Istu awakened

CHAPTER TWELVE

The whole populace of High Medurim had turned out to greet the Wyvern, complete with a skirling and banging military band, colored streamers and a troupe of naked dancing girls and boys, without which no public occasion was complete.

'At last,' Erimenes had said, puffing up like a courting frog, 'we receive attention commensurate with our status.'

Burly stevedores had swung Wyvern's fat stern up to the pier. The joyous tumult climaxed as the long wooden ramp was let down and the weary, shaken, but nonetheless gratified travellers set foot on the ancient stone of High Medurim. Singing traditional songs of welcome, the crowd swept forward…

… and engulfed Zolscher Banshau, hauling his vast bulk up onto its collective shoulders, bearing him forward in triumph to a state carriage waiting at the waterfront. An assembly of great and learned men, if their phenomenal beards and dizzingly tall hats were any indication, welcomed him aboard, while gorgeous maidens wearing diaphanous robes and foil haloes placed a wreath on his head and smothered his moustache with kisses. Magister Banshau, lying at ease on a sumptuous divan, beamed from the depths of gaudy floral wreaths as if he'd been named the Twenty-fourth Wise One of Agift. Shouting with joy, the crowd pelted along the sidewalks on either side of the carriage. The band fell in behind while nude brightly painted dancers scattered flowers and hard candies.

'Welcome to High Medurim,' Ortil Onsulomulo called down sarcastically to Fost and Moriana from the sterncastle. Not even Erimenes had anything to say to that.

They were still standing at the foot of the ramp when a carriage appeared. A fraction the size of the one bearing away the Wirixer mage, it was impressive enough, black enamelled and polished so obsessively that a courtier could use it as a mirror. The muffled, hooded driver brought the landau to a noisy halt in front of Fost and Moriana. A curtained door swung open and a clean-shaven man wearing a gleaming black uniform stepped out.

'I am General Falaris, Imperial Intelligence Service,' he announced. 'You are the Princess Moriana?' Startled, Moriana nodded. He bowed perfunctorily. 'Please come with me, Your Highness.' He shot hurried looks in both directions. 'Get in quickly before anyone sees.'

Fost felt nostalgic tears sting his eyes. 'Imperial Intelligence' was a contradiction in terms. Any Medurimin above the age of three knew who the shiny black landaus belonged to. They could as effectively keep secrets by hiring criers to proclaim that mysterious visitors had arrived by ship to confer with the Emperor.

The general's invitation had not included Fost. Moriana solved that problem by grabbing his arm and dragging him into the box after her. General Falaris looked doubtful at this turn of events but said nothing.

Fost went to Emperor Teom the Decadent's palace in a daze. The familiar sights and sounds of his birth city overwhelmed him. The richness, the poverty, the places of learning, the pits of dismal ignorance. He peered out from behind the golden curtains in the landau and saw urchins begging in the streets, old men, toothless and blind, directing pickpockets and cuffing the younglings incapable of stealing enough. He had been there – once. Now he was on his way to the palace of the Emperor.

'Welcome to High Medurim,' Emperor Teom said languidly. Draped over the arm of his throne, his wife and sister Temalla smiled and nodded in greeting, as well.

Moriana and Ziore bowed. Fost stood upright until a none too gentle elbow in his ribs from Moriana made him bend forward at the waist. It wasn't that he meant to defy the Emperor. He was simply struck numb by meeting the man who had once possessed so much power over him as a youth.

'The blue ghost does not bow.' hissed the small man at Teom's left. 'He does not pay proper reverence to Your Ineffability.'

Teom waved a hand. The fingers were slightly doughy and devoid of rings. 'Peace, Gyras. Were I fourteen centuries old I'd not be reverent to a mere emperor either.' His voice rang in mellifluous low tones. Though he sprawled bonelessly across his gilded throne, he seemed to be a tall, well-proportioned man.

Flushing turquoise in pleasure, Erimenes performed a deep bow. His domed forehead sank alarmingly into the marble floor before he straightened.

