He rounded a slight curve, and found the way brighter; light poured from around a second turn, which brought the street back to its original direction. He turned the second corner, and had found the inn; the light poured from its broad front window, and he could hear voices within. The door stood open, not surprising on a warm summer night, and above it hung a sign; the light from the window let him make out seven stars arranged in an oval, white paint on blue. A wide arch just beyond led, he hoped, to an attached stable. He crossed the field of light, and found a boy asleep in the archway. The distinctive odors of horse and ox reached his slit nostrils, convincing him that his hopes were correct. He prodded the boy gently with a booted toe.
The lad woke up immediately and sprang to his feet, but said nothing.
"I need stabling for my mount."
"One mark the night, sir, and feed is extra."
"I have no local currency; will this do?" He produced his smallest gold coin, and dropped it in the boy's hand. The lad looked at it, then carried it over to the light that spilled from the tavern door.
He studied it for a long minute, then asked, "What is it?"
"A northern gold piece."
"Gold?" The boy looked at it again, then tested it with his teeth.
"Of course it's gold."
"Yes, sir; but we see little gold here. Most pay in silver. My apologies for the delay; the third stall is yours, my lord." He bowed.
Garth ignored the stable-boy's obsequiousness and led Koros to the indicated stall, which proved spacious enough and well lined with straw, though not particularly clean. A bucket of passably clear water hung from one side, and in view of its recent feeding Garth saw no need to provide the warbeast with any other sustenance. He removed pack and saddle and placed them to one side, then told Koros to stay and headed for the tavern door. He had no worries that anyone might disturb his supplies; anybody fool enough to try would be ripped to pieces immediately. A warbeast was a very useful thing to have.
Although from the street the tavern had seemed brightly lit, once inside Garth found it otherwise; the light came from a row of lanterns hung across the window and from two low-burning hearthfires, one at either end of the main room, and from nowhere else, so that most of the room remained dim and shadowed. The chimneys did not seem to draw well either; a haze of smoke seemed to hang over everything.
A dozen assorted locals adorned the various tables that were scattered about, and there was not a lone innkeeper, as Garth had expected, but two serving-maids and a boy, all adolescent, distinguishable from their patrons by virtue of gray aprons worn over their robes. Probably the innkeeper's offspring, he decided, and their father must be in the kitchen or ending to rooms upstairs.
He beckoned to the nearer girl; she scurried over, leaving the spit she had been turning, which held a shapeless lump of meat a foot or so above one of the fires. "Yes, sir?" she said.
"Bring me ale and meat; and have you any fruit? I could use something sweet." Garth spoke in a voice well above his natural range and stood stooping to disguise his inhuman height, his hood pulled well forward.
"Yes, sir." She hurried off, and he seated himself at a convenient table.
As he waited for his food and drink he studied his surroundings; he wanted someone to talk to, someone who would tell him about the city and the temples. What he saw were a dozen robed, hooded figures huddled over their tables, speaking little to each other, let alone to a stranger who would not allow his face to be seen. The universal Dыsarran garb made him wonder momentarily if the Forgotten King hailed from this strange city, but on consideration he decided it was unlikely. The King wore yellow, a color he had not seen displayed anywhere in this country, and went in rags despite his claim of royalty, while here, dark colors predominated and most wore clothing in far better shape than his own travel-worn cloak. Further, the King was pale-skinned, while the Dыsarrans, from what he could see, were of a middling shade, lighter than his own hide but browner than the men of Skelleth; and finally, the Dыsarran robes tended to be loose and flowing, while the King kept his garments wrapped tightly about him.
But of course, Garth suddenly realized, not everyone in the room wore the standard robe and hood; the two serving-maids and their brother; if such he was, wore shorter, low-necked robes with no hoods, dark blue in color. All three were barefoot, with long brown hair tied back in single braids down their backs. The similarity in hair color further convinced Garth that they were siblings, as the shade and texture were almost identical.
These three might be more willing to converse than their customers; filling an eager ear would surely be more pleasant to such young folk than carting mugs and plates about. He paid them more attention than he had.
The boy was the youngest, probably well short of his full height, and still totally innocent of any beard; Garth was no judge of human ages, but the lad was plainly far from maturity. As such, he would probably be limited in his knowledge; among overmen, at least, religion and philosophy were not the concerns of children, so Garth guessed that the boy would know nothing of the temples.
Of the two girls, there seemed little to choose, from the overman's point of view; they were of about the same size, and presumably therefore near the same age. They were as tall as many adult human women; Garth wondered again at the quirk of nature that made men and women so different in size, unlike overman and overwomen. Women seemed such small, fragile things, things, anal oddly proportioned, at that.
One girl seemed slightly the more active of the two; Garth decided she must be the younger. It was her older sister he had spoken to when he arrived, and it would presumably be the older who would bring his food. In that case, he would simply speak to her when his meal was ready.
Even as he decided this, the girl emerged from a door at the rear carrying a heaping plate and full mug, which she balanced easily as she crossed the room to set them on the table before him.
"My thanks." He kept his face hidden and his voice high as he looked at his meal; beside the expected slices of red meat were three chunks of some pasty yellowish substance, and a curious red fruit, like none he was familiar with, adorned one edge. "What are these?" he asked, indicating these strangers.
"Roast potato, sir. And our last good apple; we have no other fruit in store at present."
Both names were meaningless to the overman; he could not even be sure of their spelling, through the girl's thick Dыsarran accent. At least Nekutta spoke the same language as Eramma and the other northern lands, even if they spoke it strangely. Still, the "apple" was plainly a local fruit; the potato was another matter.
"What is potato?"
"Ah? Oh, you're joking!"
"No; I have traveled far."
"It's…it's a root, a vegetable. Eat it, and see." The girl was flustered; Garth was not sure if that was desirable or not. He did have her talking.
"Here, sit down; I will try this root of yours, but I have some questions about your city. Perhaps you can answer them."
"But…"
"I am a paying customer, am I not? You can spare a few minutes." He tapped the table with a gold coin, then suddenly realized that it was a mistake to draw attention to his inhuman hands; he dropped the coin, and drew his hand back out of sight. The girl apparently hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary; she stared at the coin for a moment, then snatched it up and dropped it down the neckline of her robe. Garth was amused. He had never before seen a human keep anything there, but it seemed a logical place for a woman to put a pocket. The coin had been a fullsized gold piece, not one of the little bits such as he had given the stable-boy, and he remarked, "That will cover the meal as well, will it not?"
"Oh, yes!" The girl dropped herself into the chair opposite him, smiling.