Ythnel crept down the stairs, her back to the wall and the coiled whip in her right hand. That fool Naeros had made the task of locating the witchweed stockpile much easier with his little tour. The one place he had not taken her was down to the cellar of the tower. As there was nowhere for the witchweed to be stored in the places he had shown her, that left the cellar as the only place it could be.
Most of the servants had been dismissed for the night, allowed to attend the city’s Midwinter celebrations. Still, when she reached each landing, she paused and peeked her head around corners or through doorways. Quick glances confirmed that the tower was relatively empty, and reassured, Ythnel moved on.
She came to the main floor and glided across the foyer between the tower entrance and the parlor, her slippers thankfully muffling the sounds of her steps. Before she could start down the next flight of stairs, however, there was a noise at the door. Ythnel ducked into the parlor and flattened herself against the near wall just as the thick, wooden entry door swung open and Naeros’s three henchmen strolled in, chuckling about something. Ythnel tensed and let the whip uncoil from her hand.
A shout echoed down the stairs leading back to Naeros’s chambers. From her vantage point, Ythnel watched as the three men raced upward, calling out to their lord. Ythnel let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and slid back around the wall. Darting a glance over her shoulder, she descended once more.
Torches set in black iron sconces at the base of the stairs cast their flickering orange and yellow light across the stone walls, vainly attempting to soften the cold, hard reality. The cellar was a single hallway dug out of the earth, the stonework ending with the last step. Three steel doors stood closed along the hall, one at the far end and the other two opposite each other about halfway down from where Ythnel stood.
Not knowing which one led to the witchweed, she was forced to open each door. Behind the first one was a room full of casks of ale and racks of wine bottles. Some burlap sacks marked as dry goods of various sorts were stacked in one corner.
Ythnel opened the second door and sucked in her breath. Down a short flight of steps was the torture chamber where Naeros had beaten her. The chains which had once held her hung limp and empty from the ceiling. The flesh of her wrists itched from the memory.
For a moment, Ythnel was frozen with emotional turmoil. Anger and fear swelled together, fighting each other for control. The conflict did not have the strength to sustain itself, however. Ythnel had already fought this fight, had accepted the pain and suffering, had endured it to come out tempered and honed on the other side. What had happened in this room seemed so long ago now. It had no power over her. Anger and fear fled, replaced by a resolve as hard as cold steel.
Ythnel closed the door and moved to the end of the hall. This was the last room; the witchweed had to be in there. She flung the door open, suddenly impatient to be out of the tower. Inside were stacks of crates, barrels, and sacks. Ythnel ripped open a sack and found dried leaves stuffed inside. It was the witchweed. She jogged back down the hall and grabbed one of the torches from its sconce. When she returned to the room, she held the torch’s flame to the open bag until the leaves shriveled and the burlap began to burn. Then she set the torch down and quickly moved the ignited bag next to a stack of crates. She ripped open several more bags, scattering their contents around the room and laying the sacks at the base of a group of barrels or crates. Satisfied with her effort, she picked the torch back up and lit more of the sacks until small blazes were crackling all over the room. Ythnel stepped out of the room, tossed the torch back over her shoulder, and slammed the door shut.
Ythnel bounded back up the stairs to the main level and skidded to a halt in the foyer. On the stairs across from her appeared one of Naeros’s men. Caught by surprise, she could only stare as he stumbled into the foyer. He held his blood-soaked hands in front of him, shock registering on a face smeared in blood as well. Ythnel could not tell if it was his or someone else’s. There was so much. He finally noticed her at the top of the steps, but before she could react, he dropped to the floor and lay motionless.
Something inside Ythnel yearned to go up those stairs to see what had happened. She hesitated, pulled between curiosity and duty. With an imperceptible shake of her head, Ythnel turned to the door and left the tower.
She sprinted across the grounds; there was no time to waste. Who knew how long the Midwinter celebrations would last? She needed the distraction just a little longer. Where there had been milling citizens before she entered the tower, however, there was only an empty street. Fear gripped Ythnel. Had she taken too long? A group of people ran by, and Ythnel yanked aside a straggler.
“Where is everybody?” When the young man gave her a strange look, she added, “I was hoping to still do some celebrating.”
“Oh, there are still plenty of festivities. There’s a gathering over by the palace where some minstrels are playing. We were going to check out this building that’s on fire. You want to join us?”
