You were the goddess of music too, Molpe. I ought to have remembered that. I could use a cheering song. And I have sung, Molpe. I really have, although I was not thinking specifically of you. Oh, Molpe! Please, Molpe, dear old Molpe, goddess of kites and childhood, doesn't that count for something?

The point of light had become a rectangle. Still very far, and still very small; but distinctly a rectangle. Which god had light? Molpe? Molpe had autumn leaves, vagrant scraps of paper, wild birds, clouds, and all the other light things. So why not light itself?

"Pas, eh? Solar god, er, sun god. Go toward the light, child, hey? Steer by the sun."

What about the stars, Patera? Was Pas the god of stars, too? No, he could not be, because the stars burned outside Pas's whorl.

Not just in manteion, Molpe-but I sang there every Scylsday as a boy.

Miraculous Molpe, wind-borne on high, Reaches her realm to the lands of the sky. Dance for us, Molpe! Sing in our trees, Send us thy breath, the sweet, cooling…

The old hymn faded and was gone with his cracked and lonely voice. Tartaros was the god of night and dark places, Tartaros who had been Auk's friend, walking with Auk, his hand in Auk's. There was no god's hand in his own, nothing but the stick that he had picked up a moment before. Was there a stick god? A god of wood and tree? A god or goddess for carpenters and cabinetmakers? If there was any, he could not think of it.

Smoke. He stopped to sniff. Yes, wood smoke. Very faint, but wood smoke.

How hot it was!