highlights, woven into a simple four-strand plait that fell most of the way down her back.
«I feel sorry for her,» Keff said. «She looks as though she's out other depth. She's not mean enough.»
Carialle gave him the raspberry. «You always do fall for the naive look,» she said. «That's why it's always so easy to lure you into trouble in Myths and Legends.»
«Oho, you've admitted it, lady. Now I'll be on guard against you.»
«Just you watch it with these people and worry about me later. They're not fish-eating swamp dwellers like the Beasts Blatisant.»
Keff had time to nod politely to the tall girl before Chaumel yanked him away to meet the last of the five high magimen. «I know how she feels, Cari. I'm not used to dealing with advanced societies that are more complicated and devious than the one I come from. Give me the half-naked swamp dwellers every time.»
«Look at that,» Potria said, sourly. «My claim, and Chaumel is parading it around as if he discovered it.»
«Mine,» Asedow said. «We have not yet settled the question of ownership.»
«He has a kind face,» Plennafrey offered in a tiny voice. Potria spun in a storm of pink-gold and glared at her.
«You are mad. It is not fully Ozran, so it is no better than a beast, like the peasants.»
Remembering her resolution to be bolder no matter how terrified she felt, Plennafrey cleared her throat.
«I am sure he is not a mere thing, Potria. He looks a true man.» In fact, she found his looks appealing. His twinkling eyes reminded her of happy days, something she hadn't known since long before her father died. If only she could have such a man in her life, it would no longer be lonely.
Potria turned away, disgusted. «I have been deprived of my rights.»
«You have? I spoke first.» Asedow's eyes glittered.
«I was winning,» Potria said, lips curled back from gritted white teeth. She flashed a hand signal under Asedow's nose. He backed off, making a sign of protection. Plenna watched, wild-eyed. Although she knew they wouldn't dare to rejoin their magical battle in here, neither of them was above a knife in the ribs.
Suddenly, she felt a wall of force intrude between the combatants. The thought of a possible incident must also have occurred to Nokias. Asedow and Potria retreated another hand-span apart, continuing to harangue one another. Plenna glanced over at the other groups of mages. They were beginning to stare. Nokias, having been disgraced once already this evening, would be furious if his underlings embarrassed him in front of the whole assemblage.
Asedow was getting louder, his hands flying in the old signs, emphasizing his point. «It is to my honor, and the tower and the beast will come to me!»
Potria's hands waved just as excitedly. «You have no honor. Your mother was a fur-skin with a dray-beast jaw, and your father was drunk when he took her!»
At the murderous look in Asedow's eye, Plenna warded herself and planted her hand firmly over her belt buckle beneath the concealing sash. At least she could help prevent the argument from spreading. With an act of will, she cushioned the air around them so no sound escaped past their small circle. That deadened the shouting, but it didn't prevent others from seeing the pantomime the two were throwing at one another.
«How dare you!» Zolaika's chair swooped in on the pair, knocking them apart with a blast of force which dispelled Plenna's cloud of silence. «You profane the sacred signs in a petty brawl!»
«She seeks to take what is rightfully mine,» Asedow bellowed. Freed, his voice threatened to shake down the ceiling.
«High one, I appeal to you,» Potria said, turning to the senior magess. «I challenged for the divine objects and I claim them as my property.» She pointed at Keff.
Keff was taken aback.
«Now just a minute here,» he said, starting forward as he recognized the words. «I'm no one's chattel.»
«Hutt!» Zolaika ordered, pointing an irregular, hand-sized form at him. Keff ducked, fearing another bolt of scarlet lightning. Chaumel pulled him back and, keeping a hand firmly on his shoulder, offered a placatory word to Potria.
«She's not the enchantress I thought she was,» Keff said sadly to Carialle.
«A regular La Belle Dame Sans Merci,» Carialle said. «Treat with courtesy, at a respectable distance.»
«Speaking of stating one's rights,» Ferngal said as he and the other high magimen moved forward. He folded his long fingers in the air before him and studied them. «May I mention that the objects were found in Klemay's territory, which is now my domain, so I have the prior claim. The tower and the male are mine.» He crushed his palms together deliberately.
«But before that, they were in my venue,» the old woman in red cried out from her place by the window. Her chair lifted high into the air. «I had seen the silver object and the being near my village when first it fell on Ozran. I claim precedence over you for the find, Ferngal!»
«I am no one's find!» Keff said, breaking away from Chaumel. «I'm a free man. My ship is my magical object, no one else's.»
«I'm mine,» Carialle crisply reminded him.
«I'd better keep you a piece of magical esoterica, lady, or they'll kill me without hesitation over a talking ship with its own brain.»
La Belle Dame Sans Merci raised a shrill outcry. Chaumel, eager to keep the peace in his own home, flew to the center of the room and raised his hands.
«Mages and magesses and honored guest, the hour is come! Let us dine. We will discuss this situation much more reasonably when we all have had a bite and a sup. Please!» He clapped his hands, and a handful of servants appeared, bearing steaming trays. At a wave of their master's hand they fanned out among the guests, offering tasty-smelling hors d'oeuvres. Keff sniffed appreciatively.
«Don't touch,» Carialle cautioned him. «You don't know what's in them.»
«I know,» Keff said, «but I'm starved. It's been hours since I had that hot meal.» He felt his stomach threatening to rumble and compressed his diaphragm to prevent it being heard. He concentrated on looking politely disinterested.
Chaumel clapped his hands, and fur-faced musicians strumming oddly shaped instruments suddenly appeared here and there about the room. They passed among the guests, smiling politely. Chaumel nodded with satisfaction, and signaled again.
More Noble Primitives appeared out of the air, this time with goblets and pitchers of sparkling liquids in jewel colors. A chair hobbled up to Keff and edged its seat sideways toward his legs, as if offering him a chance to sit down.
«No thanks,» he said, stepping away a pace. The chair, unperturbed, tottered on toward the next person standing next to him. «Look around, Cari! Its like Merlin's household in The Sword in the Stone. I feel a little drunk on glory, Cari. We've discovered a race of magicians. This is the pinnacle of our careers. We could retire tomorrow and they'd talk about us until the end of time.»
«Once we get off this rock and go home! I keep telling you, Keff, what they're doing isn't magic. It can't be. Real magic shouldn't require power, least of all the kind of power they're sucking out of the surrounding area. Mental power possibly, but not battery-generator type power, which is what is coming along those electromagnetic lines in the air.»
«Well, there's invocation of power as well as evocation, drawing it into you for use,» Keff said, trying to remember the phrases out of the Myths and Legends rule book.
Carialle seemed to read his mind. «Don't talk about a game! This is real life. This isn't magic. Ah! There it is: proof.»
Keff glanced up. Chaumel was bowing to something hovering before him at eye level. It was a box of some kind. It drifted slightly so that the flat side that had been directed at Chaumel was pointing at him. Looking out from behind a glass panel was a man's face, dark-skinned and ancient beyond age. The puckered eyelids compressed as the man peered intently at Keff.
