by Andre Norton
Another corridor, but this had doors, all closed yet visible. Sahsan kept on to the very end, where she applied her palm as she had done before to release some locking. The room into which she ushered Nosh was not unlike the girl’s quarters in Danus’s house—except for the colors. Each wall was splashed and splotched with raw color which made Nosh blink as she glanced at it. For so long her life had been spent with the muted, death colors of the Ryft, with the mingled greens and browns of the Heights, that such a display was enough to make one catch one’s breath, blink and blink again.
There was a single window in the wall facing that which held the doorway and through it one could indeed see the sky but it was slotted with bars which shone metallically in spite of the lack of sunlight without.
A narrow bed was against the right wall and it had a pile of coverings which were thick and quilted, each of which was a different hue, but matched one of those used in painting the walls. In addition there was a small table placed beneath the window, a single chair drawn up beside it. Another table to the left was plainly meant for the purposes of body and face care. It was topped by a mirror and, standing in a sentry row along under that, were small bottles and boxes.
Sahsan stalked across the chamber past that and once more smacked the wall. Another sliding panel and Nosh could see into a space hardly larger than a cupboard, which held a shallow bath and a seat for the use of waste purposes. That was something she had not seen at Danus’s for there the washing room had been fairly large and used by all members of the household.
“Thank you.” Nosh broke that silence which had held since they had left Lord Markus’s presence.
Sahsan’s reply was a grunt. It was plain that she had no interest in this new member of the household past her lord’s order to see Nosh housed. She turned and went as if she had taken time from a more important task to bring Nosh here and must now return to it.
Nosh freed herself from the imprisoning folds of the cloak—the zark having made one of its flying leaps to the windowsill. It was small and slim enough to slide between those bars and gain its freedom but it made no attempt to do so.
Having washed away the ill-smelling stains left by her collapse in the alley from her hands and brushed down her clothing as best she could, Nosh seated herself by the window, drawing the bag of Fingers out of hiding and staring down at them. Was it by ill luck alone, or by intent that she had been taken by this Markus?
He had hinted of betrayal within Danus’s house. And Gunther had sold an evil stone to a Lord Markus—it must be the same one. No matter how he had forced bond on her, she must give him warning of that gem if he showed it to her; Gunther had had no liking for her; Sofina had tolerated her only by the will of her husband—either of them could have passed along the knowledge of her power.
She restored the Fingers to hiding and turned to the window. This house was a story higher than the one next to it. She could see down into just such a roof garden as Danus had established. Though at present there was no one there.
By her own word she was prisoner here—but she was well aware that she would have been so even if she had not given oath. And that imprisonment might have been far worse than assignment to this room. Seating herself again, she began to study the walls. The riot of color was like a blow at first but, somehow, when she put hand to the bag between her breasts images began to emerge out of the general mass of curved or broken lines.
The painter who had worked here had had a pattern in mind and while that was still very far from what Nosh considered of worth, yet it made a strange sense which grew clearer the more she traced certain lines from one place to another. Yet it was too strident, it wore on her the more she tried to understand, and suddenly she swiftly lowered her eyes to the tabletop, groped once more for the bag of Fingers, and took them out of hiding, centering her attention strictly on the glowing crystal. If there was any malign purpose in assigning her room, she would work to defeat that.
And the crystals answered her hardly understood wish, flaring up hotly in her hold, their rainbow light flickering before her eyes and yet not bringing the stain of those violent colors.
She dared to look again at the nearest wall. The pattern was clear, and the color did not strain her eyes. In fact that glare was subdued. And she recognized the design for what it was—for she had seen its like in the books Dreen had guarded.
These walls had been painted by one with dark knowledge, and the purpose was an insidious breaking of the will of anyone entrapped here. But with the crystals that would fail, though she might have to play the hard role of one entirely cowed into submission. Was Kryn fast in some such chamber? He had no crystals to break the spell—could Markus take him over in bond for any use the lord desired?
CHAPTER 19
Kryn came back to consciousness slowly. He opened his eyes to see, over him, not the sky but stone. The caves? It was hard to force his thoughts into order. No, the caves were long gone. Some sturdily built keephall?
His mouth was dry and when he tried to swallow he could not raise any saliva. But that small act restored memory. They had been coming away from that twice-cursed shrine—why had he been moved to visit it the second time? There was no good ever to be associated with the powers. Some said there were both light and dark, but to him they were all to be avoided.
Coming away from the shrine—then dust—strange dust which clogged the nostrils, ate at the lungs. A weapon he had never faced or heard of before. And now he awoke here with a pounding head and weakness which even his will could not defy.
Though he could not yet raise his head, he could turn it. Wisps of straw stood up and he realized he was lying on a heap of the crackling stuff. Nor was that fresh either. His small movement caused a puff of evil mustiness to bring a coughing spell.
Beyond that straw, not too far away, there was the grey of a stone block wall. What light existed here was close to dusk and he had to strain his sight to pick out something else—that mid point on the wall, rusted metal formed a ring bolted fast to the stone. From that hooped a chain, the end of which reached beyond Kryn’s field of vision. Yet, as he watched, it swayed a little and it did not reach the floor.
