LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC - THE CAPITAL CHANNING - SECTION 7

Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) at present graciously handed the key to Zaur when the minister politely inquired about it, seeing no reason at all, to why he should not enlist Zaur Stugr's help in resolving this mystery. 

01- THE MYSTERIOUS KEY

“Oh blessed, gracious Heaven!  After all this time you've reached me from beyond.” Zaur Stugr wanted to cry out loud, holding back his tears.

"It's probably nothing of consequence." Zaur had finally ejected as a matter-of-factly, pressing (puckering, compressing) his lips and feigning mild interest, as he held on to the key.

"It is a pretty thing, though.  Isn't it?” Zaur looked directly at Fradel, and at the same time tried making light of the object.  "I dare say it’s of unusual construction.”

“Unfortunately," Zaur then shook his head, "I can't decipher these strange pictographs, these antiquated, curvilinear indentations at the base of the stem."  He reached over and pointed them out to Fradel (Nevetsecnuac).

Zaur’s not altogether convincing professed ignorance, after his brief scrutiny of the key, had again peaked Nevetsecnuac's interest.

 "Up to now, I confess, I've prided myself on being quite an expert at finding the meanings of these sort symbols, pictographs.  I have a sizable collection of similar curiosities at my disposal.  Naturally, they are kept out of harm's way for private viewing only.  Not everyone shares my interest, you see.” Zaur was now being unusually talkative, which further apexed Nevetsecnuac’s curiosity.

"My wife has harangued me often enough to dispose of such antiquities, insisting that I stay within the bounds of modern taste.  If you're interested, however, I would be delighted (most happy) to show them to you when we are better disposed." Zaur Stugr rattled on, playing the eccentric fool.  Inwardly he was considering his options, devising ways of procuring the key without raising the scholar's curiosity.

 

02-THE KEY AND THE BOX

The fact that the pictographs were identical to the ones on the box Zaur had in his secret possession (he’d kept in the secret compartment) had confirmed what he had all along suspected.

Just then, mixed feelings of apprehension, relief and dread washed over Zaur Stugr and gripped his heart.  Oddly enough, he was now afraid of finding out the truth.  He had long since given up, never expecting to see this key again, much less holding it in his palm. “I have spent most of my life searching for this key, expecting it to resolve my lifelong, anguished dilemma.” He solemnly ruminated (mused).

As it happens, the key resting on his palm had conjured up memories both pleasant and dreadful.  All the hopeful waiting, the heartbreak, the loneliness!  Suddenly Zaur was most anxious to get away from the inquisitive scrutiny of Fradel Rurik Korvald and to get at the box. 

“No!” he checked his impatience.  There was still much that had to be learned and a few things he needed to make certain of first.  His eyes, leaving the key, looked up sharply.

"Have you shown this item to anyone else…Zunrogo, perhaps?" Zaur made a deliberate effort at feigning a moderate interest.

03-ZAUR STUGR JP 8

Going along with his host's charade, Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) simply complacently smiled and shook his head.   "No, with everything that has been happening lately, I'd actually forgotten its existence."

 Curiously enough, Nevetsecnuac's answer seemed to reassure Zaur Stugr and, a sure elated smile widened (in a curvature) his host's lips.

 “You know full well, all about it, don't you?” Nevetsecnuac silently questioned his host; but Zaur’s youthful age precluded him from (being directly involved) having any direct involvement. Regardless, the key certainly had some personal significance to Zaur.  Suddenly the picture was much clearer to Nevetsecnuac.  Zaur Stugr had positively identified the key and knew exactly who it had belonged to.  He could therefore, if properly coaxed, unravel the identity of at least one of those tortured skeletons.  

Zaur Stugr’s seemingly placid face was fanned by the light breeze which carried on it the intoxicating fragrance of the night air and he had remained distractedly quiet for some time, his mind immersed in a serious recollection.

“What are you afraid of exposing after such an obvious timespan?  Why would you disclaim any knowledge of its importance to you?  Nevetsecnuac, however, made no outward inquiry and, instead, waited patiently for Zaur's next response.

Marshaling his thoughts, Zaur Stugr suddenly turned to face Fradel and, with deliberate calm in his voice asked, "It is indeed a rare antique.  How did you manage to obtain it?"

Fradel (Nevetsecnuac), in those lapsed few moments had already anticipated Zaur’s next question; he could not disclose the truth however, without revealing how he had ended up in the burial pit and, furthermore, escaped the inescapable traps. And so, he quietly reviewed his options of likely responses.

