She said, "Shasesserre is all that stands between Shai Khe and creation of the greatest empire the world has known."
"He the one gave you to Odehnal?" Chaz asked.
"Yes."
"What can you tell us about him?" Greystone asked.
"Nothing. While he lives, nothing."
"Me, I lost something somewhere, beautiful lady," Chaz said.
"I am his slave." She said that as though it explained all. In her native land, perhaps it did.
"Who?" Chaz insisted. "Odehnal or Shai Khe?"
Caracene bowed her head. Softly, she replied, "Shai Khe."
"Why? You're in Shasesserre."
"There are no slaves in Shasesserre?"
Chaz had to think his way around the side of that. "He is an enemy of the state. As such he has no rights. You have been freed. We could get you manumission papers by tomorrow."
She looked at him with eyes in which tenderness warred with exasperation. "Paper has no meaning while Shai Khe lives."
Gallantly, Chaz offered, "I'll kick his head in, then. Just tell me where he is."
"I cannot betray him. He is my master."
Soup snickered. Even Greystone smirked.
"I give up," the northerner said. He began muttering about "Women!" under his breath. He cleared his plate and cutlery away, then prepared a tray for the prisoners.
During the afternoon and evening he made every opportunity for Caracene to escape. She did not seize her chance.
Rider reached the laboratory quite late. He examined the prisoners while the others prepared themselves a supper. "Any message from the King?" he asked.
"Nary a word," Chaz replied. "Nothing from anybody."
"I suppose that means he's decided to accept me as Protector—to the extent that he'll ignore me. Till he wants something."
"That's what most of them did with your father. How long you reckon Belledon will last?" Few Shasesserren kings fulfilled normal lifespans. Some years there were three or four selfcoronations.
Jehrke had held the opinion that the city was its empire's worst enemy. The Protector had provided more stability and continuity than the crown.
"He could be a good one. If he stays alive. Suppose we skip the hired hands and deal with Odehnal directly?"
"A truth-drawing?"
"Get it ready. I'll eat first."
Odehnal’s eyes were wild. He was hopelessly caught, for the first time ever at another's mercy. Judging his captors by himself, he was frantic.
"Ought to be interesting," Chaz said, closing the lumber room door. Softly, "The girl wouldn't run."
"I noticed. We'll find him another way."
After eating they brought a more composed Odehnal into the library and strapped him into a chair the twin to that Greystone had used to monitor the web. Rider exercised the utmost caution while unbinding the spells which restrained the dwarf. Odehnal was dangerous still.
"Bit backwards from the way you're used to?" Rider asked. "You willing to tell me what I want to know?" Fear still lurked behind the dwarf's eyes. "Got in over your head when you joined up with Shai Khe, didn't you?"
Odehnal betrayed a flicker of surprise.
"Oh, yeah," Chaz said. "We know about your friend and his pirate airship."
"That being the case, you have no need to question me," Odehnal concluded with a snarl.
"Where is he?" Rider asked.
Silence.
"Do you consider yourself more valuable than Vlazos? He killed Vlazos."
Again Odehnal betrayed a moment's surprise. Vlazos, Rider believed, had been the foot in the Shasesserren door, the lone contact between outsiders and conspirators.
"Let's get on with the truth-drawing, Rider," Su-Cha chirruped. "I love it when they squeal."
His cherubic face darkened. "And this one has abused so many of my kind. Let me have him when you're done."
Kralj Odehnal was not to be manipulated by psychological maneuvers. He was old and tough and tempered, and knew all the games interrogators played. He believed he had invented some himself.
Rider shrugged. "Since we have no choice, then."
Greystone placed a contraption on a stand in front of the dwarf. Odehnal looked puzzled.
"Spud's special design," Greystone said. "More efficient than candles and mirrors."
Odehnal drew a deep breath ...
Chaz stepped behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth. The hand held a wad of cotton impregnated with a fluid of Rider's devising. In moments Kralj Odehnal wore a drugged smile. His head lolled to one side.
Su-Cha stuck him with a hot pin. "Just to make sure he isn't faking."
Rider said nothing, though he knew the Odehnal who was a legend among assassins had selfcontrol sufficient not to start at a pin's prick. "Start it."
Greystone cranked a handle, opened a tiny door. Light flickered upon Odehnal's face. Greystone made a few adjustments.
This was a truth-drawing much less unpleasant than the traditional, which combined a bit of witchcraft with subtle torture. "Waken him," Rider said.
Chaz buried Odehnal's face in cotton moistened with ammonia. The dwarf sputtered and spat and wakened. His eyes met the light and glazed.
Rider asked several hundred questions, each phrased so a yes or no answer would suffice.
Greystone recorded questions and answers and kept his notesheets positioned so Rider could refer to them. The others stayed back, conferring in whispers. Occasionally Soup would dart forward with a note suggesting a question.
The picture that shaped was not one to gladden men devoted to Shasesserre's welfare.
For several years Shai Khe had been recruiting among the sorcerers of the world. Those who refused to make common cause, under his command, he crushed. Those who joined him he gave gifts like Caracene, and powers torn away from those who would not serve him. Now he felt strong enough to test Shasesserre and its Protector.
Rider worked with especial care when he began drawing the names of those Shai Khe had recruited. Yes and no answers were not possible.
Some names amazed him. Some chilled him. Some left him blank, for they were names unknown to him. Those he did know were widely scattered, proving the eastern master had a far reach indeed.
He had drawn just over a dozen names when Odehnal suddenly bucked against his restraints, made squealing noises, and began foaming at the mouth.
"What's wrong with him?" Greystone demanded.
"I don't know ... He's dying. Somebody get the medical kit."
Blood flecked the foam on Odehnal's chin.
Rider brushed the hypnotic engine aside, laid hands on the dwarf's heaving chest. He felt the inner wrongness instantly. "Poison!"
"What kind?" Soup demanded, yanking a battery of antidotes out of the medical kit.
"Can't tell. Something different ... Complex."
Odehnal's eyes opened. Hatred and the knowledge of his own murder filled them. "Polybos House," he croaked. "The Devil's Eyes." His eyes rolled up. He began to shudder violently.
"Rider!" Chaz shouted from the laboratory. "There's something out here."
Rider ripped away from Odehnal, rushed into the darkened laboratory. Chaz was at the window.
"Where?"
"Down there now."
Rider leaned out. A shadow clung to the face of the tower, seventy feet below. Points that might have been eyes blinked. A limb of shadow moved. Rider whipped back, into the laboratory an instant before something tickled against the window frame. "Light," he said. "Get lamps in here."