The laugh, and the gallows, sent a grating chill along Blade's spine. For the first time he felt real fear. He knew the symptoms and took immediate steps to banish them. Fear was a progressive and corrosive weakness and could not be tolerated. Blade took a deep breath and began the fierce concentration of which he was capable. Survival. Think only of survival.

They plunged into another maze of tents from which came cooking smells and the sounds of women and children. They were skirting the edge of the village now, and on the bleak plain Blade saw thousands of horses and ponies grazing, or sleeping, or moving restlessly about. Hors.e.m.e.n were patrolling the herd on all sides.

They pa.s.sed a long row of wagons, high sided and with felt-covered tops, with huge wooden wheels. Several of the wagons were off to one side and were guarded by mounted warriors. These wagons had slatted sides and were dimly lit and a sound of voices came from them - groans, curses, screams, a s.n.a.t.c.h of song.

Rahstum had drawn his sword and now he pointed with it to the wagons. "Slave wagons, Sir Blade. You may come to know the inside of them - if you are fortunate."

The huge black tent of Khad Tambur was set well away from the village itself. It blazed with light, and as they approached Blade heard a weird and plangent music that raised gooseflesh on him. Strident deep horn tones mixed with plucked strings and a high jangle of bells and muted, irregular tympany.

They halted at the tent entrance. Two Mongs stood guard, flanking a fascia of lances thrust into the earth. Horsetails fluttered from the lances. On the tallest lance was a skull. It grinned at Blade.

The Captain sent one of his Mongs into the tent. As the tent flap parted Blade caught a glimpse of a girl dancing in a cleared s.p.a.ce before a dais. But for a loin cloth she was naked, sweating and whirling and undulating in pale yellow light while the wild music swirled behind her. Her belly was like a thing apart from her, with a life of its own, shimmering and shaking, the sleek muscles writhing like a basketful of snakes. The tent flap closed.

One of the guards spoke to Rahstum. "Minga dances well tonight."

Another guard laughed. "That is not all she does well."

"I know, I know. I'm saving my pay. One of these days I will be able to afford her."

There was general laughter among the other guards. "Fool! Afford Minga on your pay? You will be an old man first, and then what good will it do you? Or Minga!"

There was a roar of harsh laughter. Rahstum broke it up with a gruff command. The tent opened again and a man beckoned.

The Captain took Blade's arm and thrust him roughly forward through the tent entrance. They took six paces forward, Blade's chains clanking and galling his wrists and ankles. Rahstum loosed his arm and fell back. Blade gazed about him, his face impa.s.sive, his spine straight and his ma.s.sive shoulders squared back. They all stared. Blade gave back look for look.

The music ceased, trembling away in a dying fall. For the s.p.a.ce of several breaths there was a silence in the great tent, a silence filled by garish yellow light and an oppressive heat of close-packed bodies. Every flat Mong face swiveled toward Blade, judging him, hating him.

Blade, in that sibilance of breathing, impaled by those hostile eyes, had never felt so alone.

From his throne Khad Tambur spoke: "Bring him forward. I would know what manner of man can kill a champion of mine."

Rahstum the Captain gave Blade a little push. His voice was not unkind as he muttered: "Go to the throne and fall on your knees. Keep silent and keep your head down."

Blade was silent but he did not keep his head down. He walked as proudly as though he wore silks and a crown instead of chains. As he approached the throne he saw Morpho, the dwarf, seated on a pillow to one side. Their eyes met. The dwarf's glance was dark and blank, speaking only idle curiosity.

Blade halted three paces from the throne and gazed at Khad Tambur. The Khad, thin and narrow shouldered, was bent forward at an absurd and painful angle. Arthritis of the spine, thought Blade. He stared back at the single dark eye that fixed him so malevolently. Only the right eye functioned. The left was covered by a drooping lid.

The Khad twisted on his throne and there was mingled rage and amazement in his tone. "You dare to stand before me?"

Blade now was playing it by intuition. "I stand," he said calmly. "Sir Blade bows to no man."

A whimpering sigh blew through the big tent like a minor chord. Someone laughed nervously. Then silence again.

The Khad's single eye blinked and he twisted his racked back once more to look at the woman at his side. She also sat on a throne, but lower on the dais.

"Well, sister? You thought to have this one as a slave? What of it now? This is no slave."

Two brown eyes studied Blade over a veil. He met the glance squarely and did not look away. So this was Sadda, sister of Khad Tambur. Sadda of the sinister reputation. Sadda for whom Lali, whose hatred was as pure as black crystal, had prepared a cage.

