'You don't smell like no Walker!'
'Walker?'
'If you got to ask, you ain't,' said the slave master. 'So what in the Thousand Darkness's are you?'
'A m-man, of course,' Atreus said indignantly. 'A human being.'
The slave master's lip curled into a sneer, revealing a stringy mass of rotten gum. 'You're a funny one, bubber. Could be worth something in Baator.' He faced the ramshackle cabin in the stern. 'Seema! Gather up your brews and come out here. I got something for you.'
The slave master turned to Rishi, who was lying beside Atreus shaking. 'Now, where's this gold you were jabbering about?'
Rishi paled and said, 'Just up the river.' He cast an angry glance in Atreus's direction. 'In the river.'
'What do you mean, in the river?' The slave master asked angrily, jerking Rishi up by the collar. 'Like on the bottom?'
'It is his fault, Terrible One,' Rishi said, pointing at Atreus. 'He sank it!'
The Terrible One's barbed tail began to twitch. He rose, casually lifting Rishi with one hand. 'It don't matter who sank it, addle pate,' he said. 'You tried to bob me. All the gold in this squalid little world does me no good on the bottom of a river!'
'The river is not deep,' Rishi offered, pointing upstream. 'Take me back to that bend tomorrow, and I can dive down and find it for you!'
The slave master considered this, his fangs scratching his upper lip. Finally, he tucked Rishi under one arm and started forward. Rishi's feet clipped the heads of some of the captives as the fiend stepped over rows of neatly chained slaves. The two oarsmen heard him coming and scrambled out of the way, allowing the boat to drift as the Terrible One passed. Even the bow guards scurried away to give him a wide berth.
The slave master draped Rishi over the side. 'Prove it,' he said.
The slaver opened his hand, and Rishi splashed back into the river.
Atreus gasped and started to rise, but stopped when a stinging whip wrapped itself around his throat.
'Sit down,' said a gruff voice behind him. The guard at the other end of the whip jerked the handle, and the coil grew so tight that Atreus began to gasp. 'Tarch didn't say you could watch.'
'And yet, did he say you were allowed to harm this man?' The question came from the shack on the stern. Though heavily accented with a strange dialect of Maran, the woman's voice was as pure and lyrical as a lyre. This man should not be strangled.'
The guard continued to hold the whip taut, choking Atreus. 'What?' he asked, then turned to the door. 'You think you're giving orders now?'
'It is an observation, not an order. This man will die if you keep strangling him.'
Atreus grasped the whip cord and managed to loosen the coil enough to breathe, then twisted around to see a dark-haired woman emerging from the shack. In her hands, she held a wooden tray.
'Did Tarch not say that this one is meant for Baator?'
'Tarch says a lot of things.' Despite his words, the guard flicked his whip, loosening the coil. He kicked Atreus in the thigh, then said, 'We're watching you. Try anything, and we'll whip you skinless.'
The woman kneeled on the deck beside Atreus and said to the guard, 'I am sure he will be very cooperative.'
She was dressed simply, in a heavy tabard of dark yak-hair over an equally heavy tunic, and she wore her black hair twisted into silky braids. Her face was round and gentle, with a small nose and almond eyes as deeply brown as mahogany. There was a peacefulness in her bearing that seemed to well up from inside and envelope her in a halo of grace, and when she smiled at Atreus she was more beautiful than any priestess of Sune.
'I am Seema. I will look to your wounds, yes?' the woman said. She looked straight into Atreus's eyes and betrayed no sign of revulsion or abhorrence, or even that she had noticed the hideousness of his face. 'How do you feel?'
'Yes… er, fine.' Atreus was so stunned by her beauty and her reaction to his ugliness-or rather, her lack of reaction-that he could hardly follow her questions. 'Perhaps a little cold, Atreus-uh, I mean I am Atreus… Atreus Eleint.'
Seema nodded, pulled his arm away from his waist, and examined the wound there. Her hand on his skin felt as warm as the sun. 'Do you feel weak, Atreus?'
Atreus nodded, unable to take his eyes off her face. 'Tired.'
Seema smiled again, displaying a set of teeth as white as snow, and pulled off his sopping cloak. She tossed it aside, then started to unlace Atreus's tunic. He found himself wondering how such a beautiful and kindly woman could be working with a crew of slavers. Certainly, it was not unusual for attractive women to associate with evil men, but such women were never truly beautiful. They lacked the grace and serenity that Seema radiated so clearly.
'This man is very wet and tired,' Seema said, glancing at the guard who had lashed Atreus earlier. 'There is danger of the cold sleep.'
The slaver scowled, then hung his whip on his belt and disappeared into the cabin. A moment later, he tossed a pair of dry blankets out on the deck, calling, 'I'll find some clothes.'
Seema smiled to herself and pulled Atreus's tunic over his head. When she saw the festering wound beneath his collarbone she raised her brow and poked around the edges until a stream of yellow ichor poured out. She grimaced and started to unfasten his empty sword belt.
Atreus caught her hands between his. 'I, uh… I can manage.'
Seema glanced down at his shivering fingers and looked confused, but she shrugged and said, 'As you wish.'
As Atreus struggled to remove the last of his clothes, Seema began to take cloth satchels from inside her tabard and drop pinches of pungent, brightly colored powders into an earthenware bowl. Atreus wrapped a blanket around himself and became so caught up in watching her lithe fingers that he did not remember Rishi until one of Tarch's men called out.
'There he is! He's got a rock or something.' An instant later, the guard added, 'He's going under again I think he's drowning.'
The rest of the guards rushed over to the side where the lookout was pointing behind the boat. Tarch roared a command, and the oarsmen began to row against the current The slave master came rushing back, kicking the heads of helpless captives in his mad scramble to step over them.
'I've lost him,' the guard reported.
'Get in there and find him, berk!'
The slaver glanced down at the river. 'You mean jump in?' he asked, surely knowing the answer.
Atreus started to rise, but Seema caught him by the arm and shook her head. 'Leave it to the guards,' she told him. 'You are too weak.'
Tarch cleared the last row of slaves and bounded toward the side of the boat, his tail whipping back and forth so fiercely that it swept the feet from beneath one of the men guarding Atreus. The slaver at the side peeled off his weapon belt and reluctantly hopped into the water.
Seeing the attention of the guards fixed on the river, Seema leaned in closer and whispered, 'Your friend is safe enough for tonight, but I think he should not show Tarch where to find the gold. Tarch says he must die for what he did.'
'Leading the queen's men to the river?' Atreus asked.
'Tarch did not say what angered him,' Seema answered. She put away her pouches and poured water over the pungent mixture she had prepared. 'I suppose leading those men here may be the offense.'
'You don't know?'
'Why should I?'
Atreus raised his brow, then glanced at the slavers lined up along the side of the boat. 'I thought you were one of them,' he said.
'By the lotus, no!' The anger in her eyes vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She pointed her chin at the rows of slaves ahead and said, 'I am one of them.'
Atreus did not know whether to despair or rejoice. Enslaving someone as beautiful as Seema was a terrible outrage against Sune, and it would have been an equal blasphemy for her to be one of the slavers.
