I did not ask of Avluela what had occurred in the Prince’s palanquin to bring us such bounty. I could well imagine, as could Gormon, whose barely suppressed inner rage was eloquent of his never-admitted love for my pale, slender little Flier.
We settled in. I placed my cart beside the window, draped it with gauzes, and left it in readiness for my next period of Watching. I cleaned my body of grime while entities mounted in the wall sang me to peace. Later I ate. Afterwards Avluela came to me, refreshed and relaxed, and sat beside me in my room as we talked of our experiences. Gormon did not appear for hours. I thought that perhaps he had left this hostelry altogether, finding the atmosphere too rarefied for him, and had sought company among his own guildless kind. But at twilight, Avluela and I walked in the cloistered courtyard of the hostelry and mounted a ramp to watch the stars emerge in Roum’s sky, and Gormon was there. With him was a lanky and emaciated man in a Rememberer’s shawl; they were talking in low tones.
Gormon nodded to me and said, “Watcher, meet my new friend.”
The emaciated one fingered his shawl. “I am the Rememberer Basil,” he intoned, in a voice as thin as a fresco that has been peeled from its wall. “I have come from Perris to delve into the mysteries of Roum. I shall be here many years.”
“The Rememberer has fine stories to tell,” said Gormon. “He is among the foremost of his guild. As you approached, he was describing to me the techniques by which the past is revealed. They drive a trench through the strata of Third Cycle deposits, you see, and with vacuum cores they lift the molecules of earth to lay bare the ancient layers.”
“We have found,” Basil said, “the catacombs of Imperial Roum, and the rubble of the Time of Sweeping, the books inscribed on slivers of white metal, written toward the close of the Second Cycle. All these go to Perris for examination and classification and decipherment; then they return. Does the past interest you, Watcher?”
“To some extent.” I smiled. “This Changeling here shows much more fascination for it. I sometimes suspect his authenticity. Would you recognize a Rememberer in disguise?”
Basil scrutinized Gormon; he lingered over the bizarre features, the excessively muscular frame. “He is no Rememberer,” he said at length. “But I agree that he has antiquarian interests. He has asked me many profound questions.”
“Such as?”
“He wishes to know the origin of guilds. He asks the name of the genetic surgeon who crafted the first true-breeding Fliers. He wonders why there are Changelings, and if they are truly under the curse of the Will.”
“And do you have answers for these?” I asked.
“For some,” said Basil. “For some.”
“The origin of guilds?”
“To give structure and meaning to a society that has suffered defeat and destruction,” said the Rememberer. “At the end of the Second Cycle all was in flux. No man knew his rank nor his purpose. Through our world strode haughty outworlders who looked upon us all as worthless. It was necessary to establish fixed frames of reference by which one man might know his value beside another. So the first guilds appeared: Dominators, Masters, Merchants, Landholders, Vendors and Servitors. Then came Scribes, Musicians, Clowns and Transporters. Afterwards Indexers became necessary, and then Watchers and Defenders. When the Years of Magic gave us Fliers and Changelings, those guilds were added, and then the guildless ones, the neuters, were produced, so that—”
“But surely the Changelings are guildless too!” said Avluela.
The Rememberer looked at her for the first time. “Who are you, child?”
“Avluela of the Fliers. I travel with this Watcher and this Changeling.”
Basil said, “As I have been telling the Changeling here, in the early days his kind was guilded. The guild was dissolved a thousand years ago by the order of the Council of Dominators after an attempt by a disreputable Changeling faction to seize control of the holy places of Jorslem, and since that time Changelings have been guildless, ranking only above neuters.”
“I never knew that,” I said.
“You are no Rememberer,” said Basil smugly. “It is our craft to uncover the past.”
“True. True.”
Gormon said, “And today, how many guilds are there?”
Discomfited, Basil replied vaguely, “At least a hundred, my friend. Some are quite small; some are local. I am concerned only with the original guilds and their immediate successors; what has happened in the past few hundred years is in the province of others. Shall I requisition an information for you?”
“Never mind,” Gormon said. “It was only an idle question.”
“Your curiosity is well developed,” said the Rememberer.
“I find the world and all it contains extremely fascinating. Is this sinful?”
“It is strange,” said Basil. “The guildless rarely look beyond their own horizons.”
A Servitor appeared. With a mixture of awe and contempt he genuflected before Avluela and said, “The Prince has returned. He desires your company in the palace at this time.”
Terror glimmered in Avluela’s eyes. But to refuse was inconceivable. “Shall I come with you?” she asked.
“Please. You must be robed and perfumed. He wishes you to come to him with your wings open, as well.”
Avluela nodded. The Servitor led her away.
We remained on the ramp a while longer; the Rememberer Basil talked of the old days of Roum, and I listened, and Gormon peered into the gathering darkness. Eventually, his throat dry, the Rememberer excused himself and moved solemnly away. A few moments later, in the courtyard below us, a door opened and Avluela emerged, walking as though she were of the guild of Somnambulists, not of Fliers. She was nude under transparent draperies, and her fragile body gleamed ghostly white in the starbeams. Her wings were spread and fluttered slowly in a somber systole and diastole. One Servitor grasped each of her elbows: they seemed to be propelling her toward the palace as though she were but a dreamed facsimile of herself and not a real woman.
“Fly, Avluela, fly,” Gormon growled. “Escape while you can!”
She disappeared into a side entrance of the palace.
The Changeling looked at me. “She has sold herself to the Prince to provide lodging for us.”
“So it seems.”
“I could smash down that palace!”
“You love her?”
“It should be obvious.”
“Cure yourself,” I advised. “You are an unusual man, but still a Flier is not for you. Particularly a Flier who has shared the bed of the Prince of Roum.”
“She goes from my arms to his.”
I was staggered. “You’ve known her?”
“More than once,” he said, smiling sadly. “At the moment of ecstasy her wings thrash like leaves in a storm.”
I gripped the railing of the ramp so that I would not tumble into the courtyard. The stars whirled overhead; the old moon and its two blank-faced consorts leaped and bobbed. I was shaken without fully understanding the cause of my emotion. Was it wrath that Gormon had dared to violate a canon of the law? Was it a manifestation of those pseudo-parental feelings I had toward Avluela? Or was it mere envy of Gormon for daring to commit a sin beyond my capacity, though not beyond my desires?