And I remember Sir Aravist. He told how I had appeared in the city suddenly, how I insinuated my way into court. Insinuated was the word he used. He said he had suspected me from the first of conspiring to overturn the New Republic and restore the monarchy. He said he had had his agents follow me, and they had eventually followed me to my meeting with Lady Kata in the tower room. He told how they had come to fetch him then and how he and his men had broken through the locked door and found Lady Kata dead of a dagger wound and the bloody dagger still in my hands.
That was the worst part of it for me—the locked room, the bloody dagger—because I’d been there. I knew it was true.
But all this, as I said, went by in a fog. And if it was horrifying to hear the witnesses building a case around me like a coffin, well, it was all so horrifying that I could barely feel it except as a general deadening atmosphere of horror.
Oh, but that was before the end of it. I felt the end of it, all right. The final horror broke through the horror fog like a horror freight train and ran right over me.
At the end of it, when the testimony was done, the creepy wizard guy bent down again and whispered in Lord Iron’s ear. Lord Iron listened and nodded and smacked his gavel on the judge’s bench. He looked down at me from his great height so that I quailed with fresh fear even before he spoke. And then he spoke.
He said, “Austin Lively, the court has determined that the testimony of the witnesses has created substantial doubt about your claim of innocence. Therefore, we decree and command that you should be returned to the dungeon and placed into the custody of the executioner to be tortured until you admit the full truth.”
“Wait, what?” I whispered.
“Take him away,” said Lord Iron.
I shouted, “Wait! No. You can’t do that. It’s unconstitutional! You can’t!”
But they could. Two guards grabbed my elbows. I struggled as they forced me up the aisle toward the great doors, toward the angry crowd—toward the dungeon.
“I’m innocent!”
In my mind, I could hear the endless shrieks of the tortured heretic as the guards dragged me away to suffer his same fate.
THE DREARY NIGHTMARE SCENES REPLAYED IN REVERSE. The angry crowd trying to lynch me as I was hustled from the tribunal hall back to the castle. The stone stairway down into the hell of the dungeon. The beak-nosed jailer with his giggle and his torch leading the way into the cell. The one-eyed, fang-mouthed ogre going batshit, roaring and squealing and straining against his chains so that dust flew from the walls and I expected the anchoring rings to fly free at any moment.
Then the jailer and the guards were gone again. The ogre settled down and slept again. I sat in the dust again, manacled to the wall. It was all just the same as before. Except for the heretic. He was back now, chained in his corner, naked—but he was not the same. While the jailer remained with his torch, I could see everything that had been done to him.
I won’t describe what he looked like. It was unspeakable.
And I was next. The executioner was coming to do the same to me. Any minute now, any second. Hours and endless hours of torment would begin. And when they were done, my life would be over, worse than over. I would be that—that thing—in the corner there. I could hear him in the shadows. Trying to express his pain and anguish with what was left of his mouth. Even if I made it back to LA, I would be that. That thing.
I realized I had never been afraid before. Not really. Not like this. I remembered, back in elementary school, being scared the teacher would call on me when I didn’t know the answer. I remembered being scared I would be grounded after I set the backyard shed on fire while sneaking some cigarettes. I remembered finding a lump under my arm and how I thought it might be cancer. I remembered a minor car accident I’d been in. That was my history of fear. All of it. What a life I’d lived till now. What an easy life.
Because this—this was unbearable. Sitting in the dark. Waiting for the executioner. Waiting for the hours of agony. Staring through the shadows at what I would be when it was over: the remnant of a human being, the weirdly surviving pieces.
I turned away from him. I gazed down at the dust. My whole body trembled. I tried to swallow. I couldn’t. I tried to hold back my tears. I couldn’t. A high, puling whine of supplication and misery came out of me. I was helpless with horror.
Then—a shock. Something caught my eye. Some dim momentary something to my left.
I turned—and gasped, startled.
