Despite myself, my mouth went dry. I would need to be a fool in truth not to see what was coming. He said, quietly and without undue coldness, and with none of Zrenn’s excitement, “I shall begin by cutting off your right hand, my Vazkor. I shall then be able to discover for myself, as indeed will you, to what extent your body is able to reproduce its tissues. Later, I will put out your eyes, extract your tongue, and sever your windpipe. If you survive so much, my physicians shall remove your inner parts. You may, naturally, die of shock before we can proceed so far. If you live and are able to repair—which is a debatable and curious thought—it may be that I shall reinstate you as my underling. It would be shortsighted not to retain such a prize—an entirely invulnerable champion.”

A terror like black worms oozed up my throat, but I would not let him see it take hold of me. I said, “When you are on your deathbed, Erran, pray that you never meet me in the place you are going to.”

He made a gesture that cried, Ah, the savage is back in him. What is this nonsense of meetings and afterlife? Aloud, he said only, “We begin at dawn tomorrow. For tonight you shall be brought food and liquor, women, if you want. Enjoy your senses while you have them.”

The sunset dulled to magenta behind the thick panes of the western window, yet speared in bright orange flashes through eyelets of broken crystal.

This strange and contrasted patterning was a result of the handiwork I had been putting in on the window with a bench, a table, the bronze-ware cups and jug. To no avail. The leading held, the glass sugared into fragments, none of them large enough to furnish a weapon.

Long before the sun went down, constructing its ominous sorcery of color with the casement, I had consigned myself to an assortment of grim alternatives. That I should come on some fighting means unexpectedly during this last night, or that tomorrow I could ask for the barber to shave me before Erran’s guard arrived, forcibly borrow his razors and do some business with them. Other wild thoughts ran about my skull. I might tempt in the sentries who had been set outside my door; they were bronzes, partial to wine . . . a sword snatched, a break made—I should be trapped and slain, no other thing seemed possible, but not chopped up for death like a piece of butcher’s meat that still lived, and some should go with me. Then, too, I think I dreamed I might escape them, knowing I dreamed it.

The window became somber and the wind came through where I had damaged it.

An hour after sundown, the door was opened. A silver captain and ten bronze guards entered to supervise the setting of my dinner by two cloth-masks. With perverse generosity, Erran had sent me excellent fare. When the men had gone, I ate some of it, thinking to fatten myself for bravado, but the taste was dust and ashes, and the meal soon abandoned.