Mong swelled in irritation. “No!” He gave the explosive order with impatience and walked away, waving Balt off. “Rusco will come with me. He will not get off so easily.”
The Star Lord seemed to master his anger; once more he resumed the warlord in control with a face of relaxed manner, if such could be said for a psychopath like Mong.
“Come,” he said to me in a curt voice, “I will show you what you could have been and what you both could have had.”
I traded glances with Zan. Mong took us to the Orpheum, that garish chamber decorated with barbaric fountains of gold and animals carved in marble and twined around the legs of its statuary. Pearl-gray waters were stocked with rare tropical fish. Amongst the splendor, lounged a dozen diaphanous silken-clad beauties of all races. I saw Volia there, drugged out of her mind, sprawled on silken cushions with her mouth and legs open amidst tropical plants. Others, men and women, drank from golden goblets or fanned their dainty faces with exotic feathers. Mong’s concubines? Or perhaps for the general use of his privileged captains?
He mustered a sly smile. “Yes, Rusco, sloe-eyed nymphs from Alphanor, geisha girls from Nashene, courtesans knowledgeable of a hundred pleasures and tricks of the trade to drive a man out of his skull. Pleasure, ecstasy beyond his dreams.” He grinned, an animal grin. “And you thought I was a eunuch. Pah!” He shook his head in wonder. “Yet you have disqualified yourself from all this.” He swept an arm in a grand, mocking gesture. “You have repeatedly broken rules and proven yourself unworthy. Phase 3 is now upon us. I must take necessary action.”
We returned in swift order to the hall sporting the iron-bound door. Hadruk unlocked it and set it creaking inward, then he and Balt thrust Zan and me inside.
Balt held back my flailing fist while Hadruk secured Zan. This secret chamber I guessed was Mong’s inner sanctum, only the privileged few got to witness it. He’d set up a mini altar here, though several degrees creepier and more sinister than that of the Temple of Light. A strange primal drumbeat echoed from deep within the candle-lit gloom.
The man seemed to have a thing for altars, pious sod he was. Here he had not only his two tanks with live Mentera on display but two extra ones, one which contained Blest, staring out of his glass cage like a deflated grouper. My jaw sagged in dismay. Likewise Zan uttered a croak of despair. I almost had to turn my head, seeing Blest like that, but my own morbid curiosity would not let me look away. His dirty blond hair floated like seaweed from his scalp; he hung suspended there like an underwater scarecrow, his legs floating a few inches off the floor, one leg turned a deep shade of yellow where the parasite still clung, his thin lips parted in a O. That blank expression, the eyes staring, his unblinking gaze all unnerved me. Slowly his pale hand lifted and a small bubble rose from his open lips. I gave a crow’s squawk of panic, struggled for sanity to return to my brain and stop the dry heaves from coming. A grisly sight, yet, truth be told, the scene didn’t surprise me.
Breathe, Rusco, breathe.
My gaze flickered to several ropes suspended from a beam above. Light chains too looped around that high beam and dangled from the ceiling. Some of the rope ends were frayed and bloody.
I licked my lips. Did Mong do public hangings in this dark crypt? I rejected the thought. That Zan and I were worthy of such an easy death seemed unlikely. I sucked in another breath and willed myself to be strong. How much worse could it be than a few broken fingers?
Much worse…stuffed into that spare tank.
I stared at the usual assortment of adjuncts and curios spread on Mong’s altar. Candles, incense, sacred texts, mortar and pestle for grinding alchemic substances and aromatic herbs or other odiferous things to toss on a candle flame. Secured in a glass case sat the bulb that Follee had coveted and had once clutched in his trembling hand. A brown, fist-sized pod with rough skin like a coconut’s. A reminder to me that Mong kept all his weirdest curios here—relics, grotesques, commemoratives—a place where he inflicted the utmost pain upon his favored residents.
The drumbeat grew louder. Without warning a big brown-faced man, looking totally stoned out of his mind, came ambling forward, tapping what looked to be a deerhide drum with his tanned palms. He sat before us wearing a trance-like grin. Bristly, black-matted hair spread from the scalp—Oriental, like Mong, of some mixed race of old Earth lineage.
Glaze-eyed, I opened my mouth to speak, but Mong spoke first. “Boauk is a faithful servant of mine, don’t mind him. Listen to the drum beat, Rusco. Let it draw you toward the inner world of mystery.”
“I’ll get right on that,” I said.
Mong chuckled and flashed me one of his hideous grins. “You jest, Mr. Rusco. But maybe you will not be joking an hour or two from now.”
I motioned to the two grisly tanks of Mentera arranged at the front. “Running out of space to put your pets?”
Mong smiled. “The Mentera demand further study. As do these tanks, before I install them as permanent fixtures in the Temple of Light. I hesitate to release the creatures, knowing their diabolic tendencies. How to study them without emptying their tanks? A little conundrum that troubles even my formidable mind, so for now they will remain tucked away in this little cubbyhole.”
“How fitting. I suppose we could use the company.”
Mong stared at me, a sullen grin twisting his face. “I see my Redemption Chamber has not fazed you
