"Chephron was not so fortunate as I was," said Pelops now. "When he was made a slave there was great need of men in the meta mines. That is a living death, sire. Men die quickly of the mine sickness - and before they die they suffer greatly of the sores that never heal. Chephron only volunteered as executioner that he might escape the mines. I, or even you, sire, might have done the like in his case."
They were on the poopdeck of a great trireme in the harbor of Sarmacid. The ship was new launched, named the Pphira, and had a crew of Blade's own choosing. In a few hours now the sea games would begin.
Blade scowled at the miserable wretch with Pelops. Chephron still wore his leather kirtle, was still bald and pocked and malformed. Still wore his iron collar. Still had the high bleating voice and the great sores on his legs. Blade did not want the man on his ship. And yet -
"I will vouch for him," said Pelops. He moved closer to Blade and whispered, "He is as desperate as any man you have aboard, sire. He wants freedom, as we all do, and he will fight well and die for it if necessary. Give him his chance."
Blade stroked his beard in thought. "Very well, then. Against my judgment, Pelops. Those sores on his legs - you are sure they are not infectious? When we escape, if we do, there will be perils enough without having sickness aboard."
Pelops nodded quickly. "He will spread no disease, sire. I swear it. Those are mine sores, as I said. All mine slaves have them. It is said to be something in the meta. No one knows the truth of it."
Blade, had he not been so harried and busy plotting, might have guessed at the truth of it then. But the moment passed and he none the wiser.
Blade gave in. He nodded curtly and said, "All right. Bathe the man and strike off that iron collar. Find him new clothes and some ointment for his sores. And keep him out of my sight, Pelops."
Chephron, for all his bowing and scraping, met Blade's hard stare with eyes that did not flinch away. "I thank you, Captain," said the former executioner. "I have a debt to you now and I will pay it when it comes due."
When they had gone Blade had a deep conference with Ixion, his second in command. Ixion had been a sailor before being enslaved for debt, and wore only wide legged pantaloons and a sailor's cap of pointed leather. He was Sarmaian to the tips of his dirty toes. Pelops, who had done most of the recruiting at Blade's bidding, also vouched for Ixion. Blade trusted the man because he must. There was so little time. The sea games began in an hour. If Blade had his way they would not last very long. He had things to do - when he had done them he would be on his way. Pphira had a clean bottom, being just off the skids, and there was nothing in the harbor to catch him. He had a crew of slaves and they would be rowing for freedom and life itself.
Ixion drew close and whispered. "I kept them working all night, my Captain. In pairs. This new thing you call a file works well - I think the chain will break."
Blade glanced at a huge chain stretched across the narrow gut of the harbor. The Sarmaians did not know the wheel, but they were great for chains. He could still feel the weight of the great slave chain on which he and Pelops had trekked from Barracid.
He looked at Ixion. "They were not seen?"
"No, Captain. Else we would have trouble now. The middle link is half cut through."
Blade crossed his arms on his chest and stared beyond the chain to the outer harbor and the Purple Sea stretching away to a fog obscured horizon. The yellow fogs came frequently.
Beyond the horizon, and the fog, what? Just opposite Sarma was Tyranna, the land of Otto the Black. A place to avoid, especially after today. And Blade was not interested. His desire was to find Zeena, if he could, and then to the Burning Land where pirates were reported to have set his double ashore. Blade had a full report on this from one of Pphira's officers who had been second in command of a galley that had captured the pirates and put them to death. Several of them, before they died on the T, had babbled of the man they had saved from drowning and eventually put ashore because there was no profit in murdering him.
Pphira's officer, on looking at Blade for the first time, had been awe-stricken. "I did not see this man you seek, Captain, but before they died the pirates told me of him. Men do not usually lie just before death - and the stranger they described to me was you!"
So be it. The Russian agent was out there somewhere, beyond the Purple Sea, in the desert, alive or dead. If the latter, Blade thought now, he would like to see the bones before he returned to Home Dimension.
He was wool gathering, dreaming, staring at the horizon and freedom. Ixion plucked at his sleeve. "Captain - Captain! They signal from the flagship."
Blade came back to Sarma and dismissed Ixion after giving orders to sink the "files" to the bottom of the harbor. He had fashioned files from ordinary swords by pounding out the serrature with a sledge. Crude things, but with enough willing hands they had worked.
He raised his telescope and studied the signal from the flagship lying near in to the main wharf. The telescope was a narrow long waterproof box with glass set into each end. The glass was flawed but it worked. Water sealed in between the two bits of glass did the magnifying. Blade shook his head in disbelief as he read the flag. These Sarmaians. They could make a telescope and not a wheel!
The flag was red with white markings. Games to begin in half an hour. Pphira and Otto were an the way to the harbor now as part of a long procession after having witnessed the sacrifices to Bek-Tor on the plain. As Blade put down the spy glass a whiff of roasted flesh came to him on a breeze. Bek-Tor, that He-She divinity, had feasted well this day. All morning the smoke and flame had been thick over the plain, and unceasing the regular chunk-whanggg as catapults flung trussed and screaming slaves into the fiery maw with deadly accuracy. Blade, accompanying the Queen, had soon pleaded business and begged off, but he had noted the accuracy of the catapults. Now, as he paced his deck, he studied the catapults on the ships of Captain Equebus. His adversary for that day. For Otto the Black had decreed everything, and Otto did not intend to lose the games given in his honor. It was, Blade conceded now as he studied the enemy, a well rigged game. Otto, Equebus and Kreed, had taken every precaution. Blade could not possibly win. His smile was grim. They thought.
As he studied the enemy galleys with his glass he felt a cold anger rising in him. An unusual thing in a man so professional as Blade - death and suffering in MI6 had always been rather impersonal, in the way of business, and one did not allow one's emotions to interfere. But then Blade in X Dimension was not the same Blade. More changed than his brain molecules.
The night before, at Queen Pphira's side, Blade had gone to the stadium to see the opening of the games for Otto. Though he bore it well enough - folly to do, or show, otherwise - he had been sickened to his guts. It had been a bloodbath such as he had never seen. In the flaring light of thousands of torches he watched the battlemen stalk and kill each other in a forest transplanted and set into the sand of the arena. Two only had survived and had been spared by Otto, who had an eye for their fine bottoms. So Pphira had whispered in an aside.
Blade only nodded. There was no news in the fact that Otto was a fanatical pederast and that he liked unwilling victims above all. Rumor had it that Otto employed twelve strong men, all ex-favorites, to hold his screaming love objects securely while he attacked.
Blade turned the glass on the piles of cannonball-sized stones piled beside the catapults on Otto's ships. They were really the Queen's ships, as Otto would not risk his own, but Equebus would command them in Otto's name. It would be victory - a symbol of his hold on Sarma.
Blade's four small galleys had no catapults. Nor any of the smaller catapultas that fired arrows. Neither had his command ship, the tireme on which he now stood. All of Otto's ships were equipped with both weapons. The rigging of his ships was crowded with archers. Blade watched closely as officers barked orders and the huge catapults and lesser catapultas were levered back. They were powered by twisted rope and hair. Otto had nine ships, Blade five, including his own trireme.