"I'm sorry I can't offer you one with a private bathroom, but I decided against building the house like that. You have to remember that even having the things indoors is somewhat radical here, and I can't afford to be too far out of step."
"Sure," Danae nodded, stepping to one of the south-facing windows and moving aside the gauze curtain. The lawn, with all its splashes of color, was visible below... as was the archway with the trapped demon. "This is fine—much nicer than I was expecting from Karyx, certainly. If I may ask, how in the worlds do you handle the, uh, mechanics of the bathrooms?"
"It's perfectly simple," Melentha shrugged. "I've got a couple of large water tanks on the third floor that feed into the showers—a bound nixie keeps them filled for me and there's a firebrat in one to heat it. I don't suppose you've ever seen an old-style flush toilet?—well, trust me, they're noisy but perfectly adequate. Another tank holds water for that purpose; the wastes run down pipes to an underground chamber where three firebrats under a djinn's control disintegrate it all into component atoms and dump everything into the ground water."
"Clever," Danae murmured.
"Straightforward, really," Melentha said. "There's a lot you can accomplish on Karyx if you have even a vague conception of science to complement your spirithandling."
"As long as you don't let it run away with you," Ravagin spoke up from the other side of the room, where he was peering out one of the windows facing east. "Too much and you'll attract attention from the locals. How many of them are you employing here, incidentally?"
"Just four," Melentha said, face hardening again. "All but one leave at night, and the fourth has a small room off the kitchen. The rules do permit me to hire locals, you know."
Ravagin turned back to her. "I'm aware of that," he said mildly. "How many other visitors do you have at the moment?"
"One group; five men, two women. They're out at Findral at the moment, not due back until tomorrow, and then they're due to leave. No one else, though of course I can't ever be sure when someone will drop in."
Ravagin nodded and shifted his attention to Danae. "Will you be wanting to do your studies here in Besak, or would you prefer to pick a different village?"
It was surprisingly difficult for Danae to force her mind back onto what was by now a very familiar track. Such esoteric concepts as statistics and psychological comp/correlation seemed jarringly out of place in such a setting. "No, Besak will be fine," she managed. "Though I'd like to try working up a correlation of attitudes in Findral or Torralane Village, too, if we have the time."
"Thought about how you're going to go about it?" he asked.
"More or less." She looked at Melentha. "I plan to offer either a brand-new item or an improvement on an existing one to the merchants and people of Besak—I'll want to discuss with you later which of my possibilities would be best received."
Melentha frowned. "What do you expect to prove?"
"It should give me a measure of their receptiveness to new things; and since I'll also be offering a spirit-enhanced version of the same item, I'll get at least a preliminary reading on their feelings toward the use of bound spirits. I'll need your help for the binding spells, of course."
"Um," Melentha grunted, clearly not impressed. "Sure, all right, I'll give you whatever help you need."
"Thanks," Danae said, giving the other a tentative smile. Getting on better terms with the woman couldn't hurt, and would probably help in the long run. "When do you want to sit down and discuss it?"
"Tonight," Melentha said promptly. "I have some things that need to be done before sundown, and you ought to take some time to orient yourself anyway. Maybe go into Besak and have a look around
—I can give you one of my people as a guide if you want."
Danae glanced at Ravagin. "You know the way around Besak, don't you?"
"Well enough," he replied. "Though we might need one of Melentha's employees to get back in through the post line."
"Oh. Right." Danae shivered at the memory of that inhuman face.
But Melentha shook her head. "There'll be no problem with that. I'll just instruct the demon that you're my guests and have free access to the house and grounds. It's as simple as that." Stepping across the room, she opened a sliding panel to reveal a well-stocked closet. "If you're going to pass yourself off as a trader in bound-spirit goods, you'll need to change into something more appropriate to your station," she said, locating an intricately embroidered robe and holding it out for Danae's inspection. "This one will give you instant attention—I got it from a traderess from Coven, and it bears their emblem." She indicated a series of golden threads weaving in and out of the metallic redand- blue pattern tracking diagonally across the robe's front.
Ravagin stepped to Melentha's side to take a closer look at the thread pattern. "That's Coven, all right," he agreed slowly. "Where did you get this, Melentha?"
She smiled slyly. "Suffice it to say no one's going to miss it."
"Uh-huh. And you want Danae to go walking around in broad daylight dressed in it? Forgive the bluntness, but that strikes me as rather stupid."
"Why?" Melentha countered. "Don't you think it would guarantee that no one in Besak would give her any trouble?"
"No one except possibly another Coven trader."
Melentha's expression turned patient. "Ravagin, you've become a real worlds-class worrier—anyone ever mention that to you? Why would a Coven trader care if she was dressed in a robe from his town?"
"Maybe because they don't like unauthorized people claiming Coven quality for their merchandise,"
Ravagin gritted. "That ever occur to you?"
"But this isn't an official trader's robe," Melentha said blandly. "It was part of the traderess's sale stock. Didn't I mention that?"
No you certainly did not, Danae thought, eyes flicking between the other two. Short-term memory damage? Or was she just baiting him?
The latter, obviously. Melentha's expression—wide-eyed innocent, but with more than a hint of amusement showing through—made that clear. She'd planned to trap Ravagin into an argument and then pull the floor out from under him, and she'd succeeded.
And it was clear from his expression that he didn't like it at all. Danae didn't blame him; her own disagreements with him aside, the trick struck her as childish. "Thanks anyway, Melentha," she said into the brittle silence, "but if Ravagin doesn't think I should wear the robe—"
"When did I say that?" Ravagin snapped, shifting his glare to her. "You want to wear the damn thing, go ahead and wear it." With a last look at Melentha, he spun around and stalked toward the hallway door. "Let me know when you want to head out, Danae," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hall. A moment later the floor vibrated slightly in time with the slamming of his door.
For a long moment the two women eyed each other in silence. "Any particular reason you did that to him?" Danae asked at last.
A flicker of something almost painful-looking passed over Melentha's face... but before Danae could read anything from it an almost arrogant calm had taken its place. "Not really," she said coolly.
"Though perhaps he'll be less likely to criticize my methods now that he's aware he doesn't know everything." She walked forward and laid the robe across one edge of Danae's bed. "Why don't you take an hour or two to rest and then try the robe on. If Ravagin's still sulking after that, I'll have one of my people take you into Besak." Without pausing for an answer, she turned and glided out into the hall, shutting the door behind her.
Grimacing, Danae sat down on the other side of the bed, feeling the firmness of the mattress beneath the quilt. So much for appealing to her better instincts, she thought, a mild taste of disgust staining her tongue. An effect of Karyx, or was she just that kind of malicious personality to begin with?