Tomorrow morning he’d call Nikko and insist she return to the ship. That would broaden his options. He could change his mind about Beta then without stranding her. If he had to lose the others, he at least would not have to leave her behind
XVIII
Svarta fagren, sajflikk henne, trant i glumen for d’ lunna Yngling, far t’ tvillingarna pa befanningen a Kassi ty han villa aga jener.
Gryma Kassi, feg erovren,
Belsabubb han a sa hette, stamfar han a orkahodern.
Imperator, dojd va kjaaren, klov ijal a makti Jarnhann, huven ligganne i dyen hel svaadlent fra blori halsen.
Alste hon d’ makti kjampe, dravare a hennes far, han som stypte jatten Kassi.
Alste Ynglingen a villa riska livet, bli d’ nodi a befria ham fra Drcka
[The dark seeress, black-skinned beauty, yearned to hold again the calm-eyed
Youngling, sire of her twin infants by command of the Lord Kazi so that he would hold his genes.
Cruel Kazi, cowardly conqueror,
Beelzebub had been his byname, founder of the orcish armies.
Caesar, rotting by the reed fen, smote to death by mighty Ironhand, proud head resting in the muck now, sword’s length from his severed neck lay.
Yes she loved the mighty warrior, loved the man who’d slain her father, he who’d felled the ogre Kazi.
Loved the Youngling and was willing to risk death if that was needed to deliver him from Draco.]
From THE JARNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation
Moshe the Cerberus was responsible for the security of all prisoners during his watch. Very personally responsible. Should one escape or suicide, Moshe’s punishment would be slow, excruciating, and terminal. So he disliked anything not routine and would not tolerate confusion. Confusion made it difficult to monitor thoughts and feelings-nearly impossible to read the subtler nuances.
When the Master was still alive, the danger of escape had been academic, and cerberus-dungeon captain-had been an envied job, comfortable and often enjoyable, while the hazard of prisoner suicide could be minimized by denying means and by monitoring.
During the present power struggle however, two attempts had been made to free men from Draco’s dungeon, and rumors of plots were heard almost weekly. Security had been tightened and drills held regularly.
The night watch had been on duty for only minutes when the signal whistle shrilled. It was no alarm, only a signal from the entry guard above, but the two guards at the foot of the stairwell quickly nocked arrows while others clattered out of the guard quarters with pikes or drawn swords.
Moshe stepped to the speaking tube. “What is it?”
“It’s the Lady Nephthys, Sir. She wishes to come down with her attendants. She wants to look at the star people and the barbarian.”
“Wait twenty breaths, then let them pass.”
The Lady Nephthys! The clearest evidence that the Master had favored Lord Draco over the dog Ahmed was his gift to him of Nephthys. Moshe had seen her only at a little distance, but it was said that, close up, her aura was so compelling that statues had lost control of their parts and as punishment had been unmanned with hammer and chisel.
He pulled the lever releasing the entry lock, then strode out of the guard office. Protocol demanded that such a personage be met by the officer in charge. Within the tall stone stairwell he snapped his way through armed men, stopped two paces back from the stone stairs, and stood at attention, a bowman at each side with arrow ready but pointed downward. Behind them were two pairs of swordsmen. Next were four pikemen shoulder to shoulder behind tall shields. Last, just outside the doorway, two men stood by a lever, ready to drop a heavy iron door into place to shut off the stairwell should an attack threaten to succeed.
Three new men, replacing others wounded in an off-duty brawl, had been assigned to standby in the guard room until Moshe could drill them properly.
His stance became more rigid as footsteps sounded softly above; there were no orc boots in her company. Her bodyguards turned into sight-two magnificent blacks, giants, stripped to the waist, armorless except for helmets. Fleetingly beneath his screen, Moshe wondered if they were entire. They must be, he decided, for their muscles were fatless and strongly defined beneath their skin. Entire, then, and well supplied with girls so they could walk tall and haughty, their auras cold and proud despite her nearness.
As soon as she turned into sight behind them, hers was all the aura he was aware of-power, commanding beauty, and a cool sexuality that numbed his will. For seconds he was actually unaware of the presence of her female attendants. As she descended, so gracefully, her visual beauty became one with her aura, and there was no swagger at all to the stiff-spined dungeon captain when he greeted her.
“My Lady!” He couldn’t tell whether he’d spoken or only croaked.
Perfect teeth showed briefly, coolly, in her smooth-skinned black face. There was no hair, not even eyebrows, and the shape of her unadorned head was perfect on a strong, regally slim neck. She was slender, rounded, taller than himself, with a filmy white gown caught artfully about her, skin as jet black as her father’s. Beside her, her bodyguards were only dark brown, and for the first time in his life Moshe was self-conscious of his own light skin.
It took an effort to maintain his screen so near her. The poor bastards behind him weren’t up to it at all, and the wash of flustered awe and fear and male response was a psychic stink. Perhaps behind her cool reserve she laughed.
She spoke, and he led the party from the stairwell, past the rigid standby, to a dully-lit passage between two rows of cells. Some were empty; in others inmates stared or slept. Before the cage of Chandra Queiros she stopped, and slowly he sat up, huddling within his own weak-folded arms. In his unscreened mind, despondency, pain, and dull fear partially gave way to wonder and a vague sexual stirring.
“Ah! The star man,” she said. “I hear my Lord had use of him today. I’m told he sings.” She examined him deliberately, body and soul, then laughed, a throaty arpeggio in the cell block, and the prisoner, in sudden self-awareness, covered his nakedness with his hands.
“He’s a poor thing,” she observed as they walked on. “Where is the woman?”
“She has not been returned. Perhaps she’s being retained for entertainment.” For a moment the orc’s mind, unscreened, was outside Nephthys’s spell and suddenly sadistically avid.
Dark eyes glanced at him in amusement, and the cerberus’s mind withdrew in confusion behind its screen again.
The barbarian was in the farthest cell.
“Hmm. So this is the Northman, the one who escaped the arena.” She seemed to purr. “Draco won’t give him a chance to do that again.”
The Northman rose with insolent carelessness, his unscreened mind a meaningless hum discernable among the others only by concentrating. His aura, subdued now and unobtrusive, was none the less one of strength, detachment, purpose.
“He looks different,” she commented. “His scalp wasn’t shaved then.” She turned to one of her bodyguards. “If you faced each other with knives, Mahmut, could you kill him?”
The black face did not change expression, but keen hardness glinted from his mind. Moshe realized then that the man had no tongue, could not speak aloud.
“I’m surprised he seems uninjured,” Nephthys continued. “I thought my Lord questioned him.”
“Not roughly, my Lady. His face is blistered, as you see, and I’m sure his knees are painful, but that’s all.”
“No doubt he has plans for him.” She examined the prisoner for additional seconds. “I’m disappointed. He isn’t as much as I’d heard, close up. There are others as big, and he is only flesh after all. When Draco wishes, he will become quivering flesh.”
When the royal party had left, the guardsmen relaxed in their quarters. Alone in the guard room the cerberus took the flagon from his table and drank, but not deeply. That would be unwise on duty. Then he sent it into the guard quarters. As a commander he tried to be generous as well as hard; the combination made for loyalty as well as discipline. When the bottle was returned he swirled what remained, considered briefly, drank again and corked it.