21
A COUPLE of zeyshi led us out of the room through a warren of worn and disused ancient passages until we came to a corridor where somebody had put a maroon runner across the uneven cobbles of the stone floor. Against the left wall stood the narrow table one normally found in an influential family’s apartment. The arrangement on it consisted of a couple of rough rocks and a small fish-bowl-like glass vase with something inside. Arrangements usually included large vases with extravagant dried flowers or tree branches. This one was very modest in comparison. The small fish bowl contained the empty husk of a worm. These creatures lived in the underground streams and made cocoons spun together from grains of sand. They were delicate, tube-like structures, discarded by the creatures when the
