A familiar scent greeted him as he approached the front door of the Charmont. He hadn’t believed his mood could’ve gotten worse until he realized that Baneur Deuseau, that hateful little Turk, was waiting for him inside. Prianhe hated Deuseau passionately. If his master would have allowed it, Prianhe would have killed the pesty spy long ago. He actually deigned to believe that he was better than Prianhe, and that he was above taking orders from anyone other than their master. Filthy rat. Prianhe had to spit out his distaste before he went into the Charmont.
“Baneur.” He said the name like a man choking on a rancid piece of meat.
“Navan.” Deuseau’s beady black eyes stared at him with equal enmity.
“Why are you here?” Prianhe took a seat at a different table, just a short distance from the Turk.
The fat innkeeper, upon hearing someone entering his common room, emerged from the kitchen.
“Leave us,” both men spat at him.
“Your master has sent me to collect you, Navan. I’ve been waiting here for you all day.”
“If I’d known you were waiting for me, I would have stayed out longer.”
“Your master has orders for you, Navan. Do you dare to defy his will?” Baneur’s voice rose slightly in anger. It gave Prianhe a small measure of satisfaction that he had gotten under the little man’s skin.
“I take it you’re here to take me to Perth?” Prianhe asked with a smirk.
“That’s right,” Baneur answered.
“How are things progressing out there?” Prianhe asked.
“What things? I was told only to bring you back,” Baneur told him.
At that Prianhe smiled widely. “I guess our master doesn’t think you’re very important. I mean, you don’t even know why he sent you here.”
Baneur ground his teeth. Prianhe noted with delight that his left hand was twitching rapidly. He had been there for the beating that had left the pathetic little Turk with that disability. It had been one of the most pleasurable experiences of his life. Even now, years later, when he needed to think of something to lighten his mood, he thought about those deafening screams.
“Enough of this, Reikkan,” the Turk hissed, trying to calm down. His normally pale face was flushed and red. “Gather your things. I don’t want to spend another moment in this infernal heat.”
Prianhe held onto his victorious smile just long enough to make a vein bulge in Baneur’s forehead. If he pushed him any further, they would inevitably end up in a fight, and while putting the filthy midget in his place would bring him infinite enjoyment, he needed to get to Perth and start tracking Farrushaw. The sooner, the better.
He left the Turk in the common room and retrieved his belongings from his room. There wasn’t much to grab. All he had there was a small bag with an extra shirt and his second sword.
“Let’s go,” he barked at the Turk when he returned to the common room.
Baneur said nothing but stood and moved to the center of the room. Prianhe approached him and held up his arm. The Turk grabbed it. The room began to spin quickly around them though he didn’t feel as if he were moving at all. There was a loud clap, and everything went black. For the shortest of seconds, the time it would take to blink, Prianhe felt as if he were floating on his back down a rapidly moving river. Then another loud clap, and he was standing in a large, lavish bedroom, in what appeared to be a palace. Prianhe had to bend forward to fight back the sudden wave of dizziness that he always felt when he was transported by a traveler.
“Welcome to Nal’Dahara, Navan,” he heard Baneur’s deep baritone say. “What will you need me to do?”
“Where are we? Is this the Governor’s palace?” Prianhe asked, composing himself and looking around at the fine granite stonework.
“This is Cantor’s palace,” Baneur answered.
“Go find the Governor and bring him to me,” Prianhe commanded.
Baneur grimaced visibly, but held his tongue and hurried off. Prianhe strode to one of the room's many windows and looked out at the gray city. He couldn’t tell what time it was because the sun was hidden behind a dark overcast sky. It looked ready to rain. Prianhe hated Nal’Dahara. It was dull, lifeless, and utterly lacking in color or culture. What was that trival doing in Perth, he wondered? He had just spent several months tracking the sailor around the world, and now he seemed to be starting all over again. The sailor had been his master’s quarry. Hunting Farrushaw was going to be more pleasurable.
A great deal of time passed as Prianhe stood there lost in his thoughts. He heard footsteps approaching the doorway and turned to watch Errick Cantor and the Turk enter the room.
Somewhere in the palace a sound like a canon blast echoed and shook the floor beneath Prianhe’s boots.
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Enaya sat in front of her mirror, absently running a brush through her thick, flaxen hair. The eyes that stared back at her looked beaten and hopeless. She felt so ashamed of herself that she wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. She had spent most of the night and most of the morning bemoaning her situation. Her mother never would have given up so easily. She desperately missed her mother.
Somewhere in the palace, Givara was being held prisoner, beaten and tortured in the name of blackmail. All Enaya had to do was sign a letter of consent, proclaiming her intention to marry a man she could never love. A man she could scarcely bring herself to look at. And worse still, she knew that even if she gave in to his insidious demands, her friend would still die. Was there no solution to her problem?
She had considered using her power to free herself from the locked room, but remained hesitant. If she was discovered, then there would be no hope for her at all. The Governor wouldn’t need to marry her to gain a political advantage. He could arrest her, the granddaughter of one of Fandrall’s most well-regarded nobles and gain his political advantages that way. Or he would use her secret as added leverage to force her into matrimony. Her eyes drifted again to the locked door. She would wait until she had no other choice.
