Increasingly bored and hungry, Jorian wondered if he had been so clever to insist on attending the Conclave after all. He soon lost track of the names. His eyelids became heavy, and twice he caught himself falling forward from his sitting position. He was pinching himself to keep awake when Aello mercifully ended the introductions and announced:
"The first item on the program will be a paper by the learned Bhulla of Janareth on 'Familial Organization and Kinship Nomenclature amongst Demons of the Eighth Plane.' Doctor Bhulla."
Amid scattered applause, a small, potbellied, brown man took Aello's place on the dais and began to read a paper, in a squeaky monotone with a strong Mulvanian accent. Although Jorian, if largely self-educated, was fairly well-read, the discourse was completely unintelligible to him. When he found himself nodding again, he whispered to Karadur:
"I'm going out for a while. Where's our room?"
"One flight up at the west end. I shall accompany you, for the next item is an auction of magical properties, old manuscripts, and historic mementoes of our profession. I think I will absent myself therefrom, also."
"Is there any place to eat in this pile?"
"There will be a dinner here, in this ballroom, one hour ere sunset. A costume ball will follow."
Jorian suppressed a groan. "That's three hours yet! I shall starve meanwhile. Lend me a few pence, will you?"
He followed Karadur out into the main hall but paused to look the company over while the old magician tottered off towards his quarters. In the main hall, Jorian discovered that many others at the Conclave, too, were playing truant from the lecture. Little groups of magicians stood in knots, discussing professional matters with expressive gestures and grimaces. The shrill laughs of women cut the air; there were several such groups, from young to old, some wearing the conical caps of registered magicians and some not. The latter, Jorian supposed, were attached to the magicians in one capacity or another. He wondered about Karadur's insistence that celibacy was an absolute requirement for rising high in the profession.
A small, dimly lit room was filled with magicians sitting at tables, munching dried chick-peas and drinking wine or beer. Jorian squeezed in and took an empty seat. The three men at the table were in the midst of a hot technical discussion. They smiled and nodded to Jorian with absent-minded politeness and went on with their talk:
"… that astral movement being circular, every azotic or magnetic emission which does not encounter its medium returns with force to its point of departure, does it not?"
"Aye," said another, "but you must admit that the duodenary, being a complete and cyclic number in the universal analogies of nature, invariably attracts and absorbs the thirteenth, which is regarded as a sinister and superfluous number. Hence your cycles will fail to recapitulate their elements in synchronous order—"
"You are both wrong," said the third, "having forgotten that in nature there are two forces producing equilibrium, and these three constitute a single law. Here, then, is the triad resumed in unity, and by adding the conception of unity to that of the triad we are brought to the tetrad, the first square and perfect number, the source of all numerical combinations and the principle of all forms. Hence the astral currents will cycle homogeneously…"
Jorian became so uncomfortable at being compelled to listen to this incomprehensible talk, while being completely ignored, that he left as soon as he had finished his ale. Outside, he paused before the bulletin board. The board listed the lecture now in progress and the auction to follow it. After that would come a panel discussion on "Invisibility," followed in turn by an informal dinner and a costume ball.
The next morning would be taken up with a debate over the Altruists' proposal to end all secrecy surrounding magic, offering its benefits freely to the general public. There would be a testimonial luncheon to Aello as outgoing president. In the afternoon there would be several learned papers, including a demonstration of evoking a fiend from the thirty-third Mulvanian hell. A small red star after the name of this experiment indicated that it was dangerous.
The evening would see the formal dinner, with awards to deserving magicians and a speech by Doctor Yseldia of Metouro, the guest of honor. Madame Yseldia would talk of recent advances in the enchantment of flying broomsticks. After the banquet would come a series of small closed meetings, to which master magicians only were admitted.
The third and final day would have a couple of papers in the morning and then the business meeting, at which a new president would be elected, the site of the next year's Conclave chosen, and amendments to the constitution of the Forces of Progress considered.
Having absorbed this information, Jorian began to walk away from the board. Then he started and stared as he sighted Vanora, talking with a group of women. The tall, angular girl wore a long gown of emerald-green silk, with a little round cap on her long, black, glossy hair. She was much changed from the bedraggled wench he had left in Othomae. Despite the irregularity of her features, she looked almost pretty and certainly attractive.
"Good morrow, Mistress Vanora!" he said.
"Well, Jorian!" she cried. "Your pardon, girls; here's an old gossip of mine." She took Jorian's arm and walked down the hall. "Did you really rescue that box of moldy screeds from the King of Kings?"
"Aye, that we did and got away with whole skins. How wags thy world?"
She made a face. "That stinkard Boso… But Goania's a dear. I stay with him more for her sake than for his." She pinched a piece of the emerald gown and pulled it out from her body. "She got me this."
"Very pretty. Didn't I see Boso in the ballroom just now?"
"Aye; he's been made sergeant-at-arms, which is to say the same post as ejector that he held at the Silver Dragon in Othomae. But never mind me, who have led a tame enough existence for the past sixmonth. Tell me of your adventures! Rumor has gone out of your hairbreadth escapes."
Jorian grimaced. "Most of these escapades I should have been most heartily glad to be quit of whilst they were happening, I can tell you, however jolly they sound in the later retelling."
"I suppose you'll say you were frightened half to death?"
" Tis the simple truth. After all, I'm no swaggering gallant, but a simple craftsman who would like to settle—but ere I bore you with a four-hour account of my doings, can you find me something to eat? I have scarcely bared a fang since dawn. We rode from Thamoe to Metouro this morn and then came directly hither without stopping to eat or wash. So I'll not utter another word until I'm fed."
Vanora showed Jorian to the kitchen and wheedled a bun and a flagon of beer from the chief cook. Between bites, Jorian told of some of his experiences in Mulvan and Shven.
Two hours later, he paused to say: 'Time is passing, and here I waste our time in self-conceited narration of my own petty affairs! I can resist almost any temptation, save an invitation to talk. Methinks the session nears its end, and I had best rejoin my master."
"Have you become Karadur's apprentice in fact as well as in name?"
"Nay, though a reason for attending this Conclave is to see how I like the profession of magic. But I doubt if the rewards of high magic will persuade me to give up women."
"By giving up all the pleasures of the flesh, Goania tells me, the most skillful adepts can prolong their lives to twice or thrice that of common mortals."
"Or perhaps it only seems twice or thrice as long, without wine or women."
Vanora looked at Jorian in a marked manner. "Ah—it is about such matters that I would speak to you in conf—"
"Your pardon, Mistress Vanora, but I really must go, instanter!" Jorian handed his empty flagon to a cook. "I'm stinking filthy from travel and must remedy this condition before dinner."