Chapter 5
I decided that although the streets offered little by way of security, I would not sleep in the Tower of the Dessicators because I knew so little about it; I was afraid of what might lurk in the upper storeys. However, like all the others about to take the citidenizen test, I needed to be in contact with those running the test, so I took to visiting the entrance hall twice a day, once at dusk and once at dawn, to listen for news and rumour. So it was that I heard of my secondment to the Bafflers.
Three sources of erosion trouble the Mavrosopolis: water, wind and frost. All have their own opposition force, respectively the Dessicators, the Bafflers and the Thawers, each with their own headquarters deep in the eastern heart of the conurbation. With Karanlik at my side, I walked up Vezirhani Street before crossing the district of enshadowed alleys that lie between that street and the Tower of the Bafflers. I arrived both nervous and excited at its door. It was a cylindrical stack taller even than the Tower of the Dessicators, though thinner, with fabric sheets and other loose objects flung out of windows and over balconies, so that from a distance its walls seemed like a patchwork. Its stone, however, was pure white marble, and like a single ghostly soldier it stood luminous and defiant against the soot-shrouded Mavrosopolis.
For a moment we stood staring at the tower, before Karanlik gave my arm a squeeze and encouraged me to enter. I found myself in an entrance hall, a single table at its further end, where a cloaked clerk sat. We walked towards it, the echoes of our footsteps bouncing back off cool and unforgiving walls. The clerk was wizened, his velvet cloak more of a blanket in which he could huddle, and he wore the ashen make-up of a citidenizen. Ruffled lace cuffs emerged from beneath the cloak.
He looked up and said, “Yes?”
“I am Ügliy. I have been seconded to a Baffler group for the first part of my citidenizen test.”
The clerk looked down at my crutch.
“Yes,” I said, “I am a cripple. I’m still taking the test.”
The clerk took a goose feather and a scroll that lay beside his elbow, itching his chin with the feather while reading. He grunted, dipped the feather in ink, then crossed off a name. Then he said, “You do realise you cannot pass the test?”
I grimaced. “How often do I have to hear that?” I complained.
Karanlik added, “You’ve got nothing against this man except that he’s a nogoth.”
“Like you,” the clerk replied, sneering at her. “As a cimmerian whelp with no chance of becoming a citidenizen I suppose you think this is your only chance of raising yourself—”
“No,” Karanlik interrupted. “We’re just tired of hearing how Ügliy can’t pass the test.”
The clerk spluttered. “Of course he can’t.” He gestured at my withered leg. “Look at him. No citidenizen is going to turn a blind eye to a deformity as gross as that.”
Karanlik slapped her hand on the table. “Ügliy is taking the test. He’s been recommended by Musseler of the Dessicators. He’s on your list—you just crossed him off.”
The clerk uttered a single laugh, then lowered his gaze to check the scroll again. “Yes, that name is here,” he muttered.
Karanlik stood up straight, as if she had won the battle. “Now, what do we do? To which group are we assigned?”
The clerk pointed to the door behind him. “Down that corridor,” he said, “then the second door on the right.”
I walked off without a word, hoping to indicate my disgust at the treatment I was receiving, but Karanlik stayed, as if searching for a final insult. I returned to take her arm and lead her away. “You have more spirit than me,” I said. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
“I only did what you do,” she replied. “To have got as far as you have is an inspiration to me.” She took my hand and smiled. “I admire that.”
I smiled back. “But he said something vile to you, that no cimmerian could become a citidenizen. Is that true?”
Karanlik shrugged. “I’ve never heard of any cimmerian passing the test. We all live on the outskirts of the Mavrosopolis.”
I nodded. “Perpetual outsiders,” I murmured.
At the door we hesitated, before passing through to find ourselves in a small room in which eight people already sat.
I decided to bypass the usual comments. “Good evening,” I said. “I’m Ügliy and I’m taking the citidenizen test.” I moved my crutch forward a step. “Despite what you’re thinking. This cimmerian is my helper Karanlik.”
Nobody replied. Silence fell heavy. I studied the eight people, four nogoths and four cimmerians, the nogoths staring at me with disapproval, the cimmerians’ dark skins merging with the shadows of the room to emphasize the whites of their eyes. Two chairs stood empty. Karanlik and I sat in them, then waited.
One of the nogoths, a short man, turned to say, “Mazrebiler will be here soon.”
