"Am I to be tortured again?" he asked, piteously.

"I do not know," I said.

"Kill me," he whispered.

"No," I said.

He moaned.

I looked on that small, trembling, skeletal body, the straggly hair, the sores; the mutilated ear; angrily I rose to my feet and searched about, finding some loose stone which, with my foot, I wedged into the several crevices through which the urts had darted.

Unbelievingly the prisoner with his sunken eyes, now accustoming themselves to the light of the torch, regarded me.

I returned to him; beneath the iron on his ankles and wrists, and on his throat, there were scars, like white bands, pale shadows of the dark metal; it would take months to form such scars, superseding the fearful sores that must first have been inflicted.

"Why have you come?" he asked.

"It is Kajuralia," I said to him, simply.

I held the bottle to him.

"Kajuralia?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

He began to laugh, softly, hoarsely. "I was right," he said. "I was right."

"I do not understand," I said.

He began to suck at the bottle. There were few teeth left in his mouth; most had rotted and, apparently, snapped away, or had been broken off by him and discarded.

I forcibly drew the bottle from his mouth. I had no wish that he killed himself on the paga. I did not know what its shock would be to his system, after apparently months of torture, confinement, fear, poor food, the water, the urts.

"I was right," he said, nodding his head.

"About what?" I asked.

"That today was Kajuralia," said he.

He then indicated behind himself, on the wall, a large number of tiny, regularly formed scratches in the stone, perhaps cut there by a pebble or the edge of the tin drinking dish. He indicated the last of the scratches. "That is Kajuralia," he said.

"Oh," I said, regarding his crude calendar. There were a very large number of scratches.

"Like any other day," he laughed.

I let him have another small swig at the paga bottle.

"Somedays," he said, "I was not sure that I marked the wall, and then I would forget; sometimes I feared I had marked it twice."

"You were accurate," I said, regarding the carefully drawn scratches, the rows methodically laid out, the months, the five-day weeks, the passage hands.

I counted back the rows. Then I said, pointing to the first scratch. "This is the first day of En'Kara before the last En'Kara."

The toothless mouth twisted into a grin, the sunken eyes wrinkled with pleasure. "Yes," he said, "the first day of En'Kara, 10,118, more than a year ago."

"It was before I came to the House of Cernus," I said, my voice trembling.

I gave him another drink of the paga.

"Your calendar is well kept," I said. "Worthy of a Scribe."

"I am a Scribe," said the man. He reached under himself to hold forth for my inspection a shred of damp, rotted blue cloth, the remains of what had once been his robes.

"I know," I said.

"My name is Caprus," he said.

"I know," I said.

I heard a laugh behind me, and spun. Standing in the doorway, four guards armed with crossbows with him, stood Cernus, of the House of Cernus. With him also was the guard to whom I had given the paga. In the background I could see the lean Scribe whom I had thought for these many months to be Caprus. He was grinning.

The men stepped within the room.

"Do not draw your weapon," said Cernus.

I smiled. It would have been foolish to do so. The four men with crossbows leveled their weapons on me. At his distance the bolts would pass through my body, shattering against the stones behind me.

The guard to whom I had first given paga came over to Caprus and tore the bottle from his hand. Then, with the sleeve of his tunic, the guard distastefully wiped the rim of the bottle. "You were to have returned this paga to me," said the guard, "were you not?"

"It is yours," I said, "you have earned it."

The man laughed and drank.

"You, Killer," said Cernus, mocking, "would never make a Player."

"Apparently it is true," I said.

"Chain him," said Cernus.

One of the guards, putting his crossbow in the hall, brought forth heavy steel manacles. My hands were thrown behind my back. I felt the heavy steel close on my wrists.

"May I introduce to you, Caprus," said Cernus, looking down at the piteous chained figure by the wall, "Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba?"

I stood stunned.

"Tarl Cabot," I said, numbly, "was slain in Ko-ro-ba."

"No," said Cernus, "the Warrior Sandros of Thentis was slain in Ko-ro-ba."

I looked at him.

"Sandros thought he was to be your Assassin," said Cernus. "It was for that purpose he thought himself sent to Ko-ro-ba. Actually he was sent there to die himself by the knife of a killer. His resemblance to a certain Koroban Warrior, perhaps Tarl Cabot, would make it seem clear, in the darkness of the night, that the knife had been intended for that Warrior, and a convenient clue, a patch of green, would lead to Ar, and doubtless then to the House of Cernus."

I could not speak.

"Sandros was a fool," said Cernus. "He was sent to Ko-ro-ba only to be slain, that you would be lured to this house, where in effect you have been my prisoner for more than a year."

"There must be some reason why you would want me here?" I said.

"Let us not jest, Tarl Cabot," said Cernus. "We knew that Priest-Kings would suspect our House, as we intended that they should; so simple a ruse, and profitable a one, as selling barbarian Earth girls under the auspices of the House, would guarantee their investigation. For this investigation, they would need men. Surely they would wish, if possible, to choose a man such as Tarl Cabot."

"You play well," I said.

Cernus smiled. "And to guarantee that it should be Tarl Cabot, whom we know, and with whom we, so to speak, have an old score to settle, the matter of the egg of Priest-Kings, we sent Sandros of Thentis to Ko-ro-ba where he, poor fool, was to be slain in your stead, that you should be brought here."

"You play brilliantly," said I.

Cernus laughed. "And so we arranged to have you arrive in our house, the trusted spy and agent of Priest-Kings, who would thus think themselves moving secretly and intelligently against us. And here, while we have through the months advanced our cause you have stood by, patiently and cooperatively, a dupe and a fool, our guarantee that Priest-Kings would not send another."

Cernus threw back his head and laughed.

"You speak of 'we' and 'our cause'," I said.

Cernus looked on me, unpleasantly. "Do not mock me," said he, "Warrior." He looked at me then and smiled. "I serve those who are not Priest-Kings."

I nodded.

"It is war, Tarl Cabot," said he. "And there will be no quarter given." He smiled. "Not then, nor now."

I nodded once more, accepting his words. I had fought. I had lost.

"Will you kill me?" I asked.

"I have an amusing fate in store for you," said Cernus, "which I have considered these many months."

"What?" I asked.

"But first," said Cernus, "we must not forget the little beauty."

I stiffened.

"Sura reports that she has trained superbly, that she is now capable of giving the most exquisite of pleasures to a master."

I tensed in the manacles.

"I understand she expects, with the other two barbarians, to be purchased by an agent of Priest-Kings, and carried to safety and freedom."

I looked at him angrily.

"I expect," said Cernus, "that she will put on an excellent performance."

I wished that I might break the steel from my wrists and seize his throat.

"It should be worth seeing," said Cernus. "I will see that you have a chance to see it."

I choked with rage.

"What is the matter?" asked Cernus, concerned. "Do you not wish to see the little beauty presenting herself on the block. I expect she, with the others, will bring much gold to the House of Cernus, which we may then invest in our cause." He laughed. "It will be time enough, afterward," said he, "for her to learn that she has been truly sold."