" 'I would eat the bread of Babel and the meat of Marakhan…'", Tozer said dreamily. " Tor all such fruits as fools supply are merely…'"
"We can offer some cheese at this hour," D'Averc interrupted sardonically.
"Annala, Act VI, Scene V," Tozer said. "You'll remember the scene?"
"I remember," D'Averc nodded. "I always felt that section somewhat weaker than the rest."
"Subtler," Tozer said airily. "Subtler."
The servant re-entered with the wine and Tozer helped himself, pouring a generous amount into the goblet. "The concerns of literature," he said, "are not always obvious to the common herd. A hundred years from now and people will see the last act of Annala not, as some stupid critics have said, as hastily written and poorly conceived, but as the complex structure it really is…"
"I had reckoned myself as something of a writer," Bowgentle said, "but I must confess, I did not see subtleties… Perhaps you could explain."
"Some other time," Tozer told him, with an insouciant wave of the hand. He drank off the wine and helped himself to another full goblet.
"In the meanwhile," Hawkmoon said firmly, "perhaps you could explain your presence in the Kamarg.
After all, we had thought ourselves inviolate and now…"
"You are still inviolate, never fear," Tozer said, "save to myself, of course. By the power of my brain I propelled myself hither."
D'Averc sceptically rubbed his chin. "By the power of your-brain? How so?"
"An ancient discipline taught me by a master philosopher who dwells in the hidden valleys of Yel…"
Tozer belched and poured more wine.
"Yel is that south western province of Granbretan is it not?" Bowgentle asked.
"Aye. A remote, barely inhabited land, peopled by a few dark-brown barbarians who live in holes in the ground. After my play Chirshil and Adulf had incurred the displeasure of certain elements at Court, I deemed it wise to retire there for a while, leaving my enemies to take for themselves all goods, monies, and mistresses I left behind. What know I of petty politics? How was I to realize that certain portions of the play seemed to reflect the intrigues then current at the Court?"
"So you were disgraced?" Hawkmoon said, looking narrowly at Tozer. The story could be part of the man's deception.
"More-I almost lost my life. But the rural existence near killed me as it was…"
"You met this philosopher who taught you how to travel through the dimensions? Then you came here seeking refuge?" Hawkmoon studied Tozer's reaction to these questions.
"No-ah, yes…" said the playwright. "That is to say, I did not know exactly where I was coming…"
"I think that you were sent here by the King-Emperor to destroy us," Hawkmoon said. "I think, Master Tozer, that you are lying to us."
"Lying? What is a lie? What is truth?" Tozer grinned glassily up at Hawkmoon and then hiccupped.
"Truth," Hawkmoon replied evenly, "is a coarse noose about your throat. I think we should hang you."
He fingered the dull black jewel imbedded in his forehead. "I am not unfamiliar with the tricks of the Dark Empire. I have been their victim too often to risk being deceived again." He looked at the others. "I say we should hang him now."
"But how do we know if he is really the only one who can reach us?" D'Averc asked sensibly. "We cannot be too hasty, Hawkmoon."
"I am the only one, I swear it!" Tozer spoke nervously now. "I admit, good sir, that I was commissioned to come here. It was that or lose my life in the prison catacombs of the Great Palace. When I had the old man's secret, I returned to Londra thinking that my power would enable me to bargain with those at Court who were displeased with me. I wished only to be returned to my former status and know that I had an audience to write for once again. However, when I told them of my new-found discipline, they instantly threatened my life unless I came here and destroyed that which enabled you to enter this dimension… so I came-glad, I must admit, to escape them. I was not particularly willing to risk my skin in offending you good folk but…"
"They did not ensure, in some way, that you would perform the task they set you?" Hawkmoon asked.
"That is strange."
"To tell you the truth," Tozer said, downcast, "I do not think they altogether believed in my power. I think they merely wished to test that I had it. When I agreed to go and left instantly, they must have been shocked."
"Not like the Dark Empire Lords to allow such an • oversight," mused D'Averc, his aquiline face frowning.
"Still, if you did not win our confidence, there's no reason you should have won theirs. Nonetheless, I am not altogether convinced that you speak the truth."
"You told them of this old man?" Bowgentle said.
"They will be able to learn his secret for themselves!"
"Not so," Tozer said with a leer. "I told them I had struck upon the power myself, in my months of solitude."
"No wonder they did not take you seriously!"
D'Averc smiled.
Tozer looked hurt and took another draft of wine.
"I find it difficult to believe that you were able to travel here by exercise of your will alone," Bowgentle admitted. "Are you sure you employed no other means…?"
"None."
"I like this not at all," Hawkmoon said darkly.
"Even if he tells the truth, the Lords of Granbretan will wonder where he found his power by now, will learn all his movements, will almost certainly discover the old man-and then they will have the means to come through in strength and we shall be doomed!"
"Indeed, these are difficult times," Tozer said, filling his goblet yet again. "Remember your King Staleen, Act IV, Scene II-'Wild days, wild riders, and the stink of warfare across the world!' Aha, I was a visionary and knew it not!" He was now evidently drunk.
Hawkmoon stared hard at the weak-chinned drunkard, still finding it almost impossible to believe that this was the great playwright Tozer.
"You wonder at my poverty, I see," Tozer said, speaking with slurred tongue. "The result of a couple of lines in Chirshil and Adulf, as I told you. Oh, the wickedness of fate! A couple of lines, penned in good faith, and here I am today, with the threat of a noose about my gullet. You remember the scene of course, and the speech? 'Court and king, alike corrupt…?' Act I, Scene I? Pity me, sir, and do not hang me. A great artist destroyed by his own mighty genius."
"This old man," Bowgentle said. "What was he like? Where exactly did he live?"
"The old man…" Tozer. forced more wine down his throat. "The old man reminded me somewhat of Ioni in my Comedy of Steel. Act II, Scene VI…"
"What was he like?" Hawkmoon asked impatiently.
" 'Machine-devoured, all his hours were given o'er to that insidious circuitry, and old grew he, unnoticing, in the service of his engines.' He lived only for his science, you see. He made the rings…" Tozer put his hand to his mouth.
"Rings? What rings?" D'Averc said swiftly.
"I feel that you must excuse me," Tozer said, rising in a parody of dignity, "for the wine has proved too rich for my empty stomach. Your pity, if you please…"
It was true that Tozer's face had taken on a greenish tinge.
"Very well," Bowgentle said wearily. "I will show you."
"Before he leaves," came a new voice from near the door, "ask him for the ring he wears on the middle finger of his left hand." The tone was slightly muffled, a little sardonic. Hawkmoon recognized it at once and turned.
Tozer gasped and clamped his hand over the ring.
"What do you know of this?" he said. "Who are you?"
"Duke Dorian here," said the figure with a gesture towards Hawkmoon, "calls me the Warrior in Jet and Gold."