"Karg's Ultimate, Corbey." A man called from where he sat at another leg of the table. "Sometimes known as the ultimate in absurdity and old before Wendis was born."
"But if Debayo should succeed?" Corbey paused and looked at the assembled guests. "Remember, contacting the dead would be only the beginning. Once that secret is learned then the dead will no longer be divorced from us. They will, in a sense, continue to exist. And that which does not die is immortal. That is what Debayo is after. Not words spoken to ghosts but the secret which, will banish death forever."
An ambitious project but one in which Dumarest had no immediate interest. As talk flowed around and across the central mass of swirling vapor he leaned back and looked around. The guests were more soberly dressed now but still bizarre to one who had known the strict formality of High Families and ruling courts. No two gowns were alike and even the men wore clothing strictly to their personal taste. Blouses in a variety of colors, slashed, puffed, bound, ornamented, graced with fine tassels, decorated with intricate piping. Hair was streaked and blotched in rainbow hues, faces painted, eyes tinted, enlarged, enhanced with shaven brows and applied cosmetics. Among them he looked a drab fowl among peacocks. Even Sardia in her best gown of shimmering silk touched with ruffs of contrasting brilliance looked dull.
She looked at him and smiled then turned as a servant poured wine into her glass.
They had made an appearance for the first time and Dumarest watched them with interest. Small, delicately made, dressed in somber blue the color of lead, they drifted like wraiths, emotionless, soundless, unobtrusive.
Girls, he decided, or young boys, it was impossible to tell which. But they were nothing like the woman he had seen in the shadows on the path. Nor did they resemble the shapes he had seen lurking in the greenery. A different breed? The result of genetic selection which aimed at smallness and lack of sexual characteristics? A deliberate policy which ensured a supply of tamed and timid servitors?
One touched his arm as he moved and he felt thinness and fragile bone and saw wide, empty eyes which glanced at him once then lowered as if confused. A girl, he was sure. It had to be a girl, the contact had been female and the structure of the facial bone, the manner of walking due to a widening of the pelvis-it had to be a girl.
Or something which had been surgically achieved and which now had no sexual definition at all in the accepted sense.
Would they have done that?
He glanced at Ursula, leaning back in her chair, breasts prominent, mouth open to reveal the flash of teeth as she smiled. A lovely woman-but never had beauty been a guarantee of gentle behavior. Cornelius? No, he was too much an artist to subject flesh to such distortion, and yet cities had been burned in the name of art and men and babies set to die screaming for a musical accompaniment. How to tell? How ever to be sure?
"Your wine, Earl." Ursula was looking at him. "Is it to your taste?"
He hadn't touched it and she had noticed. A breach of etiquette in any such gathering. Now, lifting the goblet, he tasted sweetness and a cloying something which stung his tongue with acrid prickles. It vanished when he ate a cake containing tart fruits and a savory paste.
Meats followed, a variety of vegetables, compotes of fruit and nuts, wafers of spiced bread, cakes containing savory delights, sweets which stung and pastes which tantalized.
Then, the tables cleared of dishes, came the entertainment.
It was new to Dumarest's experience.
No performers made their entry and no musicians provided accompaniment. Instead, a man rose from where he sat, stepped into the writhing mist and began to sing in a cracked voice. Another followed him and jumped and twisted in a series of involved acrobatics, hands and feet vanishing into the mist which now had lowered to spread like an insubstantial carpet over the floor. A woman shrilled like a captive bird, another played an instrument like a guitar and harp combined.
Two men played at war.
Sardia laughed as they faced each other with blades carefully blunted. Knives which would have required an effort to cut butter and lacked the edge even to sever string. Mock blades used for practice, clashing as they met, ringing, cutting through the air as the men crouched and emulated fighters.
No, not emulated. Dumarest stared at them, his eyes narrowed, watching, evaluating. The feet moved as they should, the hands were correctly poised, the movements were those lauded by the classical school which was not necessarily the best. That title was reserved for the teaching which a man followed and won by following. But for the dilettantes the men provided a spectacle which they could appreciate.
Only Sardia mocked.
"Look at them, Earl! Ten to one you could take them both with only one arm. Twenty, you would gut the pair within five minutes!"
She had indulged herself with wine and was, while not drunk, not so sober as she thought. Her voice rose again over the clash of steel.
"They want entertainment, Earl! Give it to them!
Give them real blood and real pain! Give them something to think about!"
"Sardia!"
"Shut up!" She threw off Cornelius's hand. "Don't try to stop my talking. I've had enough of that. Talk is for fools. Words to entertain the passengers you've bought and carried home like toys. Well, I'm not a toy. And I don't entertain for nothing. You want real entertainment? Ask Earl to give it to you. That man can fight He can fight as well as I can dance."
"Dance?" Ursula reared up in her chair. "You claim to be able to dance?"
"I make no claims." Sardia shook her head, suddenly aware of what she had done. "And I mean no offense. It was just that I was-"
"Bored?" Ursula's smile was devoid of humor. "You, bored? My dear, you don't know the meaning of the word. But you mentioned dancing."
"She's drunk too much," said Cornelius. "You have potent wine, Ursula. And the children were over-generous."
Children? Dumarest looked for the servants but they had gone. Had they been children? It was possible as most things were. Or was that just a euphemism?
"They do as they are ordered," said Elittia from where she sat at the captain's side. "But I am intrigued. A dancer, you say?"
"No. Not now. The wine-"
"Oiled your tongue. I understand. But once, surely, you could claim to know a little of the art."
Tuvey said, "Leave it, woman."
"Orders, Captain?"
"Sense. Drink some wine and sing us a song or something. Don't throw oil on a flame."
Advice she didn't follow and Dumarest sensed why. Jealousy showed in her painted face, in the glitter of her eyes, a flame which leaped and died but which he noticed before the bland mask was again in position.
"A dancer," she mused. "And, why not, a challenge? Now for the prize. This, perhaps?" Color glowed as she produced something from beneath her robe. "How about this?"
"My cube!" Sardia rose to her feet "My music cube."
Bought be Tuvey from Ahdram as a gift to his hostess or as an item of trade. Used now by its present owner as bait.
"Your cube? Not yet, my dear, but if you can dance better than Ursula it is yours. You agree?" Then, as Sardia hesitated, her voice grew harsh. "You had enough to say before and were eager enough to boast of the prowess of your friend. Are we to assume that it was only the wine at work? If so, an apology-"
"No!" The old woman had been clever with a cunning learned from her paramour or one he had learned from her. Sardia fell into the trap. "I've nothing to apologize for. If it will entertain the company I will dance. And if the cube is a prize I will try to win it."
But not too hard, thought Dumarest. Remember you are a guest. Don't try too hard.
Advice she didn't hear and, if she did, would have ignored.
Chapter Eight
The cube itself provided the music, a susurrating rhythm which held the sensuous beat of drums and the thin, frenzied wail of pipes. A tempo gaged to the beating of a heart so that, as it accelerated, so did the organ with the consequent release of adrenaline, the heightening of emotional fervor until pleasantry verged into hysteria.
Exciting music in a theater where space separated the audience from the stage and those performing. Insane to use a tavern where the dancer could be touched and men carried weapons and had the will to use them. Unwise even in this house before such people when it was played in the spirit of challenge.
Ursula said, "Will you dance first, Sardia, or shall I?"