Chapter ThirteenGarth’s wait was not long; perhaps fifteen minutes had elapsed when the Forgotten King appeared in the doorway, motioning for the overman to follow. He obeyed promptly, springing up from the chair he had waited in. In truth, he was glad to leave the room, which in its dusty dimness had an atmosphere that unsettled him. During his wait he had studied the furnishings more closely, and noticed that they were stranger than he had at first thought. Beneath a universal layer of dust, the woods and upholsteries could be seen and felt not to be any common substance that the overman was familiar with, but rather unnaturally smooth and somehow alien. What he had at first taken for walnut and ebony had grains unlike any wood Garth knew. What he had taken for leather and velvet had a s
