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He was not certain he had heard her correctly, and said, "I beg your pardon?"
"I don't work very well I don't work very well, Patera"
"We all have failings It's far better to-to have a bad leg or so of the sort than a propensity for evil"
"But my eyes are But my eyes are fine I can I can see You said You said so That's lucky That's lucky, isn't it?"
"Yes, it certainly is But, Olivine, you've let od-that the Outsider, as I believe-chose for us There's a colon in it Do you knohat a colon is? Not a semicolon, but a full colon? Two little dots, one above the other?"
She did not answer, and he floundered forward "A colon is a very strong divider, Olivine, and colons are rarely found in the Writings I believe-I', to be sure, but this is what I believethat it's intended to separate that passage about the stars rolling down the azure sky from the next so that ill understand that they concern thorls Blue and this Long Sun Whorl are actually like two little dots themselves, you see, if you think of theher dot is this whorl, which is farther from the Short Sun; and the lower dot is Blue"
He cleared his throat and searched his memory "I've shut the book, but I believe I can still quote the passage accurately It was, `At the voice of Pas inds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies' Pas himself is a ind That is to say, he's shown that way in art The oldest representations of hi storm"
"I didn't know I didn't know that Is the other one Is the other one-? You don't want me to say his You-"
"Is he depicted as a ind too? Is that what you're asking ent question, now that I come to think about it Pas is shown as a man with two heads, or a wind; so it's not unreasonable to think that he, who is shown as a ht be depicted as a wind as well He isn't, though When a writer hesitates to set down his name-which isn't often, since so little has been written about hiht mark with another little od blesses us, though it raod, as I believe I told you"
"I I see"
"There's an interesting story about another god as a wind, however, and it e in question A certainto have experience of the Outsider He prayed and prayed, and a violent storod, and rejoiced and shouted praise; but the storm only became more violent Rain beat him like hail, and hail like stones Water poured fro struck the rew terrified, and finding a little cave he hid himself and waited for the storm to pass
"At last it did, and after it caentle breeze And that faint wind, that gentle breeze, was the god whoht"
Olivine did not speak
"The point of the story, you see, is that Great Pas is not the Outsider Gods often have several na about this with friends not long ago-and it appears that at some time in the past people believed that the Outsider was merely another aspect of Pas The story I just told you was probably written to shoas not the case
"Now back to that passage As I said, happenings in this whorl are intended-or so I would guess Pas will rily `Wild inds' are to rise Notice the plural"
"Will he hurt Will he hurt us?"
"That I cannot say We have been warned by the Outsider, however, and the Outsider is a god-indeed, he ods-and thus is certainly a great deal wiser than we If he didn't believe we needed a warning, I doubt that he would have provided it
"Now the last, and I will be able to sacrifice this bread for you `Clouds and double darkness veil the skies' In one respect that is very plain Double darkness ht Night is coht to say It ain"
"Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave, Patera"
"That ht cheek "Clouds? I can't make much of that It may mean perfectly ordinary clouds, such as we see every day Itthe minds of those he intends to destroy I cannot be sure `Skies' presents the greatest puzzle of them all, at least to e, as we have seen-the sky of Blue, and ours in this whorl The plural must, I would think, refer to those two The inds, clouds, and double darkness therefore refer notSun Whorl, but to Blue as well It is dark on Blue each night, but how it can be doubly dark there I cannot iive us a more exact interpretation, of course; it's a shaur present"
He uncorked the wine bottle "Don't you have a glass for this, Olivine? And a knife to cut the bread?"
"I could get theet them, but" There was reluctance in the soft, thick voice that went beyond the usual reluctance to speak at all
"But what? Please tellthe Father doesn't like s"
"I see And you're not sure that Calde Bison even knows you're up here?"
She shook her head
"Doubtless your father's right It's better not to risk your being put out of the palace, though it would seeht make Calde Bison or General Mint a useful servant Your father instructed you to sleep while he ay?"
She nodded again
"I met my own father today It was the first time I'd seen him in many years I don't believe I told you"
"No, Patera"
He s up Sun Street, looking for the place where our shop used to be; and he asked whether he could helpto locate a particular spot"
The shiprock walls, washed alular holes that had been their cellars; cracked shiprock steps returned to the parent sand and gravel before the empty doorways He looked above each that he passed for the painted sign he recalled so well: SMOOTHBONE STATIONER It had proved less durable than the soot
"Maybe I can help you" The passerby was short and stocky; his baldness exaggerated his high forehead
"If you knew this area before it burned"
The bald ht over there for years"
"Before the fire, there was a little shop that sold, oh, quills and paper, mostly Ink, notebooks, and so on Do you knohere that was?"
The bald ether, they walked to the spot "I've been away a long time" The words had almost stuck in his throat
"The quarter burned," the bald man said
"I wasn't here then"
"Neither was I, I ay up north fighting Trivigauntis Did you ever come into my shop in the old days?"
"Yes Yes, I did"
The bald le "Parietal? Was that your name?"
"No" Better, surely better, not to say too much too soon "You lived here? In the Sun Street Quarter?"