The Pixilated Peeress

VIII – Dubious Deliverance

Looking at Wok across the fire as they gnawed goat's meat, Thorolf said: "O Chief, I shall need help to overthrow the Sophonomists."

Wok took his time. "Get your father to declare us people, and we will help. Otherwise, not."

"Ah—a fine idea, but I know not how to bring it about ..."

"That is my final word, Thorolf. Any such venture were perilous to us trolls. Why lust ye after this? Hast not a good life here?"

"It's not that you treat me badly. I told you I had an eye on a lowland woman in Zurshnitt. She is a prisoner of Orlandus."

"What's wrong with Bza? Be ye not futtered enough?"

"Nay; that's not it. This one I loved ere I ever met Bza."

"So what think ye? To snatch this woman out of Or­landus' grasp and fetch her hither?" Wok gave a rum­bling chuckle. "We cavil not at a man's having more than one mate. Forsooth, it takes a real man—" Wok thumped his furry chest with the sound of a bass drum "—to ride more than one at a time. I know. If they quarrel, he must needs make peace amongst them. If they act in concert, they nag him, one after another, until he gives in to their desire. If ye fetch your lowland sweetling hither, it will be a sight for the ancestral spir­its how ye fare betwixt the twain."

Thinking, Thorolf gnawed. "Not sure am I yet what stratagems would further my sire's bill to benefit the trolls." The horrid idea that had been lurking at the back of his mind could no longer be denied. Taking a deep breath, he said: "Could some troll guide me through the tunnel under Zurshnitt, so that I shall dis­cover whither it leads and where it gives access to the world above?"

After a gulp and a belch, Wok replied: "Very well. I shall send Gak."

Not only to guide me, thought Thorolf, but also to watch lest I turn against the trolls.

Ahead of the hillock on which stood Thorolf and Gak, the Venner Valley sprawled, in the misty midst of which lay Zurshnitt. Beyond the city rose the snow summits of the Dorblentz Range. Thorolf could just make out the dark protuberance in the middle of Zurshnitt that was Castle Hill and its fortlet.

"Go back down," grunted Gak, pointing down the slope away from the city. He stepped off the crest and skidded down the steep incline, checking his slide with the butt of his spear.

Thorolf, wearing the yellow robe he had taken from the dead Sophonomist spy, scrambled after. Gak halted at the base of a mossy outcrop of stone, forming a small cliff. The face of the outcrop was masked by a screen of creepers dangling from the bank above.

Gak's sky-blue eyes peered out from under his shaggy, overhanging brows. "Be sure nobody see," he growled.

He pushed the creepers aside, laid a hairy hand against the stone, and pushed. Groaning, a section of stone revolved about its vertical axis until the slab stood perpendicular to the face of the outcrop, half in and half out of the tunnel entrance.

Gak took a last look about and entered the hidden door. "Come!" he said in a stage whisper.

Thorolf took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and fought his rising panic. He told himself: Come on, weren't you just as frightened when the howling mob of Tzenrican revolutionaries rushed upon you?

"What matter?" said Gak from within the tunnel. "Fear?"

At least, thought Thorolf, he could not let this back­ward aboriginal see that he was afraid. He forced him­self to step boldly into the tunnel, ignoring the painful pounding of his heart.

"Dark!" he muttered.

"You see," said Gak. The troll slipped off his shoul­der the strap of his goatskin bag. He took out a pair of rushlights and a Rhaetian copper igniter, and he charged the device with tinder.

"Where get?" asked Thorolf, pointing to the igniter.

"Trade. Soon we make, too." Gak pulled the trigger and lit the rushlights from the brief yellow flame. He handed one to Thorolf and pushed the door back to its closed position. The trolls, Thorolf saw, had cleverly fabricated the stone door to fit the tunnel entrance, with pivots at top and bottom.

The meager light enabled Thorolf to stride after Gak. The tunnel sloped down, leveled off, and sloped some more. Where the solid rock gave way to earth, the tun­nel had been lined with rough-hewn planking. The planks overhead were braced at intervals by posts against collapse.

