Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance

halted before the ruins, close by T'sais, and she could see the faces. The bound man was a thin-faced wretch with a ragged red beard and eyes darting and desperate; the woman was short and plump. Their captor was Liane the Wayfarer. His brown hair waved softly, his features moved in charm and flexibility. He had golden-hazel eyes, large and beautiful, never still. He wore red leather shoes with curled tops, a suit of red and green, a green cloak, and a peaked hat with a red feather. T'sais watched without comprehension. The three were equally vile, of sticky blood, red pulp, inner filth. Liane seemed slightly less ignoble—he was the most agile, the most elegant. And T'sais watched with little interest.
    Liane deftly threw loops around the ankles of man and woman and pushed them so that they fell among the flints. The man groaned softly, the woman fell to whimpering..
    Liane made a gay flourish of his hat and sprang away to the ruins.
    Not twenty feet from T'sais he slid aside a stone in the ancient flags, came forth with tinder and flint, and kindled a fire. From his pouch he took a bit of meat, which he toasted and ate daintily, sucking his fingers.
    No word had yet passed. Liane at last stood up, stretched, and glanced at the sky. The sun was dropping below the dark wall of trees, and already blue shadows filled the glade.
    "To business," cried Liane. His voice was shrill and clear as the call of a flute. "First," and he made a solemnly waggish gesture, "I must assure that our revelations are weighted with soberness and truth."
    He ducked into his lair under the flags and brought forth four stout staffs. He laid one of these across the thighs of the man, passed the second across this, through the crotch of his captive's legs, so that with slight effort he could crush down at the thighs and up at the small of the back. He tested his device and crowed as the man cried out. He adjusted a similar arrangement upon the woman. T'sais watched in perplexity.
    Evidently the young man was preparing to cause his captives pain. Was this a custom of Earth? But how was she to judge, she who knew nothing of good or evil?
    "Liane! Liane!" cried the man. "Spare my wife! She knows nothing!
    Spare her, and you may have all I possess, and I serve you my lifetime!"
    "Ho!" laughed Liane, and the feather of his cap quivered. "Thank you, thank you for your offer—but Liane wants no faggots of wood, no turnips.
    Liane likes silk and gold, the gleam of daggers, the sounds a girl makes in love. So thank you—but I seek the brother of your wife, and when your wife chokes and screams, you will tell where he hides.
    To T'sais the scene began to assume meaning. The two captives were concealing information the young man desired; hence he would hurt them until in desperation they did as he asked. A clever artifice, one which she would hardly have thought of herself.
    "Now," said Liane, "I must ensure that lies are not artfully mingled into the truth. You see," he confided, "when one is under torment, he is too distraught to invent, to fabricate—and hence speaks naught but exactness." He snatched a brand from the fire, wedged it between the man's bound ankles, and instantly leapt to ply the torture lever upon the woman.
    "I know nothing, Liane!" babbled the man. "I know nothing—oh, indeed!"
    Liane stood away with dissatisfaction. The woman had fainted. He snatched the brand away from the man and flung it pettishly into the blaze.
    "What a nuisance!" he said, but presently his good spirits reasserted themselves. "Ah well, we have much time." He stroked his pointed chin.
    "Perhaps you speak truth," he mused. "Perhaps your good wife shall be the informant after all." He revived her with slaps and an aromatic which he held under her nose. She stared at him numbly, her face twisted and bloated. "Attend," said Liane. "I enter the second phase of the question. I reason, I think, I theorize. I say, perhaps the husband does not know where he whom I seek has