“You have informed me that you are unfamiliar with the safety catch, sir. Upon either side of the needier you hold, you will observe a small movable convexity. Raised, it will prevent the needier from discharging.”
“This,” Silk said. Like the grips, each tiny boss was marked with a hyacinth, though these were so small that their minute, perfect florets were almost microscopic. He pushed one of the bosses down, and the other moved with it. “Will it fire now?”
“I believe so, sir. Please do not direct it toward my glass. Glasses are now irreplaceable, sir, the art of their manufacture having been left behind when—”
“I’m greatly tempted nevertheless.”
“In the event of the destruction of this glass I should be unable to deliver your message to Auk, sir.”
“In which case there’d be no need of it. This smooth bar inside the ring is the trigger, I suppose.”
“I believe that is correct, sir.”
Silk pointed the needier at the wardrobe and pressed the trigger. There was a sharp snap, like the cracking of a child’s whip. “It doesn’t seem to have done anything,” he said.
“My mistress’s wardrobe is not a living creature, sir.”
“I never thought it was, my son.” Silk bent to examine the wardrobe’s door; a hole not much thicker than a hair had appeared in one of its polished panels. He opened the door again. Some, though not all, of the gowns in line with the hole showed ragged tears, as if they had been stabbed with a dull blade a little narrower than his index finger.
“I should use this on you, you know, my son,” he told the monitor, “for Auk’s sake. You’re just a machine, like the scorer in our ball court.”
“I am a machine, but not just a machine, sir.”
Nodding mostly to himself, Silk pushed up the safety catch and dropped the little needler into his pocket.
The other object hidden under the stockings was shaped like the letter T. The stem was cylindrical and oddly rough, with a single, smooth protuberance below the crossbar; the crossbar itself seemed polished and slightly curved, and had upturned ends. The entire object felt unnaturally cold, as reptiles often do. Silk extracted it from the stockings with some difficulty and examined it curiously.
“Would it be convenient for me to withdraw, sir?” the monitor asked.
Silk shook his head. “What is this?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
He regarded the monitor narrowly. “Can you lie, under extreme provocation, my son? Tell an untruth? I know a chem quite well; and she can, or so she says.”
“No, sir.”
“Which leaves me not a whit the wiser.” Silk seated himself on the stool again.
“I suppose not, sir.”
“I think I know what this is, you see.” Silk held the T-shaped object up for the monitor’s inspection; it gleamed like polished silver. “I’d appreciate confirmation, and some instructions on how to operate it.”
“I am afraid I cannot assist you, sir, although I would be glad to receive your own opinion.”
“I think it’s an azoth. I’ve never actually seen one, but we used to talk about them when I was a boy. One summer all of us made wooden swords, and sometimes we pretended they were azoths.”
“Charming, sir.”
“Not really,” Silk muttered, scrutinizing the flashing gem in the pommel of the azoth. “We were as bloodthirsty as so many little tigers, and what’s charming about that? But anyway, an azoth is supposed to be controlled by something called a demon. If you don’t know about azoths, you don’t know anything about that, I suppose.”
“No, sir.” The monitor’s floating face swung from side to side, revealing that there was no head behind it. “If you wish to conceal yourself, sir, should you not do so at once? My master’s steward and some of our guards are searching the suites on this floor.”
“How do you know that?” Silk asked sharply.
“I have been observing them. I have glasses in some of the other suites, sir.”
“They began at the north end of the corridor?”
“Yes, sir. Quite correct.”
Silk rose. “Then I must hide in here well enough to escape them, and get into the north wing after they’ve left.”
“You haven’t examined the other wardrobe, sir.”
“And I don’t intend to. How many unsearched suites are there between us?”
“Three, sir.”
“Then I’ve still got a little time.” Silk studied the azoth. “When I made my sword, I left a nail sticking out, and bent it. That was my demon. When I twisted it toward me, the blade wasn’t there any more. When I twisted it away from me, I had one.”
“I doubt, sir—”
“Don’t be too sure, my son. That may have been based on something supposedly true that I’d heard. Or I may have been imitating some other boy who’d gotten hold of a useful fact. I mean a fact that would be useful to me now.”
The roughened stem of the T was the grip, obviously; and the crossbar was there to prevent the user’s hand from contacting the blade. Silk tried to revolve the gem in the pommel, but its setting kept it securely in place.
The bent-nail demon of his toy sword had been one of those that had held the crosspiece; he felt certain of that. There was an unfacetted crimson gem (he vaguely remembered having heard a similar gem called a bloodstone) in the grip, just behind one of the smooth, tapering arms of the guard. It was too flat and much too highly polished to turn. He gripped the azoth as he had his wooden sword and pressed the crimson gem with his thumb.
Reality separated. Something else appeared between the halves, as a current divides a quiet pool. Plaster from the wall across the room fell smoking onto the carpet, revealing laths that themselves exploded in a shower of splinters with the next movement of his arm.
Involuntarily, he released the demon, and the azoth’s blade vanished.
“Please be more careful with that, sir.”
“I will.” Silk pushed the azoth into the coiled rope about his waist.
“If it should be activated by chance, sir, the result might well be disastrous for you as well as others.”
“You have to press the demon below the level of the grip, I think,” Silk said. “It should be difficult for that to happen accidentally.”
“I profoundly hope so, sir.”
“You don’t know where your mistress got such a weapon?”
“I did not even know she possessed it, sir.”
“It must be worth as much as this whole villa. More, perhaps. I doubt that there are ten of them in the city.” Silk turned toward the wardrobe and selected a blue winter gown of soft wool.
“They have left the suite they were searching earlier, sir. They are proceeding to the next.”
“Thank you. Will you leave when I tell you to go?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“I ought to destroy your glass.” For a second, Silk stared at the monitor. “I’m tempted to do it. But if a god really visited it when I arrived…” He shrugged. “So I’m going to tell you to go instead, and cover your glass with a gown. Perhaps they won’t notice it. Did they question the glasses in the other suites?”
“Yes, sir. Our steward summoned me to each glass. He is directing the searchers in person, sir.”
“While you were here talking to me? I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I can, sir. One strives to best utilize lulls in the conversation, pauses, and the like. It is largely a matter of allocation, sir.”
“But you didn’t tell them where I was. You can’t have. Why not?”
“He did not inquire, sir. As they entered each suite, he asked whether there was a stranger present.”
“And you told them there wasn’t?”