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'This is it,' Zefla said. `31/3 Little Grant Terrace.'
The three-storey structure was even more darkly ramshackle than its
neighbours. It was Malishu-vernacular in style, sculpted from bluey-purple
layer-mat supported by fire-hardened beams of brown stalk-timber. It looked
out over a narrow-railinged, bark-cobbled street to a view of the steeply
raked roofs - some tented, some bark-tiled - of the Modern History Department,
and out towards the city's northern suburbs.
The place looked dead. The ground floor had no windows and the tall windows in
the two upper floors were dark and dirty. The door, made from poorly cured
bark that had warped and split over the years, hung crooked over a nailed-on
extra sill. Zefla pulled on a string handle. They couldn't hear any sound from
the interior. Zefla tested the door but it was either locked or badly stuck.
Sharrow looked up at the guttering; a section hung loose, dripping water
despite the fact the roof and street had now dried after the early-morning
drizzle. She kicked fragments of a fallen roof tile into a weed-ruffed hole in
the pavement, wrinkling her nose in distaste. 'I take it being the world
authority on the Kingdom of Pharpech doesn't attract major funding.'
Zefla pulled harder on the string door-pull and stood back. 'Maybe it does,'
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she said. 'But the guy feels closer to the place living in an antiquated ruin
like this.'
'Method scholarship?' Sharrow said sceptically. 'More likely this is Cenuij's
idea of a joke.'
Zefla shook her head earnestly. 'Oh, no. I can tell, he was genuine. I think
he wanted to come himself, but he reckoned your man here would be more
receptive to us.'
'Huh,' Sharrow said, frowning at the skeleton of a tiny animal lying just
inside the doorway's recess.
'That description could cover a tankful of shit.'
A window creaked open on the third floor and a small, grey-haired, bearded man
stuck his head out and looked down at them.
'Hello?' he said.
'Hello,' Zefla called. 'We're looking for a gentleman called Ivexton
Travapeth:
'Yes,' said the little man.
Zefla paused, then said, 'You're not him, then?'
'No.'
'Right. Do you know where we can find him?'
'Yes.'
Zefla looked at Sharrow, who started whistling.
'Could you tell us where he is?' Zefla said.
'Yes,' the little man said, blinking.
'Wrong department,' Sharrow muttered, folding her arms and turning to look
back out over the city. 'It's the
Formal Logic building and they're working to rule.'
'Where is he?' Zefla asked, trying not to giggle.
'Oh, here,' the man nodded.
'May we see him?' Zefla said.
'Oh, yes.'
'Keep going,' Sharrow told Zefla quietly. 'The Passports only last a year.'
'Good,' Zefla said. 'Thank you. We'd have phoned or screened, but Mister
Travapeth seems to discourage that sort of contact.'
'Yes.'
'Yes. Could you let us in?'
'Yes, yes,' the small man nodded.
Sharrow started to make loud snoring noises.
Zefla nudged her. 'Please come down and let us in,' she said, smiling at the
little man.
'Very well,' the grey-bearded man said and disappeared. The window banged
shut.
Sharrow's head thumped onto Zefla's shoulder. She yawned. 'Wake me when the
door opens or the universe ends, whichever's sooner.'
Zefla patted her auburn locks.
The door opened, creaking. Sharrow turned to look. The small grey-bearded man
peeked out, looked up and down the street, then opened the door wide. He was
pulling on a pair of floppy trousers with attached soft-shoes; he tied the
cord and tucked his shirt into his trousers as he stood there, grinning at the
two women. He was tiny, even smaller than he'd looked in the window. Zefla
thought he looked cuddly.
'Good-morning,' she said.
'Yes,' he replied, and beckoned them to enter. Zefla and Sharrow stepped over
the high sill into a dull but not dark space looking onto a small courtyard,
partially shielded from them by a sheet hanging from the floor above. The air
smelled of sweat and cooked fats. A grunting, wheezing male-sounding noise
came from the other side of the grubby sheet. Zefla glanced at Sharrow, who
shrugged.
'I hope you're hearing that too,' she told Zefla, 'or I'm more tired than I
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thought and flashing-back to last night.'
The grey-bearded man went on before them, still hitching up his trousers and
tucking in the last few folds of his creased shirt as he bustled forward round
the edge of the hanging sheet. They followed. The courtyard was small and
cluttered; balconies ran round the two floors above, giving access to other
rooms. A light covering of membrane made a gauzy roof above.
The floor of the atrium was covered with carpets and mats on which stood half
a dozen over-stuffed bookshelves and a couple of tables covered with layers
and rolls of paper. Exercise equipment in the shape of dumbbells, weights,
heavy clubs and flexible bars lay strewn amongst the stuff of ancient
scholarship.
In the centre of it all stood the tallish, gaunt figure of an almost naked
elderly man with a white mat of hair on his chest and a shock of thick black
hair on his head. He was clad in a grubby loincloth and clutched a pair of
hand-
weights which he was raising alternately, breathing heavily and grunting with
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