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It was not unlike any other mouth, except that it opened in the middle of her body, and the voice which issued from it was lower than any woman’s voice

“This Anchorite wonders if you want to get it out of her body, or kill it altogether? A very different procedure, depending on which it is you aiue slid out of the mouth and licked its lips

I looked down in sharief “I want to kill it I want to destroy it”

“Well enough I won’t ask you if your love is true or any of that rot—it’s not e After all, I’m a naked wo the lifestyles of wine-makers or anyone else”

“Did you choose this prison, my lady?”

“Don’t ? herself against the wall so that her chained ar belly, almost as an expectant mother would cradle her womb “Of course I chose it! Do you think the priests of the Basilica could keep me, if I did not wish it?”

The Anchorite slipped her wrists from her chains as easily as a child undresses for her bath She shook her hands at ly and pushed them back into the manacles

“I a Shadukiam is a necropolis; it is only that the streets do not know they are dying It is a slow poison, a rot that takes centuries to kill Love of silver, love of beauty, l

ove of seearchs do not care what justice is, only what seems just They do not care what mercy is, only what appears merciful Thus justice and mercy will always escape the pig I aes of Shadukiaive to those who are treated hat seeive When a Monopod comes to me, I open my hair and show him my true s and I tell them secrets in a cloud of feathers When a priest comes, when a banker comes, I roll my eyes and piss on their shoes, and they think I am mad”

I knelt—which is not easy for us—and pressed my lips briefly to that secret mouth, in sacrament and thanks When I pulled away, I saw tears shine in the Anchorite’s eyes

“Then I have no thanks enough, and whether you like the word or no, I will call you Lady Tell me how to kill the Yi”

Thewell is filled with rain “The only thing that can destroy the spirit of a Yi and force it to the underworld, the only thing that will bind it and keep it fro the body of another dead wretch, is to pierce the Yi through the eye with the golden talon of a Griffin”

“Then I shall seek out the Griffin”

“Ah, I am sorry, my boy, but there are only two left in the world The Ariold The fe Sea; the male, called Jin, at the peak of the Red Mountain of Nuru, whose slopes will blind you before you approach its s his or her talons for grieving lovers”

“Nevertheless, I will seek out the Griffin I cannot do less for my Tova I cannot leave her like this, to be used up and discarded when she no longer even bears the face I knoell”