"How did you get a hold of them?"
"Well," said Iimmi, "I sort of suspected they might be here. So I just asked for them. And I think I've got some answers to those questions."
"Fine. Go ahead."
"We'll start from three, go back to one, and then on to two. Nice and orderly," said Iimmi. "Why wasn't anybody supposed to know about the rituals? Simply because they were so similar to the rituals of Hama. You remember some of the others we found in the abandoned temple? If you don't, you can refresh your memory right here. The two sets of rituals run almost parallel, except for a name changed here, a color switched from black to white, a switch in the vegetative symbolism. I guess what happened was that when Hama's forces invaded Leptar five hundred years ago, it didn't take Leptar long to find out the similarity. From the looks of the City of New Hope, I think it's safe to assume that at one time or another, say five hundred years ago, Aptor's civilization was far higher than Leptar's, and probably wouldn't have had too hard a time beating her in an invasion. So when Leptar captured the first jewel, and somehow did manage to repel Aptor, the priests of Leptar assumed that the safest way to avoid infiltration by Hama and Aptor again would be to make the rituals of the two as different as possible from the ones of their enemy, Hama.
"The ghouls, the bats, they parallel the stories I've heard other sailors tell too closely to be accidents. How many people do you think have been shipwrecked on Aptor and gotten far enough into the place to see what we've seen, and then gotten off again to tell about it?"
"I can think of two," said Geo.
"Huh?" said Iimmi.
"Snake and Jordde," answered Geo. "Remember that Argo said there had been spies from Aptor before. And Jordde is definitely one, and I guess so is Snake."
"True enough," said Iimmi. "I guess that fits into Rule Number One." He got up from the bed. "Come on. Let's take a walk. I want to see some sunlight." They went to the wall. Geo pressed it and a triangular panel slipped back.
When they had rounded four or five turns of hallway, Geo said, "I hope you can remember where we've been."