They walked and walked; when Thorolf's rushlight weakened, Gak produced another. The floor became wet. In places mud had worked its way up between the planks, giving a slippery surface on which the yellow flames of their torches cast a flickering reflection. Thorolf thought he could hear the rumble of street traffic overhead.

Little by little his panic subsided, only now and then returning with a rush. He smiled in the near-dark; if he would never really enjoy being in a tunnel, at least he could now face such burrows with becoming fortitude.

"Step!" muttered Gak.

Thorolf found that he was ascending a stair, then walking on a level, then climbing again. Now and then the opening of a side tunnel gaped blackly in the rush­light. The passage became so narrow that both Thorolf and Gak had to turn sideways to squeeze through. Tho­rolf fought down a return of panic.

"Quiet!" breathed Gak. Thorolf gripped his scab­bard lest it clank or scrape against stone.

The tunnel ahead showed a feeble blur of gray against blackness. As they approached, Thorolf saw that the left-hand wall had been chiseled out to form a rectan­gular opening, large enough to go through without stooping but only a span deep. The far end was blocked by a screen of some sort, which admitted enough light for Thorolf's dark-adapted eyes to see.

As Thorolf peered at the screen, he picked out a var­iegated pattern of darker patches. The mottling resolved itself into a familiar-seeming form. Then he realized that he was looking at the back of a well-known paint­ing. It was the huge picture, in the assembly chamber of the Rhaetian Senate, of Amalt of Thessen, in armor, leading the charge against the Carinthians. To Thorolf's vision, the figures were reversed right and left.

Thorolf could not see anything in the room through the canvas. He listened, holding his breath, but detected no sounds of human presence. He gently touched the back of the painting. The canvas swung out and away a little; it was evidently hung from the top. A sharp hiss from Gak made him jerk his hand away, and the picture returned to its normal position with the ghost of a thump.

Thorolf wondered where the chimney flue led up from the fireplace over which the painting hung. By rights it should pass through the space where he now stood; but the masonry beneath his feet seemed solid. There must be an offset, carrying the flue beneath his feet to the passage wall behind him and then up. Perhaps the Carinthian governors had built these holes to spy upon the king's officials or to escape from Zurshnitt in a crisis.

Thorolf did not feel he could spend time on this ar­chitectural puzzle. "Now castle!" he whispered.

They went back to where the tunnel widened. Gak's light ahead seemed to vanish, leaving a faint afterglow. Hurrying, Thorolf found that the troll had turned into one of the side tunnels.

Again they walked and walked and climbed almost invisible stairs. The climb went on and on until even Thorolf, strong and inured to hardship though he was, found his breath coming faster. They wormed through passages even narrower than that which led to the Sen­ate chamber.

At last Gak stopped, holding up a hand. Thorolf found that he faced another rectangle of dark gray against the blackness. This aperture was smaller than that into the Senate chamber but still large enough to squeeze through.

"Quiet!" murmured Gak. "Castle. Sophonomists here."

Thorolf examined the screen. The paint must be thicker on this picture, he thought; or else the light in the room beyond must be dimmer. He could not deci­pher the painting until he noticed several black patches against the gray, each in the form of an oak leaf. Then he remembered the painting of the Divine Couple in the Chamber of Audience, whither Orlandus had con­ducted him on his first visit to the Sophonomist lair. The black spots were the oak leaves that a later artist had painted to conceal the deities' sexual parts, in def­erence to the Rhaetians' puritanism.

There was, however, a tiny spot of light high up on the back of the painting; Thorolf remembered that the picture was slightly torn. He leaned forward and put his eye to the tear. By moving slightly he found that he could bring most of the chamber into view. The room seemed empty.

"Finish?" Gak asked. "Come away?"

Thorolf wagged a hand. "Wait!" he whispered. "Must see Sophonomists."

"Bad!" muttered Gak. "Have magic. Find us ..." Gak drew a finger across his throat.

"Fear?" asked Thorolf. Gak had put the same ques­tion to him at the tunnel entrance.

"No fear," said Gak rapping his chest with his knuckles. "No damn fool, either."

"Wait ..."

