"needs no tending," she said. "And is tended by nobody. There are things here, and I suppose they're servants of the winds, but they're just mechal beings. You know mecha?"
He nodded guardedly. "Flora, fauna and mecha. Like the stone mother. But those are just beasts."
"And this is like a hive for some of them. It looks like a human house for reasons it would take hours to explain. It's not a Wind place; just a mecha house."
"Then why are people killed who try to enter?"
She sighed. "The same reason people are killed when they enter a bear's den. They protect their territory."
"Oh."
"Come on. Let's find the lavatory." She picked up the gauze, half wrapped it around herself, and walked dripping up the stairs. Jordan hurried after.
The halls upstairs were carpeted luxuriantly. Lady May indifferently trailed mud footsteps through the red pile. Jordan walked in her footsteps so as not to soil it even further. His heart was pounding.
Lady May found a huge marble-sheathed room full of fixtures and appliances somewhat familiar to Jordan, but more ornate and absurdly clean. As she entered light sprang up from hidden lamps near the ceiling. Jordan started and stepped back, but she ignored the indication that their presence was known, and went to a large black tub. "Aaah," she sighed, letting her cloak slide off her shoulders. "I need this." She began let water into the tub from somewhere.
"You've been here before," he accused.
"No. This is just a very familiar building plan." She began to unlace her shirt. "I am about to bathe," she said in her slow drawl. "We must both remain close to the sensor sheet, so do not leave the room; but I would appreciate it if you turned you back while I disrobe."
Embarrassed, Jordan turned around. "What you might do," she said, "is clean my clothes for me. I'll do the same for you while you bathe." A sodden bundle of cloth and leather hit the marble next to Jordan with a splat. "Just dump the cloth in that hopper there, and put the leather in the one beside it for dry-cleaning. The boots can go in there too. The mecha will clean them for us."
"Why would they do that?" he asked as he went to comply.
"The mecha keep this house for inhabitants just like us. They have ever since the beginning of the world. The manses were to be the estates of the first settlers here, as well as libraries and power centers. Their tenants never arrivedor at any rate, they didn't recognize them when they did arrive. So they wait. But they're more than happy to fulfil their household functions as long as they don't
think we're intruders."
"And this cloth somehow fools them?"
"Yes. It's a machine." He heard her stepping into the water. "Aaah. Do you know machines?"
"Yes. Machines are a kind of mecha."
"Other way around, actually. Mecha is a kind of machine."
He puzzled over that, as he sat down cross-legged facing the still-open door. The hallway was dark; he heard the sound of rain tumbling against distant windows.
"When we've bathed and eaten, Jordan, I will explain to you why I had to take you away from your family, and just what your dreams about Armiger mean."
"You know why I'm having them?"
"I do. And I can end them. If you cooperate. That's why I came to you."
"But" he started to say for the tenth time that he knew nothing that could help her, but a sound from the hallway stopped him. He scrabbled backward on hands and knees. "What was that?" he whispered.
Lady May was sitting up in the tub, one arm across her breasts. Steam wreathed her. "Probably some mechal thing. Cleaning the carpet, I'll bet. Here, come close and get under the sheet." She drew it up from the floor and draped an end over herself.
Jordan hurried to comply. They could hear a delicate clinking sound now, like wine glasses tapping one another, and then a long slow sliding sound, like a rough cloth being drawn across the ground. Jordan was terrified, and huddled next to the tub. Lady May sank back under the water, just her face showing. The gauze fell into the water and made a flat floor across it.
Something moved in the doorway; Jordan held his breath, eyes wide. He thought he caught a glimpse of golden rods rising and falling, of glass spheres cradling reflected lightning, and then the thing was past, tinkling on down the hall.
He let his breath out in a whoosh. Lady May sighed, and her wet hand rose to clutch his shoulder. "You're safe, Jordan, much safer than you realize. Safer than you were in that village, after you started dreaming."
"I don't believe you," he said.
"Your worst enemy is yourself," she said, and her hand sank back again.
"The stories those paintings tell are traditional stories, older than Ventus itself."
"How can a tradition be older than the world?" he asked.
"Mankind is older than this world," she said in her measured, confident voice. "The Winds made Ventus for us to use, but then they rejected us. Have you never heard that story?"
"Yeah," he said, looking down at his plate. "We made the Winds, the Winds betrayed us and trapped us. They teach us that at chapel lessons." His fingers traced the perfect circle of the china; he was here, and alive, in a place of the Winds. "It always seemed very remote from real life."