"What is that?" I asked the officer, pointing to a dark aperture at one side of the room.
"It is nothing," he said evasively.
It would be, of course, the opened trap though which Belnar had taken his leave, a passage leading down through the tower.
"Lift the torch higher," I said to my man nearby. I looked about the room, from the other side of the gate.
"The search is complete," said a guardsman, reporting to the officer. "We have made a thorough examination of the premises, both inside and outside. They are clear. There is no sign of a beast."
"There is at least one sign," I said.
"What?" asked the officer.
"Look," I said. I pointed to a defensive, opened iron lattice on one of the windows in the room behind the barred gate.
"It is opened, of course," said the officer, puzzled.
"Examine, as you can, at the distance, in the light, the latch clasps," I said.
"They appear to be broken," he said.
"They are broken," I said.
"The lattice seems to have been forced open," he said.
"From the outside," I said.
"Impossible," he said.
"Does it not seem so to you?" I asked.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Search out Belnar," I said. "He is in grave danger."
Men hurried away, those with them, by my leave, who had come with me. Again I was alone. I remained there, for a time, looking through the bars. I strained to test the air. Then, after a time, I detected it, a lingering, residual, faint odor. I was not unfamiliar with the odor. I had smelled such an odor before, and knew it well. I was bitter. I was not the first to have come to the compartments of Belnar. I myself would have had great difficulty locating him in Brundisium, but I, on the other hand, could not follow him softly, swiftly, silently, through numerous passages, with the tenacity of a sleen, with the menace of a larl, intent upon his tracks.
I shook the bars violently, in fury. I had no idea where Belnar might have gone. Then suddenly it seemed I felt chilled, grasping the bars.
I turned and sped from the room.
20 The Baiting Pit; I Make the Acquaintance of a Gentleman; I Will Return to the Apartments of Belnar
"Stop!" I cried, from the height of the tiers surrounding the baiting pit. "Stop!" But I was too late. Already was the chained ubar screaming under the teeth of sleen. I looked to the ubar's box. There, in the moonlight, sitting back on its haunches, was the Kur.
I descended swiftly to the level of the sand. The Kur, with that agility seemingly so unnatural and surprising in a beast of its size, descended from the ubar's box and interposed itself between me and the pathetic figure, now staring wildly upward, fallen, twisting and shuddering, moved this way and that, being pulled and shaken, being torn by the sleen. The Kur bared its fangs at me. I did not think it would attack. It was I who had earlier released it, with the other prisoners. I sheathed my sword. I was not sure if Belnar was dead or not. Five sleen were gnawing at the body. Its eyes were still open. Belnar, I thought, in spite of his size, and his ponderous bulk, had fought well. Two sleen, their blood dark in the silverish moonlit sand, lay dead near him. The Kur had given him an ax. That was more than it had had to defend itself in its own ordeals. Still one would have bet upon the sleen.
Belnar had been fastened some five feet from the post by a stout chain. It had been jerked tight about this gut, then locked there. It made him seen slim. It was the same chain, differently employed, that had fastened the Kur in the same place. It would have held a kailiauk. The chain clinked as the body was pulled this way and that. The sleen had then been released, the iron grating slid upward which had opened the way for them into the pit. The ax lay nearby. One of Belnar's hands, his right, lay near it. Seeing that I did not challenge it, the Kur turned away from me, and went, on all fours, to where the sleen were feeding. To my horror, it thrust itself in among them, its shaggy shoulders rubbing against their. I saw it put its head down.
To one side in the pit, safely away from flammable materials, was the huge vat, or cauldron, which had been in the great hall earlier. It was again filled with oil, and, heated by new fuel on its plate, boiling. Near it, one a few feet from it, the other a little further from it, the backs of their necks bitten through, lay two dead servitors of the ubar. I had little doubt buy what Belnar had ordered the oil once more prepared. Too, it was not difficult to speculate as to why he had done so. I shuddered. These preparations now, however, it seemed, would go to waste. I did not think that Flaminius, or a city captain, or a captain of the guard, would care to impose such niceties on a victim.
I then pushed in between the sleen and the Kur. Belnar was inert, moved only by the beasts. His eyes were still open, staring upward. One of the sleen snarled, but it did not so much as look at me. Sleen are extremely single-minded beasts, even in feeding, and, as long as I did not attempt to interfere with it, or counter its will, I did not fear the Kur. Interestingly, though its jaws were red, it did not seem to have been feeding. It had, however, it seemed, tasted, or tested, the meat. I moved my hands about, as I could, examining the body and torn clothing of Belnar. I took the pouch and pulling it back from the body, ransacked it. I stood up and moved about the post. I examined the sand. Nowhere did I find that which I sought. If he had brought it with him it was now gone.
I heard a key turn in a heavy lock. The Kur then, snarling, scattered the reluctant sleen away with blows. It pulled Belnar free of the chain and dragged Belnar though the sand, behind him, toward the vat.
"Can you understand me?" I asked it. Some Kurii can follow human languages. Some can make semihuman sounds.
It regarded me, Belnar in his grasp.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I was put in the pit like an animal," it said.
"Those of Brundisium did not understand," I said. "I am certain of that."
"I was caught," it said. "I was treated like an animal."
"Yes," I said.
"I am a civilized being," it said. "I am what you might call a gentleman. I am different even from most of my kind."
"I am sure of it," I said. "What are you going to do?"
"In the prison," it said, "we were not well fed."
"Stop!" I said.
Belnar's eyes suddenly, wildly, to my horror, opened further. On his face there was suddenly an instant of terrified consciousness, of comprehension. A weird scream, prolonged, and almost silent, escaped from his lips, as he was plunged into the oil. Then, in a moment, the torn, half-eaten body, shuddered wildly, and was limp. I had thought he had been dead, but he had not been, until then.
I regarded the beast with horror. A moment or two later he had drawn forth the body of the ubar from the oil. "Why do you look at me like that?" it asked.
"It is nothing," I said.
"I am a civilized being," it said. "I am different even from many of my own kind. They are barbarians."
"Yes," I said.
"As you can see," it said, feeding, "I even cook my food."
"Yes," I whispered.
I was in dismay. I was certain that Belnar would have even carrying that which I sought. I had even seen the opened coffer in his apartments. "He," I said, slowly, pointing at the meat in the beast's grasp.