The door suddenly opened, and Nehrea stepped in. She was dressed in the same revealing uniform as the day before, with bracelets and jewels adorning her fingers and wrists. Enaya immediately noticed her eyes. They looked gaunt and weary as if she hadn’t slept well. There were bruises on her arms and neck.
“Lady Relador, the Governor has requested your presence.” She motioned her hand toward the open door. “If you would follow me, please.”
Enaya looked over her shoulder out a nearby window. It was likely noon, though with the gray overcast sky looking on the verge of a good rain, she could only guess. Governor Cantor had told her she had until dinner. Was he making his play early?
She stood and followed Nehrea out of the room and then down one flight of stairs. Nehrea took her down a long hallway, to a massive set of double doors, intricately carved and laced with gold. Two uniformed guards stood outside. At Nehrea’s behest they opened the doors and Enaya followed her in.
They entered a vast throne room with a ceiling that stretched to the top of the palace, large pillared columns creating perfect symmetrical rows, and stained glass windows throwing blankets of soft colors across the gray granite walls. At one end of the expanse, on a raised stone platform with a large throne, sat Governor Cantor, trying very hard to seem imposing. Enaya wasn’t the least bit impressed.
Nehrea led her to the foot of the platform, and she noted rather sourly, that a black cloaked woman stood several feet behind the Governor. What did he intend to show her now?
“Enaya, how are you today?” the Governor said with a knowing smirk.
“Get to the point Errick,” she answered testily. “Why have you summoned me?”
The Governor smiled. The fingers on his right hand lazily traced the grooves of the carved arm rest on his throne.
“Have you given my offer any thought?”
“You told me I have until dinner tonight to decide.”
Enaya balled her fists and bared her teeth. “You are a monster Errick Cantor. I will never give in to you.”
The slight had no effect. Instead, the Governor waved a hand at the Seer and yawned as if he were bored. The Seer stepped down the short set of stairs that led up the platform and stood in front of Enaya. From beneath her robes, she produced a flat black rock which she used to conjure a visual, just as she had done the night before. The scene Enaya saw turned her blood to ice. The last tendon of Enaya’s resolve began to snap like the strands of an old, frayed rope.
“Your guardsmen,” Cantor laughed lightly. “We picked them up this morning. I assumed that the disfigured one was some kind of attendant. They are all in my custody now, Enaya.”
She saw Sim, Farrus, and Quinn Gracin, seated on the floor of a small cell. Each man had the vacant look of defeat in the cast of his eyes. Sim looked broken, with his shoulders slumped, and his head down.
“What have you done to them?” she asked, realizing that each man was bleeding in various areas.
“Nothing yet, Enaya.” He leaned forward in his throne, his eyes proclaimed his imminent victory. “In one hour, I will begin killing one man every hour until you give in to my demands. We will start with the cripple.”
“Is there no end to the depths of your treachery?” she asked, fighting back the tears that forced their way into her eyes.
The Governor’s grin stretched the limits of his face. He stood, looking down at her like a man who had ascended to the top of a mountain. The white streaks of hair that sat above his ears gave his madness an unspoken urgency.
“Take her back to her room, Nehrea,” he told his servant. “You have one hour, Enaya. When you realize that you have lost, Nehrea will bring you the form to sign.”
For several moments, Enaya stood rooted to the floor, staring ahead blankly. How had it come to this? In a deep recess of her memory she recalled the day Givara had come to her. She had only been fourteen at the time, a child still. Her mother sat her down that very day and told her the tale of her family's history of secrecy and sacrifice. Givara had told her that she believed the prophecies of Harmony Alexidus were about to converge and she would stand at the center of that turbulent storm. Her destiny was to guide the hand of the last Harven on his journey to the inevitable battle with Desirmor and restore the balance of peace and light to a world that had long ago been cast in darkness. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.
She felt Nehrea take hold of her arm and pull her toward the door. She gave no effort to resist. Her eyes took in the sudden change in scenery as they left the throne room and started down the hall toward the stairs, but her mind was like a vacant cloud, lost and adrift, watching the world unfold from her place in the skies. Like a ghost from a long ago memory, she thought she saw Baneur Deuseau, the loathsome Turk from the bank, walk by and enter the throne room. He might have noticed her, but she was too deep in her voluminous despair to care.
“If I help you escape, will you take me with you?” she heard Nehrea whisper fiercely.
Enaya became suddenly aware of the beautiful woman’s grip on her arm, tightly squeezing to the point of inflicting pain. She looked around to see if they were alone, realizing that they were nearly at the stairs. Nehrea looked ahead as though she had never said a word, her face an unreadable mask, but the tension in her vice grip relayed the seriousness of her words.
“You said you couldn’t help me,” Enaya whispered back, unsure of the woman’s motives.
“I can’t stay in this palace a moment longer. I would rather die than let that man touch me again,” Nehrea told her with a shiver.
