be innocent - possibly. But this one ...?' He continued to glare at Nicolae. Moreover, his upper lip had wrinkled back from his eye teeth like the muzzle of a dog, and his fangs showed metamorphic growth where blood crept on ivory down from the ruptured gums.
'But since nothing is forbidden to me in all Rune-manse,' Nathan spoke hurriedly, gasping the words out, 'what could he tell me which I cannot discover for myself?'
Slowly, very slowly, a little of the fire went out of Maglore's eyes. He had seemed huge, awesomely powerful, but now in a moment shrank down into himself and was merely ... old. Then, to his errant thrall, he said: 'Ah! Now see how he pleads for you, Nicolae. Yet if the boot were on the other foot, and if I were to give you leave, you would have his blood in a moment! What it is to have compassion, eh? Why, if I don't take care, I can see this Nathan beguiling all of Runemanse with his winning ways!'
Nicolae, cowering to the wall, nodded his eager agreement. 'Oh, he's a one to watch, master, be sure!'
Maglore gave a phlegmy chuckle, then stood up straighter. 'Oh, I am sure - but you're the one I'll be watching, my lad! Now begone, you scummy, treacherous thing!'
Nicolae licked his lips, slid along the wall, fled wailing past Maglore and out of the kitchen. His footsteps receded into distance, pattering through his master's rooms ...
Nathan took the opportunity to repeat, 'I meant no harm. Nor do I think that Nicolae meant any harm.'
Maglore nodded. 'I'm satisfied that you didn't. But that one - is a beggar! This time I have let you intervene on his behalf. But let's have it understood: I don't welcome such interference. And I would advise you, Nathan: even one who is to be my ... friend, should know when to step carefully.'
Nathan said nothing, and in a little while Maglore asked him, 'Have you begun your exploration of Rune-manse?'
'Your rooms, yes.'
'My rooms?' Maglore arched an eyebrow. 'Do you always take people at their word?'
Nathan shrugged - he hoped not negligently - and said, 'Only liars may not be taken at their word, master.'
Maglore blinked and slowly nodded, then laughed and slapped his thigh. 'Aye! It must be true! Well, well
- and so you are good at word games! And we shall get along famously. I look forward to many long conversations with you, Nathan. Except now I have things to do. A creature of mine lies damaged in its vat and I have repairs to make, lest a deal of hard work is wasted. And so I say again: go and explore the manse, or seek out your room and rest, and when I call for you come to me. Ah, but when I call, then make haste! Never keep me waiting, Nathan. Now, do you understand all?'
'Yes, master.'
Maglore turned away, and at once turned back. 'Perhaps I have already warned you, but if not I do so now: avoid my lieutenants if you can, for they are impatient men and unkind. Aye, and you must also avoid my women, who are patient beyond words and only too kind! And if you follow my meaning and my advice, all will be well...'
Runemanse was a queer mixture of rocks, mainly volcanic, whose outer sheath was of quartz and feldspar fused to granite. Many of its caverns were natural, formed from cysts of expanding gas trapped in the ancient magma as lava cooled to rock. But where softer pumice had formed in the primal flux, there the Seer Lord's thralls were at work even now, tunnelling in the body of the place like maggots in an apple.
Nathan found his 'room' (a small cyst or cavelet, in fact, situated directly below Maglore's own expansive apartments but unconnected except through the central stairwell with its hideous guardian), set back from the perimeter of the great hall at the furthest reach of a corridor hewn through the fibrous pumice of an old lava run. There were several other rooms off that corridor; their low, arched entries lacked doors but were equipped on the inside with screens of animal skin stretched over cartilage frames, which kept their interiors private from the view of casual passers-by. Nathan's room, however, had a wooden door with a peephole and a latch ... but no key. Still, it was privacy of a sort.
Directed there by a slender young female thrall - a waif-like creature no