“Holly,” I said.
“O my guest, Holly.”
“Had it not been for the foresight that brought you and the lady Khania to the edge of yonder darksome river, certainly we should not have been alive, venerable Simbri, a foresight that seems to me to savour of magic in such a lonely place. That is why I thought you might have described yourself as a magician, though it is true that you may have been but fishing in those waters.”
“Certainly I was fishing, stranger Holly—for men, and I caught two.”
“Fishing by chance, host Simbri?”
“Nay, by design, guest Holly. My trade of physician includes the study of future events, for I am the chief of the Shamans or Seers of this land, and, having been warned of your coming quite recently, I awaited your arrival.”
“Indeed, that is strange, most courteous also. So here physician and magician mean the same.”
“You say it,” he answered with a grave bow; “but tell me, if you will, how did you find your way to a land whither visitors do not wander?”
“Oh!” I answered, “perhaps we are but travellers, or perhaps we also have studied—medicine.”
“I think that you must have studied it deeply, since otherwise you would not have lived to cross those mountains in search of—now, what did you seek? Your companion, I think, spoke of a queen—yonder, on the banks of the torrent.”