clothing. The place is known to you. It is long unpeopled, and its water is a
silver pool. The silver is your own, Son of the Shadow, Chosen of Ilsig.”
And of course now he knew who his greeter was. It was not possible, but then
none of it was.
“Whom shall I be to your eyes tonight, Son of Shadow?”
Hanse replied with surely a great stroke of genius, and made the most
brilliantly diplomatic utterance of his life.
“The thrice-beauteous face of the Lady Eshi from the statue in the temple of
Eshi Radiant,” he said-
And She was, smiling delightedly, ever so pleased. She embraced him with warmth
and Hanse nearly collapsed.
Her hand clasping his with warmth, she led him into that ruined and murkily
shadowed once-luxury manse … and it was again! Everywhere candles sprang
into lambence, with constant flashes and continuing unnatural brightness.
Bright, bright light, revealing perfect inlaid floors that were works of art and
walls all alive and acolor with mosaic-work. Along a high-soaring hall he was
led, and into a palatial dining hall, and here too all came alight with the
brightness of day.
At the far-far!-end of a genuinely long table of fine inlaid wood sat … a
shadow. And a man …
Hanse tore loose his hand from the warm grasp of a god and backed a pace with a
hissing whisper of soft-soled buskins.
“Cudget!” he all but shouted. “Oh no, no, Cudget-they killed you, Cudget!” And
his voice broke. _
The voice that replied was not Cudget’s, but was male, and warmth itself.
Somehow it made Hanse feel good; all warm.