“Lord Rahl.”
The way he said those two words gave Friedrich a chill. “If you’ve not read it, how do you know it’s the right book?”
“By the title, there, on the front.”
Friedrich ran his fingers lightly over the mysterious words. The gilding was still good after all this time. “May I ask the book’s title?”
“The Pillars of Creation.”
Chapter 41
Oba opened his eyes, but for some reason that didn’t seem to help; he couldn’t see. Dismay stiffened him. He was lying on his back, on something like rough cold stone. It was a complete mystery to him as to where he could be or how he had gotten there, but his first and most important concern was that he had somehow gone blind. Trembling from head to foot, Oba blinked, trying to clear his vision, but still he could not see.
A thought worse by far was what really ignited his panic: he wondered if he was back in the pen.
He feared to move and prove the suspicion true. He didn’t know how they had done it, but he despaired that those three conniving women—the troublesome sorceress sisters and his lunatic mother—had somehow managed to once again lock him in his dark, childhood prison. They had probably been plotting from beyond the grave, and in his sleep, they had pounced.
Paralyzed by his plight, Oba couldn’t gather his wits.
But then, he heard a noise. He turned his eyes toward the sound and saw movement. He realized as things came into focus that it was only some dark room and not his pen, after all. Relief washed through him, followed by chagrin. What had he been thinking? He was Oba Rahl. He was invincible. It would serve him well to remember that.
Though he was relieved to know it wasn’t what he had at first feared, prudence kept him cautious; the place felt strange and dangerous. He concentrated, trying to recall what had taken place and how he could have come to be in such a cold dark place, but it wouldn’t come to him. His memory was all foggy, just a collection of random impressions; dizzying illness, pounding headache, profound weakness and nausea, being carried, hands everywhere on him, light hurting his eyes, darkness. He felt battered and bruised.
Someone nearby coughed. From another direction, a man grumbled at him to shut up. Oba lay still as a mountain lion, his muscles tensed. He worked at gathering his senses, letting his gaze carefully roam the dark room. It wasn’t completely dark, as he had feared at first. On the wall opposite him a weak light, possibly wavering candlelight, came in through a square opening. There were two dark vertical lines in the opening.
Oba’s head still pounded, but it was much better than it had been before. He remembered, then, how sick he had been. Looking back on it, he realized that he hadn’t even grasped at the time how truly ill he had been. As a youngster he’d had a fever, once. This had been like that, he supposed, a fever. He had probably gotten it visiting Althea, the awful swamp-witch.
Oba sat up, but that made him feel light-headed, so he leaned back against the wall. It was rough stone, like the floor. He rubbed his cold, stiff legs, and then stretched his back. He wiped his knuckles across his eyes, trying to banish the lingering haze in his head. He saw rats, whiskers twitching, nosing along the edge of the wall. Oba was starving, despite the rank stench of the place. It smelled of sweat and urine and worse.
“Look, the big ox is awake,” someone across the room said. The voice was deep and mocking.
Oba peered up and saw men looking at him. Altogether, there were five others in the room with him. They looked a scruffy lot. The man who had spoken, off in the corner to the right, was the only other man beside Oba sitting. He leaned back into the corner as if he owned it. His humorless grin showed that what teeth weren’t missing were crooked as could be.
Oba looked around at the other four men standing watching him. “You all look like criminals,” he said.
Laughter echoed around the room.
“We’re all being wrongly persecuted,” the man in the corner said.
“Yeah,” someone else agreed. “We were minding our own business when those guards snatched us up and threw us in here for nothing at all. They locked us up like we was common criminals.”
More laughter rang out.
Oba didn’t didn’t think he liked being in a room with criminals. He knew he didn’t like being locked in a room. That felt too much like his pen. A cursory inspection proved his suspicion true, his money was gone. From across the room, under the crack of the door, a rat watched with beady little rat eyes.
