“You saw what I did, Elarnymire,” he said, almost pleading for her understanding. “Turning my back on the Harshini is the biggest favour I can do them.”
“They don’t think so.”
“That’s because they’re not capable of thinking anything else!” he hissed angrily, wishing the demon would just let it drop. There was no discussion to be entered into; no chance of him changing his mind. He had a job to do; a small chance to redress some of the balance, and then . . . well, he had no plans beyond that. Merely hope for a painless oblivion. Brak sighed ruefully, wishing he could control his temper a little better. “I’m sorry, my lady. I don’t mean to snap at you. I thank you for watching over the child. I’ll take care of him now.”
“Do you know where to find him?”
A brief, sour smile flickered over Brak’s face. “I know where the dungeons in Westbrook are, my lady. I’ve been a guest in them more than once.”
“Did you want me to give the king a message when I get back to Sanctuary?”
Brak hesitated and then shrugged. “I don’t know, Elarnymire. How many times can I say I’m sorry before he’s sick of hearing it?”
“Once was enough for Korandellen.”
“Then tell him . . . tell him if he ever really needs me, I’ll be there for him. But other than that . . .
I think it’s better this way.”
Elarnymire nodded solemnly. “As you wish.”
“My lady,” he added quickly, sensing the demon was about to vanish.
“Yes?”
“Don’t come looking for me. Or let the others waste time trying to find me. Please.”
The demon hesitated for a moment and then nodded again. “You can’t deny what you are, Brak, any more than you can deny who you are. But I will pass on your message. And I will tell my brethren you wish to be left alone. I cannot speak for the gods, though. They may not be so easy to discourage.
You’re a particular favourite of Kalianah, as I recall.”
“Don’t worry about the gods. They have a very short attention span. Thank you.”
“You have no need to thank me, Brakandaran,” the demon said. “If anything, I am doing you a disservice by pandering to your irrational request.”
“I’m grateful, my lady, nonetheless,” Brak said, with a slight bow.
The demon seemed unconvinced. “Death will not make the pain go away, Brakandaran. That is not his function.”
Without waiting for him to respond, Elarnymire vanished from sight, leaving Brak a little disturbed by how easily the demon could see through him; and the uncomfortable feeling that she was probably right about Death not being sufficient to put an end to his torment.
There’s no time to worry about it now, Brak decided, pushing away his pain to make room for much more practical concerns. To reach the dungeons, he had to go back through the main hall. He glanced around the yard before he emerged from the shadows of the laneway, hesitating as a figure came out of the main building. He was a tall man, with long well-groomed hair, and wore a large chain and medallion around his neck.
The Plenipotentiary of Westbrook himself, Brak thought, wondering about the name of the man who held the job these days. The title was an archaic one that dated back to the early days of the new nation of Hythria. That must have been over a thousand years ago now, Brak realised.
Brak waited for a moment as the Plenipotentiary stopped on the top step to take a deep breath of the crisp evening air, then watched him walk across the bailey to a doorway in one of the other buildings to the right of the hall—probably where his quarters were housed. Once the door was closed, the torchlit bailey was deserted again, except for the dozing caravan guard. Brak crossed the cobbled yard. His eyes darkening as he wrapped a glamour around himself so he wouldn’t be seen, he entered the main hall of Westbrook.
Chapter 31
Wrayan looked up as Brak entered the hall, obviously searching for him. He was in the far corner on the right, sitting opposite Danyon Caron, nursing a metal tankard. The Fardohnyan Guild thief was laughing—probably over the amount Wrayan was offering for the secret of the explosive powder Fardohnyan guarded so closely. Wrayan must have felt the prickle of magic Brak called up when he pulled the glamour around himself, but his eyes slid over Brak as if he wasn’t there.
