"The Lady Sepranene," explained Navalok. "They've just brought her in. She challenged the Lady Glabana and wouldn't listen to good advice. She insisted it should be without armor and she had the right."
"To die?"
"To insist. Glabana, so she claimed, was making advances to her lover. The act wasn't denied and after she had publicly accused the woman a challenge was inevitable."
Dumarest said, dryly, "Of course."
Navalok caught the tone and was quick to defend the dead girl.
"She had no choice, Earl. Glabana slapped her face in public. She could have drawn and fired then and the act would have been justified but she adhered to the code."
And died defending a brittle honor. Dumarest looked at the young face wreathed in twisted curls, the lissom lines of the lush figure and his lips thinned at the waste.
Watching him Navalok said, "You don't approve, do you? Is that why you're not wearing Galbrene's badges?"
"There would be no point."
"But-"
"What will happen to her now? The dead girl, I mean."
"She will be cleansed and prepared as Galbrene was prepared. After she has lain in the chapel she will be treated before taking her place in the Hall of Dreams." He glanced to where the old man stirred the fluid in the open vat. "It will take several days."
Time enough for the chemicals to penetrate the tissue, to harden soft fibers and dissolve points of potential corruption. To seal the flesh in a film of plastic, perhaps, or to petrify it, to protect the body against the ravages of time.
To produce monuments to the dead.
They rested in the great hall of the adjoining chamber, massed ranks of them, men and women placed to either side of a central aisle. They faced the external doors, now closed, empty space stretching before them, the plain stone floor fitted with benches to take the anticipated burdens. The bodies of those who would, inevitably, die.
"The Hall of Dreams," whispered Navalok. "Each of them gained his or her trophy which is why there are no children. All died honorably, some of age, most of wounds, but none ever disgraced the Family. Here they sit and dream for eternity."
Lifelike figures who sat and stared with open eyes, the flicker of lights dancing and giving them the appearance of life. Eyes which seemed to follow Dumarest and his guide as he stepped forward between the benches to stand in the central aisle. Curiously he studied the figures to either side.
A man, one elbow resting on his knee, his hands gnarled, the fingers curled, the gleam of a ring bright against the withered flesh.
"A victor," whispered Navalok. "One who later died of his wounds."
Another who leaned back, head a little turned as if listening to a voice from behind. A third who looked as if he might be coughing. A fourth who, with lifted hand, tugged at an ear.
And the women were similar in their staged actions; one smoothing her gown, another picking at a thread, a third who, with pursed lips, gave the appearance of blowing a kiss.
Hundreds of them, thousands, the vastness of the hall was packed with mummified figures.
Dust rose beneath Dumarest's boots as he walked towards the shadowed rear of the hall. The stone of the walls changed its nature, became striated with minerals, grained and mottled with time. The air too held an acrid scent, one of dust and stagnation. Reaching out he touched a figure, caught it as it fell. It was surprisingly light. The clothing it wore crumpled to powder beneath his hand.
"Earl! Be careful!"
Dumarest ignored the admonitory whisper from his companion. He looked from the back of the hall to the figures seated lower down towards the doors. Their clothing had altered little, a static culture froze fashion as it did everything eke, but some differences were obvious.
As it was obvious that those who had been placed in the far end of the chamber were old. Old with the crawl of centuries, of millennia.
Navalok gestured to where a small group occupied a raised platform. "The Elders of the First," he whispered. "They are of those who first came to Emijar."
It was natural to whisper, the ranks of silent bodies seemed to be listening, and the atmosphere of the place held a brooding solemnity. Dumarest strode to the platform, stepped onto it, leaned forward with narrowed eyes to study the figures it contained.
The light was bad, dim from suspended globes and dulled with accumulated dust, but it was enough for him to distinguish the motive each wore on their garments; a disc surrounded by tapering spikes.
"What is this?"
Navalok craned his head and followed the finger pointing at the yellow fabric.
"I don't know, Earl. It had something to do with their religion, I think. That device was worn by the Guardians of the Sun."
The sun?
The sun!
Had they known only one?
Dumarest looked at the silent figures, the contours of their faces, the shape of their heads. Compared with Navalok the differences were slight but unmistakable. If priests they may not have married and their genes would have been lost to the common pool. A select group, then, guarding an esoteric secret?
He said, "In your studies, Navalok, did you learn from where the original settlers came?"
"From another planet, Earl. Where else?"
"Its name?"
"I don't know. The records were lost in a fire shortly after the First Families made Emijar their home. In fact nothing is left of them aside from the things in the Shrine and those-"
He broke off as if conscious of having said too much, a fact Dumarest noticed but ignored. Later, if at all, would be the time to press.
"The Shrine, boy," he said. "Take me to the Shrine."
The journey was not long but each step had been taken before many times in other places and, always, such journeys had led to disappointment. A quest which seemed to have no end. A mystery which had yet to be solved. A world lost as if it had never been and yet he knew that it existed and was to be found. Would be found given time and the essential clue. The one fact which would supply the coordinates and guide him back home.
Would fate, this time, be kind?
"Earl?" Navalok was worried at his silence, his expression. "Have I offended you?"
"No."
"If I have it was without intent. No insult was implied in anything I may have done or said. If for any reason you have cause to feel offense then I apologies, humbly and without reservation. Please, Earl. You must believe that."
"I believe it." Dumarest turned to look at the anxious face and smiled. "How could you insult me? We're friends, aren't we?"
"Friends?" Navalok blinked.
"Of course." Dumarest dropped a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Didn't you want for us to be friends?"
"Yes," Navalok stammered. "Oh, yes, Earl. I-I'd like that very much."
A smile and a few words, cheap to give but what seed could bear a richer harvest? Those who took a perverse pleasure in deriding the unfortunate lost more than they knew and risked more than they imagined. No human being, no matter how insignificant, can safely be demeaned. Always there is present the danger of restraints snapping, of self-control giving way beneath the impact of one insult too many. Of pride and the need to be an individual bursting out in a tide of relentless fury.
A thing Dumarest had learned early in life but which Lekhard had not.
He straightened from where he leaned against a wall his voice, like his face, holding a sneer.
"Well, Earl, as I guessed, you find our little freak entertaining. There is, of course, no accounting for tastes, but surely there are others more suited to your whims?" His gesture made his meaning plain. His laughter, devoid of humor, made it obscene.
Dumarest felt the boy tense at his side, the sound of his sharp inhalation, and cursed the unfortunate meeting. To maintain the newly formed friendship he would have to act in a manner which the boy expected which, in this society, meant only one thing.