The tapestry moved again, and the glow from the sin-gle oil lamp in the room cast dancing shadows across the faded material. The grating stopped, but Krysty could hear the squeak of an ungreased hinge. There was an-other entrance into the room, hidden by the huge wall covering.
Whoever was coming into the room was moving with a marvelously light foot. Krysty made a guess, calling in a low voice.
“Come in, Jabez. Why not use the proper door to the room? Frightened you might be seen visiting a mutie in the middle of the night?”
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A hand appeared at the edge of the fabric, gripping it tightly. At her words, the hand vanished for a moment, then the tapestry was pushed aside and the young Lord Jabez Pendragon Cawdor stepped softly into Krysty’s prison room.
He wore a jacket of plum-colored velvet, slashed with white ermine. His chest was bare beneath it and, Krysty noticed, utterly without hair. His trousers, made of ra-ven-black satin, were loose and baggy about the knees, like something out of a child’s book of Sinbad the sailor. He wore fur slippers on his feet. His dart gun was in his belt, his right hand hovering near the butt.
“Only a mutie could have known it was me,” he said quietly, looking around the chamber suspiciously. When he was satisfied he and Krysty were alone, he perched on the edge of her bed, one foot dangling.
“Who else could it be? Your father? To move so quiet? Your mother? I think not. Her liking for jolt would keep her to her room at night, unless she had some vital er-rand.” Krysty stared at Jabez as she spoke, looking for a clue that he knew about Rachel’s nocturnal visit to Ryan.
But the pallid face betrayed nothing. The distorted eye blinked furiously. His left hand toyed with the beautiful amethyst set in gold at the end of the long chain about his throat.
“Blood and bones! You are one of… If you were not marked for death I could…”
Krysty felt her pulse rate rising. There was something truly sinister about the young man who sat so relaxed on her bed. There weren’t many reasons why he might come to see her at this hour. And none of them were good.
“What is it?”
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“I came to see you. To see if my brief and interrupted memory of you was correct.” He paused, but she didn’t reply. “And it is,” he concluded lamely.
“You’ve seen me. Now you can go.”
“Ah, no. That’s stupid of you. Stupid to anger me.”
“You know I’ll be dead by tomorrow, lordling,” she mocked. “You think any threat can frighten me? Go and sleep with your mother, like a good little boy. Go on.”
Jabez drew the dart gun and leveled it at her. “It can be tomorrow. It can be now, you flap-mouth slut! It can be easy or I can make it hard.”
Krysty continued to deliberately provoke him, feeling her own tension mounting, knowing she was flirting with an instant chilling.
And not caring.
“Hard, Jabez? I can’t believe you can make anything hard, least of all your pathetic cock.”
“Bitch!” he screamed, taking a half step toward her and squeezing the trigger of the blaster. But his feet slipped on the edge of the large carpet and threw his aim. The cluster of darts hissed venomously across the room, burying themselves in the door of the wardrobe, missing Krysty by a hand’s breadth.
She backed away from him, whispering to herself, watching Jabez Cawdor through slitted eyes. “Earth Mother, help me. Aid me now, Gaia! Help me and give the strength and the power.”
“Prayers won’t help you, slut! I’m going to open your belly and rip out your tripes. But first I’m going to show you how a Cawdor can fuck. Sit on the bed and keep your hands still. No, take off your clothes. Fast! Before I waste you, here and now.”
Moving as slowly as she could, Krysty concentrated on slipping into the trance of power, the way her mother,
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Sonja, had taught her. The dark blue top came off, re-vealing her splendid breasts. Still chanting the invocation to the Earth Mother, the girl started to unzip her pants, slipping off the low boots and kicking them into a corner of the room.