A few days after the arrival of Fetterfist’s slaves, Jack was roused early to go up to the tower kitchens to draw breakfast for the field-workers. At first he bitterly resented the loss of a half-hour’s additional rest, but he realized that the chore at least offered him the chance to see a part of his surroundings he hadn’t yet—and perhaps catch a rare and precious glimpse of a female with fewer than four legs. With three other field slaves, he pushed the oxcart-like trolley with its empty tin pails over a road that circled beneath the battlements of Tower Chûmavhraele. Strange, soft-glowing globes of purple and green magelight drifted along the crenellations or hovered above the dark gates, casting an eerie eldritch light over the castle’s spires. Orc, bugbear, and the occasional ogre or minotaur slave warriors stood their posts vigilantly, supervised by drow sergeants and officers. None took any special notice of the field-slaves and their creaking cart as they followed the path to a small side-gate leading in to the kitchens.
The kitchens were huge, a vast maze occupied by scores of cooks, dishwashers, and scullery servants. The field-slaves’ porridge bubbled thickly in a large cauldron by the door, under the supervision of a middle-aged half-orc woman who carried an overseer’s stinging-rod at her broad waistband. Jack and his fellows brought in the pails, filled them, and loaded them back on the cart. “Hurry up, you stupid clods,” the overseer bellowed. “Now my kitchen stinks of rothé crap. I should flog the lot of you!”
Jack decided on the spot that he had no more use for the chore of fetching porridge, but then he caught sight of the dark-haired Seila Norwood. She was toiling as a laundress, stirring sheets and spreads in a huge vat of steaming water. The girl happened to look up as he walked past, arms full of tin pails, and their eyes met for an instant before she turned away to tend another vat. Jack could see the exhaustion and despair in her eyes, but there was something else there, too, a small spark of defiance that hadn’t quite faded; he hoped that his own eyes still held that spark, too.
From that day forward, Jack made it his mission to be chosen for meal-fetching as often as possible. The trick, of course, was that one couldn’t very well ask to do it or else Malmor out of pure spite would simply say no. The bugbear assumed that if anyone wanted one job over another it was because they’d found a way to shirk or malinger. Jack tried to arrange his dung-shoveling and slop-hauling in such a way that he’d be in easy sight of the push-cart they took up to the castle kitchens when mealtime drew near, and that was partially successful; the bugbear and the other overseers were in the habit of ordering the first person they caught sight of to do whatever needed doing next. But after a day or two Jack realized the real trick was to act as if he didn’t want to push the heavy cart up to the castle, after which Malmor naturally picked him first at every opportunity. Sometimes it worked, and he saw the girl; sometimes it didn’t, and he missed her in the kitchens.
A couple of tendays after he’d seen her in the castle kitchens, Jack finally found a chance to speak to the captive noblewoman. The rothé were brought in from the paddocks for shearing, because the drow made a thick, oily wool from their shaggy coats—nothing a dark elf would wear personally, but useful enough in the sort of places where surface folk might use canvas or heavy burlap. It was a difficult and dangerous job. The rothé didn’t care to be sheared and were only too happy to gore anybody associated with the task, but in time it was done, and the dirty rothé clippings were gathered in huge bales and brought up to vats set up outside the castle kitchens to be boiled clean.
Jack naturally carried his first armful of the stuff to the cauldron where the dark-haired girl worked. As he helped her get the shearings into the hot water, he said in a low voice, “A pleasure to meet you, finally, even if the circumstances are regrettable.”
“I remember you,” she whispered in reply, careful not to look at him directly or to interrupt her work. “You were the one that bugbear beat the day we arrived.”
Jack nodded. “It’s a habit of his, which I am trying to discourage. You are Seila Norwood, are you not?”
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“I heard what Fetterfist said when he sold you to the dark elves.” He went to fetch another armful of shearings, and brought them back to her cauldron.
“How long have you been here?” she asked when she spoke again.
