cs.cs.umr.edu Karab looked down at the slave girl kneeling before him. She knelt straight with her knees wide apart and her head bowed. He liked this one. She was tall and strong and mastering her made him feel as if he was bigger than she was. In actuality, Karab barely topped five and a half feet, in addition to being heavy. His silk robes were tailored to hide his weight, but usually they only succeeded in making him look fatter. The rings he wore, mostly for magical protection, and the heavy perfumed oil he used in his hair and thin beard made him seem effeminate at first glance. But, as Rhea and a very few others now living could attest, his mind was steel hidden beneath the perfume and silk. Right now, as she knelt before him, Rhea wondered what the mind was plotting. Karab was cruel for the sake of cruelty. She usually managed to endure his attentions during the New Year celebration, and her master's birthday celebration. The ruler of Pergamum visited only seldom, finding the delights of Dark Hold shabby compared to those of his home city. "You evaded me last night, slave," Karab said. Rhea found his high pitched nasal voice annoying but managed to keep from flinching. She did not object to men whose voices fell naturally in the higher range, Snow Wolf's had been almost as high as hers, which was low for a woman's, but she found the affectation grating. "I'm afraid that means I will have to punish you tonight, my dear. Don't worry, I have your master's full permission to do as I see fit. Lie down by the three rings in the floor." The guest room in the guard tower was not as opulent as the suites, and had far more restraint devices, since it was sometimes used as a spare cell when the dungeon was full. The rings were spaced about four feet apart and set into the stone floor. Rhea hastened to obey, hoping he would be merciful. Karab, after some rummaging in the wardrobe, and in a chest he had brought, proceeded to chain her wrists to the ring above her head. |