Oba looked up from the rat, to the opening with the light. He saw then that the two lines were bars.
“Where are we?”
“In the palace prison, you big ox,” crooked-teeth said. “Does it look like a proper whorehouse to you?”
The other men all laughed at his joke. “Maybe the kind he visits,” one of them said, and the rest laughed all the louder. Over to the side, another rat watched.
“I’m hungry. When will they feed us?” Oba asked.
“He’s hungry,” one of the standing men said in a taunting voice. He spat in disgust. “They don’t feed us unless they feel like it. You might starve, first.”
Another man squatted in front of him. “What’s your name?”
“Oba.”
“What did you do to get yourself thrown in here, Oba? Rob an old maid of her virginity?”
The men guffawed with him.
Oba didn’t think the man was funny. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. He didn’t like these men. They were criminals.
“So, you’re innocent, eh?”
“I don’t know why they would put me in here.”
“We heard different,” the man squatting before him said.
“Yeah,” the keeper of the corner agreed. “We heard the guards talking, saying that you beat a man to death with your bare hands.”
Oba frowned in true bewilderment. “Why would they put me in here for that? The man was a thief. He left me out in a desolate place to die after he’d robbed me. He only got what was coming to him.”
“Says you,” crooked-teeth said. “We heard you was probably the one robbing him.”
“What?” Oba was incredulous, as well as indignant. “Who said that?”
“The guards,” came the answer.
“They’re lying, then,” Oba insisted. The men started in laughing again. “Clovis was a thief and a murderer.”
The laughter cut off. Rats stopped and looked up. They sniffed the air, their noses twitching.
The keeper of the corner sat up straight. “Clovis? Did you say Clovis? You mean the man who sold charms?”
Oba ground his teeth at the memory. He wished he could pound on Clovis some more.
“That’s the one. Clovis the hawker. He robbed me and left me for dead. I didn’t kill him, I measured out justice. I should be rewarded for it. They can’t imprison me for administering justice to Clovis—he deserved it for his crimes.”
The man in the corner rose up. The other men closed in.
“Clovis was one of us,” crooked-teeth said. “He was a friend of ours.”
“Really?” Oba said. “Well, I pounded him to a bloody pulp. If I’d have had time, I’d have cut some tender pieces off of him before I mashed his head.”
“Pretty brave, for a big fellow, when it comes to beating a hunched little man who’s all alone,” one of the men said under his breath.
Another of the men spat at him. Oba’s anger sprang to life. He reached for his knife, but found it missing.
“Who took my knife? I want it back. Which one of you thieves stole my knife?”
“The guards took it.” Crooked-teeth snickered. “You really are a dumb oaf, aren’t you?”
Oba glared up at the man standing in the center of the room, fists at his sides, his crooked teeth making his lips look lumpy. The man’s powerful barrel chest rose and fell with each seethed breath. His shaved head made him look to be a troublemaker. He took another step toward Oba.
“That’s what you
are—a big oaf. Oba the oaf.”
The others laughed. Oba simmered as he listened to the voice counseling him. He wanted to cut the tongues out of these men and then go to work on them. Oba preferred doing such things to women, but these men were earning it, too. It would be fun to take his time and watch them squirm, to make them cry, to watch the look in their eyes as death entered their convulsing bodies.
As the men closed in around him, Oba remembered that he didn’t have his knife, so he couldn’t have the kind of fun he would have liked to. He needed to get his knife back. He was tired of this place. He wanted out.
“Stand up, Oba the oaf,” crooked-teeth growled.
A rat scurried across in front of him. Oba slapped a hand down on its tail. The rat tugged and twisted, but couldn’t get away. Oba snatched the furry thing up in his other hand. It wriggled, wrenching this way and that, trying to escape, but Oba had a good grip on it.
As he stood, he bit off the rat’s head. When he had reached his full height, a good head taller than crooked-teeth, he glared into the eyes of the men around him. The only sound was bones crunching as Oba chewed the rat’s head.
