text: Tarcuna went to the servant's entrance, and shouted, "Hey! Menes Hu, Khudris, Branner? Anyone want to have sex?"
  
  A Ghemelian woman, spiky with her apotheosis and with the first letter of "Fool" branded on her forehead, looked in at the door, and spoke poor Trestean. "In the presence of the dragon you wish to do this?"
  
  "Sure. I don't mind the rest of you guys watching, do I? She's not even a person." Tarcuna parted her upper clothes and revealed some of her udder, more to the presumed peepholes in the walls than to Menes Hu. "C'mon, Menes Hu. You'll enjoy it. Xolgrohim won't let you see your husband 'til this is all over. Even then, you look so horrible and spiky he probably won't want you. You might as well get what you can, and I guarantee I won't make you pregnant by mistake."
  
  "No, no, it is an abomination."
  
  "Which you enjoyed a lot last time!" Tarcuna laughed.
  
  While they were talking, I was staring. Menes Hu wore eight spells around herself. Two were obviously illusion spells, and very big ones: probably the ones that kept Ythac's finding-spells from working. The third was probably strength, and the fourth and fifth were small ones that didn't obviously do anything. The sixth, seventh, and eighth were jagged ones wrapped around her psyche, and they looked older than the others. So I caught them between the lobes of my vô, one at a time, and squeezed. Crunch, crunch, crunch. "I think that's it," I wrote to Tarcuna.
  
  Menes Hu gasped in elation at her new freedom. This is about where our plan started falling apart.
  
  Tarcuna thinks very quickly. "I know, I should be very quiet about that. You don't want the others to find out."
  
  Menes Hu stared at her, and then nodded. "It will not stay secret for long."
  
  Tarcuna smiled. "Well, maybe you don't want any this time." — she flashed her udder at the Ghemelian — "But could you tell the boys? They could get some. Of what you got that one time."
  
  Menes Hu dipped her head. "I will do that thing." She stepped away from the door and urged her companions to come forward and provide to Tarcuna's insatiable needs.
  
  The next hoven at the door was tall and brawny, blocky and mighty, thick with muscle where most hovens have fat. Tarcuna smiled at him. "Captain Branner! Want another round of top-notch Dorday call girl?"
  
  "Dunno the boss wants us going in there with the dragon and all, and sure thing you can't come out here," he said.
  
  Tarcuna continued to be clever. "Well, I'm bored and I'm horny. How about I put on a show for you, and afterwards you put a bit of yourself through one of the peepholes and I am very nice to you that way?"
  
  Branner chuckled. "You're sure in a good mood..." And I broke the painspells on him, too. He shouted, "Yahoo! I am free!" Tresteans are not as used to concealing their feelings as Ghemelians.
  
  From behind him, in the weapons and servants' area, came a dozen hoven voices, wailing, wondering. "Xolgrohim gave us no orders for this circumstance!" shouted Menes Hu in Ghemelian. "As long as the prisoners make no attempt to escape, we don't need to do anything!"
  
  "It is hard not to think that it is some attempt to escape!" called another voice.
  
  "I'm not escaping, I'm still right here in the Pit of Despair!" I roared.
  
  "Anyone who wants to see that the dragon is just lying on the floor not doing anything at all, come look at a peephole!" shouted Tarcuna in Trestean. "Anyone who wants to kill everyone in here including yourself — why don't you take a look too? I don't want to die for not doing anything Xolgrohim said not to do."
  
  "Yes, yes! Come look through the peephole! The dragon and the person prisoner, they do nothing! See for yourself! Khudris, you are the other leader, you must look first!" proclaimed Menes Hu in Ghemelian. "Branner! You may save yourself if you can, but you must not risk the captives."
  
  A hoven man, stinking of infection, his fur barely visible under spikes and many dressings, looked in at the peephole. He had seven spells on him, so I whacked him with my vô, and then he didn't have any. He looked up. "Menes Hu is correct as far as I can tell. You and you, come look. Menes Hu and I will hold the controls to the guns until you are satisfied."
  
  And so forth until all fifteen hovens were free, and everyone had the Ulthana's Targe on them. I hoped that it would be good enough to keep off a few painspells.
  
  Then the plans completely fell apart.
  
  "Well, miss, I'm much obliged to you for freeing me," said Captain Branner. "But I have to wonder. You did a number on my home country, I hear. Wrecked the Peace Everywhere Array, then beat up the army, then tortured the archconsul into surrendering the country to you."
  
  "I only did the first one of those, and that only because it killed my fiancé," I explained. "The other dragons did the rest."
  
  "You're here, and you're standing on a big dragon-killing gun. You want something from me. I want something from you. And I aim to get it before you get to go free. If I don't get what I want, you get the biggest twistor ray bouquet of your life," he said.
  
  "Captain Branner! Do not do this thing!" shouted Khudris. "The dragon, she will free the people, she will kill Xolgrohim!"
  
  "Khudris, you gotta take care of your people, I gotta take care of mine," said Branner. "I hate it worse'n you do, but Xolgrohim's a Ghemelian problem, and the dragons are a Trestean problem. If I kill this one, that's some justice for what she's done to Trest."
  
  And I was, indeed, sitting on the muzzle of a gun made to kill dragons, with Branner at the trigger. "Well, what do you want?" I said, and made sure my defensive spells were in good shape. I didn't think they'd be good enough, not that close to that many twistor cannons.
  
  "I want your promise to set Trest free," he said. Khudris tried to cast a sleep spell at him, but the Ulthana's Targe protected him.
  
  "It's not mine to free," I said. "I can try to talk Ythac and Llredh into letting it go." I broke Branner's the Ulthana's Targe as I spoke.
  
  Captain Branner scowled. "I want more than that. I want you to fight them for it, I want you to push for freedom for Trest night and day, I,... oh..." Khudris had cast his spell again, and sent Branner to sleep. One of the gunners jumped for the trigger, and caught it in time.
  
  So we gently tossed the sleeping Branner into the Pit of Despair. The gunners tied the triggers — they're dead-man triggers, set to go off if they're released for too long. I shrank to a hovenish sort of size, and we all scrambled up the stairs to the street.
  
  At about which point I realized that hovens really, really treasure their freedom, and even each others' freedom, and are willing to spend nearly anything for it. I should probably pay attention to that in the future. It sounds very important if my friends and I are thinking of ruling Hove.