THEY DID NOT TOUCH FOOT TO TSSEKIAN SOIL ONCE they had earthed. Rather Jofre found himself squeezed in between Harse and one of his look-alikes on the second seat of a flitter which had made a precise connection with a landing platform. While Zurzal was wedged in with the Horde Commander and the pilot on the fore seat. Just as his first glimpse of Tssekian architecture via the vision screen had impressed him with stark utility and no concessions to any softening of line, so did the loom of the buildings between which their present vehicle streaked its way offer a vague threat, as if each was a sentinel on duty and those of the population about were prisoners.
They did not linger in that somber pile of a city but rather sped on into open land beyond. Jofre could not move enough in his seat to see what lay below them. But the walls were gone and, except for sight of a distant skeleton-like erection or two, they were now in the clear.
Their craft apparently had reached maximum speed and was being held so. However, they were not alone in the sky. During their flight through the city they had passed a number of similar craft and, once they had reached the outer ways beyond that stand of buildings, a second flitter hung close, a little behind, but apparently bound for the same goal.
Jofre had made no resistance to the somewhat rough handling which had steered him to his present seat. Neither of the guards broke silence, and their craggy features were set in stolid, almost stupid, patterns. However, Jofre was well aware that in no way must he underestimate these followers of the Holder. He was lucky in that he had not been placed in bonds and would continue to be most biddable while he noted all he could pick up from his surroundings. Both of these guards were trained, though not, he believed, in the more outre systems of the issha. Armed or not, and given the smallest of chances, he could take them both. But that must wait upon a time when such a move could be made profitable. At least they had not stassed him again and he was given that small freedom.
The flitter fell into a circling pattern and began to descend near a building some four stories high. It was not the stolid block of the city structure but rather was a different design altogether. There had been some ornamentation about the windows and one could catch flashes of color through those as if they were curtained. Then their craft set down on a perch extending from the side of the building just under the rise of the top story. Facing them one of those windows had been expanded into a doorway by which a man in a brilliant yellow tunic stood waiting.
At the sight of the Zacathan he bowed—apparently the subterfuge that Zurzal was a welcome guest was to be carried on. Jofre was given a sharp dig in the ribs to send him after his employer as the flitter took off, just in time to clear a landing spot for that second craft which had followed them from the city.
The yellow-tunicked man was waving Zurzal in before him and a meaty hand on Jofre's shoulder hurried him in the same direction. He gathered, by the placing of that goad and a certain tenseness of his two guards, that they did not want any passenger which the second craft might have brought to be seen.
She did not have to be seen. The strict training of years kept Jofre from any halt in his step. He did not turn his head as every atom of him wished. Here—! Who was she?What she was he knew from that faint whiff of scent which had reached him. Only in the Lairs was that distilled, to be one of the minor weapons of the Others—the Sisters, of whom he had seen exactly two in his full lifetime, and then only from a distance. Daughters were few in the Lair and those were born there, not recruited from the land at large as the Brothers mainly were in childhood. Their fabled prowess in their own field was the bed from which legend and rumor both grew mighty tales.
One of the issha—and a woman! He allowed his arm to swing loosely by his side, twice brushing the thigh of the guard who had herded him to the doorway. His forefinger and thumb moved. She might never sight that signal, nor sighting it, have any desire to reveal herself. Certainly she was here on a mission and he could not believe that that had anything to do with him or Zurzal. But the fact that she would be under the same roof—or so it would seem— was a new factor to be considered.
She certainly was not following them. He caught no trace of sound and that faint touch of scent on the air was gone as he passed into the room beyond that door. Nor did they linger there, for the Zacathan's guide had already reached a matching portal on the other wall of the small chamber and was bowing Zurzal through. While Harse and his companion, paying no heed to any such formality, propelled Jofre along in their wake.
A twist down two corridors and they entered a room where the walls were an eye-searing riot of color, great sweeps of brushwork in vivid shades seeming applied with no reason in sometimes crisscrossing directions. The floor was thickly carpeted in a material possessing the texture of some kind of fur—and there was furniture gilded, carved, and inlaid, within tawdry splendor which fought valiantly with the walls. It was a room in which to keep the eyes shut if possible.
'Ask whatever you wish, Illustrious Learned One.' The man in the yellow tunic was speaking trade language in an oily voice which matched his moon-round face and thick-lipped mouth. 'All is at your command.'
Jofre's guards had not crossed the threshold; that hand on his shoulder had merely propelled him within. He stood where he was and Yellow Tunic had to take a side step to pass him in order to reach the door. As soon as that closed Jofre went into action. A single stride brought his ear flat against the panels and then he nodded. They had been locked in.
Zurzal's snout grin was plain to read. He put the box he had refused to let anyone touch on a table which stood in the middle of the room.
'We are indeed honored guests,' the hiss underlay that observation.
Jofre had been forcing himself to eye those riotous walls. The Zacathan had been sure on board ship that they were under observation—how much more certain that must be here in the enemies' own home territory. He had to blink and blink again; staring too intently at any of the swathes of color hurt his eyes. Perhaps that was exactly what was intended—to keep any inmate from a prolonged examination of the walls.
