'The projection is a mere trick, a side effect, if you will. You saw the old men sitting around the nutrient pool reading?' Fost nodded. 'Well, now Oracle can absorb knowledge directly from men's brains. Not only can it pick up the accumulated knowledge of a learned man's whole life, but it can read new material as fast as a man's eyes can scan a page. Can you imagine the lifetimes that will save teaching it?'
Having stripped the drumstick to bare bone, Temalla flung it over her shoulder and slumped back in her chair.
'You've grown so tedious, Teom,' she complained. 'All you can talk about is that horrid giant toadstool.'
Teom's fist slammed onto the table, setting goblets dancing. His own crystal goblet jumped off the table to shatter on the floor. 'It is not a giant toadstool. Oracle is the greatest achievement in
High Medurim in a thousand years. It is my Oracle who will bring about a renaissance of knowledge and wisdom and make Medurim mighty again.'
Sneering, she yawned ostentatiously and raised her arms above her head, squeezing her shoulder-blades together so that her heavy breasts jutted straight at Fost. Areolas like targets showed clearly through the gown's flimsy fabric.
'You spend all your time with that unnatural thing!' Inch-long lashes batted at Fost; he almost felt the wind. 'I'm sure Sir Fost would never neglect me so.'
He felt as if someone had poured molten wax into his stomach. Damn the woman! Why didn't she leave him alone? And why did she have this effect on him?
'Unnatural?' Teom's voice rose to a shrill scream of outrage. 'Unnatural, you witch? How can you say that about my creation?' 'Because it is. And it's not your creation.'
'I sponsored it. Without my patronage it would never have been completed!'
'But what's it good for?' the Empress shouted. 'Will it fill the Imperial coffers? Can you eat it, drink it, make love to it?' Her lip curled and her voice lowered. 'But knowing you, dear brother, you probably could. And enjoy it!' 'It would make a livelier bedmate than you.'
In the thick of silence, Fost and Moriana rose and murmured excuses which went unheard amid the gathering storm. Scooping up the genies' satchels, they pushed through a group of serving maids that had crowded around to watch. As they began walking rapidly toward their suite, they heard the explosion of a shrewdly hurled crystal decanter against a wall.
No sooner had they entered their chambers and chased out the dewy-eyed blond youth and girl they found already in their bed, than Moriana went to Fost and ripped his shirt open from collar to navel.
Swaying, he put a hand on the wall to steady himself. They were both more drunk than sober. 'What'd you do that for?'
Her hands slid cool and smooth along his ribs. She undulated against him, her breath warm and sweet in his ear.
'The way that slut Temalla's been making eyes at you,' she purred, 'I thought it best to give you something else to think about tonight.'
Moriana kept him occupied until dawn, when they both slipped into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning, they took advantage of their leisure to tour the fabled Imperial Palace. They wandered to and fro along the marble corridors, gazing at paintings hung on the walls and statues standing in silent alcoves. The place had been decorated in early plunder. Whatever hadn't been nailed down or too heavy to move, the Imperial Army had taken from its country of origin. There was no scheme to the collected art. Much of it was dross, much incomparably fine. What impressed Fost was that the collection spanned two continents and almost a hundred centuries.
The sun was high when they drifted into the western courtyard. It was a garden replete with tinkling fountains and divided into nooks and crannies by an ornamental hedge. Fost suggested it had been designed as a trysting ground. That gave Erimenes much satisfaction imagining past activities.
He waved a vaporous arm at a marble statue in a niche as they passed along the grassy path.
'That's what I call art,' he announced. 'Consider the interplay of line and form, consider the dynamics of the poses, the subtle imbalance inherent in the juxtaposition of human form and delphine. And such mastery of expression. Behold the girl's face. Was ever a transport of ecstasy made more concrete? And see how the dolphin smiles at it…'
'Dolphins always look like that,' said Ziore. 'Can you find no pleasure in art that isn't lascivious?'
A puzzled frown creased his face.
'Why, no. Why should I?' Then he brightened and said, 'During my own lifetime it was definitely established that male dolphins were altogether willing to mate with human females. Keeping in mind that this is High Medurim, Moriana, you really ought to consider…'
Fost would have liked to hear Moriana's retort. He never had the chance. Just at that moment they rounded a corner to see Gyras sitting on a bench, huddled head to head with another. As arresting as the dwarf's appearance was, it was the other who brought a gasp from Moriana's lips and made her hand crop to where her sword hung.
Gyras spoke to a Zr'gsz.
The Hisser saw them before Gyras. He came to his feet in a fluid motion, a dazzling white smile splitting his dark green face.
'What have we here?' His voice was a well-modulated baritone, quite human in pronunciation and inflection. 'You must be the Princess Moriana, and you, sir, you'd be Fost Longstrider.' He clasped clawed hands at his breasts and bowed. 'I am honored to meet you.'
He was as tall as Fost, clad in a single garment of shimmering gray cloth that reached down to his sandalled feet. His shoulders were broad, his waist lean. Gyras hurriedly pushed himself off the bench, landing with a thud.
'May I present Zak'zar, Speaker of the People.' Shrewd eyes studied Moriana. 'I take it you've not met?'
Moriana's lips moved but no words emerged. 'No, we haven't,' Fost supplied. The words ripped at his throat.
'But he's an enemy!' Erimenes shrieked. 'How can you welcome this viper into your nest?' Zak'zar bowed again.
'And you would be Erimenes the Ethical. It is a pleasure to meet you, too, sir.'
'I assure you, fellow, the pleasure is entirely yours! Lord Gyras, what does this mean?' Gyras feigned astonishment.
'Surely, you do not think we would convene a debate and hear only one side, especially one as important as this?' Malevolent glee shone in his huge eyes. He raised one eyebrow before saying, 'The revered Speaker arrived the day before you did, my friends. I'm surprised your good friend His Radiance the Emperor neglected to inform you.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The languid young officer leaning back in the uncomfortable chair on Fost's left stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. The President of the Assembly was hammering for order to quell a minor riot taking place on the floor.
Ensign Palein Cheidro said to Fost, 'The Guilds oppose going to war with the Hissers. It'd disturb their precious status quo.' He examined the lace at the cuffs of his blue velvet doublet.
The President recognized a nervous cricket of a man from Jav Nihen. Fost didn't even bother listening to a speech he'd heard a dozen times before, reworded but essentially the same in content.
'Why do the Guilds oppose war? They were quick enough to back the Northern Adventure when I was a boy.'
'That was a war conducted safely on foreign soil,' explained the ensign. He smiled a lazy half-lidded smile. 'Until a suicide commando raid landed and burnt a dozen warehouses, that is. Then the Guilds cried to bring home the troops. If you offered them a really safe war against some foe too primitive to strike back at Medurim, they'd jump at it right enough. Think of the fat government contracts.'
