So once again Casca headed north. In mid-afternoon he came upon the caravan he had avoided, this time having recognized who the two men were.
"Kasim! Kasim! Join us, my son! Join us!" Omar Khayyam was happily drunk. His son, much less so, explained to Casca the reason for the caravan and its destination. The court of Persia was not a particularly pleasant place to be at the moment, so Omar had left for an extended period to "take astronomical observations." Actually they were headed for the Rh'shan country to the north. The big bully Rh'shan Casca had taken off Omar's son several years ago had now become — since the Rh'shans were strange people — the son's fast friend. He had shared with the son some of the cereal wine which the Rh'shans drank. This, put through the alembic and "improved," had become a wonderful nectar, clear as the purest water, which Omar Khayyam's son had named "vd'khan", after the sound in his throat when he first took a drink of it. Now the caravan was on a humanitarian "mission of mercy" to the Rh'shans; they were going to introduce vd'khan to them.
"Mission of mercy?" Casca asked.
"Yes. They need help. The people are all right — but they got the toughest set of rulers you ever saw…"
Casca thought, What the hell, I've got nothing better to do, and all the time in the world to do it in…