At length they reached the proper Level and emerged into a Corridor identical to the one they had quit above, save that here the walls were painted a drab green. They waited while the daggam snuffed the torch and placed it in the niche in this landing.

  There was more activity on this Level. Men and women passed them going in either direction and the low hum of distant conversations filled the air like a tidal wash. Perhaps two hundred metres from where they emerged, they came upon a door painted dark green. All the others they had seen on this Level were the same colour as the walls. Before the door stood two daggam.

  A brief, muffled exchange passed between the four daggam. The shorter of the pair guarding the door nodded curtly, turned, and rapped a peculiar pattern on the door. It was opened by another daggam, and the messengers and Stahlig stepped through. Ronin moved to join them but was stopped short by the palm of one of the guards pressed against his chest. The daggam's jaw jutted. 'Where you goin'?' His voice managed to sound bored and contemptuous at the same time.

  'I am with the Medicine Man.' Ronin met his eyes with a steady gaze. He saw a round, jowly face too large for the small, fat nose and close-set eyes the colour of mud. But, thought Ronin, an efficient machine that will respond instantly and unfailingly to orders. I have seen so many.

  The square mouth with its thick red lips opened like a reluctant gate. 'Don't know anything 'bout it. Move along 'fore you get into trouble.'

  Ronin felt the pressure from the other's hand and stood his ground. Surprise showed briefly in the daggam's eyes: he was used to a certain response to the application of his power. He recognized fear in others easily, loved creating it, seeing it burn before him as if it were a sacrifice. He saw no fear now, and this disturbed him. Anger flared within him, and his fingers plucked at the top dagger strapped across his chest.

  Ronin's hand was on the hilt of his sword when a face appeared from around the still partially open door. 'Stahlig, you absentminded - '

  The Medicine Man's eyes widened. 'Ronin. Wondered where you were. Come along in.'

  Ronin stepped forward but the daggam still barred his way. The daggam, anger still beating within him, shook his head, and the blade of the dagger gleamed in the Corridor's light.

  At that moment Robin saw another face appear. Long and lean with a cleft jaw filled with determi­nation, a very high, narrow forehead topped by coal-black hair so slick and shiny it had blue highlights, it was dominated by wide-apart eyes of a clear piercing blue, whose penetrating gaze appeared to take in everything while giving away nothing.

  'Qieto, Marcsh. Let the fellow through.' The voice was deep and commanding.

  Marcsh heard the words and automatically moved aside, but the anger refused to die, beating ineffectually at the cage of his burly chest. He glared in silent resentment as the figure moved past him, careful that his Saardin should not see, and thus punish him.

  Ronin found himself in an antechamber off which he saw two rooms set at angles. The one on his left was furnished starkly and functionally with a large work table and smallish writing desk along one wall, and a narrow bed along the opposite wall. The room was dark but he could make out a figure sprawled on the bed. Battered and scarred cabinets lined the upper areas of three walls. A lone chair squatted empty in the middle of the cubicle.

  The room to the right was less utilitarian. Two walls were lined with low couches and cushioned chairs. The daggam, including the two who had been sent for Stahlig, sat on the couch farthest from the door, amid a meal. In the anteroom two more daggam stood flanking Stahlig and the man who commanded the daggam. Ronin thought they must have torn down some walls in order to make these quarters. Two-cubicle quarters were rare enough Upshaft, but Down here -

  'Ah, Ronin,' said the Medicine Man. 'This is Freidal, Saardin of Security for the Freehold.'

  Freidal inclined his long body from the waist in a gesture that was somehow theatrical. He did not smile, and his eyes were blank beacons that studied Ronin for another brief moment before he returned his gaze to Stahlig. They resumed their discussion.

  Freidal was dressed all in deep grey save for the knee-high boots of the Saardin and the oblique chest stripes of the Chondrin, both of which were silver. Ronin wondered at this: overlord and tacti­cian, eyes and ears, all rolled into one.

  'Nevertheless,' he was saying now, 'do you take responsibility for this man being here?'

  'Ach!' Stahlig rubbed his forehead. 'Do you think he will walk out with Borros? Nonsense.'

