"Come in," summoned the Priestess of Argo, and he turned into a windowless cabin and stopped one step beyond the threshold. The walls rippled tapestries, lucent green, scarlet. Golden braziers perched on tapering legged tripods beneath plumes of pale blue smoke that lent thin incense in the room, pierced faintly but cleanly into his nostrils like knives. Light lashed the polished wooden newels of a great bed on which sat swirls of silk, damasked satin, brocade. A huge desk, cornered with wooden eagles, was spread with papers, meticulous instruments of cartography, sextants, rules, compasses, and great shabby books were piled on one corner. Above, from the beamed ceiling, hung by thick chains, swayed a branching candelabra of oil cups, some in the hands of demons, the mouths of monkeys, burning in the bellies of nymphs, or between the horns of satyrs' heads--red, clear green, or yellow-white. "Come in," repeated the priestess. "Close the door." Geo obeyed. She walked behind her desk, sat down, and folded her hands in front of her veiled face. "What do you know of the real world, outside Leptar?" "That there is much water, some land, and mostly ignorance." "What tales have you heard from your bear friend, Urson? He is a traveled man and should know some of what there is of the earth." "The stories of sailors," said Geo, "are menageries of beasts that no one has ever seen, of lands for which no maps exist, and of peoples whom no man has met." She smiled. "Since I boarded this ship I have heard many tales from sailors, and I have learned more from them than from all my priests. You, on the docks there, this evening, have been the only man to give me another scrap of the puzzle except a few drunken seamen, misremembering old fantasies." She paused. "What do you know of the jewels you saw tonight?" "Nothing, ma'am." "A common thief hiding on the docks had one; I, a priestess of Argo, possess another; and if you had one, you would probably exchange it for a kiss with some tavern maid. What do you know of the god Hama?" "I know of no such god." "You," she said, "who can spout all the rituals and incantations of the white goddess Argo, you do not even know the name of the dark god Hama. What do you know of the Island of Aptor?" "Nothing, ma'am." "This boat has been to Aptor once and now will return again. Ask your ignorant friend the Bear to tell you tales of Aptor; and blind, wise poet, you will laugh, and probably he will, too. But I will tell you: his tales, his legends, and his fantasies are not a tithe of the truth, not a tithe. Perhaps you will be no help after all. I am thinking of dismissing you." "But, ma'am ..." Geo began. The priestess looked up, having been about to begin some work.