"We must clear this hall to allow the servitors to remove the tables and push the benches back along the walls," said another apprentice.
"A long platform is erected against yonder wall. Then those in costume assemble on the floor, whilst those not so clad sit on the benches. There is always a fuss over folk who stand up, blocking others' view, or inch forward into the press of the costume wearers.
"The master of ceremonies takes the names of all those in costume and calls upon them, one by one, to parade up one end of the platform and down the other, whilst the judges sit, looking judicious and marking their tablets. After all have paraded, the few best are called back to parade again, and from these the judges choose the prize winners."
"We have some comical rules," said another apprentice. "To give an example: human beings may parade in the guise of spirits, but demons, spirits, or other denizens of other planes and dimensions may not enter the contest at all. You'll see old Aello standing at one end of the platform and waving his wand at each contestant as he goes by. His great protective spell is supposed to make disguise by spirits impossible, but he wants to make doubly sure."
"And then," resumed the first apprentice, "there is a rule against complete nudity."
"Why?" said Jorian. "I have always thought that well-formed women looked their best that way."
"So did some of our lady conventioners. It got to be that twenty or thirty of these dames would parade as nude as frogs, so that the event bade fair to degenerate into a body-beauty contest and not a costume contest at all. There was a terrific row, with factions shaking fists and threatening maleficent spells. So a panel of the oldest and wisest magicians was appointed to arbitrate. These decided that a naked person is not, by definition, wearing a costume."
"In other words," said Jorian, "no costume is no costume. A fine philosophical and grammatical point."
"Precisely," beamed the apprentice. "Hence, naked human beings might not enter, not being in costume. But that didn't end the matter. There was a squabble only last year, when Madame Tarlustia, the Kortolian sorceress, paraded with no adornment other than a large jewel pasted into her navel. Did she qualify or didn't she? They ruled that she qualified but won no prizes, her garb displaying neither sufficient ingenuity, nor effort, not esthetic appeal. But 'twas a near thing. Had she been twenty years younger and twenty pounds lighter, the decision might have gone the other way, for she was still a fine figure of a woman."
Two hours after dinner, the company filed back into the ballroom. Jorian noted that most of those in costume—as far as he could see their faces at all—tended to be the younger element at the Conclave: the apprentices and assistants. The older wizards and wizardesses, by and large, preferred to sit sedately on the benches around the walls.
After an hour of milling about and getting the parade organized, the master of ceremonies mounted the platform. On the farther side of this platform, with their backs against the wall, sat the nine judges. President Aello stood at one end of the platform with his wand. The master of ceremonies looked at a list and called:
"Master Teleinos of Tarxia!"
An apprentice, dressed like a demon from the Fourth Plane, climbed the steps at one end of the platform, walked slowly past the judges, and descended the steps at the other end. While he paraded around the hall past the spectators, the master of ceremonies called:
"Masters Annyx and Forion of Solymbria!"
A dragon of cloth and lacquer, borne by two apprentices who represented the monster's legs, mounted the platform.
"Mistress Vanora of Govannian!"
Vanora, flushed but not staggering, marched up the platform in the guise of an undine. This consisted of a knee-length shift of transparent green gauze. Lengths of artificial seaweed were braided into her long black hair. She wore green gloves with webbing between the fingers, and her eyelids, lips, and toenails were painted green.
"Doctor Vingalfi of Istheun!…"
And so it went for three hours. In the end, Vanora won a third prize. Then an orchestra played. Jorian came up to congratulate Vanora, who was again surrounded by apprentices. Boso hovered, glowering unhappily, in the background. She was saying:
"They're playing a Kortolian volka. Which of you knows how to dance it?"
"I was once deemed an expert," said Jorian, extending his elbow for her to take. He nodded politely to Boso, saying: "With your kind permission, sir…"
"Oh, to the next incarnation with him!" said Vanora, seizing Jorian's arm and tugging him out upon the floor. "The witling can't dance a step."
Off they went, stamping and whirling. Although Vanora's breath was heavy with wine, the liquor she had drunk did not seem to have affected her excellent dancing. But the volka is vigorous, and the air was warm and balmy. By the end of the piece, both Jorian and Vanora were bathed in sweat. They found a refreshment table, where Vanora gulped down enough iced wine at one draft to have laid an ordinary drinker flat.
"Jorian dear," she said, "I was a damned fool to carry on about your serpent princess, as I did in Othomae. As if a drunken slut with a hot cleft, like me, should take umbrage at whom you frike on a mattress with! But it's my curse, to rail at every decent man and to bed with swine like Boso."
As she spoke, Jorian's eyes traveled over her body. Vanora wore nothing under the gauzy shift, whose sheerness bent the nudity rule as far as it would bend without snapping. Jorian tried to focus his mind on his lost Estrildis, but the blood poured into his loins.
"Say no more," he said, realizing his voice had thickened. "I'm sure I should have enjoyed it more with you than with her. At least, you wouldn't have tossed a man clear out of bed on the floor!"
"Did she, actually?"
"No, but it was a near thing. And the postures those Mulvanians use! But come, isn't it stuffy in here with all these people?"
"Aye. Have you been up to the battlements?"
"No, I haven't. Let's go."
On the battlements the moon, in its first quarter, was just setting. Stars glowed overhead, while in the south a mass of cloud was fitfully lit by the flicker of distant lightning.
"Isn't it warm for this time of year?" he said, sliding an arm around her waist.
"It is rather. Methinks we shall be in for a rainy spell." She turned slowly towards him and tipped back her head. "What of those Mulvanian postures?"
Soon afterwards, they walked lightly down the corridor leading to room twenty-three. Jorian's pulse pounded in his temples. He whispered:
"I haven't seen old Karadur all evening. If he's in our room, we shall have to try yours. If he's not, I'll lock him out."
"I know where some pallets for late-arriving guests are kept," she whispered. "We could drag one up to the roof."
"We shall see." Jorian tried the door of his suite and found it locked. He inserted the key he had received upon registration and quietly unlocked the door. He pushed it open a crack, then froze, listening. Vanora began:
"What is—"
Jorian made a quick chopping motion with his hand. The look of feral lust on his face had vanished, replaced by a hunter's stealthy alertness.
He pushed the door open a little wider, and a little wider yet, until it was open enough for him to slip through. The sitting room was dark, but a candle was lit in the bedroom. The door between the two was ajar, so that a narrow wedge of light slashed across the sitting room. Voices came from the bedroom, and between the snatches of speech the crackle of old parchment could be heard.
"Here's our scroll," said a voice. "By all the gods and demons! Tis a version of the sorcerer Rendivar's great counter-spell, thought to have been lost for aye."