Thorolf stiffened at the sound of voices. One of the doors swung gently open. In came Yvette of Grintz, in a yellow robe, followed by the stout, red-haired, red-robed Parthenius, whom Thorolf had met before. The Countess was saying in that toneless deltaic voice:

"... but my good Doctor, I must obey the Master's orders, and he has not commanded me to lie with you."

"But," expostulated Parthenius, "ye know I be Or­landus' second in command, his lieutenant in all things. Aught I ask, ye may take as coming from him. Since he cares not for commerce with women, 'tis nought to him whose bed ye haunt. So take this as an order, my lady: Ye shall repair to my chamber after curfew, to pass the night there in pleasure. Ye shall not regret it!"

"My pleasure is but to do my Master's will," said Yvette's flat voice. "Nameless, I will not comply with­out a direct command from the Master."

"Then bide ye here; I'll fetch our Psychomagus in person!"

"If he say so—" began Yvette; but Parthenius bus-tied out.

Thorolf's mind was in a whirl. The sight of Yvette aroused his passions to a feverish pitch. Parthenius' crude effort to extort her sexual favors filled him with blinding rage.

For the moment, the fact that Yvette was no gentle maiden but an experienced woman of the world mat­tered not at all. Thorolf wanted to get her out of Zurshnitt at any cost. What he would do with her, since she still acted as mechanically as one of the figurines that marked the hours on Rhaetian clocks, he had not figured out. He would get her away and let the future unfold as it would.

Thorolf pushed the back of the painting. Like the picture in the Senate chamber, this work of art was secured at the upper edge, so that it swung away from the wall. He pushed it farther and lowered himself to the floor, a little over a yard below the lower edge of the hole in the wall. Below the bottom of the picture the unused fireplace gaped; its chimney must follow the same zigzag route up as that in the Senate chamber.

As Thorolf gathered himself up and let the painting swing back, he heard a squawk from Gak: "Ho! Come back, fool!"

Yvette turned and stared at Thorolf, bringing her hand to her mouth with a jerky intake of breath. "Ser­geant!" she cried, her blue eyes wide. "What dost?"

Thorolf bounded forward, reaching for her wrist. "Come, Yvette! I'll whisk you out of this prison!"

She backed away, avoiding his grasp. "I serve only the Master!" she said. Then she turned and fled toward the door through which Parthenius had vanished.

A thump behind Thorolf told him that Gak had also dropped into the room. The troll roared: "You crazy? Back!"

A glance showed Thorolf that Gak was rushing upon him with clutching hands. In quick succession, the three raced through the door and down the corridor beyond. Simultaneously, the scarlet-robed Orlandus and Par­thenius appeared at the far end. Both gaped at the sight of Yvette, Thorolf, and Gak rushing toward them in single file, each trying to seize his predecessor.

"Who be you?" Parthenius shouted at Thorolf.

"He's no diaphane!" cried Orlandus. "He's a mun­dane disguised! That's a stolen robe!"

Yvette dodged past the leaders of Sophonomy. Tho­rolf, thinking that here was a chance to behead this evil cult at a blow, swept out his sword. The unarmed cultists should be easy prey.

Parthenius shouted: "Guards! To us!" Orlandus hurled something to the floor and shouted words. In­stantly there appeared, between Thorolf and the Sophonomists, the fearsome figure of an ogre. It was half again as tall as a man, with a thick, warty hide. Webbed fingers and toes ended in talons, and a pair of horns surmounted pointed ears. From beneath its blob of a nose, like a weird mustache, sprang a pair of yard-long tendrils, which writhed like serpents. Looking sharply, Thorolf perceived that the ogre was slightly transparent. Bardi's anti-illusion spell was evidently still working.

Thorolf heard a yelp of dismay from Gak, who hurled his spear, turned, and ran back the way he had come. The spear went through the ogre and clattered on the floor beyond.

The ogre spread its taloned hands as if to seize Tho­rolf, who instinctively struck forehand with his sword. The blade passed through the torose body without re­sistance, so that the force of Thorolf's blow spun him round and almost felled him. Seeing Gak rushing through the door to the audience chamber, he shouted:

"Come back! 'Tis mere illusion!"

