“The home of my people,” said Kta as they stood on the deck waiting for their guards to take them off. “Our land, which we call on in all our prayers. I am glad that I have seen it, but I do not think we will have a long view of it, my friend.”

Kurt did not answer him. No word could improve matters. In the three days they had been chained in the hold, he had had time to speak with Kta, to talk as they once had talked in Elas, long, inconsequential talks—sometimes even to laugh, though the laughter had the taste of ashes. But the one thing Kta had never said was what was likely to happen to Kurt, only that he himself would be taken in charge by the house of Elas-in-Indresul. Kta undoubtedly did suspect and would not say. Perhaps too he knew what would likely become of a human among these most orthodox of Indras: Kurt did not want to foreknow it.

The mournful echo of sealing doors rolled through the vaulted hall, and through the haze of lamps and incense in the triangular hall burned the brighter glare of the holy fire,—the rhmeiand the phusmehaof the Indume-fortress. Kurt paused involuntarily as Kta did, confused by the light and the profusion of faces.

From some doorway hidden by the haze and the light from the hearthfire, there appeared a woman, a shadow in brocade flanked by the more massive figures of armed men.

The guards who had brought them from the trireme moved them forward with the urging of their spear shafts. The woman did not move. Her face was clearer as they drew near her: she was goddesslike, tall, willowy. The shining darkness of her hair was crowned with a headdress that fitted beside her face like the plates of a helm, and shimmered when she moved with the swaying of fine gold chains from the wide wings of it. She was nemet, and of incredible beauty: Ylith t’Erinas ev Tehal, Methi of Indresul.

Her dark eyes turned full on them, and Kta fell on his face before her, full length on the polished stone of the floor. Her gaze did not so much as flicker; this was the obeisance due her. Kurt fell to his knees also, and on his face, and did not look up.

“Nemet,” she said, “look at me.”

Kta stirred then and sat up, but did not stand.

“Your name,” she asked him. Her voice had a peculiar stillness, clear and delicate.

“Methi, I am Kta t’Elas u Nym.”

“Elas. Elas of Nephane. How fares your house there, t’Elas?”

“The Methi may have heard. I am the last.”

“What, Elas fallen?”

“So Fate and the Methi of Nephane willed it.”

“Indeed.—And how is this, that a man of Indras descent is companioned by a human?”

“He is of my house, Methi, and he is my friend.”

“You are an offense, t’Elas, an affront to my eyes and to the pure light of heaven. Let t’Elas be given to the examination of the house he has defiled, and let their recommendation be made known to rne.”

She clapped her hands: the guards moved, in a clash of metal and hauled Kta up. Kurt injudiciously flung himself to his knees, halted suddenly with the point of a spear in his side. Kta looked down at him with the face of a man who knew his fate was sealed, and then yielded and went with them.

Kurt flashed a glance at Ylith, anger swelling in his throat.

The staff of the spear across his neck brought him half stunned to the marble floor, and he expected it to be through his back in the next instant, but the blow did not come.

“Human.” There was no love in that word. “Sit up.”

Kurt moved his arms and found purchase against the floor. He did not move quickly, and one of his guards jerked him up by the arm and let him go again.

“Do you have a name, human?”

“My name,” he answered with deliberate insolence, “is Kurt Liam t’Morgan u Patrick Edward.”

Ylith’s eyes traveled over him and fixed last on his face. “Morgan. This would be your own alien house.”

He made no response. Her tone invited none.

“Never have I looked upon a living human,” Ylith said softly. “Indeed,—this seems more intelligent than the Tamurlin, is it not so, Lhe?”

“I do not believe,” said the slender man at her left, “that he is Tamurlin, Methi.”

“He is still of their blood.” A frown darkened her eyes. “It is an outrage against nature. One would take him for nemet but for that unwholesome coloration,—and until one saw his face. Have him stand. I would take a closer look at him.”

Kurt had both his arms seized, and he was pulled roughly and abruptly to his feet, his face hot with shame and anger. But if there was one act that would seal the doom of all Nephane, friends and enemies alike, it was for the friend of Elas-in-Nephane to attack this woman. He stubbornly turned his face away, until the flat of a spear blade against his cheek turned his head back and he met her eyes.

“Like one of the inim-born,” the Methi observed. “So one would imagine them, the children of the upper air,—somewhat birdlike, the madness of eye, the sharpness of features. But there is some intelligence there too. Lhe, I would save this human a little time and study him.”

“As the Methi wills it.”

“Put him under restraint, and when I find the time I will deal with the matter.” Ylith started to turn away, but paused instead for another look, as if the very reality of Kurt was incredible to her. “Keep him in reasonable comfort. He is able to understand, so let him know that he may expect less comfort if he proves troublesome.”

Reasonable comfort, as Lhe interpreted it, was austere indeed. Kurt sat against the wall on a straw-filled pallet that was the only thing between him and the bare stones of the floor, and shivered in the draft under the door. There was a rounded circlet of iron around his ankle, secured by a chain to a ringbolt in the stones of the wall, and it was beyond his strength to tear free. There was nowhere to go if he could.

He straightened his leg, dragging the chain along the floor with him, and stretched out face down on the pallet, doubling his chilled arms under him for warmth.

Nothing the Tamurlin had done to him could equal the humiliation of this; the worst beating he had ever taken was no shame at all compared to the look with which Ylith t’Erinas had touched him. They had insisted on washing him, which he would gladly have done, for he was filthy from his confinement in the hold, but they leveled spears at him, forced him to stand against a wall and remove what little clothing he still wore, then scrub himself repeatedly with strong soap. Then they hit him with a bucketful of cold water, and gave him nothing with which to dry his skin. There was a linen breechclout, not even the decency of a ctan;that and an iron ring and a cup of water from which to drink: that was the consideration Lhe afforded him.

Hours passed, and the oil lamp on the ledge burned out, leaving only the light that came through the small barred-window from the outer hall. He managed to sleep a little, turning from side to side, warming first his arms and then his back against the mattress.

Then, without warning or explanation, men invaded his cell and forced him from the room under heavy guard, hastening him along the dim halls, the ring on his ankle band a constant, metallic sound at every other step.

Upstairs was their destination, a small room somewhere in the main building, warmed by an ordinary fire in a common hearth. A single pillar supported its level ceiling.

To this they chained his hands, passing the chain behind him around the pillar; then they left him, and he was alone for a great time. It was no hardship: it was warm in this room. He absorbed the heat gratefully and sank down at the base of this pillar, leaning against it and bowing his head, willing even to sleep.

“Human.”

He brought his head up, blinking in the dim light. Ylith had come into the room. She sat down upon the ledge beneath the slit of a window and regarded him curiously. She was without the crown now, and her massive braids coiled on either side of her head gave her a strangely fragile face.