Joe nodded. “Well, we’re going to have to think this through today, that’s all. We either have to figure out how to gain more speed or how to rest.”
Macore nodded. “Somehow. I can’t figure out why you can’t fly into and over that, though, except that it’s attracted to heat and motion. Maybe flying through it creates enough friction in the air to draw it. I dunno.”
At the insistence of the security officer, Macore returned, was stripped and locked back in his cell, and it was there, in relative privacy, that they continued the conversation.
“What about Marge?” Joe asked. “Is she immune?”
“I doubt it. Not to the spells, anyway. Spells of that kind cover just about anything, even rocks and trees. I doubt if she’d need the blocks of ice, though. Anybody who can walk around here stark naked and jump into pools of lava back home isn’t going to give off heat—so long as she doesn’t fly. What about your girl?”
“Mia? I don’t know. She feels warm, and I’m not sure I’d like to risk her without the ice sandals. But she doesn’t feel the extremes. She walked barefoot on the ice pack! She rolled in the snow without effect!”
“Okay, that’s a break, then. It means she has normal body heat only relative to other living things. She touches you, it’s normal. She touches ice or snow or a hot poker, she’s got instant protection. The odds are very good she wouldn’t need the ice blocks, and also pretty good that she could carry ice. How strong is she?”
“Strong legs and back, fairly weak arms. Why?”
“If I’m right, she could carry a block of ice on her back.” He snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that’s part of it! We all carry ice with us. Except Marge, of course. A decent square would be enough to sit on and keep our warmth insulated.” He paused. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Joe, you ever see a dog do his business in the snow? It comes out at body temperature. It’s like pouring hot water or hot coal on the ice. We have to deal with that, too.”
“Well, we better deal with that fast,” he told the thief. “Their missing sergeant is due back in two days, and dear, sweet Lieutenant Quasa of security here doesn’t see any reason why sentence shouldn’t be carried out on you, pointing out that, as a slave, with Sugasto’s protective spell, you would still have all your old skills for what we need.”
Macore gulped. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have what /need. Let me work on it today and tonight. If anything, we probably should make our start at nightfall anyway. It’s never warm enough on the ice out there to melt stuff of its own accord, but direct sunlight has to have an effect. Marge is better at night and you and I have the Sight, so it’ll be lit up like a celebration in there anyway. Still, we’re down to technical problems. We have the basic method.”
“I hope,” Joe replied, leaving him to his planning.
Mia had been spending most of her time helping the other slaves there. There were five in all for the detachment of thirteen women; all were native to Hypboreya, but, although slavery was an institution here, none had been born into it. They were all, effectively, political prisoners, sentenced to slavery for offenses against the interest of local sorcerers and high priests of cults, and, as such, had also been placed under spells of obedience, which she lacked. They were compelled to do exactly what they were told, and ask permission for just about anything else.
Mia thought them just a cut above the army of the living dead she had seen lined up on that plateau, and perhaps worse. They knew what had been done to them, and lived in daily humiliation with no hope of redemption.
She was down behind the bar helping with some cleaning and minor repair when the two women came in, and at first she paid them little attention and they, for their part, did not see her. She recognized one of the voices as that unpleasant and officious little witch of a security officer, Quasa.
“So what are you going to do?” the other woman with her asked the security chief. “That big man is dangerous.”
“He must eat and drink,” Quasa replied. “If we cannot make a decent potion that will put him out cold without his noticing, then we do not deserve membership in the Sisterhood.”
“Why not just let them go off in the Devastation?”
“He and the mad one have done what he says he was sent here to do—find a security breach to the palace. I am certainly not about to let the mad one go, unless enslaved. A mind that can work out that sort of thing would be of even more danger, should he make it in, and, being mad, he might be uncontrollable. If that happened, we would be blamed. As for the big one, we have nothing but his word that he is official, and I have never seen anyone in the empire who operated without clearance. He had to acknowledge knowing the other one because the little one, being mad, might well recognize and spoil his cover. It is no more difficult and much more efficient to enslave two at one time.”
“But what if he is truly working for the Master of the Dead?”
“Then we did our duty, and it is his fault for not insuring our cooperation. The man will have failed in his mission, thanks to us, and that will go well for our records, while he will have paid the price of failure. I would much rather answer for following procedure, in any event, than have to explain why and how I allowed possible spies to make it to the palace.”
“All right, but do we have to cut him, too? It gets so lonely here sometimes, and he’s so good looking…”
“Not only does the law mandate it, but it also would be taken wrongly if we did not, by those to whom we must report. I would rather follow regulations and do without a while longer rather than risk joining his status. As for his bitch, we’ll drug her, too, so that she does not try and protect him. Once he is converted, she will be common property and we can bind her to the coven.”
“When do you plan to do all this?”
“I told him our sister was due back the day after tomorrow. As you well know, she is due back any time now, and certainly by tomorrow. I say tomorrow night, moon or no moon.”
Mia crouched there, hardly daring to breathe, hoping against hope that the staff slave would not betray her. She waited, pretending to keep working, until the two women finished their drinks and left, then got up and went out the door.
Finding Joe wasn’t hard in that tiny place; finding him alone, when he was the only sane man around for hundreds of miles who was not in the palace, was more difficult. She had trouble unobtrusively separating him from the crowd, but finally managed.
“Master, in the bar, I overheard this Quasa woman saying that they were going to drug both of us and enslave us both to them as well as Macore,” she whispered excitedly to him.
He stiffened. “You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“Did they see you or know you were there?”
“No, Master.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, Master. Their missing one arrives a day early. You are deceived.”
He sighed, thinking. “Then we will have to go tonight. After dinner, I should think. They won’t do it tonight, since they’d have both of us to take care of for a day and night. Get together the supplies, everything we’ve talked about. Meet me behind the security shack as soon as you can with what you can manage. Food, but only one small wine flagon. We’ll use snow.” He shook his head, thinking about what they were going to attempt. “I sure hope Macore worked out those details.”
Marge had found a clever hiding place in the supplies building, where the slaves went to get what was needed. Now Joe headed there, knowing that he’d have to awaken her early, but she had to be ready.