“Don’t-“
“And when mistress wants you, it does infallibly what a man’s body ought-tell
me: does it feel anything?”
Stilcho gave a wrench of his arm. It was no good. The paralysis closed about his
throat and stopped the shout; Haught’s eyes caught his and held and the arm fell
leaden at his side.
“I have the threads that hold you to life,” Haught said. “And I will tell you a
secret: she has never done as much for you as should be done. She can’t, now.
But she could have. The power that could have done it is blowing on the wind
tonight, is falling like dust, wasted. Do you think that she would have thought
twice of you? Do you think that she would have said to herself-Stilcho could
benefit by this, Stilcho could have his life back? No. She never thought of
you.”
Liar, Stilcho thought, fighting the silken voice; but it was hard to doubt the
hand that held the threads of his existence. Liar-not that he believed Ischade
had ever thought of him; that he did not expect; but he doubted that there had
ever been such a chance as Haught claimed.
“But there was,” said Haught softly, and something fluttered and rippled through
the curtains of his mind. “There was such a chance and there still is one. Tell
me, Stilcho-ex-slave speaks to slave now-do you enjoy this condition? You’ll
trek to hell and back to preserve that little thread of life of yours; you’ll
whimper and you’ll go like a beaten dog because even death won’t make you safe
from her, and your life won’t last a moment if she forgets you the way
she’s forgetting those others. But what if there were another source of life?