pokers, attacking his knees while he struggled vainly to defend himself. Once,no twice, he had screamed aloud and tried to pull his legs close against hischest, but a great weight held them down while the torturer did his work. Unableto move his hands or arms, Jubal wrenched his head about, drooling and gibberingincoherent, impotent threats. Finally his mind slipped onto another plane, adarker plane where there was no pain-no feeling at all.

* * *

Slowly the world came back into focus, so slowly that Jubal had to fight todistinguish dream from reality. He was in a room...no, in a hovel. There was aguttered candle struggling to give off light, crowded in turn by the sunstreaming in through a doorway without a door.

He lay on the dirt floor, his clothes damp and clammy from his own sweat. Hislegs were wound from thigh to calf with bandages... lumpy bandages, as if hislegs had no form save for what the rags gave them.

Alten Stulwig, Sanctuary's favored healer, squatted over him, keeping the sun'srays from his face. "You're awake. Good," the man grunted. "Maybe now I canfinish my treatment and go home. You're only the second black I've worked on,you know. The other died. It's hard to judge skin tone in these cases."

"Saliman?" Jubal croaked.

"Outside relieving himself. You underestimate him, you know. Warrior or not, hekept me from following my better judgment. Threatened to carve out my stomach ifI didn't wait until you regained consciousness."

"Saliman?" Jubal laughed weakly. "You've been bluffed, healer. He's never drawnblood. Not all those who work for me are cut-throats."

"I believed him," the healer retorted stiffly. "And I still do."

"As well you should," Saliman added from the doorway. In one hand he carried acorroded pan, its handle missing; he carried it carefully, as if it, or its