So what had happened? A little guy named Donald Michaels had been disguised as a clanless mat maker. He leaned back against the pack. And, brother, had they given him a stock of mats to sell. This clansman in Riandar would be busy for a month, just unloading all these things from his stock. He thought of those daydreams he had once had. A king's councilor, he had imagined, was a highly important, greatly respected individual. He had dreamed of himself, dressed in the ornate formal robes he'd seen in pictures of the old nobility. He'd pictured himself exchanging urbane chatter with other beautifully turned out characters, who hung on his every word. He'd seen himself striding between low-bowing lines of assorted courtiers and soldiery, pausing now and then to tap at the pavement with his jeweled staff. He'd---- Hah! He looked at the dusty trail. He'd been striding, all right, but the field reeds didn't look too much like bowing lines of---- Yeah, and his staff didn't have too many jewels, either. No pavement, even, and this fool pack didn't feel much like a finely tailored robe of office. He shrugged. "This is no dream," he told himself. "You let one of Stern's people get suspicious, and you'll find out just how real things can get." He twisted around to get the package of food and the water bottle which dangled from the pack. Distastefully, he looked at the little packet of powder which was in the food package. He glanced around quickly, then dumped the powder into his mouth, quickly gulping water to wash it down. "Gaah!" he growled, "does it have to taste like the inside of an old shoe? Oh, well, it'll keep me nice and dark for the next thirty hours or so." He pulled a strip of dried meat from the package. Maybe this will help take the taste out. He sighed and worked his jaws on the leatherlike substance. It started to soften a little. Well, anyway, he knew how to get to the vault where the ancestral volumes of the Waernu were kept. And he knew just which volume to pick out. Only one small problem remained. How was he going to get into the house--and on into the little pond in the inner garden? He grinned as he thought of Pete's remark. "It'll be simple for you," he had said enviously. "All you have to do is tell any guard you meet to stand aside and forget he ever saw you. Then you go on down to the vault. Wish I had that ability of yours." "Sure," he told himself, "hang your clothes on yonder bush--and get right into the water. It's just a simple matter of diving down ten feet and pushing the right rock the right number of times--in the right directions. Nothing to it. And then you go through the pressure trap, and there you are. Simple!" And who was going to guard the pond while he was down there? Suppose he broke surface right in front of a flock of trigger-happy Enforcers? He sighed. "Oh, well," he told himself. "You asked for it. Now, you've got it. Have fun." He looked into the food package and selected a meal cake.