There were bells, three rows of them, small and golden, thonged tightly about the girl’s left ankle.

The entire floor of the chamber, shining, richly mosaiced, broad, reflecting the torchlight, was a map.

I watched the girl. Her knees were slightly bent. Her weight was on her heels, freeing her hips. Her rib cage was lifted, but her shoulders, relaxed, were down.

Her abdominal muscles, too were relaxed. Loose. Her chin was lifted, haughtily.

She did not deign to look at us. Dark hair flowed behind her.

“There are many things I do not understand,” said Samos to me. I reached for a slice of larma fruit and bit through it. “Yet,” said Samos, “I think it is important that we come to the truth in this matter.”

I regarded the vast map on the floor of the chamber. I could see, high on the map, Ax Glacier, Torvaldsland, and Hinjer and Skjern, and Helmutsport, and lower, Kassau and the great green forests, and the river Laurius, and Laura and Lydius, and lower, the islands, prominent among them Cos and Tyros; I saw the delta of Vosk, and Port Kar, and, inland, Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, and Thentis, in the mountains of Thentis, famed for her tarn flocks; and, to the south, among many other cities, Tharna, of the vast silver mines; I saw the Voltai Range, and Glorious Ar, and the Cartius, and, far to the south, Turia, and near the shore of Thassa, the islands of Anango and Ianda, and on the coast, the free ports of Schendi and Bazi. There were, on the map, hundreds of cities, and promontories and peninsulas, and rivers and inland lakes and seas.

The left ankle of the girl, under the bells, the brown thong, the golden metal, was tanned.

“Perhaps you are mistaken,” I told him. “Perhaps there is nothing to it.”