“All there is, far as I know. Been a dozen years since the boy vanished and the Queen died. Night of the Cataclysm, it was, same night the Sacred Princess was dropped smack dab in the middle of the King’s courtyard. There’s some who call it a changeling switch, the one for the other, and complain Angwyn got the worst of the bargain.”
“How do you mean?”
“Didn’t do much good for Tir Asleen, did she?”
“Ah.” And for a heartbeat, the inside of his chest felt as cold as the bones he’d held.
“Now who’s hiding?”
“Not a thing,” he protested.
The troubadour made a wry face. “Whatever you say, master. I’ve got your gold, I’ve no reason to complain. Your friend’s found friends, though.”
He followed the direction of the man’s chin and saw Geryn striding purposefully through the throng in the company of a trio of Red Lions, resplendent in their scarlet tabards. The Pathfinder had the look of someone who’d just been called a liar, his companions in far better humor.
Thorn turned back with a last question for the troubadour, wondering how it was an Angwyn Princess rode at the head of a Maizan column, but found only empty space by his side.
“Gone,” cried Rool from the carryall, the first he’d spoken to Thorn all day.
“Nicely done, too. I can’t see a sign of him.”
“Not saying much, Drumheller. From where the likes of us stand, all these Daikini look alike. Catch us up, will you?” he called, before Thorn had a chance to reply.
“We want to stay close,” he continued as Thorn tucked him and Franjean under his jacket.
“Any particular reason?”
“Harder to lose your coat than your bag. Just don’t giggle if we have to move.”
“Don’t tickle when you do, and it’s a bargain.”
“Drumheller!” Geryn called, in his own pale approximation of a parade-ground voice. “Thorn Drumheller!”
“I was wondering where you’d got to, Pathfinder Havilhand. I’m glad to see you’ve found comrades.”
“See,” Geryn said triumphantly, an outstretched arm presenting Thorn to the others. “A Nelwyn.”
They looked, one to the other. They didn’t believe.
“I am,” Thorn told them. “I swear. I believe I can help in your search for the Magus.”
Another set of looks, and Thorn had a sudden sense of dread that he’d said too much and all of it wrong.
“You know the Magus?” he was asked.
“Come a blessed long way, we have,” Geryn said with exaggerated patience. “I found ’im out by the Scar.”
If he’d had longer legs, Thorn would have run right then. But he wasn’t sure of the city, or the situation; with no place to hide and no desire to reveal any more about himself than he already had, he decided to stand his ground.
“Right, then,” one of the Lions conceded with a grunt. “Captain’ll want to talk with you both.” The decision wasn’t subject to discussion. Or resistance.
Their captain had been a captain too long and would remain one until he died. Short on stature, short on wit, he compounded both with a nose for cheap wine and a belly for bad food. The only thing he had going for him in his life was his position—he was a captain in the Red Lions, though heaven knew how he’d won such a rank—and he made the most of it.
“Well!” he said, eyeing Geryn and Thorn. The Pathfinder stood at attention, spine stretched so straight Thorn thought it would pop.
“Take off yer damn hat, Peck, damn yer eyes, before yer betters, ain’tcha been taught no manners?” This came from behind—the corporal who led the detachment that brought them in—accompanied by a swift cuff to the back of Thorn’s head.
The hat went flying, but Thorn caught it before it went out of reach.
“Nelwyn,” the captain huffed.
“Looks like some damn Peck t’ me,” from one of the other Royals.
“Who the hell asked yeh?” snapped Geryn. Then, remembering where he was, he pulled himself even straighter and apologized to the captain. “Beg pardon, sir. But there’s no call, they speak so. I was just doin’ me duty, sir.”
“Done well, Pathfinder. Be sure to mention it. In my report. Nelwyn,” he repeated, in a questioning tone, fixing red-veined eyes on Thorn, who found himself resisting the temptation to use his Talent to blaze a path to freedom. “Leave him in our hands now. Good hands. We’ll be responsible, see he’s taken care of.”
