misplaced?'
Dekkeret's discomfort grew. 'It has to do with an imbalance of trade,' he answered, barely able to meet her cool penetrating gaze. 'Khyntor is a manufacturing center; it exchanges goods for the livestock of Suvrael; for the past two years the export of blaves and mounts out of Suvrael has declined steadily, and now strains are developing in the Khyntor economy. The manufacturers are encountering difficulty in carrying so much Suvraelu credit.'
'None of this is news to me.'
'I've been asked to inspect the rangelands here,' said Dekkeret, 'in order to determine whether an upturn in livestock production can soon be expected.'
'Will you have some wine?' Golator Lasgia asked unexpectedly.
Dekkeret, adrift, considered the proprieties. While he faltered she produced two flasks of golden, deftly snapped their seals, and passed one to him. He took it with a grateful smile. The wine was cold, sweet, with a faint sparkle.
'Wine of Khyntor,' she said. 'Thus we contribute to the Suvraelu trade deficit. The answer, Initiate Dekkeret, is that in the final year of the Pontifex Prankipin a terrible drought struck Suvrael — you may ask, Initiate, how we can tell the difference here between a year of drought and a year of normal rainfall, but there is a difference, Initiate, there is a significant difference — and the grazing districts suffered. There was no way of feeding our cattle, so we butchered as many as the market could hold, and sold much of the remaining stock to ranchers in western Zimroel. Not long after Confalume succeeded to the Labyrinth, the rains returned and the grass began to grow in our savannas. But it takes several years to rebuild the herds. Therefore the trade imbalance will continue a time longer, and then will be cured.' She smiled without warmth. 'There. I have spared you the inconvenience of an uninteresting journey to the interior.'
Dekkeret found himself perspiring heavily. 'Nevertheless I must make it, Archiregimand Golator Lasgia.'
'You'll learn nothing more than I've just told you.'
'I mean no disrespect. But my commission specifically requires me to see with my own eyes—'
She closed hers a moment 'To reach the rangelands just now will involve you in great difficulties, extreme physical discomfort, perhaps considerable personal danger. If I were you, I'd remain in Tolaghai, sampling such pleasures as are available here, and dealing with whatever personal business brought you to Suvrael; and after a proper interval, write your report in consultation with my office and take yourself back to Khyntor.'
Immediate suspicions blossomed in Dekkeret. The branch of the government she served was not always cooperative with the Coronal's people; she seemed quite transparently trying to conceal something that was going on in Suvrael; and, although his mission of inquiry was only the pretext for his voyage to this place and not his central task, all the same he had his career to consider, and if he allowed a Pontifical Archiregimand to bamboozle him too easily here it would go badly for him later. He wished he had not accepted the wine from her. But to cover his confusion he allowed himself a series of suave sips, and at length said, 'My sense of honor would not permit me to follow such an easy course.'
'How old are you, Initiate Dekkeret?'
'I was born in the twelfth year of Lord Confalume.'
'Yes, your sense of honor would still prick you, then. Come, look at this map with me.' She rose briskly. She was taller than he expected, nearly his own height, which gave her a fragile appearance. Her dark, tightly coiled hair emitted a suprising fragrance, even over the aroma of the strong wine. Golator Lasgia touched the wall and a map of Suvrael in brilliant ochre and auburn hues sprang into view. 'This is Tolaghai,' she said, tapping the northwest corner of the continent. 'The grazing lands are here.' She indicated a band that began six or seven hundred miles inland and ran in a rough circle surrounding the desert at the heart of Suvrael. 'From Tolaghai,' she went on, 'there are three main routes to the cattle country. This is one. At present it is ravaged by sandstorms and no traffic can safely use it. This is the second route: we are experiencing certain difficulties with Shapeshifter bandits there, and it is also closed to travelers. The third way lies here, by Khulag Pass, but that road has fallen into disuse of late, and an arm of the great desert has begun to encroach on it. Do you see the problems?'
As gently as he could Dekkeret said, 'But if it is the business of Suvrael to raise cattle for export, and all the routes between the grazing lands and the chief port are blocked, is it correct to say that a lack of pasture is the true cause of the recent shortfalls of cattle exports?'
She smiled. 'There are other ports from which we ship our produce in this current situation.'
'Well, then, if I go to one of those, I should find an open highway to the cattle country.'
Again she tapped the map. 'Since last winter the port of Natu Gorvinu has been the center of the cattle trade. This is it, in the east, under the coast of Alhanroel, about six thousand miles from here.'
'Six thousand—'
'There is little reason for commerce between Tolaghai and Natu Gorvinu. Perhaps once a year a ship goes from one to the other. Overland the situation is worse, for the roads out of Tolaghai are not maintained east of Kangheez — -' she indicated a city perhaps a thousand miles away—'and beyond that, who knows? This is not a heavily settled continent.'
'Then there's no way to reach Natu Gorvinu?' Dekkeret said, stunned.
