
had to.
Facing her glittering blade, Delgan’s bravery ebbed. Cunning and unscrupulous, it was ever his way to
win with words or guile rather than to resort to physical action, which, in his warped view, was the way
of the brute. The wily and devious Delgan had long ago discovered that he would trick and entangle
those he sought to use in a web of words. So he tried it now, rather than trust his precious hide to the
stinging kiss of that small, chaste blade.
“Would you slay me, then, witch-girl?” he panted. “I am no enemy of yours! Think: have ever we met,
child? If not, then how could we be foes?”
“It was no friend who tried to thrust me over the side, stranger!” spat Niamh, the keen knife unswerving
in her lip.
Delgan forced a bewildered laugh.
“But you have taken everything wrong, child! I sprang aboard this flying craft to aid you in piloting it to
the palace roof, for I alone know the trick of the controls. And I leaped forward to steady you, for fear
that the impact of my leap might toss you from your feet and over the side. Then, and, I’m afraid, without
even giving me a moment to speak and to identify myself, you brought that wicked small knife into action.
Even then, although attacked without warning, I was not provoked, but kindly thought to remove the
weapon from you, lest in your hysteria you do yourself an injury . . . ”
The blue man’s words were smoothly plausible, and the bewildered, almost hurt tones with which he
uttered them came very close to disarming Niamh’s suspicions. But the girl was no fool and remembered
her own precise reactions, despite the sly-tongued villain’s attempt to befuddle her.
“If you are my friend, first toss that curious crystal weapon over the side,” she said keenly. Then, with a
small, ironic smile, she added: “For, if we are friends, we need no weapons, now, do we?”
He nodded in a friendly fashion. “Certainly I will do so, to reassure you, mistress. But the crystal rod is
no weapon; it is an instrument of the Ancients which sheds light in darkness. At any rate, I will surely do
as you wish . . . but first, I think it not too much for me to ask of you a similar token in gesture of our
friendship. Throw away that knife of yours, and I will do as you bid.”
Niamh looked at him strangely.
“Do you not know that every woman of my race bears ever on her person the sacred knife that is called
the ‘Defender of Chastity’?” she murmured, puzzledly. “Or are you some savage outlander, unfamiliar
with the code of civilization?”
Delgan, who was indeed just such a savage, albeit one who had rigorously schooled himself in the ways
of the more civilized races of his world, bit his lip in silent fury at the slip. But not so much as a muscle
twitched in his face to reveal his inward feelings.
“Of course, of course! I had forgotten!” he said, with an apologetic laugh. “Well, then, my girl, sheathe
that holy knife of yours, or put it away . . . a naked blade is not drawn between comrades, you know!”
So cleverly devised was the verbal trap he had woven about her, that Niamh–although her every impulse
screamed to retain the blade for instant use, if threatened–could not conjure up a good reason for not
putting away the little knife. Keeping a wary eye on the smiling, seemingly friendly man, she reinserted the