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Empire of Loh. She reveled in the luxurious thoughts of the power and prestige once enjoyed by Walfarg. All that had been swept away, she claimed, by the failure of the Wizards of Walfarg and because the governments had failed to provide airboats. Because at the time the empire began to break up a king was on the throne, Mul-lu-Manting blamed the men for the catastrophe. With a return to women, ruling as Queens of Pain, then the Empire of Walfarg, the Empire of Loh, would return!
    “People in Loh are too apathetic to bother about such a return to imperial glories.” Wanlicheng shook his head. “That thing is best forgotten.”
    “All the same,” observed Xinthe, “you cannot deny it was when Loh was ruled by kings that the empire broke up.”
    “In certain circumstances, denying a self evident truth can obliterate the truth for subsequent generations. So, missy, have a care!”
    She happened to be eating a handful of palines and she threw one of the yellow berries at him. He caught it expertly enough, so I guessed this was not the first time. I was pleased that despite his austere appearance he was no stuffy old prig of a dominie. And if he could move mountains merely by using his head...!
    I stood up.
    “Thank you for your hospitality. Now I must be on my way.”
    “You will stay the night here, Drajak. I thought that was settled.”
    “That is kind of you—”
    “You are a stranger in Changwutung. Apathetic the people may be; we have high walls. The alleys are not safe at night.”
    “I take your point and I thank you again. I shall be happy further to impose on your hospitality.”
    Xinthe threw a paline at me.
    I caught it, popped it, and chewed pleasantly.
    I looked forward to an enjoyable evening of civilized conversation.

Chapter four
    By the time we retired I had not been disappointed in those expectations.
    This apartment boasted two bedrooms, a kitchen and toilet facilities and the living room. I bunked down on the living room floor with an old, and, I am forced to report, a somewhat thin and threadbare blanket. To saythat to an old campaigner such things are commonplace is surely redundant by this time in the narrative of Dray Prescot. The rest of the apartments in this building were on the same frugal scale. Household slaves would remove the night soil in the morning, and water would be brought up.
    When I tackled the question of slavery, I was partially mollified to hear Wanlicheng express the opinion that one person ought not to be able to own another. To this Xinthe nodded approval; but then in her feminine practical way, she added: “It would be inconvenient to lift and carry things oneself, up and down these stairs.”
    There were very few people in Paz who had not heard of the Shanks. In an odd but totally believable way it seemed the further away from the coast the stories were told the more hideous were the reports of the Shanks and their atrocities. The apathy into which Walfarg was sunk would, said Wanlicheng, make any Shank attack almost certain of success.
    This was just the kind of information I needed — and, of course, by Krun, just the kind of news I did not want!
    I went on to say: “Have you ever heard of an entity, a spirit, a ghost — some horrific supernatural being — called Carazaar? And, not to forget his repulsive multi-dimensional assistant, Arzuriel?”
    They shook their heads. No, they hadn’t.
    “Or of a Wizard of Loh — I beg your pardon, a Wizard of Walfarg — called Na-Si-Fantong?”
    “Fantong? Oh, he hasn’t been heard of for some time. The last news with any pretensions to authority placed him in Kothmir. Rumor had it that he was mixed up in some unsavory trickery involving a necklace.”
    “As I heard it,” amplified Xinthe, “he had to leave Kothmir very rapidly with half the kov’s army on his heels.”
    “But,” I said. “He had the necklace?”
    “No. It was recovered.”
    I felt relief at that. Whatever this Fantong wanted all the gems of the