“I could claim I found it on the side of the road.  No that's too trite and would not be believed. What I need is a lame, boring explanation suited to a scholar, yet with enough of an angle to divert questions elsewhere.  Better to go with a partial fabrication with just enough fact to it to appear plausible.” 

Responding as a matter-of-factly now, Nevetsecnuac summed up in no uncertain terms his experience that had led to finding the key.

04-NEVETS ON HORSEBACK IN THE RAIN (2)

“It had all transpired at the time, while I was traveling on horseback alone on route to the Capital and, wanting to be innocuous, was garbed (dressed) in ordinary travelling clothes. This was a time well before my teaming up with Zunrogo Tugo and the guards.  That afternoon, caught in a sudden torrential downpour, I had sought a refuge at the roadside Inn/ tea house.                                 

“I had been enjoying my steamed tea and hot cakes when an old man, his tattered clothes soaked to the skin, also sought refuge in the same tea house.  Despite the cash that the old man had held out in his hand, he was rudely greeted by the proprietor, denied seating at any table, even though there were few empty ones about, and told to leave the premises at once.”

"Can't you see we're full up?  Go down the road!" The proprietor had rasped as he apprehensively looked around him, afraid that his other customers might be offended by the likes of this tattered old man.

"This is a respectable place.  No solicitation is allowed."  Turning a deaf ear to the old man's pleas, he signaled to his two hefty attendants (waiters) to at once dispose of this unwanted nuisance (pest, bug).

In the ensuing seconds hence, the old man was hastily hustled outside.” Fradel winced (cringed, recoiled) at this point with obvious abhorrence (loathing) of the proprietor.

Zaur nodded and grimaced wryly as he envisioned the typical scenario being played out repeatedly throughout the land.  “So, what's so odd about that? Cruelly he was driven out into the cold, pelting rain, so what about it?" Fradel Rurik Korvald’s obvious indignation just then baffled Zaur, and he riveted his keen, questioning gaze on the other's face.

“Ah!  Scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald had lived in privileged seclusion all these years; therefore, he had not been exposed to the sweeping changes, the new brutish realities of the populace's everyday existence. Naturally, this would shock him.” The answer came to him quickly, Zaur nodded.

 "And no doubt, being the gentleman you are, you stood up to defend that poor wretch." Zaur’s downward gaze concealed the smirk on his lips and the scorn in his eyes.

As Zaur Stugr had expected, by his own account the scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald, unable to swallow this injustice, had indeed rushed to the old man's rescue.  Fradel had indignantly risen to his feet and called out to the old man, walked over and next greeted the elder with respectful familiarity. 

Ignoring the snarls and frowns of the manager and his staff, he had then guided the old man, named Yakkasar back to his table.

(Of course, Yakkasar was a made-up name which Nevetsecnuac on the spur had invented.)

 "I could not stand by and let this happen.  The injustice of it all fired my soul with seething rage." Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) abashedly explained.

At the outset Zaur expressed a sympathetic view and urged Fradel Rurik Korvald to please continue.  Seeming to lend an attentive ear, Zaur inwardly however, jeered with derision and tagged a few more items on to the list he had been mentally compiling of the presumed characteristics of his guest Fradel Rurik Korvald: “Fradel is righteously soft and sentimental; sentimental enough to patronize (support) the grave robbing scum of the earth.”

“And of course, you treated him to not just a tea but a complete, hot, full-course meal.”  Zaur (with his prejudiced viewpoint) wearyingly continued to listen to Fradel, inwardly filling in some details, to the old man Yakkasar's hard luck story.

Apparently, the old thief had been in hard straits and had starved for the two days prior to this chance encounter with the perfect stooge, Fradel Rurik Korvald.  Though he had flashed some money around, it had barely been enough for a cup of tea, as the rest had to have been reserved for his night's lodgings.  To one as destitute as him, Fradel Rurik Korvald must have appeared as a godsend. 

Sitting himself across from the scholar, he had polished off several dishes in record time then, with a bloated stomach, sat back to express his undying gratitude and praise his newfound friend to the sky.  Next, he had decisively recounted how his wife had been lost to him in the great flood of yesteryear and how, having escaped the disaster, he had settled in the foothills of town Huer where he had been constrained to carve out a meager livelihood and single-handedly raised his only surviving son, Toza, to adulthood. The other two children had succumbed to fatal diseases, no surprise there: shortly after his wife's tragic demise.  For the hardships he had endured he had been amply rewarded; while his son, the mighty hunter had lived, Yakkasar had not known any hardship, hunger, or misery.

