by AM Kirkby
***
He got back to the lodgings late; the first stars were already showing through, though the horizon still held the pale light of late evening. He was walking in the over-careful way that betrays the half-drunk man; at the door, his hand missed the latch first time, and he had to move his fingertips across the wood to find it. Inside, he heard raised voices; no; one voice raised. He opened the door; quickly, stepped in, and closed it behind him.
Larth was standing with his back to him, saying, loudly, "Where is he?" Larth raised his arm, brought it down, palm open. Smack. A toothless murmur in answer.
Smack again. Larth had his prisoner tied up in a chair, and was slapping him first one way, then the other.
"Disappeared."
Smack.
"Where?"
"I can't tell you."
"Bullshit!" Larth was roaring now; he put his whole body into the next blow.
"I don't know."
"Shit!"
Suddenly the prisoner was sobbing. "I really can't, no one knows, he never says where he's going, he just goes, he disappears, no one knows." Words dissolved into babble, into sobs, into silence.
Master turned his head. Marce and Laris were standing at the other end of the room, looking on. Marce was pale with anger or with fright, he couldn't tell.
"Bullshit." Another smack.
"That's enough."
Larth turned round, saw Master, turned back. He spoke with his back turned.
"It's not enough. Not till he tells me what we need to know."
"I know already. That's enough."
Larth shrugged, sighed disgustedly. "I would have got it in another half an hour, anyway."
"You would have got something. Whether it would be true or not... where did you pick him up, anyway?"
"He was at the agora. Marce brought him in."
"Why?"
Marce spoke, behind him, softly. "He'd been talking about Cacus. Cacus was here three days ago. He seemed to have been listening rather closely. I brought him back here to talk."
"He hasn't done much talking," Larth observed.
"Well, we have a problem."
"We do?"
That was the trouble with Larth, Master reflected; a bit slow. "We were going to keep our mission under wraps. I don't see how we can do that after the way you've treated him."
"We can pay him off," Marce offered.
"No good. We can't be sure he won't talk."
"We can always kill him."
"Ah. We could, yes. And then we've got another problem."
Larth looked down at the floor, whistling almost soundlessly between his teeth.
"Laris? Can you look after him?"
"I'm not involved in this."
"You are now."
"I don't think I can. Not unless he's tied up. And then when we let him go, whenever that is, I'm going to be in trouble."
"You know who he is?"
"Not actually know, no. But I think he's one of the Kilni."
"That could be bad for you. I see. Well, we'll have to take him with us."
He realised the man in the chair was crying, almost silently, and felt his conscience turning like a knife. Not conscience, perhaps, as the General might have expressed it, but rather a vivid sympathy; he could imagine what it would be like to sit in that chair, mouth bloody, face bruised, and hear his death discussed coolly, as one of a number of equal and equally practical options. He still wondered if somewhere on their way, Larth would find a way to rid them of this inconvenience. Marce had better keep an eye on him.