“I came here perhaps a tenday before you arrived.”
“Then I am sorry for you. This place is horrible, and the drow … I never imagined such cruelty existed. They are monsters, each and every one of them.” She fell silent as one of the kitchen overseers moved by, stirring the greasy wool with a heavy paddle until the overseer moved away. “I should have made Fetterfist cut me down rather than throwing down my dagger. Death would surely have been better than this miserable existence.”
Jack shook his head in disagreement. “You must not give in to despair, dear lady. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
“Hope? What hope? I see little cause for hope.”
“Sooner or later the dark elves’ vigilance must wane,” Jack pointed out. He went for another armful of wool, careful to look like he was working hard enough to avoid a beating but not so hard to make an overseer wonder why he was doing more than he had to. When he returned to the girl’s cauldron, he resumed where he’d left off. “They may be clever and cruel, but surely there is some opportunity for escape they have overlooked. Needless to say, finding it will be quite impossible if you end your life.”
Seila Norwood laughed bitterly. “Escape? Believe me, I’ve tried. Even if we got away from the Tower and the fields, we’d be lost in the Underdark, with miles of monster-filled tunnels between us and home.”
“Oh, that,” Jack answered. He gave a small shrug. “That part concerns me not at all. I know the way back to the surface.”
“You do?” She straightened and looked more closely at him.
“I do. There is a levitating stone platform not very far from here that can take us up to the lower halls of the old dwarven city of Sarbreen. It is true that Sarbreen is haunted by its share of dangerous monsters, but I am reasonably well acquainted with its halls and passages. I feel confident that I can avoid them and find my way back to Raven’s Bluff.”
“Grelda,” she muttered under her breath. Jack fell silent, just as the half-orc kitchen overseer stomped past, fixing one ill-favored eye on Jack. He hurriedly dropped one more handful of rothé wool into the cauldron, and went for another load. The heap of shearings was growing smaller all too fast; he didn’t want the conversation to end.
When he returned, Seila glanced around carefully and asked, “If you know the way out, why are you still here?”
“The difficulty lies in eluding the guards and overseers in the rothé fields. I doubt that I could reach the transport-platform without being caught, and even if I did, it seems very likely that it would be guarded.” Jack shrugged. “This would be much easier with my magic, but it seems to have deserted me.”
“Your magic—are you a wizard, then?”
“A wizard, bah! Mummers and fakers, in my opinion. No, I am a sorcerer of some skill among my many other talents … but, as I have just noted, my magic seems peculiarly fickle these days.”
The girl frowned, digesting Jack’s remarks. Then she gave herself a small shake, and glanced up to meet his eyes. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Jaer Kell Wildhame,” Jack answered. “Formerly of the Vilhon Reach, which I understand is no longer in existence, having been destroyed by some untoward event known as the Spellplague. My friends call me Jack.”
“The Vilhon Reach?” Seila said. “I don’t understand. How is that possible?”
“It is something of a long story. You see—”
He was interrupted by the whistling sound of Malmor’s stinging-rod striking flesh and a cry of pain from another field-slave a short distance away. “That’s all, maggots!” the bugbear shouted. “No more loafing to be done here. Back to our paddocks, our paddocks. The roth�
� are waiting, yes, yes.”
Seila grimaced. “You must go, Jack,” she said under her breath.
“So it seems.” He made a show of picking up tufts of wool he’d dropped nearby, delaying the inevitable. “Do not despair, Seila. There must be a way out; sooner or later I will discover it. When I do, I promise you, I will not leave you here. Our chance will come, and both of us will see the sunlight again. I swear it.”
“Brave words,” she murmured with a small smile.
