"It is nothing," I said, not truthfully. "But I demand in requital that since we are bound by spilled blood under your roof, that you give me what news you have of Rakhal, the spy and renegade." Kyral said fiercely, "If I knew, would I be under my own roof?" The old gaffer on the dais broke into shrill whining laughter. "You have drunk wi' him, Kyral, now he's bound you not to do him harm! I know the story of Rakhal! He was spy for Terra twelve years. Twelve years, and then he fought and flung their filthy money in their faces and left 'em. But his partner was some Dry-town halfbreed or Terran spy and they fought wi' clawed gloves, and near killed one another except the Terrans, who have no honor, stopped 'em. See the marks of the _kifirgh_ on his face!" "By Sharra the golden-chained," said Kyral, gazing at me with something like a grin. "You are, if nothing else, a very clever man. What are you, spy, or half-caste of some Ardcarran slut?" "What I am doesn't matter to you," I said. "You have blood-feud with Rakhal, but mine is older than yours and his life is mine. As you are bound in honor to kill"--the formal phrases came easily now to my tongue; the Earthman had slipped away--"so you are bound in honor to help me kill. If anyone beneath your roof knows anything of Rakhal--" Kyral's smile bared his teeth. "Rakhal works against the Son of the Ape," he said, using the insulting Wolf term for the Terrans. "If we help you to kill him, we remove a goad from their flanks. I prefer to let the filthy _Terranan_ spend their strength trying to remove it themselves. Moreover, I believe you are yourself an Earthman. "You have no right to the courtesy I extend to we, the People of the Sky. Yet you have drunk wine with me and I have no quarrel with you." He raised his hand in dismissal, outfencing me. "Leave my roof in safety and my city with honor." I could not protest or plead. A man's _kihar_, his personal dignity, is a precious thing in Shainsa, and he had placed me so I could not compromise mine further in words. Yet I lost _kihar_ equally if I left at his bidding, like an inferior dismissed. One desperate gamble remained. "A word," I said, raising my hand, and while he half turned, startled, believing I was indeed about to compromise my dignity by a further plea, I flung it at him: "I will bet _shegri_ with you." His iron composure looked shaken. I had delivered a blow to his belief that I was an Earthman, for it is doubtful if there are six Earthmen on Wolf who know about _shegri_, the dangerous game of the Dry-towns. It is no ordinary gamble, for what the bettor stakes is his life, possibly his reason. Rarely indeed will a man bet _shegri_ unless he has nothing further to lose. It is a cruel, possibly decadent game, which has no parallel anywhere in the known universe.