Without thinking, Ythnel looked back over her shoulder to the tower, expecting to see smoke billowing out the top. There was nothing.
“It’s over there.” He pointed to the southwest, and Ythnel saw a pillar of smoke rising from somewhere in the middle of the quarter.
“As interesting as that looks, I think I’ll head over to the palace.” Ythnel let the youth go, and he hurried off to catch up with his friends. As she turned down the street toward the palace, she wondered what else might be going on in Luthcheq and whether it would help or hinder her mission.
There was indeed a large crowd gathered before the palace, and several minstrel groups were playing various instruments. Those who had long since shed their inhibitions through alcohol were dancing with abandon to the music of their choice. To Ythnel, some looked as if it were to music only they could hear. Others, paired off on the fringes, embraced their partners for warmth or more intimate purposes. Ythnel waded into the middle. She was often jostled by flailing revelers, but she shouldered her way through undaunted. She had to stop and stand on her toes to orient herself on the palace every so often; the shifting and bumping of the dancers kept throwing her off course. Finally she broke through and found herself in a small space of calm surrounding the palace gate. A single guard stood watch there wearing his ceremonial helmet and breastplate and carrying a spear. Thinking quickly, Ythnel held the whip still in her hand behind her back and lurched toward the guard.
“Halt, you are not allowed—”
Before he could finish, Ythnel stumbled into him. She reached up as if to kiss him and whispered the command to trigger one of the spells stored in the ring Hercubes had given her. There was no flash of light or ringing chime to signal it had worked, but Ythnel felt the guard relax slightly against her.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“You’re going to make me say that again? Out here where everybody could hear?” She blushed and batted her eyelashes. The guard looked at her in confusion, which changed to understanding when she pushed up against him.
“Well, I can’t say as you’re exactly the prettiest girl I ever seen, and if the captain finds out I left my post, I’ll be in a heap of trouble.”
“He doesn’t have to know,” Ythnel purred. “And we just have to go somewhere no one will see us. Like behind those bushes on the other side of the gate. C’mon. Don’t make me wait.”
“All right, all right. If you want it so bad, I’m not about to be the one to say no.”
He fumbled with his keys, unlocked the gate, pulled Ythnel through, and closed it behind them. While his back was to her, Ythnel darted behind a nearby hedge. He turned around, a look of surprise on his face, as he scanned the grounds for her. She extended her arm so he would see where she hid, her finger crooked in a come-hither motion. He chuckled and followed her.
When he came around the hedge, Ythnel was waiting for him. She snapped the bullwhip out, lassoing his ankle and yanking his feet out from under him. His head hit a paving stone with a crack and bounced once. Ythnel walked up to his motionless body and unwrapped the whip. Then she stripped off his armor and put it on over her own clothes. The helmet was a little loose, even with her hair stuffed up inside. Thankfully, her chest was no longer enhanced by the transmutation spell to the point where the breastplate would have been painfully uncomfortable. When the straps were securely fastened, Ythnel hung the whip off her belt, grabbed the spear, and headed to the palace.
As she climbed the steps to the palace doors, Ythnel scrambled for a plan. The palace was easily twice the size of Naeros’s tower, and she had no idea where the stockpile of witchweed might be stored within. She was going to have to risk asking someone and pray that the armor was enough for her to pass as a guard.
The great bronze doors at the top of the grand staircase swung inward ponderously but quietly, their hinges obviously well cared for. Ythnel found herself in a large entryway decorated with marble statues of nude athletes in each of the four corners. Another set of doors stood closed in the far wall, though these were of polished wood with the Karanok crest carved in bas-relief at eye level. Two single doors were located on the right and left walls.
Beyond the inner doors was a high-ceilinged room that appeared to serve as some sort of lounge. Two low tables were surrounded by several comfortable-looking chairs. Ythnel weaved her way through the furniture to a single door in the far wall. She paused for a moment, a kernel of inner doubt questioning whether proceeding was the smartest plan. The only way you’ll convince anyone you’re a guard is if you walk with confidence, she reminded herself.
Nodding to herself, she pulled the door open and stepped into a vast hall with arch-vaulted ceilings. She had caught only a glimpse of it the last time she was here, before she had been ushered through the double doors across from her, twins of the set that led into the palace from the entryway. She craned her neck, taking in the sweeping arches of white stone from which hung multicolored banners and exquisite tapestries decorated in floral patterns that framed various scenes of athletic competition.
