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buildings, all with mean little windows. Directly ahead an arched opening clearly led to the inner courtyard. To the right lay the stables, with the usual litter scattered about. There was about this courtyard a miserable, dingy feeling.
    Wanlicheng led off through the arched opening into the inner courtyard. If I expected a blaze of color from gardens, spirited fountains, statuary, I was singularly disappointed. The inner courtyard was just a bigger version of the outer. Certainly, the windows were a fraction larger. Wanlicheng waited whilst Xinthe unlocked one of the narrow wooden doors in the row of doors all around the courtyard and we all went in and immediately climbed a blackwood stair in gloom made darker by our abrupt entrance from the last of the sunslight. At the top lay a chamber spartan in simplicity, furnished as a living room. I did not see a single cushion. The bentwood chairs looked hard and uninviting.
    “Pray make yourself at home, Drajak. Xinthe, my dear, would you?”
    “Red, white, or rosé, or your usual?”
    “My usual for myself, I think. Drajak, your preference?”
    “It makes no difference, San Ornol; but red would be nice.”
    “Ornol, please. I regard the word san as a vulgar form of ostentation, along with princes and kovs and the like. I do admit they sometimes have their uses, in the right place and the right time. But Walfarg has suffered too much from her sans and her Queens of Pain.”
    I could quite see his point. The once great and puissant Empire of Loh, ruled ruthlessly by the famous Queens of Pain, was now gone and crumbled away, blown like smoke in the wind. If the people, as that screaming girl Mul-lu-Manting had said, blamed the Wizards of Loh and their own rulers for the catastrophe, then they wouldn’t much care for sans and queens.
    Xinthe brought the wine in pottery jugs and readying myself for a tart and vinegary concoction I was pleasantly surprised to taste a smooth and bracing red. Wanlicheng observed my reactions. He smiled, that austere face breaking amazingly into an attractive beam. “Yes, I believe that wine and blood have an affinity, and therefore a good quality is essential.”
    “A sound principle,” I observed, and drank.
    Xinthe disappeared and I assumed she was preparing the meal.
    Etiquette was more likely than not to be entirely different here. Using what little conversational skills I have I quickly established that Xinthe stood as student, nurse and cook to Wanlicheng and that, thank you, walfger, you may assist with the washing up.
    The meal was simple, good, perhaps a trifle too frugal for my taste; but then, an old sailorman like me is used to drawing in his belt buckle.
    Wanlicheng, when we had finished eating and the washing up had been placed in its wooden racks, said: “Now, Xinthe, the preparation for the tenth corner.”
    “Yes, master — which Path do you mean?”
    “Impudence!” His thin lips curved into a smile as he spoke. “You well know, tikshvu.”
    I felt a jolt at his joking use of that word tikshvu, which I have previously translated as missy. Usually it threatens and cows a young girl who has been rebellious. These people made their own rules, it seemed.
    She spread her hands in her lap and nodded. “The Path of the Ib.”
    That is to say, the Path of the Spirit or Soul. Wanlicheng pursed his lips. “In the Path of the Ib, the tenth corner holds a special significance. It is similar to the importance of the seventh corner in the Path of the World.”
    “In the Path of the Flesh—” began Xinthe.
    “Two Paths are enough for the moment.” He spoke sharply.
    “Yes, master.”
    “Now, hold your attention to the ninth corner.” As he spoke he leaned down and placed his two thumbs over her closed eyelids. The shadows in the room lay deeply now as the suns sank. There was one cheap mineral oil lamp that remained unlit as Xinthe concentrated on her exercise.
    I sat very quietly. Both Wanlicheng and Xinthe had the red hair of