The men backed away.
Oba, still chewing, went to the door and peered out the barred opening. He saw two guards standing at the intersection of a nearby hall, talking quietly.
“You there!” he called out. “There has been a mistake! I need to speak with you!”
The two men paused in their conversation. “Oh yeah? What’s the mistake?” one asked.
Oba’s gaze moved between the two, but it was not just his gaze. The gaze of the thing that was the voice also watched from within him.
“I am brother to Lord Rahl.” Oba knew that he was saying aloud what he had never said to a stranger before, but he felt compelled to do so. He was somewhat surprised to hear himself go on as everyone watched him. “I am falsely imprisoned for measuring out justice to a thief, as is my duty. Lord Rahl will not stand for this false imprisonment. I demand to see my brother.” Oba glared at the two guards. “Go get him!”
Both men blinked at what they saw in his eyes. Without further word, they left.
Oba glanced back at the men locked in with him. As he met each man’s eyes in turn, he gnawed a hind leg off the limp rat. They moved aside for him to pace as he chewed, little rat bones crunch, crunch, crunching. He looked out the opening again, but saw no one else. Oba sighed. The palace was immense. It might be some time before the guards returned to let him out.
The men in the room with him silently backed out of the way as Oba went back to his spot against the wall opposite the door and sat down. They stood watching him. Oba watched back as he tore another chunk off the rat with the teeth at the side of his mouth.
They were all fascinated by him, he knew. He was almost royalty. Maybe he was royalty; he was a Rahl. They had probably never seen anyone as important as him before, and were in awe.
“You said they don’t feed us.” He waved what was left of the limp rat at their silent stares. “I’ll not starve.” He pulled off the tail and discarded it. Animals ate rat tails. He was hardly an animal.
“You’re not just an oaf,” crooked-teeth said in a quiet voice filled with contempt, “you’re a crazy bastard.”
Oba exploded across the room and had the man by the throat before anyone could so much as gasp in surprise. Oba lifted the squealing, kicking, crooked-toothed criminal up to where he could glare eye to eye. Then, with a mighty shove, Oba rammed him against the wall. The man went as limp as the rat.
Oba looked back and saw that the others had backed against the far wall. He let the man slip to the floor, where he moaned as he comforted the back of his shaved head. Oba lost interest. He had more important things to think about than bashing this man’s brains out, even if he was a criminal.
He went back to his place and lay down on the cold stone. He had been ill and might not be fully recovered; he had to take care of himself. He needed his rest.
Oba lifted his head. “When they come for me, wake me up,” he told the four men still silently watching him. It amused him to see how fascinated they were by having nobility in their midst. Still, they were common criminals; he would have them executed.
“There’s five of us and only one of you,” one of the men said. “What makes you think you’ll ever wake up again after you close your eyes?” There was no mistaking the threat in his voice.
Oba grinned up at him.
The voice grinned with him.
The man’s eyes widened. He swallowed and backed away until his shoulders smacked the wall; then he shuffled sideways. When he reached the far corner, he slid down and pulled his knees up close to himself. Whimpering, tears running down his cheeks, he turned his face away and hid his eyes behind a trembling shoulder.
Oba laid his head down on his outstretched arm and went to sleep.
Chapter 42
Faint footsteps coming from beyond the door woke Oba from his nap. He opened his eyes, but he didn’t move or make a sound. The men were peeking out the opening in the door.
When the distant footsteps sounded like they began coming closer, all but one man moved back. The single man remained at the door, standing watch. He stretched up on his toes, gripped the bars, and pressed his face close, trying to get a better look down the hall. Off in the distance, Oba could hear the metallic clangs and echoing squeals of doors being unlocked and pulled opened. The man at the door remained motionless for a time as he watched, then he suddenly stepped back.
“They turned this way—they’re coming this way,” he whispered to the others.
