In an object which could have been a small bronze handmirror, Sparrow the Smith considered the device in the audience hall of Venkatna's palace. His left hand stroked his dog's neck, where a darker ruff marked the generally tan fur. The dog sighed comfortably. She twisted to lick her master's palm.
None of the other servants came near the open door of Sparrow's suite—cell, it might have been called, deep in the rock-cut sub-basements of Saburo's dwelling. Early on, a pair of delicate, silk-clad favorites had tittered pointedly behind raised fingers at the hulking newcomer who still wore bearskin in a place of such sophistication.
They hadn't realized how long Sparrow's arms were, or that the smith would act with no more hesitation than a white bear making its kill on the ice.
Not that he killed them. Sparrow held his victims out over the sea crashing hundreds of meters below, one wrist of either gripped in his huge left hand. Sparrow plucked off their garments, seven layers each and color-coordinated according to rules so complex that they required years to understand. The bits of silk lifted in updrafts, then disappeared into the spume trailing downwind from the spire of rock.
The smith's dog was terrified by heights and the surf roaring below. She ran back and forth, yammering her concern for her master. The braces of living metal which permitted the beast to walk on her withered hind legs clicked against the limestone surface of the terrace.
Similar braces replaced Sparrow's severed hamstrings. The hard metal sharpened the shock of his heels through the rawhide boots.
When the servants were naked except for the paint on their finger- and toenails, Sparrow set them back on the terrace. One of them gripped the stones, screaming uncontrollably. The other hurled himself into the sea with a blank look in his eyes. The act might have been either suicide or a convulsion as meaningless as the kicking legs of a pithed frog.
Saburo pretended he knew nothing of what the smith had done.
No one troubled Sparrow after that. The other servants learned quickly that the smith saw things and heard things; and they already knew that he was willing to act with ruthless certainty.
Sparrow acted as if he were a god rather than a god's servant.
Tonight the smith's dog perked up suddenly in awareness at a change so subtle that it had escaped even Sparrow's senses. The bitch whined, hoping for direction; willing to fight or flee, willing to do almost anything but leave her master.
Sparrow touched the side of the object in his hand. It became no more than it had seemed at a glance before, a bronze mirror in a frame chased with delicately-fashioned serpents, each swallowing the tail of the snake before it in the frieze.
He got to his feet. He wore a long-bladed knife in a belt sheath, but the idea of a weapon was lost against the image of Sparrow's massive, careless strength.
The walls of Sparrow's suite shook as they always did with the shock and counter-shock of waves hitting the rock and shivering up the spire in dazzling harmonies. The vibrations made dust hang in the air above bins of ore and metals, stockpiles waiting for the moment that the smith needed some particular property to shape and smelt through the Matrix into—
Anything at all. There were great smiths in the Open Lands, but there was only one Sparrow.
There was an additional component to the quivering. Something was occurring, not on this plane of the Matrix but through the Matrix itself.
Sparrow stood, facing the apparent source and flexing his hands. The bitch crept between her master's outspread legs and bared her teeth in a silent growl.
The walls fell into a series of geometric shards.
Man and dog stood in a wormhole of octagonal sheets. Sparrow had no sense of motion, but the faceted walls/ceiling/floor rotated about him as though he were in the tailings of a spiral-cut drill, being lifted inexorably to—
G G G
They were in a glade of bamboo. In the bower before them, a young woman lounged. She had oriental features and a look of godlike hauteur.
Her name was Miyoko. She was Saburo's sister, and her mere whim would scatter the atoms of the smith's being across the eight worlds of the Matrix. Sparrow watched her without expression.
For a moment, neither of the humans spoke. Sparrow's dog, released from the trembling terror of moments before, began to take an active interest in her surroundings. Birds hopped among the tops of the tall, jointed grass, flaunting their brilliant plumage. Sparrow knelt to knead his fingers into the dog's ruff, his eyes still on those of the woman.
"I have a task for you, Sparrow," Miyoko said a heartbeat after she realized that the big smith did not intend to speak first. Pretending she had not studied the man carefully, she added, "That is your name, isn't it?"
"I've willingly performed every task my master set me, lady," Sparrow said. He spoke in a low rumble with a catch in it, as though his voice had known little use of late.
