Slowly he regained consciousness, then wished he hadn’t, because someone had driven a hot spike through his temple and was trying to pound it deeper. He tried opening his eyes, moaned in pain, and closed them again. He was lying face-down on scratchy wool cloth that smelled faintly of vomit and made his gorge rise until he had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting himself.
Footsteps passed some five feet away, someone heavy, wearing boots with worn leather soles, then lighter footsteps went past going the opposite direction. Someone nearby, closer than the footsteps, rolled over and made a moaning sound similar to his, though in a deeper voice. “Lord Dolobeka?” he said, winced at the way his voice made his head ache, and whispered, “Lord Dolobeka, are you well?” He shivered at the chill in the air.
“I think my leg is broken,” Dolobeka said in the same low voice. “I fell a good distance.”
Piercy did a quick self-evaluation. Aside from the agony in his head, which he thought might be lessening, and a pain in his midsection that could be a couple of cracked ribs, he felt remarkably well. He didn’t think he’d fallen more than five feet, unlike—
“Ayane,” he breathed, and opened his eyes. All he saw was a weathered blue blur pressed close to his cheek. He gingerly pushed himself up, closing his eyes against the dizziness and pain that struck him, and managed to sit upright on the stinking blue blanket and balance himself with his hands gripping the bench.
He opened his eyes, blinking away blurriness. Gray stone walls surrounded him, the stones rough and irregular as if hewn carelessly from a freezing mountain and assembled without further shaping. A wooden door directly ahead had no handle or visible hinges, just metal bands and a semi-circular window cut at about eye-level for Piercy. It was barred with thumb-thick rods of iron. Because otherwise prisoners would be able to slide out through that three-inch-tall opening.
Dolobeka lay on a wooden bench a few feet away; it was barely long enough to fit him, and he held his left leg unnaturally still, stretched out in front of him. Ayane was sprawled on a similar bench opposite Dolobeka’s, unconscious or asleep. By the Gods, please only unconscious or asleep. He stood, wobbled, then went to kneel at her side and feel for a pulse. It was strong, and Piercy breathed more easily. He gently shook her shoulder. “Ayane,” he said, “wake up. Wake up, Ayane.”
Her eyelids fluttered, then she blinked at him. “What happened?” she said.
“Hodestis released us from his spell and fled while we were incapacitated. Are you well? You fell from the ceiling—is anything broken? Can you see clearly?”
Ayane winced. “I struck one of those lamps going down and held onto it,” she said. “It slowed my fall enough I don’t think I broke anything, but my head feels as if I landed on it.”
“Let us hope that is not the case.” Piercy helped her sit. “Lord Dolobeka, were you conscious when we were brought here? Have you any idea where this place is?”
“Santerrans do not lose consciousness over anything so small as a broken leg,” Dolobeka said. “They had to restrain me so I did not kill any of them. I would have freed myself if not for this injury. And I did not like to desert you.”
Piercy felt unexpectedly heartened. He hadn’t thought Dolobeka capable of loyalty to either of them. “So you saw where they brought us?”
“We did not leave the city hall. This prison lies beneath the building.”
Ayane said, “Why are we prisoners? Didn’t they see Hodestis had us pinned by his magic?”
“I’m not sure,” Piercy said. “Even if they did, they might believe we have some knowledge of Hodestis, given that we were talking to him in such pleasant amity.”
“I saw many guards,” Dolobeka said. “Not so many that we could not fight our way free. Were I not injured—”
“You would have taken them all on with nothing but your bare hands, I know,” Piercy said. “Please excuse me if I am not filled with confidence in your plan.”
Ayane cursed. “We have to get out of here,” she said. “The Gods alone know how far he’s gotten with that woman. Isn’t she important in your government?”
“The second most important person in Dalanine, after the King. Home Defense will redouble its efforts now. Not that it does us any good.” Piercy rubbed his temples. The pain was decreasing, but the odor of vomit still had his stomach roiling.
