It was a little difficult to see why Amid should sound so sure, since he completed his sentence before the door to his "office'' had swung wide enough to reveal who was coming in. But he was not wrong. Tannaheh was the one who entered, carrying a good-sized box which seemed to have been filled with long strands of grass, now dried to a golden brown color. Behind him was another man, a short man in his fifties or older with a long, straight nose and hands that were large for the rest of his body, as if spread and thickened by years of hard work. Under the thin, straight, gray hair the man's face was solemn almost to the point of sourness. He wore a jacket made of some material that looked like leather, over heavy, dark brown trousers and a checked shirt - a contrast to Tannaheh, whose slim body was dressed, as it had been earlier, in the gray wool sweater, white shirt, blue trousers and boots. "Sorry to hold everybody up," said Tannaheh cheerfully. He carried the box over and set it down gently on the table covered with the white cloth. "I thought Luke was going to wait for me at his workshop with the belts and bows, and when I got there and didn't find him, I thought he'd just stepped out for a minute, and so I spent some time waiting there for him, until his son dropped in for some tool or other. He told me Luke'd already brought the things over here earlier and then gone on to the dispensary to wait for me. Anyway, we got together finally at the dispensary and here we are." "You know Luke, don't you?" Amid asked Hal. "Indeed, I do," said Hal, nodding at Luke, who was the Guild's chief craftsman. "Sorry about the mix-up," said Luke, in a surprisingly deep bass voice. "Well, well, it doesn't matter now you're here, and Hal and everyone's here," said Amid, getting up to come around his desk, rubbing his hands and holding them out to the central fireplace of the office, to warm them. "Poor circulation in the extremities, Age. Well, show them what you've got." "You go ahead, Luke," said Tannaheh. "The darts and the drugs in them'll need a little explaining." "All right."
Luke twitched the white cover to the back of the table, revealing a number of items on the polished surface, including several bandoleer-like belts, with loops for ammunition. But what took Hal's eye particularly were five short recurved bows, no more than four feet in length, made of a milky-colored, smoothly glasslike material. Luke noted the direction of his gaze. "Had the boys up all night, making these," he said. "The belts took hardly any time at all."
He picked up one of the bows and handed it to Hal, meanwhile reaching with his other hand for a rather stubbylooking arrow, apparently made of' the same material as bows.
The bow was already equipped with a string, tied tightly at one end and ending in a loop at the other. Hal had already placed the tied end on the floor and was putting his weight on the bow to bend it, as he slid the looped end up the shaft and into the notch prepared to hold it at the bow's far end. The bow, he saw, seemed to be made of a form of glass. Once strung, he held the bow up in one hand and ticked the string with the thumb of his other. It hummed musically.
The string was a little strange. It appeared to be made of the same milky material as the arrow shafts. Also there was a feel to it that was different from that of any bow string Hal had handled before. He plucked the string, listened to the musical note of it, hefted the bow and turned to pass it to Old Man. "You know swords," he said, smiling. "Am I correct in thinking you know something about these, too?" "Something," said Old Man, nodding as he took the weapon. "We used to shoot at a prayer target, blindfolded.- "Oh?" said Amid, interested. "Some form of divination? Or should we ask?" "Of course you may ask," said Old Man. "But it wasn't divination. Hitting the target correctly was a test of control over the body and mind."
He was going through the same motions with the bow as Hal before, first unstringing, then restringing it - except that where Hal had placed an end of the bow on the floor and leaned his weight on it in order to bend it enough to slide the looped end up into its notch, Old Man merely tucked the bow under one arm and bent it against his body to string it. "I don't think I'd be able to do that," said Hal, watching. "Indeed you could," said Old Man earnestly. "It's only a matter of practice - and habit. Forgive me. I didn't mean to seem to be showing off." "We all know you don't show off," said Amid. "What was that about shooting at a mark, blindfolded, though? Could you show us that?" "If you'll forgive me" Old Man looked around the room, then turned his back on it, so that he was facing the wall behind Amid's desk. "If one of you would fix a piece of paper against the far wall, then blindfold me and hand me an arrow - one with a sharp point, if you have one?" "I'm afraid," said Tannaheh, "all the points are on the darts which fasten to the ends of the arrows-" "That's all right," said Luke, "give me an arrow."
He took the blunt-ended, feathered shaft Tannaheh gave him, reached to Amid's desk for a pin from a tray which held such things, along with page fasteners and other small clips and devices. Hitching around from the back of his belt a case that held a number of small instruments, he clipped off the blunt head of the pin with what looked like a needle-nosed set of pliers, then held the chopped-off point for a moment in the jaws of the pliers. Hal saw the blunt end of the pin glow red for a second before Luke used the pliers to sink it into the blunt end of the arrow shaft, which melted before it. "That ought to give you point enough for wooden walls like these," Luke said. "I'll go put up a target."
He handed the arrow to Old Man, who received it without turning back to look at him. Luke tore off a sheet from the memo pad on Amid's desk, walked with it to the far wall and placed it against the wall at a point about level with his own eyes. By some means Hal could not see, he made it cling to the wall, then stood aside.
Meanwhile, Amid had been busy blindfolding Old Man with one of the napkins that had come with the food. When he was done, he stood back. "All ready," he said to Old Man. "The target's up. Go ahead. "
Old Man turned almost casually, with the arrow already notched to the bow string. He gave the string the merest tweak, for the other wall was at most ten meters away. The arrow arced into the air and almost fell against the target, the pin in its end sticking in the very center of the paper, and plainly through it to the wood, for the arrow drooped, but did not fall to the floor. "Now," said Old Man, "if you'll bring the arrow back to me and take down the paper."
Luke did both things, stopping halfway back to use one of his tools to straighten out the pin, which apparently had become bent. Once more Old Man fitted the arrow to his bow and sent it on its way. It stuck again, this time in the bare wall. Luke walked over to retrieve it, reached for the shaft, then hesitated, staring at the place where it was stuck in the wall. He whistled. "Just a few millimeters off from the first hole," he said.
He pulled the arrow loose and brought it back, as Amid took off the blindfold and Old Man laid down the still strung bow on Amid's desk. "How could you do it?" Hal asked him.
"I listened to the rustle of the paper as it was carried across the room," said Old Man, "and aimed at where the noise stopped." "But you hit the center of the paper!" Amid said.
Old Man smiled. "There were only two sources of paper on your desk," he answered. "Notepaper, and the memo pad. They would rustle differently. Besides the memo sheets are glued together at the top. I heard Luke tear one loose, and when he pressed it against the wall to make it stick, the board made a small creak. I aimed at were that sound had been, with the memo sheet, and the wall, pictured in my mind." "And then you did it again, with the paper gone," said Amid admiringly. "Even more simply, I'm afraid," said Old Man. "The second time I simply used the bow exactly the way I'd done the first - and the arrow went to the same place."