"Would money buy your musings, bard?" Gord asked, wiping beads of salty sweat from his brow.

"Mere commons, my friend, would purchase such idle queries as I have been mulling over," Gellor replied with a trace of a smile. "When do you think we will set forth?" he asked, even though he knew the answer as well as Gord did.

"When they have finished the enspellment of everything — our weapons, our other possessions, us! It is no small matter to bring about that which will enable us to stride the nether realms as Gill Plowman walks his furrows," Gord responded, breaking into a broad grin. It was no false humor, either. He and his comrade both knew what he had just articulated. Gord was japing at Gellor's nervousness and his own as well.

"Instruct your grandsire on the consumption of suet pudding, whelp!" Gellor said. "Come on! Let's bathe the stink from us and get some nourishment inside, else we'll have neither the company for our final instructions nor the strength for any undertaking."

Clapping his arm around the taller man's shoulders, Gord said, "Very well, grandpapa, and allow me to support your aged bones as we go!"

The walk was but a short one to the suite of chambers that had been reserved permanently for Gord and whatever guests he might choose. The vast expanse of the Catlord's rambling palace had no finer chambers than Gord's. Soon he and Gellor were stripped and enjoying the plash of water from the cascade that fell from the artesian-fed fountain into the tiled basin of the great pool in the inner gardencourt that Gord's suite surrounded.

Later, while his comrade was sleeping in his own rooms, and Gord was himself comfortably sprawled on a huge, feathery bed, half dozing, the young champion's mind returned to the question Gellor had voiced. . and the ones left unspoken as well. It was plain what concerned the bard. He would accompany Gord, both despite and because of the dangers that awaited on the nether regions. Gellor would haw it that way — no question!