“No one would dare tackle the local ruffian.” Zaur scoffed, growing more impatient with Fradel now. Disguising (veiling, masking) his irritation, however, he simply looked away, and with an unreadable expression, watched the shadows for a time dancing in the light breeze in the well-manicured (rimmed, shaped) garden.

05-GARDEN IN TWILIGHT

“Why was Fradel being so insistent in dragging this out?” Zaur shifted into his seat, having had already conceived of the only possible outcome to this story.

 “This purported hunter Yakkasar’s son Toza had no doubt recovered the key along with, only the gods know what else, and had probably been murdered in some other town trying to fence it.  A fitting end for his kind! The old geezer Yakkasar had survived long enough though, to span this lengthy yarn to Fradel.” Zaur lowered his gaze and affixed it back on the key. “But what would be the point of exposing this Yakkasar’s fraud and embarrassing the gullible Fradel Rurik Korvald?  What did it matter what fabrication the old rogue had been feeding the unsuspecting stranger like Fradel, as-long-as he, at least, had been truthful about the location where he had recovered the key.”

Experience had taught Zaur not to overlook the incidentals, the seemingly unrelated details that supported the main report.  Lacking in imagination, men of Yakkasar's sort often built a bridge of lies on pillars of truth to make their story more credible.  In this case even an approximation would be of some use.  With due patience therefore, Zaur had lent an uninterrupted, though a semi-disinterested ear to, Fradel Rurik Korvald’s present redundancies to gauge the true facts he really was after.

“Good!” Nevetsecnuac was inwardly pleased with the apparent result.  As he had surmised, a more elaborate story would have made Zaur dubious.  The naiveté of the narrative had expectedly played Zaur right in Nevetsecnuac's hands.

Nevetsecnuac at present drawing this out, painstakingly related in detail all Yakkasar’s tedious accounts about Toza’s great potential and his prospects.  Yakkasar then unexpectedly leaning closer to Fradel at one point, had supposedly whispered the pertinent details; how on one such routine hunting trip Toza had traversed some unfamiliar ground near a certain pass to get to an area where game could reportedly be had in abundance. The specifics of the topography which, Yakkasar had professed at that moment, had been rather hazy and bit hard for him to recollect.

This setback had inwardly infuriated Zaur; nevertheless, yet again admirably suppressed his ire and impatience.

Nevetsecnuac had of course deliberately, contrived (manufactured) the old man's forgetfulness at this point, as a means of excluding the credible detail Zaur expected or hoped to hear; subtly testing therefore, Zaur 's true intent and measure of his commitment.

 Nevetsecnuac knew that without specific information about the Cyprecox Pass, Zaur’s search for the pit would be rendered fruitless.  As it were, there were several such strategic passes in and around the Capital province, most concealing similar traps, pits, and mass graves that had been constructed at the time to effectively repel the scores of foreign aggressions that had been unleashed on Wenjenkun.  This fact Nevetsecnuac had learned from Zunrogo, during one of their intense political discussions about ingenious historical military campaigns. Drawing from this, Nevetsecnuac had made Toza’s find, one such historical undertaking (enterprise) pit. Having served Zaur with a perfect lure (bait), Nevetsecnuac would now wait, in the interim drawing out the tale, to see how long it would take Zaur to make his anticipated inquiry.

The dullness of the narrative up to this point had nearly put Zaur to sleep.  He had just about run out of patience and was about to hasten Fradel Rurik Korvald to get on with it and urge him to recollect, to reveal the information Zaur sought most to gain, which was the actual, if not an approximation (estimate) of location, of the grave. Fradel Rurik Korvald’s next revelation however, shocked and halted his aim.

"Midway to Toza's destination, the earth under his feet had suddenly given way and cast him into a deep pit.  The hunter, after barely surviving the great fall, had discovered to his great horror that the place was writhing with worms and snakes, and even some skeletal remains."

“A pit… What, skeletal remains?”

06-SKELETAL REMAINS IN PIT

Seemingly turning a blind eye to Zaur’s agitation, Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) used the same impassive tone to then recount how Toza, by great good fortune, had escaped serious injury and had suffered only minor lacerations and bruises.

“Trapped as he’d been Toza had faced certain death within that terrible pit but, opportunely some other hunters were following the same trail as Toza’s and, hearing his desperate cries for help, rushed to his aid. Expending ingenuity and, with concerted effort, they eventually succeeded in hauling Toza up to safety; but not before he had chanced upon the key hidden in the jaw of one of the skeletons, those selfsame bones that lay huddled in a far corner opposite to all the rest.  Presumably the impact of Toza's fall had caused the brittle jawbone to snap and release the key; the key which now became plainly visible in the dark cavity of the mouth, in due course giving him quite a fright."

