I laughed.
Flaminius looked at me, curiously. "It is seldom," he said, "that those of the black caste laugh."
"What happened then?" I asked.
Flaminius took another drink, and then he looked at me, bitterly. "Before the next passage hand," said he, "armed men broke into the Cylinder of Physicians; the floors we worked on were burned; the Cylinder itself was seriously damaged; our work, our records, the animals we used were all destroyed; several of my staff were slain, others driven away." He drew his tunic over his head. I saw that half of his body was scarred. "These I had from the flames," said he, "as I tried to rescue our work. But I was beaten away and our scrolls destroyed." He slipped the tunic back over his head.
"I am sorry," I said.
Flaminius looked at me. He was drunk, and perhaps that is why he was willing to speak to me, only of the black caste. There were tears in his eyes.
"I had," he said, "shortly before the fire developed a strain of urts resistant to the Dar-kosis organism; a serum cultured from their blood was injected in other animals, which subsequently we were unable to infect. It was tentative, only a beginning, but I had hoped-I had hoped very much."
"The men who attacked the Cylinder," I said, "who were they?"
"Doubtless henchmen of Initiates," said Flaminius. Initiates, incidentally, are not permitted by their caste codes to bear arms; nor are they permitted to injure or kill; accordingly, they hire men for these purposes.
"Were the men not seized?" I asked.
"Most escaped," said Flaminius. "Two were seized. These two, following the laws of the city, were taken for their first questioning to the courts of the High Initiate." Flaminius smiled bitterly. "But they escaped," he said.
"Did you try to begin your work again?" I asked.
"Everything was gone," said Flaminius, "the records, our equipment, the animals; several of my staff had been slain; those who survived, in large part, did not wish to continue the work." He threw down another bolt of Paga. "Besides," said he, "the men of the Initiates, did we begin again, would only need bring torches and steel once more."
"So what did you do?" I asked.
Flaminius laughed. "I thought how foolish was Flaminius," he said. "I returned one night to the floors on which we had worked. I stood there, amidst the ruined equipment, the burned walls. And I laughed. I realized then that I could not combat the Initiates. They would in the end conquer."
"I do not think so," I said.
"Superstition," said he, "proclaimed as truth, will always conquer truth, ridiculed as superstition."
"Do not believe it," I said.
"And I laughed," said Flaminius, "and I realized that what moves men is greed, and pleasure, and power and gold, and that I, Flaminius, who had sought fruitlessly in my life to slay one disease, was a fool."
"You are no fool," said I.
"No longer," said he. "I left the Cylinder of Physicians and the next day took service in the House of Cernus, where I have been for many years. I am content here. I am well paid. I have much gold, and some power, and my pick of Red Silk Girls. What man could ask for more?"
"Flaminius," I said.
He looked at me, startled. Then he laughed and shook his head. "No," said he, "I have learned to despise men. That is why this is a good house for me." He looked at me, drunkenly, with hatred. "I despise men!" he said. Then he laughed. "That is why I drink with you."
I nodded curtly, and turned to leave.
"One thing more to this little story," said Flaminius. He lifted the bottle to me.
"What is that?" I asked.
"At the games on the second of En'Kara, in the Stadium of Blades," said he, "I saw the High Initiate, Complicius Serenus."
"So?" said I.
"He does not know it," said Flaminius, "nor will he learn for perhaps a year."
"Learn what?" I asked.
Flaminius laughed and poured himself another drink. "That he is dying of Dar-kosis," he said.
I wandered about the house. It was now past the twentieth hour, the midnight of the Gorean day, yet still, here and there, I could hear the revels of Kajuralia, which are often celebrated until dawn.
My steps, as I was lost in thought, brought me back to the hall of Cernus, in which we had sat table. Curious, I opened the door off the hall, through which the slave taken to the beast had been led. I found a long set of stairs, and I followed them. I came to a landing, and there was a long corridor. At the end I saw two guards. They immediately sprang up, seeing me. Neither was drunk. Both were apparently perfectly sober, rested and alert.
"Kajuralia," I said to them.
Both men drew their weapons. "Do not pass this point," said they, "Killer."
"Very well," I said. I looked at the heavy beamed door behind them. It was not locked on this side, which interested me. I would have thought it would have been bolted shut, for fear of the beast locked within. There were, however, the means for shutting it at hand, two large beams which might be placed in iron brackets.
Suddenly I heard an enraged roar from somewhere behind the door.
"I was wounded," I said to them, "in the sport of hook knife."
I shoved back the sleeve of my tunic, revealing the bandage. Some blood had soaked through it.
"Leave!" cried one of the guards.
"I will show you," I said, drawing down the white cloth, revealing the wound.
Suddenly there was a wild cry from behind the door, of almost maniacal intensity, and I thought I heard something moving on the stones behind it, uncontrollable, clawed.
"Go!" cried the second guard. "Go!"
"But it is not a serious wound," I said, pinching it a bit, letting some blood move from it, trickling down my forearm.
To my horror I heard something behind the door fumbling with a bolt. It seemed to draw it open, and then, wildly, to thrust it back, keeping the door locked; and then I heard the bolt rattling in its brackets as though something had seized it and trembling was trying to hold it in place. The door I then realized had been locked on the inside, and could be opened from the inside.
There was another wild, eerie cry, an uncanny almost demented roaring noise, and the bolt on the other side was dashed free of the door, and the two guards, with a cry of fear, hurled the beams in the two brackets, fastening the door, which was made to swing outward, shut. The two guards leaned against the door. Behind it I heard an enraged, frustrated roaring, weird and terrible; I heard clawing at the wood; I saw the heavy door, as if struck with great force, buckle out against the beams.
"Go!" screamed the first guard. "Go!"
"Very well," I said, and turned and walked away down the corridor.
I could hear the guards cursing, and hear the door being thrust against the heavy beams. Then, when I was far down the corridor, I fixed the bandage again in place, shoved down my sleeve, and looked back. The thing behind the door was no longer making noise, and the door was no longer pressing against the beams; from where I stood I could hear the bolt on the inside being thrust back in place, locking it from the inside. Then, after a minute or two, I saw the guards remove the beams. What was inside was then apparently quiet.
I continued to wander about the House, here and there bumping into inebriated guards or staff members, who would invariably hail me with "Kajuralia!" to which greeting I would respond in turn.
A given thought kept going through my mind, for no reason that I was clearly aware of. It seemed unrelated to anything. It was Caprus saying to me, outside the Cell for Special Captures, "You, Killer, would not make a Player." His remark kept burning its way through my brain.
But as I walked the halls it seemed to me that, on the whole, things were not proceeding badly, though I regretted the amount of time lost, apparently necessarily, in the House of Cernus. Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, by tomorrow at this time, would be free. And Caprus, now that Cernus was often in the Central Cylinder, attending to the numerous duties of Ubar of the city, had more time for his work. By Se'Var he hoped to be finished. Caprus, I said to myself, a good man. Caprus. Thought well of by Priest-Kings. Trusted. He himself had arranged for an agent of Priest-Kings to purchase the girls. Caprus who seldom left the house. Brave Caprus. You, Killer, would not make a Player. Brave Caprus.