'Your Radiance is too kind,' he murmured. 'Far be it from me to contradict you, however, but I must point out I am fifteen centuries old, and a shade over, rather than fourteen.'

A growl emerged from Gyras's throat. Teom silenced him with a wave. The dwarven advisor drew his balding head down angrily, accentuating the hump on his back.

'I've never seen an Athalar spirit before, though I've heard of them,' Teom said.

'We are alike,' said Erimenes, fawning and again bowing so his head vanished through the floor clear to his brows, 'for I have never before seen an emperor.'

With superhuman effort, Fost bit back his reply. Fortunately, Te-malla interrupted Erimenes's sally into diplomacy by fixing Fost with big dark eyes made bigger by a liberal application of kohl and saying, 'Oh, but you must have had a long, hard journey.' Her husky voice accentuated the adjectives with undue emphasis. The Empress's voice had a curious quality about it that sent shivers up Fost's spine.

'Yes,' Teom said. A light came into his brown eyes. Reading his mood, his sister leaned forward and slipped a hand into a fold of his robe. She was of medium height, plump and with tightly curled brown hair hanging to her shoulders. Though she had not withstood the onslaught of middle years as well as her husband-brother, she was far from unattractive. The breasts hanging above the high waist of her blue gown were ample without being ostentatious, and the gown's gauzy fabric was drawn taut by her position poised on the throne arm, revealing a pleasing curve of hip and thigh. Her left hand toyed with the ringlets framing Teom's face, while her shoulder rose and fell in a gentle motion.

Fost held his breath when he realized what she did to her brother. Teom's eyes were shut and he sighed in pleasure. Fost felt Temalla's eyes burning into his. Moriana tensed at his side.

'You are welcome to High Medurim,' the Emperor repeated breathlessly, 'though I'm afraid it was a bit unorthodox.' It had been that, Fost thought, looking everywhere but at Teom's lap, his sister's smiling face, Gyras's hot glare and the narrowing of Moriana's eyes. He wound up gazing down at his feet. The sight of his boots among the mad geometric patterns of the carpet intensified his unease.

Teom stiffened, then sighed. Temalla's smile broadened. Un-speaking, she promised Fost unspeakable delights. Sweat poured down the inside of Fost's tunic. He was very glad its hem came down below crotch level. Teom's eyes opened.

'I apologize for the furtive way you were brought to the Palace,' he said, as if nothing had happened. 'Given the sensitive nature of your mission – Magister Banshau gave us a somewhat garbled account by means of that mystical communication Wirixer mages use – we thought it best your arrival be kept secret for the moment.'

'We are most grateful that Your Effulgence chose to receive us as promptly as you did,' said Moriana. 'Now, if we could get down to the matters I've come to discuss.'

'No, dear Princess!' Teom cried, holding up his hand. 'We have ordered an extraordinary session of the Assembly for the day after tomorrow to hear your proposals. Time enough then for me to hear what you've come to say.'

'So much for secrecy,' muttered Fost. Gyras looked as if he'd just found a family of dung lizards nesting in his beard.

'Time enough to send these beggars packing, Your Magnificence,' Gyras said in a voice like two stones grinding together.

'Gyras,' chided Temalla, 'where's your hospitality?' She jumped to her feet and stretched with a litheness belying her years. 'Personally, I'm looking forward to entertaining our visitors.' She looked directly at Fost. 'Will you excuse me? I'm late for my riding lesson.' She glided out, licking her fingers.

'Good Gyras,' said Teom, rising, 'we thank you for your attendance on our person.' At this formal dismissal, Gyras folded his hands across the front of his frayed gray robe, looked plague and poison at Fost and Moriana, then followed the Empress out. 'Now, my friends,' Teom said. The words trembled with barely suppressed excitement. 'I should like to show you my great Project. It was to complete this Project that I imported Magister Banshau to High Medurim. And once you behold with your own eyes what the Magister's science has made possible, I believe you shall understand the extravagant reception we gave him!'