07-KEY HIDDEN IN MOUTH

 From the corner of his eye Nevetsecnuac had noted how Zaur had, for a fleeting second, flinched at the mere mention of the solitary skeleton that held the key.

 All color had completely drained from the good minister's face as he (Zaur Stugr) clutched tightly at the key in his palm.

This confirmed Nevetsecnuac's hypothesis.  “No doubt about it, that singular skeleton had been someone of great significance to Zaur. Likely,” throwing Zaur a cursory glance Nevetsecnuac ventured a guess, “someone close to his person, an uncle, even a father, perhaps.  But I don't suppose you'll ever confide in the scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald, will you Minister Zaur Stugr?”

Smiling tightly, Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) reached for his cup to relieve his parched throat. As he raised the drink to his lips his thoughts drifted off to those wretched skeletal remains and the curious circumstances under which he had gained possession of the key.

He recalled most vividly how, there in the pit, were scattered about the tell-tale signs of a lengthy interrogation, torture, and murder of the solitary man.  The stains on the broken shards of porcelain indicated that the captives had been fed a rich diet for a time.  The lack of any trace of cloth and personal items other than the key disclosed the fact that they had been imprisoned in their nakedness, no doubt to further conceal their identities, even from posterity.  This fact reinforced their social prominence.  Finally, there had been the revelation of the ultimate treachery, the corroded bronze jug which, upon Nevetsecnuac's closer scrutiny, had revealed that it had once contained wine tainted with that particularly abhorrent poison that paralyzed its unfortunate victim and brought about a lingering and most agonizing death.

 Lord Asger Thuxur Marrog Zhon had indeed taught Nevetsecnuac well, his well-rounded education had covered every conceivable kind of potion and poison known to man.  The symptoms of this specific toxin, Nevetsecnuac knew, would only manifest themselves two days after ingesting it, by which time it would be too late for any antidote, any salvation from its curse.

 Evidently the large group of prisoners had been fed false hopes all along, right up to the time of their inevitable tragic demise.  There was no question that the clustered group had been spared from the tortures inflicted on the solitary one and that he had borne the brunt of their vicious barbarism.  The one with the key had died of his injuries and there had been no discoloration in his bones like that which, in the others, plainly told of death by ingested poison.

The aromatic, semi-sweet wine poured over Nevetsecnuac's tongue, nestled for a time in the hollow of his cheek before it glided smoothly down his throat.  As he savored the floral aftertaste, particularly pleasing to the senses, he considered how a multitude of ills could be concealed in a wine such as this.  Feeling rather flushed, he absentmindedly touched his cheek and forehead with the back of his hand and then looked away once more.

 What had necessitated these slow, painful deaths and the added mutilation of the one who held the key?  Both his legs had been sharply severed at the ankles, as if with an ax, and his kneecaps had been brutally scythed.  His ribcage had been shattered in several sections, and the bones of his hands had been maliciously crushed.  Curiously enough, though, the clasped jawbone had been left intact, as if his captors had allowed him the power of speech, which he had adamantly refused, to the bitter end.  

Nevetsecnuac solemnly (somberly) mused, “Wasn't it strange, then, that it was only when I had considered the vague notion, if only the dead could speak, that the clenched jaw had quite amazingly (unfastened and) released this very key into my palm?  And again, this very evening fate intervening (interfering), this very key should drop onto the terrazzo (tiles)?”

 

(END OF SECTION 7)

 LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC - ON THE WAY TO THE CAPITAL - SECTION 29

Disaidun Agripe was brought before Zunrogo in a distraught state, crying bitterly and trembling like a leaf; but as soon as she was released from Tizan's iron grip, she turned to,  with fire burning in her eyes, unflinching, meet Zunrogo’s icy, stone gaze, then in resounding (evocative, ringing, decisive) voice  beseeched Zunrogo to be merciful, to spare her and not inflict this disgrace upon her family.

01-DISAIDUN AGRIPE 4 JP

Tizan, missing this entirely, looked at the captain expecting him to be furious but, with a cruel half-smile on his lips, Zunrogo was shamelessly sizing her up from head to toe, mentally undressing her with his eyes.

Turning his attention to Tizan momentarily, Zunrogo snapped, "What are you standing there for?  You are dismissed!"

"Yes sir." Tizan responded sharply, “Sorry, sir." 

As he whirled about on his heels to face the door he stole a brief, sly look at the quivering, terrified, distraught woman.  Outside the cabin he shrugged dispassionately, a broad smile on his lips, “Why not?  She is a looker.  Some savory dish…Bon appetite, Captain.”  

