"And you ran," said Dumarest quietly. "Why?"

"Why did you?" snapped Leon. "What started you on the move?" Immediately he was contrite. "I'm sorry, I guess that's none of my business. Let's just say that I was bored."

"A young man," said Dumarest. "You had a family, a home?"

"If you can call it that, yes." Leon stared down at his plate, then seemed to come to a decision. "I belonged to a commune, Earl. It lay well back in the hills and was as isolated as you could get. Maybe I'm a freak of some kind, but I couldn't accept what they had planned for me. The tests, the ritual, the arranged marriage, the duties." His laugh was bitter. "The duties. Can you guess what they would have been? Just guarding a lot of old records. A Keeper of the Shrine. In twenty years, maybe, I'd have made assistant Guardian. In fifty, I might have even become the Head. Fifty years of dusting, brooding, worshiping-I couldn't face it, I had to run."

"How?"

"I-does it matter?"

A boy, twisted, unsettled according to his fellows, a rebel, a failure. Someone who would have planned, waited and stolen when the time came. Something of value which would have been sold to gain the initial passage money-an old story and a familiar one. Only the name held an unusual connotation. Nerth.

"You spoke of records. What were they?"

"Books, papers, I don't know." Leon shrugged at Dumarest's expression. "I never saw them. They are held sacred. A load of superstitious rubbish, of course, but there it is. Once a year we had a ceremony and everyone congregated, and chanted and acted like a bunch of fools. I'm well out of it."

Coincidence or design? If the latter, then the boy was a good actor, if he were the boy he appeared to be. A question which would have to be resolved and soon. A decision made-and if he guessed wrong then his life would be at stake.