Besides Phil, I took along a pretext-that I wanted to see how Hasan was feeling after the lamentable bash he'd received at the hounfor. Actually, what I wanted was a chance to talk to Hasan and find out how much, if anything, he'd be willing to tell me about his latest employment.
So Phil and I walked it. It wasn't far from the Office compound to the Royal. About seven minutes, ambling.
"Have you finished writing my elegy yet?" I asked.
"I'm still working on it."
"You've been saying that for the past twenty years. I wish you'd hurry up so I could read it."
"I could show you some very fine ones… Lorel's, George's, even one for Dos Santos. And I have all sorts of blank ones in my files-the fill-in kind-for lesser notables. Yours is a problem, though."
"How so?"
"I have to keep updating it. You go right on, quite blithely-living, doing things."
"You disapprove?"
"Most people have the decency to do things for half a century and then stay put. Their elegies present no problems. I have cabinets full. But I'm afraid yours is going to be a last-minute thing with a discord ending. I don't like to work that way. I prefer to deliberate over a span of many years, to evaluate a person's life carefully, and without pressure. You people who live your lives like folksongs trouble me. I think you're trying to force me to write you an epic, and I'm getting too old for that. I sometimes nod."
"I think you're being unfair," I told him. "Other people get to read their elegies, and I'd even settle for a couple good limericks."
"Well, I have a feeling yours will be finished before too long," he noted. "I'll try to get a copy to you in time."
"Oh? From whence springs this feeling?"
"Who can isolate the source of an inspiration?"
"You tell me."
"It came upon me as I meditated. I was in the process of composing one for the Vegan-purely as an exercise, of course-and I found myself thinking; 'Soon I will finish the Greek's.'" After a moment, he continued, "Conceptualize this thing: yourself as two men, each taller than the other."
"It could be done if I stood in front of a mirror and kept shifting my weight. I have this short leg. -So, I'm conceptualizing it. What now?"
"Nothing. You don't go at these things properly."
"It's a cultural tradition against which I have never been successfully immunized. Like knots, horses-Gordia, Troy. You know. We're sneaky."
He was silent for the next ten paces.
"So feathers or lead?" I asked him.
"Pardon?"
"It is the riddle of the kallikanzaros. Pick one."
"Feathers?"
"You're wrong."
"If I had said 'lead'…?"
"Uh-uh. You only have one chance. The correct answer is whatever the kallikanzaros wants it to be. You lose."
"That sounds a bit arbitrary."
"Kallikanzaroi are that way. It's Greek, rather than Oriental subtlety. Less inscrutable, too. Because your life often depends on the answer, and the kallikanzaros generally wants you to lose."
"Why is that?"
"Ask the next kallikanzaros you meet, if you get the chance. They're mean spirits."
We struck the proper avenue and turned up it.
"Why are you suddenly concerned with the Radpol again?" he asked. "It's been a long time since you left."
"I left at the proper time, and all I'm concerned with is whether it's coming alive again-like in the old days. Hasan comes high because he always delivers, and I want to know what's in the package."
"Are you worried they've found you out?"
"No. It might be uncomfortable, but I doubt it would be incapacitating."
The Royal loomed before us and we entered. We went directly to the suite. As we walked up the padded hallway, Phil, in a fit of perception, observed, "I'm running interference again."
"That about says it."
"Okay. One'll get you ten you find out nothing."
"I won't take you up on that. You're probably right."
I knocked on the darkwood door.
"Hi there," I said as it opened.
"Come in, come in."
And we were off.
It took me ten minutes to turn the conversation to the lamentable bashing of the Bedouin, as Red Wig was there distracting me by being there and being distracting.
"Good morning," she said.
"Good evening," I said.
"Anything new happening in Arts?"
"No."
"Monuments?"
"No."
"Archives?"
"No."
"What interesting work you must do!"
"Oh, it's been overpublicized and glamorized all out of shape by a few romanticists in the Information Office. Actually, all we do is locate, restore, and preserve the records and artifacts mankind has left lying about the Earth."
"Sort of like cultural garbage collectors?"
"Mm, yes. I think that's properly put."
"Well, why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Someone has to, because it's cultural garbage. That makes it worth collecting. I know my garbage better than anyone else on Earth."
"You're dedicated, as well as being modest. That's good, too."
"Also, there weren't too many people to choose from when I applied for the job-and I knew where a lot of the garbage was stashed." She handed me a drink, took a sip and a half of her own, and asked, "Are they actually still around?"
"Who?" I inquired.
"Divinity Incorporated. The old gods. Like Angelsou. I thought all the gods had left the Earth."
"No, they didn't. Just because most of them resemble us doesn't mean they act the same way. When man left he didn't offer to take them along, and gods have some pride, too. But then, maybe they had to stay, anyhow-that thing called ananke, death-destiny. Nobody prevails against it."
"Like progress?"
"Yeah. Speaking of progress, how is Hasan progressing? The last time I saw him he had stopped entirely."
"Up, around. Big lump. Thick skull. No harm."
"Where is he?"
"Up the hall, left. Games Room."
"I believe I'll go render him my sympathy. Excuse me?"
"Excused," she said, nodding, and she went away to listen to Dos Santos talk at Phil. Phil, of course, welcomed the addition.
Neither looked up as I left.
The Games Room was at the other end of the long hallway. As I approached, I heard a thunk followed by a silence, followed by another thunk.
I opened the door and looked inside.
He was the only one there. His back was to me, but he heard the door open and turned quickly. He was wearing a long purple dressing gown and was balancing a knife in his right hand. There was a big wad of plastage on the back of his head.
"Good evening, Hasan."
A tray of knives stood at his side, and he had set a target upon the opposite wall. Two blades were sticking into the target-one in the center and one about six inches off, at nine o'clock.
"Good evening," he said slowly. Then, after thinking it over, he added, "How are you?"
"Oh, fine. I came to ask you that same question. How is your head?"
"The pain is great, but it shall pass."
I closed the door behind me.
"You must have been having quite a daydream last night."
"Yes. Mister Dos Santos tells me I fought with ghosts. I do not remember."
"You weren't smoking what the fat Doctor Emmet would call Cannabis sativa, that's for sure."
"No, Karagee. I smoked a strige-fleur which had drunk human blood. I found it near the Old Place of Constantinople and dried its blossoms carefully. An old woman told me it would give me sight into the future. She lied."
"… And the vampire-blood incites to violence? Well, that's a new one to write down. By the way, you just called me Karagee. I wish you wouldn't. My name is Nomikos, Conrad Nomikos."
"Yes, Karagee. I was surprised to see you. I had thought you died long ago, when your blazeboat broke up in the bay."
"Karagee did die then. You have not mentioned to anyone that I resemble him, have you?"