 This Gorgik narrates to one of his young sexual partners, a barbarian boy named Udrog, when the two find themselves together in an abandoned castle for the night, just before the passing of a funeral procession of one of Gorgik’s major political adversaries.Other than the first tale, this is the only one in which Gorgik is on stage for the majority of the action.The last of the tales, “The Tale of Rumor and Desire” (1987) goes back in time to gives portrait of a character called Clodon, whom we have seen before (in “The Tale of Fog and Granite”), but who has been fairly minor till now.