Brak strode the length of the vast hall, sidestepping several drunken caravan guards who were trying to molest the girls serving drinks. He gave one of the young women a surreptitious hand, fending off her tormenter with an unseen kick to the man’s groin that dropped the would-be groper like a sack of barley, sent his friends into gales of laughter at what they thought was his clumsiness, and left the fool writhing on the floor clutching his bruised manhood with tears streaming down his face. The dark-haired wench Brak had saved from the drunkard’s unwelcome attentions continued to move between the crowded tables, handing out foaming tankards of ale, oblivious to the favour done by her unseen benefactor.
There were a number of families in the hall, clustered together nervously as they tried to stake a claim near one of the fires before everyone settled down for the night, and a few cheerful souls anxious to dance to the band of musicians playing in the corner. Closest to the doors that led down into the dungeons were a number of off-duty troops of the garrison. Brak slipped past them with the same ease he had everyone else in the hall. They weren’t watching the door to the lower levels, in any case. Most of the soldiers were still laughing over the drunken caravan guard writhing in agony on the floor a few tables away.
The noise of the hall faded as the thick door closed behind Brak to reveal a narrow, torchlit staircase. Dropping the glamour, but keeping hold of his power, he headed down the stairs, no longer attempting to conceal his approach. When he arrived at the bottom, he found a large room filled with tables and bench seats that were lit with oil-filled torches set into brackets along the walls every ten feet or so. Remarkably, they appeared to be the original torches crafted by the Harshini, their delicate iron scrollwork at odds with the rank depression of this place.
Towards the back of the hall, two broad, dark corridors led into the darkness and the dungeons beyond. They weren’t meant to be dungeons, Brak knew. The Harshini had designed this place as dry-goods storage and wine cellars for the keep. No sooner had they finished the keep and presented it to its new owners, however, the wooden interior walls with their beautifully painted murals had come down and been replaced by iron bars.
There were about a dozen men dicing around the table nearest the fireplace, opposite the entrance to the dungeons, dressed in the grey and blue livery of Fardohnya’s regular army. Unlike the Hythrun High Prince, the Fardohnyan king allowed none of his subjects to raise their own armies.
Hablet’s soldiers came from all over Fardohnya, pressed into service either as payment of their liege lord’s taxes or as punishment for any crime that didn’t warrant a lashing, death or slavery, which were the only real options under the Fardohnyan penal system. The officer class was mainly drawn from the sons of the nobility, but there was a sizable number of mercenaries and plenty of volunteers who sought a military life to avoid the drudgery of the farm or their father’s trade. They probably weren’t the worst army in the world (Brak privately awarded that honour to the Kariens and their feudal rabble up north) but Hablet’s army lacked the sharp discipline of the Medalonian Defenders, or the relentless dedication to honouring Zegarnald, the God of War, for which the Hythrun Raiders were so famous.
One of the soldiers looked up as Brak appeared at the foot of the stairs. He stared blankly at this unexpected visitor for a moment, not really seeing his totally black eyes, and then his head fell forward and hit the table with a soft thud, followed by the heads of his companions. Brak smiled humourlessly.
The guards were fast asleep and would probably stay that way right up until somebody from upstairs came down and woke them up to enquire if they were aware all their prisoners had escaped.
Helping himself to the la
rge ring of keys on the belt of the man sleeping at the head of the table, Brak whistled tunelessly as he entered the first corridor. This was where the men were incarcerated. He did wonder, for a fleeting moment, about the calibre of criminals he was letting loose, and then pushed the thought away. The law in Fardohnya was applied very much by the rule of wealth—meaning the wealthier you were, the less likely you were to be charged with a crime. Despite what these men were being held for, their biggest crime was being too poor to buy off the local magistrate (in Westbrook’s case that meant the Plenipotentiary) or any of the other officials who expected a gratuity in order to ensure justice was done.
