Chapter 14
Blade's day was so normal that he began to hope he'd guessed right. Baliza wanted the whole night's episode swept under the rug. He certainly would have, in her place.
He was coming off the firing range when Kabo stopped him. «Voros, the School Commander wants you in his quarters.» Kabo both looked and sounded unhappy.
«Any idea what he wants?»
Kabo looked even more unhappy. «Yes, but-well, will you forgive me if I say I don't want to get my dong caught in the gears along with yours?»
Blade grinned. «If it's about how I spent last night-or rather, didn't spend part of it, I don't blame you. Don't worry. The ax is still a long way from my neck. It shouldn't be too hard to jump aside.»
Kabo made a gesture for averting bad luck. «I hope you're right.»
So did Blade. He wasn't as optimistic as he'd tried to sound as he walked to the Commander's quarters. If Baliza was really going to make a fuss, he would need fast footwork and a very nimble tongue.
The School Commander was sitting behind his desk, wearing dusty fatigues and a bad-tempered expression. Blade saluted.
«Good evening, sir.»
«What's good about it? Never mind. You've put your foot in it. Now tell me how you're going to get it out.»
The explanation was brief and to the point. Baliza was charging him with attempted rape. He'd fled after she threatened to scream, but-
«What did you say, Voros?»
«Nothing, sir.» Or at least nothing printable.
The commander went on. Actual rape meant mandatory truth-seeing and confinement in the meantime. Attempted rape meant a choice of confinement or truth-seeing.
«If I was in your position, I'd go under the truthseer. I won't call Baliza a liar, but I'd like to get your story, too. Then it's possible we might get Baliza under the truth-seer as well. Not likely-she's the Sky Master's daughter, even if she did take Bairam's side when he was thrown off the Council. However, Geyrna has forgiven her, so no one dares not listen to her even if they don't like her. A lot don't like her, though, and if your story doesn't support hers-«
The Commander rambled on for a while, repeating things Blade understood the first time. He would have been impatient, but obviously the Commander was trying to talk out his own nervousness over the situation.
Blade saw two choices. He could give his oath to go under the truth-seer, then do it within a day or two at most. Or he could go to prison, and wait in a cell for his trial. If he did the second, he wouldn't be able to leave Kaldak without escaping from prison. That would attract attention, to say the least. Also, he might wind up under the truth-seer anyway-and he had to avoid that at all costs.
The Dimension X secret really had been at stake last night, but he hadn't realized it. Oh, well, hindsight was always twenty-twenty. What to do now?
Swear an oath to go under the truth-seer, then run. Kaldak was now much too hot to hold him.
But-run where?
He would be safe enough in the wilderness which still covered much of this Dimension. Uncomfortable, but safe. He would be slightly more comfortable but somewhat less safe among the Tribes, who were in any case a long way off. The same thing went for Monitor Bekror and his estate. The Monitor was surly and independent-minded toward Kaldak. He still might not be ready to hide a fugitive accused by the Sky Master's own daughter.
That left Doimar. The border wasn't far, nor was it that heavily patrolled-at least on the Kaldakan side. If Blade pretended to be a defector from Kaldak, he might learn a few of Doimar's secrets. He might not learn enough to wreck Doimar's war plans, as he had last time. He might not even learn enough to win back his position in Kaldak-which didn't really matter, since he wasn't going to be in this Dimension forever. He could still leave the information in safe hands before he returned Home.
In Doimar, he would be out of reach of Baliza and the truth-seers. The rival city had no such devices. They were said to have telepaths, but that was only a rumor and Blade was willing to take his chances with them. He'd resisted the telepathy of the Wizard of Rentoro, whose mind had been powerful enough to transport him from Renaissance Italy into Dimension X.
Blade became aware that the School Commander was looking expectantly at him.
«Well?»
«Sorry, sir. I'll go under the truth-seer.»
«And you give your word of honor not to leave Kaldak before then?»
«Yes, sir.» He'd told larger lies to protect smaller secrets.
«Very good. Dismissed-and good luck.»
«Thank you, sir.»
Shortly after midnight, Blade left Kaldak. A week later, he was across the border into Doimar.
A week after that, he was in prison in a research laboratory far from the city, waiting to be used as an experimental subject.
Blade stared at the wall and tried to shut the moans of the dying woman in the far corner of the cell out of his mind.
The cracks on the wall stared back.
This was one of the times when the cracks took the shape of a gigantic rabbit with a single huge eye set between its ears. If Blade concentrated on this rabbit long enough, it began to seem about to say something to him.
If he'd thought it would tell him how to get out of here, he would have listened. However, it hadn't said anything yet. He'd learned more from the surly guards and even from the woman, although she'd been half-mad with pain and fever the first day she was in the cell with Blade.
After a while Blade knelt beside the woman's sodden pallet and sponged her off again. She looked like a concentration camp victim, her naked body gaunt and covered with the oozing sores of the fever with which she'd been infected.
When he'd finished sponging her, Blade dropped the foul-smelling cloth into the waste can and held a cup of water to her lips. She swallowed it, more by reflex than anything else, and gripped Blade's free hand in both of hers. She still had the strength to grip painfully hard. Blade put down the cup and let her hold on until suddenly she was slimy with sweat again. The attack of fever was breaking.
At last the woman turned on her side with a little whimper and fell peacefully asleep. Blade sat cross-legged beside the pallet and gritted his teeth. He didn't know the woman's name, where she came from or why she'd been sent here. She might even be a criminal. He still knew that if he had to go on much longer watching her die by inches, he was going to go berserk. He would start tearing guards apart with his bare hands, killing them until he was killed himself.
That would be foolish, of course.
The guards were an unpleasant lot, but hardly essential to Doimar's war effort. He could kill a hundred of them without setting back Doimar's plan of conquest by a single day. Better to wait until he could take out a few of the key Seekers-those who made up Doimar's scientific elite.
However, even if he killed Seekers, he would die here in Doimar. What he'd learned would die with him. He might gain Kaldak some time, but if they didn't learn the danger they faced, would they be able to put it to good use?
Blade doubted it. Kaldak was nearly a democracy; Doimar was nearly a dictatorship. A democracy can catch up with a dictatorship in war if it has the time. If Blade's theory about Doimar's plans was correct, Kaldak wouldn't have the time.
In plain English, the Doimari were planning to bombard Kaldak with ballistic missiles, carrying warheads loaded with deadly germs. Possibly other things as well (nerve gas, nuclear weapons, radioactive dust?), but germs for certain.