"Leave him alone! He has done nothing to you!"

Turning quickly, Janus narrowed his eyes and searched among the slaves. "It seems we have a wolf among the sheep!" he said loudly. "How wonderful! Come and show yourself!"

A man stepped out of line and began shuffling toward the table. The nearest demonslaver moved to strike him down, but backed down at a quick gesture from Janus. With a cavalier wave of one hand, Janus beckoned the loinclothed slave forward.

The man had served on the oaring deck. Twenty-Nine had never been afforded the opportunity to speak to him, for their stations had been too far removed from each other. But he did know that this slave had been one of the most quarrelsome. He had purposely given the demonslavers a great deal of trouble, sometimes even mocking them. Many of the others manning the oars had looked up to him. The grisly evidence of the demonslavers' love for both the nine-tails and trident showed over much of his lean, hard body, and yet this man, like the slave named Wulfgar, had somehow managed to keep not only part of his strength intact, but also most of his dignity. As he walked slowly forward to face Janus, the demonslavers grudgingly made way.

"You are in no position to give orders," Janus said, looking the man up and down. He grinned as he fingered the black-and-white spheres at his hip, rubbing them together in a circle around his palm. Twenty-Nine cringed at the perverse, metallic sound of their clinking together.

"Turn your left shoulder to me," Janus ordered. The man obeyed. Janus narrowed his eyes.

"Talis," he said approvingly. "Good. Your death shall be no particular loss. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a head start-say, twenty meters. Run as fast as you can toward the edge of the pier, where the ships lay docked. If you make it, I'll let you live. And if you don't, well, let's just say that you will be saved the unpleasant experience of this place."

After an indication from Janus, one of the demonslavers unlocked the slave's manacles. The slave rubbed his tortured wrists in disbelief.

Smiling, Janus took the black-and-white rope from the hook on his belt and slowly began uncoiling it. Then he grasped the line at its center, letting the small iron spheres at either end hang down almost to the stone floor. Casually, he looked up into the eyes of the slave who had dared defy him.

"I suggest you start now," he said softly.

The slave turned and began running toward the ships docked at the end of the pier.

Calmly, almost slowly, Janus raised the checkered line high over his head and began to swing the spheres around in a circle.The line and spheres sang hauntingly as they tore though the air-faster, faster, until they were a glimmering pinwheel of black and white.

And then Janus let go.

The weapon wheeled unerringly toward the running slave. He never had a chance.

The midpoint of the checkered line caught him in the back of the neck. Instantaneously the lines on either side wound around and around his throat.

The twin spheres closed ranks, smashing with a great cracking noise into his head-one into his face, the other into the back of his skull. Blood and brain matter exploded from his crushed cranium, and he crashed to the ground just before reaching the end of the pier. A hush came over the crowd.

The victim groaned.

"Don't tell me he still lives!" Janus sneered. "How remarkable!"

The Harlequin strode to his victim and uncoiled his bizarre weapon from the slave's mangled neck. The slave groaned one last time as the heartless butcher stood over him, watching him expire.

With a smile, Janus bent over to dip the spheres into the sea to clean them, then replaced them on his belt. He looked over to several demonslavers who had crowded around the body. Suddenly his smile widened.

"I think it safe to say he no longer has the head for this business!" And he gave a sarcastic laugh.

The slavers standing near him broke into raucous laughter.

Twenty-Nine lowered his head in shame. Then his shame quickly turned to anger, filling every corner of his heart. He looked down at his broken hands. Clenching his jaw, he turned to glare at the freak standing so proudly over his bloody victory.

"What shall we do with the body?" one of the demonslavers asked.

Thinking for a moment, the Harlequin turned back to the crowd of slaves and beckoned. Immediately the air became filled with the sounds of snapping nine-tails as the slavers forced the crowd toward the edge of the pier, where the slain slave lay.

"Hear me!" Janus shouted. "For those others of you who might defy us, know that what happened to this slave is perhaps the most lenient of consequences. There exist far more ingenious methods of obtaining your cooperation, I assure you! Your loved ones back in Eutracia know you are gone, but have absolutely no idea of where you have been taken. Nor shall they ever. Rescue is quite impossible. And should any of you be thinking of plotting an escape, also know that you are on an island. Should you try to leave us, only death awaits you in these waters. Allow me to demonstrate!"

Janus calmly turned to several of the slavers standing beside him. He pointed to the mutilated corpse. "Hack the body into pieces, and throw them in," he ordered simply.

Two of the demonslavers came forward, sliding their short, broad swords from the scabbards hanging low on their backs. With amazingly fast strokes, the body was quickly dismembered. Blood ran slowly toward the edge of the pier and dripped into the sea.

Two of the demonslavers grasped the bloody parts and tossed them into the ocean just aft of the Defiant. Then Janus turned to look down into the murky depths and held up a painted hand. The entire crowd went silent.

"Wait for it," he said quietly. Then, slowly, something began to happen.

There was a disturbance in the water.

An area of the sea surface started to glow with the color azure. It began to writhe and churn. Deepening whirlpools, each several meters across, could be seen forming in various spots on the gloomy sea of the subterranean harbor. Everyone stood transfixed, waiting to see what would happen next. And then, almost as if with a single mind, the crowd recoiled.

From the midst of the azure whirlpools, squat, menacing heads silently began rising up out of the sea.

The long, flat skulls were covered with dark red scales. Slanted, yellow eyes, with vertical black irises, darted from side to side as the heads turned menacingly this way and that, searching for whatever had disturbed the surface of the sea. Several of them began slithering hungrily toward the pieces of severed corpse, portions of their long, smooth bodies intermittently rising and submerging as they went. Their strangely forked tails rose silently from the water, only to submerge again. In the center of their backs a spiny fin occasionally swept up in a gentle curve only to fall again, to lie against the sinuous spine.

Dozens of them were rising silently to the surface now, slithering over and under one another, writhing and twisting in the dark sea. The only sound was their eager hissing.

Some of them had reached their meal, and they opened their jaws wide. Astoundingly long pink, forked tongues flashed out to entwine the bloody body parts. Then the tongues retracted, pulling the meat into waiting maws. In each mouth, four long, white fangs-two at the top and another pair at the bottom-flashed as they bit down. With snorting, snuffling grunts of pleasure the monsters swallowed.

The sea became a whirling riot of activity as the grisly feeding frenzy continued unabated.

When the dismembered corpse was finally consumed, the beasts, silent now, slithered back into the depths. The surface of the sea stilled; the azure glow faded away. The bloodied, soiled loincloth of the dead slave floated to the surface of the murky water-all that was left of the man who had dared defy Janus.