The tall aristocrat looked familiar. Dennis finally remembered seeing him on the street on the day they were captured, arguing with the betrayer, Perth.

"I am Lord Hern," the officer announced. "Which one of you is the wizard?"

Neither of them replied.

Lord Hern glanced at Arth, then made a decision. With a bored motion he indicated for Dennis to follow him.

"Good luck, Arth," Dennis said. "I'll be seeing you." The little thief merely rolled his eyes and sighed.

The sun was setting behind the western mountains as they emerged on one of the lower parapets. Dennis shaded his eyes, so long had he been in the dimness belowground.

Two more guards fell in behind. Dennis was led down service corridors, then upstairs to an elegant hallway. None of the servants turned to look at the shabby fellow clutching a blanket around him who pa.s.sed by.

Another pair of guards flanked a door at the end of the hall. They opened it at a nod from Lord Hern.

Dennis followed his escort into a well-appointed room without windows. There was a king-sized bed, with a richly elegant brocade covering. A pretty young servant was laying out an elegant dark brown outfit with puffy sleeves. Through a door on the opposite side came steam and the sound of water being poured.

"You will dine with the Baron tonight," Lord Hern announced.

"You will behave well. The Baron has been known to lose track of inconsiderate guests."

Dennis shrugged. "So I've heard. Thanks. Will you be there?"

Lord Hern looked down his nose. "I shall not have the pleasure. I shall be on a diplomatic errand. Perhaps another time."

"I'll look forward to it." Dennis nodded pleasantly.

The aristocrat barely returned the nod. He left without another word.

Coylians, apparently, were an unenlightened and unsophisticated people. The guards merely looked curiously at the odd arm and finger exercise Dennis performed in the direction of the departing lord's back.

He didn't need to be told a bath was being drawn. Dennis drop- kicked the blanket over into a corner and made his way toward the sound of pouring water.

2 Cavemen, Dennis reminded himself again and again as he walked to the banquet room.

Remember, boy, they're only cavemen.

It was hard to keep it in mind. The grand hallway was lined with brilliant mirrors alternating with ornate tapestries. His boots and those of his escort clacked on a mosaic floor that reflected glistening highlights from sparkling chandeliers.

Guards with sun-bright leather armor and gleaming halberds stood at even intervals, at rigid attention.

Dennis wondered. Was this an ostentatious display, keeping these men here when even their leisure time was more valuably spent practicing things?

Then it occurred to him that they were practicing something-this very hall. They were looking at the mirrors and hangings and each others' uniforms, making them more beautiful by appreciating them.

These guards, he realized, were undoubtedly selected less for their prowess than for their good taste!

His escort glanced at him as he whistled appreciatively.

As they approached two high, ma.s.sive doors, Dennis tried to relax.

If the local honcho expects a wizard, my best chance is to act like a wizard. Maybe this Baron Kremer isn't unreasonable. Perhaps I can strike a deal with the fellow-freedom for myself and my friends, and aid in fixing the zievatron, in exchange for teaching one of the maker guilds the principle of the wheel?

Dennis wondered if the n.o.bleman would trade Princess Linnora for the "essence" of lighter-than-air flight.

The great doors opened soundlessly as Dennis was ushered into a broad dining room with a vaulted, open-beamed ceiling. The center of the chamber was dominated by an ornate table carved from some impossibly beautiful dark wood. Subdued light came from three rich candelabras. The crystal on the embroidered tablecloth sparkled in the candlelight.

Although four places were set, only servants were visible at the moment. One brought forth a tray with an a.s.sortment of beverages and offered Dennis his choice.

He needed something to calm his nerves. It was hard to keep in mind that a savage-a caveman-owned all this. Everything in the room was meant to make the guest know his place in a stratified society. In a room such as this on Earth, Dennis would be about to meet royalty.

He pointed to a bottle, and the servant poured the liquor into a crystal goblet the color of fire.

Dennis took the gla.s.s and wandered about the room. If he were a thief and had .a working zievatron within reach, he could retire on Earth on just what he could carry in his hands.

Providing, of course, the things retained their current state when they left the ambience of the Practice Effect. Dennis smiled, imagining irate customers whose wonderful purchases slowly decayed before their eyes into the crude products of a kindergarten workshop!

The lawsuits could go on for years.

The sense of alienation was back again. It felt inexorable. And this time he wasn't sure it wouldn't be a help. He had to appear confident this evening, or risk losing whatever chance remained of ever getting home again.