The woman did not speak. The Khad nodded and motioned to the guards nearby. "Very well, sister. I think we must teach this Sir Blade some manners." To the guards he said: "Beat him to his knees."

The guards leaped in with reversed lances to club Blade down. He tensed for the blows.

The woman held up a hand. Her fingers were long and delicate, the nails painted a blood red.

"Hold," she commanded. "An ox is beaten, or a slave, and that is good for them. But this man is not an ox, and not yet a slave - though he may be. I say hold. Do not touch him."

The Khad was scowling. The woman leaned to whisper to him. The Khad shook his head, still scowling. She tapped his arm and whispered on, intent and serious, her mouth moving rapidly beneath the veil. Blade stood calmly, watching the woman from the corner of his eye, giving no hint of his inner turmoil. The heavy chains jangled as he crossed his superbly muscled arms across his chest.

He could tell little about her face beneath the veil. Her hair was dark and l.u.s.trous, well oiled and piled in a heavy coronet atop a well-shaped head. She wore a little jacket that left her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bare, as was the custom with some Mong women. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were small, taut and compact and firm, with large reddish-pink aureoles surrounding small nipples. Her waist was tiny, flaring into well-developed hips and legs that appeared slim beneath filmy pantaloons. Her feet were bare, the nails painted the same b.l.o.o.d.y red as her fingernails, and she wore a golden bangle on each ankle.

The Khad was still shaking his head. Sadda argued on. The tension expanded like gas in a balloon. Blade risked a glance at Morpho. The dwarf did not meet his eye. He was idly juggling four small b.a.l.l.s, his carven grin fixed on his task.

The Khad twisted away from his sister. "So be it," he said in loud disgust. "He is yours until the ransom comes - if there be a ransom."

He fixed his good eye on Blade. "You heard the word, you who call yourself Sir Blade? Your friends in Cath, in Pukka, will go ransom for you?"

Blade began to hope. He nodded gravely. "They will pay ransom, Khad Tambur. But you must send a messenger to Pukka for it - they of Serendip, behind the wall here, will not have enough of treasure." It would take a horseman a long time to get to Pukka and back, even under safe conduct. He wondered if Lali had already been approached.

Khad Tambur answered that in the next breath. "I know all of that. After you were taken I parleyed with the Empress Mei. To no avail. She would not surrender the gun for you. And if I cannot have the cannon I will have half the wealth of Cath!"

He sounded like a small boy cheated of his favorite toy and demanding the world to placate him.

There was bustle and murmur in the tent now and the Khad held up a hand for silence. "Hear this, all of you. I, Khad Tambur, give this man Sir Blade to my sister as her slave. To do with as she desires - so long as he is kept alive for ransom." He moved painfully on the throne to glare at Sadda. "See that you do keep him alive, sister! I care not how, nor what else you do to him, but he must be breathing when the ransom comes. I will not be cheated of everything!"

He made a washing gesture with his hands and raised a finger to Morpho the dwarf. The little man plucked a large round melon from a box filled with melting snow, cut it in half, and hastened to the throne. The Khad munched on his melon and glared at Blade. Through a mouthful of melon, without turning, he snapped at Sadda.

"Well - get on with it then! You have your wish. See if he is slave or not - or if you can make him one. Only be sure he does not bleed to death!"

Blade understood then that while he might be out of the frying pan he was still very much in the fire.

The brown eyes were watching Blade over the veil again. The scrutiny was long and deliberate and missed not an inch of his lean, brawny, hard-muscled frame. Somewhere back in those brown eyes a cold spark glowed.

When she spoke to him her voice was husky and soft. She crooked a finger. "Come stand before me, slave. You are no longer Sir Blade. You are slave. Later, if you please me, I will think of a new name for you."

Blade moved toward her. Their glances met and locked and she was the first to look away. She pointed a finger at the thick rug before her throne.

"You who would not kneel to the Khad must kneel to me. You were not slave then. You are now. Kneel!"

Blade was tempted. His nerves were raw, screaming, and for the first time he admitted that now, just now, would be an excellent time for Lord L to pluck him back to H-Dimension. If that was cowardly, then he was a coward.

Yet he dared not be cowardly! These Mongs worshiped and understood only courage. Instinct warned him that at the first sign of weakness on his part he was lost. They would forget the ransom and tear him to bits. Cruelty was a way of life with these Mongs.

Blade said: "If I will not kneel to a man is it likely that I will kneel to a woman?" He smiled at her. It was his very best smile and it took every ounce of guts he had. The Khad was dangerous. Sadda carried murder in those brown eyes.