  Freidal eyed the Medicine Man coldly. 'Sir, there is much here that is of the gravest import to the Freehold.' The brass hilts of his daggers winked in the light as he shifted easily. 'I cannot take unnecessary risks.' He spoke in a curiously formal, almost anachronistic manner. He stood very straight and he was very tall.

  'I assure you there is nothing to fear from Ronin's presence,' Stahlig said. 'He is merely observing my techniques, and is here only because I invited him.'

  'I trust you are not so foolish as to lie to me. That would lead to dire consequences both for you and your friend.' He glanced briefly at Ronin and the light turned his left eye into a silver dazzle. Ronin started slightly as the Saardin turned back to Stahlig. A reflection, he thought. But it cannot be, not a flash as bright as that. Then he had it, and now, because he was looking for it, he saw that Freidal's left eye did not move in its socket.

  Stahlig put up his hands. 'Please, Saardin, you have misunderstood me. I merely thought to reas­sure -'

  'Medicine Man, permit me to make clear my position. I did not wish to summon you. Your presence here disturbs me. Your friend's presence here disturbs me. I am thrust deeply into the midst of a highly volatile Security matter with grave ramifications. Had I my way, no one but my hand-picked daggam would have access to these quarters. However, I am now resigned to the fact that such a course is no longer possible. Borros, the Magic Man, is seriously ill, so my Med advis­ers tell me. They can no longer help him. They say it is beyond them. Hence, a Medicine Man must be summoned if Borros is to live. I wish him to live. Yet I have little patience with your kind. Please attend to him as quickly as possible and leave.'

  Stahlig inclined his head slightly, an acknowl­edgement of Freidal's authority. 'As you wish,' he said softly. 'However, may I ask you to recount

  the events immediately prior to Borros's illness?' Ronin bristled inwardly at the Medicine Man's obsequious tone.

  'May I ask what for, sir?'

  Stahlig sighed and Ronin observed the lines of tiredness in his face. 'Saardin, I would not ask you to defend the Freehold with one arm bound to your side. I ask only that you give me the same courtesy.'

  'It is essential, then?'

  'The more information I have, the greater the chance of helping the patient.'

  'All right.' The Saardin beckoned and a daggam appeared. He had been standing just inside the threshold to the room on the right and they had not noticed him before. A writing tablet lay along the inside of his forearm. In his other hand was a quill with which he drew symbols on the tablet. 'My scribe is never far from me,' said the Saardin. 'He takes down all that I say, and all that is said to me. In this way there can be no - misunderstand­ing at a later time.' He looked from the Medicine Man to Ronin and back again with a neutral gaze. It was impossible to guess what he was thinking. 'He shall read from the report made to me earlier today.'

  'That will be fine,' said Stahlig. 'But let us go in first, so that I may see Borros's condition,'

  Freidal bowed stiffly and they moved silently into the shadowy cubicle and over to the cot on which the figure lay. 'I apologize for the lack of light,' Freidal said without a trace of regret. 'The Overheads have recently failed, hence the lamps.'

  Two of the familiar clay pots sat on the work table across from the bed, their flames illuminating the room with an uncertain smoky glow.

  The figure lay lashed to the bed - an otherwise unremarkable affair consisting of a wooden frame and large, soft pillows - with leather straps around chest and ankles. Both Ronin and Stahlig leaned closer to get a better look in the low light.

  In all ways he appeared singular. He was long-waisted with a thick barrel chest and peculiarly narrow hips. His hands had long delicate fingers tipped with protracted, translucent nails. How­ever, most unusual of all was his face. The head, an elongated oval, was entirely without hair, and the skin, drawn tightly over the scalp and high cheekbones, was of a most peculiarly sombre hue with a yellow tinge. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. Stahlig bent at once to examine him.

  At that moment the scribe began to recite: '"Recorded on the twenty-seventh Cycle of Sajjit-"'

  Freidal raised a hand. 'Just the text, if you please.'