'And here on the right,' the Emperor waved his hand so that the fingertips protruded ever so briefly outside the shade cast by the parasol, 'we have spider monkeys from the Northern Continent. Careful, there, good Erimenes! If you regard them too obviously they tend to become excited. And they fling handfuls of dung with fearful accuracy.' He chuckled indulgently at the quaint proclivities of his pets. Erimenes recoiled.

'Why do you care if they pelt you with offal?' demanded Ziore. 'They couldn't possibly hit you.'

'It is beneath the dignity of an Athalar scholar to be bombarded with excrement by members of inferior species. Besides, what if one of the little monsters drops a ringer in my jar?' He shuddered and turned his aquiline profile away from the monkeys' wizened, curious black faces.

'On the left are more exotic specimens. Lizard monkeys from the Isles of the Sun.' Fost peered at them with interest. Though shaped like the mammalian monkeys across the gravel walkway, the lizard monkeys were obviously reptilian. Their skins were scaly green, their eyes flittering black beads, and tiny hands and feet three-clawed. Their bellies were yellow, as were the ruffs of skin around the necks of the males. They had prehensile tails, several hanging upside down regarding the humans with sprightly curiosity.

Moriana shuddered and turned away. No doubt they reminded her of the Zr'gsz. Fost thought they were cute, but as he reflected on it, they began to make him uneasy. In the Library of High Medurim he had once read that many savants, including Wirixer genetic magicians, believed humanity had evolved from monkeys not dissimilar to those penned on the right side of the walkway.

Might not the Zr'gsz…?

He hurried to catch up with Moriana and Teom. The Emperor was as proud as a small boy showing off his famous menagerie. It was indeed impressive. Pens on either side contained small bits of alien environment for the comfort of the imprisoned fauna. He sauntered past tall tanks of some durable crystal filled with water, through which clouds of fishes small and not so small swirled and flashed brilliantly in the evening sunlight.

'Where are the naked dancing girls?' demanded Erimenes in a petulant whisper. 'The orgies in the street, the extravagant displays of wealth? I am sorely disappointed in this High Medurim of yours, Fost.'

Fost winced. It wasn't his fault. Still, he had been raised on tales of the opulence of life in the Imperial court. It had been something of a shock when they were ushered into Teom's presence in the private audience chamber and found it so austere. Likewise, Fost wondered at finding Teom attended only by his sister-wife and the dwarf advisor. Where were the coveys of courtiers said to follow him everywhere, panting with eagerness to obey his every whim? He admitted his puzzlement to Erimenes.

'But you did see nude dancing girls, Erimenes,' he pointed out. 'This morning on the pier. They came out to greet Magister Banshau along with the cherubs and savants and that tinny marching band, remember?' 'But they were too far away to see anything.'

As they came back within earshot, Teom was pointing with pride at a shaggy mountain with a tail at both ends and two huge yellow tusks curving from the vicinity of the thicker tail.

'A Jorean mammoth, from Amsi Province in the south. They tame the beasts as dray-animals, I'm told, as we do hornbulls.' He indicated a block of ice melting in the corner behind the listless, hairy giant. 'It's fortunate we have an adequate ice house in the Palace. Otherwise, the poor beast would swelter to death in this frightful heat.' He turned to nod at Fost, his smile mocking.

'Perhaps I had motives beyond secrecy in receiving you so surreptitiously and informally, friend Longstrider. Perhaps I felt a yearning to meet with people who had been to strange places and done wonderful things, and talk with them as people – not as mannikins decked with plumes and ribbons and walled off from all true contact by layer after layer of protocol. And without a flock of gaudy, useless songbirds fluttering about cooing in awe at my every utterance. Their songs are pretty, I confess, but they are also empty.' He reached out and touched Fost fleetingly on the shoulder with his long, soft, pallid fingers. 'Perhaps one day I should like to sit down and hear you tell me about life in my city's streets.' His tone was serious and his eyes were touched with bleakness. Fost almost missed his next words. 'That might be the most alien environment of all, to me.'