Khad Tambur, laughing, choked on the melon he was eating. To his sister he said: "You do not make a good beginning, sister. This is going to be amusing after all - making a slave of this one."

Blade saw her lips move beneath the veil. She too was smiling. She pointed to the rug again. "Kneel. I give you one last chance."

Blade shook his head. "I will not kneel." He hoped she could not hear the thudding of his heart. He had chosen his way and now he must stick to it.

Sadda made a sign and a minute later an enormous black entered the tent from a side entrance. He carried a wooden block, rather tall and narrow and with a peculiar notch scalloped into one side. He was followed by another black who carried what looked to Blade to be a long butcher knife.

Sadda gestured to the blacks. "Arrange it."

They set the block on end near Blade. He saw, with sickness growing in him, that the notch was so contrived that a man stepping into it would have his genitals just level with the top of the block.

Sadda watched him over the veil. "You will not kneel?"

"I will not."

She turned to one of the blacks. "Show him what he will be if he does not kneel."

The black unwound a cloth from around his waist and groin and in a moment stood naked before Blade. It was the first time he had seen an eunuch and he did not like the sight.

The Khad said: "Be only sure that he does not bleed to death. I warn you, sister!"

"He will not bleed to death." She pointed to a fire pan that a third slave had brought in and placed on a tripod. A cauterizing iron glowed white hot in the pan.

Sadda pointed to the eunuch who displayed himself, then at Blade. "You would be like that one?"

He was sweating heavily now. It ran into his eyes and he blinked against the salty sting. He was frightened, as. badly frightened as he had ever been in a lifetime of adventure and danger. He could face death well enough - but this!

And yet he must gamble. He had come too far to turn back. Turn coward now and he lost everything. He knew that. He felt it. He must gamble.

He stared back at Sadda. "I would not be like that one. I admit it. But I will not kneel."

Sadda snapped her fingers. Guards rushed forward and seized Blade and pushed him to the block. One of the blacks, his muddy eyes gleaming, tore away Blade's loin cloth and seized his genitals and stretched them on the block. Another black moved forward with the long knife and raised it, poised, over the block.

Blade stared straight ahead. At all costs he must not weaken. The next few seconds would decide whether he had won or lost his gamble.

The silence in the tent was like a living thing. The knife gleamed cruel and keen in the tawny light.

Sadda spoke so softly that it was almost a whisper. "You will not kneel to me?"

Somehow Blade managed to get the words out. Firm, controlled, without a quaver in his voice. "I will not."

The moment stretched into eternity. Sadda made a sign with her upraised hand.

Chapter Eight.

They put Richard Blade into a prison wagon and placed him on public view. He did not mind. At least a dozen times a day he glanced down to rea.s.sure himself that he was still a whole man. He was, and that, for the moment, was enough for him. He had won his gamble and defeated Sadda. At the last second she had signaled the blacks away and ordered that Blade be taken from the tent. He had seen her since, but only at a distance. Sometimes she would ride to within fifty yards of his cage, never closer, and sit there on her small horse and watch him for a long time. Blade ignored her. In the end she would spur away, riding as wildly and as well as any Mong warrior.

His wagon was placed apart from the other slave wagons, on the windy black-dusted plain near the circle of rocks where he had first entered X-Dimension. The wooden slats of his prison were strong and well set, but even so he might have escaped but for the guards posted every night. In the daytime, when the sun blinked to life like a lightbulb, he had no chance. As soon as dark was near his cage was patrolled by six Mong warriors. There was nothing to do but bide his time and wonder.

He had expected that Sadda would make a household slave of him, for very personal reasons of her own, but in this she fooled him. Every day she came and watched, but only that.

The dwarf did not come near him.

But he was not neglected. Crowds of Mongs came every day to jeer and jabber at him and to poke sharp sticks into the cage. For a time he endured this patiently, merely grabbing the sticks and snapping them in two. One. day he lost his temper and s.n.a.t.c.hed away a sharp stick, reversed it, and jammed it halfway through his tormentor's chest. The Mong ran screaming into the crowd, which only laughed at him. After that Blade was left pretty much alone. They still came to stare and gibe, but they kept a respectful distance.

He was fed twice a day on crude black bread, horse-meat, and a large bowl of the potent Mong drink called bross. This was made of mare's milk and blood, mixed half and half, with some fermented grain added. At first the bross sickened him, smelling as it did of faint decay, but in time he came to like it. And respect it. It was as potent as whiskey.