Gak continued his flight. Hearing the clatter of ap­proaching guards, Thorolf ran after the troll.

When Thorolf reentered the Chamber of Audience, Gak was disappearing into the passage behind the paint­ing. Thorolf slammed the door behind him, shot the bolt, and pushed the divan in front of the door. Leaning toward the door, he shouted in Rhaetian:

"Out the other door, Gak! It leads to the main gate!"

Then he, too, pulled the painting out from the wall and hoisted himself into the dark aperture. From the blocked door came shouts and hammering.

Gak had picked up the two rushlights, which he had left leaning against the wall. He handed one to Thorolf, growling: "Quick, fool!"

The troll's big, hairy feet slapped the floor of the tunnel as he led the way with reckless haste. When they reached the junction with the main tunnel, they paused to catch their breath. Thorolf listened but heard nothing save his and Gak's heavy breathing. When their chests had ceased to heave, Gak said:

"You mad? Evil spirit have you?"

"My first mate," Thorolf gasped.

After a long pause, Gak said: "Ah! Understand. Come."

Back at the troll village, Thorolf told Wok of his ad­venture. Wok said: "Ye are lucky to escape the results of your folly at the cost of one spear. I will not let Gak or any other of my folk take part in another such foray. Too risky."

"It behooved me to do something," said Thorolf de­fensively.

"Wherefore? One lowland female more or less, what matter? I know not what ye see in lowland females anyway. Hideous, hairless, starved-looking creatures."

"Tastes differ," said Thorolf. "Anyway, Gak and I have found how you and your warriors can invade the Sophonomist stronghold and destroy this menace once and for all."

"Eh? Ye mean for us to trail through the tunnels and pop out of the hole behind that picture? Never! Those magicians would blast us with their spells. If those failed, their armored guards would fall upon us. We should be lucky if any got away alive. Besides, they probably know about the tunnel now and will have blocked it, or at least placed guards at the entrance."

"I doubt that. I called out a misdirection ere they broke into the Chamber of Audience, to send them out the other door as if we had fled by the main gate. Gak and I heard no pursuit in the tunnel."

"Ah! But Orlandus is clever. When the gate guards said none had passed them, he would know ye had left some other way and command a search, if indeed he have not already discovered the tunnel by his magical arts."

Thorolf argued some more, trying to arouse in the Chief an eagerness to raid the Sophonomist headquar­ters and slaughter the lot—except Yvette, of course. But Wok remained adamant.

"Too much risk," he said. "We can fight you feeble, hairless lowlanders on even terms; but we have no magic like unto yours. At the bruit of the battle, your soldiers might come to investigate. When they saw the Sophonomists fighting us whom they deem beasts, they would join in against us. We are a small people and cannot afford to lose men.

"Besides, your lowland female might be slain. Even if I told my warriors to spare her, in the confusion they would strike at every yellow robe. Ye lowlanders all look alike to us."

Thorolf sighed and gave up; but during the following days his resolution crystallized to make his next de­marche against Sophonomy alone. The last time, he had impulsively plunged in without proper precautions and had accomplished nothing save to alert the cultists against intrusion. He was lucky to have escaped intact, and Gak had been right to call him a fool.

Since Thorolf was not normally impulsive, he won­dered at his own rashness. It must, he thought, be a case of the power of love. Doctor Vipsanio at Genuvia had spoken of the crazy deeds into which love can lead one. Thorolf resolved that next time, he would leave nothing more to chance than he could help. He began by sending another letter to his father.

On the appointed day, when the light powdering of an early snow was melting off the ground, he found the consul seated on a folding chair beside their special pool and fishing. But Zigram was not alone. With him on another stool sat Chief Constable Lodar.

Thorolf hesitated, wondering if they meant to arrest him. To reassure himself, he scouted stealthily around, using all the skills that his soldierly experience and his sojourn among the trolls had taught him. He discovered five guards, sitting in a hollow near their tethered horses and casting dice.

Well, he thought, if they should try to spring a sur­prise, he could probably outrun the lot, since he was younger than either Zigram or Lodar and not laden with mail like the guards. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out from behind the same spruce sapling that had con­cealed Yvette on their first meeting.

