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"I doubt that he'll drink it, but it's a kind thought"

"You were saying nobody knows the wine god's naht we knew the naurs did even if I don't"

"It is unusual, yes-but not unique I had an instructor once who ood deal, and spent half a day, perhaps, on Thyone and her dark son My instructor said that Thyone's son had drunk so otten his name"

Hound chuckled

"He also said that Thyone's son was the only god whose name we don't know It was years before I realized that he'd been wrong We speak of the Outsider, but it's obvious that `the Outsider' can't be his naod," Oreb reod you love the od I love at all, if I've ever succeeded in loving hi I've been outside, you see, Hound I've been to Blue and to Green, other whorls quite different from this one"

Hound nodded

"One goes outside full of high ideals, but one soon discovers that one has left the gods behind, even Pas I told you how badly things were going in New Viron"

"Yes, you did"

"That's one of the chief reasons, I feel sure So ods The Outsider-this is very like him, very typical of him-has shown us to ourselves He tells us to look at ourselves and see how enuine kindness You're hoping to become the father of a child"

Hound nodded "A son, I hope Not that ouldn't love a daughter"

"There are children eep hoping to be rewarded, and there are children eep because the floors need sweeping and Mother's tired And there is an abyss between them far deeper than the abyss that separates us froo That's what everybody says I-"

"That is their function"

"I don't go to o with us, that they owe it to us"

"It must seeladly, that e the into the fire

"For three hundred years they let us live in this whorl, which they control Their influence was n for the most part Scylla is a poor example, but because you know her better than the rest I'll use her anyway She helped found Viron and graciously condescended to be its patron She wrote our Charter, which served us so well for three centuries Don't you think that the people who leave Viron owe it to her to take her along-if they can?"

"Why did you call her a bad example?"

"Because she's probably dead She was Echidna's eldest child, and seems the most likely to have assisted in her father's murder She may come back, of course, as he did We don't call the"

Hound rose, broke a stick across his knee, and tossed both halves into the fire

"You're ready to sleep, I suppose, and I' you up I' tonight, and I'o to sleep now, they'll be all over the forest when I wake up"

"Have you any idea what htened them?"

"It's wolves, usually That's one reason I wanted to stop here I'erie of small animals have moved in since the ownersin here yet, and I don't think they like cohosts keep them away"

"Perhaps they do They will keep ht, by the way? Where would the shade be if the sun were rekindled now?"

"I have no way of telling"

"Nor do I Oreb, have you seen any wolves since we've been here?"

"No see"

"So Hound's donkeys Do you knohat it is? Might you guess?"

"No, no"

"Then as a favor to o out and have a look around? If you see a wolf-or anything else that the donkeys -stay well clear of it and cohosts, Hound I ought to tell you that I saw the wohter in your story She told me that Silk was in Viron, and that I'd find him there Please don't ask me to exhibit her to you-"

"I wasn't about to," Hound declared emphatically

"I cannot control her h I confess there have been times when I very much wished I could She's not a bad person, but I find her a frightening one, and I've never been ht, not even when I sat with her in the hut she and poor Maytera Marble built of driftwood She was really present on that occasion, really there just as you and I are here This time she was not, and I spoke with a sort of memory she has of herself"

Hound broke another stick "You said she isn't a real ghost That she isn't really dead as far as you know"

"I suppose I did"

"But Scylla is Are you saying that if Scylla were to appear in the Sacred Window of the little host, the ghost of a goddess? People used to talk about Great Pas's ghost when I was a sprat, and some of them still swear by it"

"I think it likely, but I can't say with any certainty I know less about the gods than you may be inclined to believe, and in all hureat deal We suppose that they are like us, and we read our own passions and failings into them-which was the point of hbor irritating, we're confident that the gods are irritated by hiree, and so on I've even heard people say that a certain god was sleeping and required a sacrifice to wake him up"

Hound started to speak, stopped, and at last blurted, "Horn, do you think it's possible your friend Pig's gone to sleep in another rooh I doubt very much that it's actually occurred If it has, it's probably the best thing we could hope for I pray that it has"