“Sir, I thought…”
“Not paid t’ think, boy. Only do. Thinkin’s for officers. Like me. We’ll be in touch when you’re needed. Corporal, see the lad’s proper settled. Our barracks, o’ course, since there’s no quarters for his regiment in Angwyn. Ale from my own store, serve him up right fair.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And…Master Drumheller?” Geryn asked.
“I told you, boy. Now be off about your business an’ let me be on with mine. Or have Pathfinders forgotten how to take orders?”
“Nossir! I mean, uh, yessir! I, uh…”
“Dismissed!”
He went.
The captain had fair speed for a man of his bulk and long-term dissipation. For all his gut, there was a fair amount of muscle as he swept out from behind his desk and rammed Thorn against the wall with a bone-rattling impact. The moment coincided with the door to his office closing; Thorn doubted anyone outside heard a thing and, even if they had, would interfere. The captain held him head-high, by the bunched front of his jacket, the stench of body and breath combining to make Thorn nauseous. His stare worked Thorn over as though he was some new and noxious form of bug about to be squashed.
“Nelwyn, are you?” he mocked.
“Is that a crime?”
The captain slapped him backhand. Gently for him, Thorn suspected, even though it drew blood and made his jaw ache, more of a promise of what was to come if the captain’s mood changed. Then he saw the knife.
“Whatever you said to bamboozle that hick,” the captain said, “won’t play here. You’re in quicksand, my little man, up to your nose.” He tucked the point underneath Thorn’s jaw and drew more blood with a calculated poke.
“What have I done?” he protested.
“Only one Nelwyn in Angwyn, Peck. Only one in the whole world, an’ that be the Magus. But he warned of an impostor. A blood enemy, he said, of him an’ the Sacred Princess.”
“Whatever are you talking about!”
The captain dug the point in deeper, and blood flowed freely.
“Your lucky day you need voice and tongue to tell your story, else I’d have both out for taking a tone like that with me. We’ll let you rot awhile. A night or two in the vaults, I’ll wager you’ll tell us everything. Haunted, they are, those dungeons. Work on prisoners better’n torture.”
He tossed Thorn aside, into the arms of one of the other guardsmen.
“Please,” Thorn cried, “I don’t understand—what Nelwyn are you talking about?”
“Not a deceiver, then, is it? Just plain dumb, is that yer ploy? Nice try, Peck, but that foolishness won’t save you here. ‘What Nelwyn,’ indeed.” The captain thought that was legitimately funny; his deputies took the hint and laughed as loudly. “One Nelwyn. One Magus. Who the hell else would that be but the Sacred Princess Elora’s godfather? Though why he’s so afeard of the likes of you, I’ve no notion.”
“Her godfather?” Impossible as it was, only one name fit that description. “Do you mean Willow Ufgood?”
“The very same, Peck. What a revelation, yer not so daft nor dumb after all! The Magus wants you alive, an’ then—unless I’m much mistaken, which I’m not—he wants you damned.”
He’d been in dungeons before; didn’t like it then, didn’t now. They were all of a piece, as it seemed were the brutes who worked in them. Gray, dank figures lumbering among gray, dank stones, with manners as o
ppressive as the architecture. Some jailers reveled in filth; the warders here actually made an effort to maintain at least personal appearances. Uniforms were clean, cells were not.
Thorn was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hustled along at so fast a clip—for him, anyway—that he had to run. More than once along the way, impatience prompted his escort to yank him completely off the floor and carry him for a bit. Each time, though, he wasn’t lowered so much as dropped. The hand on his collar wouldn’t let him fall, but the stumbles were painful. He knew these humiliations were deliberate, to put him in his place and make him more tractable; that didn’t make them hurt any the less.
