Time: June.

Scene: In the Palace of Zoorm; the Hall of the Hundred Princes.

The Princes sit at plain oaken tables with pewter mugs before them. They wear bright grass-green cloaks of silk; they might wear circlets of narrow silver with one large hyacinth petal rising from it at intervals of an inch.

Oomuz, a Common Soldier, huge and squat, with brown skin and dense black beard, stands just inside the doorway, holding a pike, guarding the golden treasure.

The golden treasure lies in a heap three or four feet high near the right back corner.

Sentries, also brown-skinned and bearded, carrying pikes, pass and repass outside the great doorway.

The Glory of Ximenung: Heigho, Moomoomon.

The Overlord of Moomoomon: Heigho, Glory of Ximenung.

Ximenung: Weary?

Moomoomon: Aye, weary.