Then his face darkened, and a sinister grin painted his face, “Very interesting…  I guess he's not infallible after all.”

Still sobbing, Disaidun Agripe contemptuously watched out of the corner of her eye as Tizan closed the door tightly behind him.

Zunrogo, not in any great hurry, strolled to the cabin's porthole and stared out at the dense veil of congealed mist and fog.  He felt like he was floating in a cloud that obscured everything.  He reflected on how the tasks he had assigned to Tizan would take him at least a couple of hours to conclude, ample time for what he craved.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “it might relieve this oppressive boredom. It might even be entertaining in the slight, to toy with this captive mouse for a time.”

                                                                                  ~

 

Few moments after Tizan had left the room and she was certain that he was long gone, Disaidun Agripe abruptly ceased her dramatics, straightened her posture and then with a callous (uncaring) hand brushed the imagined dust off her skirt, as she waited patiently for Zunrogo to speak.  When no sound came forth, she briefly glanced at the door then asked, "Don't you trust him?"

"Why should he know everything?" Zunrogo answered truthfully, continuing to stare out the porthole as if distracted.

“Not a trace of fear in her voice,” he noted his back still to her.

“We'll see about that.”  His eyes narrowed.

"I suppose," Disaidun shrugged.  Surveying the room with avid interest her eyes rested on Zunrogo's magnificent sword with its jeweled hilt.  She rubbed her arm, the arm she could use if needed to effectively wield that sword in her own defense.

02- DISAIDUN AGRIPE JP 5

"He needn't have been so rough," Disaidun Agripe let out a plaintive grunt as she contemplated how best to edge closer to the weapon.

"He wasn't."  His back still to her, Zunrogo knew instinctively where her gaze rested, and he grimaced coldly.

 "Sit down," he ordered in a stern voice.

"Don't mind if I do."  Disaidun abandoned the risky plan and, swaying her hips, she sauntered in the opposite direction and sat herself boldly in the most comfortable chair, his chair, and rested her hands demurely on her lap.

"Now suppose you tell me why I was summoned here then," she indignantly demanded, a faint, seductive intonation hiding under her arrogance.

To try to get some emotion from this hardened, unsentimental warrior would be a real challenge.  Oh, but she loved challenges.  All men, no matter what kind, sooner or later had always succumbed to her charms.

She remembered her latest triumph (challenge), just before she came on board, and a fleeting smile crossed her lips as she thought of him.  “Yes, it had done a lot to boost her confidence even further and, what's more, it had been done right under her unsuspecting husband's nose.”  She shivered slightly as a special thrill coursed up her spine.

“But hadn't that clenched the deal, made the conquest of her prey even sweeter?  He coveted her affections despite the absence of his manhood.  He coveted her because he knew, as the half-brother of her husband; he could never openly claim her.  He craved her because, though many despised his kind, she did not.”

"Why aren't you afraid?" Zunrogo asked dryly, suddenly breaking the deliberately prolonged silence.

"Why?  Should I have a reason to be afraid?  Are you not just going to maul me or something?" Disaidun answered alluringly, suggestive in her coquettish shyness.

"Don't be so impertinent," he barked then half-turned.

His fiery gaze burrowed through her, making her flesh crawl.  "Only fools have no fear."

The awful threat implicit in his icy tone instantly sapped all the courage, the confidence, the arrogance from her.

As if mesmerized, Disaidun Agripe in that instant came to believe him capable of most horrific, vile acts.  Moreover, he had no weaknesses; he was immune to it all.

 A sudden, potent fear gripped her chest and made her heart palpitate wildly.  Yet, strangely enough, at that same moment she felt irresistibly drawn to him.  He awakened in her a strange set of conflicting emotions. “No, she'll never succumb to the likes of him; not ever again!” 

Summoning up all her courage and will to withstand the overwhelming pressure, she bit her lip and looked angrily away.  She will remain defiant to the end.  

“He did not scare her, not one bit!”

“Good,” Zunrogo allowed himself an inward smile. “I hate easy conquests.” 

Softening the expression on his face, he allowed a warm smile to reach his lips as he walked across and eased himself into the next (less comfortable) chair.  His tone as he subsequently addressed some non-committal issues should have disarmed her, but he could see that she was wary of him now and was fighting with all the resistance she could muster to remain vigilant.

03- ZUNROGO TUGO- JP  17

 Unknown to Disaidun, this pleased him more.  His voice was superficially polite, but stern he asked, "First tell me, is he for real?"  He kept the question purposefully vague to test her wit.