There were broad stairs to start, but as they continued their descent the way became more difficult. Not by design, it was more a function of age. The deep substructures were far older than the ones above; successive monarchs had built new palaces upon the foundations of their predecessors. Different eras, different styles, until at the last they were winding their way down a circular stairway barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast. He had to focus all his concentration here to keep his footing; if he fell, he suspected he wouldn’t stop before hitting bottom. Fortunately, the steps themselves were so worn and slippery from a slick coating of watery slime leaching off the walls—eloquent evidence that visits were few and very far between—that his guards had troubles enough keeping themselves from slipping. Thorn’s relative lack of stature also worked to his advantage; his lower center of gravity and smaller feet made it much easier for him to negotiate a safe descent.
The warders brought their own torches, there were none below. Bright as they burned, the passage was dominated by a darkness so thick it seemed to swallow the illumination whole. Thorn and his escort stood in isolated pools of light, with only the slightest hints of what stood beyond. He could taste salt on the air, stale though it was, and feel a damp so profound it would guarantee sickness in any long-term resident. It was the Bay, he knew, threading its influence through the earth; they’d descended well below sea level.
“Most folks, they’ve forgotten all about these catacombs,” the captain said, chortling. Of them all, he seemed least affected by the mood of the place. He stepped to the edge of the field of light, letting the gloom shroud his features and turn his face into a monster mask of planes and hollows. Thorn, having seen his share of true monsters, wasn’t impressed but didn’t let the feeling show.
“Not me, though,” the captain continued. “Make it my business to know every inch of the palace underground. Can’t do my job proper as captain of the guards without I know the lay of the land.”
“Most commendable.”
“You mock, Peck. I’d watch that, I were you, else I might forget to tell anyone you’re here.” To the warders, he said, “Manacles, my lads, hand and feet. Don’t want the little man to go wandering. Might get himself lost. Or”—more delightedly—“stumble across something of a mind to eat him.”
Three warders composed the escort. A torch was passed to the captain, who stayed behind in the passage. One warder took a watchful stance in the doorway, holding torch and drawn sword. These weren’t the long, elegant blades of the Red Lions or even Geryn’s Pathfinders; they were essentially big knives. Short, broad, and brutal, like the men who wielded them, as effective a club as it was a blade.
The remaining two had charge of Thorn himself. One held the Nelwyn and the last torch while his comrade set to work clamping the shackles tightly in place. They weren’t gentle, speed was of the essence, and they didn’t care how much they hurt him in the process. Thorn made no protest; there was no point, they wouldn’t listen.
“No more smartmouth comments, Peck?” More mockery from the captain, mistaking Thorn’s silence for fear. “Got some good news for you. No need to worry about rats or nothing of the like coming in the night for a snack.”
Now why is that? Thorn thought rhetorically, while noting a sudden intake of breath on the part of the warder as he struggled with a rust-stiffened joint.
“No vermin down here at all, is why. Been eaten the lot, or chased away, you see, by the Demon. Stories say these vaults is haunted, reports go back as far as there’s logbooks to record ’em, by a creature so fearsome it’ll strip the flesh from your bones and the soul from your body.”
“Sodding buggery bastard,” hissed the warder as at last he wrenched the shackle open, and Thorn knew the curse had nothing to do with the rusty metal.
“Bad enough we’re down ’ere”—spoken in a rushed whisper, almost like a prayer, as though the words themselves might keep away untold horrors—“ ’e ’as to go an’ throw down a bloody challenge! Don’t watch ’im,” he shouted suddenly to his companion, the reference to Thorn, “ ’e ain’t goin’ nowhere! Watch my bloody back, rot cher eyes!”
“Sorry,” was the shame-voiced apology, in a tone just as thick with dread.
The walls were mostly flat stone; the sudden increase in volume should have echoed through the room. Yet the sound had been deadened, consumed, as completely as the light from the torches.
With a hollow click, the last fetter snapped closed.
“You sure this is what the Magus wants?” Thorn called.
