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"This lasts all night In the , when the sun's hot kisses fall on the water, they say, `We ether, and she releases her eggs and he his sper after that The bird talked a little, but it was not Scylla and did not make sense Finally I said, "Father wanted to knohat you're thinking about that keeps us froanu"

Father told ht to You're going to take him somewhere where he can be a real man I think he owes it to you to tell you"

"He has," Father said, and that shutit was before Father started talking again, but it was a long tiain his voice was so quiet I could hardly hear

"Soon it will be evening," he said "If we still haven't gone, we'll go up onto the roof of this house Standing on the tiles I will point and you will peer until at last you see a certain di way from here Think of it now, the sky like black velvet streith dia the dia that star, an ancient whorl On that whorl, Juganu, there is an old city you have seen, and through it a river Its waters are turbid and foul, and seem scarcely to move You know that river; you have sailed on it There are women in that river, wos of the sea goddess, but of real woer than children Their hair is green and streams behind them when they swim, their nipples black, and their eyes and lips and nails as red as blood

"Steps wet and black with river water lead fro tenements There are women in nearly every room of those tenements, women ill sell their bodies for a round piece of stamped metal Some are beautiful, and many are less than beautiful in ways you may find attractive"

He said more about that, but I do not re to write it

Then he said, "Follow the street higher, and you ates of their necropolis It is to that necropolis, that silent city of the dead, that we go; but first we must visit the lander beyond it, the ancient lander where the torturers ply their trade The torturers aretheir prisoners They are helpless and afraid, confined to underground cells and grateful-those who have not lost their reason-to anyone who befriends them Many were the concubines of the calde of the city, and these are the fairest of the fair Day after day they groom and perfume themselves for the rescuer of whom they dream, the rescuer who for most will never come Tall and fair they think him, and a thousand tiive him the caresses that have , and it see way froht and stars, like there were stars painted on the ceiling instead of the white flowers, and broken stuff like glass I sat up just as the bird flew through the break, and the first person I saas the girl that had been inside it Here I wish I could really say how she looked It was not exactly happy and was not exactly angry either She looked the way a person does when all the deciding and worrying is over, and her eyes could have burned right through you

Father sat up then, and Juganu Juganu looked the same as on the river boat, but Father looked the way he had in Capsicuer Before he had looked a lot like our real father, and Hide says that is the way he always looked on the Red Sun Whorl Now he did not He looked serious, but he had two eyes again and they just shone He got up as if he did not weigh anything, and helped irl said, "That it?" and pointed

Naturally I looked where she pointed There was a little paved place down beloith a post in thewall that had fallen down in one place to where it was just a pile of slabs

On the other side was a ce it seemed like the whole whorl had to be dead and buried in it There were graves with every kind of uess of the people ere dead and all sorts of things, and pillars with things on top Between therass, and little narrow paths that looked white I found out later that they wereway down the side of the big hill, and past it you could barely s Father had talked about, and the river

The girl had taken hold of his ar to pull him over to the hatch in the o She said, "We here! Why wait?"

He said, "For shadelow, of course Do you io down there and wander about?"

He alore that black robe that he had the corn in, but it was different, and it started changingwas that it kept getting blacker and blacker It got so black I thought it could not get any blacker, then it kept on getting blacker after that until it looked like what Azoth did when the blade cah that boat Finally it was like it was not there at all, but like you were blind in the part of your eye that was looking at it

There was a hood, too, with red trianu went over and lifted the hatch while Father and the girl were arguing and said he was going down but if he got caught he would not tell about us Father explained that they could not hold him anyway, and helped hiht sword that was sharp on both sides, and told him the name of his friend and told hi tiirl, but I did not pay much attention Mostly I looked at the other landers around ours, and the river and the city I will not try to tell about it, because I could not You could not is were like , they were just bule where Sineas, how dangerous it was But that city looked worse to ues of stone and brick, and millions and millions and millions of people that orse than any aniht then, if I could

The bird ca, "Good place! Good hole!" I never did like it much, and I think it was afraid of me because I look like my brother but I am somebody else Anyway, I liked it less after that, and I am not sorry that it ith him

Then a boy came up He was one of the apprentices Fro to be h You could see he was going to be tall

We sat on the floor then, Father, the girl, the boy, and me The boy asked Father about his book, whether he was still writing it Father said, "No, I've put it aside forever If my sons or my ish to read what I have written, they may But if they want it finished, they will have to finish it themselves What about yours? The last ti to write sohed and said, no, he was going to wait until he hadI have reh No one would believe you"

It is exactly the way I feel about Father I kne right it was as soon as I heard it, and it is still right The others are going to write all the other parts of this, about the wedding and all that My part is al to try to say it, to tell you about Father the way he seeht here Even if you do not believe me, even if you think that what I say cannot have been true, you will knoay that I thought it was It will let you see hiood