“Who?”
“The leader of the baffler groups.”
I nodded. Silence returned.
We waited for an hour before there was a noise at the door, voices, then the sound of heavy boots. Mazrebiler entered, and we all turned to see him. Like Musseler he was tough and heavy, though not so tall as the dessicator. He wore black leather armour studded with steel. His beard and hair both flowed long, the beard plaited into two tails, the hair emerging from underneath a helmet of steel and jet.
With a grin and a slap of one hand against the other he said, “More nogoths taking the test. Good.” He extracted a slip of parchment from his breeches, read it, then looked us over. “Who is Ügliy?” he asked.
I raised my hand. Dread of expulsion made me cringe.
Mazrebiler strode over, examined my crutch, then said, “I’ll do you last.” Speaking to the other four nogoths he continued, “You’ve all been allocated a space in one of the baffler groups as part of your test.” One by one he assigned them to a group, told them where to go, then gave them leave to depart. That left me.
Mazrebiler stood before me, hands on hips. “I’m taking you into my group because I think you might be a trouble-maker,” he said in a gruff voice. “You realise you’re wasting your time?”
Despite the frustration seething within me, I forced my face into an expression of nonchalance. “As a nogoth I have the right to take the citidenizen test,” I declared.
“Once only,” Mazrebiler replied. “Then you’ll learn where you belong.”
I stood up, resting on my crutch but looking directly into Mazrebiler’s eyes. “You will find me a willing and resourceful man,” I said. “My impression is that the Mavrosopolis needs such men.”
“Oh, yes? Musseler told me you were in a special dessicator group. So you’re a shaman?”
I nodded once.
“Of?”
“The blackrat.”
Mazrebiler chuckled. “I see. Noble animal, the rat.”
“All animals are part of a great chain,” I said, “from the small to the large, who prey on the small. Nothing is unimportant.”
Again Mazrebiler smirked. “Enjoy scuffling about in rubbish, do you? Like the crunch of a cockroach?” He bent down. “I run a tight group.” He indicated the crutch. “This is going to hold you back. Why bother? Cripples can’t pass. Best go back to the streets, eh?”
I shook my head. “I will take the test. If I fail, I fail, but it will be through my own mistakes... not the mistakes of others.”
Mazrebiler stood upright as if shocked by my suggestion. “We’ll see how you do,” he grunted. “Don’t expect laxity from me.”
“I expect neither laxity nor deliberate injustice.”
Mazrebiler glowered at me, as if bamboozled by my unexpected eloquence. “So it shall be,” he said, softly.
He led Karanlik and I out of the room, up a flight of winding stairs, then into a small chamber in which four people stood talking. Pointing to me, he said, “This is a nogoth called Ügliy who is beginning the citidenizen test. Treat him as you would an ordinary nogoth.”
The men and women of the baffler group stared at me.
Mazrebiler rapped the wall with his knuckles to command their attention. “We have a new task,” he said. “The recent sootstorm stripped the sorcery from some of our westernmost baffles. We have to go out there and return them to order. Though I know nothing definite, there may be a cimmerian tribe underneath—but don’t worry about them.”
Without further explanation Mazrebiler led the group to an equipment room. Karanlik had been listening to the whisperings of the others, and she in turn whispered to me. “That’s Kasri,” she said, indicating the smaller of two women, “and that’s Kucukser.” I nodded. Kucukser was a fat man, with an air of indolence. “The aloof woman is Sarayi,” Karanlik continued, “and the tall man is Ihlamurer.”
“All of them citidenizens,” I said, observing their make-up.
“Yes.”
I studied them, trying to detect some difference in posture or attitude that might separate them from me, but I discerned no differences, except, perhaps, an ease founded in knowing where their next meal was coming from. I cast my mind back to Musseler, to the clerks in the towers, but still nothing stood out, and so I began to wonder how they had passed their tests—or had they perhaps been born into the citidenizenry?
The group departed the Tower of the Bafflers and made west, meeting Sehzadebazi Street from the north, continuing past the sorcerer’s tower and across the Lycus channel, then entering Feuzi Pasa Street and the quarters of the west. It was long march. Soot fell heavy from dense clouds, forcing us to light lanterns of silver to counter the gloom. Bright windows illuminated streets blotted black on grey, but above us it was unrelieved darkness without even a hint of moon or stars. After an hour the buildings began to give way to fields of earth, and the intensity of these undisturbed vistas was unlike anything I had seen before. I was used to trails in the soot, to bootprints, to the signs of walkers, of carts and sleds, but here, where the ground was left alone, the blackness was like the finest velvet.