That thing was back. That rodent with a woman’s face. It was sitting right next to me. A deformed beast. Creepy. Staring at me, its black eyes glittering in the shadows. The sight of it made me start back and gag.
“Holy shit!” I cried out in a thin, hoarse voice.
It just sat there. Part rat, part woman. A hideous mutant. It just went on staring with its bizarrely human eyes. After a second, it glowed again the way it had last time, briefly throwing off a confetti of colored lights, then going dark.
Horror added to horror forced the words out of me. “For God’s sake, what are you?”
She—it—snorted. Snorted with derision. She was mocking me. Such a human sound—but coming from this monstrosity made it seem all the more monstrous.
“What?” I said. “What are you?”
It spoke. Even that was awful, even the fact that it spoke, that such a creature could speak. “What are you?” it said—she said—because it had a woman’s voice, though so high-pitched and nasal it sounded as much like a mouse’s squeal.
“What?” I said again, barely able to get the word out, strangled by my fear of what was coming for me any minute, any second.
“What are you?” she said again. “I’m Maud. That’s who I am. What are you?”
“What am …? I’m a man,” I said through my tears.
She snorted again—snorted derisive laughter. Rolled her eyes. “A man!” she said. “Look at you!”
“What the …?” I could barely think, I was so terrified. Every word we spoke meant a second passed, every second that passed brought me closer to the torture chamber. “You’re a rat! And you’re talking to me! You’re some kind of … what are you? Why are you here?”
“It’s a long story,” said Maud the mutant rodent-woman. “A sin, a curse, a quest. You want to hear about it, or you want to get out of here?”
“What?”
“You want—?”
“Get out! You can get me out? I want to get out!” I eagerly turned toward her—toward her and away from what was left of the heretic. I tried to focus. “What can you do?”
“Not much,” said the rodent-girl. “I have no magic of my own, but if I can channel the forest king’s, I might be able to get those manacles off you.”
I thrust my hands toward her eagerly. No clue what she was talking about, but if there was any chance …
She looked me dead in the eye and spoke with maddening slowness. “But I can’t do it with you mewling like a hungry kitten. A man!” she muttered derisively again.
“Just do it! Just get these things off me!” I held my hands out again so that my chains rattled. “Can you get the door open too?”
“Maybe. Like I said, I have to channel Tauratanio. So you have to shut up and let me focus.”
“I’m quiet, I’m quiet—do it!” I said.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the door. It was silent out there in the dungeon maze. In here, in the cell, the ogre snored. The heretic in the shadows made his terrible low laments. That was all.
I faced the awful rodent-girl again. Maud. She was gazing at the manacles on my wrists. Taking deep breaths that made her furry front rise and fall.
“Come on, come on!” I whispered.
“Shut up! I’m focusing.”
I managed to bite back my curse.
Once again, the rainbow sparkle of light flew off her. As it did, I saw her quickly raise her forepaws with their clawed, twiglike fingers, like the fingers of a squirrel. It seemed like the colore
d light was sucked back into her—swoosh—all at once. And then colored lightning sparked out of her claws. There was an electric fritz and I felt the heat on my wrists and saw the manacles leap and tremble under the flashing current.
Then the sparks died. I pulled at the manacle on my right wrist with the fingers of my left hand. It held fast.
“It isn’t …” I started to say.
But Maud hissed at me, “Shut up! You think this is easy?”
“Well, do it. Do it!”
Again, she sat there breathing, focusing, waiting. Again, the colored lights came off her. She raised her claws. She gave a little high-pitched grunt of effort. The light was sucked back into her, and the sparks flew and hit the manacles. I felt the metal jump and tremble against my flesh. I willed the manacles to snap apart.
But then—then horribly—footsteps—footsteps on the dungeon stairs!
“Jailer!”
It was the executioner. The heretic in the corner heard him and gave a squeaking moan of fear through the hole in what was left of his face.
