Sisay, fully healed by Cho-Arrim and Saprazzan magic, looked happily intrigued as well. Hanna was glad for her friends. Their ease comforted her.
The lead Saprazzan turned into a broad doorway set with seashells. He stood to one side, gesturing to the visitors.
The Mercadians, who had been hanging back with expressions of disgust, shouldered past Sisay and Hanna. The women bit their tongues, let the Mercadians enter, and then followed.
The ambassadorial corps found themselves in a broad, descending hallway. The passage was lit by some means undetectable at first glance, and the walls were studded with shells. The hall ended in a pair of impressive double doors that the Saprazzans swung open, revealing a chamber beyond.
It was a large room, wide and tall. Its walls were adorned with shells and shapes of sea creatures hewn from the living rock. Most impressive though, and what took away the breath of the visitors, was the enormous window, fully fifty feet high. It stretched up and opened on an underwater vista of breathtaking beauty.
Outside the window teemed living coral beds that moved and swirled in the currents. Within their folds, small fish darted and swooped. Plants created a green fringe that swayed ponderously in the water. In the bay beyond, great schools of fish leaped into view and then swam away. A school of flying fish darted past, propelling themselves swiftly with their broad, winglike fins. Occasionally, stranger sea creatures appeared, undulating silently by the window as if observing the scene within.
As a child Hanna had seen the little fish her father kept in a bowl in his laboratory. Standing here, she began to appreciate the fish's point of view.
From a corner of the room, a woman came to greet them, also dressed in glittering blue robes. Though there was nothing to indicate her office, Hanna felt sure that here was the city's leader. Her face was lined, and silver streaked her hair, but her step was that of a young girl.
She stood before them, examining each member of the delegation. When she greeted the native Mercadians, her face was expressionless. She came next to Sisay, Hanna, and Orim, and a look of wonder appeared in her eyes. The woman spoke, and Orim translated haltingly, "I am the Grand Vizier of Saprazzo. I greet you, in the name of my people." She bowed deeply.
Sisay, Hanna, and Orim returned the gesture. The Mercadians only dipped their heads mildly.
The vizier continued, with Orim translating, "You claim to come from Mercadia, but my folk say you know Cho-Arrim magic. To me, you seem neither Mercadian nor Cho-Arrim."
Sisay replied, "We are not native to Mercadia, but we speak with the authority of the chief magistrate. Nor are we native to the Cho-Arrim, but are friends of theirs."
The Saprazzan looked at her curiously as Orim translated. Then she said, "It is unusual for the Mercadians to allow women to speak for them. They have certain unaccountableeccentricities."
Sisay smiled slightly. "1 agree. But they've allowed it this time," she said.
The Saprazzan leader seemed momentarily perplexed, then smiled and touched Sisay's hand gently. Her eyes closed, and she seemed to enter a mild trance for a few seconds.
Sisay looked at her curiously, and then with amazement. She felt she had received a sudden shock.
The Saprazzan leader broke her connection and stepped back a pace. Her smile broadened, and she held up a hand, palm outward in greeting. In perfect Dominarian, she said, "I am glad. For too long women among the Mercadians have not spoken with us. I am pleased to have the opportunity to confer with one."
The others stared at her in amazement. Sisay's breath was coming hard, as if she had been running in some great race.
The vizier's expression changed to one of concern, and she said, "Please, sit down. I am sorry if I have caused you discomfort. Yet it seemed to me best that we be able to speak frankly, without interference, and without misunderstanding.
"You, my sister-" the Saprazzan leader turned to Orim- "you have a strong, familiar soul." She stared intensely into the Samite's eyes, then looked away to the Mercadian nobles. She gestured to them and said something in Mercadian that sounded placating.
The nobles, with what appeared to Hanna to be very bad grace, seated themselves on the chairs that were provided, carefully placing their backs to the window and its vast seascape.
The Saprazzan leader touched a bell that stood on a rack to one side of the chamber. Amid sweet chiming, she said to Sisay, "You have had a long journey hither. I have instructed chambers to be prepared for you and for your friends."
The captain nodded. "Thank you." "We shall begin our discussions tomorrow. Meanwhile you and your companions are free to make your way about the city. If you like, I shall send some of my people with you to guide you and answer your questions." "Your offer is most kind."
From a hidden recess a servant entered, bearing tallfluted glasses on a silver tray. He distributed them, and the Saprazzan leader lifted hers in a toast. "To the success of our meeting." "To success!"
Sisay, Orim, and Hanna lifted their cups. They contained water, but to Hanna it tasted like no water she knew. She could feel the liquid flowing deep down inside her, washing away the weariness of her journey, invigorating her. It had much the same effect on Orim and Sisay, who were drinking with eager delight. The Mercadian nobles had done no more than touch the rims of their cups to their fat lips and were now sitting silently, with expressions of disapproval.
The Saprazzan looked around, then addressed Sisay once more. "You come in the name of Mercadia, though our longstanding antagonism with them is no secret. You come aboard a Rishadan ship, and we have no love for their harpoons and nets. You come as friends of the Cho-Arrim, and though in ancient times we were great allies, it has been centuries since we have conversed with our forest brothers. Mercadian, Rishadan, Cho-Arrim-what message could you possibly bring to Saprazzo?"
Sisay replied, "It is a very important message we bear- very strange and wonderful. So important and strange, you will not believe if we tell you here, in this place of politics."
A look of concern crossed the vizier's face. "Where then?"
Sisay's gaze was level and bright. "A place of faith- for outside of faith, our message will be but foolishness."
"There are many places of faith in Saprazzo-sea shrines and sacred wells-but you seem to have one place in mind…?"
"Yes," Sisay said. "We beg the favor of speaking to you tomorrow in the Shrine of the Matrix."
The Shrine of the Matrix lay, heavily guarded, at the center of Saprazzo's royal palace. The palace itself was a massive edifice poised above the docks. One bank of windows gazed out on the wide bay and the other on the spreading city above. The building was a vast jewel box, built of red oceanic marble, white limestone, and insets of onyx. Corals of fuchsia and mauve had been figured into bosses along the walls. Curtains of kelp, rugs of woven seaweed, sponge cushions, whale-bone archways, baleen screens-the majesty of the sea suffused the place. At its heart, in a small raised room done in crimson, the Power Matrix resided within a large case of thick glass. It was magnificent.
The main body of the Power Matrix was a single enormous white crystal, nearly the height of a man. All along its faceted outer edges, other smaller stones in blue, green, red, white, and black were affixed. They seemed to pluck each strand of the spectrum out of the room's dim light and send it lancing into the central crystal. A network of metal wires connected the stones, and along the wires moved scintillating jolts of energy. It was a mesmerizing sight.
"We must keep the room dark," the grand vizier told her guests, "for the Matrix stores and channels energy. Were it to be exposed to sunlight, the stored energy would quickly cause the Matrix to explode."