Grim whispered, "Can you stand pain?"
"Pain? No, I hate it. When the knife touches me—"
"I don't mean that. I have an idea. I'm going to be tortured anyhow, but I'd rather make a break for freedom than—"
Tlokine laughed incredulously, "They would shoot you down, even if you were free to run. And you're not. You're bound."
Grim laughed harshly, "No time to argue—follow me!"
He rolled off the altar. He hit the sloping rock beneath it with a thud that jarred his bones, but he kept on rolling. He went down the slope to the red marker—
He went by the marker, and the Change caught his ropes and twisted them into upright snakes that writhed in queer formations. It bent him forward, knotted his insides into lumps.
But he was free.
He tried to run, and could not. He overcame the agony in him to crawl, one arm and one leg after another, dragging himself along. The island came nearer and nearer. He expected disintegrator pellets to thud into him before he realized that Black Randolph wanted him to die slowly. He imagined the pirate was laughing insanely, watching the Change almost tear him apart.
Grim put a hand over the red mark and the relief from pain was so great he almost fainted. His teeth dug into his lip and forced him forward. Going over the marker, he crumpled into a ball.