Taking a torch down from the wall to light his way, Brak unlocked each cell as he came to it and threw the door open wide. He made no other announcement of his intention to free the prisoners. Until the convicts in the women’s cells were also free, he didn’t want a mass exodus anyway. Some of the prisoners were asleep; others stared at him as if they were still dreaming. Brak unlocked the last of the dungeons and then walked back towards the guardroom and the other corridors accompanied by the hushed and disbelieving whispers of the male prisoners as they realised their cells were open.
He did the same thing when he came to the women’s cells, except this time as he opened each door he asked in a loud whisper, “Is there a boy called Rory in here?”
In the third cell he opened he got a reply. A woman pushed forward and grabbed his arm as he was turning to open the next cell.
“Who wants to know?” she demanded of him.
Brak studied her in the flickering light of the torch. She was about thirty-five, he guessed, maybe a little older, and not unattractive. Her hair was hidden under a knotted scarf, her eyes were dark and she was dressed in men’s trousers and a sheepskin coat. Brak got the feeling, just from the fearless way she confronted him, that this was a woman who could take care of herself. She certainly wasn’t a working court’esa arrested for not paying her dues. He wondered briefly what she’d done to find herself in the dungeons of Westbrook.
“Do you know where he is?” Brak asked, raising the torch a little higher to look around the cell.
The other women were huddled under their blankets, as if they didn’t really believe they were being rescued. He could see no sign of a child.
“You didn’t answer my question,” the woman accused.
“Nor you mine,” he pointed out in reply.
The woman’s eyes narrowed cannily. “You have a plan for getting him out of here, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Take me with you then, and I’ll tell you where he is.”
Brak hesitated, wondering if he should accept the help of this woman. Or indeed, if he even needed her help. The lad had to be here somewhere.
The woman stared at him, waiting for his answer.
“Where is he?” Brak asked, deciding it wasn’t worth arguing about.
“They took him out of here earlier this evening.”
“To where?”
“There’s an important fellow here from one of the Guilds in Qorinipor,” she explained. “He likes little boys and the Plenipotentiary of Westbrook likes to keep his options open, if you know what I mean.”
Brak cursed softly. It would be coincidence beyond belief to imagine there was another high-ranking member of any Guild currently visiting Westbrook this evening. His task had just become vastly more complicated. He might have to extract the child from under the nose of Wrayan’s contact in the Thieves’ Guild.
Wrayan wasn’t going to be very pleased about that, he guessed.
The newly released prisoners pushed past him, heading for the door, ready to stage a mass breakout. There was little time before they surged out of the dungeons and all hell broke loose upstairs.
“What’s your name?”
“Chyler Kantel,” the woman replied.
The name seemed vaguely familiar to Brak, but he didn’t have time to wonder where he’d heard it before. He tossed the keys to her. “Let the others out.”
Chyler caught the keys easily and hurried along the corridor to let the other women free.
Brak sagged against the bars of the now-deserted cell, still cursing. The boy hadn’t been in the hall with Danyon, so he probably had him stashed in a room somewhere, despite what he’d said earlier about there being no private rooms in Westbrook unless you were a friend of the Plenipotentiary.
Brak recalled the man walking across the bailey to his quarters on the other side of the keep. If the Plenipotentiary of Westbrook was trying to curry favour with the Thieves’ Guild, he might well have offered Danyon the use of a room in his own quarters to amuse himself with the boy.
He was going to have to involve Wrayan directly now, Brak realised. The problem was, even if he had the time before the newly released prisoners surged up the stairs to the main hall, there was no way to let the Hythrun thief know what was going on without getting him away from Danyon Caron first.
Not unless Brak was willing to open his mind and speak to Wrayan mentally.
After all the trouble he’d taken to conceal his thoughts from Wrayan, it seemed like failure to allow the young man access to his mind now.
Wrayan could use only a fraction of the magic Brak could call on, but if he had a talent at all, it was for telepathy. The moment he made mental contact with Wrayan, his terrible secret would be a secret no longer.
“They’re all out,” Chyler informed him, tossing the keys down the drain in the centre of the cell.
