The mention of food brought to me the thought that I was hungry. I said as much, even as our elevator platform came to the lowest level and stopped.
“I have arranged for that,” Sporr began, then fell silent, fingers combing his beard in embarrassment.
“Arranged food for me?” I prompted sharply. “As if you know I had come? What—”
“Pardon, great Yandro,” babbled Sporr. “I was saying that I arranged food, as always, for whatever guest should come. Please follow.”
We entered a new small chamber, where a table was set with dishes of porcelain-like plastic. Sporr held a chair for me, and waited on me with the utmost gingerly respect. The food was a pungent and filling jelly, a little bundle of transparent leaves or scraps like cellophane and tasting of spice, and a tumbler of pink juice. I felt refreshed and satisfied, and thanked Sporr, who led me on to the next room.
“Behold!” he said, with a dramatic gesture. “Your garments, even as they have been preserved against your coming!”
It was a sleeping chamber, with a cot made fast to the wall, a metal locker or cupboard, with a glass door through which showed the garments of which Sporr spoke.
The door closed softly behind me—I was left alone.
Knowing that it was expected of me, I went to the locker and opened the door. The garments inside were old, I could see, but well kept and serviceable. I studied their type, and my hands, if not my mind, seemed familiar with them.
There was a kiltlike item, belted at the waist and falling to mid-thigh. A resilient band at the top, with a series of belt-holes, made it adaptable to my own body or to any other. Then came an upper garment, a long strip of soft, close-woven fabric that spiralled around the torso from hip to armpit, the end looping over the left shoulder and giving full play to the arms. A gold-worked fillet bound the brows and swept back my longish hair, knotting at the nape of the neck. The only fitted articles were a pair of shoes, metal-soled and soft-uppered, that went on well enough and ran cross-garters up to below the knee, like buskins. The case also held a platinum chain for the neck, a belt-bag, and a handsome sword, with clips to fasten them in place. These things, too, I donned, and closed the glass door.
The light struck it at such an angle as to make it serve for a full-length mirror. With some curiosity I gazed at my image.
The close-fitting costume was rich and dark, with bright colors only for edgings and minor accessories. I myself—and it was as if I saw my body for the first time—towered rather bluffly, with great breadth of chest and shoulder, and legs robust enough to carry such bulk. The face was square but haggard, as if from some toil or pain which was now wiped from my recollection. That nose had been even bigger than it was now, but a fracture had shortened it somewhat. The eyes were deep set and dark and moody—small wonder!—the chin heavy, the mouth made grim by a scar at one corner. Black, shaggy hair hung down like brackets. All told, I looked like a proper person for physical labor, or even fierce fighting—but surely no inspirational leader or savior of a distressed people.
I took the military cloak which Doriza had lent me and slung it over my shoulders. Turning, I clanked out on my metal-soled shoes.
Sporr was waiting in the room where I had eaten. His eyes widened at sight of me, something like a grin of triumph flashed through his beard. Then he bowed, supple and humble, his palms together.
“It is indeed Yandro, our great chief,” he mumbled. Then he turned and crossed the room. A sort of mouthpiece sprouted from the wall.
“I announce,” he intoned into it. “I announce, I, Sporr, the reader and fore-teller of wisdom. Yandro is with us, he awaits his partners and friends. Let them meet him in the audience hall.”
Facing me again, he motioned most respectfully toward the door to the hall. I moved to open it, and he followed, muttering.
Outside stood Doriza. Her blue eyes met mine, and her lips moved to frame a word. Then, suddenly, she was on her knee, catching my hand and kissing it.
“I serve Yandro,” she vowed tremulously. “Now and forever—and happy that I was fated to live when he returned for the rescue of all Dondromogon.”
“Please get up,” I bade her, trying not to sound as embarrassed as I felt. “Come with me. There is still much that I do not understand.”
“I am Yandro’s orderly and helper,” she said. Rising, she ranged herself at my left hand. “Will Yandro come this way? He will be awaited in the audience hall.”
It seemed to me then that the corridors were vast and mixed as a labyrinth, but Doriza guided me without the slightest hesitation past one tangled crossway after another. My questions she answered with a mixture of awe and brightness.
“It is necessary that we live like this,” she explained. “The hot air of Dondromogon’s sunlit face is ever rising, and the cold air from the dark side comes rushing under to fill the vacuum. Naturally, our strip of twilight country is never free of winds too high and fierce to fight. No crops can grow outside, no domestic animals flourish. We must pen ourselves away from the sky and soil, with stout walls and heavy sunken parapets. Our deep mines afford every element for necessities of life.”
I looked at my garments, and hers. There were various kinds of fabric, which I now saw plainly to be synthetic. “The other side, where those you call the Newcomers dwell and fight,” I reminded. “Is it also windswept? Why can two people not join forces and face toil and nature together? They should fight, not each other, but the elements.”
Doriza had no answer that time, but Sporr spoke up behind us: “Great Yandro
