His thumb touched a button at the pommel of the hilt. The dull blade suddenly glowed like heated iron, and from it crackled and pulsed little rainbow rays.

There was no time to think or plan or ponder. I moved in, with a knowing speed that surprised me as much as the two guards. Catching the fellow's weapon wrist, I clamped it firmly and bent it back and around. He whimpered and swore, and his glowing sword dropped. Its radiant blade almost fell on my naked foot. Before the clang of its fall was through echoing, I had caught it up, and set the point within inches of its owner's unprotected face.

"Quiet, or I'll roast you," I told him.

The other had drawn a weapon of his own, a pistol-form arrangement. I turned on him, but too late. He pressed the trigger, and from the muzzle came—not a projectile but a flying, spouting filament of cord that seemed to spring on me like a long thin snake and to fasten coil after coil around my body. The stuff that gushed from the gun-muzzle seemed plastic in form, but hardened so quickly upon contact with the air, it bound me like wire. Half a dozen adroit motions of the fellow's gun hand, and my arms were caught to my body. I dropped my sword to prevent it burning me, and tried to break away, but my bonds were too much for me.

"Let me out of this," I growled, and kicked at the man with my still unbound foot. He snapped a half-hitch on my ankle, and threw me heavily. Triumphant laughter came from both adversaries. Then:

"What's this?"

The challenge was clear, rich, authoritative. Someone else had come, from a rearward door into the stone-walled vestibule where the encounter was taking place.

A woman this time, not of great height, and robust but not heavy. She was dressed for vigorous action in dark slacks with buskins to make them snug around ankles and calves, a jerkin of stout material that was faced with metal armor plates and left bare her round, strong arms. A gold-worked fillet bound her tawny hair back from a rosy, bold-featured face—a nose that was positively regal, a mouth short and firm but not hard, and blue eyes that just now burned and questioned. She wore a holstered pistol, and a cross-belt supported several instruments of a kind I could not remember seeing before. A crimson cloak gave color and dignity to her costume, and plainly she was someone of position, for both the men stiffened to attention.

"A spy," one ventured. 

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