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Chapter 1 THE BLOODSTAINED MEN

We have been journeying by guess, and it is high tis considered, we have been fortunate; but unless we are favored by the Vanished Gods of Blue far above most, it cannot continue

In this third book, which will surely be the last, I will begin by saying that, and telling you e are; but first I shouldthrough their loot, have discovered this paper-an entire bale-and ahts see to do with the dead woh the open door into the poor little roo, as of rain; moisture splashed his ankles, and he looked down and saw blood trickling froers to splash into a small pool at his feet

His son had deserted him

He ounded (No doubt the blood was from that wound?)

He lay in thenow, his blood dripping on worn floorboards The bier was for another, it seeed woman, and was already dead

A knife with a worn blade and a cracked wooden handle lay at his feet Reflexively, he bent to pick it up, and recoiled fro screa deeper than resent

He backed away froh the open door into the darkest night ever known

We are four, a number that includes Oreb but excludes our four horses and Jahlee’s white mule Oreb isto wrest one of his old quills froers "It’s no use, Oreb," I say "I want to write-have just started a new book-and I won’t play with you at all unless you behave yourself"

"Good bird!" Heover this sheet, I see I have not Hide is the fourth member of our party and , solid,sixteen He wears a sheepskin coat shorter than mine, a sheepskin hat, and sheepskin boots that are very well greased now, he having found a pot of mutton fat No doubt the bandits used it for the same purpose

The bandits, I should say, are all dead Even the last I would like to inter theested burning their bodies, but it would take a great deal of wood, I am sure, to consume the bodies of nine men

I must have been present when Patera Silk, Patera Quetzal, and Maytera Marble burned Maytera Rose If someone had asked me about it yesterday, I would have said that I was not, that Nettle and I went away to fight for Maytera Mint after Echidna ordered her to destroy the Alambrera; yet I find that I can very clearly visualize the skull peering fro that occasion with some other on which a body was burned

In any event I aood, dry cedar Our wood here will be green, and that which is not green will be ith snow Hide and I, working hard, ht cut that much wood in a week, perhaps (I in half an hour if I used Hyacinth’s azoth-but what folly it would be to let the else about Hide? A lot, although I will not try to set it all down Hide has a twin, his brother Hoof, who looks exactly like him Hoof is in the south, or at least Hide believes he is We were te him It would have been farther, but I e had

I a you all this in case the first two books inare lost or destroyed, which is surely likely enough If you have them, they will tell you much more about me and my sons than I possibly can

What else should I say? As a traveling coloom and pessimism (He may well think the sa when he does talk But he is courageous and resourceful, and has a sun on Oreb, so let us take his are er His feathers shine His head, bill, and feet are red He has aone for a day, an hour, or (once) the better part of a year I got hiot otme as his master and sometime confidant If I did not feed hiht be difficult to say hoone blind, then that it was death He had failed to reach the Aureate Path-he would wander in this darkness forever, beset by devils

Devils worse than the inhuhed aloud-madness Madness; and to be mad was to be dead, as to be dead was to be ers h bark of a tree, and he discovered for the second ti cuts in both his ar unfamiliar pockets he found prayer beads, spectacles, two cards, and at last a handkerchief still folded in a way that seemed to promise it was clean He started a tear with his teeth, ripped the handkerchief in two, and bandaged his deepest cuts,the clumsy knots with his free hand and his teeth

Far off, a faint light shone He stood up, blinked at it, and stared again A light, a faint point of golden light When Aster’s house had been haunted by her dead child, Rehost with candles and sacred waters, andit between tio the Short Sun

So it was said in town, at least; and when he had asked about it, Rehosts, for the most part, did not realize they had died: "An, um, understandable? An innocent confusion, eh? They have never been dead before, hey? The, ah, we religious know Generally Inforurs, hey? Or, er, sibyls Not-ah-unheard of But few Very few"

Re into his ear

"We-ah-anticipate it Some even pray that it may be hastened, so, er, desirous of the blessed companionship of the Nine But the, um, ah"

Unbelievers

"Skeptics have assumed-no evidence, eh? Do you follow me here, Horn? Urn, theorize that, er, dissolution? The kind eh Hierax is an-ah-mere sleep But without drea"

Yes, Patera

"They will not, um, credit it Because they do not, eh? In every case-ah-recollect their dreaoddess of sleep, eh? Morphia Aspect of Thelxiepeia She has, ued that we-ah-dream? That we shall be subject, eh? Yes, subject Subject to phanto hard and round He picked it up, and felt dry, dead bark drop off under the pressure of his questing fingers A fallen branch

"You see?"

No, Patera, he thought No I do not

"No, um, slumber without dreaiven over countless, uhtful hours to prayer are prepared Know Hierax when he cos eak and brittle, but the branch itself seeh

"Steer by the stars, hey? Do you take ht hour, and by the sun, uht Just so Not, um, myself Not seaworthy, eh? But so I’ve been told Sun, and stars"

He waved the stick before hiht perhaps have been the say that was probably a bush to his right The pinpoint of yellow light called out to him like the driftwood fires the fisherht