They clattered against the stone for a few moments and then landed with a splash at the bottom of the sewer. Chyler smiled. “It’s going to take them a little while to get these cells locked again.”
“Where would they have taken the boy?”
“Maskaar’s quarters, probably.”
“Who?”
“Pasha Maskaar,” she told him. “Our esteemed Plenipotentiary of Westbrook.”
“Tall chap? Slicked-back hair, and—”
“Thinks his shit doesn’t stink?” Chyler finished for him with a sour grin. “That’s him. Met him, have you?”
“I saw him earlier this evening. Would he harm the boy?”
“Not personally. Boys aren’t his particular inclination.”
“Do you know where to find his quarters?”
She rolled her eyes. “Every woman in Westbrook knows where Pasha Maskaar’s quarters are . . .
what’s your name, by the way?”
“Brak.”
“Like the Halfbreed in the legends?” she asked, amused by the notion. “Your parents must have had a sense of humour.”
The released prisoners had stopped milling about aimlessly and were starting to move towards the stairs.
“We’d better stick with the mob,” he suggested, glancing over his shoulder. He debated reaching for Wrayan’s mind again, but the idea of exposing his own vulnerabilities was still too painful to contemplate. He glanced at Chyler, thinking she was probably his next best bet. “Can you take a message to someone for me? Up in the hall?”
“I thought you wanted to find Rory?” she reminded him as they followed the edge of the crowd.
There were probably more than fifty prisoners pushing their way upward. There was going to be a riot when they burst out that door at the top of the stairs.
“I do,” Brak agreed. “But I can find the Plenipotentiary’s quarters on my own. If you want to get out of Westbrook in one piece, however, I need to get a message to my . . . accomplice.”
“And what does your accomplice look like?”
“He’s Hythrun. Tall, dark hair . . .” Brak smiled briefly as they started up the stairs. “And you’ll probably think he’s good-looking. He’s thirtyish, but looks younger. He’s sitting at the far end of the hall on the left going out. He’s drinking with a Fardohnyan named Danyon Caron.”
“Danyon’s here?” Chyler asked in surprise. “Well, that solves the mystery about who Maskaar wanted poor Rory for.”
“You know him?” Brak asked curiously.
Chyler smiled. “You don’t think I wound up in the dungeons of Westbrook because of my wide circle of friends at the Winter Palace, do you? What’s the message?”
Before he replied, Brak grabbed her arm and held her back for a moment, letting the surge of prisoners move ahead of them. He waited until the curve of the stairs took the last of the stragglers out of sight and then turned to Chyler. “His name is Wrayan Lightfinger. I need you to tell him to meet me at the gate. There’ll be horses waiting for him. I’ll be there with the boy. Tell him he doesn’t have long.”
“What about me? You promised you’d help me get out of here.”
“You can leave with him.”
She stared at him with a shrewd look. “What about you then?”
“I’ll make sure you get away.”
“That’s very noble and self-sacrificing of you,” she remarked.
“I’m a very noble and self-sacrificing sort of fellow.”
Chyler studied him closely, as if she was trying to read his real intentions, and then shrugged.
“Cross me and you’ll be sorry,” she warned.
“Just deliver the message.”
The woman nodded and followed the others up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Brak waited until she was out of sight before he pulled the glamour around himself again and followed her up to the main hall and the riot he had let loose along with the prisoners of Westbrook.
Chapter 32
Wrayan’s first hint that something was amiss with Brak’s plan wasn’t the sudden shouts as the fifty-odd prisoners previously incarcerated in Westbrook’s dungeons burst out of a door at the other end of the hall. He’d been expecting that. It was the unexpected arrival of Brak’s messenger.
The prisoners had surged forward and were halfway down the hall before the soldiers drinking near the door even thought to react. The crowd wasn’t unsympathetic to the plight of the escapees, either. Some may have been friends or family members of those held prisoner here. The soldiers quickly found their way severely hampered by the mob.
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