Part 15 (2/2)

”And at that, the silly old coot yelled something about his mission,” Mary-Dedra said, ”and came charging up here before we knew what we were about! Now, if you please, we'll be chucking him out the front gate.”

Dionket the Healer said, ”First, we'd better hear what he wants.”

”Let him speak, Minnie,” said Peredeyr Firstcomer.

”But keep a firm hold on the rest of him,” said Meyn the Unsleeping.

The friar, still immobile from the neck down, licked his lips and cleared his throat. He fixed his eyes on Leilani-Tegveda the Fairbrowed and said, ”Am I addressing the Grand Master Elizabeth Orme?”

”I am she,” said a much less imposing woman who wore a severe black gown.

The paralysed priest looked somewhat relieved. In spite of his ludicrous posture, he spoke with dignity. ”My name is Anatoly Severinovich Gorchakov and I am a brother of the Order of Friars Minor. Your friend Amerie Roccaro has sent me to be your spiritual adviser.”

Elizabeth stared at him, speechless.

”You can turn me loose now,” Brother Anatoly told Minanonn. ”I'll go back peaceably to my supper and you can get on with your conference.” He said to Elizabeth, ”I just wanted you to know that I'll be waiting when you're ready for me.”

Minanonn looked at Elizabeth, who nodded.

The coercive grip faded. Anatoly lowered his foot, unclenched his hands, and resettled his rope belt. He managed a rather sketchy sign of the cross. ”When you're ready,” he repeated, then turned and walked out the door.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The very first visit of the ghastly houri to Tony Wayland had come closest to being the final one.

Half-mad with fear and still befuddled by his interrogation at the hands of Their Awful Majesties Sharn and Ayfa, Tony had been certain that only torture and death awaited him. He was astonished but not inclined to ask questions when the seductive creature entered his cell in the dungeon at High Vrazel. Perhaps she was there to provoke him with fresh treasons against humanity; perhaps she was merely the Firvulag equivalent of a last cigarette for the condemned. Whatever ... she was lissome and lubricious, more or less humanly proportioned, and although her coal-black skin and scarlet hair and ecu betrayed her exotic origins, he never would have suspected the truth. He had already embraced her, and was well on the way to the point of no return, when doom was averted in a most unlikely way.

Karbree the Worm, the giant who had captured him, came tramping into the dungeon and hammered on the cell's wooden door with both mailed fists, bellowing: ”Skathe! I know you're in there, you snaggle-c.u.n.t ramaf.u.c.ker! Ha-ha! Bad luck for you, comrade! We're off to Goriah right now.”

This demonic charivari having deflated all Tony's amorous aspirations, the houri leaped off him with a screech of rage and cursed the laughing monster on the other side of the door.

”Don't blame me, sweeting,” Karbree cooed. A slitted green eye glinted in the door's peephole. ”It was Sharn and Ayfa's decision. They want emissaries on the spot as soon as possible after Nodonn fries the brains of the Lowlife usurper. We're to press him for the return of our sacred Sword before he manages to think of some reason to repudiate the bargain he made with us. The royals command that we leave High Vrazel within the hour-so forget that unholy experiment of yours, and get your a.s.s armoured and hopping!”

The houri leaned over Tony, curtaining him in glorious hair.

Her hands caressed his pectorals. ”Later, dear Tonee,” she whispered, letting one blood-red fingernail trace a line from his sternum to his navel. He felt the cell whirl about him. She kissed him with lips that tasted of strawberries, and for one split second he believed she was his abandoned, goblin wife and cried: ”Rowane, don't go!”

Then the illusion vanished and he uttered a sob of horror.

Standing over him, her head grazing the stone ceiling, was the appalling ogress official called the Dreadful Skathe. She grinned, showing a mouthful of tusks like crooked ivory daggers.

”Pretty good, was I?” She chucked Tony under the chin. Her fist was ham-sized, and the tickling finger had a talon that would have done credit to a firebacked eagle. ”Let's see now,” the monster mused. ”I don't see any reason why we can't take you with us. We'll be travelling fast and light on this f.u.c.king royal mission, but you can ride pillion. We'll find our magic moment somewhere along the way.”

For more than two sleepless days, the Firvulag heroes and their human supernumerary travelled west, halting only to exchange ruined chalikos for fresh ones. Then news of Nodonn's defeat reached them at Burask, and the original mission was aborted.

Hoping to resume her interrupted experiment, Skathe booked an expensive suite at the best hotel in town, which had been the local pleasure dome when Burask belonged to the Tanu.

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