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"You won't engage with swords - in fact, it would be best if you left that with ain "I see you know nothing about these ht Very well, you are my customer, and I've never yet abandoned a customer You wanted a mantle Here" He strode to the back of his shop and caarment the color of dead leaves

"Try this one It will be four orichalks if it fits"

A rossly short or long The price see thethe actor that day seemed to wish to forcepart in more dramas than I realized "Now then," the shopkeeper said, "I s, but I'll send one to the Sanguinary Field, so perhaps she can also teach you the rudiments of combat with it"

"Did so woman I had met at the front of the shop now came from one of the dark storerooely tilted eyes, she looked so much like her brother I felt sure they were twins, but the slender figure and delicate features that see in her Her brother must have explained what had befallenonly at her

Now I begin again It has been a long tied outside my study door) since I wrote the lines you read only a ht to record these scenes, which perhaps are iht easily have condensed everything: I saw a shop and went in; I was challenged by an officer of the Septentrions; the shopkeeper sent his sister to help me pluck the poisoned flower I have spent weary days in reading the histories of my predecessors, and they consist of little but such accounts For exa himself, he ventured into the countryside, where he spied abeneath a plane tree The Autarch joined hiun to spurn the sun Troopers bearing an oriflaold, a beautiful wo trotted through the dust Y this anecdote to be true, how easy it is to explain: the Autarch had demonstrated that he chose his active life by an act of will, and not because of the seductions of the world

But Thecla had had many teachers, each of ould explain the saht say that the Autarch was proof against those things that attract common men, but powerless to control his love of the hunt

And a third, that the Autarch wished to show his conteht have poured forth enlighten when there was none to share the road, since solitude has great attractions for the wise Nor could he when the soldiers passed, nor the htened ht him one more suchbecause it went forth alone, the soldiers having other soldiers, the merchant his mule and the mule his o forth

Yet why did Yh? Who shall say? Did the merchant follow the soldiers to buy their booty? Did the woman follow theof the hunting kind, or such a short-limbed one as women keep to bark lest someone fondle them while they sleep? Who now shall say? Ymar is dead, and such memories of his as lived for a ti faded

So mine in time shall fade too Of this I feel sure: not one of the explanations for the behavior of Ymar was correct The truth, whatever it ht be asked why I accepted the shopkeeper's sister as my companion - I who in allonly of "the shopkeeper's sister," would understand why I remained with her after what is, at this point in my own story, about to happen? No one, surely

I have said that I cannot explain my desire for her, and it is true I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate I felt that ous, would find it irresistible

No intellect is needed to see those figures ait beyond the void of death - every child is aware of theht, wrapped in authority older than the universe They are the stuff of our earliest dreauided by thehtly too we feel how little we hters of wars beyond the totality of existence

The difficulty lies in learning that we ourselves encoreat We say, "I will," and "I will not," and ih we obey the orders of some prosaic person every day) our ownOne wakes within us and we are ridden like beasts, though the rider is but souessed part of ourselves Perhaps, indeed, that is the explanation of the story of Ymar Who can say?

However that may be, I let the shopkeeper's sister help htly about the neck, and when it orn so, uild cloak was invisible beneath it Still without revealing h slits at the sides I unfastened Terminus Est fro as I wore that uard and was tipped with dark iron, ht it was one

It was the only tiuild with a disguise I have heard it said that one always feels a fool in them, whether they succeed or not, and surely I felt a fool in that one And yet it was hardly a disguise at all Those wide, old-fashioned inated with shepherds (ear them still), and were passed fro with the Ascians took place here in the cool south Froriarment that could be converted into a more-or-less satisfactory little tent very practical The decline of religion has no doubt done uish them in Nessus, where I never saw any other than the one I wore myself If I had knownshop, I would have bought a soft, wide-brio with it; but I did not, and the shopkeeper's sister told ood palmer No doubt she said it with that twinkle ofelse, but I was concerned with my appearance and failed to notice it I told her and her brother that I wished I knew ion

Both smiled, and the brother said, "If you mention it first, no one ant to talk about it Besides, you can get the reputation of being a good felloearing that and not talking about it When youalriue northern shrine Have I said that time turns our lies into truths?

Chapter 18

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ALTAR

The hush of earlyshop Wains and drays rumbled by in an avalanche of beasts, wood, and iron; the shopkeeper's sister and I had no more than stepped out of the door than I heard a flier ski the towers of the city I looked up in time to see it, sleek as a raindrop on a pane

"That's probably the officer who called you out," she remarked "He'll be on his way back to the House Absolute A hipparch of the Septentrion Guard - isn't that what Agilus said?"

"Is that your brother? Yes, soia And you know nothing of eon help you We'll have to go to the Botanic Gardens to begin with and cut you an avern Fortunately they're not too far froh money for us to take a fiacre?"