Part 10 (1/2)

Slowly, as a thaw spreads in spring over the broad Nadian ice fields, Retoc smiled at his second in command. Hultax too let his face relax into a grateful grin: until now he had been teetering on the brink of violent death, and he knew it.

”You may mount,” Retoc said.

Hastily Hultax climbed astride his stad. Retoc lifted his arm overhead and made a circular motion with his outstretched hand. The first of the Abarian stads advanced with some reluctance into the swift cold shallow water of the stream.

”What about the white giant?” Hultax asked unwisely when the entire party had reached the other side and Retoc was urging his stad up the slippery bank.

”Have your scouts been able to find the wayfarers who saw him?”

”No, sire. Only the girl nursed him back to health. The others fled.”

”And wisely. They have learned to hold their tongues, as you should learn, Hultax. They will give us no trouble. As far as they are concerned, there is no white giant.”

”But there is talk of what happened at the Tower, and of Portox'

wizardry, and a G.o.d who would return, full-grown in exactly a hundred years--”

”Shut up!” Retoc cried, almost screaming the words.

But that night at the Abarian encampment a day and a half's march from Nadia city, Retoc dreamed of Queen Evalla, the lovely Ofridian ruler whose slow death by torture he had relished as the final act of his utter destruction of the once proud Ofridian nation. Evalla in the dream seemed happy and confident. Retoc awoke sweating although frigid winds howled over the Nadian ice-fields. Her confidence sent unknown fear through him.

”Really, it's quite simple,” the superbly-muscled prisoner said in the language which was not his own but which he could speak as well as a native. ”You see, it wasn't simple at all until I saw what was in the package, but it's quite simple now. In the package was a picture of my mother, the dead Queen Evalla. I am her son. I am of the royal blood.

When I saw the picture, it suddenly triggered my memory-responses, as Portox had arranged. Then--”

”What about the old guy in the well?” the trooper asked unimaginatively.

”I'm sorry. I can't answer your questions now. I have to return to my home. The handful of wayfarers who alone are left of a once great nation are waiting for vengeance. I will....”

His voice trailed on, earnestly, politely. The trooper looked at the man from the state mental hospital, who shook his head slowly. They left the powerful, polite prisoner in his cell and went through the corridor to the prison office.

”Real weirdy, huh, doc?” the trooper said.

”A--uh--weirdy to you, but rather cut and dry to me, I'm afraid,” Dr.

Slonamn said. ”Delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution.

Advanced paranoia, I'm afraid.”

”It's funny, doc. When they took everything away from him he might hurt himself with, he didn't mind at all. Only the bracelet. Three strong men had to hold him when they took the bracelet.”

”Bracelet?” Dr. Slonamn said.

”We got it in the office. I'll show you.”

The bracelet turned out to be a small, mesh-metal strap as wide around as a big man's upper arm. Attached to the strap was a disc of silvery metal.

”You'd think it was worth a million bucks,” the trooper said.