Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [167]
Glancing back suddenly, she found that Shaddam had disappeared. He must have scuttled off down another passageway. She was completely alone with this vile man.
Fenring passed through a security barrier and pushed Grera ahead of him into a room. She stumbled onto a black-and-white marbleplaz floor. A large chamber with a stonecrete fireplace dominating one wall, this had once been a visitors’ suite but was now devoid of furnishings. It smelled of fresh paint and long abandonment.
Remaining where she was, proud and fearless though wrapped in only a towel, Grera glanced up at him intermittently. She tried not to show defiance or lack of respect. Over her years of service, she had learned to stand on her own.
The door closed behind them. They were alone now, and Shaddam still hadn’t appeared. What did this little man want with her?
From his tunic Fenring produced a green-jeweled oval. After he pressed a button on its side, a long green blade emerged, glinting in the light of a glowglobe chandelier.
“I didn’t bring you here for questions, crone,” he said in a soft tone. He held the weapon up. “Actually, I need to test this on you. It’s brand-new, you see, and I’ve never really liked some of the Emperor’s walking meat.”
Fenring was no stranger to assassination, and killed with his bare hands at least as often as he engineered accidents or paid for thugs. Sometimes he liked blood work, while on other occasions he preferred subtleties and deceptions. When he was younger, barely nineteen, he had slipped out of the Imperial Palace at night and killed two civil servants at random, just to prove he could do it. He still tried to keep in practice.
Fenring had always known he had the iron will necessary for murder, but he had been surprised at how much he enjoyed it. Killing the previous Crown Prince Fafnir had been his greatest triumph, until now. Once old Elrood finally died, that would be a new feather in his cap. Can’t aim much higher than that.
But he had to keep himself current with new techniques and new inventions. One never knew when they might come in handy. Besides, this neuroknife was so intriguing. . . .
Grera looked at the shimmering green blade, her eyes wide. “The Emperor loves me! You can’t—”
“He loves you? A long-in-the-tooth concubine? He spends more time moaning about his long-lost Shando. Elrood’s so senile he’ll never even know you’re missing, and all of the other concubines will be happy to move up a rank.”
Before Grera could scramble away, the murderous man was on top of her, showing tremendous speed. “No one will mourn your loss, Grera Cary.” He raised the pulsing green blade and, with a dark fire in his flickering eyes, stabbed her repeatedly in the torso. The karthan towel fell away, and the neuroblade struck her freshly creamed and oiled skin.
The concubine screamed in agony, screamed again, then fell into sucking moans and shudders, and finally became silent. . . . No lacerations, no blood, only imagined agony. All of the pain, but no incriminating marks—could murder get better than this?
With pleasure suffusing his brain, Fenring knelt over the senior concubine, studying her shapely body crumpled on top of the disheveled towel. Good skin tone, firm muscles, now slack with death. It was hard to believe this woman was as old as they claimed. It must have required a lot of melange, and quite a bit of body conditioning. He felt Grera’s neck for a pulse, then double-checked. None remained. Disappointing . . . in a way.
There was no blood on the body or on the green knife blade, no deep wounds—but he had stabbed her to death. Or so she had thought.
An interesting weapon, this neuroblade. It was the first time he had ever used one. Fenring always liked to test the important tools of his trade in noncombat situations, since he didn’t want to be surprised in a crisis.
Called a “ponta” by its Richesian inventor, it was one of the few recent innovations Fenring considered worthwhile from that tiresome world. The illusionary