"Perhaps I'll kill you now."
"No, you won't," said the skinner. She seemed to note the anger in Phage's eyes. "Not that you couldn't, but that you won't."
"I won't?" asked Phage.
"You kill traitors, laggards, spies-folks who might destroy what you' re building. You won't kill me. I'm on your side." The old woman paused. "I'm not afraid of you because I understand you."
"You presume to understand me?"
The crone laughed. "I'm an old, wrinkled woman. Folks recoil from me. Yes, I understand you."
A smile tugged at Phage's lips. "You do not know how it feels to be full of horrors."
"Did you ever play dead while a raider found uses for you? Terrible to experience. Even worse to survive. I'm full of horrors. I know what it is to keep them locked away in my skin."
Phage looked with new eyes on this old creature. Behind the crow's feet and the sagging jowls lurked a deep sadness. Here was a fearless woman-honest and hard working. "What is your name?"
"I'm Zagorka. This here's Chester."
"How would you like to be a taskmaster, Zagorka?"
Chester snorted, and Zagorka agreed. "Wouldn't. Just 'cause I can wrangle this one thick-headed ass don't mean I want to be in charge of a hundred of them. Besides, they'd not listen to me."
"Then you will be my messenger. They'll listen to you then. You'll tell them not just what I say, but what I mean. You'll tell me not just what they say, but what they mean."
Zagorka hobbled along. "I'm a little gimped up for all that running."
"Ride Chester."
The skinner and her mule traded dubious glances.
"Or I'll kill you both."
"She will," Zagorka warned her mule. "She's at the end of her patience."
"You do know me."
"We'll do it," Zagorka decided.
It was done. The gulf was bridged. Here was a woman who understood Phage without hours of fruitless discussion. Zagorka would speak honestly about all aspects of the job. The taskmasters would not fear to talk with her, and Zagorka would not fear to talk with Phage. With this new mouthpiece and earpiece among her taskmasters, Phage would know everything.
Phage and Zagorka strode down among fields of cut stone. There, masons labored with hammers and chisels. The steady ring of steel on stone faltered and hushed. Dwarves and men lifted their heads and stared at the two woman.
They paid no heed, striding on toward the taskmaster.
Gerth sat in a camp chair at the edge of the field. One foot, wrapped in white gauze, rested on a log. Fresh blood spotted the top and bottom of the foot. When he noticed his commander, Gerth gaped stupidly and pushed himself to his feet.
"He drove the chisel right through?" asked Phage quietly.
"Right through," affirmed Zagorka.
Phage pursed her lips. She strode to where the man stood and ignored his deep bow. "I summoned you."
"Forgive me, Commander. I wounded myself."
"Who is your next-in-command?"
Gerth went to his knees. His voice trembled. "The lich Terabith, my lady."
Phage stared angrily at the man's bowed head. She lifted her hand and imagined setting it on his shoulder and rotting him to nothing.
Without looking up, Gerth said, "Are you going to kill me?"
That was the question. He was a worm, kneeling there. Somehow, though, Phage could not set her hand down. It was his fear that made him disobey.
Zagorka blurted, "Will he be a better lesson dead or enslaved?"
At last, Gerth lifted his eyes. Hope was there, but also terror. The other slaves would not be kind to a former taskmaster. Still, it was better than death. Phage's hand cast a black shadow across his face. Gerth said, "I will be your slave and work hard for you and be ever faithful. I will go to the other taskmasters and warn them against my fate."
"If they disobey," Zagorka said, "she'll kill them and you too. You rive only as long as you're a lesson."
Phage could not have put it better. "Your death sentence is commuted but not canceled."
Zagorka said, "First warn Terabith not to fall to your fate. Then tell the others. Last, report to the slave pens."
Gerth bowed his head in thanks. "Yes. I will tell them. It will not happen again."
Phage looked to her new mouthpiece. "I think you are right."
CHAPTER NINE: IMAGE MAGIC
The delusions of night cleared away, and the sun rose upon Ixidor in his undreamed land. Doubt had proven false. The mirage had proven true.
Ixidor dived. It was deep enough here. The sandy shore gave way to tan contours in clay, and they in turn to green depths. Water enveloped him-cool, clean, bracing. It washed away dirt and salt scales. The water was life. Ixidor opened his mouth and drank as he swam. Water poured through and around him. Life filled him.
He had almost missed it. Three days of tortures in the desert, mirage after mirage, rainstorms that turned to sandstorms, dunes that turned to graves-all of it had taught him to distrust hope. A man who distrusts hope is a dead man. When he had found his paradise, he had nearly been unable to recognize it. He had to drink sand before he knew.
Ixidor rose. A cry of joy began in his throat and burst up through struggling bubbles toward the surface. His shout erupted from the water just as he did. Amid leaping waves, Ixidor roared the defiant cry of survival. He had wrestled death and pinned it.
Ixidor's feet dug into the clay. Small curls of mud streamed away from his toes as he climbed the bank. His hair rained water down around his shoulders, and he laughed in the midst of it. He sat on the bank. The river tugged insistently at his feet as if it were eager to bear him to the dark cave where the waters were swallowed.
Drips ran like tears down his face. Ixidor had not truly defeated death. It had defeated him.
Nivea was gone.
Rolling over into the shadow of a palm, Ixidor cried until he slept.
The waters tugged at him. The dark cave growled like a hungry stomach.
Nivea haunted his dreams. She had brought him here to live. He had brought her to the pits to die.
Bleakly, Ixidor woke. The sun had reached midday, driving away palm shadows, and burning him. His feet were numb and cold. His heart was too. It would have been unbearable except that hunger eclipsed all else.
Ixidor sat up and peered into the blue-green stream. There should have been fish darting through its verdant waters. He saw none. He had not seen any as he swam either. How could there be fish? The spring rose from killing sand only to descend into a voracious cave.
What of animals? The oasis should have swarmed with creatures. Ixidor stood and stalked among the curving boles of the palms. He followed the sandy shores, looking for footprints, droppings, any sign that other creatures had come to this spot. Only his own tracks marked the sand. He saw not so much as a bird flitting among the trees or a line of ants rising up a palm. More telling still was the profound silence. Only the murmur of water, wind, and his own breath disturbed the quiet.
Surely the palms would hold something-dates, coconuts, fruits… He walked among them, his head craned back. There were at least three separate species of palm but no fruit on any of them.
Ixidor seated himself beside the stream. He would die in paradise after all. It was another mirage, promising life but offering death. Waters flowed, deep and cool, away to the yawning cave mouth. Ixidor had been a fool to hope. All the while that he jeered death, it only tightened its grip.
Absently, Ixidor dragged his fingers through the clay. It curled up in little rolls that looked almost like prawns. Ixidor stared at them. His stomach rumbled. In trembling fingers, he lifted a single curl of mud. The outside of the clump was smooth and round while the inside was jagged like the jutting legs of a crayfish. Ixidor lifted the thing to his mouth and bit. Sand crunched, clay clung to his tongue, and mud dissolved and spread. Ixidor spat the clod from his mouth. Angrily, he backhanded the other curls of mud.