, he'd fight too, wouldn't he? Fight for you? You say you don't want him to pay. Don't you think he feels the same way?"
He tossed Auk a foil. "Not made of money are you, Auk? A good thief but a poor man, isn't that what they say about you? Wouldn't you-wouldn't you both like to save Auk all that money? Yes! Oh, yes! I know you would."
Auk unbuckled his hanger and laid it against the wall. "If we beat him, he won't charge me."
"That's right!" Xiphias sprang away. "Will you excuse me, Patera, while I remove my trousers?"
They fell as he spoke; one spindle-thin leg was black synthetic and gleaming steel. At the touch of the old man's fingers, it too fell away, leaving him swaying on a single, natural, knotted, blue-veined leg. "What do you think of my secret? Five it took!" He hopped toward them, balancing himself precariously with his foil and the yellow walking stick. "Five I found!"
Almost too late, Silk blocked a wide, whistling cut at his head.
"Too many parts? Scarcely enough!" Another swinging slash. "Don't cringe!"
Auk lunged at the old man. His parry was too swift for the eye to follow; the crack of his foil against Auk's skull sounded louder than Auk's shot in the Cock. Auk sprawled on the sailcloth mat
"Now, Patera! Guard yourself!"
For the space of a brief prayer that seemed half the night, that was all Silk did, frantically fending off cut after cut, forehand, backhand, to the head, to the neck, to the arms, the shoulders, the waist There was no time to think, no time to do anything but react. Almost in spite of himself, he began to sense a certain pattern, a rhythm that governed the old man's slashing attack. Despite his ankle, he could move faster, turn faster, than the old man on his one leg.
"Good! Good! After me! Good!"
Xiphias was on the defensive now, parrying the murderous cuts Silk launched at his head and shoulders.
"Use the point! Watch this!" The old man lunged, his slender stick the leg he lacked, the end of his foil between Silk's legs, then under his left arm. Silk himself thrust desperately. Xiphias's parry sent his point awry. Silk cut at his head and lunged when he backed away.
"Where'd you study, lad?"
Auk was on his feet once more, grinning and rubbing his head. Feeling that he had been betrayed, Silk thrust and parried, cut, and parried the old man's cuts. There was no time to speak, no time to think, no time to do anything but fight. He had dropped the lioness-headed stick, but it did not matter-the pain in his ankle was remote, the pain of somebody else far off, of some body that he hardly knew.
"Good! Oh, very nice!"
The clack, clack, clack of the foils was the beating of the Sphigxdrum that called men to war, the rattle of crotala that led the dance, a dance in which every movement had to be as quick as possible.
"I'll take him, Auk! I'll teach him! He's mine!"
Hopping and half falling, propped by his slender stick, the old man met each attack with careless ease, his mad eyes burning with joy.
Maddened too, Silk thrust at them. His bamboo blade flew wide, and the slender walking stick struck a single, paralyzing blow to his wrist. His foil dropped to the mat, and Xiphias's point thumped his breastbone. "You're dead, Patera!"
Silk stared at him, rubbed his wrist, and at last spat at the old man's feet. "You cheated. You said I couldn't hit with my stick, but you hit me with yours."
"I did! Oh, yes!" The old man flung it into the air and parried it as it fell. "But aren't I sorry? Isn't my heart torn? Overflowing with remorse? Oh, it is, it is! I weep! Where would you like to be buried?"
Auk said quietly,' 'There ain't any rules, Patera, not when we fight. Somebody lives, somebody dies. That's all there is."
Silk started to speak, thought better of it, swallowed, and said, "I understand. If I'd considered something that happened this afternoon more seriously-as I should have before now-I would have understood sooner. You're right, of course, sir. You're both right."
"Where did you study?" Xiphias asked. "Who's your old master?"
"No one," Silk told him truthfully. "We used to fence with laths when I was a boy, sometimes; but I'd never held a real foil before."
Xiphias cocked a bushy eyebrow at him. "Like that, eh? Or perhaps you're still angry because I tricked you?" He hopped over to Blood's fallen walking stick, snatched it up (practically falling himself) and tossed it to Silk. "Want to hit me back? Punish me for trying to save you? Do your worst!"
"Of course not. I'd rather thank you, Xiphias, and I do." Silk rubbed the crusted bruise Musk had left on his ribs. "It was a lesson I needed. When may I come for my next?"
While the old man was considering, Auk said, "He'll be a good contact for you, Patera. He's a master-of-arms, not just of the sword. He was the one that sold the boy your needles, see?"