them each a glass of wine. The hairs on his neck prickled. He could feel her gaze running over his back. The Kargat spy was a cool-headed professional, but she was a woman as well. He smiled to himself. Turning back, he handed her one of the glasses of wine.
'Your Grace, I've come to express my dismay at the turn of events in your fiefdom. The rabble have shown themselves for the animals they are.'
Caidin nodded gravely. 'Thank you, my lady.' In satisfaction he noticed a rapid throbbing in the hollow of her swanlike neck. 'Despite these troubled times, you need not fear for your person. I will keep you under my watchful eye, my lady.'
A smile fluttered about her smoke-red lips. 'I'm certain you will, Your Grace.' She sipped her wine delicately. 'Of course, the affairs that beckoned me to your land are nearly in order. Soon they will reach their conclusion.'
'Indeed. Does this mean you will soon be departing my barony?'
'I'm afraid it does, Your Grace,' she said demurely.
Caidin scowled at this. He found himself suddenly annoyed with this game of cat and mouse. 'Come, my lady, let us forgo this little charade,' he said suggestively.
'Your Grace?'
'You feign astonishment very well, Jadis, but truly you must know that your performance is wasted on me.'
'I see.'
'I grow bored with this game. I will do you a favor, my lady, and save you precious time. Tell your master that I seek to sit upon his throne. Tell him that I have slain my own subjects under the guise of a false inquisition to create a legion of zombie slaves. Tell him that I have used them to raise a dark tower for a purpose known only to myself. Tell him all these things. It will do.him no good.'
Jadis smoothed her elaborately coifed black hair. 'Very well, Your Grace. You wish to be candid. Then let us both be. You know as well as I that King Azalin could send an army here at a moment's notice, a force strong enough to take this keep apart stone by stone, and you with it. He suffers your machinations only so long as he is amused. As soon as that amusement wanes, he will cast you aside like a broken toy.'
Caidin grinned. 'And only then will Azalin realize that it is too late, that sometimes toys can turn against their masters, and that a tower in the provincial hinterlands can indeed challenge his great castle of Avernus in far-off Il Aluk.'
Interest danced in her eyes. 'I should thank you for the time you have just saved me in my investigation, Your Grace.'
He bent his head toward her. 'I can think of a way you might demonstrate your gratitude, my lady.' He closed his eyes and felt her warm breath against his lips.
Suddenly four lines of searing fire traced themselves across his chest. Crying out in pain and surprise, Caidin stumbled backward. His bare chest bled from four parallel gouges. The wounds were not deep, but they did sting fiercely. Jadis flexed her hand, and for a disconcerting moment he thought her fingers ended in claws.
'Damn you to the Abyss!' he snarled, clutching at the scratch marks. Blood oozed through his fingers.
'I am sorry to be so cruel, Your Grace,' she purred. 'I thought it important for you to learn that one cannot always have everything one desires.'
With sensual grace she drifted from the room. With burning eyes, Caidin watched her go, his breaths coming in short, painful gasps.
'You are wrong about that, Kargat,' he spat. Yet for a troubling moment, he wondered if he had perhaps given away too much in his confidence. He quickly dismissed the thought. There was nothing Jadis could do to stop him now.
'Pock!' he bellowed. 'Show yourself quickly, you wretch, or I'll pound your thick skull. I need you. Now!'
Jadis purred deeply.
She had concealed herself atop a high ledge outside the baron's chamber, the dark fur of her werepanther form blending perfectly with the surrounding shadows. Her little encounter with the baron had been quite intriguing. His overconfidence played right into her hands. Or her paws, as the case may be. Now all she had to do was wait to see what move he made next.
The door of the baron's chamber flew open. Caidin stepped out, clad now in a purple coat and gray breeches. He strode forcefully down the corridor. Jadis waited until he rounded a corner, then leapt to the floor. Silently, she padded after her quarry. She winced slightly as she moved, allowing herself a low growl of discomfort. The peculiar bruise below her left collarbone had grown larger over the last few days. It still did not hurt-in fact, it was oddly cold and numb-but it hampered her movements. She supposed she must have injured herself more seriously than she had thought.