He paused just long enough to give her a wink, then hurried over to join the other paddock-slaves as they trudged back down to the fields. It was unlike him to make a promise with the full intention of keeping it, but he realized that he meant every word of what he’d said to Seila. The feeling was unsettling, and he paused to examine it more closely. “Well, of course,” he told himself. “If I escape alone, I would find myself a penniless vagabond in the city streets. But if I rescued a noblewoman from the drow, who knows what sort of reward I might expect? Why, Seila Norwood might be worth rescuing even if she were a scrawny, plain-faced shrew, which of course she is not.” If he knew where the dark elves were keeping a coffer full of precious gemstones, he would certainly try to carry it off when he made his escape. A valuable captive was not much different, when one considered the question carefully.
Under Malmor’s eye, the slaves returned to the fields and resumed their normal duties. The rothé were in an especially murderous mood after their shearing, and several of Jack’s fellows were gored before the herds settled down again. Despite this, his spirits were high for the rest of the day, as he replayed his conversation with Seila Norwood again and again in his mind. It was about the only pleasant experience he’d had since his removal from the mythal stone.
The next day, Dresimil Chûmavh sent for Jack.
He was engaged in shoveling rothé feed from the back of a wagon into a feed trough when Malmor led a trio of dark elves into the fields. “There, masters,” the bugbear simpered. “You see, I have looked after him, after him. The human is well.”
Jack didn’t feel very well. He was cold, filthy, and exhausted, and he’d lost at least fifteen pounds from his wiry frame in the tendays or months he’d been enslaved. He paused in his shoveling, wondering what new devilry was at work.
“You!” one of the drow soldiers snarled. “Come here!” Jack dropped his shovel and wearily climbed down from the wagon, presenting himself before the warrior. The fellow looked him over and frowned. “Are you the one called Jack Wildhame?”
“I am,” Jack replied. Seeing a flicker of dissatisfaction in the dark elf’s eyes, he quickly added, “I am, master.”
The dark elves frowned in distaste. “He stinks,” one of the others announced. “We cannot bring him before Lady Dresimil like that.”
“The kitchens,” the first drow decided. “They’ll have a washtub. You come with us, slave.”
The soldiers marched Jack back up to the Tower kitchens. Jack kept his eyes open for Seila, but she was nowhere in sight. On the bright side, the dark elves instructed the kitchen slaves to make ready a washtub, and ordered Jack to clean himself quickly in the hot water. When he’d finished with the worst of the grime and filth, the guards produced clean servant’s clothing matching that worn by the other workers in the castle. For the first time in days and days, Jack felt warm and clean, even if he couldn’t quite get the stink of the rothé off of him. Satisfied that he was as presentable as he was going to get, the drow soldiers took him through the Tower’s echoing stone corridors before leading him out through the stronghold’s main gate. They turned onto the road Jack had been brought down when he first arrived, and set off toward the lakeside ruins at a quick pace. Weakened as he was by his labors, Jack found it hard to keep up.
A half-mile’s walk brought them back to the heart of the dank, muddy ruins and the plaza surrounding the wild mythal. Scores of slaves were hard at work scrubbing and polishing the ancient tiles covering the ground, while more worked to repair the crumbling walls surrounding the square. A dozen thralls—most of them ragged-looking humans who wore silver collars glowing with arcane glyphs—stood in a circle around the stone, chanting words of magic under the direction of drow wizards. Mages enslaved by the dark elves? Jack wondered. He grimaced as he realized that now he knew why Dresimil had need of slaves with arcane talent. If he had retained some of his affinity for magic, he might very well have been one of the exhausted wretches standing around with a silver collar on his neck. What great enterprise are the dark elves engaged in? Jack wondered. Some mighty effort was underway, but what was it? He was dying to ask his captors the purpose of it all, but he swallowed his curiosity. At best his questions would be ignored; more likely he’d be beaten again for speaking out of turn.