Then he laughed and turned away, his robe swirling about his legs. 'And perhaps a man as well-travelled as you should consider how keen must be the hearing of an Emperor to survive Palace intrigues long enough to keep the throne.'

Fost hardly thought of himself as a citizen of Medurim any more. But still… the Emperor had touched him and named him friend. In a way, that was as strange and wonderful as anything befalling him. They came to the end of the rows of enclosure.

'Here's a sentimental favorite of mine,'Teom said. It was a seashore enclosure, a rocky beach and a pool dark with seaweed. Resting with half its bulk in the water was a mottled brown sea toad as big as Magister Banshau and covered with warts. 'It's three hundred years old,' Teom said. 'It sings with a beautiful, high soprano when the moons are full. But mostly I keep it because it reminds me of my dear, departed mother, the Dowager Empress.' He snuffled and wiped his eye. Fost stared. The thing did look like the late Dowager.

"What do you think of my menagerie?' Teom asked. He made a slight hand gesture and a balding servant appeared from nowhere bearing iced goblets and a flask of wine. Erimenes nodded. This was more like it, although the servitor didn't fit his conception of what a servitor should be. Too old, too male.

Fost sipped the cool wine. It was sweetened to the verge of cloying, but refreshing nonetheless.

'It's beautiful, Your Supremacy,' Moriana said. 'But am I correct in assuming it's not the Project you spoke of?'

'Indeed you are, Princess.' Teom had taken no wine himself. 'When you've refreshed yourselves, I will show you the great work whose culmination Magister Banshau has brought about.' He closed the parasol and handed it to the servant.

Moriana set her empty goblet back on the tray held by the immobile servant, saying, 'I'm ready.'

Teom led them through a door in the northwest corner of the Palace. Inside was cool and dim. They passed down a narrow corridor toward a shine of lamplight and a low murmur of conversation.

A stentorian whoop of joy echoed around a large chamber as they entered. Magister Banshau stood before them, his garish garments mercifully hidden under a white smock, holding his hands above his head and performing a dancing bear two-step of glee. He saw them and uttered another joyous bellow.

'Your Imperiousness! I have suceeded! I, the Magister Zolscher Banshau, now assume my undoubted rightful place among the greatest of Wirixer mages!' And he seized Teom by the arm and waltzed him around the room.

A few old men in robes who sat crosslegged in a semi-circle on the floor looked up reprovingly at the commotion, then went back to reading in droning monotones. Fost spared them barely a glance; even the bizarre spectacle of the Emperor of High Medurim practically swept off his feet by a balloon-shaped wizard couldn't compete for his attention with the beast occupying the center of the room.

It was huge, the size of the Jorean mammoth and more, sporting a featureless hump, corpse-white and touched with blue-gray near its base. It lay in a pool of horribly bubbling brown, viscous liquids. The wrinkled, robed men were arranged around the pit, and they appeared to be reading to it.

'It looks,' Erimenes said, tapping his nose judiciously, 'like an enormous mushroom cap.'

'You're right, my excellent Athalar friend!' Banshau released the Emperor and started to grab the genie. He only succeeded in dispersing Erimenes's thin substance. As Erimenes coalesced in a blue whirlwind, the mage grabbed Fost and kissed him wetly on both cheeks. His moustache was redolent of wine and salt fish. 'It is a fungus. But a fungus such as the world has never seen!'

How a new breed of fungus merited such excitement escaped Fost. 'Where is – where is it?' Teom almost danced with excitement.

'There.' Banshau pointed to a door opposite the one through which they'd entered. In a single bound Teom was pulling it open and tumbling inside like a child opening his Equinox presents. Fost followed, careful not to jostle the imperial personage while craning his neck from side to side to see.

