He did not yet know why she did—he, the most ordinary of men, an Earthman at that. .”Ey, but you are far from ordinary,” she had purred when he got up the courage to ask. “Your whole career, your doings in the yonder, your ties to the past. You live not in a void nor by illusions, like so many. You know what has gone before, the land and folk and deeds from which your being springs; for you, time has reality, even as space does.” That had not seemed quite an answer to him.
True, in repeated talks she had drawn him out concerning the Fireball Trothdom. He wasn’t sure why, and he knew nothing that a datasearch program couldn’t have found for her. It wasn’t much more than an association, after all, a lodge or fellowship rooted in wistful ness for a grandeur long vanished, not unlike the Ronin, the Swagmen, or the Believers. Like them, it had its rituals, social gatherings, mutual helpfulness, and little else. Whatever the secret lore was that was said to be passed down from Rydberg to Rydberg, it couldn’t be of any importance, and it had certainly not been confided to lan Kenmuir.
Maybe Lilisaire was trying to get an idea of what membership felt like. It was not a Lunarian sort of thing; it might provide a little insight into the other species. Or maybe she was interested because the Trothdom meant a great deal to Kenmuir, and in her fashion she, liked him.
She had said he was a fine lover. (The memory flamed.) “No, except that you inspire me,” he replied honestly. She laughed and rumpled his hair. He didnot delude himself that he was anything but an agreeable diversion, at best.
And yet … she had called him back, urgently, at no small cost to an undertaking from which she stood to make a profit. In some way, however minor, she needed him.
His heart thuttered. He didn’t know if he was in love—this was foreign to any such state anytime earlier in his life—or in thralldom. At the moment, he didn’t care.
The flyer reached apoluna and descended. From the Cordillera reared the witchy towers of Zamok Vysoki.
Having landed, Kenmuir brushed past Eythil, straight into the gangtube. The slight malaise had faded out of him. If he was afire and ashiver, it was wholly with Lilisaire. Not until later did he hope he hadn’t offended his proud escort, then wonder whether Eythil hadn’t been amused.
No attendant waited in the room beyond. Clearly, the flyer had sent word ahead, and a robot or a servant would take his things wherever the Wardress desired. A voice from the air said, “Hail, lan Kenmuir. Betake you to the Pagoda and be made welcome.”
He knew that turret and the way there. How he knew them! He bounded, he soared down the changeable corridors and through the multiform chambers. Lunarians moved in them, male and female, on various business of hers. Most were staff, whether or not they wore the livery, but several came from outside, and he recognized two magnates. No words or gestures passed between them and him, save for the swift and stylized eye contact that was courtesy. At the end of his trek he did find a guardsman, standing at panther ease, who saluted and let him through the door.
Sunlight exploded from a blinding center into sparks and flashes of every color his vision could capture. They flowed and shifted all around him with each least movement he made, across the glassy floor and the few fragile furnishings, the walls and ceiling and his hands. He had come into the middle of a single million-faceted synthetic diamond. Odors drifted on the air, spice, honeysuckle. Barely audible wailed the minor-key melody of a canto of Verdea’s.
By a table set with crystal, near a broad animate couch, poised Lilisaire. The auburn mane fell over bare shoulders and a full-length gown that sheathed her like a second skin. The wreckage of rainbows played on those whitenesses. Her only ornaments were stardrops hung from her ears and a finger ring whose jewel flickered with tiny flames. At her feet lay a pet he remembered, a black leopard with golden spots. It lifted its head and stared at him.