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we had amicably pored together. Navigation has always come easily to me, and by this time I had fixed in my head the geographical outlines of the inner sea as well as Akhram could teach me with the aid of maps and globes kept in his own private study. I was also able to give him some sage advice on the higher mathematics, and his grasp of calculus also was thereby strengthened. What he proposed was obvious, given the context of our relationship. He now knew my name, Dray Prescot, and used it with some affection. Because of my somewhat stupid and vainglorious attempt to rush outside and deal with the raiders, alone, with my sword, I understood he felt that he owed me gratitude. I owned no particular loyalty to any set of codes; codes, in a general sense, are for the weaklings who rely on ritual and formula; but I granted their use at the right times and places; that had not been one of them. Had I got outside I would have been killed or captured and, very probably, only further annoyed the mail-clad men of Grodno.
    “You are at heart one of us, Dray,” said Akhram, then. “Your knowledge is already far advanced over that normal for one of your years in our disciplines. Join us! Join us, Dray Prescot; become a Todalpheme. You would enjoy the life here.”
    In other days, in other climes, I might have been tempted. But — there was Delia of Delphond. There were the Star Lords; there were the Savanti; but most of all there was Delia of the Blue Mountains, my Delia.
    “I thank you for your gracious offer, Akhram. But it cannot be. I have other destinies—”
    “If it is because we are all castrati, and you would of necessity have to be castrated likewise, I can assure you that is of little importance beside the knowledge gained—”
    I shook my head. “It is not that, Akhram.”
    He turned away.
    “It is difficult to find the right young men. But, if the Todalpheme were no more, who, then, would warn the fisher folk, the sailors in their gallant ships, the people of the shore cities? For the inner sea is a calm sea. It is flat, placid, smooth. When storms come a man may see the clouds gather and sense the change in the wind, and sniff the breeze, and say to himself a storm is due and so seek harbor. But — who can warn him when the tides will come sweeping in to smash and crush and destroy if the gates are not closed on the Dam of Days?”
    “The Todalpheme will not die, Akhram. There will always be young men ready to take up the challenge. Do not fear.”
    When it was time to go I promised the Todalpheme that I would halt on my journey to the outer ocean and give them Lahal. I also promised myself the sight of this wonderful Dam of Days and its gates and locks, for judging by the Grand Canal it must be an engineering work of colossal scale. They gave me a decent tunic of white cloth, and a satchel in which were placed, lovingly wrapped in leaves, a supply of the long loaves of bread, some dried meat, and fruit. Over my back I slung a profusely berried branch of palines. Then, with the hauberk and coif rolled up around my middle and the long sword depending from a pair of straps at my side, sandals on my feet, I set off. They all crowded to see me go.
    “Remberee!” they called. “Remberee, Dray Prescot.”
    “Remberee!” I called back.
    I knew that had I tried, now, to take any other course I would have been flung back to Earth. Much though I wanted to rush to Delia, much though I yearned to hold her in my arms again, I dare not take a single step overtly in her direction.
    I was trapped in the schemes of the Star Lords, or the Savanti — although I suspected that those calm grave men wished me well, even though they had turned me out of paradise. If I tried to board a ship for Vallia, I felt sure I would find myself engulfed by that enveloping blueness and awake on some remote part of the Earth where I had been born.
    Being unprovided with either a zorca or a vove, those riding animals of the great plains of