The cubicle was bare of furnishings. A small, round man sat crosslegged on the stone floor. His skin was very pale. At the sound of the door, he raised his head. His cheeks swelled in an infectious smile. Colorless eyes surrounded by laugh-lines glowed. 'Your Radiance,' he said, bowing.

'O Oracle!' cried Teom. He fell to his knees. 'This is the greatest moment of my life! My name shall live forever for this!' 'And mine,' added Banshau.

'Oracle?' Erimenes's brow creased. 'I remember the Magister saying something about an Oracle aboard the ship. Who is this Oracle, anyway?'

'I am, honored sir,' said the pale, round man. A pudgy hand pointed past the kneeling Emperor and Fost to the swollen fungus mound. 'And that is the Oracle, as well.' His merry laughter peeled like a bell.

'Many years ago,' the Emperor said around a mouthful of food, 'a certain Wirixer mage was on an expedition to the Isles of the Sun. He gathered specimens himself, since several of his assistants had been killed and eaten as a result of some slight unpleasantness with the Golden Barbarians.' He paused to wet his throat from a goblet of iced water. 'He was wading in a tidepool, whistling to himself. He lost his footing and stopped whistling while he caught his balance – only to hear the last few bars of his tune whistled back at him from nearby.

'On investigating, he found the sound had come from a fist-sized growth at the edge of the pool. A small amphibious predator lived nearby; the fungus imitated the cries of various seabirds and lured them into the creature's reach. In turn, its droppings and the remnants of its meals nourished the fungus. Remarkable symbiotic development.' Temalla made a face at the mention of droppings. She picked a leg of roast fowl from the silver platter and began to tear at it with small, neat teeth, gazing at Fost as if she'd decided to have him for the next course.

'The mage brought the fungus and its partner home. He waited until it produced spores, then went to work. The work was long and exacting, but over generations the Wirixers altered the nature of the fungus. It was found to have a rudimentary consciousness. By selective breeding and the most cogent and subtle genetic enchantments they expanded it until it equalled a man's. And then exceeded it.

'Their aim was to produce a variety of the mimic fungus that could store information, sort of within its own, well, mind, and not only produce facts but actually make deductions of its own.'

'But why bother, Your Sublimity?' asked Erimenes. 'You've the Library. It's the greatest in the world. Or was, when I lived.'

'It's the greatest still, though recently it has fallen into neglect. At times, it seems I am the only Medurimin with any interest in abstract knowledge.' He took a bite of the seaweed pod marinated in brandy. 'Be that as it may, the Library possesses over ten million volumes. It contains within its walls virtually the sum total of human knowledge, of history, of nature, of the workings of politics and the Universe. And ninety-nine parts of a hundred is as good as lost. No human intellect can absorb a fraction of it.' He leaned forward. His dark eyes glowed with passion.

'But Oracle's intellect can. For the first time in human history, man can actually make use of the immeasurable trove of facts.'

Fost felt his own pulse race. He remembered his frustrations as a boy under the tutelage of the pedant Ceratith, when he had completed learning how to read and in part appreciated the sheer size of the Library. He had been frustrated to tears when the truth first struck him. To his small-boy mind it had been like being confronted with all the sweets in the world and knowing if he lived to be a thousand he could sample only a paltry few.

'How does Magister Banshau come into this?' asked Moriana. 'I gather he wasn't involved in development of the Oracle himself.' She leaned to the side to let a serving maid refill her goblet. Dusky breasts threatened to pop from the maid's tight, skimpy bodice. At long last beauteous serving girls had made an appearance, to Erimenes's vocal delight.

'You gather correctly, Princess. What Banshau did, and what has earned him all the bounty I can bestow, is discover a new kind of nutrient. It enhances the Oracle's mental energy level so that it is capable of telepathy and projections and similar feats. Mental feats such as flourished in lost Athalau.'

The jolly, white-skinned little man who had been in the room adjoining the fungus solemnly entered and sat quietly beside Moriana. Teom smiled broadly and gestured to the man, saying, 'Tell them about this wonderous accomplishment, Oracle.' The man nodded, then spoke.

