A man like Alberto Silvain had killed her Reinhardt.
Inyx turned her attention away and tried to lose her thoughts in studying the palace. While it gave her a moment or two of interest, she found her mind wandering. Mechanical servants, all similar to the park manager Knokno she had found on her first day in Dicca, scurried about, clanking and rattling on their rounds. A few humans loitered, but she saw very few that didn' t have a military bearing. While they did not wear the grey she' d come to associate with Claybore, she guessed these palace hangers- on were more devoted to Alberto Silvain than to the Lord of the Twistings.
" Yes," Silvain said softly. " The Lord has few loyal to him anymore."
" What if I tell him?"
" Go on." Silvain laughed harshly. She wondered what sort of man this Lord of the Twistings might be. Silvain had obvious disdain for him, yet a tiny corner of his courage crumbled when the Lord was mentioned. A contradiction. With luck, she might turn this into a wedge between grey and Lord.
" Commandant Silvain, you are expected," said a mechanical ludicrously dressed only in a wine- red crushed velvet jacket and a perfectly knotted black silk neck scarf. He bowed slightly as Silvain ushered Inyx into the audience room.
At first she thought she' d entered the palace nursery. Toys littered the floor, tiny windup mechanical devices that scurried like metallic rats when set in motion, blocks of all kinds, even stuffed toy animals. Inyx blinked and raised her sight to room- sized transparent cubes. Five of them contained particularly devious mazes through which animals ran. She swallowed hard. The nearest one contained a creature disturbingly human in shape, although the size belied anything more than a distant cousin. Its gaunt face pressed against the inner surface begged her for release. She stepped forward and touched the barrier; it didn' t yield. Inyx rapped it sharply with her knuckles. Only dull echoes sounded.
" It' s unbreakable. Watch." Silvain took out his death tube and pointed it directly at the creature. A lance of fire gushed forth and slithered along the flat surface. " Examine the maze wall," the man ordered.
Inyx touched the spot where the heat had been most intense. Not even a blister marred the surface. Inside, the homunculus shook with silent tears.
" The Lord enjoys constructing these mazes," said Silvain. " He is most adept at it. The laws of the outer world are suspended inside. That was once:"
" The former Lord of the Twistings," came a high- pitched, almost feminine voice. The giggles that followed turned into a twittering that made Inyx very uneasy.
She faced the newcomer. The voice sounded twelve, the body looked four times that. Dressed in a jester' s outfit, the Lord pranced about, posturing and doing small tumbling routines for her amusement. She wasn' t amused. Inyx thought this was some trick that Silvain played on her. This fool couldn' t be the ruler of most of this planet. She started to speak when she saw the expression on Alberto Silvain' s face.
That tiny corner he reserved for fear unravelled into a large spot. He feared the Lord of the Twistings. Mixed in with it came a large portion of disgust, also. That emotion Inyx shared with Claybore' s commandant. To lock up any creature in the glass maze seemed unnecessarily cruel.
" You like my tiny mazes? You should see my big one."
" The Twistings?" she guessed.
" Oh," cried the Lord, clapping his hands, " I was so right in having Alberto bring you here. You are bright. Most of the people I see are stupid."
" Why don' t you let out the:" Inyx turned and indicated the homunculus in the maze. It had already moved on, feeling its way around unseen walls, seeking an exit.
" Let out my predecessor? Oh, no, good lady, that would be silly. It took a great deal of magic to reduce him to that size. Once he was released, I couldn' t watch him blunder around in my maze. Besides, he treated me shabbily when I first arrived in Dicca."
She stared at the man. He had a small spot going bald on the top of his head. The light brown hair had been frosted through with grey and lay back straight from his high domed forehead. Chocolate- colored eyes darted and danced with mischief, the eyes of a small child. In stature, the Lord of the Twistings proved average in every way: height, weight, strength. There seemed little extraordinary about him. Except for one thing.
Alberto Silvain feared him.
That puzzled Inyx more and more. Silvain did not frighten easily. She' d seen his type on any number of worlds. They followed their beliefs to the death, never compromising. In a way, their deaths provided more cenotaphs than any other. They died nobly and usually in some fashion where their handsome bodies weren' t recovered.
And Silvain feared the Lord of the Twistings. Why?
" I have many, many more intricate mazes about. Come and look at them."
" That' s not a suggestion, is it?" she asked. Silvain shook his head. She felt his strong hand in the small of her back, urging her forward. This brief pressure gave her the opening she' d sought since being rescued from Luister len- Larrotti' s Fine Rooms. Inyx moved, turned, caught Silvain' s wrist, and jerked hard. The man cartwheeled in midair, to smash hard into the marble floor. A whooshing noise told her the wind had been knocked from his lungs by the sudden fall. Inyx scooped up the death tube from his belt and stepped back. She pointed it directly at the Lord of the Twistings.
" Oh, what is this?" he asked in a small voice. " She threatens me. Oh, this is rich. It is, it is!"
" No threats. I wanted to warn you about Silvain- and Claybore."
" I know all about them," he said, his eyes sparkling.
" Then you know they' re out to depose you."
" No, no," he said, laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. Bells rattled and the metallic stars on the sleeves of his yellow and red outfit reflected back all the colors of the rainbow as he shook. " You have it all wrong. I use them. They do my every bidding. Without me- and what I possess- they are nothing. Nothing!" He started laughing again.
Inyx frowned. This dolt thought he manipulated Claybore. From what she' d seen of the sorcerer, that wasn' t very likely. Still, Silvain hadn' t shown only contempt for this odd ruler of Dicca.
" Do put away that silly toy. I have ever so many more interesting ones."
" Sorry, Lord, but this is where I leave you. Play with Alberto, if you have to have another victim for your mazes."
" No, I want you, good lady. You' re different from the others. There' s a vitality that won' t let you stop till you' ve worked through my most intricate mazes."
" I' m going," she said firmly. Inyx knew how to deal with children, even ones old enough to have grandchildren.
" No."
Inyx reacted quickly but still moved seconds too late. A thick plate rose between her and the Lord of the Twistings. She spun and tried to run. She smashed headlong into another barrier. In all directions she met resistance. Clinging to the cylinder she' d taken from Silvain, she sought the grey- clad soldier. At least his death might be fact. That' d slow down Claybore' s conquest a little.
Alberto Silvain struggled to sit up- outside the glass barrier.
She fired. Inyx- felt heat billowing up from the point of contact between lambent energy and transparent surface. She stopped firing and examined the wall. It hadn' t been marked. Outside, the Lord of the Twistings helped Silvain to his feet. All the while, the Lord cackled like a rooster and bounced up and down like a child waiting for the spring fairs.
" Isn' t this wonderful?" he chuckled, moving close enough to press his face against the wall. His nose flattened and his cheek turned white, transforming him into a grotesquery. She hammered futilely at the wall. The Lord pulled back, a big smile crossing his face. " You have one hour to escape my maze. One whole hour, because this one is my finest, my favorite, my best- my worst!"