by Janny Wurts
The Mad Prophet flopped through another frantic heave. ‘Help me up,’ he gasped.
‘There’s some urgent reason why I should?’ Arithon looked on in staid inquiry over a cheek scuffed with dust and grazed bloody. ‘You seemed cosy enough with the duke just a bit ago.’
Dakar glanced up in piercing focus. ‘This fire you’ve started’s going to kill us. We need to run, very fast, right away. Those casks by the wall will explode.’
Mage-taught to interpret small details, Arithon saw past Dakar’s theatrics, grasped his genuine, sweating terror, and blessedly dropped further questions. ‘Raise your hands.’
He held a knife clenched in skinned knuckles.
Dakar shut his eyes in blind relief. A kiss of chill metal, a swift tug, and the belt was slashed off his pinched wrists. He poised for the arm-wrenching yank that would haul him headlong to his feet, but none came.
The Master of Shadow had left him to fate, in an armoury stockpiled with black powder.
Smoke rolled in billows off the burning oil. The lowest tiers of shelving straddled spread lakes of fire and flung off a confused weave of shadows. Running silhouettes flitted across the glow. Tharrick’s soldiers dragged off their wounded without any pause to fashion litters. Every other hale man bolted toward the stair, while the s’Brydion brothers in heart-wrung desperation gave ground before necessity. Engulfed in flaming wreckage and debris, they charged headlong toward the tunnel.
Before them fled the flittering forms of the dungeon’s resident rats.
Dakar heaved stumbling to his feet. He lumbered to chase after Arithon, until hands snatched his collar and snagged him short.
‘You’re ours,’ said Parrien, soot-blackened and furious.
The doorway darkened as Duke Bransian plunged through, closely followed by Keldmar and Mearn, the latter one limping. One of them ripped out the wedge from the windlass. Chain squealed. A rat blundered over Dakar’s foot, and another one collided with his ankle. Then Parrien slammed him in the small of the back, and he pitched forward, running for his life.
The steel portal clashed down behind. The brothers sprinted, hazing Dakar ahead like a bear at a baiting. Another door slammed. The Mad Prophet stubbed his toes in a crack, caromed off a wall, and staggered down a flight of shallow steps.
Beyond this, a crook in the corridor; wheezing fit to burst, he pounded up some steep, uneven stairs.
Then an awesome, booming roar shook the earth.
Flying debris of splinters and steel showered and clanged and scattered against the corner wall as if raked by the thrust of a tornado.
A fist of hot air struck Dakar’s back from behind and flattened his escort like ninepins.
Deafened, blistered, coughing bitter smoke and gritted cinders, the Mad Prophet snatched an instant to wander if Bransian’s huge frame had him pinned belly-down on any rats. Wits failed him. His head ached in reverberated pain like the stew of a mallet-struck pudding.
Too undone to finesse the spells he might have tried as a restorative, Dakar offered up a muzzy prayer to Ath for a speedy, smooth pass beneath the Wheel.
The alternatives did not amuse. Rat bites made ghastly infections; the s’Brydion would slowly disembowel him; and by far worst of all, Arithon was away, scot-free.
Cringing in mortified failure for the stunning misdirection of his plot, the spellbinder knew death itself might not save him. His irate Fellowship master would commandeer Dharkaron’s own Chariot for first crack at his disembodied spirit.
Interrogation
When the brothers s’Brydion resolved to interrogate a miscreant, niceties fell by the wayside. Since the deepest and dimmest of Alestron’s dungeons lay explosively gutted, the work crews who extinguished the fires now laboured to shovel away wet ashes and wipe the carbon from salvageable steel. The only other keep not jammed to capacity with weapons held a ring of glass traders incarcerated for fraud. Rather than suffer the delay while they were moved, Lord Bransian chose to weigh the blame for his ruined armoury in the sanctum of his private study.
Collared and dragged by the mailed fists of guardsmen back up the same tiresome tower staircases, then heaved with humourless force through the doorway, Dakar staggered into candlelight. The chamber where he had shown Rathain’s emeralds was lit now by massive candelabra on stands at the four points of the compass. Grazed with patched blood and bruises, whooping in starved gulps of air, he sagged to his knees against the wall chest, left open since morning, when Keldmar had snatched his paired swords. The brothers were nothing if not thorough. Dakar’s hands were trussed afresh in stout cord, beyond liberty to grope to see if other weapons remained swaddled in the oiled rags that lined the bottom.