“Then let’s do something about it.” Ayane stood and went to the door, where she had to stand on tiptoe to see out the little window. “It’s a well-lit hallway, but I don’t see anyone. Hello! Someone let us out! You will regret keeping us here!”
“Ayane,” Piercy began, realized she was right, and joined his voice to hers. Dolobeka just grunted and shifted his leg, ignorant of what they were shouting in Dalanese.
After about a minute, a short, fat man in a guard’s uniform came down the hall, truncheon in hand. “Shut up, the lot of you,” he said.
“We demand to know why we are being held,” Piercy said. “If this is the gratitude we are to receive for attempting to stop a dangerous madman, we will have very blunt words about Kemelen to share with Wilfreya Tedoratis.”
“That’s some bravado, coming from the kidnapper’s associates,” the man said. “We’ll see how bold you are when you’re talking to the captain. Maybe if you tell her everything, she’ll make it a light sentence. No more than five years.”
“Then we insist on seeing the captain immediately. This is a huge misunderstanding and I’m sure your captain is a reasonable woman.”
“Not so reasonable she’s going to overlook the deaths of five guards. Now, back away and stop making noise. You’ll have your turn soon.” The guard rapped on the iron bars, making them ring dully, and Piercy and Ayane took an involuntary step backward.
“Wait!” Piercy called out to the guard’s retreating back. “Our friend’s leg is broken. Please take compassion on us to the length of caring for his injury.”
“One of those dead guards was my friend,” the man said without turning around. “If I could make you three suffer worse, I would.” His footsteps disappeared down the hall.
Ayane and Piercy both leaned against the door. “They took my knife,” Ayane said.
“All our other weapons, too.” The loss of the God’s sword gave Piercy an anxious feeling, like a memory he couldn’t quite recall, niggling at him. “They didn’t find the picks, though I am reluctant to pick the lock when we have no weapons to fight our way out past the guards. But—oh, damn them all to Cath’s five hells.” His mirror was gone. Piercy closed his eyes and cursed again. “Miss Tedoratis could set them straight in five minutes.”
“I can’t think of another way out of here that doesn’t require one of us to be outside this cell,” Ayane said. “And, as you say, we’re unarmed. Lord Dolobeka, do you have an opinion?”
“I cannot stand on this leg,” Dolobeka said. “But I refuse to be helpless.”
“Which means you don’t,” Ayane said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we’ll just have to wait until the captain calls for us.”
“I am astonished at your demonstration of patience and self-control,” Piercy said. “I believed your next words would be to invite me to help you chew our way out.”
“You’re not funny, Piercy.”
“Actually, I’m told my sense of humor is one of my best qualities.”
“Then tell us some jokes, because if we have to wait much longer, I might consider the chewing plan.”
They’d taken his pocket watch, so Piercy could only guess at the passage of time, but he thought it might have been an hour when the short guard came back with a handful of other men. They opened the door, shoving Piercy and Ayane against the wall to secure their hands behind their backs.
Two of them pinioned Dolobeka, who fought back briefly until an incautious movement of his leg made him gasp in pain. Another man cut Dolobeka’s trouser leg away, revealing severely swollen skin and purple bruises, then roughly set the bone back into place, making Dolobeka go limp. The man strapped a couple of boards tightly to the broken leg, then signaled for the men holding him to carry him out of the cell. Ayane and Piercy were prodded to follow.
Piercy could almost hear Ayane thinking of ways to overpower their guards and prayed she’d continue to show good sense. Fighting back now might get them put into an even more secure cell, or worse, separated, and their only hope was that the captain was, in fact, a reasonable woman.
The corridor outside the cell smelled of old stone and was narrower than it was tall, making Piercy feel as if he should sidle crab-wise to keep the rough stones from snatching at his hair and clothes. Doors identical to theirs stood at five- or six-foot intervals in the wall to the right; smoky torches burned at about the same intervals on the left, casting the distorted shadows of their little procession that stretched and shrank as they passed. Dolobeka appeared to still be unconscious, lolling in their captors’ arms. He could hear Ayane following him closely and stretched his fingers, wishing they had some way to communicate with signs. Not that it was something any of them had anticipated needing.
He could see the end of the corridor ahead, a narrow iron door with streaks of rust that looked as if it might take three men to open it. They’d passed eight doors by the time the foremost guard inserted an massive iron key into the lock and turned it with a horrific sound of tortured metal grinding against itself. The door swung open, surprisingly silent, and Piercy ducked under the low lintel to enter another, much wider corridor.
He realized he’d been holding his breath and let it out, slowly. There was no sense in being agitated over this minor setback. They would convince the captain to contact Matra, Tedoratis would set her straight, and they would be free to pursue Hodestis again. He looked at Dolobeka again, who was stirring, though he looked barely aware of his surroundings. What in Cath’s five hells were they supposed to do with him? They could hardly leave him here where he didn’t speak the language and had no friends, but with a broken leg, he would slow them down considerably…well, time enough to worry about that when they were free.
The new corridor was just as cold as the last, but the walls were of smoother, regular stone blocks, and the lighting was modern spell-lit lanterns rather than torches. They passed a couple of doors, then the guard at the head of their procession opened one that looked no different from the others and waved them in. Piercy smiled pleasantly at the man as they passed, then exclaimed when the guard struck him hard across the face, making him bite his tongue. “Don’t mock me,” the guard said.
“I assure you—” Piercy began, then shut his mouth as the guard raised his hand again. Well, it was unlikely these cold-eyed men could be charmed, especially if they believed he was complicit in five guards’ deaths. He carefully didn’t meet anyone else’s eyes.
The room they entered was even colder than the corridor, cold enough to make Piercy sneeze twice. There were no furnishings except for a battered table that looked like it had come from a poor man’s kitchen and a chair matching it, both of them painted a dull brown. A couple of oil lamps in iron cages hung on the walls, casting grim shadows over the bare stone floor. Piercy shivered, then tried to relax just in case they took shivering for a sign of weakness or, worse, guilt. He flexed his fingers again, then his calves, cursing the missing pressure of his knife. Thank the Gods they hadn’t found the lock picks; those would certainly have been taken for an admission of guilt.
Two of the guards went through a door at the far side of the room and returned with a chair, into which Dolobeka was dropped, not very gently. He didn’t cry out, but his jaw was set with pain and he looked as if he’d come close to fainting again. Piercy ground his teeth. This was all so stupid. Hodestis had been hauling the Lady High Chamberlain with him; they could have caught him easily if not for the idiocy of the guards. Now he was the Gods alone knew where, and even Ayane probably couldn’t track him. He closed his eyes and tried not to give in to despair.
The door opened again, and Piercy opened his eyes. A slim woman in an ordinary guard’s uniform, but with rank insignia pinned to the collars, shut the door hard behind her and dropped heavily into the chair. She wore her blond hair braided and pinned tightly around her head like a helmet; it looked uncomfortable, and Piercy’s heart sank, because she wore the expression of someone whose uncomfortable hairstyle was just one of the many things that had soured her disposition.
She leaned back in her chair, with her arms crossed over her narrow chest, and glared at them for what seemed to Piercy like a full minute. Then she said, in an unexpectedly sweet voice, “Tell me why I shouldn’t just have you executed right now.”
“Because you would be in violation of the law which says all Dalanese citizens are entitled to a trial in front of a jury, to bear witness on their own behalf, and to receive judgment from a duly appointed law-speaker?” Piercy said, as politely as he could manage around the knot in his throat. The captain was not going to be reasonable, and while he was fairly certain she would not have them summarily executed, she was probably going to keep them here a good long time.
“They’re not Dalanese,” the captain said, pointing at Ayane and Dolobeka. “How did they induce you to join in their vicious plot to strike at our government? Was it money?”
“I think you are under some misapprehension,” Piercy said. “The man who kidnapped the Lady High Chamberlain—”
“That wasn’t an invitation for you to talk, traitor,” the captain said. “You. Where did your co-conspirator go?” She pointed at Ayane again.
“He is not our friend,” Ayane said. “We have pursued him to stop his evil plan. We did not help him.”
“Of course,” the captain said sarcastically. “And what evil plan is this?”
Piercy held his breath. If they told the captain the truth, she would definitely not believe them, would lock them up pending trial, and that could take weeks. And subtlety was not something Ayane was familiar with. Now would be an excellent time for one of the Twins to take pity on them all…or possibly this was Cath’s retribution for them stealing the necklace and the sword. They were all doomed.
“His name is Atheron Hodestis, and he is mad,” Ayane said. “He believes the Lady High Chamberlain is his dead wife reborn and intends to use magic to make her love him. Mr. Faranter is a member of the Foreign Office and is pursuing him to stop him. Lord Dolobeka and I are representatives of Queen Cyrah Hathakuni of Santerre and are chasing him because he killed members of the Santerran diplomatic party. You will release us or both our governments will punish you.”
Piercy realized he was still holding his breath and exhaled slowly. It was mostly true and it even sounded plausible. He hadn’t guessed Ayane had it in her to spin such a tale.
“That’s a clever story,” the captain said. “How long did it take you to invent it?”
“If we are his comrades, why did he leave us behind?” Ayane said.
“To keep the ransom to himself,” the captain said. “A disagreement over how to carry out the plan. Fighting between thieves. Should I go on? Because we already know the truth. Your friend talked his way past the guards and used his foul magic to paralyze almost everyone in city hall, including the Lady High Chamberlain. You three followed behind to help him move the Lady out of the building. He cast frigo to break through the wall, but it was too powerful and you were all caught in the blast and rendered unconscious. The magician, who as expected felt no loyalty toward you, escaped with his hostage and left you behind to be captured and executed. Now.” The captain leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, clasped her hands in front of her, and said, “If you confess to these crimes, I’ll make sure the law-speakers take that into account when they sentence you. Otherwise…” She cocked an eyebrow at them invitingly, waiting.
Piercy and Ayane exchanged glances. “What does the woman say?” asked Dolobeka. His voice was strained.
“She’s invented a story about our guilt and wants us to confess to it,” Ayane said sourly. “What do we do?”
“Shut up,” the captain said, “stop talking immediately or I’ll lock you up somewhere a lot less pleasant than the holding cells.”
“We apologize, captain,” Piercy said. “Our companion Lord Dolobeka speaks no Dalanese and he was justifiably curious as to your words.”
“Then he can stay curious. I won’t have you plotting in that foreign tongue.”
“Again, I apologize.” Piercy was thinking furiously. He needed to convince the captain either of their innocence or to contact Tedoratis, who would do the same thing. He mentally cursed Hodestis for putting them in this position. The little man was going to suffer when Piercy caught up to him. “Surely you don’t accuse us of killing anyone?” he said. “We left our weapons with the gate guards.”
“You’re still guilty by association.”
“That would be true if your story is correct. But our assertion is that Hodestis was acting alone, and we were pursuing him. You took weapons from us when we were captured. Had we been acting in concert, some of those guards would have been killed by our knives; instead, all five were killed by magic.” It was a guess, but a reasonable one.
“They were all killed by the magician in his escape. You were already in custody at that time.”
“Yet more evidence our story is true. Both the desini cucurri and the murder of the guards were performed by Hodestis. We were nowhere near during any of those events. If we were working together, what would be the point of separating our party? It did not make it easier for us to enter city hall or bypass the guards, and in fact Hodestis would have been defenseless against attack while casting his spells without armed associates to protect him. It makes more sense we were not acting as one.”
Doubt flickered briefly in the captain’s eyes, then vanished. “You weren’t trying to attack him in the judgment chamber,” she said. “You sounded very friendly with him. As if you’d traveled for some time together.”
“We were trying to convince him to give up his mad plan, or at the very least to keep him from acting until he could be apprehended by your fine constabulary,” Piercy said. “You must not have seen he had each of us pinioned with his magic and we were incapable of attacking him directly. Lord Dolobeka broke his leg as a result of the fall we experienced when he released us.”
“Why did you say my name? I insist you tell me what is happening!” Dolobeka growled. Piercy ignored him.
“Please,” he said to the captain, “if you contact Wilfreya Tedoratis of the Foreign Office, she will confirm what we have said. If we are to rescue the Lady High Chamberlain, we must move quickly.”
“As if I knew Miss Tedoratis well enough to speak to her,” the captain scoffed, but the doubt was stronger now. “I’m not about to take the word of a traitor like you. Lock them up pending trial.”
“No!” Piercy shouted, jerking away from the hands that gripped his arms. “Captain, this is a terrible mistake!”
“The mistake was in letting you speak,” the captain said.
“Then you will listen to me,” Ayane said fiercely, taking a few steps forward before she was restrained. “I am Ayane Sethemba. My father is Kinfe Sethemba. You have forced me to reveal my identity and I assure you my government will not be happy to hear of it.”
The captain had scooted her chair back a few inches when Piercy moved, but now her mouth fell open in astonishment. “Sethemba?” she said. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Ayane said. “You think anyone would dare claim that name without a true right to it? Release us, and I will not tell Queen Cyrah of your foolishness.”
The captain looked at all three of them in turn, at Dolobeka’s fierce scowl, at Ayane’s furious stance as if she weren’t bound and surrounded by enemies, at Piercy…he hoped his expression was one of confident calmness and not the anxiety that clutched at his chest. “Lock them up,” she finally said. “We’ll see if they continue to claim innocence after a night in the cells.”
“No!” Piercy shouted again, and struggled to get away from the guards who took hold of him, though he had no idea what he could do, trapped in an underground prison with his hands chained behind his back. Someone slammed a truncheon into his stomach, then across his shoulders. He curled in on himself, as best he could with his hands secured behind his back, to be as small a target as possible as they beat him.
He tucked his head in, hoping to protect it, and tried not to cry out, because he could hear Ayane shouting his name and in his pain-addled state thought if he could stay silent, she wouldn’t be so upset. Someone was screaming, though, someone nearby, and just as he realized it was him, a heavy rod struck the back of his head and sent white-hot sparks across his vision, and then he couldn’t hear anything.
He drifted for a while, enjoying the respite from pain, and eventually he realized he was back in the cell, lying on the stinking blue blanket again, and Ayane was crouched beside him, gripping his hand and whispering his name. “That may not be the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done,” he said.
“Are you all right? They wouldn’t stop—I swear, Piercy, when we get out of here I’m going to make those guards suffer.”
“I admit to harboring such a desire myself.” He tried to sit up, then had to lean heavily on Ayane to get upright. “My head hurts, and I think one or two of my ribs are fractured, but that happened when I fell. Though I imagine the beating did them no good.”
“Well, we tried reason. I think it’s time we escaped.”
“I agree,” said Dolobeka. “I am prepared to fight my way out of this place.”
Ayane and Piercy exchanged glances. “I think we’re in trouble,” Ayane said.
“Do you suggest I am not strong enough? Sadiki Dolobeka is afraid of no one and nothing!”
“Yes, but Sadiki Dolobeka is also incapable of walking at the moment,” Piercy said, “so unless you intend to remove your broken leg and batter our enemies about the head and shoulders with it, we are stuck here.”
Ayane swore loudly and got up to pace the tiny confines of the cell. “You can unlock the door, right?”
