a palace, complete with a great sunken pool in the middle of it. Squares of lapis formed a band around the lip of the pool. To their left and past the pool, three rows of blue stone columns, nine columns in all, polished and smooth, held up a ceiling that was easily two stories above them. Beyond the columns lay an open courtyard where a fire was burning in a pit. The columns obscured most of it, but the smell coming from there made them salivate. To the right stood four more columns flanking an entryway.
Leodora turned just as Brodamante closed the small door, the interior side of which was bronze with decorations and shapes hammered into it. It had a large middle panel containing a cross-legged figure with long, thorny horns growing from its head.
Diverus commented, “This can’t be the inside of his hut.”
“Who claimed it was?” asked Archimago. “You are correct, not the inside of the hut but it is where we’re feasting over that boar they’re roasting right now. It will take the rest of the citizenry quite a while to get here from where we left them, as they can’t take this shortcut. It’s not allowed them.”
“What is a boar?” asked Leodora.
“A very tasty meat, which comes from much farther away than you have. Brodamante hunted it herself.” He strode over to the pool. “I think you should have a soak before the festivities. We would be most disrespectful hosts if we didn’t allow you that.”
“How,” asked Diverus, “can you have a king that knows nothing?”
Brodamante replied, “Because he has the great wisdom to recognize that he does know nothing, and so, knowing nothing, he listens carefully to all persuasions before ever rendering a judgment. ’Tis the wisdom of innocence.”
“I still don’t see how, if he’s that innocent, there’s anything to stop someone trying to bribe or otherwise persuade his decision in their favor.”
Brodamante and Archimago traded horrified glances. He said, “You have the most barbaric ideas I think we’ve ever heard, young man. Where do you come from? I want to stay away from there.”
“Are such acts common in Colemaigne?” asked Brodamante.
“We wouldn’t know. We’re travelers.”
“Well of course,” Archimago said, as if that settled things, but he shivered as though at the horror of the notion of cheating, and the blue-black hair seemed to curl upon his brow as if alive. “Now, please, we have attendants who will assist you, and you must avail yourselves of our every service while you are guests here.”
“Yes,” said Leodora, “and we do appreciate this, but we also have a performance later this day—”
“Oh, but we won’t keep you all that long. In fact all of Epama Epam will turn out for your performance . . . once you’ve bathed.”
Leodora was certain the name of Epama Epam hadn’t been among those Brodamante had named earlier, and she wondered if that was a different span or still another name for this place that was no place and every place at the same time. She had no chance to ponder it, however, as a cluster of four more of the blue, red-eyed creatures came running from behind the columns. The four wore diaphanous skirts that glittered with stars of gold, and all were naked from the waist up—two males and two females. Each had four arms.
“We leave you in most capable hands,” said Archimago, and he laughed as if at a joke. Then he and Brodamante walked into the forest of columns from which the servants had come.
Leodora’s attendants took her by the hands and shoulders and directed her to the opposite side of the pool. Then they disrobed her. She tried to stop them, but it was futile. One set of hands removed her belt while another unwrapped her tunic, fingers tugging on its hidden ties as if intimately familiar with it. The second attendant knelt and removed her boots and trousers while the first folded up the tunic and set it aside. When they turned away, she looped the phial around her neck again. In short order she stood naked save for it and the pendant. When one blue hand reached for the Brazen Head, she slapped it aside, and neither attendant tried again.
Her attendants led her to the water. There were semicircular steps below her, three of them. She put one foot in, discovering that the water was warm and also somehow oily, buoyant. She drew her foot out, and threads of blue ran between her toes. On