Having gotten it, she was about to set her plan in motion. To begin it, she hadcalled upon Lastel/One-Thumb and cried foul: 'Tempus's sister, Cime the freeagent, was part of our bargain, Ilsig. If you cannot produce her, then shecannot aid me, and I am paying you far too much for a third-rate criminal'spaltry talents.'
The huge wrestler adjusted his deceptively soft gut. His east-side house wascommodious; dogs barked in their pens and favourite curs lounged about theirfeet, under the samovar, upon riotous silk prayer rugs, in the embrace of comelykrrf-drugged slaves - not her idea of entertainment, but Lastel's, his sweatingforehead and heavy breathing proclaimed as he watched the bestial event a dozenother guests found fetching.
The dusky Ilsigs saw nothing wrong in enslaving their own race. Nisibisi hadmore pride. It was well that these were comfortable with slavery - they wouldknow it far more intimately, by and by.
But her words had jogged her host, and Lastel came up on one elbow, his cushionssuddenly askew. He, too, had been partaking ofkrrf- not smoking it, as was theIlsig custom, but mixing it with other drugs which made it sink into the blooddirectly through the skin. The effects were greater, and less predictable.
As she had hoped, her words had the power of krrf behind them. Fear showed inthejowled mountain's eyes. He knew what she was; the fear was her due. Any ofthese were helpless before her, should she decide a withered soul or two mightamuse her. Their essences could lighten her load as krrf lightened theirs.
The gross man spoke quickly, a whine of excuses: the woman had 'disappeared ...taken by Askelon, the very lord of dreams. All at the Mageguild's fete where the