If the Mad Prophet held out hopes to ease his plight through fast talk, the speed of events soured his opening. When Guard-captain Tharrick had no ready explanation for a spy who had slipped through his posted watch, the brothers s’Brydion lost patience. They ordered him stripped and flogged with supreme unconcern for bloodstains on their rich carpets.
Quaking and sick, Dakar shut his eyes against the poor wretch’s screams as the lash fell. Tharrick was innocent of accepting any bribe, and zealous as any man might be in adherence to loyal duty; against the wily Master of Shadow, no sentry in Alestron had a chance.
Unaware he had spoken his opinion out loud, Dakar started as a bandaged hand clamped his nape.
‘What was that you just said?’ Mearn’s unquiet pacing had carried him within earshot. Changed out of his dandy’s velvets, he now wore scarlet riding leathers scaled across the shoulders with brass plates. His lovelock had singed to a frizzle. He had a marked cheek, a heel too tender to bear weight, and both hands poulticed for bums. The sting inflamed his already volatile temperament like the inexorable blaze of a slow match.
Dakar tried a noncommittal mumble.
‘Say again!’ shouted Bransian with a curt gesture to his left.
The mottled, ugly henchman who wielded the whip stopped his stroke, and Dakar’s reply rang incensed across silence. ‘I warned you before. You dealt with a sorcerer. And I said, you punish the wrong man.’
‘Indeed?’ The duke leaned out and snatched the dangling tail of the lash. Still in his scuffed and carbon-filmed armour, he twined the bloodied leather between skinned fingers, snapped hard, and jerked the stock from the grip of his lackey. ‘If Captain Tharrick is guiltless, you are not.’ A flourish of the swinging handle saw two hyperalert guardsmen jump to cut the luckless officer down. ‘Get him out,’ Bransian ordered. ‘But don’t set him free just yet.’
With one eye puffed to a meaty, purple slit, the other half-lidded and speculative, he raked a sharp gaze over Dakar. Indeed, you haven’t told us much of your connection in this. Who was this Shadow Master who has made such a wreck of our interests? How did he come to know you, and most of all, why did you betray him?’
‘You have some fancy explaining to do if you’re going to leave here alive,’ Mearn added.
Fixated on Bransian’s square, crimsoned knuckles, clenched and working through wet leather, Dakar licked his lips. ‘Of course, I’ll tell you everything. Where should I start?’
But no display of obsequious eagerness could deflect four s’Brydion primed to exact painful vengeance. Keldmar and Parrien arrived back from their baths. Each had a gingerly hitch to their stride, suggestive of stiffening bruises. Other tender patches were soothed in silks and ribbon-laced velvets in place of leather brigandines and studs. Still enraged, scuffed with nicks still oozing from scabs, they were quick to point out that the oaken table was sturdy enough to use to strap a victim down. If the inquisition grew prolonged, and torture was needful, chairs were at hand, and servants could be called to supply drink and a tray of cold lamb.
The guardsmen who had lately manhandled their luckless captain knew better than to risk their duke’s displeasure by lounging in wait for direct orders. Before Dakar could draw breath to confess his first word, they hefted him upright, sliced his bonds, and stretc
hed him flat on his back. This time, the men at arms shed then-belts to restrain him. Dakar winced as buckles and studs bit through his thin hose to gouge at the bones of his wrists and ankles. Fear of greater pain set him talking.
Belaboured by stark disadvantage, that knotting a clever screen of half-truths and lies was no laughing matter in distress, Dakar lapsed into long pauses. To augment his miseries, any brilliant fabrication he could spin out of words would scarcely save him from unpleasant handling. Quite the contrary: Duke Bransian had already made clear his intent to serve his prisoner’s gizzard up raw, then toss his twitching carcass to the not-so-tender pleasures of Alestron’s public executioner.
Dakar licked dry lips and seized on the obvious inspiration. An explosion, a fire, then the vociferous, bloodletting trial of a guard captain should leave most men naturally thirsty. Any novice versed in granny simples knew the darker runes and seals that could compound the urge to drink into a driving obsession.
Though the setting of any geas lay in breach of the Major Balance, Dakar held the infraction as insignificant beside the certainty of being drawn and quartered as the cohort of Arithon s’Ffalenn.