"Yes, he's legally my husband (spouse)."  Disaidun understood and responded truthfully.

“Stupid woman,” he scoffed. “You needn't have gone to such lengths.  You were set up to succeed with that despicable eunuch Zohuj Kez whether you had married his half-brother or not.”

Though Disaidun was studying him astutely she could not tell in the least what was playing through his mind, and this unnerved her once more.

Zunrogo’s demeanor unchanged, he tested her with another seemingly innocuous question,

 "What about the child?”  He knew the answer already.

“Tait is not mine.  Ceroz, my husband, lost his precious former wife in birthing it."

"And you stepped in, seizing the opportunity to fill the vacuum in his destitute heart and home." Zunrogo curtly cut her story short.

Then, grimacing wryly, he asked, "How did she die, again?"

She looked him straight in the eye.  "It was heart failure, I believe."

"That's how the coroner's official report read.  How did she really die of?"

Before she could indignantly demand what, it was, he was insinuating, he cut her short.

"Tell me, do you care at all what happens to either of them now?"  His voice was cold.

Disaidun shrugged, seeing no point to her denials, "Not particularly."

Smiling tightly, she then reached for the tea, "May I?'

"Help yourself.  And don't worry; it's not been tainted with the deadly ‘Sschrofik’ blossom."  Zunrogo studied how she struggled to keep her composure and failed, as her face turned ghostly white, and fear enlarged her pupils.

 "Only a slight touch of ‘Yourek” has been added." He indifferently, intoned.

 When she threw him a questioning look, freezing in her gesture, he added, "The truth drug.  You're not afraid of the truth, are you?"

Settling back in his chair, Zunrogo gave a short laugh and noted how she debated with herself whether to respond with a witty, convincing feint or a curt remark to put him in his place.

By then she had come to detest him. Disaidun would have wrung his neck if she could.  He was not there to arrest her, though, because of that she was certain.  What's more, she knew a squeeze play when she saw one.  Unfortunately, she could not figure out his angle.  What was it that he was after?

"You may serve me one as well."  Zunrogo decided to let her off the hook.

“So, he was just bluffing,” inwardly she heaved a deep sigh, “The nerve of him, asking me to serve him!” 

He was watching her closely and noted with some amusement her momentary outrage, followed by sound reasoning, subsequently, how she vacillated on whether to do as he bid her.

“She could accidentally knock the pot off of the table.”  In her defiance she had, for a spell, entertained an apt rebuff; but relenting, quickly aborted that snub also.  Besides, her throat was parched, and she had been craving some hot liquid ever since she had ceased all that emotional outburst, crying and pleading, in short, splendid performance. 

In the end she gave in and poured herself a cupful then, after a brief hesitation, poured one for him as well.  Her inbred (ingrained) manners took root as she offered it to him with a courtly flourish, "I can take the truth if you can."

His stone gaze deliberately pierced her to the quick and he inwardly savored how her hand trembled slightly as she stubbornly held the cup out to him when he did not move, right away, to take it from her.  She could have given up and placed the cup back onto the table, but she had a point to make.

"Thank you," he finally accepted it.

Seething in anger, she lowered her head and drunk the tea in quick repetitive sips to hide her irate thoughts.

In contrast, he took several prolonged sips then, with deliberate slowness put the cup down, his eyes glued to her all the while.

Her thirst sated, she looked up, unflinchingly meeting his stone gaze.  "There is no such thing as the truth drug, is there?" she asked.

His response was delayed.  His face showed nothing as he disregarded her question altogether, "I called you here because you may be of some use to me."  He lied, "And because I believe you are quite capable.  After all, you have succeeded, where others have failed, have you not?"

"Capable of what?" Disaidun’s coy laughter registered her nervousness.  She swallowed hard and lowered her eyes away from Zunrogo's stern gaze.  Then, raising them again she narrowed them instinctively as she studied him boldly, looking for any trace of deceit or lechery in those cold, gray pupils. 

What did he want from her?  But the wall he set up was impenetrable.

Zunrogo, surmising this, smiled again with a strange glint in his eyes.

For now, his sole requirement of her was to learn who dispatched her on this assignment, even though he suspected she would be ignorant of this, having been covertly approached by someone acting as an agent.  He was confident, none the less, of his ability to deduce who this mystery man might be from the gleaned bits and pieces of information from her.

Still, he was in no great hurry.  He rested his intense scrutiny on her briefly then, disinterestedly, looked away.

This put Disaidun Agripe more at her unease.  She hung her head.  “He's toying with me.”  