If Miyoko had been stupid, she would not have been navigating officer for an Consensus exploration unit. Her nostrils flared at what she correctly understood was not refusal—but a threat, as surely as the hideous doom that Sparrow had inflicted on those who once had forced him to their will when he lived in the Open Lands. The dog stiffened at the dangerous atmosphere.
But Miyoko was not stupid . . . and she had summoned this skin-clad animal because she was afraid no one else could accomplish what she required.
"Yes," she said coolly. "It's because of Saburo that I need you. My brother is acting oddly, and I want to know why."
"Have you asked him why?" Sparrow said. His fingers continued to play with the dog, controlling the beast and providing an outlet for the smith's own nervousness. He didn't want to die, that one, despite his demeanor. . . .
"Of course I asked him!" Miyoko snapped. "He denies that there's anything wrong. I'm sure that he would tell the same foolish lie to any of the rest of us who asked him."
Not that any of the other gods would have come so far from their own self-willed purposes as to interest themselves in someone else . . . except perhaps for Hansen, and Hansen would refuse to intrude into another human's personal life.
"Anyway," Miyoko continued more calmly, "I want you to talk with him. I know Saburo does talk to you sometimes."
Though I can't imagine why, she thought; and as the thought formed, she did know why. This hulking brute would listen to Saburo, as another god would not; and he would still speak flat blunt truths to his master, as if he were unaware that a god's mere fingersnap could doom a mortal like Sparrow to death or eternal torture.
A smith spent much of his time in the Matrix. The Matrix took and gave according to immutable laws, and there was something of the same attitude in Sparrow himself.
"My brother is . . . ," Miyoko said with a gentleness which had been missing from her tone previously. "Moody. Angry. Withdrawn. I don't like to see him so unhappy, and he won't let me help him."
"Stay, girl," Sparrow murmured as he stood up.
The smith's motions were deliberate. Miyoko's eyes narrowed as she realized that the big man was not slow, only perfectly controlled. If he wanted to, he could lunge across the space between the two of them almost before the woman could form the thought that would blast Sparrow into nonexistence.
Almost. . . .
A weaver bird with a black head and brilliantly-yellow body fluttered onto Sparrow's right shoulder. It tugged at a lock of his hair. "He might not thank me for interfering either, lady," the smith said as if oblivious of the bird's strong, curved beak.
"If you're afraid—" Miyoko said.
Sparrow shook his head. The bird squawked and flung itself back into the air. "No, lady," he said. "I'm not afraid to do my duty. Aiding Saburo is a duty I've undertaken."
He smiled, gently enough, but his eyes were focused inward. "He's not a bad man, Saburo," Sparrow said softly. "I don't think he understands me, but we get along well enough."
The dog began edging to the side, pretending not to be disobeying her master's orders to stay. Sparrow stretched out a leg as solid as a treetrunk. He rubbed the beast's belly with his toe. When the smith's leg was extended, the leg brace glittered in the green-lit ambiance of the bower.
"I . . . ," said Miyoko. "You will not find me ungrateful. I've—noticed—that you appear to lack regular female companionship. If you would—"
"No, lady," Sparrow said. He was still smiling, but it was a very different expression now. "My master sees to it that my needs are taken care of whenever I require it." His visage softened. "That isn't a matter of great concern to me anyway. I have the Matrix and my work."
"But there was a woman when you lived in the Open Lands . . . ?" Miyoko said, intrigued despite herself.
"There was a woman," Sparrow agreed. His voice was without emotion and his eyes stared at a memory in the infinite distance. "Her name was Krita, and she left me. But that's no concern of yours, lady."
The dog began to whine. She sat up and pawed at the smith's thigh to break the mood that suddenly reeked in his sweat.
Sparrow smiled and bent to scratch the back of the dog's head. "Krita is a Searcher," he said without looking up at the god who had summoned him. "You would not force Krita to your will any more than you would force . . ."
He straightened; the smile slight but real enough, the rest of the sentence left unsaid.
"But I'll talk to your brother," Sparrow went on. "If he needs help—"
The smith locked his hands behind his neck and stretched, causing his biceps to swell mountainously "—then I'll help him to the limits of my strength."
His tone was as flat and certain as the approach of death.