The captain turned back, the flames of his torch playing with the puffy rolls and hollows of his face, casting it as an ever-shifting display that managed to be both hideous and surprisingly silly.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, offering the lie with a leer, “the orders were specific. This is precisely what he wants.”
He stepped aside and the warder pulled the door closed.
Instant, absolute darkness.
But Thorn wasn’t the least interested; his attention was focused on the rapidly fading footsteps, with one thought: They’re wasting no time clearing out, they truly believe something’s down here. The next, more important at the moment, was the realization that he’d heard no sound of the door latch clicking home, nor of the lock being turned. And at the last, stating the obvious: This isn’t what I had in mind at all.
He opened senses wide, casting his perceptual net across the room, clipping his lower lip thoughtfully between his teeth when he received no return impression of the far walls, as though the darkness was swallowing his own abilities as it had the sound of voices.
“Well,” he said aloud, just to prove he could both speak and hear.
There was no sign of life—or unlife, for that matter—about him that he could tell, none of the vermin that make their home in these dank, deep places, not even the faintest residual trace. This dungeon had been empty, to the fullest extent of the word, for a very long time.
“Drumheller,” said Franjean, very quietly, right beside his ear.
“We do not like this place,” echoed Rool, by the other ear.
Their voices were tight with tension, bodies poised for battle; flight wasn’t an option. Not because there weren’t a multitude of places for the brownies to hide, he understood, but because they didn’t see any point in trying. Whatever was here would seek them out wherever they went to ground. Yet, to the best of his questing, there was nothing here.
He said as much. They weren’t reassured. Neither was he.
“Franjean,” he said, “I need some stones from my pouch.” The guards had searched him before bringing him down, and stripped him to his clothes. Or so they’d believed. He’d cast a minor glamour to protect his traveling belt pouches. “Just reach in, there should be a half dozen in a little satchel.”
The brownie wasn’t at all happy to leave Thorn’s shoulder, but he also knew this wasn’t a casual request. He went down Thorn’s side like a spider, with so light and delicate a touch that Thorn hardly noticed a stir as Franjean retrieved the prize.
“In my mouth, please,” Thorn told him. Ideally, he’d have preferred to hold them in his hand, but the manacles were too tight, he couldn’t twist either palm upward to catch the pebbles.
They were c
ool to the taste, some rough, some smooth as blown glass. He sucked the moisture from his mouth, ruthlessly repressing twin desires to gag and cough, and began to sing in his mind. It was a simple tune of memory; what he wanted wasn’t very complicated, nothing on the order of what he’d done up in the mountains. The stones had come from a fire pit he’d laid along the trail; now his melody reminded them of what that had been like: how the flames had warmed them, inside and out, until they’d begun to glow, returning in full measure the heat and light they’d been given. At the same time he added a counterpointing undertone, to keep himself from being burned.
It was quickly done, for this had been a fairly recent fire, their last night before the rendezvous with Maulroon, and the memory was fresh. That was both the blessing and curse about working with stone; it took forever to explain what you wanted and to persuade it to comply, but once the deed was done, the imprinting lasted a good, long while.
One by one, he spit out the stones. They left burning trails in the darkness as they fell, like meteors Thorn had watched fall from the heavens, to be consumed by the air as they flashed earthward. His aim was good, and they didn’t bounce far once they struck the floor; he ended up with a reasonably tight grouping a body length in front of him. They brightened with every passing moment, until all six blazed white-hot.
“Interesting,” he said, when he was able to speak.
“We’re happy you’re impressed,” groused Franjean, not bothering to hide his agitation.
“By rights, those stones should be generating sufficient energy to heat and light a goodly portion of the cell.”
“Mayhap you didn’t serenade them with the proper tune, then,” from Rool, with no less an edge, “because I’m still bloody freezing!”
“No, they’re doing their part, see how they glow? It’s something else.”
“Now, there’s a comforting thought.”
“Yet there’s nothing here.”
“You could hide an army in that nightscape,” said Franjean.
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