She decided to push, to get some answers.  "You say I may be of some use to you?" she investigated his face and demanded.  "But, if I were to do your bidding, what would I get out of it in return?  Will you release me unharmed to go on with my way?  Or am I destined to perish like the rest on board when it’s all over?"

So, she understands more than she lets on.  

Gripping the edges of the small table Zunrogo menacingly leaned across, his breath brushing her face and his expression suddenly hard, uncompromising.  "You are hardly in a position to bargain, Missy."

His cold, gray eyes again burrowed into Disaidun, eroding in an instant all the confidence she had fought so hard to maintain since that first episode when she had come into the room. But then unexpectedly, his expression softened once more and, with a broad grin, he leaned back.

"Certainly, you will be spared.  You have my word on that, Miss Jepipi.  I would not dream of obstructing you further."  He answered her with a cold voice that belied his warm, disarming smile.

Disaidun Agripe’s (Jepipi’s) surprise was clearly marked on her face.  "How do you know my code name?" she asked.

"I have my resources.  I trust you have completed your recent assignment with due expedience and satisfaction?"

Even though she knew that the attempt was futile, she met his gaze unflinchingly and flatly denied it, "I don't know what you're talking about.  I'm through with all that now I'm a happily married woman.  I lead a simple life, the kind I've always wanted."

"Oh, come now!" Zunrogo threw his head back and laughed, "A simple life?  That's hardly your style.  You're contradicting yourself; happily married indeed!"

His countenance suddenly became stern as he added in an icy tone, "But your secret is safe with me, Miss Jepipi, so long as you cooperate.  Now tell me, how much longer do you intend on keeping up with this farcical charade?"

His cold insinuation visibly startled her.

Clearly, she was done with her husband, but why hadn't she discarded him yet, why this ambivalence?

"Are you infatuated with him?" Zunrogo's question echoed in her mind.  "Granted he is good looking and rather well off."

04-DISAIDUN AGRIPE JP

“How much does he know?  He knows an awful lot already, as if he can see right through me.  Unnervingly, he seems most capable of deciphering my innate feelings, my innermost thoughts, even before I, myself, become aware of them.”  Disaidun Agripe took a shuddering breath and, after studying Zunrogo from the corner of her eye, turned her head away.

“He’s really beginning to terrify me; I must stand firm, must defy this overwhelming sense of panic.” 

Disaidun did not even notice the first effects of the ‘Yourek drug’ as it infiltrated her brain, causing the emotions to act with that small bit of control missing.  Such were its subtle effects that, as one sunk deeper under its spell, one was not even aware of one's loss of inhibition, or of its inevitable suppression of all normal censors.

Just then a thought, an idea flashed across her mind and, turning her curious gaze back to him she wondered, “Was he the same covert figure who had mysteriously appeared in my bed chamber in the dead of night and approached me with this unusual assignment?”

“No,” she quickly answered herself. “His voice, his manners, even his gestures are all so different, so wrong and Zunrogo is far leaner and taller than he.  Could he then be my anticipated contact?”  Again, the answer was negative.  “He didn't use the secret password for identification, and he hadn't responded when I posed the coded inquiry earlier.  This is proof positive of a leak.  When I do meet the contact, I must warn him of this infiltration and of the dire repercussions that are possible from this Zunrogo.”

Just as she, eyeing Zunrogo suspiciously with her guard up, was about to put a question to him, his abrupt, pointed inquiry startled her anew, "I trust that you have the letter, from…well we won't mention any names or titles, in your safekeeping?"

Disaidun Agripe threw him a furious, forbidden look as if to say, “No!  You can't have it!”

But strangely, he seemed not to be anxious about it at all, nor did he press his inquiry about its exact whereabouts or make the least attempt to seize it by force.

Having directed (turned) her concentration to the letter, Zunrogo, subsequently (in short shrift), through his artful manipulation, guided her into revealing to him all the pertinent information about the covert contact, to determine who it was that had dispatched her on this assignment.

When after a spell he had pieced it all together in his mind, the unexpected result took him totally by surprise, for his calculations had revealed the most unlikely candidate, one with an obvious conflict of interest and the one farthest from his mind.

While Zunrogo kept on the outward pretense of a grueling exchange to conceal his surprise, he quietly contemplated on the side, how best to confront this culprit in the future.

“Yes, armed with further proof, he would first humble him, grinding his nose into the dirt where he would squirm like a pig.”

Zunrogo looked away, suddenly delighted at all the prospects that had availed themselves, to him.

“This assignment,” he inwardly gloated, “has thus far provided me more advantages over my most ardent foes than I could have ever dreamed of.”

"Tell me", he abruptly asked Disaidun, "have you read the contents?"

