Start answered his question. «What else should they make but the bars, master? What else is needed?»
Blade shrugged and let it go at that. But he would keep the forge in mind.
Jantor was waiting in a vast, domed chamber with brick walls and a floor of clean white sand. Iron railings and stairs led to the top of the dome, where Blade saw the underside of one of those enormous sewer lids. There was probably a kiosk above it and the eternal sleepers and that treacherous spying moon, waiting. For what? He had the cold, disturbing feeling that the orbfolk, and that moon, were waiting for him, and being patient. As though they knew the first act must be played out in the sewers.
The guards pushed Blade and Sart forward and retired to wait outside. Blade stood blinking in the flare of torches held in wall sconces. Sart clung to Blade's heels, muttering to himself and wringing his hands. Blade knew the man's terror was genuine. At the moment Blade himself was not feeling particularly valiant. His position was weak. He was at the mercy of Jantor. Anything he did now would have to be bravado and bluff.
Jantor spoke from the shadows. «This way, Blade. You will kneel before the throne, and your slave with you.»
Blade never knew for sure, but it may have been his sense of humor that saved him. As he made his way toward the voice of Jantor he saw that the «throne» was an armchair, a simple comfortable-looking armchair made of plastic, set on a raised platform of raw planks. The «throne» had undoubtedly been looted from one of the shops above.
Blade had the sense not to laugh. That may have saved him, too. Sart threw himself sprawling on the sand, beating his head against it, while Blade stood, arms akimbo, and regarded Jantor.
«I kneel to no throne and no man,» Blade said. «This is not meant as disrespect for you, Jantor. It is just my way.»
Jantor looked down at Blade from his armchair throne, his dome of baldness glistening in the torchlight. Jantor leaned forward to stare at Blade, his Gnomen brown eyes narrowed and catching red sparks from the torches.
He spoke calmly enough. «Sart, this slave of yours, has not told you of the five-mile pits?»
Blade shook his head. «He has not. He goes into a faint at the mention of them.»
Jantor nodded. «He is perhaps wiser than you. You do not fear the pits because you do not know them. But I know them. I have been in them. Listen well, Blade, and learn. I tell you this in warning, for I have use for you and I do not wish either to kill you or send you to the pits.»
Blade interrupted. «Must I stand? I am weary, Jantor. I have been working long hours making children for you.»
Jantor showed his stubby brown teeth. «That I can understand. For a long time I carried the burden alone. And I produced children. It remains to be seen, Blade, if you can do the same. So far you have done nothing. So far not a woman has missed her bloody time.»
Blade crossed his big arms calmly. He knew he was not sterile. He had a child-a boy-back in Home Dimension, a boy he could never claim and whom he had never seen.
«It is too early,» he told Jantor, «Give it time.»
Jantor nodded. «Yes. But let me tell you of the pits.»
He waved a hand and from the shadows came a girl. She was carrying a chair, a metal frame with a plastic seat. Blade was a trifle startled. She had been there all the time, so quiet and blended with the shadow that he had not suspected her presence. The girl put the chair down before Blade. She did not look at him but stood silent and motionless, staring at the floor as most Gnomen women did. She was hardly more than a child, perhaps twelve, but she looked clean, and her coarse dark hair sparkled in the light of the torches. She had taut little cupcake breasts and her waist was tiny. Her legs were short but thin and not yet beginning to bow. Instead of the usual denim skirt, she was wearing a plastic skirt and between her small breasts there dangled a delicately worked iron chain.
«This is my daughter,» said Jantor. «I have many, of course, but this one I claim for my own. Her name is Alixe and she is yours as long as you live.»
For once Blade was speechless. The little speech of Jantor's had sounded very like a command. Fury flashed in him and he stilled it with an effort. He did not like his life so arranged for him. Yet he must be realistic, bide his time and wait, be patient, and as soon as possible get the reins into his own hands. Either that or send an emergency call through the crystal in his brain. He would ask Lord Leighton to abort the mission and snatch him back through the computer-if he lived that long.
Blade said: «I thank you, Jantor. I will treasure her.»
Jantor grunted. «Do not treasure her-use her!»
Blade stroked the girl's hair and tilted her face upward. Her eyes, wide-set and deep brown, peered into his with no expression. She was pretty, well favored for a Gnoman girl, and her teeth were white even.
Blade smiled at her. «And you, Alixe? How do you feel about this?»
It would be a graceful way out if she refused him. And of course she would be spying for Jantor just as Norn was spying for Sybelline.
She had a chiming, childish voice. «I do as my father wishes, man Blade. He commands and I obey. If he says I am yours, then that is the truth of it. I am yours.»
Blade tapped her soft chin with his finger. «And you do not mind?»
She regarded him solemnly. «I do not think I will mind. You are well favored, man Blade, and it is time I left off being a child and became a woman. I will bear you many children and-«
«If he can have them,» broke in Jantor. «Go, Alixe, and wait outside. When Blade returns to his quarters you will go with him.»
Blade did not protest. It would have done no good. He contented himself with a few ripe and silent curses and with kicking Sart, who was still groveling in the sand and making fearful sounds in his throat.
«Stand up,» he commanded, «and try to act like a man instead of a slave. Go outside and wait for me. I would talk with Jantor alone.»
Jantor made no objection as Sart left the chamber, but an odd look lingered on his hairy toad-like countenance and he looked puzzled. The skin wrinkled on his shiny pate and Blade thought he was frowning. It was hard to be sure in the dim light.
When Jantor spoke his voice was calm, almost friendly.
«You ask the impossible of Sart,» he said. «He is a slave. You made him one when you defeated him, so it follows that if he is a slave he cannot act like a man.»
It was so near to syllogistic logic that Blade was again taken aback. He recognized it as a warning not to underestimate Jantor. Was the man shrewd or merely cunning? Both qualities were dangerous and only time would tell. Blade decided to change the subject.
He sat down in the chair provided by Alixe. «I'd like to hear of these five-mile pits. You have been in them?»
Jantor nodded. «For a long time. I was put there by the Morphi, the ones who sleep above us, for daring to presume above my station. I was put in a cell five miles down, Blade, where there is only darkness and silence such as you have never dreamed of. A little longer and I would have gone blind, as most do in the pits.»
Blade felt cold along his spine. It was an ordeal he would not want to face and Jantor's matter-of-fact attitude somehow made it worse.
«All sentences to the pits are for life,» said Jantor.
Blade grunted. «That cannot be long.»