His head settled somewhat and he tried raising it from that foully matted straw. Out of nowhere came a hand, greyish as to skin, nearly skeleton thin. It touched him gently on the forehead.
“Be careful, young man…” A voice nearly as rusty as the chain hoop brought his eyes away from the wall to sight the one bending over him. Rags for clothing, a body which was so bony he could mark each rib, and above that a mat of grey beard which masked the lower part of a pallid face, rising on the cheekbones to tangle with head hair of the same hoary shade.
Only the eyes were free of that appearance of general age and misuse. Meeting those seemed to Kryn to infuse strength into his own body. He drew up one arm to help lever himself up, needing to know where he was— though he already guessed he lay in some form of prison.
“Where…?” He forced his dry tongue and mouth into speech.
“Where… in the creeper lord’s private safekeep for those he may find use for,” the other answered. He had turned himself a little where he squatted by Kryn’s side and now he held, with hands which shook, a small, chipped lip bowl.
“Drink!” It was more an order than a plain urging.
The water was brackish with a foul taste which nearly made Kryn spit it out again, but at least the liquid allayed some of the dryness of mouth and throat. Having given the bowl back to his strange companion, he was able to sit up, and watched the man cross the cell on hands and knees to place the bowl carefully in a niche of the wall where there was a smear of green slime and a drip of water to spatter down into that container.
It was when he got a full look at his fellow captive that he shuddered. It was plain why the other had crawled. Both feet were gone, scars thick about the site of the amputations. Kryn swiftly looked down the length of his own body.
He had still his boo
ted feet. But all which covered his body now was the leather undershirt and breeches. Gone were his belt, his mail shirt, his… sword!
The thought of the loss of Bringhope for the second time jerked him out of the last remains of the lethargy the dust attack had left with him.
He could see the chain now as it swung out, its other end a collar which had fretted the neck of his companion until it left calluses as deep as scars. His hands went to his own throat and touched a band of metal, his head jerked to the right. Yes, he was bound by just such a chain and collar to a similar wall ring.
Why was he here? The creeper lord’s safe prison— but he had been trying to meet with that lord, or at least some major underling. The weapon… now his hands sought his inner money belt only to find that also was gone.
The old man had crawled back to his side. “They plucked you, boy. They aren’t the kind to waste anything providence can send them.”
Then the other gave a croak which might be laughter. “Oh, you have some profit to be wrung out of you or they would have slit your throat wherever they brought you down and you would not be here. Guard, eh? Perhaps they have a visitation in view—your continued breathing will then depend on how much you can furnish them with knowledge of your master’s wards and such. If you value your feet, your hands, you’d best be quick to answer.”
Kryn shivered, but not from the chill of this place, which had only a window slit well above his reach to bring in air and limited light. He could not control his glance at the other’s mutilation. And the old man deliberately thrust forward the nearest leg for him to view that scarred stump.
“You were a guard?” Kryn asked slowly. They must have left him with this man to provide an object lesson.
“No. I had other knowledge.” Again he gave that cackle of laughter. “Markus might have killed me but for some reason he keeps me still—though the shrine is gone and no one in Kasgar raises a voice in Lyr’s praise now.”
“Lyr!”
The maimed captive slewed around to face Kryn fully. In the eyes above that mat of filthy beard there came a light. Swiftly with his skeletal hands he shaped that same sign Kryn had seen Dreen use. He waited for a moment as if expecting some answer from Kryn and when it did not come, he let his hands fall limply. Yet there was still an eagerness in his rusty voice as he asked:
“What know you of Lyr?”
Kryn hesitated in turn. Though he could see no reason for hiding the little he did know.
“I met a priestess of Lyr… in the Heights. Her chosen daughter is here in Kasgar set upon some quest. I was with her at a deserted shrine when I was taken….”
Nosh must have been taken too, yet she was not in this cell. A stark guess as to what might have happened to the girl shook him. Where did they hold her and why?
“There was the girl—Nosh—Alnosha—Dreen’s chosen. When they brought me here was she also with them? Where could they have taken her?” And his dark thought added “Why?”
The other’s eyes were fully alight as he continued to stare at Kryn as if so he could search out the depths of the youth’s memory.
“Dreen…” he finally repeated, then added: “Where did you meet with this priestess of the Hands?”
“Well away from here—in the Heights. Those which border on Askad are a part of them. She and the girl came to us for shelter because there were searchers in the Ryft once more.”
“The Ryft!” It was like a cry of greeting given force. “Out of the Ryft! Then…” The man was shaking as if wrapped around by some winter’s blast. “Then there is coming the end. And this Nosh, she was with you when you were taken. Why had she gone to a deserted shrine, was it her choice?”
Would it be betraying Nosh perhaps to tell what he knew? Perhaps this hard-used prisoner had been put here as a stark lesson, perhaps he had another service— to trick Kryn into some disclosure which would threaten or condemn them both, he and Nosh together.
