One moved closer. The whole circle narrowed. He ducked, darted between two of them and ran. Soft laughter pursued him, nothing more. He did not stop running.
The Afen gate materialized out of the fog. He pushed the heavy gate inward. He had composed himself by the time he reached the main door. The guards stayed inside on this inclement day, and only looked up from their game, letting him pass; they were alert enough, but, Sufaki-wise, careless of formalities. He shrugged the ctan back to its conventional position under his right arm and mounted the stairs. Here the guards came smartly to attention-Djan’s alien sense of discipline-and they for once made to protest his entry.
He pushed past and opened the door, and one of them then hurried into the room and back into the private section of the apartments, presumably to announce his presence.
He had time enough to pace the floor, returning several times to the great window in the neighboring room. Fogbound as the city was, he could scarcely make out anything but Haichema-tleke, Maiden Rock, the crag that rose over the harbor, against whose shoulder the Afen and the Great Families’ houses were built. Gray and ghostly hi a world of pallid white, it seemed the cloud-city’s anchor to solid earth.
A door hissed open in the other room and he walked back. Djan was with him. She wore a silver-green suit, thin, body-clinging stuff. Her coppery hair was loose, silken and full of static. She had a morning look about her, satiated and full of sleep.
“It’s near noon,” he said.
“Ah,” she murmured, and looked beyond him to the window. “So we’re bound in again. Cursed fog. I hate it. Like some breakfast?”
“No.”
Djan shrugged and from utensils in the carved wood cabinet prepared tea, instantly heated. She offered him a cup; he accepted, nemet-schooled. It gave one something to do with the hands.
“I suppose,” she said when they were seated, “that you didn’t come here in this weather and wake me out of a sound sleep to wish me good morning.”
“I almost didn’t make it here, which is the situation I came to talk to you about. The neighborhood of Elas isn’t safe even by day. There are Sufaki hanging around who have no business there.”
“The quarantine ordinances were repealed, you know. I can’t forbid their being there.”
“Are they your men? I’d be relieved if I thought they were. That is, if yours and Shan t’Tefur’s aren’t one and the same, and I trust that isn’t the case. For a long time it’s been at night; since the first of Nermotai, it’s been even by day.”
“Have they hurt anyone?”
“Not yet. People in the neighborhood stay off the streets. Children don’t go out. It’s an ugly atmosphere. I don’t know whether it’s aimed at me in particular- or Elas hi general, but it’s a matter of time before something happens.”
“You haven’t done anything to provoke this?”
“No. I assure you I haven’t. But this is the third day of it
I finally decided to chance it. Are you going to do anything?”
“I’ll have my people check it out, and if there’s cause I’ll have the people removed.”
“Well, don’t send Shan t’Tefur on the job.”
“I said I would see to it. Don’t ask favors and then turn sharp with me.”
“I beg your pardon. But that’s exactly what I’m afraid you’ll do, trust things to him.”
“I am not blind, my friend. But you’re not the only one with complaints. Shan’s life has been threatened. I hear it from both sides.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t choose to give my sources. But you know the Indras houses and you know the hard-line conservatives. Make your own guess.”
“The Indras are not a violent people. If they said it, it was more in the sense of a sober promise than a threat, and that in consideration of the actions he’s been urging. You’ll have riots in the streets if Shan t’Tefur has his way.”
“I doubt it. See, I’m being perfectly honest with you, a bit of trust. Shan uses that apparent recklessness as a tactic, but he is an intelligent man, and his enemies would do well to reckon with that.”