A further hour followed. We seemed to be following an invisible trail, black upon black, only shadows surrounding us. There were hints of lamps in the distance, where nogoths might be living. Ahead, the luminous undersides of five parasols looked like bouncing moons.
Eventually I saw distant lamps, and I realised that they indicated a large settlement, because I could see the silhouettes of roofs, and of something else as yet unidentified above them. I asked Karanlik, “Do you know this place?”
She shook her head. “I’m from a cimmerian tribe to the north, across the River Phosphorus.”
I nodded. “Any clues?”
Karanlik squeezed my hand. “What are those things above the settlement houses?”
I pondered this question long and hard, before the answer arrived. “They must be baffles stopping the wind from reaching the Mavrosopolis.”
We entered the settlement a few minutes later. It was large, no less than five hundred houses, its streets, alleys and yards lit by lanterns on poles, with every house showing the lamps of occupation. The locals were cimmerians, black skinned and black haired, dressed in rags of a cloth so thin it rippled at the slightest movement. But here, so close to the baffles, the air was warm and dead.
I looked up into the night sky. Above and around me stood immense feathers, their ends plunged into the ground, their tips hundreds of yards above me, set side by side in a pattern that blocked the wind. Many of them I could not see: by day, they must be an awesome sight. And now I had seen these feathers I noticed that many of the local cimmerians wore head-dresses, ear-rings and even slippers made from feathers, this time of normal size—presumably from rooks or some other black bird.
Karanlik nodded when I glanced at her. “I’ve just noticed that too,” she said. “This is a cultish tribe under the sway of an animal totem.”
“The serpent,” I said, looking again at the baffles. “Those things are huge serpent feathers.”
“Their totem may be the rook,” Karanlik remarked.
I shook my head. “The serpent,” I insisted.
Mazrebiler approached us. “Feathers from a real serpent,” he said, uttering a mocking laugh. “The locals here believe in such tales, but you should not.”
“And you?” Karanlik asked.
“Tales of serpents are nonsense.” Mazrebiler gathered his group together, then said, “As you can see, the baffles here have been mutated by local sorcery into huge feathers. But they work just as well as the usual cloth sort. Better, some say. We’ve got to decide how badly they’ve been drained by the sootstorm.”
“Drained?” Kasri asked.
Mazrebiler nodded. “Because they’re sorcerous they’re sustained by sorcery, not by steel and rope like normal baffles. These aren’t sails.”
“What are they, then?”
“Baffles—but different.”
I heard the sound of a door opening and shutting. From a nearby house a figure emerged, to stride towards us.
Mazrebiler whispered, “Probably the local chief.”
It was an old man dressed from head to foot in a garment of glossy feathers. “Youse from east yonder?” he asked in a guttural accent.
Mazrebiler nodded. “We probably won’t disturb your people,” he said.
“What ye want, eh?”
Mazrebiler indicated the feather baffles. “We have to restore these beauties. Sootstorm drained them.”
“Ah, it was a dread night,” came the reply, “but ye can’t touch ’em tonight, nor tomorrow ’til gone after midnight.”
Mazrebiler frowned. “Oh, yes?”
“We got us our revels, and nobody spoils ’em. You’ll have to stay here’n wait ’til they’re done.”
Mazrebiler’s face showed indecision. “We are from the Mavrosopolis,” he said after a pause for thought. “We have control here.”
The man was unimpressed. “Ye don’t control me.” He raised his arms to display the feather cloak that he wore. “I’m the shaman here, and there ain’t no interfering wi’ that. Rook’s a serpent, see? It’s only a day, man, youse can join us—fact, you’ll have to.”
Mazrebiler turned away. “We’ll let them follow their customs,” he said, adopting a weary tone. “I don’t want these locals damaging the baffles to revenge themselves upon the Mavrosopolis after we’re gone.”
I saw what a poor excuse that was. No cimmerian would damage an image of their own totem. Mazrebiler dared not oppose the shaman; he was trying to save face. I wondered if any of this was part of my test.
