"Tell me," the Hertug shouted suddenly, "why you should not be killed at once?"
"We are your slaves, Hertug, we are your slaves," everyone in the room shouted in unison, waving their hands in the air at the same time. Jason missed the first chorus, but came in on the second. Only Mikah did not join in the chant-and-wave, speaking instead in a solitary voice after the pledge of allegiance was completed.
"I am no man's slave."
The commander of the soldiers swung his thick bow in a short arc that terminated on the top of Mikah's head: he dropped stunned to the floor.
"You have a new slave, oh Hertug," the commander said.
"Which is the one who knows the secrets of the caroj?" the Hertug asked and Snarbi pointed at Jason.
"Him there, oh mightiness. He can make caroj and he can make the monster that burns and moves them, I know because I watched him do it. He also made balls of fire that burned the D'zertanoj and many other things. I brought him to be your slave so that he could make caroj for the Perssonoj. Here are the pieces of the caroj we traveled in, after it was consumed by its own fire." Snarbi shook the tools and burnt fragments out onto the floor and the Hertug curled his lip at them.
"What proof is this?" he asked, and turned to Jason. "These things mean nothing. How can you prove to me, slave, that you can do the things he says?"
Jason entertained briefly the idea to deny all knowledge of the matter, which would be a neat revenge against Snarbi who would certainly meet a sticky end for causing all this trouble for nothing, but he discarded the thought as fast as it came. Partly for humanitarian reasons, Snarbi could not help being what he was, but mostly because he had no particular desire to be put to the question. He knew nothing about the local torture methods, and he wanted to keep it that way.
"Proof is easy, Hertug of all the Perssonoj, because I know everything about everything. I can build machines that walk, that talk, that run, fly, swim, bark like a dog and roll on their backs."