Mazes of Scorpio Read Online Free PDF

sparkled.
    One does not ordinarily toast in parclear.
    “Taken up, Kov Seg. She was discovered lying in the gutter, drunk and stupid.”
    At once Seg and I believed we understood.
    “Poor soul,” said Seg, and he spoke softly.
    Nedfar, too, caught the drift.
    “Yet, she was an enemy, and would have destroyed us.”
    “True.”
    “You will see her, majister?” Hardle drank and wiped his lips daintily with lace-trimmed linen from his sleeve.
    “I will see her, Andoth.”
    Seg looked in my direction, and I nodded. Of course.
    Then I said, “Andoth. This is good news. But, before I see her, make sure she is sober and cleaned up, given fresh clothes if necessary, fed and cared for.”
    “I understand, majister. It shall be as you command.”
    “Does she give a name?”
    Hardle twisted his head sideways. “She is not, majister, the Lady Helvia. At least, she says her name is Pancresta.”
    “I see. Send for Hamdi the Yenakker. Have him study this woman, and do not let her see him. I feel there is a great deal we can learn from her.”
    So that was how it was arranged. But privately I wondered just how much we would ever learn about Spikatur Hunting Sword.

Chapter three
    Questions for Spikatur
    The corridors, sculpted from rock, trimmed with rock, arched and groined with rock, loomed grim and forbidding. The walls ran with moisture. Torches hurled sharp sparks from glittering particles embedded in the walls. The floor slimed slippery underfoot. These were dungeons.
    Yet the woman Pancresta had been placed in a room furnished with some comfort, with carpets and wall hangings, with tables and chairs, and a brazier against the underground damp and chill. Her room would not have shamed a middle-class hotel.
    She stood up as we entered.
    Her coiled hair was neatly arranged. She wore a long blue robe, and the hems were trimmed with fur. A cheap fur, perhaps, but soft and warm. Her face was pale.
    While that was natural, the paleness was more a habitual absence of high color than a result of her capture, her present predicament. This, I felt strongly.
    Her face was of the long, plain, strong type, with prominent cheekbones, and a tight mouth. She had worn armor, and a sword belted around those lean hips. She would be mean in a fight, and mean elsewhere, and now she was filled with a vindictive desire to revenge herself for the death of her lover.
    I said, “Mistress Pancresta?”
    She inclined that hard face, and the coiled hair caught the light.
    “You will not believe me, Mistress Pancresta, if I express sorrow for the deaths of your companions. But it is so. Needless death offends me.”
    “Death is not needless when it is such as you who should die.”
    Seg opened his mouth, and I said, and I think I surprised her, “Why?”
    “Why?”
    She opened her eyes fully. They were dark with pain.
    “Yes. Why is it needful that I die?”
    “Because you are one of the lordly ones.”
    I laughed.
    “I? A lordly one? You mock me, Mistress Pancresta.”
    Her hard face did not flush; but her lips tightened still more.
    She fairly spat out: “You are the Emperor of Vallia. That, alone, marks you for destruction.”
    “As to that,” I said casually, “I’m inclined to agree with you. But that has nothing to do with death.”
    She was puzzled.
    “You speak in riddles.”
    “No. I speak in words that will be understood by those who have the intelligence to understand.”
    “Now you mock me.”
    Truth to tell, true though all this was, it was of small comfort to me, knowing that I intended to shift the job of being Emperor of Vallia off onto my fine son Drak. Still, he was born to be an emperor. I had merely gained that job by my sword and by election. There were differences. And, mind you, my way may very well be the better of the two...
    “I would like you to tell me what you know of Spikatur Hunting Sword.”
    She smiled then, a hard and cruel smile. But I fancied there was uncertainty in it, too.
    “Spikatur will sweep