"Are you angry?" I asked.

"They are only tricks!" he said.

"Good tricks," I said.

"But only tricks!"

"I don't think he ever claimed they weren't," I said.

"He should be boiled in oil!" cried Marcus.

"To me that seems somewhat severe," I said.

"Tricks!" said Marcus.

"I suppose you now respect them the less," I said.

"Charlatanry!" he murmured. "Trickery! Fraud!"

"I think that I myself," I said, "apparently responding to this sort of thing rather differently from yourself, admire them the more as I understand how ingenious and wonderful they are, as tricks. I think I should be awed by them, but would not find so much to admire in them, if I thought they were merely the manifestations of unusual powers, as, for example, the capacity to turn folks into turtles or something."

"Perhaps," he said.

"Certainly," I said.

"I would not wish to be a turtle," he said.

"So let us trust," I said, "that folks do not abound who can wreak such wonders."

"True," he said.

"Similarly," I said, "if there were such a thing as "real magic' in your sense, whatever that might be, the world would presumably be much different than it is."

"There might be a great many more turtles," he said.

"Quite possibly," I said.

I did not doubt, of course, from what I knew of them, that the science of Priest-Kings was such that many unusual effects could be achieved. And, indeed, I did not doubt but what many such were well within the scope of the several sciences of the Kurii, as well. But these effects, of course, were rationally explicable, at least to those with the pertinent techniques and knowledge at their disposal, effects which were the fruits of unusual sciences and technologies. I did not think that Marcus needed to know about such things. How inexplicable and marvelous to a savage might appear a match, a handful of beads, a mirror, a stick of candy, a tennis ball.

"The slave was not in Anango!" he cried.

"No," I said. "I would not think so."

"But she said so, or let it be thought!" he said. "She is thus a lying slave and should be punished. Let her be whipped to the bone!"

"Oh, come now," I said. "She is playing her part in the show, in the entertainment. She is enjoying herself, along with everyone else. And she is a slave. What do you expect her to say? To tell the truth, and spoil the show, or perhaps have her master flogged? Do you not think such ill-thought-out intrepidity would swiftly bring her luscious hide into contact with the supple switch?"

"Yes," he said. "It is the master who is to blame."

"I do hope you get on with him," I said.

"What?" he cried.

"Yes," I said, "and, indeed, I would even recommend that you be nice to him."

"Why?" asked Marcus.

"Because," I said, "it is he who is going to obtain for you the Home Stone of Ar's Station."

18 Our Wallets are in Order

"Here we are," I said.

We had been walking about for some time after the show, even past the time of curfew the constraints of which, because of our affixed armbands, as auxiliary guardsmen, we had not the least difficulty in circumventing. Challenged, we challenged back. Questioned, we questioned. And if our challenges and questions were satisfactorily met, we would proceed further, first volunteering, of course, in deference to alternative authority, our own names and missions in turn. If notes were to be later compared at some headquarters, as I did not expect they would be, some officers might have been astonished to learn how many sets of auxiliary guardsmen and diverse missions had been afoot that night. "This is the insula," I said, "at which resides the great Renato and his troupe."

"The magician?" said Marcus.

"Yes," I said. I had made inquiries into this matter prior to leaving the theater, Marcus waiting outside for me, pondering the wonders he was convinced he had beheld within.

"I would not keep the stripped, lashed Ubara of a captured city chained in a kennel such as this," he said.

"Surely you would do so," I said.

"Well, perhaps," he admitted.

Some believe such women should be prepared quickly for the collar and others that the matter may be drawn out, teasingly, until even she, trying to deny it to herself all the while, realizes what her eventual lot is to be.

"Not all folk in the theater and such live as well as they might," I said. "It seems they cannot make gold pieces appear from thin air," said Marcus. "Not without a gold piece to start with," I said.

"Getting one to start with is undoubtedly the real trick," he said.

"Precisely," I said. "Let us go in."

I shoved back the heavy door. It hung on its top hinge. It had not been barred. I gathered that not every one who lived within, interestingly, was necessarily expected back before curfew. On the other hand, perhaps the proprietor, or his manager, was merely lax in matters of security. The interior, the hall and foot of the stairs, was lit by the light of a tiny tharlarion oil lamp.

"Whew!" said Marcus.

At the foot of the stairs, as is common in insulae, there was a great wastes pot, into which the smaller wastes pots of the many tiny apartments in the building are emptied. These large pots are then carried off in wagons to the carnaria, where their contents are emptied. This work is usually done by male slaves under the supervision of a free man. When the wastes pot is picked up, a clean one is left in its place. The emptied pot is later cleaned and used again, returned to one insula or another. There is sewerage in Ar, and sewers, but on the whole these service the more affluent areas of the city. The insulae are, on the whole, tenements.

"This is a sty," said Marcus.

"Do not insult the caste of peasants," I said. "It is the ox on which the Home Stone rests." Thurnock, one of my best friends, was of that caste.

Not everyone is as careful as they might be in hitting the great pot. Lazier folks, or perhaps folks interested in testing their skill, sometimes try to do it from a higher landing. According to the ordinances the pots are supposed to be kept covered, but this ordinance is too often honored in the breach. Children sometimes use the stairs to relieve themselves. This is occasionally done, I gather, as a game, the winner being decided by the greatest number of stairs soiled.

"Ho there," said an unpleasant voice, from the top of the landing. We looked up into a pool of floating light, from a lifted lantern.

"Tal," I said.

"He is not here," said the fellow.

"Who?" I asked.

"Anyone," said the fellow.

"There is no one here?" I asked.

"Precisely," he said.

"We should like to rent a room," I said.

"No rooms," said he. "We are filled."

"I can be up the stairs in an instant," said Marcus, "and open him like a bag of noodles."

"Whom are you looking for?" asked the fellow, who perhaps had excellent hearing. "Renato the Great," I said.

"The villain, the fat urt, the rogue, the rascal?" asked the fellow.

"Yes," I said. "He."

"He is not here," he said.

I supposed the fellow was fond of him, and was concerned to protect him. On the other hand, perhaps he had not yet collected the week's lodging. That, in itself, might be a good trick.

"Do not be dismayed by our armbands," I said. "We do not come on the business of guardsmen."

"You are creditors then," he said, "or defrauded bumpkins intent upon the perpetration of dire vengeance."

"No," I said. "We are friends."

The pool of light above us seemed to shake with laughter.

I drew my blade and put it to the bowl of the lamp, on its small shelf in the hall. With a tiny movement I could tip it to the floor.

"Be careful there," said the fellow. His concern was not without reason. Such accidents, usually occurring in the rooms, often resulted in the destruction of an insula. Many folks who lived regularly in insulae had had the experience of hastily departing from their building in the middle of the night. There was also the danger that such fires could spread. Sometimes entire blocks, and even districts, are wiped out by such fires.