"How long have your people lived in this part of the world?" Thomas asked the Mayor during a momentary lull in the interrogation. "Am I right in guessing that your ancestors arrived here no more than a few generations ago?"

     "Quite correct," replied the Mayor. "May I ask how you arrived at your conclusion?"

     "We spotted primitive peoples on our way here. Hiding in the undergrowth, creeping between the trees. They wore animal skins and painted their faces."

     "The feather people," said the Mayor dismissively. "They're harmless. They don't bother us."

     "And they are the original inhabitants of this land?"

     "Yes, our ancestors met them when they first came down from the north, two hundred years ago. They've been living the same way for thousands of years. They'll never amount to anything."

     "Remember that our own ancestors lived much the same way until the rise of the sons of Tragor," pointed out a man further down the table, however, waving a half eaten chicken drumstick in the air for emphasis. "Before that, we were wandering tribes, and had been for as long as our oral history recalls. We rose up to become civilised, however. Maybe the feather people will do the same, one day."

     "More likely they'll blend in with your civilisation," suggested Thomas. "They'll see the quality of life you enjoy and they'll want to share it. They'll come drifting into your cities one or two at a time..."

     "If the bandits and the Southerners don't wipe them out first," interrupted the chicken drumstick man. "They hunt them for sport, so it's said."

     "The Southerners?" asked Matthew, looking up with interest.

     "We came from the north, they came from the south," explained the Mayor. "They claim this land to be theirs, but we were here first. We fought a war with them a few years ago, drove them back, but we still see the occasional patrols sneaking around, testing us for weaknesses. You're lucky you didn't run afoul of them on your way here."

     "If we'd known this, we might not have dared approach your city," said Thomas. "You might have mistaken us for Southerners and killed us out of hand."

     The Mayor shook his head, smiling. "They would never approach so boldly, so fearlessly. You would have greater reason to fear one of our own army patrols. If they had caught you out in the wilderness, it would not have gone well for you."

     Thomas stared excitedly. If they were going to come clean with these people, explain their 'misunderstanding' with the soldiers, this was the perfect moment.

     Matthew saw the look on his face, though, and gave a discrete shake of his head while his eyes stared frantically. Have you forgotten all the men we killed? Thomas imagined him saying. Do you think something like that can be so easily forgiven? Thomas closed his mouth, therefore, and Matthew leapt in quickly before the wizard could change his mind.

     "May I ask a question?" he asked. "How much do you know about the people who built these buildings?"

     "We built these buildings," said the Mayor, looking confused.

     "No, I mean, the people who built them first. They start out tall and you make them shorter so you can live in the lower floors, but who built them tall?"

     Not only the Mayor but everyone around the table was staring at him blankly, as if he'd suggested that the moon was made of cheese. Thomas remembered his use of the Translation spell while trying to reason with the officer in the ruined skyscraper. The insight into the Fechlon world view it had given him. They had absolutely no conception that the skyscrapers were artificial structures.

     "Surely it's obvious that they're not natural," the wizard said. "They have straight sides and flat floors. Most of them are the same shape..."

     "You do not have them in your country?" asked one of the other guests. A bald man with rings on his fingers and fine clothes of silk and spun silver. Clearly a rich, powerful man, but not an aristocrat. Such people looked much the same in every human civilisation Thomas had ever seen, and this man didn't have that look. This man was a tradesman. Probably a banker.

     "We have them, yes, but we know they're buildings, raised by a lost..." He paused as he searched for the word. "A lost civilisation that perished thousands of years ago. The same people who made the ring..."

     Surprised laughter broke out around the table. "The ring?" exclaimed the banker. "Next you'll be saying that they built the world!"

     "No, the Gods built the world," said Drenn. He was holding his knife as if assessing its value as a weapon. "What Gods do you worship?"

     "What are Gods?" asked the woman opposite him, fluttering her eyelashes alluringly.

     The rest of the evening was dominated by a discussion of theology. It turned out that the Fechlonians had no Gods. They believed that their souls merged with the rest of the natural world after death, with parts of it being incorporated into every new life that appeared thereafter. The priest of Samnos grew visibly agitated by this heresy, but Thomas found himself wondering whether different universes did indeed have different afterlives. Maybe the Fechlonian belief was what really happened here, but if that was so, what would happen to a Tharian who died here? Where was Parcellius's soul now? Had the Gods of Tharia managed to reach across the gulf to gather him in, or was the alchemist now a part of Fechlon, now and forever?

     Thomas studied Drenn, and saw a nervousness, an agitation that he'd never seen in a priest of Samnos before. Clearly, the same thoughts had occurred to him, and he was now contemplating the possibility of being separated from his deity forever if he died here. Then he straightened, however, a new confidence appearing in his eyes as if he'd found new faith from somewhere. Samnos had managed to send enough holy power to heal his leg, Thomas remembered. If Samnos could do that, He could gather the priest's soul in. His God was far away, but not that far.