“Jailer! I’m here for the prisoner Lively!”
The sparks from the rodent’s claws winked out. I tried to break the manacle again. Again, it wouldn’t budge.
“Jailer!”
I heard the jailer’s door come creaking open. I saw the glow of torchlight spilling through the window-hole in the cell door.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I heard the jailer say.
The mutant rodent was just sitting there again. I whimpered at her, “Please!”
“Stop it!” she spat in a harsh whisper. “You say you’re a man. Be a man!”
I heard the jailer’s keys rattle as his footsteps approached the door. Other footsteps joined with his, the heavy footsteps of big men. The heretic’s tongueless moans of fear grew louder and more awful.
I tried to compose myself. I thought: Be a man! I drew a deep breath. I said a prayer. My parents had taught me there was no God, but I prayed anyway. It just came out of me. I held my hands out and was silent, letting the rodent-girl focus.
The jailer was at the door. I heard his key slip into the keyhole.
The confetti of colored lights flew off the rodent-girl again and was sucked back into her again and shot out of her forepaws again and the manacles heated and shook and rattled on my wrists.
I looked on in hope—but desperate hope. What good would this do me now? Even if my hands were free, how could I fight the executioner and his armed guards? They would cut me down with their swords or batter me senseless, and in the end, they would carry me off to the torture hole no matter how I tried to stop them.
The jailer’s key turned in the lock. The heavy latch clunked back. The heretic let out a pitifully inarticulate moan of terror, and at the same moment the giant ogre leapt to its feet, roaring its squealy roar and rattling its chains as its one eye rolled wildly in its forehead and its mouth opened wide to show its sharklike fangs.
The manacles burst apart on my wrists.
“Yes! Damme!” cried Maud in triumph.
The cell door swung open. There was the jailer with his flaming torch and his warty face and his sadistic grin. There was the blithe executioner in his mask, striding in to fetch me with his two husky armed guards right behind him. The ogre squealed and roared and tried to get at them, straining at his chains. The jailer gleefully tormented him with his torch flames.
I leapt to my feet.
The executioner saw at once that the manacles were off me.
“Ah, hell, he’s got free—grab him!” he said. He spoke quickly but casually. He wasn’t worried at all. It was obvious why not. The two guards were tall and thick and muscular, with swords dangling from their belts. I had no chance against them.
The cell was full of noise: the ogre roaring and squealing, the heretic moaning and groaning.
The guards rushed past the executioner on either side, charging at me.
I threw a punch at one of them. A weak, sloppy, pathetic punch. My muscles, such as they were, had gone wobbly with fear. The guard blocked the blow easily and grabbed my arm. The other guard grabbed my other arm. Just like that, they had me locked up between them. Even struggling with all the strength of my terror, I was helpless.
“All right, fellows, bring him along,” said the executioner in his blithely competent way.
But before they could start to drag me to the door, the colored lights came up out of my rodent friend again. Quickly, Maud threw her forepaws out and the lights were sucked back into her and the sparks flew from her forepaws.
This time, she pointed her claws across the cell. The sparks leapt the long distance and struck the ring in the wall that anchored the ogre’s chains. The ring was already so loose, it shuddered and fell from the stone immediately.
All at once, the ogre was free.
In an unthinkably swift instant, the one-eyed monster’s great horse-haunch of an arm lashed out and knocked the torch from the jailer’s hand. The flaming stick went flying past my head. And in the same second, as we were all turning to look, the ogre grabbed the jailer in his two huge fists and lifted him off his feet as if he had no weight at all. The jailer shrieked like a little girl on a roller coaster—or shrieked one-half a shriek that was cut off as the ogre brought him to his gaping mouth as you would a chicken leg and bit through his throat with those gigantic fangs.
