of the Thalassocrat's duty to her own country, and had to punish its incessant rebelliousness?'
'I don't hold anything against you yourself, Khromona,' said Coruna with a tired smile. 'But I'd give my soul to the nether fires for the chance to pull your damned palace down around your ears!'
'I'm sorry it has to end this way,' said the queen. 'You were a brave woman. I'd like to drain many beakers of wine with you on the other side of death.' She signed to the guards. 'Take her away.'
'One moment, sire,' said Shorzona. 'Is it your intention to lock all these pirates in the same dungeon cell?'
'Why—I suppose so. Why not?'
'I do not trust their captain. Chained and imprisoned, she is still a menace. I think she has certain magical techniques--'
'That's a lie!' spat Coruna. 'I never needed your stinking man's tricks to flatten the likes of Achaera!'
'I would not leave her with her women,' advised Shorzona imperturbably. 'Best she be given her own cell, alone. I know a place.'
'Well—well, let it be so.' Khromona waved a hand in dismissal.
As Shorzona turned to lead the guard off, she traded a long glance with Chryseir. His eyes remained hooded as he looked after the departing captives.
II
The cell was no longer than a woman's height, a dripping cave hewed out of the rock under the palace foundations. Coruna crouched on the streaming floor in utter darkness. The chains which they had locked to ringbolts in the wall clashed when she stirred.
And this was how it ended, she thought bitterly. The wild career of the exiled conqueror, the heave and surge of ships under the running waves, the laughter of comrades and the clamor of swords and the thrum of wind in the rigging, had come to this—one woman hunched in a loneliness and darkness like a colder womb, waiting in timeless murk for the day when they would drag her out to be torn by beasts for the amusement of fools.
They fed her at intervals, a slave bringing a bowl of prison swill while a spear-armed guard stood well out of reach and watched. Otherwise she was alone. She could not even hear the voices of other captives; there was only the slow dripping of water and the harsh tones of iron links. The cell must lie below even the regular dungeons, far down in the very bowels of the island.
Vague images floated across her mind—the high cliffs about Iliontis Bay, the great flowers blooming with sullen fires in the jungle beyond the beach, the slim black corsair galleys at anchor. She remembered the open sky, the eternally clouded sky under which blew the long wet winds, out of which spilled rain and lightning and grew the eerie blue of dusk. She had often wondered what lay beyond those upper clouds.
Now and then, she remembered, one could see the vague disc of the Heaven-Fire, and she had heard of times when incredibly violent storms opened a brief rift in the high cloud layers to let through a shaft of searing brilliance at whose touch water boiled and the earth burst into, flame. It made her think of the speculans, of Conahur's philosophers, that the world was really a globe around which the Heaven-Fire swung, bringing day and night. Some had gone so far as to imagine that it was the world which did the moving, that the Heaven-Fire was a ball of flame in the middle of creation about which all other things revolved.
But Conahur was in chains now, she remembered, its folk bowed to the will of Achaera's greedy proconsuls, its art and philosophy the idle playthings of the conquerors. The younger generation was growing up with an idea that it might be best to yield, to become absorbed into the thalassocracy and so eventually gain equal status with the Achaerans.
But Coruna could not forget the great flames flapping against a wind-torn night sky, the struggling forms at ropes' ends swaying from trees, the long lines of chained people stumbling hopelessly to the slave galleys under Achaeran lashes. Perhaps she had carried the grudge too long—no, by Breannach Brannor! There had been a family which was no longer, That was grudge enough for a lifetime.
A lifetime, she thought sardonically, which wouldn't be very much protracted now.
She sighed wearily in the stinking gloom of the cell. There were too many memories crowding in, The outlaw years had been hard and desperate, but they'd been good ones too. There had been song and laughter and comradeship and gigantic deeds over an endless waste of waters—the long blue hush of twilight, the soft black nights, the gray days with a sea running gray and green and gold under squalls of rain, the storms roaring and raging, the eager leap of a ship—frenzy of battle at the taking of town or galley, death so close one could almost hear the beat of black wings, orgy of loot and vengeance—the pirate town, grass huts under jungle trees, stuffed with treasure, full of brawling bawdy life, the scar-faced swaggering women and the lusty insolent men, ruddy fire-light hammering back the night while the surf thundered endlessly along the beach
Well, all things came to a close. And while she would have wished a different sort of death for herself, she didn't have long to wait in this misery.