We were invited into the houses of chosen cimmerians, Mazrebiler and the men into one large house, Sarayi into another, Karanlik, Kasri and me into a third, a house owned by the shaman. I looked through a back window to see a filth-strewn yard of goats and black pigs, beyond that clusters of overnight mushrooms growing in the fields. Inside, the house was clean, the family who lived there polite, if cool, though intrigued by Karanlik. But it was through Karanlik’s presence that I learned of the revels.
The shaman was called Zindpader and at once he befriended Karanlik; the pair were kin, of a sort, sharing cimmerian roots. “It being a month an’ half before Midsummer, it’s time for the year’s revels,” he chuckled. “Our luscious nature not be contained.”
“And does the whole settlement take part?” asked Karanlik.
“Those as can, being come of age. You newcomers’ll have to an’ all.”
“Is there sorcery involved?”
Zindpader’s face lit up. “It’s my best time of the year,” he said. “The great feathers provide us with much sorcery, that we consume to make our revels all the better.” He cackled, as if remembering past events. “Nothing like it.”
I felt disquiet enter my mind. The feather baffles were the group’s focus, but if they were also part of the revels that could create conflict between baffler and cimmerian. And I was becoming obsessed with my test. That it existed undefined was part of its operation; nonetheless, uncertainty consumed me.
As yet I had not learned how the sorcerous draining would be measured, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Slipping out into the lane I walked over to the house where the men were staying, to spy Mazrebiler on the doorstep, sniffing the air, a goblet of raki in his hand.
“Ügliy,” said the big man, nodding once.
I nodded back. “How will we determine the amount of sootstorm draining?” I asked.
“Good question.” Mazrebiler reached into his pocket to pull out a necklace, an obsidian lump on a chain of silver. “We use this talisman. It will tell us how much sorcery we have to put back.”
“And where will that sorcery come from?”
“Once we’ve measured how bad the sootstorm was, we return to the Mavrosopolis and I engage a sorcerer, who’ll finish the task.”
I nodded. “Would you mind if I did my own test with the talisman?”
Mazrebiler considered this request, then shrugged. “Suppose so. Think you’re trying for special consideration?”
I shook my head. “I want to know for myself, that’s all.”
Mazrebiler muttered something then handed over the talisman. Sensitized to sorcerous nuances, I felt a tingle in my fingers that I knew Mazrebiler knew nothing of, for he was neither sorcerer nor shaman; and for a moment I felt a mixture of pity and scorn for him, before the feeling passed and in the silence of my thoughts I chided myself.
Karanlik joined me as I wandered off into the mushroom fields. I let instinct find a route, until I stood beneath one of the giant feathers. I stroked it. The surface was rough, yet greasy, with white fragments hanging down in clumps. I took the talisman and tried to let its energy suffuse my mind. For a moment nothing happened, but then a pale curtain swept before my eyes and I saw the feathers as vessels, arranged like a great fence across the hill beneath which the cimmerian settlement lay. But I was horrified to see how empty these vessels were: quills dry and cracking, their sorcerous reservoirs like drips of ink at the bottom, where they pierced the earth. The sootstorm had drained almost everything from them.
And I was aware of something else. Far off, like the threat of a thunderstorm, there lay a single, great serpent.
I shook off these sorcerous hallucinations. The jagged interface of shamanic totems left me dazed. Karanlik put a flask of water to my mouth, then gave me a piece of rye bread. I ate. I felt better. Then we began to hear the sound of local cimmerians leaving their houses, voices and goblets clinking, the hooting of steel bugles, the beat of drums, songs and poems and sudden laughter.
“The revels have begun,” Karanlik said.
I looked at her. I realised what a boon she had been to me, and what a good companion she could be as I continued the test. I took her hand in mine and replied, “So it seems. But I am uneasy with what Zindpader said about these feathers.”
Karanlik replied, “‘The great feathers provide us with much sorcery, that we consume to make our revels all the better.’ That’s what he said.”
“We have to find out what he meant by that. I am afraid that any more drainage will ruin these baffles.”
“But you don’t know that will happen...”
I shook my head. “I do know, because I’m a shaman. Zindpader directs this cimmerian tribe through his rookishness—he won’t let Mazrebiler’s needs over-ride his own.”
We returned to the settlement, where I handed the talisman back. “I think the feathers are very low,” I said.