“Can you get me to the dungeon?” Enaya asked, feeling a surging thrill of hope building within.
“Yes, but I need your word. If I help you, you must take me with you.”
They began to climb the stairs to the third floor. Two guardsmen passed by caught up in their own conversation. Enaya waited until they were long past before she gave her answer.
“I swear it, Nehrea. I will take you with me, but know this -- to walk with me, is to walk side by side with death. I can offer you no assurance of safety.”
“I want only to be away from him,” Nehrea said.
They arrived outside of Enaya’s room. For a passing moment they stood outside, as though neither was sure of what to do next.
“Do you need anything from your room?” Nehrea asked, looking down the empty hallway for prying ears.
“I need to change out of this ridiculous gown, if we’re going out on the run,” Enaya said, looking down at the impractical flowing silk fabric that dragged the floor around her feet. Though she hated to waste the time changing, it would serve her in the end having a garment more equipped for traveling.
“Hurry,” Nehrea implored her.
Enaya hustled into the room and went right for the green riding dress she had been wearing when she was brought to the palace. She practically ripped parts of the dress off in her haste to change, but quickly managed to switch clothes. On her way out, she grabbed her coin pouch and a sturdy, wool shawl.
“Are you going to be alright in that outfit?” Enaya asked Nehrea, when she went back out to the hall. The plunging neckline and sleeveless arms on her blouse didn’t look very warm, nor did the loose fitting, nearly shear, satiny breeches.
“There’s no time for me to get to my rooms. We have to leave now,” Nehrea told her. They began to walk back to the stairs. “Try to act natural, and let me do the talking. I think I can convince the guards down in the dungeon to let you in to see your friends. After that it’s up to you. I hope you have a plan.”
Enaya merely nodded and followed along. She had no idea what she was going to do when they got to the dungeon. Still, for the first time since she had come to the palace, she felt hopeful.
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Sim woke up with a violent headache and soreness that attacked every inch of his body. It took a few moments to recall the cause of his current situation. He was locked up in a tiny square cell with a door made of thick rusty iron bars. Farrus sat with his back against the wall, calmly watching him regain his senses. Quinn lay still on the floor by his feet.
“How’s your head feel?” Farrus asked, gruffly.
“Hurts,” Sim said, rubbing his temples.
“We’re lucky to be alive.”
“Are we in the palace?”
Farrus nodded and pointed at the door. “Givara’s out there. I can’t see her, but we spoke.”
Sim tried to stand, grunting with the effort, then realized that his feet were bare.
“Where are my boots?” he asked looking around.
“Out there somewhere. They take a prisoners boots away. It makes escape more difficult.”
“Farrus, I need to get my boots,” Sim said direly. “I stuffed my gem in them before we were captured.”
“That was good thinking, but there’s not much we can do about it. Are you sure you can’t do anything without the gem?
“I’ve never really tried without it,” Sim told him.
“Now’s the time to start,” Farrus said.
Quinn murmured and moved. He slowly sat up and rubbed the scars on his head, groaning audibly.
“We’re alive?” he asked painfully.
“For now,” Farrus replied.
“Are we in the palace dungeon?” the scarred old man asked. Sim and Farrus nodded together. “I think I’d rather be dead.”
“Can you use your power to get us out of here?” Sim asked hopefully.
“No,” Quinn answered gravely. “They have us in a cell lined with zinc.”
“So?” Sim didn’t understand.
“For some reason, zi
nc blocks the ability to use the power. No-one knows why. Until we’re standing on the other side of that door, I’m just an ordinary old man.”
Sim walked over to the door, and pressed his head into the thin space between the bars. He tried to look down the hallway lined with cell doors. His vision was limited both by the minimal periphery and by the dim lighting. He couldn’t see Givara. He didn’t see his boots.
“Hello?” he called out. “Givara, are you down there?”
“You were supposed to save me, not get yourself caught, fool,” he could hear her say from somewhere on the right end of the hall.
“We’ll think of something,” he responded, though his words carried no weight.
“That’s what Farrus said,” she called out mockingly.
Sim turned away from the door. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a ball of light, suspended in the air. This should have been simple, he’d done it before, but nothing was happening. He tried again and again, concentrating as hard as he could. Nothing.
He sat back down next to Farrus, dejectedly. There had to be a way out.
*******************************************************************
As they descended the stairs into a wide chamber, dimly lit with sconces, Enaya noted several swords, including Givara’s long curved blade, leaning against a wall by the lone table in the room. Several pairs of boots were lined along the wall next to the weapons. Two guardsmen wearing palace insignia’s sat at the table; two more stood on either side of the single door that led into the dungeon chamber. None seemed surprised to see them.
A woman in a black cloak sat on a stool in the corner of the room with closed eyes. She appeared to be sleeping. Enaya knew at once that she was a trival, though the extent of the woman’s ability was unclear. Enaya could only guess, but she assumed that for a trival to be standing guard there had to be a trival in the dungeon. Did they know about Sim and Quinn Gracin, she wondered?
The Innkeeper's Son Page 47