"Will you try the lamp of Going-back, Outlander? It brings much joy."
"Perhaps later. Now, I wish wine."
She went away, clapping her hands for a slatternly wench who came between the sprawled figures with an earthen mug. Stark sat down beside a table, where his back was to the wall and he could see both the door and the whole room.
Kala had returned to her own heap of furs by the door, but her basilisk eyes were alert.
Stark made a pretence of drinking, but his mind was very busy, very cold.
Perhaps this, in itself, was the trap. Freka was temporarily a beast. He would fight, and Kala would shriek, and the other dull-eyed brutes would rise and fight also.
But he would have needed no warning about that—and Delgaun himself had said there would be trouble.
No. There was something more.
He let his gaze wander over the room. It was large, and there were other rooms off of it, the openings hung with ragged curtains. Through the rents, Stark could see others of Kala's customers sprawled under Shanga-lamps, and some of these had gone so far back from humanity that they were hideous to behold. But still there was no sign of danger to himself.