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Sisay looked at her curiously, and then with amazement.
She felt she had received a sudden shock.
The Saprazzan leader broke her connection and stepped back
a pace. Her smile broadened, and she held up a hand, palm
outward in greeting. In perfect Dominarian, she said, "I am
glad. For too long women among the Mercadians have not spoken
with us. I am pleased to have the opportunity to confer with
one."
The others stared at her in amazement. Sisay's breath was
coming hard, as if she had been running in some great race.
The vizier's expression changed to one of concern, and she
said, "Please, sit down. I am sorry if I have caused you
discomfort. Yet it seemed to me best that we be able to speak
frankly, without interference, and without misunderstanding.
"You, my sister-" the Saprazzan leader turned to Orim-
"you have a strong, familiar soul." She stared intensely into
the Samite's eyes, then looked away to the Mercadian nobles.
She gestured to them and said something in Mercadian that
sounded placating.
The nobles, with what appeared to Hanna to be very bad
grace, seated themselves on the chairs that were provided,
carefully placing their backs to the window and its vast
seascape.
The Saprazzan leader touched a bell that stood on a rack
to one side of the chamber. Amid sweet chiming, she said to
Sisay, "You have had a long journey hither. I have instructed
chambers to be prepared for you and for your friends."
The captain nodded. "Thank you." "We shall begin our
discussions tomorrow. Meanwhile you and your companions are
free to make your way about the city. If you like, I shall
send some of my people with you to guide you and answer your
questions." "Your offer is most kind."
From a hidden recess a servant entered, bearing tall-
fluted glasses on a silver tray. He distributed them, and the
Saprazzan leader lifted hers in a toast. "To the success of
our meeting." "To success!"
Sisay, Orim, and Hanna lifted their cups. They contained
water, but to Hanna it tasted like no water she knew. She
could feel the liquid flowing deep down inside her, washing
away the weariness of her journey, invigorating her. It had
much the same effect on Orim and Sisay, who were drinking with
eager delight. The Mercadian nobles had done no more than
touch the rims of their cups to their fat lips and were now
sitting silently, with expressions of disapproval.
The Saprazzan looked around, then addressed Sisay once
more. "You come in the name of Mercadia, though our long-
standing antagonism with them is no secret. You come aboard a
Rishadan ship, and we have no love for their harpoons and
nets. You come as friends of the Cho-Arrim, and though in
ancient times we were great allies, it has been centuries
since we have conversed with our forest brothers. Mercadian,
Rishadan, Cho-Arrim-what message could you possibly bring to
Saprazzo?"
Sisay replied, "It is a very important message we bear-
very strange and wonderful. So important and strange, you will
not believe if we tell you here, in this place of politics."
A look of concern crossed the vizier's face. "Where then?"
Sisay's gaze was level and bright. "A place of faith- for
outside of faith, our message will be but foolishness."
"There are many places of faith in Saprazzo-sea shrines
and sacred wells-but you seem to have one place in mind ... ?"
"Yes," Sisay said. "We beg the favor of speaking to you
tomorrow in the Shrine of the Matrix."
* * * * *
The Shrine of the Matrix lay, heavily guarded, at the
center of Saprazzo's royal palace. The palace itself was a
massive edifice poised above the docks. One bank of windows
gazed out on the wide bay and the other on the spreading city
above. The building was a vast jewel box, built of red oceanic
marble, white limestone, and insets of onyx. Corals of fuchsia
and mauve had been figured into bosses along the walls.
Curtains of kelp, rugs of woven seaweed, sponge cushions,
whale-bone archways, baleen screens-the majesty of the sea
suffused the place. At its heart, in a small raised room done
in crimson, the Power Matrix resided within a large case of
thick glass. It was magnificent.
The main body of the Power Matrix was a single enormous
white crystal, nearly the height of a man. All along its
faceted outer edges, other smaller stones in blue, green, red,
white, and black were affixed. They seemed to pluck each
strand of the spectrum out of the room's dim light and send it
lancing into the central crystal. A network of metal wires
connected the stones, and along the wires moved scintillating
jolts of energy. It was a mesmerizing sight.
"We must keep the room dark," the grand vizier told her
guests, "for the Matrix stores and channels energy. Were it to
be exposed to sunlight, the stored energy would quickly cause
the Matrix to explode."
Hanna nodded, her eyes tracing out the device she had read
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