«This (thing) . . . mine . . . old,» Chaumel said, gesturing casually at a couple of framed pieces of art displayed on the wall. Keff glanced at the first one to figure out what it represented, and then wished he hadn't. The moire abstract seemed to move by itself in nauseous patterns. Keff hastily glanced away, dashing tears from his eyes and controlling the roil of his stomach.
«Most original,» he said, gasping. Chaumel paused briefly in his chattering to beam at Keff's evident perspicacity and pointed out another stomach-twister. Keff carefully kept his gaze aimed below the level of the frames, offering compliments without looking. Staring at the silver magicians heels and the hem of his robe, Keff padded faster to catch up.
They passed over a threshold into an anteroom where several servants were sweeping and dusting. Except when raising their eyes to acknowledge the presence of their master, they also made a point of watching the ground in front of them. It was no consolation to Keff to realize that others had the same reaction to the «artwork.»
Chaumel was the only bare-skin Keff saw. The staff appeared to consist solely of fur-skinned Noble Primitives, like Brannel, but instead of having just four fingers on each hand, some had all five.
«The missing links?» Keff asked Carialle. These beings looked like a combination between Chaumel's people and Brannel's. Though their faces were hairy, they did not bear the animal cast to their features that the various villagers had. They looked more humanly diversified. «Do you suppose that the farther you go away from the overlords, the more changes you find in facial structure?» He stopped to study the face of a furry-faced maiden, who reddened under her pelt and dropped her eyes shyly. She twisted her duster between her hands.
«Ahem! A geographical cause isn't logical,» Carialle said, «although you might postulate inbreeding between the two races. That would mean that the races are genetically close. Very interesting.»
Chaumel, noticing he'd lost his audience, detoured back, directed Keff away from the serving maid and toward a stone archway.
«Will you look at the workmanship in that?» Keff said, admiringly. «Very fine, Chaumel.»
«I'm glad you . . .» the magiman said, moving on through the doorway into a wide corridor. «Now, this . . . my father . . .»
«This» proved to be a tapestry woven, Carialle informed Keff after a microscopic peek, of dyed vegetable fibers blended with embroidered colorful figures in six-pack hair.
«Old,» she said. «At least four hundred years. And expert craftwork, I might add.»
«Lovely,» Keff said, making sure the contact button scanned it in full for his xenology records. «Er, high worker-ship, Chaumel.»
His host was delighted, and took him by the arm to show him every item displayed in the long hall.
Chaumel was evidently an enthusiastic collector of objets d'art and, except for the nauseating pictures, had a well-developed appreciation of beauty. Keff had no trouble admiring handsomely made chairs, incidental tables, and pedestals of wood and stone; more tapestries; pieces of scientific equipment that had fallen into disuse and been adapted for other purposes. A primitive chariot, evidently the precursor of the elegant chairs Chaumel and his people used, was enshrined underneath the picture of a bearded man in a silver robe. Chaumel also owned some paintings and representational art executed with great skill that were not only not uncomfortable but a pleasure to behold. Keff exclaimed over everything, recording it, hoping that he was also gathering clues to help free Carialle so they could leave Ozran as soon as possible.
A few of Chaumel's treasures absolutely defied description. Keff would have judged them to be sculpture or statuary, but some of the vertical and horizontal surfaces showed wear, the polished appearance of long use. They were furniture, but for what kind of being?
«What is this, Chaumel?» Keff asked, drawing the magimans attention to a small grouping arranged in an alcove. He pointed to one item. It looked like a low-set painters easel from which a pair of hardwood tines rose in a V. «This is very old.»
«Ah!» the magiman said, eagerly. «. . . from old, old day-day.» IT promptly interpreted into «from ancient days,» and recorded the usage.
«I'm getting a reading of between one thousand six hundred and one thousand nine hundred years,» Carialle said, confirming Chaumel's statement. The magiman gave Keff a curious look.
«Surely your people didn't use these things,» Keff said. «Can't sit on them, see?» He made as if to sit down on the narrow horizontal ledge at just above knee level.
Chaumel grinned and shook his head. «Old Ones used . . . sit-lie,» he said.
«They weren't humanoid?» Keff asked, and then clarified as the magiman looked confused. «Not like you, or me, or your servants?»
«Not, not. Before New Ones, we.»
«Then the humanoids were not the native race on this planet,» Carialle said excitedly into Kerfs implant. «They are travelers. They settled here alongside the indigenous beings and shared their culture.»
«That would explain the linguistic anomalies,» Keff said. «And that awful artwork in the grand hall.» Then speaking aloud, he added, «Are there any of the Old Ones left, Chaumel?»
«Not, not. Many days gone. Worked, move from empty land to mountain. Gave us, gave them.» Chaumel struggled with a pantomime. «All . . . gone.»
«I think I understand. You helped them move out of the valleys, and they gave you . . . what? Then they all died? What caused that? A plague?»
Chaumel suddenly grew wary. He muttered and moved on to the next grouping of artifacts. He paused dramatically before one item displayed on a wooden pedestal. The gray stone object, about fifty centimeters high, resembled an oddly twisted urn with an off-center opening.
«Old-Old-Ones,» he said with awe, placing his hands possessively on the urn.
«Old Ones—Ancient Ones?» Keff asked, gesturing one step farther back with his hand.
«Yes,» Chaumel said. He caressed the stone. Keff moved closer so Carialle could take a reading through the contact button.
«It's even older than the Old Ones' chair, if that's what that was. Much older. Ask if this is a religious artifact. Are the Ancient Ones their gods?» Carialle asked.
«Did you, your father-father, bring Ancient Ones with you to Ozran?» Keff asked.
«Not our ancestors,» Chaumel said, laying three imaginary objects in a row. «Ozran: Ancient Ones; Old Ones; New Ones, we. Ancient,» he added, holding out the wand in his belt.
«Carialle, I think he means that artifact is a leftover from the original culture. It is ancient, but there has been some modification on it, dating a couple thousand years back.» Then aloud, he said to Chaumel. «So they passed usable items down. Did the Ancient Ones look like the Old Ones? Were they their ancestors?»
Chaumel shrugged.
«It looks like an entirely different culture, Keff,» Carialle said, processing the image and running a schematic overlay of all the pieces in the hall. «There're very few Ancient One artifacts here to judge by, but my reconstruction program suggests different body types for the Ancients and the Old Ones. Similar, though. Both species were upright and had rearward-bending, jointed lower limbs—can't tell how many, but the Old One furniture is built for larger creatures. Not quite as big as humanoids, though.»