"South, about four hundred meiline from here," Karal replied shortly in his own tongue, then continued in Valdemaran. "Your accent is really quite good, but you need to form your gutturals farther back in your throat, and they're like hoarse breathing, not like gargling."
"Ah! Alberich never could explain that properly, thank you!" the young man said, and he hooked the nearest empty chair with his foot, dragging it over. "Have a seat, won't you? Natoli, we need your help on the drawbridge project."
Karal took the proffered chair as Natoli helped herself to another, and was immediately engulfed in a technical discussion of which Karal understood perhaps half. The center of attention for the group was a huge piece of paper, covered with scribbles surrounding a drawing of a bridge, that they had placed in the middle of the table so that everyone could look at it at the same time. Someone got him a tankard of light ale, and someone else shoved a plateful of cheese-topped bread rounds at him, and everyone else at the table acted as if he belonged there, so he simply sat and listened while they thrashed out whatever the problem was. When the topic turned to other subjects—the problem of the drawbridge having been satisfactorily dealt with—on the occasions when he could contribute a word or two, he did.
To his pleasure, these people ignored what he looked like and where he came from in favor of what he thought and said. Granted, at the moment, that wasn't much—he was much more comfortable with simply listening to the others—but the few things he did say were treated with no more and no less respect than what anyone else said.
He drank his ale and kept his ears and his mind open, covering a great deal of astonishment by hiding his expression in his tankard. He had never before seen anyone with the kind of unbounded curiosity these young men and women shared. They talked and acted as if there was nothing that was impossible, from flying like birds to moving beneath the surface of the water without needing to breathe, like a fish. And they behaved as if there was nothing, no subject, that was "not meant for man to know."
He knew what most of his teachers would have said by now. At one point or another, every single one of the people sitting at this table uttered something that could be taken as blasphemous, and at least before Solaris' day, blasphemers met with the Fires.
By the time Natoli declared that they both needed to get some sleep and led him back out into the cold darkness, his head was swimming with so many conflicting ideas and emotions that it felt as if a hive of swarming bees had come to rest inside it. Excitement warred with nervous fear, and he was glad that the darkness hid his expression from Natoli as she led him back to the Palace. Her own excited monologue about some mathematical progression or other required only that he make vague noises in response from time to time and covered the fact that he couldn't have answered even if he'd known what it was she was talking about.
The guard at the gate knew her very well, it seemed, and shook his head when the two of them approached. "I don't know what I'm going to tell your father, young woman," he said, as soon as they came within earshot. "Out until near midnight, and with a young man!"
"Who is someone Father told me to introduce around, so you can curb your lurid thoughts," she replied smartly. "As for coming in late—if he doesn't ask, you don't have to tell him, do you?"
The guard continued to shake his head, but he opened the gate for them and locked it behind them without another word.
She left him on the path to the Palace, parting from him with a cheerful wave and a promise to meet him tomorrow. "I live in the dormitory with the Bardic students," she told him. "Most of the people you met tonight actually live in town, rather than on the Palace grounds, but since Father's a Herald, they let me live here. Will you be free right after lunch tomorrow?"
"Uh—yes," he said, responding before he could think.
"Good, then I'll meet you in the Palace library." And without giving him a chance to say anything else, she trotted off into the darkness.
He made his way back to the Palace in something of a dazed condition. The guards he encountered must have recognized him, since only two of them stopped him to ask who he was and where he was going. He managed to find his way back to the suite with a minimum of stumbling around in the dark, as most of the halls were lit by a minimum of lamps at this time of night.
He waved a silent greeting at the corridor guard, who grinned as if he had his own ideas about where Karal had been. The door was unlocked, and he pushed it open slowly, hoping that it wouldn't creak. The suite of rooms was dark but for a single candle burning in the night-lamp, and he made his way to his own room, stepping carefully to keep from waking Ulrich up.
He felt a certain amount of guilt at not leaving a note for his mentor. I only hope Rubrik told him that Natoli carried me off... even if Rubrik didn't know where we were going. He had the feeling that there was going to be a lot of explaining to be done in the morning.
At least he was used to staying up this late. When Ulrich didn't need his services, he generally read until just about midnight anyway. He didn't seem to need as much sleep as some people did, which was very useful, given the number of times Ulrich had needed multiple copies of documents at short notice.
He pushed open the door of his own room and closed it carefully behind him, heaving a sigh of relief as it shut with a minimum of sound. Only then did he turn around—
And froze.
There was someone waiting for him on his bed, a long, pale form that lay curled up against the pillows. It wasn't Ulrich, unless Ulrich had suddenly acquired a pair of green-gold eyes that glowed in the dark.
He gasped, and the lamp in the bracket beside the door lit itself with a little puff of sound.
As the lamplight steadied, a slender, cream-colored body uncurled itself gracefully from the place where it had been lying, near the head of the bed, cushioned by the pillows. The green-gold disks became the widened pupils of a pair of intensely blue eyes, surrounded by a brick-red mask. The otherwise pale-cream face was topped by a pair of brick-red ears, both of which were swiveled to face him. A red tail switched restlessly, curling up and curling down again, rather than thudding against the bed as a dog's would have.
:Well, you certainly have been enjoying a night on the roof,: the Firecat said in his mind. Its tone was amused, genial, and quite friendly.
It's a Firecat. A Firecat—in my room, on my bed, talking to me.
"I—uh—" He stared at the Cat with his mouth dropping open, unable to make his mind or his body work properly. What was a Firecat doing here? And why was it in his room?
:Close your mouth, child, you look like a stranded fish,: the Cat said, and purred with high good humor. :I'm not here to drag you off to some kind of punishment. I've simply been sent here to give you some advice from time to time—advice your mentor wouldn't be able to grant you. That was what you wanted, wasn't it? Someone you could trust to advise you!: