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MARU DID NOT KNOW HOW long he had sat in the cell. There was no sunlight to mark the passing of days, and the guards’ schedule was irregular, he guessed. They were largely unconcerned with the Ryuven, and aside from the inconvenience of bringing food and water, the guards barely troubled themselves with the prisoners. Once in a while they brought a bucket into which he could empty his soil pot—not often enough—but if there were still experiments as the other prisoners had described, Maru was not taken for them.
His broken wing ached in the cold. He could not fold it, but it was tiring to hold it above the chill, damp floor. He braced an edge against the wall, wincing at the pressure but losing less heat to the stone. His good left wing he kept partially extended, wrapped about his shoulder and arm for warmth.
There was another Ryuven in the cell to his right, and one beyond that, nearest the door. No one ever went to the empty cells to Maru’s left. There was no physical escape through the stone and rusty iron, even with the reduced guard, but he could call to the prisoner beside him.
“Cilbitha’sho.” They did not bother to whisper. There was no one to hear them.
There was a grumble from behind the wall. “I was trying to sleep.”
Maru pressed his fingers against his arms. “There’s plenty of time to sleep.”
“It’s the only way to pass the time. Do you think I want to listen to a nim’s prattle?” There was a sigh. “What did you have to say, Maru?”
“I—nothing in particular. I just—it’s so silent. So dark and silent.”
“Like we’re buried. Maybe we are. Maybe this is dead.”
“Shut up, Cilbitha,” came a more distant voice. “Look, lad, can you move?”
Maru extended his good wing an arm’s length, until it bumped the opposite wall. “Yes.”
“Exactly. You ever seen a corpse move? We’re not dead, then, Cilbitha.”
“Of course not,” snapped the Ryuven between them. “But we might as well be. And given their failing interest, we might be soon. If they don’t kill us, they might just forget to feed us.”
“That’s so,” admitted Parrin at the far end. “I don’t think they remember as often even now.”
“How’s your wing, nim?”
“It hurts.” Maru shifted. “I keep hoping—they say Subduing can wear off after time.”
“I’ve heard that too,” said Parrin. “But I’ve been here a long time... Sometimes it never comes back. You’re just burned out and empty forever.”
“And what of that?” Cilbitha snapped.
“It would hardly make a difference to me,” Maru added. “I’m only nim. No one would notice if I were Subdued forever.”
The others laughed with the grim humor of the condemned. As the cells fell quiet again, Maru blinked unseeing into the dark. What he’d joked was untrue; nim had the least power of any Ryuven, yes, but they could heal themselves of many injuries, given time. There were moments when they chose not to—one never augmented healing of a wound given by one of a higher caste, for example, at least not within the other’s sight—and magical injuries were easier to heal than physical, but ordinarily even a traumatic injury like his snapped wing should have troubled him no more than days.
Without his innate magical ability, though, his wing was knitting too slowly, and anyway it was not the type of injury which should be left alone to heal. A bone could join, but if misaligned, it still could leave its owner a cripple.
Maru choked back a sob and pressed his fist hard against his mouth, lest the others hear his distress. It did not matter whether his wing healed properly or not, whether he ever recovered his natural abilities—he was trapped in a tiny, cold, wet world without sunlight, and he was as good as dead. Nothing else could matter.
A rattling of iron echoed to them, as hinges creaked and a flickering light crept down the corridor. Maru instinctively leaned toward the bars, as a plant might bend toward light, and his wing twinged sharply.
“We just got the three of them, my lord mage,” a gruff voice explained. “We was told we wouldn’t be needing the rest, anyway.”
“I understand.” The footsteps sounded sharp in the damp atmosphere. “Bring the light. I want to see them.” One set of footsteps hurried as the other stilled. “Good afternoon.”
“Afternoon, is it?” came Parrin’s dry tone. “I wouldn’t know.”
“I’m Ewan Hazelrig, White Mage of the Great Circle,” came the even reply. “I’m looking for a Ryuven.”
“You’ve found one, it seems.”
Maru’s heart quickened. The White Mage Ewan Hazelrig... This man had known Tamaryl. This was the man to whose office door Maru had carried the letter.
