The creed of the Original People and Pryor gulped, his eyes startled, veiling as he stared at Dumarest's enigmatic face.
"I see," he said. "I-yes, we understand each other. It will be an honor to do as you ask. But I feel at a loss. It is not right that you should leave this house without some token of my appreciation." Pryor gestured with a thin hand. "Look around. Choose. Anything you wish will be yours."
"This." Dumarest rose and picked up his wine. "I choose what this glass contains." He drank and added, "The wine- and the name of the man for whom you collected old books."
* * *
It was late when Dumarest returned to Angado's cavelike home and the apartment was deserted aside from servants who remained discreetly invisible. One answered his summons, a man who stood with quiet deference, eyes widening as Dumarest asked his question.
"A study, sir?"
"Something like that. A room with books and maps. Surely there are maps?"
"I can't be certain, sir. There was a clearance when the old owner died and the present master has been long absent. Also changes have been made." A lift of his hands emphasized his inability to be precise. "But if maps are present, sir, they could be in the desk."
"And that is where?"
In a room barren of windows lit by lamps shielded by decorated plates of tinted transparency. One with a soft carpet on the floor and erotic paintings on the ceiling to match those writhing on the walls. A library of a kind but one which would have held a bed rather than books. Now it held neither- just a chair, a display cabinet holding small artifacts, a desk which dominated the room with its massively carved and ornamented bulk. The top remained closed beneath Dumarest's hands, the maps it may have contained beyond his reach.
A small irritation and one he ignored as he returned to the main salon and stood before the wide window watching the play of colored illumination streaming upward from the mist at the foot of the waterfall. In it the curtain of water became an artist's palette alive with vibrant hues; reds and greens, blues, oranges, dusty browns and limpid violets, shards of gold and streamers of silver, changing, blending, forming transient images which dissolved as soon as recognized. A magic reflected by the rock wall facing him across the chasm, the stone taking on a strangely disturbing aspect as if the stubborn material had softened and become the door to new and alien dimensions.
From behind him a woman said, "It's beautiful, isn't it, Earl?"
She was tall, slim, wide shoulders adding to the hint of masculinity accentuated by the close-cropped silver hair which framed a broad face and deep-set eyes of vivid blue. A woman who moved with a boyish grace, no longer a girl, the maturity of near middle-age giving her a calm assurance. Her mouth, wide, the upper lip thin, curved into a smile, revealed neat and even teeth. She wore a masculine garb of pants and blouse, her femininity displayed in the fine weave, the intricate pattern of complex embroidery. Her voice was deep, resonant and Dumarest thought of the sound of fuming water.
"My lady?"
"So formal," she said. "So cautiously polite. Lhank said you were that."
"Lhank?"
"Lord Hedren Angado Nossak Karroum. When there are so many names it helps to use initials." Her laughter rose in genuine amusement. "Don't look so startled. I have a key, see?" She lifted it swinging from her fingers. "You were busy when I arrived. What did you think of the den? Lhank Five had some peculiar attributes and had a liking for the bizarre. Lhank Six was something of a prude and Lhank Seven-well, you know about him."
"And nothing about you."
"Nothing? He didn't mention me? His old and trusted friend?" Again her laughter drowned the murmur of the waterfall. "Wynne Tewson. At times I like to think that he left Lychen because of unrequited love. Now he has returned and with a new friend. A hero." Her eyes narrowed, became appraising. "There are many who will envy him."
Dumarest said, "The key you have in your hand-will it fit the desk?"
"What?" She frowned as he explained. "The desk in the den? What the hell is it doing there? Now if it was a bed maybe we could use it. Did you know that as the lights change color the paintings take on new and various forms? Speed the illumination and you get a kind of stroboscopic effect; one minute the walls are full of coupling shapes, the next a crowd of goggling voyeurs. Old Lhank certainly had imagination."
"The desk?"
"Is just that, a desk. Put in the den to get it out of the way. I can't open it but even if I could it holds nothing of value. Why are you so interested." She blinked as he told her. "Maps? You are interested in maps?"
"Just of this area. This world. I like to know where I am."
"Yes," she said. "That I can imagine. But there are other ways to find out aside from maps. How about a personally conducted tour? I've a raft waiting and we could take a ride. Go to the Steaming Hills or look at the Pearls of Toria. If you're really interested in old maps we could even pay a visit to Chenault."
The name Pryor had given him, the same as that Shakira had mentioned back in the circus of Chen Wei. The man Dumarest needed to find-but without leaving a trail others could follow.
Casually he said, "Is that why you are here? To take me on a conducted tour?"
"No. I came to bring you a message. Lhank wants you to join him."
"Do you always do what Angado wants?"
"Angado?" She smiled with a secret amusement. "Is that what you call him? How touching. Such a sweet name."
"He chose it."
"Of course. He would. His mentor called him that when he was young. The monk-did he tell you about Brother Lyndom? He had a great influence on his charge and it would have been better for Angado to have joined the Church. That or the Cyclan, but he lacked the application for that. For either, if the truth be known, an inherent weakness of character-why else should he have run away? Would you have done it, Earl? Given up the leadership of a great House and gone roving?"
"Perhaps, if the reason were strong enough."
"Such as?"
Dumarest said, meeting her eyes, "Unrequited love?"
"No!" She was emphatic in her denial. "Never that! You'd abduct the girl, fight for her, rape her, even, but never leave her."
"I was talking about love," he said. "Not lust."
"And love is sacrifice? Is that what you mean?" She thought about it for a moment then said, "You should be right. Maybe I misjudged Angado. Certainly he seems different now, more adult, more confident. He tries to hide it but it's there."
She had noticed, had others? Dumarest said, "He wants me to join him, you said. Why and where?"
"To give him moral courage, perhaps." The small mounds of her breasts lifted beneath her blouse as she shrugged. "Or to show you off to his friends-the hero with whom he battled against incredible odds and managed to survive. Give it a week and it will be you whose life he saved. Give it another and the whole thing will be forgotten. No novelty lasts long on Lychen." Her eyes moved past him to settle on the shifting lights beyond the window. "Boredom, Earl. Why are we always so bored?"
"You know the answer to that."
"Too idle, too rich, too spoiled. The cure?"
"You know the answer to that too."
"Work. Fill every minute of every hour with unremittent effort. But what if you can't work? Or don't want to work? Or there is no work to do?"
Dumarest said, "Some people are fat. They are fat because they eat too much. It's as simple as that."
"And we're bored because we're lazy-it's as simple as that. Or is it?"
"Lazy," said Dumarest. "Or afraid. No matter what reason you choose to blame, the cure lies within yourself."
"As it does with those who are too fat." She looked down at her slender figure. "Would you like me if I were fat, Earl? Great bulges here and here and here." Her hands moved to breasts, belly and buttocks. "Masses of flesh, quivering, bouncing, sagging, grotesque. The thought is disgusting. I'll never grow fat." She sucked in her stomach the action making her even more like a man. "Let's get out of here."
"To where?"