Part 25 (1/2)

”It means they hunt in the daytime,” Mucor explained. ”They would, too, if my father'd let them. Their eyes are sharper than almost any other animal's. But their ears are good, too. And they can see in the dark, just like regular cats.”

130Gene Wolfe

Silk shuddered.

”My father traded for them. When he got them they were just little chips of ice inside a big box that was little on the inside. The chips are just like little seeds. Do you know about that, Silk?”

”I've heard of it,” he said. For an instant he thought that he felt the hot yellow gaze of the lynx behind him; he looked quickly, but the roof was bare. ”It's supposed to be against the law, though I don't think that's very strictly enforced. One could be placed inside a female animal of the correct sort, a large cat I'd imagine, in this case-”

”He put them inside a girl.” Mucor's eerie t.i.tter came again. ”It was me.”

”In you!”

”He didn't know what they were.” Mucor's teeth flashed in the darkness. ”But I did, a long while before they were born. Then Musk told me their name and gave me a book. He likes birds, but I like them and they like me.”

”Then come with me,” Silk said, ”and the lynxes won't hurt either of us.”

The skull nodded, still grinning. ”I'll fly beside you, Silk. Can you bribe the talus?”

”I don't think so.”

”It takes a lot of money.”

There was a soft sc.r.a.ping from the back of the room, followed by a m.u.f.fled thump. Before the door swung open, Silk realized that what he had heard was a bar being lifted from it and laid aside. Nearly falling, he slid over the sill, and crouched as Mucor's window shut silently above his head.

For as long as it took him to run mentally through the formal praises of Sphigx, whose day was about to dawn (or so at least he felt), he waited, listening. No sound of voices reached him from the room above, though once he heard what might have been a blow. When he stood at last and

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peeped cautiously through the gla.s.s, he could see no one.

The panes that Lion had raised with his head yielded easily to Silk's fingers; as they rose, a moist and fragrant exhalation from the conservatory below invaded the dry heat of the rooftop. He reflected that it would be simple now-much easier than he had thought-to enter the conservatory from above, and the trees there had clearly supported Lion's considerable weight without damage.

Silk's fingertips described slow circles on his cheek as he considered it. The difficulty was that Blood slept in the other wing, if Mucor was to be believed. Entering here, he would have to traverse the length of the villa from south to north, finding his way though unfamiliar rooms. There would be bright lights and the armored guards he had seen in Auk's gla.s.s and on the highriders, Blood's staff and Blood's guests.

Regretfully Silk let down the movable section of the abat-jour, retrieved his horsehair rope, and untied the rough limb that had served him so well. The merlons crowning the roof of the south annex would not have cutting edges, and a noose would make no dangerous noise. Three throws missed before the fourth snared a merlon. He tugged experimentally at the rope; the merlon seemed as solid as a post; drying his hands on his robe, he started up.

He had reached the roof of the wing and was removing his noose from the merlon when Mucor's spectral voice spoke, seemingly in his ear. There were words he could not quite hear, then, ”. . . birds. Watch out for the white-headed one.”

”Mucor?”

There was no reply. Silk looked over the battlement just in time to see the window close.

Although it was twenty times larger, this roof had no abatjour, and was in fact no more than a broad and extremely long expanse of slightly sloping tar. Beyond the

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Gene Wolfe