"You know it’s sealed," she let out without thinking.

 Then, lowering her head she pursed her lips and grumbled, "Besides, it has been made perfectly clear to me that if I tampered with it in any way, it would mean my death."

 Coyly inclined her head, Disaidun Agripe looked away.

In fact, this had been a bone of contention with her.  Sensing the letter's grave importance, she had fought hard against her nature not to sneak a peek inside and see what all the fuss was about.

"Oh, come now, surely a resourceful girl such as you would not rest until your curiosity is satiated?  You mean to tell me that you made no attempt at all?"  Zunrogo could not resist his desire to further beleaguer (needle, pester) her.

"Think what you will," first was her initial curt retort then, realizing she had been manipulated; Disaidun expelled her breath and vehemently protested her innocence.

Inwardly Zunrogo was laughing up a storm, scorning her naiveté, her utter stupidity.

As it were, Disaidun Agripe had sealed her fate from the very moment she had accepted this assignment of securing the letter within her safekeeping.  It made no difference whether she had tampered with it. 

“Fool, you are just an unwitting, doomed courier, like so many others who preceded you.”  He almost pitied her.

Zunrogo’s ardent investigation thus far had uncovered that, within last two years at odd unspecified intervals, the task of safekeeping the letter had fallen on varied (diverse) individuals with covert sponsorships (backing, patronage).

Zunrogo had only recently identified, with some measure of certainty, the patron from the lethal sorority that had masterminded it all.

The secret organization (club) was none other than the most feared covenant fraternity, The Black Molochs.

The carefully procured couriers, the moment they’d outlived their usefulness, methodically perished/disappeared without a trace, severing the only weak link outside of this clandestine brotherhood. That is how The Black Molochs, had until then, avoided detection (exposure).

05-LANCE DIOSTIN JP  7

But once Zunrogo had discerned that Lance Diostin was the member of Black Molochs, that’s what had clued him in from the start; that, and the indisputable proof that the expandable courier was on board this vessel.  After that connection had been established, it made perfect sense why Lance Diostin was in such hot pursuit, to intercept them.

Zunrogo had never bought the advocated perception that, Egil Viggoaries, albeit furtively, gave any credence to superstition. Nothing, nothing at all (disconcerted) fazed that villain.  Typically, contrary to the fostered, erroneous belief, Fradel Rurik Korvald was not the bulls-eye target here, though it had no doubt served the Eunuch's purpose, as well as Lance Diostin’s, to on the sly, advance that cause.

 “Yes,” Zunrogo congratulated himself. “I’ve had had a significant breakthrough in these last few months.

 But even though the letter was as good as in his keeping, few details still needed to be ironed out. For one thing he did not entirely trust Disaidun’s husband, the Official Caroz Agripe, a supposed official on the way to taking up new post. Of course, Caroz had been thoroughly checked out and reports cleared him of all suspicion; however, Zunrogo still had his qualms about him. For one thing he was way too soft and cowardly despite his superb physique; it could all be a ruse, a good cover-up, to throw off suspicion. Zunrogo would devise an effective plan later to properly test him (flush him out); if he proved otherwise, he’d be then quickly disposed of. His wife Disaidun Agripe could be manipulated into playing a big part, a kind of borrowed knife; in setting him up and affecting his eventual demise. Meanwhile Zunrogo, not being privy to the covert identities of the rest of the Black Molochs, his next course of action could be placed in jeopardy; given that for all he knew, a Black Moloch affiliate, could have already infiltrated this vassal, going about all this time, totally undetected, keeping an eye on things while working to undermine him (Zunrogo). Once this impediment was flushed out and eradicated, his next course of action would then be, is to defeat Lance Diostin and take him alive so as to extract the desired information from him before his sure demise.

Competent as Zunrogo was, he was not entirely certain he could manage this daunting objective alone and so, considered enlisting Tizan’s help. That might be the key ingredient for his eventual success.  Afterwards he would decide on what to do with Tizan.

Zunrogo had been informed that the letter had always been kept in an airtight pouch of waxed leather.  The seal itself was indistinct but bore unique properties, not the least of which was the fact that it was laced with a deadly poison and a trick pin embedded cleverly within it, all to discourage unwarranted tampering.

“You have no inkling at all of what it is that you're carrying, do you?” he threw Disaidun (Jepipi) another cursory look.  “It’s just as well that you curbed your curiosity out of fear of reprisals, at least it has prolonged your life this little bit, long enough for me to...,” Zunrogo smirked and eyed her wantonly.

                                                                                              ~

 

 

(END OF SECTION 29)