"Yes," I said.

"Dire business?" he asked.

"Pretty dire," I admitted.

"Speak," he said.

"We have a job for you and I suspect you are one of the fifty or so in Ar who might accomplish it."

"Is it a dangerous job?" he asked.

"It is one involving great risk and small prospect of success," I said. "It is also one in which, if you fail, you will be apprehended and subjected to ingenuous, lengthy and excruciating tortures, to be terminated doubtless only months later with the mercy of a terrible death."

"I see," he said.

"Are you afraid?" I asked.

"Of course not," he said. "Beyond what you describe there is little to fear."

"It is a dire business, truly," said Marcus, grimly.

I hoped that Marcus would not discourage him.

"Moderately dire, at any rate," the fellow granted him.

"I know that you always claim to be a great coward, and act as one at every opportunity," I said to him, "but long ago I discerned the foolhardy hero hidden beneath that clever pose."

"You are perceptive," said the fellow.

"I myself would never have guessed it," said Marcus, awed.

"You are interested, aren't you?" I asked. I now had him intrigued.

"You should consider a future in recruiting," said the fellow, "say, one of those fellows who recruits for the forbidden arena games, held secretly, those in which almost no one emerges alive. At the very least you should consider a future in sales."

"Would you care to hear what we have in mind?" I asked.

"If there are some fifty or so fellows in Ar," said the fellow, "who could do this, why didn't you ask one of them, or perhaps you have already asked them."

"No," I said. "And you are the only one of those fellows I know. Besides you are my friend."

He clasped my hand warmly.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Upstairs, to bed," he said. "Telitsia will be moaning by now."

"But you have not yet heard our proposition," I pointed out.

"Have you considered what my loss to the arts might mean?" he asked.

"I had not viewed the matter from that perspective," I admitted.

"Do you wish to see the arts plunged into decline on an entire world?"

"Well, no," I said.

"A decline from which they might never fully recover?"

"Of course not," I said.

"I wish you well," he said.

"Let him go," said Marcus. "He is right. The task we have in mind is no task for a mere mortal. I consented to have the subject broached only because I still suspected he was a true magician."

"What's that?" asked the paunchy fellow, swinging about.

"Nothing," said Marcus.

"What you have in mind you regard as too difficult for one such as I to accomplish?"

"Not just you, any ordinary man," said Marcus.

"I see," said the fellow.

"Forgive me," said Marcus. "I meant no offense."

"Ah, yes," I said, suddenly. "Marcus is right, of course. No ordinary person could hope to perform this task. It would require brilliance, dash, flair, subtlety, skill, even showmanship. It would require a master to pull it off. Nay, a master of masters."

"And what do you think I am?" asked the fellow.

"This task," I said dismally, "would require flexibility, range and nuance." It seemed I had heard these words recently. They seemed useful at the moment. I seized upon them.

"But I am a master of flexibility," said the fellow, "I have enormous range, from one horizon of the theater to another. I have a grasp of nuance that would shame the infinite shades of the spectrum, in all their variations in brilliance, saturation and hue!"

"Truly?" asked Marcus.

"Of course!" said the fellow.

"We really need an army," he said.

"In my youth," said the fellow, "I was a one-man army!" In Gorean theater armies are usually represented by a fellow carrying a banner behind an officer. In the pageant we had seen earlier in the year, of course, hundreds of actors had been on the stage in the great theater.

"You could never manage it," I said.

"You are craftier than a battering ram," he said, "and your subtlety would put to shame that of most tharlarion of my acquaintance but this young man is serious."

Marcus looked at him, puzzled.

"Do you not know who I am?" he asked.

"A wondrous magician?" asked Marcus, hopefully.

"The least of my accomplishments," said the fellow.

"If anyone could accomplish the task, I would suppose it must be on such as you," said Marcus.

"Do you wish to know what the task is?" I asked.

"Not now," he said. "Whatever it is, I shall undertake it speedily and accomplish it with dispatch."

Marcus regarded him with awe.

"What is it?" asked the fellow. "You wish the Central Cylinder moved? You wish the walls of Ar rebuilt overnight? You wish a thousand tarns tanned in one afternoon?"

"He is a magician!" said Marcus.

"You wish Ar to escape the yoke of Cos?" I asked the fellow.

"Certainly," he said.

"What we have in mind may help to bring that about," I said.

"Speak," he said.

"You know that Ar refused to support Ar's Station in the north and that her loyalty to the state of Ar cost her her walls and her Home Stone?"

"Yes," he said. "I know that, but I am not supposed to know that."

"Ar owes fidelity and courage of Ar's Station much," I said.

"Granted," he said.

"Would you like to pay back a part of the debt which Ar owes Ar's Station?" I asked.

"Certainly," he said.

"And would you like to take a trip to the north with your troupe, a trip which might eventually bring you to the town of Port Cos, on the northern bank of the Vosk?"

"They are staunch supporters of the theater there, are they not?" he asked. "It is a rich town," I said.

"Staunch enough," he said.

"In which, if you accomplish this task, you will be hailed as heroes," I said. "We are already heroes," he said. "It is only that we have not been hailed as such."

"If you undertake this task," I said, "you will be indeed a hero."

"Port Cos?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"That is where the survivors of Ar's Station are, is it not?" he asked.

"Many of them," I said.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

"The Delta Brigade," I said, "is restoring courage and pride to Ar. The governance of the city, under the hegemony of Cos, wishes to discredit the Brigade by associating it in the popular mind with Ar's Station, which the folks of Ar have been taught to despise and hate."

"That has been clear to me for some time," said the fellow, "at least since noon yesterday."

"Do you think most folks in Ar believe, at least now, that Ar's Station is behind the Delta Brigade?" I asked.

"No," he said. "It is supposed almost universally that it is an organization of delta veterans."

"What do you think would happen," I asked, "if the Home Stone of Ar's Station would disappear, from beneath the very noses of the authorities?"

"I do not know," he said, "but I suspect it would be thought that the Delta Brigade, the veterans, rescued it, and this might give the lie to the official propaganda on the subject, and even vindicate Ar's Station in the eyes of the citizenry, that the Delta Brigade chose to act on her behalf. At the least, the disappearance of the stone would embarrass the governance of the city, and Cos, and cast doubt on their security and efficiency. Its loss could thus undermine their grasp on the city."

"I think so, too," I said.

"You wish me to obtain the Home Stone of Ar's Station for you?" he asked. "For Ar," I said, "for Ar's Station, for the citzenry of Ar's Station, for Marcus."

"No," he said.

"Very well," I said. I stepped back. I had not wish to urge him. Nor had Marcus. "You misled me," he said.

"I am sorry," I said.

"You told me that the task was difficult, that it was dangerous," he said, scornfully.