He studied the mythal as his guards escorted him across the plaza, and noted with some surprise that the stone seemed to be taking on a subtle, glossy sheen, almost as if it were growing a little translucent. There was a faint green luminescence hiding deep in the stone pillar, and he realized that he could very dimly perceive a glimmer of magical energy gathering in the mythal’s heart—the first hint of magic he’d sensed since waking up in this dismal new age. Jack slowed to look more closely, but a sharp glance from the guards escorting him prompted him to pick up his pace, and he followed more closely as they led him to a pavilion standing at one side of the plaza, overlooking the work. Dresimil and her brothers were there, observing the efforts.
“Lady Dresimil, we have brought the slave you asked for,” one of the warriors said. “He was rather rank. We took the liberty of having him wash and put on clean clothing.”
Dresimil turned and gave the guards an absent nod. “Very well,” she murmured, dismissing them. The warriors withdrew, leaving Jack alone with three noble-born dark elves.
Jack drew himself up, clicked his heels, and bowed. “My lady,” he said.
“Charming as ever, I see,” Dresimil replied. “Good. I’d feared the work in the fields might prove too much for a man of your delicate constitution.”
“It is somewhat more rigorous than I would have hoped, but I do my best,” Jack said. He longed to explain just how disagreeable he found the circumstances she’d thrown him into, but bit back on the words. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how miserable he was, but it was really a question of self-preservation. If he complained too loudly, Dresimil might be stirred to think of some new and even less pleasant use for him. Fortunately the dark elves seemed affable at the moment … perhaps enough so that he could indulge his curiosity. He put on an air of polite interest and nodded toward the mythal stone. “Your work on the mythal seems to be proceeding well. I can see the progress since my last visit here.”
“As it turns out, we have need of it,” Dresimil replied.
“Need of it?” Jack asked. “But the mythal was abandoned thousands of years ago, was it not?”
Dresimil shrugged. “It was. But that is not what I wished to speak to you about, Jack.”
Jack suppressed a frown of disappointment. He’d hoped that Dresimil might volunteer more than that. Now his curiosity was indeed whetted, but clearly it wouldn’t be wise to pry too deeply. Why did the dark elves need the old mythal? Doubtless they had some plot in mind, perhaps against the surface world, but what was it? “How may I be of service?”
“Tell me more about the woman we found petrified alongside you,” the marquise said. “Myrkyssa Jelan, was that her name?”
“Your recollection is accurate. She styled herself the Warlord of the Vast. In the Year of the Tankard—thirteen seventy—she appeared in the passes of the eastern mountains at the head of a formidable army, and ravaged much of the Vast for the better part of a year before setting siege to Raven’s Bluff. She had the very curious characteristic of being immune to magic.”
“Immune?” Jaeren asked sharply. “How so?”
Jack frowned. “Magic simply … wasn’t for her. No divination cou
ld find her, no battle spell could harm her, and in turn she could not touch or wield magic at all. She told me once that it was a generations-old curse upon her family, one that she was anxious to break.”
The drow exchanged silent glances. “Continue,” said Dresimil.
“Of course. Her horde laid siege to Raven’s Bluff. The Ravenaar army marched out to meet her, and defeated her forces in a great battle.” Jack paused, organizing his thoughts. “Jelan escaped the destruction of her army, and for many months afterward the city officials searched far and wide for her. It was assumed that she’d died unmarked in the battle, or retreated back to her strongholds in the wild lands far to the east.
“Unfortunately, neither hope proved well-founded. Myrkyssa Jelan infiltrated Raven’s Bluff in disguise. She posed as the last surviving member of the Thoden family, and rose to become the city’s Lady Mayor after the old lord mayor resigned. No one suspected her, because as the Warlord no one had ever seen her face.” Jack offered a small shrug. “I came to know her in the aptly named Year of Wild Magic, thirteen seventy-two. While she was Lady Mayor, she also masqueraded as a lawless adventurer called Elana. I suppose she found a second identity as a criminal useful for engaging in plots and intrigues that would be unseemly for a civic official. In her guise as Elana, she conspired to seize control of the city. But her ultimate goal was to gain access to this mythal; she believed she could employ its magic to break her family’s curse.”
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