"Hail!" he said.

"Kernun's toenails!" cried Zigram, dropping his fishing rod. "Startle me not so, son! Wherefore have ye dragged us elders up here now?"

"Information," said Thorolf. "Am I wanted for Bar-di's death?"

"Only as a witness; and Gunthram hath posted your name as absent without leave. When the Carinthian ras­cals found some hedge-wizard to open Bardi's chest, one got drunk on his share of the loot and boasted he'd buy a dukedom. He was heard in a tavern; so he's in durance awaiting the rope; whilst his mates, we pre­sume, have fled back to Carinthia.

"The constables scoured the countryside, seeking a hunchback who, calling himself Bardi's apprentice, was thought to have been either Bardi's slayer or your confederate in the deed; but the Carinthian's boast dis­proved that surmise.

"When come ye back to answer the justicers' ques­tions and resume your post? We are not fain to hang the rascal until we have your tale to complete the puzzle with the final piece. I've told Colonel Gunthram ye fled at my command, to look into a plot against the Com­monwealth and that, therefore, ye be liable to no pen­alties. Methinks he believed me not, but he durst not call me liar to my face."

"You mentioned that the last time we met," said Thorolf. "But what news of Sophonomy? I am sure the Commonwealth has a spy amongst Orlandus' guards."

Zigram and Lodar exchanged glances. The Chief Constable spoke: "Daily their influence grows. Me­thinks at least a third of my constables be under Orlan­dus' thumb. When one of their folk is brought to book, they frighten judges, juries, and witnesses into inaction, letting the miscreants go free."

The Consul added: "A curious tale hath come to our ears, Thorolf. It is that, within the past fortnight, Or­landus and his deputy, an old mountebank and street fighter calling himself Doctor Parthenius, encountered your Countess fleeing along a corridor in the castle, pursued by you and a troll. The Psychomage, who knew you not at once, warded off your attack by a spell, whereupon ye twain—ye and the troll—utterly van­ished. Although all exits are guarded, none saw you emerge; nor did a search of the edifice discover you.

"Orlandus concluded that ye had employed a spell of invisibility, like unto that on the spy he sent to follow me hither. So he hath devised a kind of blower, like that wherewith we spray our flowers to ward off snails.

He hath ordered a hundred of these devices from Grim-bald the sheet-metal worker and plans to charge them with flour. If ye seek to haunt his castle unseen, he'll spray you with this powder, thus making your presence patent."

" 'Tis a trifle cold to run about naked at this sea­son," Thorolf said. "But why asked he not the Count­ess? She knows how I gained access to's stronghold, and the spirit possessing her would have compelled her to answer true."

"Another mystery, son. He did so question her, we are told, whereupon she was stricken with muteness. Not a word hath she spoken since."

"Some spell!" said Thorolf. "Yvette normally talks as a horse gallops."

"Like that fellow in Helmanax's play who saith a woman who keeps on talking can always get her way, eh? Our informant reports that Orlandus contemplates torture to wring the true answers from her. Forsooth, how gat ye into that pile and out again?"

Thorolf grinned. "When Sophonomy be expunged, I'll tell you all. Meanwhile I'm happy to learn you have able spies in the castle. Double-bolt your doors of nights, and farewell!"

Again, Thorolf stood before the little creeper-masked cliff concealing the tunnel entrance. This time he had come with his pack well laden, trying to anticipate every contingency. He glanced at the sun, hanging low on the mountain peaks. Since he planned to invade the castle at night, he sat and ate, killing time to wait for dark­ness.

At last he rose, brushed crumbs from his hands, and pushed open the stony door. He paused at the entrance; his old panic surged back. Sweat beaded his brow de­spite the near-freezing temperature. Then he thought of Yvette's slender members stretched on some infernal device, while Orlandus hovered, murmuring in his ole­aginous voice:

"Now, my dear, you need only answer a few simple questions ..."

Thorolf squared his jaw and marched into the cavity. He paused to ignite a rushlight from his pack, to close the door behind him, and to change from his heavy boots to goatskin slippers, which he himself had made to enable himself to move in silence.