Every day the Mongs attacked the long yellow wall and every day they came back defeated. Now and again the huge cannon would boom and a jade ball would go whistling harmlessly overhead to smash itself on the rocks. At first he entertained hopes that the Caths would mount an attack, or a sortie at night, and fight through to rescue him. This he soon discarded as unrealistic. The Caths were hard pressed, even behind their wall, and he could not expect that Lali could influence her chiefs to waste men. To his own surprise he did not think much about Lali, except to wonder if she had taken a new man into her bed.

Rahstum, the Khad's captain, occasionally rode by the cage to speak with the guard officers, He would glance at Blade, the pale gray eyes narrowed in some private speculation, but he never spoke.

After a week of this Blade began to fret and plan escape, no matter how impossible or chancy it seemed. He was filthy and his beard a knotted tangle. He had been given a pair of ragged breeches, but otherwise had to endure sun and cold, wind and storm, and the eternally blowing black sand as best he could. Straw was tossed into the wagon, but by now it was filthy. He began, at night, to test the bars as best he could without the patrol becoming suspicious. This was not easy, for the guards continually circled the wagon, riding close every now and then to peer at him. But none would speak to him, not so much as a word, and Blade, though well aware of the irony, had to admit that he was lonely.

During the day, when they were not attacking the wall, the Mong cavalry drilled on the plain near Blade's cage. He knew something of horses, and horsemanship, and he had never seen skill like this before. They wheeled and formed and charged and reformed with clocklike precision. In open warfare he knew that nothing could stand against them. It was the great wall that baffled them, and against the wall the Khad sent them daily to die by the hundreds.

Did the Khad never think of flanking the wall? It must end somewhere. Either the Shaker of the World was singularly stupid or so obsessed with the great cannon that he could think of nothing else.

He watched the Mongs play a game in which they charged at a ring which was suspended from a post by a cord and set to swinging. The ring was no bigger than those bra.s.s ones that Blade, as a small child, had plucked from a carousel in Brighton to gain a free ride. The Mongs had to pick up the ring on their lance points at full gallop. Very few missed. Those who did were forced to ride between the lines of their companions and were well beaten.

On the ninth day Captain Rahstum rode up to Blade's cage and dismounted. Two Mongs were with him, one carrying a large square block of wood.

Rahstum surveyed the captive through the stout bars, hands on hips, as immaculately dressed as ever in leather armor that sparkled in the sun. Blade thought again that this man was not a true Mong. He was too tall, and his skin too fair beneath the heavy beard.

"So, Sir Blade, you survive well enough. Your cage agrees with you, I see. Though I will admit there is something of an odor about you!" And he wrinkled his nose.

Blade was silent, staring back at the Captain. Something had changed. He could smell it. But he was not to be provoked.

At last Rahstum said, "You are well fed? There is enough of food?"

Blade nodded. "Of what it is, there is enough. But a man of my station should not be made to exist on horse-meat and black bread. I wish you would speak to the Khad about this. And I could use some clean straw as well."

Rahstum stared at him for a moment, his gray eyes puzzled, then to Blade's surprise he broke into a roar of laughter. He pounded his knee. The two Mong soldiers who had accompanied him allowed themselves uneasy grins.

When the Captain finally stopped laughing he said: "I begin to believe, Sir Blade, that you really are a Sir. Whatever that is. You faced down Sadda and the Khad both, and there has been no cry or complaint from you. Now you complain of the food and bid me carry a message to the Khad for you."

He went off into another gale of laughter while Blade watched in patience. The wooden block, he saw now, was. really a collar. There was a neck hole cut in it and a crude iron lock.

Rahstum abruptly stopped laughing. He drew his sword and pointed to the cage door. "Get him out of there and put on the collar. No - hold. We will need more than the three of us."

After Rahstum summoned another half-dozen Mongs the door of the cage was opened. The Captain beckoned Blade out.

"A step up in your slave's life," he said. "You are to wear a collar and serve as one of Sadda's house slaves. Make no trouble for me, Sir Blade. Sadda does not want you dead - else you would be - and I do not want to bear blame for killing you. So I advise you to submit. You will sleep warmer, have better food, and who knows - before long you may have a little golden collar."

At this the Mongs all t.i.ttered and grinned at each other until Rahstum frowned at them.

There was no point in resistance. Blade came out of the cage and allowed them to affix the wooden collar around his neck. It was large, clumsy and awkward, but not too heavy for a man of his physique. In time it would wear skin from his neck and he would develop sores, but he did not intend to wear it that long.