In a contemplative daze he pa.s.sed through elegant French doors onto the balcony. He looked upon the starry night, with two small moons casting their light on the drifting c.u.mulus clouds, and brought the goblet to his lips.

The pensive spell was broken instantly as he gagged. He coughed and spat the stuff out onto the brilliant parquet floor. He wiped his lips on his lacy sleeve and stared in disbelief at the cup in his hand.

Once again he had been trapped by his own a.s.sumptions, In this kind of lavish environment he had expected fine vintages, not elephant p.i.s.s!

From the shadows to his right there came musical, feminine laughter. He turned quickly and saw that someone else stood on the balcony with him; her hand briefly tried to cover a grin of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Dennis felt blood rush to his cheeks.

"I know how you feel," the young woman hurried to say in sympathy. "Isn't it awful? You can't practice wine, and you can't cook it. So these cretins put what they have in fancy bottles and are happy, unable to tell the difference."

From his brief glimpses and the stories he had heard about the L'Toff, Dennis had built in his mind an almost elfin image of Princess Linnora-as someone fragile and almost ethereal. Up close she was, indeed, beautiful, but much more human than his imagination had drawn her. She had dimples when she smiled, and her teeth, while white and brilliant, were slightly uneven. Though she was clearly a young woman, sorrow had already planted faint lines at the corners of her eyes.

Dennis felt his voice catch in his throat. He essayed a clumsy bow as he tried to think of something to say.

"In my country, Lady, we would save such vintages as this one for periods of penance."

"Such penance." She seemed impressed with the implied asceticism.

"Right now," Dennis went on, "I'd trade this rare goblet and all the Baron's wealth for a good Cabernet from my homeland-so I could raise it to your beauty, and the help you gave me once."

She acknowledged with a curtsy and a smile. "A convoluted compliment, but I think I like it. I admit, Sir Wizard, that I expected never to see you again. Was my help so poor?"

Dennis joined her at the rail. "No, Lady. Your help made our escape from the jailyard below possible. Didn't you hear the commotion you indirectly caused that night?"

Linnora's lips pursed and she turned away slightly, obviously trying not to laugh undemurely out loud at the memory.

"The look on my lord host's face that night repaid any debt you owed. I only wish his net had remained empty this time."

Dennis had it in his mind to say something stylishly gallant such as, "I could not stay away but had to return to you, my Lady." But the openness in her gray eyes made it seem verbose and inappropriate.

He looked down.

"Well, uh," he said instead. "I guess even a wizard can get a little clumsy once in a while."

Her warm smile told him he had given the right answer. "Then we shall have to hope for another opportunity, shall we not?" she asked.

Dennis felt unaccountably warm. "We can hope," he agreed.

They stood quietly for a while, looking at the reflections of the moonlight from the River Fingal.

"When Baron Kremer showed me your possessions for the first time," she said at last, "I was convinced that someone strange had come into the world. They were obviously tools of great power, though I could feel almost no Pr'fett in them."

Dennis shrugged. "In my land they were common implements, your Highness."

She looked at him closely. Dennis was surprised to notice that she seemed nervous. Her voice was subdued, almost hushed. "Are you then from the place of miracles? The land of our ancestors?"

Dennis blinked. Land of our ancestors?

"Your tools had so little Pr'fett," Linnora went on. "Yet their essences were strong, like nothing else in the world. Only once before have I encountered the like-in the wilderness shortly before I was captured."

Dennis stared at her. Could so many threads come together all at once? He took a step closer to Linnora. But before he could speak, another voice cut in.

"I, too, would be interested in learning about the wizard's homeland. That, and many other things, as well."

They both turned. A large shadow blocked part of the light from the banquet hall. For a brief instant Dennis had a sudden joyful impression he was seeing Stivyung Sigel.

But the man stepped forward.

"I am Baron Kremer," he said.

The warlord had a powerful cleft jaw to complement his broad shoulders. His silvery-blond hair was cut just below the ears. His eyes remained in shadows as he motioned toward the glittering table within.

"Shall we dine? Then perhaps we'll have a chance to discuss such matters as different types of essence. . .and other worlds."

3 Deacon Hoss'k spread his arms in an expansive gesture, barely missing a glittering candelabrum in the process.

"So you see, Wizard, nonliving things were compensated for the advantages the G.o.ds gave to the living. A tree may grow and prosper and spread its seeds, but it is also doomed to die, while a river is not.

