He was thinking also of Linda's letter. She had not been able to give him much gossip about Dawson's plans to oppose him, since Dawson had left without having done much talking. But he inferred from what she did write, and from stories Ardelan's tribesmen brought from the disputed frontier, that a Venusian was living with the neighboring tribe, giving them rifles to take the place of their trade muskets. This suggested that Dawson was taking the simple and direct approach: coaching his protectors in the art of more efficient fighting, so that as the climax of an eventual raid into Ardelan's almost inaccessible fortress, Dawson could seize the Fire of Skanderbek and make off with it in the confusion.
Whatever Verrill intended to do, he would have to do it quickly.
He went to the shrine and asked, "Kwangtan, where is the grave of Skanderbek?"
"Skanderbek," the priest said, contemptuous of ignorance, "is not buried. He went back to the gods. Now go, and stay away."
"I have heard a story like that," Verrill retorted. "Among my own people, there are old books, ancient before Skanderbek was even dreamed of. And it is written always how one leader or another went back to the gods, not dying as other men died. But we know better. A man dies, and his bones remain."
Kwangtan's eyes sharpened and changed. He seemed to be asking himself whether this might not be one of those times when the wise thing was to make an ally of an enemy. And Verrill was at the same time thinking, "Lies are the foundation of all priestcraft, and I've got this one searching the foundations."
Verrill said, "If a man found the bones of Skanderbek, he could build a shrine there for the gods of death. Men serve most what they fear most."
"Which of us fears death?" the priest challenged. "We are fighting-men."
"My patients act otherwise," Verrill blandly countered. Then: "Skanderbek had no wings. His bones can not be far from here. The bones of Skanderbek will give a light like a glow-worm or a fire-fly. Wherever they are lying, they will be easily recognized. Any herdsman would know if he found them."