"Price for what?" whispered Zap 210.
Otwile's blue eyes widened in surprise. "You are an odd one. What is your race?
You are too pale for a Thang, too slender for a Gray."
Zap 210 lowered her eyes. She tasted the wine, then searched desperately over her shoulder for Reith.
"Ah, but you are shy!" declared Otwile. "And delicate of manner as well!"
He began to eat. Zap 210 tried to slip away. "Sit!" snapped Otwile. She hastily returned to her seat. "Drink!" She sipped at the wine, which was stronger than any she had yet tasted.
"That is better," said Otwile. "Now we understand each other."
"No," said Zap 210 in her soft voice. "We don't! I don't want to be here! What do you want of me?"
Otwile again stared at her in disbelief. "You don't know?"
"Of course not. Unless-you don't mean that?"
Otwile grinned, "I mean precisely that, and more."
"But-I don't know anything about such things! I don't want to learn."
Otwile put down his fishcakes. He said incredulously, "A virgin, wearing a sash.
Is that how you represent yourself?"
"I don't know what such a thing is ... I must go, to find Adam Reith."
"You have found me, which is somewhat better. Drink wine, to relax yourself.
Today is to be that particular day you will remember to the end of your time."
Otwile poured full the goblets. "Indeed, I will join you, to relax myself. Truth to tell, I myself have become somewhat excited!"
Reith and Cauch walked through the bazaar, where the fish and produce vendors called attention to their merchandise by means of peculiar ululations.
"Are they singing?" asked Reith.
"No," said Cauch, the cries were no more than devices to attract attention. "The Thang have no great feeling for music. The selling-screams of the fish-wives are inventive and emotional, true; listen and you will hear how they try to outdo each other!"
Reith conceded that certain of the advertisements were remarkably intricate. "In due course the social anthropologists will record and codify these calls. But for the moment I am more interested in the eel-races."
"To be sure," said Cauch. 'Though, as you will notice, they are not yet in operation."
They crossed the compound and stood appraising the vacant tables, the reservoir and the chute. Looking across the wall, Reith noticed the fronds of a gnarled old psilla. "I want to look on the other side of the wall," he said.
"Just so," said Cauch, "and I have the fullest sympathy with your curiosity. But are we not at the moment directing our energies to the eel-races?"
"We are," said Reith. "I see a portal through the wall, opposite that vendor of amulets. Do you care to accompany me?"
"Certainly," said Cauch. "I am always alert to learn."
They walked along beside the old wall, which in the remote past had been faced with brown and white tiles, most of which had fallen away, revealing patches of dark brown brick. Passing through the portal, they entered Urmank Old Town: a district of huts built of broken tile, brick, fragments of stone, and odd lengths of timber. Some were abandoned ruins, others were in the process of construction: a continuing cycle of decay and regeneration, in which every shard, every stick, every fragment of stone had been used a hundred times over twice as many generations. Low-caste Thangs and a squat, big-headed variety of Gray peered forth from the doorways as Reith and Cauch went past; stench thickened the air.
Beyond the huts lay an area of rubble, puddles of slime, a few clumps of angry red bristle-bush. Reith located the psilla of which he had taken note: it stood close beside the wall, overhanging a shed built of well-laid bricks. The door was solid timber bound with iron, secured with a heavy iron lock. The shed backed firmly up against the wall.
Reith looked around the landscape, which was vacant except for a group of naked children paddling in a rivulet of yellow slime. He approached the shed. The lock, the hasp, the hinges were sound and solid. There was no window to the shed, nor any opening other than the door. Reith backed away. "We've seen all we need to see."
"Indeed?" Cauch dubiously inspected the shed, the wall, the psilla tree. "I see nothing significant. Are you still referring to the eel-races?"
"Of course." They went back through the dismal huddle of huts. Reith said: "Very likely we could make all our arrangements alone; still, the help of two trustworthy men might prove convenient."
Cauch eyed him with awe and incredulity. "You seriously hope to take money from the eel-race?"
"If the eel-master pays all winning bets, I do."
"No fear of that," said Cauch. "He will pay, assuming that there are winnings.
And on this supposition, how do you propose to share?"
"Half for me, half for you and your two men."
Cauch pursed his lips. "I perceive something of an inequity. From a mutual project, one man should not derive three times the share of the others."
"I believe that he should," said Reith, "when otherwise the other three gain nothing whatever."
"The point is well-taken," Cauch admitted. "The affair shall go as you recommend."
They returned to the cafe. Reith looked for Zap 210, who was nowhere to be seen.
"I must find my companion," he told Cauch. "No doubt she waits at the inn."
Cauch made an affable gesture; Reith went to the inn, but found Zap 210 nowhere.
Making inquiries of the clerk he learned that she had come and gone, leaving no intimation as to her destination.
Reith went to the doorway and looked up and down the quay. To the right porters in faded red kirtles and leather shoulderpads unloaded a cog; to the left was the bustle of the bazaar.
He never should have left her alone, he told himself, especially in her mood of the morning. He had taken her stability for granted, never troubling to divine the state of her mind. Reith cursed himself for callousness and egocentricity.
The girl had been undergoing the most intense and dramatic emotional strains: all the fundamental processes of life at once. Reith strode back to the cafe.
Cauch eyed him with calm benevolence. "You appear concerned."
"The girl who accompanies me-I can't find her."
"Pah," said Cauch. "They are all alike. She has gone to the bazaar, to buy a trinket."
"No. She has no money. She is utterly inexperienced; she would go nowhere-except
..." Reith turned to look toward the hills, the way which lay between the ghoul-castles. Would she seriously consider going down into the Shelters? ... A
new idea came to turn his bones to ice. The Gzhindra. Reith summoned the Thang servant-boy. "I breakfasted this morning with a young woman. Do you recall her?"
"Yes, indeed; she wore an orange turban, like a Hedaijhan, at least on that occasion."
"You saw her another time?"
"I did. She sat yonder, wearing the sash of solicitation and consorting with Otwile the champion. They drank wine for a period, then went off."
"She went of her own free will?" asked Reith in wonder.
The servant gave a shrug of indifference, covertly insolent. "She wore the sash, she uttered no outcry, she leaned on his arm, perhaps to steady herself, for I believe her to have been somewhat drunk."
"Where did they go?"
Again the shrug. "Otwile's chambers are not too far distant; perhaps this was their resort."
"Show me the way."
"No no." The servant shook his head. "I am at my duties. Also I would not care to vex Otwile."