“Undoubtedly. But, as you say, we are stuck here unless we can find a way to help Lord Dolobeka move.”
“I could go ahead,” Ayane said. “Sneak out, find the best way to leave.”
“Or I could,” Piercy said. “In fact, I might be the better choice.”
“You’d better not follow that up with some comment about chivalry, Faranter.”
“It had not occurred to me in the slightest, Lady Sethemba. What did occur to me,” Piercy said with a grin, “is that I need only find a mirror and five minutes’ uninterrupted communion with it to procure our release.”
“Ah,” Ayane said, and he thought she looked embarrassed. “I should have thought of that.”
“We may be forced to wait until nightfall, when there are fewer guards moving about, but as we have already lost Hodestis’s immediate trail, I don’t see that another delay will hurt.” He bent, painfully, to slide the lock picks from his boots. “Certainly not as much as that beating did.”
The lock was old and would be easy to pick, and Piercy considered doing it immediately, but decided even guards as fundamentally stupid as these were would be suspicious if they came to free them and found the door already unlocked. He put away the picks and lay on the bench trying to ignore his worst aches, particularly the sharp pain from his ribs that stabbed him whenever he moved incautiously. Dolobeka sat with his leg stretched out stiffly in front of him and his eyes closed, moving his lips soundlessly in prayer or possibly invective against their captors; the latter was more likely.
A guard stopped and looked through the little window at them. Piercy said, “If you are interested in playful banter, I fear my stores are low.”
The guard said nothing, but his expression was thoughtful rather than cruel or mocking. “No talking,” he said, and tapped his truncheon against the iron bars lightly, making a dull tink. “You’ll just make it worse for yourselves.”
“We appreciate your warm consideration for our needs,” Piercy said. The guard tapped the bars again, then moved off down the hall.
“At least he was less antagonistic than the others,” Ayane said. She leaned against the wall near Piercy, kicking her heels. “When we are free of this place, how will we find Hodestis again?” she said, this time speaking in Dalanese.
Piercy glanced at Dolobeka, who was too preoccupied with his pain to be indignant over their speaking a language he couldn’t understand. “I confess I am at a loss,” he said. “He will have needed transportation, which means a wagon or a carriage, and we can inquire at the gate as to the exit of someone matching his description driving a conveyance of that sort. After that…”
“He will have to stay on the road. I imagine we can ask at the towns along the route as we track him.” She sighed. “I will not give up even though part of me wants to.”
“I understand completely.” He pushed himself up. “We should—”
The tortured grinding of metal cut over his words, and the door swung open, admitting five guards. Two moved to restrain Dolobeka; two forced Ayane against the wall. “Release her!” Piercy shouted, terrifyingly conscious of the possibility that Ayane might be subjected to a different sort of attack, but they just held her immobile against her struggles.
The fifth guard pointed his truncheon at Piercy. “You. Out.”
“They come too,” Piercy said, and gasped as the truncheon slammed into his stomach again. As he doubled over, he heard another thud, and Ayane cried out in pain. Red fury swept across his vision, and he threw himself at his attacker, forgetting his own pain. Another blow sent him sprawling. I am a better fighter than this, he thought, staggering to his feet. I hope no one ever learns how easily I allowed cracked ribs, a probable concussion, and a severe beating to annul twelve years of martial training.
“You come, or they suffer,” the guard said. To Piercy’s relief, Ayane looked furious rather than afraid or seriously hurt. She had an intent look on her face that told him she wished desperately she could send her thoughts directly into his mind, but he could guess what she was thinking: cooperate, and we might all escape this place.
Piercy made a shallow bow to the guard and said, “You asked so nicely, how could I refuse such a request?” The guard looked as if he wanted to hit Piercy again, but after a few seconds in which the two of them stared one another down, the man lowered his truncheon and indicated Piercy should follow him. Piercy looked over his shoulder once at Ayane, who nodded, then he followed the guard out the door, wishing more than anything he had a truncheon of his own.