He gave the girl his arm and started briskly for the main hall. There he excused himself and found room twenty-three. He let himself in with his key and found a small sitting room and a small bedroom with two narrow beds. Karadur had been to the suite but had gone out again. Jorian cleaned himself up, trimmed his beard to a dashing point, put on his one clean shirt, tried to shine his battered boots, and returned to the ballroom.
There he found that the auction had ended and the panel discussion on invisibility was in progress. The panelists, who sat in a row on the platform, had finished their prepared statements and were answering questions from the audience. President Aello sat at one end of the row and pointed his wand at auditors he wished to recognize. As Jorian entered, a man stood up, beginning:
"I should like to ask—"
"State your name and speciality, pray," said Aello.
"Merkon of Boaktis, theurgic sorcerer. I should like to ask the honorable members what the advantage would be to making all of themselves but their eyeballs invisible? I should find a pair of disembodied eyeballs following me around quite as obvious as a visible man, and much more disconcerting."
"As I thought I had explained," said one panelist, "total invisibility, while achievable, has the disadvantage of blinding the person employing it, because there is no interaction betwixt the rays of visible light and the substance of human eyes to produce the sensory phenomenon we know as 'sight.' I thought this was known to every apprentice. Hence total invisibility is practical only as a measure for extreme emergencies, when one is hotly pursued. Since the invisible one cannot see until he lifts the spell, he must needs rely upon other senses to warn him of the close approach of his foes—especially his astral sight. But this faculty is poorly developed in most mortals. With visible eyeballs, on the other hand, one can at leisure examine forbidden things, provided one stays far enough from the nearest observer that one's eyes are not noticeable.
Jorian kept looking for Karadur but could not see him. Hundreds of dunce-capped magicians looked much alike from the back, and Karadur had shifted his place. Jorian began tiptoeing around the aisle at the edge of the hall, in order to see the faces of the audience from the side. In so doing, he came face to face with Boso.
"You!" whispered the sergeant-at-arms, reaching for his sword, "I ought to—"
"Behave yourself, Boso!" said Jorian.
"Futter you! You behave yourself, or I'll—"
"Shh!" said several magicians, facing towards the pair and scowling.
Boso quieted, and Jorian continued his search, sweeping his glance back and forth against row after row of faces—pink faces, gray faces, tan faces, brown faces; clean-shaven faces, mustached faces, bearded faces; young faces, middle-aged faces, old faces; male faces and female faces. At last, when he thought he would have to give up, he sighted Karadur across the auditorium, sitting with his conical cap on his head and his turban in his lap. The wizardess Goania sat next to him. Jorian quietly joined them.
The panel discussion was nearly over. When Aello declared the session adjourned, hundreds of magicians rose and stretched.
"Whither now?" said Jorian.
"There will be an apertif in the library," said Karadur, "but I take no fermented beverages. I think I will rest until dinner. Why do you not escort Goania thither?"
"Colossal ideal" said Jorian. "Mistress Goania, may I have the honor?"
"One thing in parting," said Karadur. "Here, of all places, guard that flapping tongue!"
"I'll try," said Jorian.
In the library, Jorian drank spiced wine and nibbled snacks of salt fish and cookies with Goania, who introduced him to countless wizards, sorcerers, necromancers, diviners, and other practitioners of the magical arts. He soon lost track of names and faces. During a pause, he asked the wizardess:
"How is Vanora making out with Boso?"
"Oh, they had a terrible quarrel yesterday and are not speaking today. But that is how things go with them. Tomorrow they will have forgotten what they were fighting over."
"She gave me the impression she wasn't happy with him. After all, she is a person of some intelligence, if badly organized, whereas he lacks the brains of a polliwog."
"That she is unhappy most of the time I grant. The question is would she be happier with anyone else? I doubt it, for it is her nature to be unhappy and to make those about her unhappy. All of us have some of this in our natures and she, poor girl, has more than most." Goania looked sharply at Jorian. "You and she were close at one time, weren't you?"
"Aye, though it was a painful pleasure."
"Are you nurturing sentimental ideas of 'taking her away from all this,' or otherwise sacrificing yourself to make her happy?"
"No-o," said Jorian hesitantly, because such ideas had in fact been flitting through his mind.
"Well, if any have, dismiss them at once. You cannot change the basic nature of a grown man or woman, even by magical spells. If you took up with her again, you would find you had acquired, not a lover, but a sparring partner—a rdle for which Boso's grossness and stupidity fit him far better than your qualities fit you."
Jorian drew himself up. "You forget, Mistress Goania, that I left five lovely wives behind in Xylar. One of them at least—my little Estrildis— I hope to fetch away some day, to settle down and lead a simple craftsman's uneventful life."
Goania shook her head. "I have cast your nativity and studied your palm, and I fear that a quiet craftsman's life is the one boon the gods do not have in store for you. As for the wenches, I suggest that you adhere to your resolve to regain your Estrildis when you are lured into other bypaths." She glanced across to where Vanora stood, surrounded by young men. "From the way she is guzzling, I suspect we have one of Vanora's lively evenings ahead of us."
"What mean you by that?"
The wizardess sighed. "You shall see."
The library became more and more crowded, as more conventioners drifted in. The noise rose, as each speaker found he needed to raise his voice to make himself heard. Soon the room was packed with magicians and their helpers, all shouting at the tops of their lungs.
Jorian tried to introduce himself and engage those about him in talk but, despite his natural gregariousness and garrulity, with little success. He had to bellow to make himself heard, and the replies, when they came, were mostly unintelligible. He could catch only an occasional word, and that word was often so distorted that he could not tell whether it was a common word misunderstood or some esoteric magical term.
After a while, Jorian became bored by this noncommunication. He tried an experiment. To a long-bearded, dignified wizard, he solemnly shouted:
"Sir, did you know that the ultifang had metisold the otch whangle?"
The wizard's bushy, white eyebrows rose, and he uttered what sounded like: "You do not say sol We mist certimate glasso in the thourimar!"
"Aye, sir, I had it from the bolimbrig gazoo. No doubt abung it. When is the Soiling gebisht in vemony?"
"On the fenty-nifth, I shink."
"Perzactly, perzactly. It's been a mosure, sir!"
But even this amusement palled in time. Jorian's feet were tired from standing and his head rang with the uproar when dinner was at long last announced. He took Goania in, but as an apprentice he ate with the others of his rank, while Goania joined Karadur to sup with the other master magicians. Remembering Karadur's last injunction, Jorian refrained from an account of his adventures. Instead, he confined himself to polite replies, leading questions to encourage the others to talk, and occasional quips and humorous verses to turn aside their curiosity about him.
"Are you donning a costume tonight?" asked one of his table mates.
"Alas! My master and I arrived late, without time to gather materials. Now I could only go as one shabby travelworn apprentice. But tell me how this contest works, since this is my first Conclave."