A man may think and act and move about, but he is fated to grow old and decrepit with time. The tools he uses, on the other hand-the nonliving slaves that serve him all his life-only get better with use."

The deacon's exposition was a strange mixture of theology, teleology, and fairy tale. Dennis tried not to look too amused.

The roast fowl on his plate was a definite improvement on his dungeon diet, and he wasn't about to risk going back to prison fare by grinning at the ramblings of his host's resident sage.

At the head of the table, Baron Kremer listened quietly to Hoss'k's pedantic presentation, occasionally serving Dennis with a long, appraising gaze.

"Thusly, within all inanimate objects-including even that which once lived, such as hide or wood-the G.o.ds imbued the potential to become something greater than itself. . .something useful. This is the way the G.o.ds chose to make plenty inevitable for their people. . . ."

The portly, scholar was dressed in an elegant white evening coat. As he gestured, the sleeves fluttered, displaying a glimpse of a bright red garment underneath.

"When a maker later converts the potential of an object into essence" Hoss'k continued, "the thing may then be practiced. In this way the G.o.ds preordained not only our life-style but our blessed social order as well."

Across from Dennis Princess Linnora picked at her meal. She looked bored, and perhaps a bit angry over what Hoss'k had to say.

"There are those," she said, "who believe that living things have potential, too. They, also, may rise above what they are and become greater than they have been."

Hoss'k favored Linnora with a patronizing smile. "A quaint notion left over from ancient superst.i.tions taken seriously only by a few obscure tribes such as your own, my Lady, and by some of the rabble in the east. It manifests a primitive wish that people, families, and even species can be improved. But look around you! Do the rabbits, or rickels, or horses get better with each pa.s.sing year? Does mankind?

"No, clearly man himself cannot be improved. It is only the inanimate that may, with man's intervention, be practiced to perfection." Hoss'k smiled and took a sip of wine.

Dennis couldn't escape a vague feeling that had nagged him for an hour, that he had encountered the man before and that there was some cause for enmity between them.

"Okay," he said, "you've explained why inanimate tools improve with use. . . because the G.o.ds decreed that it be so.

But how does a piece of flint, for instance, become an ax simply by being used?"

"Ah! A good question!" Hoss'k paused to belch good-naturedly.

Across the table from Dennis, Linnora rolled her eyes, but Hoss'k did not notice.

"You see, Wizard, scholars have long known that eventual fate of this ax you mention is partly determined by the essence of making, imbued into it by an anointed master of the stonechoppers' guild. The essence that is put into an object at its beginning is just as important as the Pr'fett, which the owner invests through practice.

"By this I mean that practice is important, but it is useless without the proper essence at the beginning. Try as he might, a peasant cannot practice a sled into a hoe, or a kite into a cup. An implement must start out at least a little bit useful in its designated task to be made better through practice. Only master makers have this skill.

"This is something not well enough appreciated by the ma.s.ses, particularly lately, with all of this intemperate grumbling against the guilds. The rabble-rousers chant about 'value added' and the 'importance of practice labor' But it's all ignorant foolishness!"

Dennis had already realized that Hoss'k was the type of intellectual who'd dismiss an urgent and unstoppable change in his society, blithely ignoring the forces that pulled all about him. His kind always fiddled while Rome burned, all the while explaining away the ashes with their own brand of logic.

Hoss'k sipped his wine and beamed at Dennis. "Of course, I don't have to explain to a man such as yourself why it is so necessary to control the lower orders."

"I haven't any idea what you're talking about," Dennis answered coolly.

"Now, now, Wizard, you need not dissemble. From inspecting the items you have so kindly, er, lent us, I can tell so very much about you!" With an indulgent smile the man bit into a pulpy dessert fruit.

Dennis decided to say nothing., He had eaten slowly and spoken little this evening, aware that the Baron was watching his reactions closely. He had barely touched his wine.

Dennis and Linnora had shared glances as they dared.

Once, when the Baron was speaking to the butler and while the scholar addressed the ceiling expansively, the Princess puffed her cheeks and mouthed a nattering mimicry of Hoss'k. Dennis had had to struggle not to laugh out loud.

When Kreflner had looked at them curiously, Dennis tried to keep a straight face. Linnora a.s.sumed a mask of attentive innocence.

Dennis realized that he was well on his way toward falling in love.

"I am curious, Deacon," Kremer said. "What can you divine about out guest's homeland from only his tools and his demeanor?"