To engage even the most rudimentary spell of ill while crimped in an over-tight doublet posed a problem; after several botched tries, Dakar had to settle for tracing the symbols with his toe. As adverse to concentration were skinned knees, the blisters raised by cinder burns, and the horrid pull of leather straps that threatened to dislocate both his arms at the shoulders. The s’Brydion flung him questions in a rapid-fire barrage, often shouting each other down to be first to make their point. Parched enough by himself to be susceptible to his own arcane blandishments, Dakar scarcely managed the presence to maintain his string of lies, far less to mouth cantrips to activate his construct and fan the desires of four bellicose brothers to encompass a craving for spirits.
Not least, his dire worry: that the s’Brydion style of viciousness might turn the more sullen when drunk.
When the cold supper demanded by Keldmar arrived in the care of a servant, Dakar rolled his eyes until they threatened to twist from their sockets. At the cost of an unholy crick in his neck, he managed a cursory inventory: the tray held a carafe of wine, five brimming flasks of dark ale, and a tally that fell short at three mugs.
In obstinate disdain of his older siblings’ appetites, thin, nervous Mearn did not drink. While the candleflames sank in pooled craters of wax, and his brothers wolfed down strong cheese and meat pies, he regarded the fat prisoner in narrow-eyed, acid incredulity. ‘You expect me to believe one such as yourself consorts with Fellowship sorcerers? That’s not even plausible, it’s foolish!’
Since his connection with Asandir was the single incontrovertible truth in the unlikely course of his confession, Dakar showed justifiable injury. ‘Fiends and Dharkaron’s vengeance! If you’d met my master just once, you’d realize such a tie is the last thing a man would dare to lie about.’
Bransian stretched to snatch the last ale flask from the tray before Parrien drained it dry himself. ‘Wretch, I don’t care if you sprang fully formed from the dungeon in Althain Tower.’ Through a grand, steady pause, Alestron’s dishevelled duke poured dark ale down his throat. In words not the least bit encouragingly slurred, he finished, ‘Never mind your non-existent master. Just tell us where this Master of Shadow has taken himself to ground.’
‘I don’t know that. I said so before.’ Had Dakar’s hands not been dragged white by cruel straps, he would have torn his beard in frustration.
‘You’ve said a great deal that adds up to nothing,’ Keldmar grumbled. He shook the dregs of the wine carafe, then bellowed to a guardsman to collar the lazy steward and fetch up more food and drink. ‘A man calls for a meal, and just on account of a pitiful few stairs, he gets a spread that’s scarcely suited for a ladies’ tea.’
‘You ought to leave off the wine,’ Mearn snapped. He sprang up again and paced the carpet, sulky as a falcon mewed up for moult.
Keldmar bared his teeth in a smile. The day I wish my little brother’s advice on my pleasures, I’ll certainly lie flat in my coffin.’
‘Fiends and death, stop your bickering!’ Bransian crashed the drained flask on the table with force enough to dent oak, and redouble the headache that slammed in reverberation through Dakar’s skull and sinuses.
‘Such temper,’ murmured Parrien. ‘If you’re minded to thump something, my Lord brother the Duke, why not use the prisoner for the purpose? If he’s going to keep prattling nonsense, I’d much rather listen to him howl.’
Alarmed lest his straits should deteriorate further, Dakar unlocked his tongue and embroidered on his woeful tale of subterfuge.
Two hours passed. The guard on the wall walk outside had changed twice. At ground level, Alestron’s streets lay wrapped in fog and night silence, but for the distant clank of sheep’s bells and the intermittent tramp of the night sentries. In the tower, the candles flickered and dipped, their frayed flames half-drowned in hot wax. At least six wine bottles stood emptied to the lees. Dakar ached too much to maintain strict count on the ale. His extremities had gone numb where the straps pinched, no improvement: extended hours with his limbs stretched immobile had knitted his back in screaming knots. The wearing necessity of renewing the sordid energies inherent in his geas of compulsion left him sapped to gut-sick prostration.
For all his expenditure of effort, the results were appallingly scant.
Parrien alone had succumbed. He lay sprawled gently snoring on the tabletop, his slack wrists folded underneath his velvet collar, and his cheek pillowed on Dakar’s ankle. To one side, Keldmar nodded, looking owlish. Except for combative glares between statements, Duke Bransian seemed little changed.
