«Curse?»

«Or so our Kaireens-the Learned Ones-say. They say the gods have cursed those of Trawn with a poison in the earth under their feet. It is a poison that rises from the earth into the water they drink and the flesh and fruit they eat.»

«They look healthy enough,» said Blade.

«Oh, it is not a poison that twists their limbs or blinds their eyes. It poisons their very souls so that they love cruelty and pain. They cannot understand any people who do not love these evils.»

Blade nodded, mentally translating Neena's description into more scientific language. It sounded like soil chemicals or parasites that either infected the whole population or caused enough genetic damage to produce hereditary mental disorders in the whole population.

But if this element was in the soil or water-

«How long does it take for the poison to work?» said Blade.

Neena shrugged. «No one seems to know. The people of Trawn have been like this since we in Draad have known of their existence. You fear we may be poisoned if we stay long here?»

«Yes.»

«So do I. But I think we shall not be here long-at least not alive. You agree?»

Blade nodded.

«Good. Then we have little to fear from the poison, unless it works very swiftly indeed. Of course, if you do start asking the guards for a whip to flog me, I will know that it is working in you. Otherwise I shall not lose any sleep over it.»

They both laughed, and Neena began to try combing out her long dark hair with her fingers. She grimaced as she worked through the mass of snags, knots, and tangles that her hair had become.

Blade watched her as she worked, noting her sure movements, the play of expression on her pixieish face, the graceful lift of her breasts. She had both wits and wit, and she had lost neither in being captured. She would be as good an ally as he could expect, and far better than he'd dared hope for.

Blade and Neena settled down to manage as comfortably as they could hope to under the circumstances. Food and water were lowered from the doorway in buckets twice a day. There was enough food to satisfy half a dozen people, and enough water to allow for some washing. Blade left most of the washing water for Neena, since a daily scrub seemed to improve her spirits.

The food was not exactly gourmet cooking. It consisted largely of heavily spiced stews of root vegetables, with large chunks of salted meat or fish thrown in about every third meal. It made Blade thirstier than ever, but also filled him comfortably. He was sure that on this diet he could keep up his strength as long as necessary.

«That's probably the idea,» was Neena's comment. «You must be kept strong to make a prime slave. Even if they do torture you to death in the end, you will last longer and make a better show if you are strong.» There was no need to say why their captors were keeping her strong. At least once a day the guards reminded them that King Furzun liked his women strong enough to put up a fight when he took them.

No one seemed concerned about the captives' escaping, or paid any attention to what Blade had done with the grating. Still, they took as few chances as possible. They spent only a few minutes each day in the tunnel. Each time they passed through the grating, Blade pulled the loose bars roughly back into place and held them there with globs of mud. In the dim light, the grating looked almost intact.

They never left the grating and tunnel unwatched, though. Somehow they had to find out just exactly how wide that mysterious gap might be. Blade would cheerfully have promised anything to anybody in return for fifteen minutes in the tunnel with a good torch.

As Blade expected, Neena found the waiting hard. From his own years as an agent he was used to waiting, like a cat in front of the hole of a very lazy mouse. Neena, on the other hand, was a royal lady, proud and impatient as a thoroughbred race horse. Several times a day she would spring up and stride around and around the prison like a caged tiger, until sheer exhaustion brought her to a stop.

Blade himself soon began to wonder how much longer they would have to wait. From the number of meals served, they'd already been here over a week. Lord Desgo seemed to have forgotten their existence, and as for King Furzun, it seemed that he had never even heard of them.

Chapter 8

«Blade, Blade-wake up»

Neena's voice cut into Blade's sleep. He struggled awake, rolled over, and sat up.

«What-?» he grunted, as he drove the fog of sleep out of his mind. Neena only pointed at the grating and the tunnel beyond it. Suddenly Blade was not only awake but alert, and he saw what Neena meant.

Far down inside the tunnel was a flickering orange glow. Wherever it was and whatever it was, it was bright enough so that the bars of the grating threw shadows on the floor of the prison chamber. That glow must be illuminating the entire inside of the tunnel. Blade got down on hands and knees, and scrambled quickly and quietly toward the grating.

A few quick jerks, and the way was open. Blade crawled through, Neena following him. In the tunnel they rose to a crouch and headed downward as fast as they could. The orange glow grew stronger as they moved.

They came to the gap. The glow showed it clearly, and the tunnel beyond. The actual source of the light lay well beyond the gap, about where Blade had seen gray daylight trickling through. Now an enormous fire was burning above, flooding the tunnel with its glow. Blade could hear the distant roar and crackle of the flames and feel puffs and waves of warm air on his skin.

Blade turned his attention to the gap that yawned at his feet, and plunged away into the depths. The blackness in the shaft below swallowed even the fire's glow after a few yards.

The width, on the other hand-Blade looked, and cursed. The far side of the gap was just under twenty-five feet away.

Damn, damn, damn-damn ten times over! A yard less, and Blade would have gladly attempted the leap. The earth on both edges was firm, and there was plenty of room overhead.

As it was, the gap was just a little too wide for him to have more than a slim chance of making it safely. A chance much too slim to be worth risking, when the price of failure was a three-hundred foot plunge to certain death in the musty darkness far below.

As he'd suspected, the tunnel wasn't going to be a very good escape route. As a hiding place for moments of privacy, it was fine. As a route to a quick and merciful death it was even better. But for the moment Blade's mind was more on escaping. He suspected Neena's was the same.

He noticed that she was staring out across the gap, apparently measuring it with her eyes. Then she turned to him.

«Blade. Can you leap that?»

Blade slowly shook his head. «Not with much hope of landing safely.»

She nodded. «Neither could I. But if you-well, threw me just as I leaped-«Again she measured the distance with her eyes. «I am light, and you look very strong. I think it could be done.»

Blade frowned. «But then?»

«If we had a rope and a stake, I could push the stake into the dirt and tie the rope to it. Then I could throw the other end of the rope back to you, and you could swing across and climb out on the other side.»

That seemed perfectly logical and sensible to Blade. Except-

«One of the bars from the grating will do for the stake. As for the rope-«She smiled and shook her head. «There I admit we have a problem.» She pulled out a few strands of her dark hair and looked at them, then dropped them into the shaft and watched them as they floated down out of sight. «No, that will not do. Not even if I made myself as bald as a koba nut could I make a proper rope of my hair.»

There was undoubtedly plenty of stout rope in Trawn. But all of it was outside their prison chamber. Damn again!