Mazrebiler nodded. “I’ll bear that in mind. But I’ll be using this later to find out exactly how bad it is.”
Karanlik and I departed. Karanlik took me by the hand and encouraged me to follow the rest of the cimmerians into the fields and lanes surrounding the settlement, where, in a hollow, we stopped. I sat down, but Karanlik stood above me, loosening then removing her rags, so that her sweat-slicked body was naked before me. Light from our single lamp illuminated one side of her body; a soft eye, the arch of neck and shoulder, one breast, hip curved, one leg. The rest of her seemed to leach into shadow. I felt myself responding to her. She sat astride me, pulling off my clothes then kissing my lips, so that her jasmine-scented breath filled my senses. I let her do her will, heedless of the consequences, aware that all around us hundreds of other couples were doing the same thing, as the settlement followed its ancient fertility rite.
So the night passed. As dawn arrived we fell into sleep, hours without waking, until it was dusk again.
I roused myself. Zindpader would be at work, preparing for the final part of the rite. Karanlik was at my side when we departed the hollow.
We discovered Zindpader dancing from feather baffle to feather baffle, a hop, a skip and a twirl, leaving a row of feathers in his wake that rotated in mid-air and linked a dozen or more of the baffles together. I looked on in horror, recognising the signs of shamanic bonding, realising that Zindpader knew exactly how low each feather baffle was, and that the shaman cared nothing about the damage his actions would cause to the Mavrosopolis. Yet already I was part of the problem, for Karanlik and I had taken part in the earlier rite. I watched as Zindpader danced away.
“I’ve got to see Mazrebiler,” I said.
Karanlik grabbed my arm. “There’s not enough time,” she said. “It’s too late.” Her voice was like a siren, her breath impossibly sweet, her eyes sultry and welcoming. I realised that I was drowning in a primeval power, channeled by Zindpader into the final, orgiastic part of the rite. I found myself writhing on top of Karanlik, sucking her nipples, our clothes thrown aside; entering her, and making her squeal.
Part of me knew this was right and part of me knew it was wrong. But Karanlik was a cimmerian, careless of the Mavrosopolis and all its weight of history; what she wanted was her man. The lure she symbolised came from somewhere deep and natural. I could not counter it. With ecstatic face and arms flung out she represented a force unavoidable.
I tried to stand on my feet. The moon was rising, visible through distant rents in the soot clouds, and for a moment it brought me back to reality. I staggered away from Karanlik and reached into my own mind, transforming my senses into those of the rat, pushing the human world aside, demanding an effort from my body almost impossible after two nights of lust. But I was desperate. The Mavrosopolis needed me—and I was on my test.
The superior vision of my shamanic totem provided me with a glimpse of the sorcery remaining in the feather baffles. I saw drops leaking out from those enormous quills, saw the web woven by Zindpader as he danced around the settlement. I acted. Using my whiskers to sense the position of the rotating feathers and my strong front teeth to bite, I began cutting the sorcerous links, one by one, isolating the great feather baffles so that their last reserves of sorcery would not drain away. I knew that a year would pass before this could happen again. If I succeeded now, I would save the Mavrosopolis from erosion.
But although I was small and vibrant I was acting in a sorcerous landscape. I had only bitten through five links when I realised that I had been noticed. High in the sky I saw a wheeling shape, an aerial ripple, and then the silhouette of a huge beast that I realised was a serpent. There was a clap of thunder as the transfer of sorcery into the lascivious bodies of the local cimmerians was halted, and they returned to mere human sensations. I continued scurrying and biting. The feather baffles were in turmoil, those still linked swaying as if under a new storm, those isolated standing like dark cypress trees under nocturnal skies.
Then the serpent dropped, and I knew I was in danger. I bit through a link then ran to hide beside a quill, as the great beast dived then swept past, emitting a fierce roar. I had a momentary impression of a pale eye before the serpent was gone and a gust of wind took me, bowling me over and sending me battered and rolling across the ground. I sunk my claws into the earth and twitched my whiskers. Above me the serpent was wheeling again, turning, then dropping, ready to attack. I ran. There was a roar as one of the beast’s wings passed inches above me, and then I was rolling again as the draught of its flight knocked me away.