Mearn was still upright despite his pronounced limp. Restless as a draught-teased spill of water, he quartered the chamber in unabated agitation. He fidgeted, impervious to every seal of suggestion, that nervous movement should strain body and spirit. Long since, Dakar felt, the man should have given way to a spell-turned, insatiable need for sleep.
Awake and cold-nerved as a fish, Mearn stabbed a finger into his oldest brother’s shoulder. ‘The fat wretch is feeding us a hotchpotch of lies. It makes me ill, that you let him keep it up.’
Bransian blinked like a tiger at the jostling, wiped beer foam from his whiskers and pontificated. ‘Undoubtedly he lies. What I want to know is why he set himself up for the fall?’ Another long swallow, a belch heaved up behind a massive, cupped hand; the duke gave his ale-soaked conclusion. That slinking little spy never struck me as a fool. You did notice, he caused damage, but never once struck to kill.’
‘Well, seven of our garrison were lost in that explosion. I’m tired of games.’ Mearn stalked toward the table. The scales on his shoulders sparked gold fire as his bandaged fingers clawed at the knife hilt in his belt. ‘You and Parrien and Keldmar can drink ‘til you’re witless. I’m going to hear some truthful answers.’
The blade sheared from its scabbard with a sour, cold ring, and the sweat already beaded on the prisoner’s face trickled in copious runnels. Dakar’s frantic squirm creaked a protest from the straps. He desperately wet ashen lips. ‘I’ve told you. The man is the Master of Shadow! No locked and guarded door in all the five kingdoms could stand against his fell wiles.’
As though tripped on cue, the latch clicked. The door spun open with decisive, oiled speed, and a dark-cloaked figure strode through. Tall, silver-haired, commanding in movement, the arrival flicked a cold gaze across the prostrate figure on the tabletop. ‘Pray, don’t let me interrapt,’ he said.
‘Asandir!’ Dakar forgot himself, gave a frantic heave, and yelped as his bonds all but dislocated every joint in his limbs.
Knife in hand, Mearn started full circle, then fell back before the sorcerer’s first glance. Keldmar more simply succumbed to the wine. He swayed, eyes squeezed shut, then crumpled beneath the table with an aristocratic ease cut off by a thud as his head came to rest against the carpet.
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Lord Bransian rubbed his black eye and said solemnly, ‘Ath, it’s another uninvited guest. If you’re selling anything, I hope it isn’t emeralds.’
The sorcerer gave no reply. Beaten haggard, he stood cloakless in his travel-stained leathers, while draught from the door left ajar at his back flared and harried the stubs of the candles. He smelled of horse sweat and the crushed stalks of meadow grass, the last likely place he had snatched a nap. His demeanour showed every sign of having burned reckless power to keep a horse from flagging underneath him, through a journey of untold leagues.
No Fellowship sorcerer ever spent such reserves, or drove a dumb beast without cause.
Pressed by fatigue to a hardness like fired enamel; fixed in cold temper with no spark available for pity, he opened as though the duke and his brothers were not present. ‘I came here at speed from Rockfell.’
A dreadful, uncontrolled shudder raked Dakar from head to foot. If the threat of Mearn’s knife no longer held impetus, the fate he would suffer for his plot to harm Arithon defied imagination.
Asandir came straight to the point. ‘Why should I trouble to punish you?’ He took a step, the look he trained on his apprentice as depthless as glazed winter sleet. ‘Arithon can handle his own slights.’
He raised a hand still grimed from lathered horse, sketched a rune upon the air above the spellbinder’s body, and murmured a lyric phrase in Paravian. As if plucked to life, the air shivered through a cry like struck crystal. Its peal of layered harmonics felt very like another set of notes, set off by Arithon’s whistle on the scaffold in the feast hall in Jaelot. The straps that bound the Mad Prophet ripped asunder; no less a constraint, every last brass button on his doublet flew off and pinged off the ceiling. Showered in their back-falling numbers, Dakar grasped after the fast-fading edges of an unbinding spell he would trade his right leg to remember.
But fear rinsed his will to stark blankness as Asandir resumed speech. ‘Get up. Go. Luhaine’s safe-conduct will see you past the guard and through Alestron’s outer gates.’