  The scribe inclined his head. '"Statement of Mastaad, Teck to Borros, Magic Man. We had been working for many Cycles on the final phases of a Project, the goal of which Borros steadfastly refused to confide in me. I did the mixing and controlling of elements, that is all. For several Cycles Borros had been working nonstop. I would leave him at the end of the sixth Spell and when I returned at second Spell, he would be as I had left him, hunching over his table. Three Cycles ago I arrived to find him immensely agitated. But he would tell me nothing, though I begged him for the sake of his health to - "'

  'What are these, Saardin?' Stahlig interrupted. Throughout the scribe's recitation, he had been hard at work probing and listening, trying to ascertain the seriousness of the Magic Man's con­dition. So he had missed them at first. But he had seen them at last and now he pointed. Ronin bent and saw three small spots, like dark smudges of charcoal, forming a triangle, imprinted on each temple of the hairless head.

  Freidal too was looking at the spots, and for the first time Ronin felt a heavy tension fill the room. The Saardin continued to stare at the recumbent body. 'You are the Medicine Man, sir,' he said carefully. 'You tell me.'

  Stahlig seemed about to answer, then apparently thought better of it. In the silence, Freidal, looking satisfied, lifted his hand again.

  The scribe's voice once more took over: '" - let me let him more fully. He refused, becoming abu­sive. I withdrew. The next Cycle his agitation had increased. His hands trembled, his voice cracked, and on more than one occasion he found cause to insult me. Second Spell this Cycle, when I arrived, he screamed at me to leave. He said he no longer required a Teck. He began to rant incoherently. I feared for his health. I tried to calm him. He flew into a rage and assaulted me, throwing me into the Corridor. I came directly here to - "'

  The Saardin made a brief sign and the scribe was silent. Stahlig stood up and turned to Freidal. 'Why has this man been restrained?'

  The Saardin's good eye blazed. 'Sir, I wish to know if Borros will live and, if so, whether his faculties have been impaired. When I have the answers to these questions I shall entertain your queries.'

  Stahlig wiped the back of a hand across his perspiring brow. 'He will live, Saardin. That is, I believe he will. As to his faculties, I cannot tell you until he has regained consciousness and I have had a chance to test his reflexes.'

  The Saardin thought about this for a moment. 'Sir, this man was quite violent when my daggam arrived. He fought them although they wished him no harm. They were forced to subdue him and to make certain he would stay that way. It was as much for his protection as for others'.' For the first time Freidal smiled, giving his face the look of a predatory animal. It flashed and was gone, leaving no trace that it had ever been there at all.

  Stahlig said: 'It is an inhuman way to treat anyone.'

  Freidal shrugged. 'It is necessary.'

  He left them abruptly, posting two daggam at the threshold to the room and admonishing them to leave as soon as the Medicine Man had satisfied himself as to Borros's condition. 'If he dies, I hold you personally accountable,' he told Stahlig, and this served as his farewell.

  Stahlig hissed softly when they were alone in the room with Borros, the nervous sound of released tension. He sank into the cubicle's lone chair and his shoulders slumped. He clasped his hands in front of him. They trembled slightly. Ronin thought that he looked very frail and very old and he felt pity stir inside him.

  'I am a fool.' Fatigue. 'I should never have asked you to come here. I thought for a moment as I thought many years ago, when I was young and foolhardy. I am an old man and I should know better.'

  Ronin put a hand on his shoulder. He wanted to say something but no words came to him. Stahlig looked up into his face. 'He has marked you now, do not forget that.' Ronin tried to smile, found he could not. Stahlig rose then, and returned to his ministration of the Magic Man, turning his back on Ronin, who stood, immobile and silent, regarding the dark countenance of the singular man with yellow skin, strapped to the bed, smoky orange light flickering now and again along the considerable lengths of his translucent fingernails, like the traces of some unimaginably mysterious animal.

  So it was that when Borros opened his eyes Ronin saw it first, and he called softly to Stahlig, who was at that moment searching his bag.

  The eyes were long, that was all he could tell, for they were in deep shadow and Stahlig was bent over him. 'Ah,' the mouth said. 'Ah.' He blinked slowly several times. His eyelids drooped. His lips were dry.

  Stahlig lifted a lid, peered at the eye. 'Drugged,' he said very softly.

  'Ah,' the Magic Man said.

