"Perhaps a vast amount of difference," Tau replied. "A hereditary office may carry with it two forms of conditioning, one to influence its holder, one to affect the public-at-large. Your Lumbrilo may have come to believe deeply in his own powers; he would be a very remarkable man if he did not. It is almost certain that your people unquestionably accept him as a worker of wonders?"
"They do so accept." Once more Asaki's voice was drained of life.
"And Lumbrilo does not accept something you believe necessary?"
"Again the truth, Medic. Lumbrilo does not accept his proper place in the scheme of things!"
"He is a member of one of your Five Families?"
"No, his clan is small, always set apart. From the beginning here, those who spoke for gods and demons did not also order men."
"Separation of church and state," commented Tau thoughtfully. "Yet in our Terran past there have been times when church and state were one. Does Lumbrilo desire that?"
Asaki raised his eyes to the mountain peaks, to the northward where lay his beloved work.
"I do not know what Lumbrilo wants, save that it makes mischief—or worse! This I tell you: hunting magic is part of our lives and it has at its core some of those unexplainable happenings which you have acknowledged do exist. I have used powers I can neither explain nor understand as part of my work. In the jungle and on the grasslands an off-worlder must guard his life with a stass belt if he goes unarmed. But I—any of my men—can walk unharmed if we obey the rules of our magic. Only Lumbrilo does other things which his forefathers did not. And he boasts that he can do more. So he has a growing following of those who believe—and those who fear."
"You want me to face him?"