Vokal's cheeks paled at the full implication of what had occurred came to him. Whoever this mystery woman was, she had overheard—must have overheard—his conversations with both Rhoa and Sitab. Were she a spy—someone who would go to Jaltor with what she had heard—Vokal was a dead man!
"Find her!" he screamed. "A hundred tals to the man who brings her alive, to me. Death to all of you unless she is found! Go!"
They went. They went as though the hounds of hell were at their heels. Within seconds every floor of the palace was alight with torches, every hall crowded with warriors, every room being searched. Guards at the palace gates were alerted, patrols were set to scouring the grounds between palace and outer wall.
There was no sign of the missing girl.
Tharn, sleeping soundly as a man does whose conscience is clear and whose bed is no more uncomfortable than a hundred others he has occupied, awakened suddenly. For a brief moment he lay without moving, his ears searching for some indication of what had awakened him.
There! The barest whisper of leather against stone from down the corridor that ran past his cell door. A sandaled foot had made that sound. Other ears—even the ears of a man already awake—would have missed what his sleeping brain had caught.
Soundlessly he left his stone bench and moved to the door. But the darkness was such that even his unbelievably sharp eyes were helpless to penetrate it. But if his eyes were useless, his ears were not. Fifty feet further down the corridor a man was standing; he could hear his breathing and the rustle of garments. A few seconds later Tharn's eyes caught a tiny glow of light—a glow that soon swelled to a flickering light strong enough for him to see the opposite row of barred cell doors.
Again came the whisper of sandaled feet. Presently an Ammadian guard came into view, a heavy spear in one hand, a small torch of flaming wood in the other. The guard was peering into each of the cells across from Tharn, pausing at length at some, passing others quickly. Tharn wondered at the man's attempt at stealth; since it was impossible for any of the prisoners to get at him, such precautions could serve no evident ends.
When the man reached a cell almost exactly across from Tharn, the cave man saw him toss something through the opening framing the bars. He heard the unseen prisoner sigh ... and then the guard raised his spear and inserted its head through the same opening.