I lay silent. Time for another bite. I would not be beaten. I jumped up, severed the sorcerous connection, then ran to hide by a quill as the serpent made its third dive. Then there came a sound as of a hundred bells striking a pavement, and every sorcerous link disintegrated as Zindpader’s woven sorcery fell apart. I stood up, shedding my totemic form to find myself shivering and drooling upon sooty earth, Karanlik at my side, hugging me, weeping, begging me to return to consciousness.
“I’m all right,” I muttered.
“What have you done?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “it wasn’t against you, it was to stop the baffles being drained.” I felt for her hand, then grasped it. “I don’t want to lose you,” I added. “You’re the best helper I could have had.”
I rested for half an hour before I felt strong enough to stand. Shuffling myself onto my crutch, I walked with Karanlik at my side down the gentle slope that led into the settlement. Mazrebiler, hair unkempt and armour askew, emerged from behind a house. “Where is everybody?” he called out when he saw me.
I gestured at the land behind me. “Still recovering.”
Mazrebiler said nothing, but he fingered the talisman, as if trying to stroke it into power.
“I’ve saved the baffles,” I said.
“What?”
“Zindpader linked them together into one great reservoir of sorcery so his cimmerian kin could enjoy their orgy all the more. I stopped them. The baffles are low, but safe. We’d better run back to the Mavrosopolis so a sorcerer can be found.”
Mazrebiler stared at me. “You?”
I nodded.
Mazrebiler laughed. “Never. I don’t believe you, trouble-maker.”
I pointed to the talisman. “Run that over me and you’ll find a sheen of sorcery. I’m not lying, Mazrebiler—and I did it for the Mavrosopolis.”
Mazrebiler became angry. “Your test was only to recognise the state of the baffles,” he shouted, “not to do my task for me.”
I jerked upright. “My test?”
Mazrebiler realised that he had said too much. He cursed, then said, “Yes, your test. You remember?”
I could only repeat, “My test?”
“Gagh!” Mazrebiler cried. “Why is this happening to me?”
Karanlik intervened, saying, “What do you mean about the test?”
“The first part is to recognise the threat of erasure in a mode not familiar to the pre-citidenizen,” Mazrebiler explained. “Ügliy here was allocated to the bafflers. All he had to do was recognise the state of the feather baffles, grasp what it might lead to, then report back to me. But no. He had to save the night as well.”
“That makes him a better man,” Karanlik decided.
But Mazrebiler was too bitter to agree. Looking at Karanlik he said, “So now I have to tell Ügliy that he’s passed the first quarter of the test. Very nice for me, that is.” Mazrebiler stood wrapped in his thoughts for a while, digesting all he had heard, before he turned to me and said, “You get a token of success. I didn’t think a cripple like you would succeed. Unfortunately you have.”
“A token?”
“One quarter of a silver ring.” He pointed to the goat yard owned by Zindpader. “I threw it away. I expect it’s still there.”
I hobbled towards the yard, Karanlik skipping at my side. We slipped through the gate, closed it, then surveyed the animals and the filth before us. I pointed to various places. “He would have stood by the fence to throw it in,” I said. “We’d better begin at the edges and work our way in. Pity we’ve only got one lamp.”
We dropped to our hands and knees, barged aside the pigs and began searching the piles of earth, soot and dung for the ring fragment. I knew what I was waiting for: a gleam of silver amidst the filth. I felt excited. An object would make more real my achievement, would encourage me to pass the remaining three quarters of the test. As we searched, the other bafflers and some of the local cimmerians began to arrive at the yard, leaning over the fence to watch, some chuckling, others observing in silence. There was no sign of Zindpader.
The night was drawing to a close when we reached the gate where we began our search. No sign of any silver. Unsteadily, I stood up, leaning exhausted against my crutch. Mazrebiler stared at me.
“I can’t find it,” I sighed.
Mazrebiler frowned, then thrust his hand into his breeches, to pull out a small trinket. “Here it is,” he said. “Had it in my pocket all the time.”
Though there was a ripple of laughter, I heard little other than my own heart beating. I saw only the silver arc in Mazrebiler’s hand. I took it and held it up to the lamp, to see engraved metal with two clasps on each end that would attach to other quarters, forming a ring. I grinned.
Mazrebiler smirked in reply. “So you’ve passed the first part of the test,” he said. “Only two more parts to go.”
“Three,” I corrected.
“Two,” Mazrebiler replied, before he turned to stride away.