Something stirred, far down the narrow corridor, and she caught the flickering glow of a torch. Scowling, she stood up, stooped under the low ceiling. Who in all the hells was this? It was too soon for feeding, unless her time sense had gone completely awry, and she didn't think the games could have been prepared in the few days since her arrival.
They came up to the entrance of the cell and stood looking in by the guttering red torchlight. A snarl twisted Coruna's lips. 'Shorzona and Chryseir—Of all the scum of Achaera,' she growled, 'I had to be inflicted with you.'
'This is no time for insolence,' said the sorcerer coldly. She lifted the torch higher. The red light threw her face into blood-splashed shadow. Her eyes were pits of darkness in which smoldered two embers. Her black robe blended with the surrounding shadow, her face and hands seemed to float disembodied in the dank air.
Coruna's eyes traveled to Chryseir, and in spite of the hate that burned in her she had to admit he was perhaps the loveliest man she had ever seen. Tall and slim and lithe, moving with the soundless grace of a Sanduvian pherax, the dark hair sheening down past the chill sculptured beauty of his marble-white face, he returned her blue stare with eyes of dark flame. He was dressed as if for action—a brief tunic that left arms and legs bare, a short black cloak, and high buskins—but jewels still blazed at throat and wrists.
Behind his padded a lean shadow at sight of which Coruna stiffened. She had heard of Chryseir' tame erinye. Folk said the devil-beast had found a harder heart in the witch's breast and yielded to him; some said less mentionable things.
The slitted green eyes flared at Coruna and the cruel muzzle opened in a fanged yawn. 'Back, Peria,' said Chryseir evenly.
His voice was low and sweet, almost a caress. It seemed strange that such a voice had spoken the rituals of black sorcery and ordered the flaying alive of a thousand helpless Issarian prisoners and counseled some of the darkest intrigues in Achaera's bloody history.
He said to Coruna: 'This is a fine end for all your noble thoughts, woman of Conahur.'
'At least,' she answered, 'you credit me with having had them. Which is more than I'd say for you.'
The red lips curved in a cynical smile. 'Human purposes have a habit of ending this way. The mighty warrior, the scourge of the seas, ends in a foul prison cell waiting for an unimaginative death. The old epics lied, didn't they? Life isn't quite the glorious adventure that fools think it to be.'
'It could be, if it weren't for your sort.' Wearily: 'Go away, won't you? If you won't even let me talk with my old comrades, you can at least spare me your own company.'
'We are here with a definite purpose,' said Shorzona. 'We offer you life, freedom—and the liberation of Conahur!'
She shook her tawny head. 'It isn't even funny.'
'No, no, I mean it,' said Chryseir earnestly. 'Shorzona had you put in here alone not out of malice, but simply to make this private talk possible. You can help us with a project so immeasurably greater than your petty quarrels that anything you can ask in return will be as nothing. And you are the one woman who
can do so.
'I tell you this so that, realizing you have some kind of bargaining position, you will meet as us as equal to equal, not as prisoner to captor. If you agree to aid us, you will be released this instant.'
With a sudden flame within her, Coruna tautened her huge body. O gods-O almighty gods beyond the clouds—if it were true—!
Her voice shook: 'What do you want?'
'Your help in a desperate venture,' said Chryseir. 'I tell you frankly that we may well all die in it. But at least you will die as a free man—and if we succeed, all the world may be ours.'
'What is it?' she asked hoarsely.
'I cannot tell you everything now,' said Shorzona. 'But the story has long been current that you once sailed to the lairs of the Xanthi, the Sea Demons, and returned alive. Is it true?'
'Aye.' Coruna stiffened, with sudden alarm trembling in her nerves. 'Aye, by great good luck I came back. But they are not a race for humans to traffic with.'
'I think the powers I can summon will match theirs,' said Shorzona. 'We want you to guide us to their dwellings and teach us the language on the way, as well as whatever else you know about them. When we return, you may go where you choose. And if we get their help, we will be able to set Conahur free soon afterward.'
Coruna shook her head. 'It's nothing good that you plan,' she said slowly. 'No one would approach the Xanthi for any