All this took a moment—less. Then the jailer’s cowled head tumbled to the floor, landing with a wet thud while a geyser of blood gouted from his severed neck. Roaring, the ogre hurled the spasming corpse at the executioner. The corpse hit the masked man and sent him stumbling back as yet more blood spouted and sprayed from its neck. The ogre squealed and reached for the next nearest man: the guard who held my left arm. The monster tore him off me. The guard threw wild punches at the creature, screaming as he was hoisted off his feet. The guard on my right arm let me go and drew his sword with a swish of metal.
The executioner cursed. The heretic tried to yell.
And the rodent-woman Maud screamed, “Run, Lively! Run!”
I ran.
I sprinted for the open cell door. There was no one to stop me. The executioner was down near the heretic, tangled under the jailer’s spouting, juddering corpse. One guard was rushing at the ogre as the ogre began to devour the other. I shot through the door into the dancing shadows of the dungeon labyrinth. I started to turn toward the stairway.
But then the mutant rodent-woman came flying out of the cell, all four legs splayed. As she leapt off in the other direction, her high cry reached me over the screams and shouts from within the cell: “This way!”
I dashed after her.
She ran down a corridor of cells under an arch, and I was right behind her. Springing ahead of me on her four legs, she arced up over a wall as she skittered around a corner, down another hall. I made the turn a second later and plunged blindly into a long, torchless corridor that led away into blackness. The shouts and cries from the cell faded behind me, and the glow of the flamelight faded too. I raced down the corridor, deeper and deeper into the dark. I saw something straight in front of me and only just managed to duck before I smashed my head against a low ledge.
I had entered another corridor, its ceiling lower, its walls tighter. I had to slow down, had to raise my hands to either side of me to feel my way between the walls as the dark grew thicker and thicker. Only the feel of the rough stone under my fingers guided me, only the occasional confetti of pastel lights from the rodent-girl kept me from stumbling on the uneven floor.
The rodent turned another corner, and I lumbered after her. I lost sight of her in the darkness and was about to call out when I heard her voice again.
“Here.”
She sparkled with colored light and I was stunned to find her suddenly right at my feet.
“I’m not strong enough,” she said. “Help me! Quick!”
She had her forepaws raised again. The magic glimmer came off her, swept back into her, shot
from her claws in sparks to hit an arched grate set into the stone wall. The grate was about four feet tall and three feet wide, made of heavy iron. It jumped and trembled as the sparks battered it, but it didn’t come free.
“Come on!” she said.
I knelt down and braced my feet against the ground. I grabbed the bars in my two hands. I pulled. It rattled but held fast.
“Wait for me, damn it!” squealed Maud.
Panting, I waited, kneeling there, gripping the grate by the bars, white-knuckled.
And now I heard the shouts of men approaching: the executioner and a guard, the surviving guard.
“Come on! He’s on the run!” the executioner was shouting.
“Which way?”
“There! There’s his footsteps! This way!”
I don’t know how they’d gotten away from the ogre, but they had, and they were coming for me.
I glanced at the rodent-girl. She sat there in the dark, still, gathering her energy, steadying her focus. I wanted to urge her on, but I pressed my lips tight and kept silent.
I heard the executioner. “He can’t be far! Come on!”
His voice was heart-stoppingly close, one corridor away. I could see the glow of torchlight now, growing brighter as my pursuers came on.
I breathed deep, trying to stay silent, stay calm.
And there it was! The rainbow sparkle off the rodent Maud. The flash of sparks from her forepaws. The double stream of colored electricity hit the barred gate and made it leap in my fingers. At that same moment, I yanked hard on the bars.
There was a loud scraping noise. Then I toppled backward onto my ass as the grate broke out of the stone and came away in my hands.
Instantly, the rodent sprang through the opening. “Come on!”
“There he is!” came the shout from the end of the corridor.
I turned and with a jolt of sickening fear, I saw the executioner come chasing around the corner, his masked countenance lit by the fire of the torch he held high. The remaining guard was running right behind him, his sword flashing in his hand.
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