'One. By ship from Tolaghai to Stoien on Alhanroel, and from Stoien to Natu Gorvinu. It should take you only a little over a year. By the time you reach Suvrael again and penetrate the interior, of course, the crisis that you've come to investigate will probably be over. Another flask of the golden, Initiate Dekkeret?'
Numbly he accepted the wine. The distances stupefied him. Another horrendous voyage across the Inner Sea, all the way back to his native continent of Alhanroel, only to turn around and cross the water a third time, sailing now to the far side of Suvrael, and then to find, probably, that the ways to the interior had meanwhile been closed out there, and — no. No. There was such a thing as carrying a penance too far. Better to abandon the mission altogether than subject himself to such absurdities.
While he hesitated Golator Lasgia said, 'The hour is late and your problems need longer consideration. Have you plans for dinner, Initiate Dekkeret?'
Suddenly, astoundingly, her somber eyes gleamed with mischief of a familiar kind.
3
In the company of the Archiregimand Golator Lasgia, Dekkeret discovered that life in Tolaghai was not necessarily as bleak as first superficial inspection had indicated. By floater she returned him to his hotel — he could see her distaste at the look of the place — and instructed him to rest and cleanse himself and be ready in an hour. A coppery twilight had descended, and by the time the hour had elapsed the sky was utterly black, with only a few alien constellations cutting jagged tracks across it, and the crescent hint of one or two moons down near the horizon. She called for him punctually. In place of her stark official tunic she wore now something of clinging mesh, almost absurdly seductive. Dekkeret was puzzled by all this. He had had his share of success with women, yes, but so far as he knew he had given her no sign of interest, nothing but the most formal of respect; and yet she clearly was assuming a night of intimacy. Why? Certainly not his irresistible sophistication and physical appeal, nor any political advantage he could confer on her, nor any other rational motive. Except one, that this was a foul backwater outpost where life was stale and uncomfortable, and he was a youthful stranger who might provide a woman herself still young with a night's amusement. He felt used by that, but otherwise he could see no great harm in it. And after months at sea he was willing to run a little risk in the name of pleasure.
They dined at a private club on the outskirts of town, in a garden elegantly decorated with the famous creature-plants of Stoienzar and other flowering wonders that had Dekkeret calculating how much of Tolaghai's modest water supply was diverted toward keeping this one spot flourishing. At other tables, widely separated, were Suvraelinu in handsome costume, and Golator Lasgia nodded to this one and that, but no one approached her, nor did they stare unduly at Dekkeret. From within the building blew a cool refreshing breeze, the first he had felt in weeks, as though some miraculous machine of the ancients, some cousin to the ones that generated the delicious atmosphere of Castle Mount, were at work in there. Dinner was a magnificent affair of lightly fermented fruits and tender juicy slabs of pale green-fleshed fish, accompanied by a fine dry wine of Amblemorn, no less, the very fringes of Castle Mount. She drank freely, as did he; they grew bright-eyed and animated; the chilly formality of the interview in her office dropped away. He learned that she was nine years his senior, that she was a native of moist lush Narabal on the western continent, that she had entered the service of the Pontifex when still a girl, and had been stationed in Suvrael for the past ten years, rising upon Confalume's accession to the Pontificate to her present high administrative post in Tolaghai.
'Do you
'I doubt that I would. To me Suvrael is merely a place of torment, a kind of purgatory.' Golator Lasgia nodded. 'Exactly.'
There was a flash from her eyes to his. He did not dare ask for amplification; but something told him that they had much in common.
He filled their glasses once again and permitted himself the perils of a calm, knowing smile.
She said, 'Is it purgatory you seek here?'
'Yes.'
She indicated the lavish gardens, the empty wine-flasks, the costly dishes, the half-eaten delicacies. 'You have made a poor start, then.'
'Milady, dinner with you was no part of my plan.'
'Nor mine. But the Divine provides, and we accept. Yes? Yes?' She leaned close. 'What will you do now? The voyage to Natu Gorvinu?'
'It seems to heavy an enterprise.'
'Then do as I say. Stay in Tolaghai until you grow weary of it; then return and file your report. No one will be the wiser in Khyntor.'
'No. I must go inland.'
Her expression grew mocking. 'Such dedication! But how will you do it? The roads from here are closed.'
'You mentioned the one by Khulag Pass, that had fallen into disuse. Mere disuse doesn't seem as serious as deadly sandstorms, or Shapeshifter bandits. Perhaps I can hire a caravan leader to take me that way.'
'Into the desert?'
'If needs be.'
'The desert is haunted,' said Golator Lasgia casually. 'You should forget that idea. Call the waiter over: we need more wine.'
'I think I've had enough, milady.'
'Come, then. We'll go elsewhere.'
Stepping from the breeze-cooled garden to the dry hot night air of the street was a shock; but quickly they were in her floater, and not long after they were in a second garden, this one in the courtyard of her official residence, surrounding a pool. There were no weather-machines here to ease the heat, but the Archiregimand
