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handle.
As he lifted it, he felt a slight resistance. Too late he noticed a thin cord
trailing from the bottom of the basket, a yellow cord that plunged away into
the depths of the shaft. Damn! He had probably just given a signal to some
watcher down below.
Well, if the damage was done, he might as well at least find out what was in
the basket. It took a good deal of time and some raw fingers before he could
get the lid off. Inside the basket he found a circular loaf of bread and a
half a dozen dried salt fish.
Blade stared at the bread and fish for a moment. His stomach set up a rumbling
like an exploding gasworks to remind him of how hungry he was. Fine. It looked
like they wanted to provide him with a meal. And for prison food, it didn't
look too bad.
But he wasn't that hungry yet, and he was suspicious. Carefully he picked up
the bread and began examining it for what? He didn't know exactly what he was
looking for. His suspicions were formless, almost instinctive. But he had
learned to trust those instincts of his. And once more he was right.
In the bottom of the loaf, where a casual and hungry diner would never see it,
was a small, neat hole.
It was not the kind of hole left in the crust of a loaf of bread by the
baking. Blade held the loaf up to his eye and looked at it narrowly.
Definitely something long and hollow had been pushed into the bread.
Blade picked up a handful of the seaweed from his bed and carefully wrapped it
around his hands.
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Then even more carefully, he broke the loaf in two, trying to make the break
at the hole.
The bread broke somewhat raggedly. With narrowed eyes, Blade examined each
piece in turn.
Yes. Very faintly, so faintly that a man not looking for it would never have
found it, the bread around the hole was discolored. The discoloration was
faintly yellowish, like a saffron stain. Holding his breath, Blade brought the
stained area close to his nose, then took in a quick breath. The odor was as
faint as the color. If he hadn't been looking for it, he would probably never
have detected it.
Blade looked sourly at the fish, and his stomach rumbled again. It was very
tempting to assume that whatever drug he was supposed to get was in the bread
only. But the stain in the bread could be like the old trick of putting an
easily visible microphone in a bugged room. Someone who was wary but not quite
wary enough would rip out the "bait" microphone and then talk freely right
into another microphone lurking somewhere else: The Fishmen could be expecting
him to detect the drugged bread, then gobble himself into a stupor on the
fish.
With a sigh he put the cover back on the basket and carried it over to the
seaweed bed. Hands still wrapped in the weed, he carefully buried the bread
and fish away under the weeds. Then he overturned
the basket and lay down on the bed. He wished he knew exactly what reaction
the drug was supposed to produce. Finally he managed to contrive what seemed
like a good imitation of someone who had sprawled unconscious, arms and legs
flung out and breathing slow and shallow. It would have taken a keen observer
to notice that his head was turned slightly toward the pool in the center of
the chamber, and the eyes in that head were slightly open.
The guard at the lower end of the shaft waited for a full hour after the
broken end of the basket's cord came drifting slowly down through the water.
Then he summoned the Lady Alanyra.
She came as fast as she could flash through the water, not waiting to call her
guards or even send word to Oknyr. She wore only her war garb, for speed and
agility. But she carried her Robe of
Ceremony in a pouch on her back. To question the Stranger was indeed a
ceremony, one that might be the salvation of her people. Even of the
Talgarans, perhaps, although she knew of none to whom she could confess that
last hope.
She was brisk with the guard.
"Has there been any sound or movement from above?"
"None at all, Noble Lady. The Truth-Finder must be deep within him now. All is
silent."
"Good." She pulled the pouch off her back and took out the robe. The warrior
frowned.
"You would go to this prisoner alone?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]