'This is similar to the mental magic that flourished in Athalau, what is now termed intrinsic magic as opposed to extrinsic, which involves manipulation of elementals and demons and other forces external to the magician.'

Fost looked at Moriana. She returned a small smile. Then she stiffened a little. Teom laughed. 'Ah, you perceive my little jest.'

'I don't,' said Fost. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing is wrong, Fost,' said Teom. 'This being you see beside the princess is nothing more than a mental projection created by the fungus.'

'A Wirixer spell,' the little man said. 'I can teach it to you, Highness, since your mind is both powerful and agile.' He laughed at Moriana's thunderstruck expression. 'The Wirixers have been at the game of magic almost as long as your folk, Princess. Do not begrudge them their little abilities.'

While this interchange took place, Erimenes was growing livid, turning gray-blue with the veins standing out at his temples. If he'd been corporeal, Fost would have feared him to be on the brink of apoplexy. Erimenes was far from resigned to the existence of a second Athalar spirit. Oracle's projection struck him as a cheap imitation of himself. It was too much to bear. He was on the point of fulminating when Oracle turned to him, eyes widening.

'Oh! It comes to me now. Your pardon, sir, I have only recently attained consciousness. But you are the spirit of Erimenes? The mighty Athalar philosopher known as "the Ethical"?' Guardedly, Erimenes admitted he was.

'This is marvelous! You are a great man, sir. Your life and works are a part of history. Ah, to think I meet in person a man of such legendary erudition and wisdom.' He clapped his hands together – through one another. Oracle blinked rapidly and said, 'Please forgive me. I haven't learned all the possibilities of projection yet.'

'Pardon me, Your Magnificence,' Fost cut in. 'It's astonishing that Oracle can project his image like that. But I don't see the importance.' Teom waved his fingers airily.

'The projection is a mere trick, a side effect, if you will. You saw the old men sitting around the nutrient pool reading?' Fost nodded. 'Well, now Oracle can absorb knowledge directly from men's brains. Not only can it pick up the accumulated knowledge of a learned man's whole life, but it can read new material as fast as a man's eyes can scan a page. Can you imagine the lifetimes that will save teaching it?'

Having stripped the drumstick to bare bone, Temalla flung it over her shoulder and slumped back in her chair.

'You've grown so tedious, Teom,' she complained. 'All you can talk about is that horrid giant toadstool.'

Teom's fist slammed onto the table, setting goblets dancing. His own crystal goblet jumped off the table to shatter on the floor. 'It is not a giant toadstool. Oracle is the greatest achievement in

High Medurim in a thousand years. It is my Oracle who will bring about a renaissance of knowledge and wisdom and make Medurim mighty again.'

Sneering, she yawned ostentatiously and raised her arms above her head, squeezing her shoulder-blades together so that her heavy breasts jutted straight at Fost. Areolas like targets showed clearly through the gown's flimsy fabric.

'You spend all your time with that unnatural thing!' Inch-long lashes batted at Fost; he almost felt the wind. 'I'm sure Sir Fost would never neglect me so.'

He felt as if someone had poured molten wax into his stomach. Damn the woman! Why didn't she leave him alone? And why did she have this effect on him?

'Unnatural?' Teom's voice rose to a shrill scream of outrage. 'Unnatural, you witch? How can you say that about my creation?' 'Because it is. And it's not your creation.'

'I sponsored it. Without my patronage it would never have been completed!'

'But what's it good for?' the Empress shouted. 'Will it fill the Imperial coffers? Can you eat it, drink it, make love to it?' Her lip curled and her voice lowered. 'But knowing you, dear brother, you probably could. And enjoy it!' 'It would make a livelier bedmate than you.'

