Command voice said: "That is none of your affair. And long noses have been cut off. Heed."
Blade restrained a grimace. They seemed to do an awful lot of cutting off of one thing or another.
A man said: "I have never seen the Empress, sir. Do you think?"
"No! The Jade Empress is not for your eyes, you fool. She will not enter the Temple of the Dead until we leave. Now will you get on!"
They marched between a long line of flaring torches and Blade closed his eyes again. Not before he had seen a tier of gracefully ascending steps that led to a tomblike structure. Both stairs and tomb cast back glittering emerald sparks as the torchlight laved them. Everything behind this wall seemed to be made of jade.
The Jade Empress! Blade was in peril and knew it. He could very well be dead within a minute, yet he confessed to a growing desire to see what this lady was like.
He was carried into the large room and placed on a jade altar at one end. The only light came from a single torch in a sconce high up on the wall. They left him there and tramped out.
Silence. The torch guttered in a draft that wafted across the long room, bringing with it the same cloying fragrance Blade had noted before. The torch leaped and sputtered and cast its long flame sideways, tossing shadows over the altar. A door had been opened.
Blade lay on his back, his head turned just enough to allow him to survey the long room. There was nothing behind him but the blank cold wall. She must come from the opposite direction.
Movement in the clotted shadows. A small section of the wall moved and swung, noiseless, a marvel of counterbalancing, then swung back. Silence. He was no longer alone in the Temple of Death.
Through slitted eyes Blade watched the shadows. She was there, watching him, amorphous and wraithlike, yet very much a presence. He waited, trying to control his breathing. The effort was painful and his heart was thudding like a drum in his big chest. Why? This was merely a woman come to see a corpse. Why did he feel this tremendous bursting sense of excitement? It made no sense, yet there it was. He had experienced it often before, just prior to combat - or entering a woman.
Feet moved and rustled on stone and she stepped into the light and slowly approached the altar. In one hand she carried a long curved dagger. Blade tensed. What did widows do to their husband's corpse in this strange place?
She stopped six feet from him. She gazed at the bier, her face impassive, breathing lightly, her breasts moving only slightly beneath the single garment of silken stuff that clung to her like a second skin. If there was imperfection in that body, he could not see it. In that instant he named her, in his own mind and in the context of his own dimension. Venus. Jade Venus.
She raised the dagger and pointed it at the man she thought was dead. "So, Mei Saka, it has come to this at last. They bring you to me, in this Temple of Death, and I must honor you and pretend that you were honorable. Such lies! And whom do we deceive? The common folk of no account. All others, our own kind, knew you for what you were."
Blade watched her face intently. A face men dream of when they would conjure the impossible woman.
A master craftsman had drawn that oval in one sure stroke. Blade was a connoisseur of women and he knew perfect art when he saw it. Symmetry. Every feature in absolute balance. The brow high and imperious, the nose fragile and patrician, the mouth finely chiseled and yet sensuous. Wet now, moist and scarlet as a little tongue flicked out like a pink snake. He felt his loins stir and respond. God! What a woman. And what a corpse he was!
She took a gliding step nearer to him and brandished the dagger again.
"I have come to kill you again, Mei Saka. For my own honor, not for yours. The wise say that this cannot be done, that a man can only be killed once, but I do not care for this. I must kill you again, Mei Saka, so that I can rest. When I have had revenge I can find content in the arms of new lovers and forget you lived."
Another step toward him. She was breathing harder now and Blade could smell the fragrance of her. The body sheath she wore was so nearly transparent that he saw her breasts tautly outlined, sharp and hard, the nipples erected by her excitement and hate.
"I hope you can hear me, Mei Saka, wherever your dark soul dwells. I would have you know this - I had you killed! I knew of your plot to betray Cath and I sent one to kill you from behind. I then had that one killed so he could never betray me."
She held the dagger aloft. "It is clean now, you see, but it has been bloody. Not an hour ago I slew the second man and had his body destroyed."
Blade watched the dagger. Beautiful she was, and as dangerous as a cornered tigress. He must move soon to take control of the situation. Correctly handled it could be much to his advantage. She was high born and of station and authority - such a hostage could gain him breathing space. Time. But careful. Very careful. No mistakes.
Another long step toward him. The dagger flamed in the torchlight. For the first time he saw her eyes. Really saw them. And in them saw both heaven and hell.
Long almonds of green, narrowed but with no slantiness, wherein chrysolite seas moved and washed. Depthless pools of jasper where hate sparked and spun. Wide set, fringed by dark lashes, timeless and deathless and with promise of the Secret, they were of a purity beyond knowing. Blade, bold and bloody adventurer that he was, shivered. His body moved slightly in an involuntary movement he could not control.
She smiled. Her teeth flashed white in the dim light. "So, Mei Saka, you do hear me? Your muscles relax in death, or so the wise would say, but I know better. You hear me! Then feel this, Mei Saka! You have been killed once, to save Cath. I, the Empress Mei, kill you again. For revenge!"
She was so fast that Blade nearly took the dagger in his heart after all. She came in a rush as fast as a heartbeat. Blade moved sideways and caught at her descending wrist and pulled her close to him and their faces were an inch apart.
"Don't scream," Blade said softly. "Make no sound. I will not harm you."
Those incredible eyes stared into his. Her mouth opened slowly, a pink cavern of shock and fear. She made no sound. She fell against him, lax and supple, and he felt the glow of her body on his own.
They stared, one at the other. A caught second of time that had no ending. Eternity in a single breath.
Blade moved a big hand toward her mouth and whispered, "No sound. Let me speak."
Those wondrous eyes closed and she fell slowly into his arms.
Chapter Four
She was out cold. Fainted dead away. Blade deftly swung off the bier-altar and lifted her onto it in his stead. The long eyes were closed now and it was a relief, as if someone had switched off the current, unwound the charm. He picked up the dagger and examined it. No wood here. Or jade. Good steel. Another second and she would have had his guts out.
He stood quietly, watching her, until he was sure she was not feigning. He doubted it. His grin was dry and twisted. He must have been quite a shock, coming alive like that, a stranger with a blood-smeared face.
When he was sure she was not feigning, he ran lightly to the temple door and cautiously peered out. He could see no guards. What need to guard the dead?
The gardens stretched away dark and silent. A torch sparked here and there. The air was soft and warm and filled with the unidentifiable fragrance. Blade studied it all with the supreme animal sensitivity that had kept him alive so long. He was a shadow among shadows, watching and listening, and saw nothing that spelled danger. He went back to the bier.
She appeared to have absolute authority, this Empress Mei. That was better than he could have hoped for. Now it was up to him to exploit the situation. Just how this could be done he did not know at the moment. At least he had made a beginning. So far he had made no mistakes - except the cardinal one of getting mixed up with Lord L - and no use worrying about that! His future was uncertain, he must grope for it step by step, and at the moment everything depended on how he handled this woman. And how she reacted to him. Therein, of course, was the rub.