“I was rather hoping for one in particular,” the mage answered. “I want a nim.”
There was silence from Parrin’s cell. The guard cleared his throat. “What’s a nim, my lord mage?”
“It is a common Ryuven,” answered the mage absently. Maru thought he sounded vaguely annoyed, as if he disliked being distracted from his business.
“Common, my lord? It’s a type of Ryuven, then?”
“Yes. Most of the Ryuven who came here were nim.”
“Common like a garter snake?”
“If you please, guardsman, I have work here.”
“Yes, m’lord mage. Sorry.”
“I may assume, then, you are not nim?”
It was Cilbitha who answered. “What do you want with a nim?”
The White Mage came further down the corridor, followed by the guard with the torch. The light hurt Maru’s eyes. “You’re nim?”
“I’m sho. I’m worth good ransom, if you’d only think of it.” The veneer of bravado in his voice began to crack. “Take us out of the dark, mage. If you know we’re of rank, you know we could have higher accommodations. We’re no good to you down here, none at all.”
“I will mention that to the Circle,” answered the mage levelly. “But my purpose here today was only to ask for—”
“I am nim,” Maru blurted. Please—I nursed your ill daughter! But what do you want with us? “I am nim.”
His heart hung in his throat as the mage approached his cell. Did the mage know that the Ryuven who’d helped his daughter was here? Or had he come for one of the experiments which had claimed other prisoners?
The White Mage looked narrowly at him, frowning through the bars. Maru flinched from the unshaded torchlight. At last the mage spoke. “I am looking for one who has some experience in carrying messages.”
Did he remember the letter Maru had left beneath his door? But he could not have known it was Maru. Did he want someone to carry documents of war to Oniwe’aru? No, they would want a sho or rika for that. “I...”
“My name is Ewan Hazelrig.” The mage drummed his fingers on his crossed arms. “What are you called?”
Maru gulped. “My name is Maru.”
The simple words did something to the mage. Maru could see the shift in his shoulders, and the crossed arms loosened. “I’ll want you for my work. If you—”
“No!” Cilbitha struck the rusty bars at the front of his cell, inches from Maru and invisible behind the stone wall. “You’ll kill him as you did the others!”
The mage did not turn his head. “If I wanted merely to kill him, I could do it here. And I don’t want him for—”
A pale arm stretched from beyond the stone partition and clawed toward the mage’s throat. The torch bobbed as the guard jumped, startled, but the concussion was already spreading, rolling over Maru with a percussive burst through his skull, chest, and wings. He grunted with the diminishing force of it and opened his eyes to see Cilbitha’s arm falling, dropping to the damp floor with a weight which implied it would never move again.
“’Soats, my lord, that was fast,” breathed the guard, staring at the body.
The mage had hardly moved. “They are fast.”
“But you... He’s dead, my lord mage.”
“I’m aware of that,” the mage answered flatly. He looked unhappy. “Spend thirty years on a magical battlefield against a superior foe, and see what reflexes are left to you.” His eyes shifted to Maru. “What’s wrong with this one?”
“What?”
“He’s injured. How?”
“I don’t know. He’s been like that, I guess. We just feed them, that’s all.”
The mage crossed his arms again. “I need to disable the ward at the gates. When I’m finished, I’ll want to take this one to my workrooms.”
“What? Er, my lord mage, we were told they wouldn’t be going anywhere. Most of the work’s done, eh?”
“And do you think,” the mage demanded, peeved, “that with the shield, the responsibility of the Circle ends? That we mages will simply sit back and wait for age and death to creep upon us without accomplishing any more?”
“No, my lord! I didn’t mean that.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Maru stared at the pale, singed arm. Dimly he realized that the White Mage would take him from the prison. He glanced up worriedly.
“I will return shortly,” the mage said clearly, looking at Maru, “with my servant Tam. I trust you’ll be ready for us?”
Tam! Was that Tamaryl? Had Ryl sent the mage to find him? Was it too fantastic to believe—had desperation and hope made him guess too wildly?
“Someone will be here with the keys,” the guard answered promptly.
“Good.”