"Question number one," said Iimmi. "Now, for question number two. Look here." He reached over Geo's shoulder and hastened him to one page. "Why it's the ..." began Geo. "You're darn right it is," said Iimmi. HYMN TO THE GODDESS ARGO _Forked in the eye of the bright ash there the heart of Argo broke and the hand of the goddess would dash through the head of flame, and the smoke._ _Burn the grain speck in the hand and batter the stars with singing. Hail the height of a man, and also the height of a woman._ _The eyes have imprisoned a vision, the ash-tree dribbles with blood. Thrust from the gates of the prison, smear the yew-tree with mud._ "That must be the full version of the poem I found the missing stanza to back in the library at Leptar." "As I was saying," said Iimmi, "Question number two: what is the relation between the rituals of Hama and the old rituals of Argo. Apparently this particular branch of the religion of the Goddess underwent no purge. And no one at Olcse Olwnh was supposed to know about them." "I wonder why?" Geo asked. "That is question number three." "How did you get a hold of them?" "Well," said Iimmi, "I sort of suspected they might be here. So I just asked for them. And I think I've got some answers to those questions." "Fine. Go ahead." "We'll start from three, go back to one, and then on to two. Nice and orderly," said Iimmi. "Why wasn't anybody supposed to know about the rituals? Simply because they were so similar to the rituals of Hama. You remember some of the others we found in the abandoned temple? If you don't, you can refresh your memory right here. The two sets of rituals run almost parallel, except for a name changed here, a color switched from black to white, a switch in the vegetative symbolism. I guess what happened was that when Hama's forces invaded Leptar five hundred years ago, it didn't take Leptar long to find out the similarity. From the looks of the City of New Hope, I think it's safe to assume that at one time or another, say five hundred years ago, Aptor's civilization was far higher than Leptar's, and probably wouldn't have had too hard a time beating her in an invasion. So when Leptar captured the first jewel, and somehow did manage to repel Aptor, the priests of Leptar assumed that the safest way to avoid infiltration by Hama and Aptor again would be to make the rituals of the two as different as possible from the ones of their enemy, Hama. "The ghouls, the bats, they parallel the stories I've heard other sailors tell too closely to be accidents. How many people do you think have been shipwrecked on Aptor and gotten far enough into the place to see what we've seen, and then gotten off again to tell about it?" "I can think of two," said Geo. "Huh?" said Iimmi. "Snake and Jordde," answered Geo. "Remember that Argo said there had been spies from Aptor before. And Jordde is definitely one, and I guess so is Snake."