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Gaspare sank to his knees. He yanked the pack from his back and began to pull it apart, until the
pearl inlay of the lute belly shone under the moon like the spirit's wings.
"Play for me," he demanded, thrusting the beautiful instrument at the ghost. "Play for me this minute,
before you turn to moonlight or I wake up and it will be too late. For my worst fear, old partner, is that I
will forget what you sounded like, who were who are the finest musician in
Damiano shook his head, and the gray wings gathered closer. "There is no time left for that, Gaspare.
I AM moonlight; I came with the moon and will fade with it. Besides the lute and the playing of it is
yours. But I will tell you one very important thing old partner& "
Gaspare leaned close to the dimly shining spirit, trying to quiet his ragged breath. Damiano's serious
face grew clear, and more intent, even as the rest of him darkened.
"Gaspare. In music, as in everything else, 'best' is an empty word. Don't strive to be best, or you will
wake up one day and know yourself no good at all."
Saaras voice rapped out. "Enough! The moon is almost gone! What did you mean, Darni? That he
might know the way to Satan's Hall?"
The ghost's smile returned again, ruefully. A ghostly hand laid itself very lightly on Gaspares bosom.
"There." The words came faintly. "He knows it there, for pride calls to pride." Gaspare gasped and
shrank away, but the spirit consoled him.
"I am not saying you are wicked, Gaspare, nor that you belong to the Devil's own. Don't be a fool
like I was, to let him make you believe that! But you& like me& may have an understanding of Satan.
Raphael wonders if that is what men are for, did you know? To understand the misery of wickedness, as
angels cannot. To feel pity for it."
The hand, almost invisible now, rose to touch Gaspares still unbristly chin. "I'll help you as I can, old
friend. I
haven't forgotten that you were a very good manager to me."
Gaspare swallowed hard. He wanted to believe he felt the touch of that hand. "And I, sheep-&
Damiano. I pray for your peace each night when I think to pray, of course."
"I know," whispered Damiano, and then Gaspare's eyes could no longer see anything.
Saara rose to her feet, her trembling hand raised before her. "Farewell, love," she called to the air.
"Love," came back the reply, or else an echo.
The moon was gone.
"What did he mean?" demanded Gaspare, as the whites of his eyes glinted at Saara.
The Lapp woman subjected Gaspare to an uncomfortable scrutiny. "He meant," she said at last, "that
you can tell me how to find and enter Satan's stronghold."
"He meant that?" Both Gaspare's hands clapped to the sides of his head. "I know, Satan's
stronghold?" His stiff fingers stood up like antlers. "If he knows I know that, then he knows a lot more
about me than I do about myself!"
Saara yawned, glancing up at the starlit sky. "That is the first wise thing I have ever heard from your
mouth, Gaspare." She walked over to him, somewhat stiff from her hours on the chill earth. She laid her
hand on his rather pointed red head and rumpled his hair. "Come now: It's time to sleep. In the morning
we can worry at the spirit-puzzles."
4
The night was more confusing than the daytime. During some hours Raphael slept, forgetting pain,
abandonment, and the unpleasant feeling of being cold. But these interludes were interrupted by
wakefulness, which, like a prod ding finger, reminded him he was lost. And toward morning he was
visited by an experience as miserable as wakefulness but different: his first nightmare.
It was the sparrow again, gripping a bare twig with claws more brittle than the wood, its dusty
feathers rutched against a light fall of snow.
It had no song. This vision brought with it a sense of desolation unalloyed by hope.
There was something here he was supposed to understand he knew that much, at least and with
undemanding patience Raphael was prepared to let the dream unfold until he did understand. But with the
first light the slave women began to stir in their chains, and very soon Perfecto (who had also spent a very
bad night) was awake and kicking everybody else except Hakiim into rising. His kick to Raphael was
perfunctory, for, truth to tell, Perfecto felt an inexplicable distrust of this gift almost amounting to terror.
The new slave did not respond to the urging, because he was not yet finished with his dream. But with
the increasing noise and bustle of the camp, the dream finished with him; it flew off, offended.
Still Raphael did not move. He had an idea that if he kept his eyes closed long enough if he denied
the activity around him long enough they would all pack up and go away. And that seemed very
desirable this morning.
He listened to the chatter of the women and the bray of the mules. His throat tightened with
unconscious imitation of the noises both made. Stop it, he told himself. Rest again. Make it go away.
Perfecto came back, and the kick he delivered was harder. "Get up, idiot!" the Spaniard snarled.
"We're traveling today if we have to drag you by a mule's tail."
The blow hurt, but it certainly didn't induce Raphael to obey. Instead he screwed his eyes tighter.
Make it go away.
And Perfecto did go away.
Raphael was immensely heartened. He curled into a more comfortable ball and waited for sleep to
take him again. Hakiim, the Moor, was whispering to someone close by. It was easy to ignore the sound.
The pointy little foot caught him between the ribs and its big toe jabbed and wiggled. "Get up, Pinkie!
You get up right now or I'll stuff dirt up your nose!"
It was not the threat but Djoura's tone of voice that smote him. Guilt and remorse splashed through
Raphael, all the worse for the fact that he'd no experience with either feeling. He clambered up, tripped in
his voluminous gown, rose again, and stood tottering beside her, looking down at the top of her jingling
headdress.
The Berber possessed no veil to her headdress. Her excellent teeth shone whiter against a skin as
opaque as lampblack as she gave Raphael a wolfish smile. "I knew you just needed encouragement," she
said.
Then she walked around him. He gave a yelp of pain as his dress was pulled free of the scabbing
wounds on his back. Djoura patted him as one would a horse. "There, there. Its over now. Better quick,
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