Thorolf lost time by mistakenly entering a wrong side tunnel but finally found the opening to the Chamber of Audience in Zurshnitt Castle. Looking through the tear in the canvas, he saw that the room was dimly lit by a single candle. He watched, he estimated, a full half-hour. Nobody entered the chamber.

The candle burned slowly down; in another hour it would gutter out. Thorolf would never let one of his soldiers forget a burning candle! Such carelessness risked a conflagration; besides, candles cost money, which the colonel had to extract, with much effort, from the Senate and ultimately from the Rhaetian taxpayers.

Thorolf dropped his pack on the floor, cast off his cloak, and unrolled a bundle of yellow cloth. This was the robe of the dead invisible diaphane. He put on the robe, pulled the hood over his head, and lowered him­self through the opening.

The painting swung back; Thorolf caught it before it struck the wall and let it gently complete its swing. For an instant he stood on the balls of his feet, listening. The only sounds were the tramp of sentries on the foot-walk atop the outer wall, punctuated by challenges and passwords. He thought he could hear a snore, but the sound was too faint to be sure of.

He slowly drew his sword. The blade came silently, because he had stuffed pinches of moss into the scab­bard. He bolted the left-hand door and stepped to the door on the right. This, if his sketch was correct, should lead to the row of cubicles that included Yvette's bed­chamber.

When he opened the door to the corridor parallel to that wherein he had chased Yvette the other time, the hall stretched dimly away. At the far end, a wall bracket supported a little lamp, the feeble light of which cast yellow highlights on the metal door handles. Behind those doors, presumably, slept the upper ranks of the diaphanes.

Thorolf stole down the corridor almost to its end. He counted the doors on his right; there were twelve. At the eleventh he halted; if he had his directions straight, this should be Yvette's room.

He gently tried the door handle. It turned with a mousey squeak. Thorolf peered into the crack and found the room in darkness.

On tiptoe, Thorolf let himself in, leaving the door a little ajar to furnish light. The cubicle was tiny; the bed, a small night table, a chair, and a little wardrobe left hardly space for the occupant to move about. Thorolf froze at the discovery that the bed was empty.

He bent, groping for the pillow. The bed had been occupied since it was last made. Thorolf laid his sword on the bed and sat down, thinking. After a moment he rose and examined the wardrobe. The room was cer­tainly Yvette's. There hung, among other garments, the beaded golden gown she had worn on their aborted as­signation at the Green Dragon.

Thinking she had possibly risen to visit the jakes, Thorolf sat back on the bed and waited. After half an hour, he was sure that she had departed on some other errand. Could it be that Parthenius had persuaded Orlandus to bend her to his lustful desires? The very thought infuriated Thorolf; but after his previous raid he had better sense than to go charging about the castle at random, sword in hand.

Another half-hour passed before he heard soft foot­steps outside. In came Yvette in a nightrobe and dress­ing gown, carrying a candlestick whose candle shed a cheerful yellow glow across the unmade bed. When she saw Thorolf she halted, staring blankly.

Thorolf sprang up. With a sweeping motion he grabbed the candlestick, blew out the candle, and tossed the holder on the bed. Then he caught Yvette by the shoulders, whirled her around, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

She bit his hand, causing him to release his grip for an instant; but instead of uttering a shriek for help she emitted only an inarticulate, "Mmm! Mmm!"

He had come prepared to gag her; but apparently this would not be needed, since she still was under the spell of muteness. Like a frightened animal she tried to punch and scratch him. But he pinned her slender arms, re­trieved his sword, and hustled her out. He dragged her at a near-run the length of the corridor and into the Chamber of Audience. As he closed and bolted the door behind him, Yvette struggled silently to break free.

He faced a problem. To hold the picture out from the wall and boost the Countess into the aperture, he would need both hands and some cooperation. But if he re­leased her, she would try to run to Orlandus and thwart his efforts at abduction.

At last he sheathed his sword and brought out of the pocket in his robe a strip of cloth with which he had meant to bind or gag Yvette. He held her slender wrists in the grip of one broad hand, bound the cloth around them, and released her, holding the free end as she continued to strain away from him.