All five of the men huddled closer on the far side of the room. Whispers passed among them.
“But what if a Mord-Sith comes in, instead,” one of the men whispered.
“Makes no difference to us,” another man said. “I know some about their kind. Their magic works to capture those with the gift. It makes them safe from magic, not muscle.”
“But their weapon will still work on us,” the first said.
“Not if we all overpower her and take it away from her,” came the insistent whisper in answer. “There are five of us. We’re stronger and we outnumber her.”
“But what if—”
“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” one of the others whispered in a heated voice. “If we don’t take this chance, we’re as good as dead in here. I don’t see what other chance we have. I say we do it and get away.”
There were nods in turn from each man. Satisfied, they straightened and moved off to different parts of the room, making it appear as if they wanted nothing to do with one another. Oba knew they were up to something.
One man took a quick check out the opening again, then moved away from the door. One of the other men came closer and jostled Oba with the side of his foot.
“They’re back. Wake up. You hear?”
Oba moaned, feigning sleep.
The man nudged with his foot again. “You wanted us to tell you when they came back. Wake up, now.” He stepped away when Oba stirred, yawning and stretching to pretend he was just then waking. The men, all except the one who had already seen more than he wanted to see in Oba’s eyes, glanced his way before they settled on a spot to stand. While they waited, they struck slouching poses, trying hard to appear detached and disinterested.
Down the passageway, two people spoke in words Oba couldn’t quite make out, but he could hear their voices well enough to tell that their brief conversation was no more than businesslike. The footsteps finally stopped just outside the door. A key turned in the lock. The clang from the bolt as it snapped back echoed through the hall. The men cast quick glances to the door. Outside, a man grunted with the effort of a strong tug. The door grated as it yielded, admitting more light.
Oba was astonished to see a woman silhouetted in the doorway.
Outside, in the hall, the big guard with her used the candle from a holder on the wall to light his lamp. While the woman stood just insid
e the door, casually appraising the men to each side, the guard brought the lamp into the room and hung it on the wall to the side. The lamp threw harsh light across the men’s faces and revealed the grim impenetrable reality of the confines of the rough-hewn stone room.
Oba saw then, too, what a truly mean and nasty-looking lot the men were. With cunning animal eyes glinting out from the shadows, they all watched the woman.
In the bleak lamplight, Oba saw that she was wearing the strangest outfit he had ever seen—skintight red leather. Tall and shapely, she wore her long blond hair in a single braid. Something dangled from a thin chain around her right wrist as her hand rested on her hip. Though she was not taller than the men, her commanding presence alone made her seem to tower, like some austere fury come to judge the living in their last hours.
Her scowl was as dark with displeasure as any Oba’s mother had ever worn.
But Oba was even more astonished to see her signal with a casual flip of her hand, dismissing the guard who had unlocked the door. If it surprised Oba, it didn’t faze the guard. After a last glance around at the men, he pulled the heavy door closed behind himself and locked it. Oba could hear the guard’s boots against the stone floor as he departed back down the hall.
The woman’s cool scrutiny swept over the men around her, appraising each, dismissing each, until at last her glare descended on Oba. Her piercing stare carefully studied his face.
“Dear spirits . . .” she whispered to herself at what she saw in his eyes.
Eyes.
Oba grinned. He knew she recognized that he was telling the truth about his paternity. She could see in his eyes that he was the son of Darken Rahl.
Eyes.
Understanding suddenly clicked into place for him like a knife into its sheath.
And then, bellowing like animals, the men all leaped toward her. Oba expected her to cry out in fright, or scream for help, or at least flinch. Instead, she stood her ground and casually met their attack.
Oba saw some kind of red rod, the one he had seen before hanging near her hand, spin up into her fist. As the first man reached her, she rammed the rod against his chest, pushing him back with a twist of her wrist. He dropped like a hay bale out of the loft-thud, onto the stone floor.
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