In the thick of silence, Fost and Moriana rose and murmured excuses which went unheard amid the gathering storm. Scooping up the genies' satchels, they pushed through a group of serving maids that had crowded around to watch. As they began walking rapidly toward their suite, they heard the explosion of a shrewdly hurled crystal decanter against a wall.

No sooner had they entered their chambers and chased out the dewy-eyed blond youth and girl they found already in their bed, than Moriana went to Fost and ripped his shirt open from collar to navel.

Swaying, he put a hand on the wall to steady himself. They were both more drunk than sober. 'What'd you do that for?'

Her hands slid cool and smooth along his ribs. She undulated against him, her breath warm and sweet in his ear.

'The way that slut Temalla's been making eyes at you,' she purred, 'I thought it best to give you something else to think about tonight.'

Moriana kept him occupied until dawn, when they both slipped into an exhausted sleep.

The next morning, they took advantage of their leisure to tour the fabled Imperial Palace. They wandered to and fro along the marble corridors, gazing at paintings hung on the walls and statues standing in silent alcoves. The place had been decorated in early plunder. Whatever hadn't been nailed down or too heavy to move, the Imperial Army had taken from its country of origin. There was no scheme to the collected art. Much of it was dross, much incomparably fine. What impressed Fost was that the collection spanned two continents and almost a hundred centuries.

The sun was high when they drifted into the western courtyard. It was a garden replete with tinkling fountains and divided into nooks and crannies by an ornamental hedge. Fost suggested it had been designed as a trysting ground. That gave Erimenes much satisfaction imagining past activities.

He waved a vaporous arm at a marble statue in a niche as they passed along the grassy path.

'That's what I call art,' he announced. 'Consider the interplay of line and form, consider the dynamics of the poses, the subtle imbalance inherent in the juxtaposition of human form and delphine. And such mastery of expression. Behold the girl's face. Was ever a transport of ecstasy made more concrete? And see how the dolphin smiles at it…'

'Dolphins always look like that,' said Ziore. 'Can you find no pleasure in art that isn't lascivious?'

A puzzled frown creased his face.

'Why, no. Why should I?' Then he brightened and said, 'During my own lifetime it was definitely established that male dolphins were altogether willing to mate with human females. Keeping in mind that this is High Medurim, Moriana, you really ought to consider…'

Fost would have liked to hear Moriana's retort. He never had the chance. Just at that moment they rounded a corner to see Gyras sitting on a bench, huddled head to head with another. As arresting as the dwarf's appearance was, it was the other who brought a gasp from Moriana's lips and made her hand crop to where her sword hung.

Gyras spoke to a Zr'gsz.

The Hisser saw them before Gyras. He came to his feet in a fluid motion, a dazzling white smile splitting his dark green face.

'What have we here?' His voice was a well-modulated baritone, quite human in pronunciation and inflection. 'You must be the Princess Moriana, and you, sir, you'd be Fost Longstrider.' He clasped clawed hands at his breasts and bowed. 'I am honored to meet you.'

He was as tall as Fost, clad in a single garment of shimmering gray cloth that reached down to his sandalled feet. His shoulders were broad, his waist lean. Gyras hurriedly pushed himself off the bench, landing with a thud.

'May I present Zak'zar, Speaker of the People.' Shrewd eyes studied Moriana. 'I take it you've not met?'

Moriana's lips moved but no words emerged. 'No, we haven't,' Fost supplied. The words ripped at his throat.

'But he's an enemy!' Erimenes shrieked. 'How can you welcome this viper into your nest?' Zak'zar bowed again.

'And you would be Erimenes the Ethical. It is a pleasure to meet you, too, sir.'

'I assure you, fellow, the pleasure is entirely yours! Lord Gyras, what does this mean?' Gyras feigned astonishment.

'Surely, you do not think we would convene a debate and hear only one side, especially one as important as this?' Malevolent glee shone in his huge eyes. He raised one eyebrow before saying, 'The revered Speaker arrived the day before you did, my friends. I'm surprised your good friend His Radiance the Emperor neglected to inform you.'