first. I am oblivious to style.”
“Hm.” Wayness looked him up and down, from big feet his black shoes to the soft-brimmed canvas hat. “I'm not so sure of that. You made a choice when you first bought your clothes.”
'Never! Everything I wear is plucked from the catch-as-catch-can rack at the fair, and these things were the first I found that would fit. They look well enough to suit me and cover my shanks from the wind. Well then: shall we go?” Lefaun added in a grumbling voice: “You were anxious to be out and in again almost before sunset, so I came a bit early, to show you something more of the town.”
“Just as you say.”
Outside the hotel Lefaun halted. 'First: the square. You have already taken note of the churches, which have been rebuilt a dozen times, probably more. Still, they are said to be quaint. Are you familiar with the history of the far past?”
'Not particularly.'
'Are you a student of ancient religions?”
'No.”
''The churches will then be meaningless. As for me, I am bored with them, gaudy domes and all. We shall explore elsewhere.”
“Such as where? I do not want to be bored either.”
'Aha! Have no fear, you will be in my company!”
The two set off at a diagonal across the square, toward the hills of the Old Town. As they walked, Lefaun pointed out items of interest. “These granite flags were quarried in the Pontus and brought here by barge. It is said that each flag represents four dead men.” He glanced sidewise with eyebrows raised. “Why are you hopping and jumping like that?'
“I don’t quite know where to put my feet.”
Lefaun made an extravagant gesture. “Ignore all sentiment; walk where you will. They were low-class men, in any event. Do you think of dead cows when you eat meat?”
“I try not to do so.”
Lefaun nodded. “Yonder, on that contrivance of iron rods, is where Ivan Grodzny roasted the folk of Kiev for their misdeeds. That was long ago, of course, and the grill is a reconstruction. Directly to the side, in that little kiosk a vendor sells grilled sausages, which I think to be in rather bad taste.”
“Yes, quite.'
Lefaun came to a halt. He pointed to the crest of a hill behind the Old Town. “Do you see that pillar? It is one hundred feet high. For five years the ascetic Omshats occupied the top of the pillar, from which he declaimed his soliloquies. There are two accounts of his going. Some say he simply disappeared from sight, though many folk were gathered around the base of the pillar at the time. Others claim that he was struck by a monstrous bolt of lightning.'
“Perhaps both accounts are correct.”
“I suppose that’s possible. In any case, we are now at the center of the square. To the left is the Spice Merchants Quarter to the right is the Mercery. Both are places of considerable interest.”
“But we are going elsewhere?'
'Yes, even though we may encounter certain complexities which you, as an off-worlder might find incomprehensible.'
“So far I understand you very well, or so I suspect.'
Lefaun ignored the remark. “Let me try to instruct you. First, the premise: Kiev has a long tradition of intellectual and artistic achievement, as perhaps you are aware.'
Wayness made an ambiguous sound. “Proceed.'
“That is all in the background. The city has taken a mighty leap to become one of the most advanced centers of creative thought anywhere around the Reach.”
“That is interesting to hear.”
'Kiev is like a great laboratory where reverence for past aesthetic doctrine crashes headlong into utter contempt for the same doctrine — sometimes in the same individual, and the collision produces a coruscation of wonders.”
“Where does all this happen?' Wayness asked. “At the Funusti Museum?'
“Not necessarily, though the Prodromes, a select little society, numbers among its members both Tadiew Skander, whom you met today, and myself. In general, the venue is old Kiev itself, to be seen and heard and felt at places like the Bobadil, and the Nym, and Lena's and Dirty Edvard's, where liver and onions are served from wheelbarrows. At Stone Flower the motif is cockroaches, and there are some truly fine specimens! At the Universo, everyone walks about in the nude and collects as many signatures as possible on his or her bare skin. Some lucky folk were signed last year by the great Zoncha Temblada, and have not bathed since.”
'Where are all the wonderful new art forms? So far I have heard mainly of cockroaches and signatures.”
“Just so. It was early realized that every possible permutation of pigment, light, texture, form, sound and whatever is left had been achieved, and that to strain for novelty was wasted effort. The single ever-fresh ever- renewing resource was human thought itself, and the gorgeous patterns of its interplay between or among individuals.”
Wayness frowned in puzzlement. “Are you referring to ‘talk'?”
“I suppose that 'talk' is an appropriate word.”
“At least it is inexpensive.”
'Exactly! Which makes it the most egalitarian of all creative disciplines!”
“I am happy that you explained this to me,“ said Wayness. “We are on our way to Lena's Bistro, then?'
“Yes. The cabbage rolls are the best, and it is there that we will receive the information you require, although I am not sure when it will arrive.' Lefaun glanced down at Wayness. “Why are you looking at me like that?’
'How am I looking?'
“When I was little, my grandmother found that I had dressed our fat pug dog in her best lace cap. I cannot quite describe the expression: a kind of helpless fatalistic wonder as to what other mischief I might have in mind. So, why do you look at me like that?”
'Perhaps I will explain by and by.”
“Bah!' Lefaun reached up with both hands to pull his hat down as far as possible across his face. “I cannot understand your conundrums. Do you have the money?'
“All that I shall need.”
'Very well. It is not too far now, just under the Varanji Arch and a few paces up the hill.”
The two continued across the square, Lefaun marching on long bent-kneed strides, Wayness half-running to keep up: to the side of the Spice Merchants Quarter under a squat stone arch and off up the hill by a set of crooked streets, overhung by the second stories of structures to either side, almost to blot out the sky. The way twisted and narrowed, to become a flight of steps, which gave upon a small plaza. Lefaun pointed. “Yonder is Lena's bistro. Just around the corner is Mopo's, with the Nym just up Pyadogorsk Alley. Here is what has been voted ‘the creative node of the Gaean Reach' by the membership of the Prodromes. What do you think of that?”
“It is certainly an odd little square.”
Lefaun studied her somberly. “Sometimes I feel that you are laughing at me.”
''Tonight I might laugh at anything,” said Wayness. “If you think of it as hysteria, you might not be wrong. Do you wonder why? It is because this afternoon I have had an appalling experience. “
Lefaun considered her with sardonically raised eyebrows. 'You spent half a sol by mistake.”
“Worse. If I think about it, I start to quiver.”
“Too bad,” said Lefaun. 'But let us go before the crowd arrives. You can tell me all about it over a flask of beer.'
Lefaun pushed open a tall narrow door bound in arabesques of black iron; the two entered a room of moderate size, furnished with heavy wooden tables, wooden benches and chairs. Tongues of yellow flame from wall sconces, six to each side of the room, provided a soft yellow light, and Wayness reflected that if the building had not caught on fire before, it was not likely to do so tonight. “
Lefaun gave Wayness instructions: “Buy tickets from the cashier yonder, then go to the wall and look at the
