I put a golden tarn on the table. "Remain," I said. "But I fear I must go. There is much here which is seriously amiss. I fear the worst."
"I do not understand," he said.
"Farewell, my friend," said I. "Tonight I take tarn for the north."
"I will accompany you," he said.
"I cannot share this business," I said. "My flight will be fraught with peril, my work is dangerous." I thought of Zarendargar, Half-Ear, waiting for me at the world's end. Now, more than ever was I certain that the works of the Kurii flourished concealed among the snows of the northern wastes. The pattern was forming. The north was closed. The red hunters were to die by starvation. The frozen north. in its wind-swept desolation, was to keep its secrets in silence from men. "No, my friend," I said. "You cannot accompany me." I turned and strode to the door.
At the door I encountered Sarpelius. "Master asked many questions," he observed.
"Stand aside," I said.
He did so, and I brushed past him. Constance fled after me, in the brief tunic of white rep-cloth. Outside the tavern I turned and looked at her. She had slim, lovely legs, and sweet breasts. She was very beautiful in my collar. I knew where, on the wharves, there was a slave market. I had once bought a dark-haired, captured panther girl named Sheera there. I had broken her swiftly to my collar. She had been excellent in a man's arms. Months later I had freed her. What a fool I had been. It was not a mistake I would make again with a woman. Keep them slaves; They belong in collars.
"Master?" asked Constance.
"It will not be hard to sell you," I said. "You are quite beautiful."
"No!" she begged. "Do not sell me, Master!"
I turned my back upon her. I thought I would probably obtain a silver tarsk for her. She was new to the collar, but she had incredible potentialities. Any slaver could determine that.
With a few more havings I thought she would be helpless, and paga hot.
I strode toward the market. I must leave soon. The girl stumbled after me, weeping. "Please, Master!" she wept. I did not tell her to heel. It was not necessary. She was slave.
I thought she would bring me a tarsk.
Suddenly I heard her cry out, startled. I spun about. "Do not unsheath your blade. Fellow," said a man.
I was covered with four crossbows, the quarrels set. Fingers were tense at the triggers.
I raised my hands.
Two woven canvas straps, some two inches in width, had been looped about the girl's throat and drawn close about it. She was bent backward. Her fingers pulled futilely at the straps. She could scarcely breathe. The man behind her, the straps looped about his fists, tightened them slightly and instantly, terrified, eyes wild, she stopped all attempts to resist.
"In there, between the buildings," said the man, the leader of the others.
Angrily I moved between the buildings and stood in the half darkness of the alley, my hands raised. The girl, rudely, the straps on her throat, was dragged into the darkness with us.
"The bolts," said the man, indicating the missiles at rest in the guides of the weapons, "are tipped with kanda. The slightest scratch from them will finish you."
"I see you are not of the assassins," I said. It is a matter of pride for members of that caste to avoid the use of poisoned steel. Too, their codes forbid it.
"You are a stranger in Lydius," said the man.
"I scarcely think you are magistrates investigating my business," said I. "Who are you? What do you want?" I was angry. My thoughts had been too filled with fear and tumult, and fury at the mysteries of the north. I, though a warrior, had been insufficiently alert. I had been careless.
"I do not think he will be missed," said one of the men.
"You are not common robbers," I said.
"Welcome to Lydius," said the leader of the men. He proffered to me a metal cup. He had filled this from a verrskin canteen slung at his left hip, behind the scabbard.
"Why do you not simply loose your quarrels?" I asked.
"Drink," said he.
"Paga," I said. I had smelled the drink.
"Drink," said he.
I shrugged. I threw back my head and drained the cup. I held the metal cup in my right hand. Then it fell from my hand.
One of the men had set aside his crossbow. I saw the wadding of a slave hood thrust deep in Constance's mouth and then, behind her neck, secured in place with two narrow, buckled straps. The hood itself was then drawn over her head and buckled shut under her chin. The fellow removed the straps from her throat.
I leaned back against the wall.
I saw Constance's hands pulled behind her and snapped in slave bracelets.
I sank to one knee, and then I fell on my shoulder to the stones of the alley. I tried to push myself up, but fell again.
"He will be useful at the wall," said a man.
The boots of the men about me blurred, and then were clear, and then blurred again.
"Yes," said another man.
The voice had seemed far away. Things began to go black. I was dimly aware of them removing my belt and pouch, and the strap with scabbard and sword. Then I lost consciousness.
8
I Find Myself Prisoner In The North
"There seems to be no end of them," said a man's voice. "We kill hundreds a day, and yet more come."
"Increase then," said a girl's voice, "the ratios of your slaughtering."
"The men are weary," said the voice.
"Double then the fees," she snapped.
"It will be done," said the voice.
"The wall weakens a pasang east of the platform," said another man's voice.
"Strengthen it," she said.
"Logs are now few," he said.
"Use stone," she said.
"It will be done," said the voice of the man who had spoken.
I lay on a wooden floor, of heavy, rough boards. I shook my head.
I felt the roughness of the boards with my shoulder. I was stripped to the waist. I wore loose trousers of fur, tied about my waist, and fur boots. My hands were manacled behind my back.
"This is the new one?" asked the girl's voice.
"It is he," said a man's voice.
"Arouse him," she said.
I was dragged to my knees and struck with the butts of spears.
I shook my head, and regarded her.
"You are Tarl Cabot," she said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"What men could not do," she said, "I have done. I have taken you."
"There were some men in Lydius," I said.
"They were in my fee!" she said. "Thus, it is I who have taken you."
"Of course," I said.
"We have been watching for you," she said. "We were warned that you might be foolish enough to venture northward."
I said nothing.
"You are a strong, sensuous brute," she said. "Is it true that you are so dangerous?"
I saw no point in responding to her.
"Your acquisition," she said, "will earn me a promotion with my superiors."
"Who might they be?" I asked.
"Ones who are not Priest-Kings," she smiled. She went to a table. I saw belongings of mine upon the table, doubtless fetched from Lydius.
"It was clear quite early," she said, "that you were no common ruffian from the docks of Lydius." She sifted golden tarn disks through her fingers. She drew forth the blade from the sheath. "I am told," said she, "this is a finely tempered blade, keen, subtly balanced, the weapon of one who is of the warriors.
"Perhaps," I said.
She unwrapped from its fur the carving, in bluish stone, of the head of a beast. "What is this?" she asked.
"Do you not know?" I asked.
"The head of a beast," she said.
"That is true," I said.
She placed it back in the fur. It seemed clear to me that she did not understand its import. Kurii, like Priest-Kings, often work through men, concealing themselves from those who would serve them. Samos, for example, had little inkling of the nature of Priest-Kings.