He picked his words carefully. “She is a follower of Lyr. I sighted the shrine while exploring the city and she wished to see it. Thus we went—and were taken.”
The footless man heard him out and then he once more crossed the cell on hands and knees thick-callused by such traveling. There was another pile of rotting straw there and he scrabbled in it, sweeping back the foul bedding to the stone underneath.
With his clawlike hands he picked along the edge of a stone until by pressure of palm he could urge one end up and it stood instead of lay. Out of the hollow thus opened he pulled a small roll of rags. Now he turned his back squarely to Kryn, held what he had freed close to his chest so the other could not see it or what he would do.
But there was no missing the sudden gasp which the other captive uttered then. He turned to look over his shoulder at Kryn with another of those measuring stares.
“She is of the Hands!”
Once more he was busied with the bundle, returning it to the hidey hole, pressing that down and shifting the straw over it. Now he came closer to Kryn.
“If they guess…” It was hard to read expression in a face so deeply beard-matted but there was distress for the first time in those eyes. “Tell me the truth, armsman, does this Nosh have the Talent of the Hands— can she read stones?”
He might as well admit that much, for Nosh had displayed the ability freely in Danus’s house and any servant there could have tattled of it to those outside.
“Yes.” She could read too well, he thought with some of the old bitterness, remembering the end of the refuge.
“At last…” Those words were a whisper so low that Kryn had difficulty in hearing them at all. Now he wanted information himself, though how much he could depend upon this source he did not know.
“You say that they want information from me. Have they tried such a game before—with others?”
“I do not know, save that they tried it with me. Only I had nothing to give—the shrine was a small one and had no wealth. Why they continue to let me live I do not know.” The answer was matter-of-fact, words from one who had accepted what had come to him and no longer hoped for anything else.
“But,”—now there was a sharper edge to his words— “if you companied with one having the Talent, they would wish you under their fist. Markus reaches high, and he has gained great power here in Kasgar. The Council and the Judges are rulers in the light of day, he is supreme in the shadows of night. When a man is ridden by ambition he takes any tool which can be used. Lyr’s Hands were known long ago—before Razkan’s power broke us of the east. Markus is one ready to make use of any talent he can find. This girl—he will keep her—and…” Slowly that bushy head shook from side to side. “She, being what she is, will not prove an easy tool for him.”
Kryn stirred. He had, he believed, no real tie with Nosh. In fact he had wanted very much to see the last of her. But now… he need only look at those stumps from which the feet had been shorn to realize that he must consider her even as he did Lord Jarth and his comrades of the Heights—one entitled to all the strength he had to offer. But she had power… recall only what she had drawn upon the refuge. Surely if she were really threatened she could break her own bonds here also.
There was a grating sound from one side of the cell and Kryn was shaken out of that thought in an instant. A section of the wall blocks moved and opened a door.
Kryn got to his feet. The throat band with its chain hampered him, but he was determined to meet whoever came standing and not on his knees.
The man who did enter was no different in face and gear from any of the guard he had known in Danus’s house. Though there was a brutal cast to his features and a certain unkemptness to his equipment and mail which suggested that those who served Markus, at least as gaolers, were not the best of possible armsmen.
He stood for a moment in that doorway, his fingers hooked in his sword belt, surveying Kryn, paying no attention to the other prisoner. Then a wide grin parted his thick lips.
“Thought you was a fighter, eh? Ma
rchin’ around in good link chain an’ carryin’ a lord’s sword. Took you easy, we did, boy. We knows what to do with the likes of you.”
“Shut your big mouth, Crawg, we ain’t here to exercise our jawbones.” A large and meaty hand fell upon the lout’s shoulder and he was shoved aside by another, who dropped on the floor a broken basket in which rested two greyish loaves.
Kryn made no move toward the food; in fact he had a suspicion that the chain would not allow him that much distance. Nor did his companion. But it was to the latter that the second man spoke:
“Loosen up your tongue, old one. Lord Markus may have some questions for you. He’s been doing some thinkin’ an’ when Lord Markus thinks we get busy. You better think yourself—how you are goin’ to answer him. Still got you a pair of hands, ain’t you? How would you like to be rid of one—maybe both of those?”
His fellow guard laughed. Then he kicked the basket so that it whipped across the floor and struck against Kryn’s right boot.
“Eat up,” he ordered as they both disappeared, the door grinding shut behind them.
Kryn stooped to the battered basket. It was plain that what it contained was near famine fare, but he was ready for it as his empty middle proclaimed.
He took one of the small loaves, its crust nearly stone hard, and tossed the other to his companion. It was nearly toothbreaking and he strove to crack it apart with his hands, hoping to find it softer within.
“Wait.” His cellmate crawled to that basin which caught the drip of the greenish water and returned with it in his hand. He planted his own loaf end down in the inch or so of water which had gathered and twisted it around before passing the bowl to Kryn to do likewise.
The smell of the loaf, or else the water it had been softened in, was gut-twisting. But resolutely Kryn managed to break loose a bit of the moistened crust and picked eagerly at the inner substance, which was almost equally hard.