'And if I contact your guild, will it confirm this?'
'Of course/
I walked around behind him. 'So what brought you here? To these private apartments?'
'I was a guest/
'Of who?'
'Namber Wylk, a local trader. He invited me for a mid-Dormant feast/
'This dwelling is registered to Namber Wylk/ Fischig put in. 'A trader, as he says, no priors. I don't know him/
What about Eyclone?' I asked Crotes, leaning down to stare into his eyes. There was a ripple of fear in them.
mo?'
'Your real employer. Murdin Eyclone. Don't make me ask you again/
'I don't know any Eyclone!' There was a ring of truth to his voice. He may well not have known Eyclone by that name.
I dragged up a chair and sat down facing him. 'There is an awful lot of your, story that doesn't add up. You're found here consorting with recidivists who we can connect to a planetary conspiracy. There are charges of murder to be considered – a lot of them. We can continue this in far more intimate and comprehensive circumstances, or you can make me like you more by filling in some details now/
'I… don't know what to tell you
Whatever you know. About the Pontius, perhaps?'
A dark, stricken look crossed his face. His jaw worked for a moment, trying to form words. He quivered. Then there was a liquid pop and his head fell forward.
Throne of Light!' Fischig cried.
'Damn it/ I growled, and bent down to lift Crotes's limp skull. He was dead. Eyclone had left failsafes in die conditioning that would trigger at certain subjects. The Pontius evidently was one of those.
'A stroke. Artificially induced/
'So we know nothing?'
We know a great deal? Weren't you listening? For a start we know the Pontius is the most precious secret they protect/
'So tell me about it?'
I was about to, at least evasively, when the shutter barring the far wall to the climate extremes of the world outside the dome blew out. Hidden charges fired simultaneously. The metal sheet splayed outwards into the freezing dark. The blast-force threw both Fischig and myself to the ground.
A millisecond later, the shattered crystal in the portal blew back in at us, carried by the hurricane power of the Dormant winds outside – a blizzard of billions of razor-sharp slivers.
FIVE
Covered traces.
The Glaws of Gudrun.
Unwelcome companions.
Deafened by the blast, I had wit enough left to grab Fischig and roll with him out through the terrace doors as the emergency shutter clanked down from its slit in the hardwood ceiling. We lay panting and half-blind on the terrace, the hard light and warmth of the Sun-dome thawing our cold-shocked bodies.