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"Do you know"Jonas, I must recover Terminus Est, if I can I've run like any coward, but now that I've had a chance to think, I see I o back for her My letter to the archon of Thrax is in her scabbard pocket, and I couldn't bear to part with her anyway But if you want to try to escape this place, I'll understand You're not bound to me"

He did not appear to have heard "I knohere we are," he said, and raised one ar I had taken to be a folding screen

I was delighted to hear his voice, and largely in the hope that he would speak again, I asked, "Where are we, then?"

"On Urth," he answered, and strode across the room to the folded panels Their backs were set with clustered dians as had been on the door Yet these signs were no stranger than the actions of idity I had reone - yet he had not returned to his old self

It was then that I knew We have all watched someone who has lost one hand (as he had) and replaced it with a hook or some other artificial contrivance perform some task that involves both his real hand and the artificial one So it ith Jonas when I watched him pull back the panels; but the prosthetic hand was the hand of flesh When I understood that, I understood what he had said much earlier: that in the wreck of his ship his face had been destroyed

I said, "The eyesThey could not replace your eyes Is that right? And so they gave you that face Was he killed too?"

He looked about at otten I was present "He was on the ground," he said "We killed hi in I needed his eyes and larynx, and I took some other parts"

"That hy you were able to tolerate me, a torturer You are a machine"

"You are no worse than the rest of your kind Remember that for years before I met you, I had become one of you Now I a you Now I have the chance, and it is the chance I sought for years as I went up and down the seven continents of this world seeking the Hierodules and tinkering with cluht of all that had happened since I had carried the knife to Thecla; and though I did not follow everything he had said, I told hiood luck If I ever see Jolenta, I will tell her you once loved her, and nothing more"

Jonas shook his head "Don't you understand? I will come back for her when I have been repaired When I am sane and whole"

Then he stepped into the circle of panels, and a brilliant light kindled in the air above his head

How foolish to call the firht indeed; but that, I think, is no part of their true function They reflect reality, the metaphysical substance that underlies the material world

Jonas closed the circle and moved to its center For perhaps the ti, metallic dust danced above the tops of the panels before all was gone and I was alone

Chapter 19

CLOSETS

I was alone, and I had not been truly alone since I had entered his room in the tumbledown city inn and seen Baldanders's broad shoulders above the blankets There had been Dr Talos, then Agia, then Dorcas, then Jonas The disease of ained upon iant, and the others as I had seen therove There had been men with animals as well and perfor to that part of the grounds where (as Thecla had often told an to search the roo my sword It was not there, and it struck me that there was probably sooods of the prisoners were kept - most likely on the same level The stair I had coain; the exit from the room of the mirrors took me only to another room, one in which curious objects were stored Eventually I found a door that opened onto a dark and quiet corridor, carpeted and hung with paintings I put on uards who had seized us in the wood had not seeht encounter in the halls of the House Absolute itself norant

In the event, I was never challenged Adrew aside, and several lovely wo at the sight of their faces At last I found another stair - not narrow and secretive like the one that had taken Jonas and ht of wide steps

I ascended some distance, reconnoitered the corridor there until I was certain I was still lower than the antecha wo down the stair toward me

Our eyes met

In that moment, I feel sure, she was as conscious as I that we had exchanged glances thus before In ain, "My dearest sister," in that cooing voice, and the heart-shaped face sprang into place It was not Thea, the consort of Vodalus, but the woman who looked like her (and no doubt borrowed her name) whom I had passed on the stair in the House Azure - she descending and I cli, just as ere now Harlots then, as well as entertainers, had been suanized

Almost purely by chance, I discovered the level of the antechamber I had no sooner left the stair than I realized I was standing almost precisely where the hastarii had stood while Nicarete and I talked beside the silver cart This was the point of greatest danger, and I was careful to walk slowly The wall on ht held a dozen or more doors, each framed in carved ork, and each (as I sahen I stopped to examine them) spiked to its frame and sealed with the varnish of years On nawed oak through which the soldiers had dragged Jonas and me Opposite it was the entrance to the antechamber, and beyond that stretched another row of spiked doors like the first, at the end of which was another stair It appeared that the antecha of the House Absolute

If there had been anyone in sight, I would not have dared to pause; but since the corridor was eainst the newel post of the second stair While two soldiers had guarded me, a third had carried Terminus Est It was reasonable to suppose that as Jonas and I were being put through the doorway of the antechamber, this third man would have taken the first few steps at least toherever it was that such captured weapons were kept But I could re; the soldier had dropped behind e descended the steps of the grotto, and I had not seen hiain It was possible, even, that he had not come in with us

In desperation, I returned to the wornawed door and opened it The musty odor of the well entered the corridor at once, and I heard the song of the green gongs begin Outside, the world was plunged in night Save for the corpse candles of the fungi, the rugged walls were invisible, and only a circle of stars overhead shohere the well dropped into the earth

I closed the door; no sooner had it grated shut than I heard the sound of footsteps on the stair up which I myself had come There was no place to hide, and if I had darted for the second stair I would have had little chance of reaching it before I was seen Rather than atteh the heavy oak door and close it once more, I decided to remain where I was

The newcomer was a pluth of the corridor, I saw his face pale at the sight oftoward me, however, and when he was still twenty or thirty paces off he began to bow, saying, "Can I help you, your honor? I am Odilo, the steward here You, I can see, are on a mission of some confidence toFather Inire?"