choice of
weapons; your opponents, then, have the right to name the conditions
under which they are to be used."

Marnark of Bashad raised another outcry over that. The assault upon
him by the Lord Virzal of Verkan was deliberately provocative, and
therefore tantamount to a challenge; he, himself, had the right to
name the weapons. Klarnood upheld him.

"Do the other gentlemen make the same claim?" Verkan Vall wanted to
know.

"If they do, I won't allow it," Klarnood replied. "You deliberately
provoked Honorable Marnark, but the offenses of provoking him at
Honorable Sirzob's table, and of throwing Honorable Yirzol's soup at
him, were not given with intent to provoke. These gentlemen have a
right to challenge, but not to consider themselves provoked."

"Well, I choose knives, then," Marnark hastened to say.

Verkan Vall smiled thinly. He had learned knife-play among the
greatest masters of that art in all paratime, the Third Level Khanga
pirates of the Caribbean Islands.

"And we fight barefoot, stripped to the waist, and without any
parrying weapon in the left hand," Verkan Vall stipulated.

The beefy Marnark fairly licked his chops in anticipation. He
outweighed Verkan Vall by forty pounds; he saw an easy victory ahead.
Verkan Vall's own confidence increased at these signs of his
opponent's assurance.

"And as for Honorable Sirzob and Honorable Yirzol, I chose pistols,"
he added.

Sirzob and Yirzol held a hasty whispered conference.

"Speaking both for Honorable Yirzol and for myself," Sirzob announced,
"we stipulate that the distance shall be twenty meters, that the
pistols shall be fully loaded, and that fire shall be at will after
the command."

"Twenty rounds, fire at will, at twenty meters!" Olirzon hooted. "You
must think our principal's as bad a shot as you are!"

The four Assassins stepped aside and held a long discussion about
something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Klarnood,
observing Verkan Vall's impatience, leaned close to him and whispered:

"This is highly irregular; we must pretend ignorance and be patient.
They're laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord
Virzal; you don't want your supporters to lose money."

He said it quite seriously, as though the outcome were otherwise a
matter of indifference to Verkan Vall.

Marnark wanted to discuss time and place, and proposed that all three
duels be fought at dawn, on the fourth landing stage of Darsh Centr