A World of Difference Read Free Page A

his surprise. Not only did the westerner have plenipotentiary power—Reatur was not even sure how many domains there were on the far side of the gorge—but he was also in line to become clanfather of his domain.
    “I am pleased to receive such a prominent emissary,” Reatur said, more polite than ever. Then, still without abandoning his manners, he started to get down to business. “To what do I owe this privilege?”
    “A moment, if you please, before I come to that,” Fralk said. “I have heard from merchants and travelers of a curious—well, a curious thing that you keep here. May I see it? Travelers’ tales are often wild, but the ones that have come to me have enough substance to be intriguing, I must confess.”
    “Odd you should mention the strange thing. When Ternat announced you, I was just thinking about the summer I foundit,” Reatur said. “Come this way. In deference to your rank, I will not even ask any price of you.”
    “You are generous.” Fralk widened again, then trailed after Reatur and Ternat toward the side-chamber where the domain-master kept the strange thing.
    That chamber’s outer wall had much less sand and gravel mixed with its ice than was true of the rest of the castle. As Reatur had intended, more sunlight came through that way; the room was almost as bright as day.
    Fralk walked all around the strange thing, looking at it with four eyes and barely managing to keep a polite pair on his hosts. Reatur understood that. When he had first found the strange thing, he had stared with all six eyes at once, lifting the stalk on the far side of his body over his head. He remembered that that had only made matters worse. He was so used to seeing all around him all the time that having a big part of his field of vision blank left him disoriented. He had wanted to lean in the direction his eyes were pointing.
    Fralk was leaning a little himself. He noticed and recovered. At last he said, “This once, the tales are less than truth. I have
never
seen anything like that.”
    “Neither had I when I came across it, nor have I since,” Reatur said, and meant it. He looked at the strange thing almost every day, and it still made no sense to him. With all those sharp angles—more than on any eighteen things he usually came across—it did not seem as though it had any right to exist. Yet there it was.
    “How did you find it?” Fralk asked.
    The domain-master had told the tale many times. Somehow, though, maybe because Fralk was a male who displayed extraordinarily good manners, it came out fresher than it had in years.
    “I was out hunting nosver.”
    “I’ve heard of them,” Fralk said. “We don’t have them in the Skarmer domains.”
    “You’re lucky. They’re dreadful pests. By the tracks, a male and his whole band of mates had come down to raid the fields. I trailed them back to the low hills east of the castle. That summer was so hot that when I felt dry, I couldn’t find any ice or snow to pick up and put in my mouth. I had to lie down flat and dip my head in a puddle of water.”
    “Annoying,” Fralk said sympathetically. “That always makes my gut itch.”
    “Mine, too. Miserable stuff, water. The nosver, curse ’em,like it, you know. They splashed along a stream coming off a tongue of ice till I couldn’t smell ’em anymore, and I wasn’t having any luck finding their prints on the far side, either. You can imagine how happy I was.”
    “I don’t blame you a bit,” Fralk said. He really was a fine fellow, Reatur thought.
    The domain-master went on. “So there I was, grouchy as all get out and with the start of some really fierce indigestion. I came round a boulder and almost bumped right into—that.” He pointed at the strange thing. “I looked at it, and looked at it. And then it moved.”
    “It did what?” Fralk said, startled.
    “Moved,” Reatur insisted. “An arm came out of its bottom and stuck itself into the ground. I tell you, I almost voided where