“Now, wench, what’s your name?”
“Lurn.”
“How long have you served the Green Lady?”
“I do not serve Her, great King. I know nothing of …”
Drask stirred the green dust with his foot. “Then where did you get this talisman?”
Her great eyes flashed with a touch of fear. Wetting her soft lips, she said: “I—don’t know—I—”
He cuffed her across the face with a ringing slap.
“Don’t lie to me, slut. Where did you get the dagger?”
“It was—during the loot of Argion, Lord—when your great ships were raining down death, and all the townspeople were going mad with panic and despair. I—I found it on a dead man … I took it; no one saw… . I thought I could sell the jewel, and …”
Drask glanced at the yellow-skinned conjuror beside him. Abdekiel smiled complacently.
“She lies, Dread Lord,” he said pleasantly. “The Lady of Green Magic is only served by women. No man could own the talisman.”
Drask slapped her again, snapping her head back sharply. Lurn gasped at the shock. He twisted his hand into her long, thick hair, gathering a fistful and pulling her face forward almost into his. His hot eyes burned into her face as he spoke slowly, clearly.
“I warn you, wench. No more lies. A sword-blade heated white in the fire and touched against your belly will wring the truth out of you fast enough. The truth, now!”
He released her, and she shrank back.
“I … lied. I got the thing from … my mistress. She was killed in the bombings. I … robbed her body … for jewels. I took the dagger … to protect me against the gangs that were looting the rubble. I never knew the jewel was anything more than … a jewel. It’s the truth—I swear it!”
Drask cocked an eyebrow at the shaman.
“Well, Abdekiel?”
The sorceror bent over the girl, observing her with slitted eyes. Terrified, she returned his gaze with wide, black-lashed eyes like a startled fawn. Then he stretched out one soft hand and touched the tip of his forefinger to her brow … then to a place above her heart. Under his breath he muttered a few words in some uncouth, guttural tongue. A dim mist of light glowed in the white valley between her breasts: glowed and … faded.
He straightened, smiling. “Lord, she lies again,” he said softly.
Drask balled his fist and struck out with a savage blow that stretched her out stunningly against the steps. Sobbing, she struggled to her knees again, an angry bruise empurpling her cheek and tears welling from her eyes.
“I’ll not play games with you, slut,” Drask snarled. “An electrode clamped to your tongue will teach it truth soon enough. Now speak—my patience is exhausted!”
Lurn lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, and her fingers came away scarlet with blood. Then, before even Drask’s eagle eye could observe her actions, she slipped a crystal phial from her gauze girdle about her loins—and drained it at a gulp. Drask reached for her, but she slid from his grasp and sprawled limply on the cold marble. The phial tinkled against the stone, a scintillating drop of jade fluid spilling from it to stain the pave.
He raised her, slapping her cheeks. But her face was closed, still, drained of life. The girl was either unconscious—or dead.
Abdekiel bent to examine her, rolling back one heavy-lashed lid to peer into her eye, listening to her heart. Then he bent, wheezing with effort, to dabble a fingertip in the jade liquid. He sniffed at it, and gingerly touched the tip of his tongue to the green stain on his hand.
“Well?” Drask demanded.
“She sleeps, Lord. Nor can she be wakened for hours.”
“What was that stuff?”
The shaman shrugged. “A simple decoction of the green lotus, a mild narcotic native to the worlds of the Hercules Cluster. A rare, expensive potion for a dancing-girl to possess, in these days when space travel is declining and only princely merchants dare risk our Rover-fleets to ply between the stars.”
“In other words, you believe she is indeed a servant of Niamh the Green Goddess?”
Abdekiel shrugged again. “What else, mighty Lord?”
Drask stood erect, bawling for the guard in the hall beyond.
“We shall put her away safely, and when she wakes perhaps a heated blade against her flesh will wring the truth from her …” He broke off, letting his hawk-fierce eyes wander slowly over her soft limbs as she lay helpless and unconscious before him, her almost-nude body open to his eyes. His gaze lingered, and a warm smile touched his lips.
“And perhaps … somehow I think questioning her will not be a boresome task, eh shaman?”
Abdekiel’s thin lips twisted into an obsequious smile. “And when you are done with her, Mighty One?”
“Then I shall throw her to my men, for their pleasure. Ah! There’s nothing more we can do tonight.” He turned to the guard. “You—Ygurm! Take this wench and lock her in the Red Tower, above the Caravan Gate. Tell your Captain to mount a watch over her cell. If anything happens to her, I’ll see the hearts of those who guarded her are cut out and fed to the kogors. Move!”
Ygurm closed both hands on his chest and bowed in the Rovers’ salute. “Aye, Master!”
“Remember! No one—no one—is to see her, or speak to her. And when she wakes, bring word to me.”
The guard picked up the girl, her head lolling lifelessly off his arm, her long ash-silver hair trailing to the floor, and bore her away.
“And now, Great One?” the shaman asked.
“The hour is late and I am weary. But I would have a word with you on these troubles. Come with me to my chambers.” His black fur-cloak belling out behind him, Drask led the way from the hall. They went through a long corridor past saluting guards, the shaman gliding at his heels, hands tucked in his deep sleeves.
The door to the Warlord’s private chambers was a great slab of silverwood set with massy studs of gold. A fire sizzled and crackled across the long, low-raftered room of gray stone, where logs of fragrant incense-wood blazed on brazen andirons wrought in the likeness of grinning gargoyles. Dragon-heads of carven stone leered from lintel and wall, with oil lamps of fretted silver hanging from their grinning jaws. Once eternal lights of atomic lamps had brightened these rooms, when lords of the Imperial Province of the Wyvern Stars had gathered here for council … but those days were past, and the rooms now served as temporary camp for the King of the space-roving barbarians.
Drask gestured the sorceror to a cushioned chair. He flung off his cloak of furs and removed his weapons-belt, throwing them into a corner. He sprawled across the silken bed, rubbing his brow wearily.
“Pour me wine, shaman. What of this Green Woman?”
Abdekiel filled an ornate gold chalice with sparkling yellow wine, handed it to his Master and tucked his arms into his gray robe. When he spoke, his voice was as colorless as his garments: a soft, sibilant undertone, hissing slightly over the softer consonants as do all from his twilight world of Shamanis.
“The Goddess of Malkh is as much a mystery as Calastor himself,” he commented. “She is not of human stock—that much we know. Rumor has it that when the first Earthmen came from the legended Mother World, they found Her … alone on her dim, mystic planet … ageless as the everlasting stars.”
Drask grunted, hooded eyes brooding on the firelight.
“Now the Adepts are a curious lot,” Abdekiel continued thoughtfully, “but we know the cause for which they combat us. These Adepts of the White Order serve The Light. They have meddled with the affairs of the Galaxy for many centuries. Some say they strive to manipulate history for their own cryptic purpose … perhaps to build a New Empire out of the ruin of the Old. If that be so, ‘tis easy to comprehend the motive of their leader, this Calastor. He pits himself against the Star Rovers because they are the Scourge of the Stars. World after world, Dread Lord, you have crushed beneath your iron heel. On planet after planet, the wan, enfeebled light of civilization has wavered before your blast, and flickered out.