collar of embroidered silk. This pampered minion surveyed me with the
innocent malice of an uninvolved nonhuman for merely human intrigues.

"You are wanted in the Great House of Shanitha, thcarred man." He spoke
the Shainsa dialect with an affected lisp. "Will it pleathe you, come
wis' me?"

I came, with no more than polite protest, but was startled. I had not
expected the encounter to reach the Great House so soon. Shainsa's Great
House had changed hands four times since I had last been in Shainsa. I
wasn't overly anxious to appear there.

The white _chak_, as out of place in the rough Dry-town as a jewel in
the streets or a raindrop in the desert, led me along a winding
boulevard to an outlying district. He made no attempt to engage me in
conversation, and indeed I got the distinct impression that this
cockscomb of a nonhuman considered me well beneath his notice. He seemed
much more aware of the blowing dust in the street, which ruffled and
smudged his carefully combed fur.

The Great House was carved from blocks of rough pink basalt, the entry
guarded by two great caryatids enwrapped in chains of carved metal, set
somehow into the surface of the basalt. The gilt had long ago worn away
from the chains so that it alternately gleamed gold or smudged base
metal. The caryatids were patient and blind, their jewel-eyes long
vanished under a hotter sun than today's.

The entrance hall was enormous. A Terran starship could have stood
upright inside it, was my first impression, but I dismissed that thought
quickly; any Terran thought was apt to betray me. But the main hall was
built on a scale even more huge, and it was even colder than the
legendary hell of the _chaks_. It was far too big for the people in it.

There was a little solar heater in the ceiling, but it didn't help much.
A dim glow came from a metal brazier but that didn't help much either.
The _chak_ melted into the shadows, and I went down the steps into the
hall by myself, feeling carefully for each step with my feet and trying
not to seem to be doing so. My comparative night-blindness is the only
significant way in which I really differ from a native Wolfan.

There were three men, two women and a child in the room. They were all
Dry-towners and had an obscure family likeness, and they all wore rich
garments of fur dyed in many colors. One of the men, old and stooped and
withered, was doing something to the brazier. A slim boy of fourteen was
sitting