Princess Aynur nodded to the commissioner, and he signalled to the guards, and they put away their spears, so that (Amed) advanced first, then the wise and the Viscount, and behind them the imperial guards and Arch, and (Noveo) saw the princess waiting on the couch, smiling, and next to her (Fossan) and (Wahara), so she got up. She went down two marble steps in front of the sofa, then came up to shake his hand warmly, saying:
"This week has passed slowly, honourably wise, since your letter came in the middle of the night of the previous golden day, announcing your passing by us before you return to the walls of the Khawan."
She invited him to sit on a seat near her sofa and Wahara offered him some refreshing juice, and he said, wiping his baldness, 'My annual trip to the School of Wises has been very successful, and your invitation is such a bad omen, Princess, that arthosian people do not usually like to be killed by Orioum's professionals' murderer."
She was embarrassed, but she asked, "But?"
"But what?" He asked her, claiming ignorance.
"But you came in spite of this."
"Yes, when my dreams are repeated it means that they will come true, and I dreamed that I would meet some Pagans here on the back of (Cancer). I don't know why, but your letter was the last straw that broke the back of my resistance, so I came."
Fossan asked him cautiously: "Does this mean you are with us?"
"You see...with my flesh and bones," said (Novio) with a laugh.
(Aynur) asked him: "(Fossan) my bodyguard means with us in one team, against those murderers."
"I have consulted my friend, the chief of the wises (Terk the Poet), the headmaster of the school in my absence, and he said to me: You (noveo) the immortal, who drank from the Silver Water of wisdom and the most knowledgeable person in the world, but you, respected captive, do not find the opportunity to leave your prison, nor do you roam the Waste World, and you have not seen all its wonders.
The man is eighty years old, but he has surpassed me in this wisdom that he said between the lines, even though I am much older than him."
His features were those of a man in his forties, so Wahara asked him in astonishment:
- "How old are you, sir?"
He simply said: "This year 4707 coppery, i.e. with the coppery calendar that I set myself, I will have completed 747 years. It seems boring, but the advantages of being the only person living since the Ethics Age are many." He signalled pretending he is arrogant and vain to the Imperial Guard.
Wahara gasped, and everyone was astonished in spite of them, except for Viscount Wiggieri and his men, Aynur hardly restrained her mind from contemplating his misery of being a prisoner also for centuries., her guest would read her thoughts and it would not be comfortable or proper, and she hurriedly said to prevent her brain from getting carried away. "That's just why you came? just to see an akradarian warlock, an iceman, a heretic, and a tribal warrior?"
"I intend to heed my dream until it stops repeating, this is literally annoying, hellish, and it will only be stopped by my meeting with Pagans already, they are here in these lands, but far in the south." Thus he said in a relaxed tone, closer to boredom, as he rose and walked, and approached her: "A rare number of descendants of the Pagans practise a kind of magic called (Bone Magic), a magical system completely different from Trees Magic, and we Wises knows that there is another branch of the descendants of the pagans.
They reside in the north of the Wasteland coast, south of (River Settlement), we call them (Riverines), to distinguish them from the original pagans at (Ghosts Harbour), but the teachings of Bone Magic have been lost from them so they believe in the necessity of burying their dead in the bird gizzards, not using them In magic, they build for this the so-called (Shackles-towers), where they chain their dead at the top to be eaten by raptors".
And as he approached her as he spoke, he suddenly went up the two steps under her seat and took hold of the temples of her head as his mouth was very close to hers, and Wahara sprang up, and Amed pulls out Rokoshta's sword, while Fossan cried as he moved toward Wise, and the Viscount and his men moved whole, to protect Wise, and the whole scene seemed to explode.
***