“You equivocate.”

“No, Methi. It is my belief.”

“What was your mother’s name, u Nym? Was she Sufaki or was she Indras?”

“Methi, she was the lady Ptas t’Lei e Met sh’Nym.”

“Most honorable, the house of Lei. Then in both lines you are Indras and well descended,—surely of an orthodox house. Yet you choose the company of Sufaki and humans. I find this exceedingly difficult of understanding, Kta t’Elas u Nym.”

Kta bowed his head and gave no answer.

“Vel t’Elas,” said the Methi, “is this son of your house in any way a follower of the Sufak heresy?”

“Great Methi, Elas finds that he has been educated into the use of alien knowledge and errors, but his upbringing is orthodox.”

“Kta t’Elas,” said the Methi, “what is the origin of humans?”

“I do not know, Methi.”

“Do you say that they are possessed of a soul, and that they are equal to nemet?”

Kta lifted his head. “Yes, Methi,” he said firmly, “I believe so.”

“Indeed, indeed.” Ylith frowned deeply and rose from her place, smoothing the panels of her chatem.Then she shot a hard look at the guards. “Lhe,—take these prisoners both to the upper prisons and provide what is needful to their comfort. But confine them separately and allow them no communication with each other. None, Lhe.”

“Methi.” He acknowledged the order with a bow.

Her eyes lingered distastefully on Kurt. “This,” she said, “is nemetlike. It is proper that he be decently clothed. Insofar as he thinks he is nemet, treat him as such.”

Light flared.

Kurt blinked and rubbed his eyes as the opening of his door and the intrusion of men with torches brought him out of a sound sleep into panic. Faceless shadows moved in on him.

He threw off the blanket and scrambled up from the cot his new quarters provided him—not to fight, not to fight: it was the worst thing for him and for Kta.

“You must come,” said Lhe’s voice out of the glare.

Kurt schooled himself to bow in courtesy, instincts otherwise. “Yes, sir,” he said, and began to put on his clothing.

When he was done, one guard laid hands on him.

“My lord,” he appealed to Lhe, a look of reproach on his face. And Lhe, dignified, elegant Lhe, was the gentleman Kurt suspected; he was too much nemet and too Indras to ignore the rituals of courtesy when they were offered.

“I think that he will come of his own accord,” said Lhe to his companions, and they reluctantly let him free.

“Thank you,” said Kurt, bowing slightly. “Can you tell me where or why—?”

“No, human,” said Lhe. “We do not know, except that you are summoned to the justice hall.”

“Do you hold trials at night?” Kurt asked, honestly shocked. Even in liberal Nephane, no legal business could be done after Phan’s light had left the land.

“You cannot be tried,” said Lhe. “You are human.”

In some part it did not surprise him, but he had not clearly considered the legalities of his status. Perhaps, he thought, his dismay showed on his face, for Lhe looked uncomfortable, shrugged and made a helpless gesture.

“You must come,” Lhe repeated.

Kurt went with them unrestrained, through plain halls and down several turns of stairs, until they came to an enormous pair of bivalve doors and passed through them into a hall of ancient stonework.

The beamed ceiling here was scarcely visible in the light of the solitary torch, which burned in a wall socket. The only furniture was a long tribunal and its chairs.

A ringbolt was in the floor, already provided with chain. Lhe courteously—with immense courtesy—asked him to stand there, and one of the men locked the chain through the ring on his ankle.

He stared up at Lhe, rude, angry, and Lhe avoided his eyes.

“Come,” said Lhe to his men. “We are not bidden to remain.” And to Kurt: “Human,—you will win far more by humble words than by pride.”

He might have meant it in kindness; he might have been laughing. Kurt stared at their retreating backs, shaking all over with rage and fright.

Of a sudden he cried out, kicked at the restraint in a fit of fury, jerked at it again and again, willing, even to break his ankle if it would make them see him, that he was not to be treated like this.

All that he succeeded in doing was in losing his balance, for there was not enough chain to do more than rip the skin around his ankle. He sprawled on the bruising stone and picked himself up, on hands and knees, head hanging.

“Are you satisfied?” asked the Methi.

He spun on one knee toward the voice beyond the torchlight. Softly a door closed unseen, and she came into the circle of light. She wore a robe that was almost a mere pelan,gauzy blue, and her dark hair was like a cloud of night, held by a silver circlet around her temples. She stopped at the edge of the tribunal, her short tilted brows lifted in an expression of amusement.

“This is not,” she said, “the behavior of an intelligent being.”

He gathered himself to sit, nemet-fashion, on feet and ankles, hands palm up in his lap, the most correct posture of a visitor at another’s hearth.

“This is not,” he answered, “the welcome I was accorded in Nephane, and some of them were my enemies. I am sorry if I have offended you, Methi.”

“This is not,” she said, “Nephane. And I am not Djan.” She sat down in the last of the chairs of the tribunal and faced him so, her long-nailed hands folded before her on the bar. “If you were to strike one of my people,—”

He bowed-slightly. “They have been kind to me. I have no intention of striking anyone.”

“ Ai,” she said, “now you are trying to impress us.”

“I am of a house,” he answered, hoping that he was not causing Kta worse difficulty by that claim. “I was taught courtesy. I was taught that the honor of that house is best served by courtesy.”

“It is,” she said, “a fair answer.”

It was the first grace she had granted him. He looked up at her with a little relaxing of his defenses. “Why,” he asked, “did you call me here?”

“You troubled my dreams,” she aid. “I saw fit to trouble yours.” And then she frowned thoughtfully. “Do you dream?”

It was not humor, he realized; it was, for a nemet, a religiously reasonable question.

“Yes,” he said, and she thought about that for a time.

“The priests cannot tell me what you are,” she said finally. “Some urge that you be put to death quite simply; others urge that you be killed by atia.Do you know what that means, t’Morgan?”

“No,” he said, perceiving it was not threat but question.

“It means,” she said, “that they think you have escaped the nether regions and that you should be returned there with such pains and curses as will bind you there. That is a measure of their distress at you. Atiahas not been done in centuries. Someone would have to research the rites before they could be performed. I think some priests are doing that now.—But Kta t’Elas insists you have a soul, though he could lose his own for that heresy.”

“Kta,” said Kurt with difficulty through his own fear, “is a gentle and religious man. He—”

“T’Morgan,” she said, “you are my concern at the moment, what you are.”

“You do not want to know. You will ask until you get the answer that agrees with what you want to hear, that is all.”

“You have the look,” she said, “of a bird,—a bird of prey. Other humans I have seen had the faces of beasts. I have never seen one alive or clean. Tell me, if you had not that chain, what would you do?”

“I would like to get off my knees,” he said. “This floor is cold.”

It was rash impudence. It chanced to amuse her. Her laugh held even a little gentleness. “You are appealing. And if you were nemet, I could not tolerate that attitude in you. But what things really pass in your mind? What would you, if you were free?”