Otherwise Read Free

Bannsweek, by my hand, the Defender Fauconred, your servant.”
    He folded the letters separately, the ordinary and the preposterous, took wax, lit it in the lamp, and with his chin in his hand let the wax clot in bright crimson drops like blood on the fold of each. He pressed his ring, which showed a hand lifting a cup, into the glittering clots and watched them dry hard and perfect. He shook his head, and with a grunt pulled himself from his chair.
    The Visitor still stood motionless, looking out over the gray evening heath. The wind had increased, and plucked at the brown cloak that the younger Endwife had wrapped him in; that was his disguise, for now, and Fauconred felt his sexlessness strongly seeing him in it.
    “The herdsmen have returned,” the Visitor said.
    “Yes,” said Fauconred.
    They sat their ponies gracefully, wrapped to their eyes in dark windings that fluttered around them like bannerets. They moved the quick herd before them with flicks of long slim lashes and cries that, wind-borne, came up strangely enlarged to where Fauconred and the Visitor stood. Beyond, Old Watcher was lost in thick storm clouds that were moving over fast. The storm was the color of new iron, and trailed a skirt of rain; it was lit within by dull yellow lightnings. The roans and whites and painteds thundered before it, eyes panicky; the Drumskin’s thunder as they ran was answered by the storm’s drums, mocked by the chuckle of Fauconred’s tent-cloths rippling.
    “Beyond,” said the Visitor, lifting his gentle voice against the noise. “Farther than Old Watcher. What’s there?”
    “The Outlands,” said Fauconred. “Swamps, marshes, desolation.”
    “And beyond that?”
    “Beyond that? Nothing.”
    “How, nothing?”
    “The world has to end eventually,” said Fauconred. “And so it does. They say there’s an edge, a lip. As on a tray, you know. And then nothing.”
    “There can’t be nothing,” said the Visitor simply.
    “Well, it’s not the world,” said Fauconred. He held out a lined palm. “The world is like this. Beyond the world is like beyond my hand. Nothing.”
    The Visitor shook his head. Fauconred, with an impatient sigh, waved and shouted to a knot of red-jacketed horsemen below. One detached himself from the group and started up the long rise. Fauconred turned and ducked back inside his tent.
    He returned with the two letters under his arm, peering into a tiny goatskin-bound book, licking a thick thumb to turn its fine figured pages. He found his place, and turned the book into the light to read. The Visitor bent close to him to hear over the wind and the hooves. Carefully Fauconred made out words:
    “The world is founded on a pillar which is founded on the Deep.
    “Of the world, it is a great circle; its center is the lake island called the Hub and its margins are waste and desolate.
    “Of the pillar, it is of adamant. Its width is nearly the width of the world, and no man knows its length for it is founded on the Deep. The pillar supports the world like the arm and hand of an infinite Servant holding a platter up.”
    He turned the page and with a finger held down its snapping corner. “The sky is the Deep above,” he went on, “and as the Deep is heavy, so the sky is light. Each day the sun rises from the Deep, passes overhead, and falls again within the Deep; each night it passes under the Deep and hastens to the place where it arose. Between the world and the sun travel seven Wanderers, which likewise arise and descend into the Deep, but with an irregular motion…”
    He closed the book. Up the rise came the red-jacketed man he had summoned. The rider pulled up, his horse snorted, and Fauconred took the bridle.
    “It’s possible,” said the Visitor.
    “Possible?” Fauconred shouted. “Possible?” He handed up the two letters to the beardless redjacket. “To the Protector Redhand, at his father’s house, in the City.”
    The wind had begun to scream. “Tell the