     "But how do you know that these Gods of yours actually exist?" asked the woman. Someone's wife but they weren't quite sure whose. There were at least three men present to whom she might belong. "Do they communicate with you?"

     "If They judge us worthy," replied Drenn, "but only a handful of the most dedicated have that much faith. I have dedicated my life to serving one of Them, one of the most powerful of the Gods, and in return He has occasionally directed me to serve Him in a particular way. Everyone else must rely on us to pass on Their instructions, to tell them what the Gods require them to do."

     "Ah, I think I understand," said the banker with a shrewd smile. "Very clever. You Beltharans don't miss a trick, do you? I'm impressed, and my associates will tell you that I'm not impressed very often." He tapped the size of his nose and winked conspiratorially.

     Drenn stared, his steely grey eyes widening in disbelief, then narrowing in anger. He gripped the knife tighter. "You dare...!"

     "Well, we've had a lovely evening," said Thomas, jumping to his feet and grabbing the priest by the elbow, "but we don't want to overstay our welcome, do we?" He leaned over to hiss into the priest's ear. "Do we?"

     "You heard what he said!" growled Drenn without taking his eyes off the banker. "He called me an..." The word was so terrible that it took him a great effort to say it. "An idolater!"

     Over the centuries, Tharia had known several made up religions. Cynical attempts by unscrupulous villains to create false beliefs as a way to gain power over people. The followers of the true Gods reserved their worst punishments and tortures for such people. Even the gentle and pacifistic clerics of Caroli had been known to fly into a rage and take up arms in the war to protect the sanctity of faith, in case the mundanes came to the conclusion that all Gods were made up by the priests who proclaimed them, the miracles performed by their holy power mere trickery or a brand of wizard magic. Priests of Samnos hated idolaters ever more than they hated priests of Skorvos.

     "He spoke in ignorance," insisted Thomas, speaking in Tharian common. They'd been teaching the language to their houseservants, but he was confident that none of the Fechlonians around this table would understand it. "They have no Gods of their own. They have no way of knowing that there are such things as real Gods. Use your head, man!"

     Drenn continued to stare, but gradually he relaxed and his grip on the knife loosened. "Samnos is real," he told the banker in Fechlonian. "He has spoken to me. I have felt His power, as have my enemies. Pray that you never feel His power yourself."

     "If I offended you, I apologise," said the banker, looking startled. "I ask you to forgive and forget my foolish words."

     Drenn stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded and put the knife down, everyone breathing sighs of relief around him. The Mayor quickly changed the subject to something harmless and the meal continued in peace.

     "I hope we don't see too many scenes like that," said Thomas later that evening as they were on their way home. He'd spent the last couple of hours carefully choosing the words he would use now so that he could make his point without the priest knowing whether he was blaming him or the banker. "Things are tense enough without that kind of unpleasantness."

     "I could not allow the insult to pass unchallenged," replied Drenn firmly. "To have done so would have been as great as insult to Samnos as if I had spoken the words myself."

     "Well, luckily no harm seems to have been done," said Matthew, walking beside them. "They were willing to let it pass, like good diplomats."

     "That is because they are planning to kill us," replied the priest. "As soon as they have learned as much about Belthar as they can from us,"

     They all stared at him. "How do you know that?" asked the wizard.

     "Priests of Samnos have an instinctive sense for when people mean us harm. They mean to kill us, sometime in the next few days. It makes sense, in a purely pragmatic way. At the moment, they know about Belthar but Belthar does not know about them. That gives them an advantage, but if we escaped and returned to Belthar, told them about these people, the advantage would be lost. I imagine that, as soon as they think we've told them as much as we're ever going to voluntarily, we'll be imprisoned and interrogated harshly, under torture, to wring every last drop of information out of us, and then they'll kill us."

     "It does make a kind of sense," agreed Matthew glumly, "if they're that kind of people."

     "They are," said Drenn. "Remember how we were received by the soldiers upon our first arrival. They attacked without bothering to find out who we were or what we were doing there. They automatically assume that strangers are enemies, and I would be willing to bet that their southern enemies are just the same."

     "Sounds like it's time for us to leave," said Matthew. "Find our weapons and teleport out. We've more or less learned the language, well enough to make ourselves understood anyway..."

     "But they can still tell from our accents that we're foreigners," countered Thomas. "I'd prefer to stay long enough to polish up my accent and the local colloquialisms. Learn to speak the language well enough to pass for a native. Then I can speak for the rest of you whenever we meet anybody, at least until the rest of you catch up."

     "Any delay would be dangerous in the extreme," pointed out Drenn, however. "When they decide to imprison us, they will move quickly. Give us no time to resist. Even I may not be able to escape. We should leave now. This very minute."

     "We'll need time to find where they're keeping your weapons," replied Thomas. "Give me one more day. If we haven't found them by then, we'll leave tomorrow night. I promise."

     The priest looked at him thoughtfully, then glanced at the others, gauging their thoughts on the matter. Then he nodded. "One more day," he said, "and then we leave. Weapons or not."

     Thomas nodded gratefully, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.