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.Then they made him lie down in the filthy straw, and extend his arm.Celestialis.Too suspicious.Toosuspicious.They're going to truth-drug me anyway.I'm dead.It's done.I swore, and I'm deadanyway.Even descending into it feels different, in enemy hands, he thought, when the drag had worn offenough that he could think again. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlHis will could only watch from far away while his mouth dug his grave.They knew everything.The morehe'd told, the more intrigued they'd got."Now you know how Shkai'ra felt when you truth-drugged her,"they'd laughed.Now they pulled him up by his arms, and led him out of the cell.He didn't resist, his limbs numb.Suddenly he became too aware of everything, flames too bright, noise too loud; he could feel every hairat the back of his neck, all of a sudden, where the blade of the axe would first touch as it blurred down.He found himself imagining it, heavy black steel, the edge shining, whetted razor-keen or dull,depending on how many people it had eaten since it was last sharpened the block with its curvedneck-rest and old blackened gore.He swallowed, felt his throat close; that would soon be parted, theblood that now throbbed in the arteries spraying out free.His legs were water, his guts felt as if they wanted to fall out.No, I won't feel the sharpness or dullnessof the edge , he thought;they say wounds that severe don't hurt.It will just be a strange, bluntimpact.Will I see the block spin for a moment as my head tips off? And then & A too-vividlywritten passage from an old book came to him, of a kindly executioner asking the condemned whether hecared how he looked; if so, he should relieve himself first, for the body voids at the moment ofbeheading.He didn't care, he decided, whether he sprayed the heathen whoresons all over with shit.Butthe thought brought no relief.Iguess I didn't want to die for my country , he thought.I guess in the endI'm a coward.Probably most people are.They took him upstairs, the corridors turning brighter and more ornate as they rose.A public execution?He marveled at the richness that had been before, clear from what was left.All theirs now , he thought.They led him through doors that had been glass but were now only frames or hinges, with pairs ofcurly-haired sentries whose dark eyes followed him.They took him to a room with a thick oaken door, pulled it open, led him through an anteroom, anotherdoor.An office; an ebony and gold filigree desk open at both ends for two to work across it, with someYeoli behind it; the wool of hismarya looked rough and upcountry in this place, the shape under it toorugged for an office.Yet there was something in the man's presence& he looked at his face.He'd seen engravings in thePages , before that in the Watcher, the posters, paintings, mosaics.Strange,to see a sight so familiar looking more alive than his remembrance of it, because his remembrance cameonly from its images.Now those hard, scarred features framed by the famous halo of black curls facedhim, those notorious piercing dark eyes with their touch of sadness fixed on his living, seeing.Herecognized the glearning swatch of gold hanging against the rough-knit wool: the Imperial seals, fastenedto a neck-chain.He threw himself into the prostration, trying to do it as gracefully as he'd imagined it could be done.Noone instructed me , he thought.No one even searched me.They never did; I could be carrying aknife."Rise." He felt too weak to lift himself, but did, and tip-toed to the chair offered him, keeping hiseyes lowered.Silence stretched to what seemed a day.Shefenkas called in Yeoli, and rattled off orders to the servantwho appeared or squire, by his manner; there was no obsequiousness in it at all.He caught only theword "Saekrberk." A glass appeared before him, was filled, the green liquid swirling.Its scent hauntedhim with memories."Drink up, Matthas." Shefenkas spoke Arken, superior-to-inferior but only one stepdown.Poison? No, he wouldn't waste it on me.Does he mean to torture me with hope ? "You needit, I can see.Go on.Komkai." He'd never imagined a conquering king could have such a quiet voice. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlAs per Brahvnikian tradition, he downed the whole glass in one draught.As he felt color burn out intohis cheeks, the servant filled the glass again.It's not fair, he thought, glancing up at Shefen-kas for a moment and then down again.It's not fair thathe, whom all the might and stealth of the greatest Empire in the world broke itself against, issitting here in front of me disguised as a mortal, looking exactly like a plain medium-sized manwhom I could reach across and strangle with my bare hands &"I only skimmed the transcript," the Yeoli Imperator said."There were things there I don't want to know,and things not there that I do.How long did you work for Irefas?"I am recounting my career, Matthas thought with a sense of unreality as he spoke,to the one who'sabout to cut it and me off.He told no lies, even by omission, seeing no point.When he came to timesthe old state had made his life difficult, Shefen-kas seemed, of all things, sympathetic, as if itsincompetence somehow saddened him.Idon't know why , Matthas thought drily.You'd be worm-meatten times over if not for it."Well," Shefen-kas said when he was done, "you worked for Arko under Kurkas.Would you work forArko under me?"It was like feeling his heart miss a beat, or expecting floor at the bottom of a darkened flight of stairs, tofeel his foot find only air just as he put his weight on it.He stared; Shefen-kas's eyes stared back, no lieor game in them."I mean it," he said
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