'Then maybe you should tell him.' Dumarest took a sip of his own wine. 'And while he's giving you the answer he might tell you the real reason he was so eager to find and stop us. Or maybe you've worked it out for yourself by now. Remember those rafts which appeared in front of us? The argument as to permissions? They came from ahead, right? From the north. And did you see the glint of copper? Domes among the rock? Places camouflaged so as to look natural?'
Hints, truth mixed with suggestion but suggestion used to illuminate one facet of the truth.
'A monopoly!' Vardoon slammed his hand hard against his knee. 'Somehow he's found how to breed vreks and so ensure a high and steady revenue. No wonder the bastard has managed to stay Maximus for so long!'
'Was he that when you were here?'
'No, he took over about fifteen years ago.'
'A long time to stay on top?'
'Too damned long, but the revenue could account for it. And he holds the field.' Vardoon drank and looked into his empty goblet. 'A search,' he said. 'He'll make a search and confiscate any ardeel he finds. He'll say it was poached and so justify the act. If we complain who will listen? What holder would care?'
'Our hostess,' said Dumarest. 'Our partner.'
'Yours, Earl. Not mine. So you've shown me I'm in a bind but I'll work it out somehow. Come to a deal of some kind.'
If he guessed of the cyber's interest the temptation could be too strong, the deal too enticing. The ardeel, passage, every obstacle moved aside-for Dumarest safely delivered.
'I've made a deal,' said Dumarest. 'And you're a part of it. You can come in willingly or not but either way you come in. A part of what we found isn't enough. We need it all. She needs it. Fiona.'
'Revenue to back her play,' said Vardoon. 'Earl, you're crazy! You don't know what it's all about!'
'And you do?' Dumarest pressed on. 'But you would, you've been here before. You know all about the system. Too much about it, maybe. The shale, for example, and your interest in the holders. The equipment you bought-a good guess if it was a guess. Do you remember what I told you back on Polis? How I hate to be cheated?'
'How cheated? I promised you ardeel and you have it.'
'Which is why you're still alive.' Dumarest leaned toward the other man, the fingers of his right hand resting on the hilt of the knife riding above his boot. 'While you were healing I got to thinking about a few things. Emil Velen, for example, his sister, his uncle, the way he is said to have died. Not in the hills but in the sea. Now how could you have made such a mistake?'
'I didn't.' Vardoon met the cold, hard eyes. 'People lie when it suits them. Carmodyne would have wanted to save the girl. Emil-'
'A young hothead,' interrupted Dumarest. 'Chafing at his dependence on his mother. Not liking the way she handled things and impatient to get in on the game. That's what you call it, isn't it? The game? But to buy in he needed a lot of money and could think of only one way to get it. So he hired a companion and headed into the hills. Or maybe he went alone. In which case-'
'He wasn't alone!'
'So something happened.' Dumarest reached for the decanter and poured a ruby stream into Vardoon's goblet. 'They may have got caught in a storm or found by guards or hit by other poachers. In any case one was killed and the other hurt. Did he hurt someone in return? Kill the wrong man?'
'Earl! I told you what happened!'
'Hurt,' said Dumarest softly. 'His face burned, caught alone in the hills. Who took care of him until he'd healed? Got him safe passage away from Sacaweena? Told an invented tale of Emil being drowned at sea? Carmodyne?'
Vardoon looked at his wine, drank, stared at the little remaining in the goblet. It shimmered with the amplified vibrations received from the quiver of his hand.
'It makes sense,' continued Dumarest. 'A man on the run, scared, trying to build a stake to get back. It's something you can't live without once it gets into the blood. The excitement, the fever, the lure of the game. Gambling for life and fortune. Something bred into the bone if you were born here and of the Orres. How long has it been now? Twenty-five years? Moving from world to world, working, trying to build a fortune, losing it as you tried to make it larger. Hitting the bottom and trying again.'
Trying and failing until, on Polis, he had met the one man who could provide the answer. A desperate gamble won at the cost of another's safety. Something he couldn't have known.
'You think I'm Emil Velen?'
Dumarest shrugged and sipped again at his wine. 'I don't know. I don't care. But if Kalova thinks you are it could be the reason he wants to ruin Fiona. An old blood feud. A relative dead, a friend-what does it matter? You're here that's all that matters.'
'But-' Vardoon broke off, shaking his head. 'I could never prove it,' he muttered. 'God, what a mess! If Fiona loses-'
'Kalova moves in. He gets the holding and you with it. Still want to hold onto your share?'
Marc Bulem was old, stooped, his eyes suspicious beneath tufted brows. He received Dumarest in a chamber filled with the scent of age; books, tapestries, scrolls-decaying parchments and papers yielding their insidious effluvium. An atmosphere which suited his thin, scholastic face, his gnarled and blotched hands. A man lost in a world of the past, of speculation and legend, of great deeds done in remote times, of sagas and chants and litanies. Of forgotten crusades.
'Dumarest,' he said. 'Earl Dumarest. I don't know you but all visitors are welcome. Do you have books to sell? Some retrieved information? Facts as yet unknown to me?'
The wrong man but a natural mistake. Dumarest had asked for the head of the house; a title Marc must hold by courtesy. He blinked when Dumarest explained.
'You must want Melvin. My younger brother but far more clever than I. Our fortunes depend on him. A moment while I correct the error.'
He moved away to leave Dumarest standing before the long windows at the far end of the chamber. Overhead the sky was dull with cloud and a mist of rain had wetted the panes with a scatter of droplets. To the north clouds were darker, roiling beneath the impact of high winds.
'He will be with us in a while,' said Marc as he returned. 'A matter of business, you understand. At times it never seems to end. Well, I've been done with that for years now. It was never my strength, you understand. I lack the quickness of mind, the skill, the killer instinct needed to survive. Which is why Melvin was voted Head at a Family Council. No disrespect, you understand, but even I could recognize the need.'
One admitted too late, perhaps; Bulem was tottering on the edge of ruin. A fact Dumarest did not mention as he listened to the old man.
'My interest has always been in the past. Books, records, old artifacts, old legends. Did you know that Eden actually exists? The fabled world of comfort and luxury often mentioned in old stories?'
A common name; Dumarest had visited three worlds bearing it. 'Is that a fact?'
'I could give you the coordinates. Bonanza, too, a world of incredible mineral wealth. One day, if things get too bad, I will arrange an expedition to go there and restore our fortunes.'
A madman, or a man made mad by the pressure of life on Sacaweena. One living in a dream, finding comfort in false resources, strength in his supposed knowledge. Now he bustled about the room, lifting books, setting them down to handle a scroll, a file from which he blew dust.
'It's all in here; facts and coordinates and all the old legends sifted and turned into concrete fact. Did you know that, at one time, all men lived in a single world? They left it to reach out to form new settlements. Thousands of them! Millions! Small groups wanting to live as they decided, free from all restraint and compulsion. A long time ago now but such great events. See! Let me show you! I have the proof!'
Dust faded print on moldering pages. Stained lists and scrawled annotations. Insertions from other sources, references legible only to the old man, notes of complex ambiguity. The gossamer fabric of hope and fantasy.
'You see? They're all here. Worlds of wealth and promise. We have no need to worry. No need at all.' He held out the book. 'Jackpot, Avalon, Erce-they're all here!'
'Erce?' Dumarest reached for the book. 'The old name of this world?'
'Yes, but it was borrowed from another. The mother planet, perhaps. The source of all life as we know it. The pure, original world.' Pages fluttered in the thin hands. 'Look! See this reference! This deposition! All life stemmed