Through the left-hand door Orlandus called: "Open up, here!"

Thorolf hauled Yvette over to the picture and pulled it out from the wall. But how to get his recalcitrant victim into the hole?

Holding the picture away from the wall with his head, he clamped both hands on her slender waist, prepara­tory to heaving her up and in. Then he heard the sounds of a chant, followed by the clank of a withdrawn bolt.

Thorolf whirled. In the doorway stood Orlandus in a nightrobe, below which his shanks and feet were bare and above which his scalp was bald save for a narrow fringe of mouse-colored hair. Evidently the Psycho-mage was wizard enough to force a door to unbolt it­self, even if not enough to grow hair on his pate, which Thorolf had always seen concealed beneath a wig of glossy black.

"Who the devil—" began the Psychomagus, starting forward. Then he checked. "Sergeant Thorolf again, I see. And wearing one of our habits!"

Thorolf's attention was distracted long enough for Yvette to whirl out of his grasp and run toward Orlan­dus, trailing the strip of cloth by which Thorolf had tried to control her.

As the Countess approached Orlandus, the cultist threw an arm around her. With his other hand he whisked a dagger out of his robe and placed the edge against her throat.

"Yield!" said Orlandus. "Or your jade's dinner for my hounds!"

Thorolf measured the distance between himself and the pair. He could doubtless whip out his sword, cross the distance in two bounds, and smite Orlandus to earth. But it would take even less time for the Psychomagus to slash open that slender neck.

"Throw down your sword, scabbard and all, unless you're fain to see her weazand slit!" barked Orlandus.

Thorolf hesitated, frantically weighing alternatives. Then he took the one that seemed to offer the likeliest chance. He hoisted his baldric over his head and, stoop­ing, laid the belt and scabbard on the floor, at the same time easing his dagger from its sheath.

When he straightened up, the dagger was in his right hand, away from Orlandus. It was a sizable weapon, weighted for throwing, and he threw. The fact that Or­landus was a full head taller than Yvette gave Thorolf a reasonable target.

He hoped to drive the blade into the magician's eye. Instead the dagger, turning in its flight, buried itself in Orlandus' shoulder. The mage's right arm sagged, and his dagger clattered to the floor.

Thorolf scooped up his scabbarded sword, drew, and leaped toward his enemy. The cultist, releasing Yvette to reach for his dagger with his unwounded arm, cried:

"Hold! Be reasonable, man! Think of what I offer you—"

As he spoke, Orlandus abandoned his quest for his dagger and, beginning an incantation, backed hastily away from the charging Thorolf. Unaware of his direc­tion, the cultist backed, not out the door, but into the frame of one of the diamond-paned windows. The case­ment flew open at the impact of the magician's shoul­ders, and Orlandus fell out backward. Thorolf glimpsed the mage's bare feet inverted and heard a hoarse cry. Then came the sound of a body striking the bailey be­low.

Thorolf put his head out the window. He could see nothing in the darkness; but the cry and the thud of the fall had alerted the guards on the outer wall. One called:

"What was that? ... Let us go down for a look ..."

Yvette stood with her hands still bound behind her, looking dazed. Thorolf said: "Are you free from the spell, Countess?"

She stared at him but made no answer.

Evidently she was not yet free. Thorolf sheathed his blade, donned his baldric, and carried Yvette over to the picture. This time he hoisted her, unhelpful but un­resisting, into the tunnel and scrambled after her. As the picture swung back into place, shouts and clatter of armed men came through the canvas, together with a curious intermittent hiss, like the sound of a monster breathing.

Thorolf knew he should flee without pause, but his curiosity proved too great. Placing his eye to the tear in the canvas, he saw two of Orlandus' mailed guards glancing wildly about the room. One, just then peering under the divan, bore a halberd; the other carried a cylindrical device with a handle at one end, while the other end tapered to a slender orifice. The guard was rhythmically pulling the handle out and pushing it back in. With each push, a pillowy puff of flour spouted from the orifice. The clouds of flour dust rapidly fogged the room until vision was useless.

Smiling quietly, Thorolf picked up his pack and cloak and herded Yvette down the tunnel.