  Ronin leaned over so that they could talk with­out fear of being overheard. 'Why drug him like that?'

  'The Saardin would tell us it was to calm him. But I do not believe that was the reason.'

  'Why not?'

  'Wrong drug, first of all. Borros is semicon­scious, but he is still affected by whatever it was they gave him. Had he been sedated, he would either be out completely or awake and wondering what had happened to him.'

  'Ah. Ah.'

  Stahlig said quite clearly: 'Borros, can you hear me?'

  The lips ceased their noises and a tension came over the figure. 'No,' the lips said weakly. 'No, no, no no - ' A bubble of spittle had collected at one corner of the mouth, and now it inflated and deflated with the piteous cry. 'No, no.'

  'By the Frost,' breathed Ronin.

  The head moved from side to side as the mouth worked. Tendons stood out along his neck and he strained against his bonds. Stahlig reached into his bag and administered something to Borros. Almost at once he quieted. His eyes closed and his breathing became less laboured. Stahlig wiped his sweating brow. Ronin began to say something but the old man stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  'Well, I have done all I can now,' he said in a normal tone. He picked up his bag and they left the room. At the door, he left a message for Freidal with one of the daggam. 'Tell your Saardin that I shall return during the seventh Spell to check the condition of the patient.'

  'What did you find out?'

  The homey clutter was somehow comforting. The dim Overheads threw a dismal light. The clay lamps were in a corner, resting precariously on a pile of tablets, waiting to be used. The crumpled paper lay where it had been tossed. Across the room, the darkness of the surgery filled the open doorway.

  Stahlig shook his head. 'I do not wish to involve you further. It is enough that you have encoun­tered the Saardin of Security.'

  'But I was the one - '

  'I gave the assent.' He was angry at himself. 'Believe me when I tell you that I am going to forget what I have seen. Borros is just another patient in need of treatment.'

  'But he is not just another patient,' said Ronin. 'Why will you not tell me what you have learned about him?'

  'It is far too dangerous - '

  'Chill take that!' Ronin exclaimed. 'I am not a child who needs protection.'

  'I did not mean - '

  'Did you not, then?'

  In the small silence that built itself around the two, Ronin recognized a potential danger. If one of them did not speak soon, they would be irrev­ocably separated. He did not understand why this was and it bothered him.

  Stahlig lowered his eyes and said softly: 'I - have always thought of you in a certain way. As Medi­cine Man, many things in life - things that at one time I perhaps wanted for myself - were not allowed me. Both you and - your sister - were very close to me when you were young. And then - there was only you.' He said it in a halting, protracted manner, and it was obvious that it was difficult for him. Yet Ronin could not find it in himself to make it any easier. Or perhaps this was not possible. 'But I understand that you are a Bladesman now. I know what that means. But every once in a while I remember - that child.' He turned and poured himself a drink, swallowed it at once, poured another and one for Ronin, handing him the cup. 'And now,' he said, as if nothing had happened, 'if you insist, I shall tell you what I have learned.'

  Stahlig told him that from what he had observed he was sure that Security had had Borros for more than a Cycle. 'Possibly as long as seven Cycles, it is hard to say with that particular drug.' Further, it seemed fairly clear that in defining the drugs used and Borros's reaction to Stahlig's voice, Security had been interrogating him.

  '"Interviewing" they call it,' he said. 'One of the effects of this drug is to submerge the will. In other words - '

  'They were picking his brain.'

  'Attempting to, yes.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, these things are very tricky and they are certainly not foolproof.'

  'But why not just confiscate his notes? Surely that would have been easier.'

  The Medicine Man shrugged. 'Perhaps they could not decipher them, who knows? In any event, most of what Freidal told us and allowed us to hear was false.'

  'But why go to all that trouble? And if what you say is true, that means Security has deliber­ately interfered in the work of a Magic Man.'

  'Quite so.' Stahlig nodded. 'And then there is the matter of the Dehn spots - ' He stopped abruptly. They both heard soft footfalls in the darkness outside. He said in a louder voice: 'Time is passing. It is near to Sehna.' In an undertone, he added: 'You must be at board. You understand?'

 

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