Jadis kept out of Caidin's sight. She could easily trace his footsteps. Soon she rounded a corner and watched as Caidin entered the dark archway that led to the dungeon. Two blue-coated guards saluted him as he vanished into the darkness. This time there would be no circumventing the guards.
The first guard never knew what hit him. Jadis leapt from the shadows, striking him from the side. Her fanged maw clamped around his neck. She shook her head violently, and his spine snapped like dry kindling. He slumped to the floor. Tail twitching, she spun around. The other guard swore, staring with wide eyes as he fumbled to draw his saber. He was woefully slow. Jadis pounced, knocking him to the floor. He was a brawny man, but his struggling was useless against the muscular werepanther. She raked her hindpaws across his belly, spilling his guts onto the floor. Blood spurted out of his mouth. Almost casually she bared her fangs and tore his throat apart.
She paused to lick the blood from her paws-she hated it when they were sticky. Satisfied, she slipped through the archway, leaving behind the mutilated remains of the two men. She padded through the dim labyrinth of the dungeon, her eyes piercing the gloom like emerald lanterns. The last time she had tread these dank corridors they had echoed with screams and moans. Now they were filled with tomblike silence. Yet if Caidin had slain all the prisoners for his mysterious purposes, why had he ventured down here? Jadis was determined to find out.
It was the light of their eyes that gave them away.
She turned to see a dozen crimson sparks bobbing down a darkened side passage. Despite their ungainly bodies, the creatures moved so stealthily even her sensitive ears might not have warned her of their advance. With cries of bloodlust, a half dozen goblyns leapt from the mouth of the passage into the wavering light of a smoking torch. Rags that might once have been clothes draped their twisted bodies, arid.they clutched barbed spears in arms knotted with tnuscle. Their flesh was a sickly green, and their bulbous heads were dominated by grinning maws filled with needle-sharp teeth. Swiftly they surrounded the black werepanther, their crimson eyes glowing murderously.
Jadis scratched her claws against the stone floor, sharpening them. She tensed, waiting for the right moment. As one, the goblyns lunged for her. Uncoiling her powerful limbs, shedeapt over them and landed gracefully, turning to see the goblyns crash into each other in the spot where she had crouched a moment before. Two of the creatures howled in agony and stumbled away, clutching the spears that protruded from their stomachs. Both fell to the floor, dead. The other goblyns untangled themselves and turned toward Jadis. They advanced more carefully this time. Goblyns were stupid, but they were riot completely without cunning.
A goblyn lunged at her with its spear. Jadis leapt easily out of its path. Growling, she whirled quickly, only to have another spear jabbed in her face. She ducked it narrowly, then backed away. The long spears made it impossible to get close enough to slash at the goblyns with her claws. Her tail brushed the rough stones of the wall. She had little room to retreat. Grinning toothily, the four goblyns drew their spears back, ready for the plunge.
Jadis tensed her limbs as if to spring. Hastily, the goblyns waved their spears upward as though to strike at her underbelly. But it was a feint on her part. Staying low instead, Jadis charged, crashing into two of the goblyns. Their spears flew from their hands and clattered to the floor. She broke one creature's neck with a lazy swipe of a paw, then sank her teeth into the skull of the other, piercing its brain. Whirling, she saw the other two goblyns lunge. She sprang high. Landing atop the two goblyns, she bore them to the floor. They struggled desperately, trying to sink their sharp teeth into her flesh. She beat them to it, ripping out their throats with swift precision.
A heartbeat later it was over. Jadis sat back on her haunches, observing as the eyes of the goblyns flickered like dying coals, then went dark. She turned and slunk swiftly down the corridor, following Caidin's scent. Jadis's black-velvet ears twitched, homing in on a sound? a faint noise floating on the dank air. Voices. She quickened her pace. Suddenly she halted, shrinking into a dark alcove. A dozen paces away, an iron door swung open with a shriek