Footfalls echoed from down the hall to Ythnel’s left, jerking her from her inspection of the ceiling. A guard wouldn’t be gazing at the architecture. She turned to face whoever approached and saw someone in the black-and-gold-trimmed white livery of House Karanok. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a half-smile; bluffing a servant would be much easier than if she were to face another guard.
She met the man halfway, putting her hand up to stop him. His look of annoyance changed to one of confusion, mixed with a hint of fear when he realized who had stopped him. His bowl-cut hair and large nose made it was almost comical.
“What can I do for you, sir? Is everything all right?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. I just need to know where the witchweed is kept.”
“I-I don’t know. I just clean the family chambers upstairs.”
“Then who would know? I don’t have time to be stopping everyone wandering in the halls and ask.”
“Whoever’s on duty downstairs in the guard post would know. You should check with them.” The servant was looking up at her strangely, but he glanced back at his feet when she narrowed her eyes.
“You’ve wasted enough of my time, then. I hope you aren’t this disrespectful with the other guards. I’ve half a mind to report you.”
“Oh, no, sir. I didn’t mean anything. I’m terribly sorry.” He bowed hastily and scuttled away.
Ythnel sighed. She should have known better than to think it was going to be easy. It looked as if she would have to try to bluff her way past the guards after all. Recalling the stairs she had climbed from the palace dungeons on her previous visit, Ythnel moved down the hall to her right until she came to the first door past the entrance to the audience chamber. It opened to a torch-lit corridor that angled to her right and ended in a flight of steps leading under the palace.
At the base of the stairs, she found herself in a large space separated from the rest of the dungeon by walls of bars on two sides. To her left were the cells, one of which she had been kept in. The room itself held a table with a couple of chairs, a desk, and a cot. A guard sat hunched over the desk.
“What do you want?” he asked disinterestedly. Apparently he had heard her coming down the stairs. Uncertain how to answer, Ythnel cleared her throat. The guard stopped whatever he was doing and turned to face her. It was Corporal Urler from before!
“Do I know you?” he asked, squinting at her from his seat.
“Uh, no, I’m normally stationed out on the west wall.”
“What are you doin’ here?”
“There have been some fires in the city.” Ythnel’s mind scrambled for words, ideas coming each time only as she started to open her mouth. “One of the fires is at Lord Naeros’s tower. His stockpile of witchweed was torched. I was sent over here to guard the palace’s storeroom in case it was also a target.”
“There’s no way anybody could git past the palace gate, let alone make it down here,” Corporal Urler bragged.
“I’m just following orders,” Ythnel shrugged. “If you want to vouch for—”
“All right. No need fer that.” He got up and moved to the gate that led farther into the dungeon. “You waitin’ fer an invitation? Come on.”
The hallway was lit by a single torch about halfway down its length. They passed a closed door on the right, followed by an open archway that led into a large chamber hidden in shadows. As they neared the end of the hall, a door stood in the left wall. Corporal Urler stopped before it, removed a ring of keys from his belt, and unlocked the door.
“Here you go.”
Ythnel spoke two harsh words born in the depths of the Abyss and struck out with her hand, grabbing a hold of the guard’s face. The dark aura of the Power exploded around wherever her flesh touched his, and small gashes began to appear on his exposed skin. With a strangled cry, he stumbled away from Ythnel, but the damage was already done. Blood poured from open wounds as he backpedaled into the wall and slid to the floor. By the time he hit the ground, he had stopped breathing and his eyes were rolled back into his head.
Ythnel dragged Corporal Urler’s body into the room. It wouldn’t do to have someone come down the hall and notice him there. Grabbing the torch from its place on the wall, Ythnel set to work. When she had several fires going, she closed and locked the door behind herself. On her way out, she tossed the keys into the corner of one of the far cells then headed back up the stairs.
Once more in the great hallway, Ythnel turned to leave the palace but paused. Something nagged at her in the back of her mind. A memory stirred of her standing bound in the audience chamber before Jaerios Karanok. From his robe he withdrew a medallion in the shape of a scourge. It was her medallion, and here was her opportunity to retrieve it.
It was a crazy idea. The likelihood that he even still had it was remote. The chance that she could find it if he did was even smaller. Yet she had to try. It was one more thing the Karanoks had taken from her, and she meant to have it all back. The servant had said the family lived on the second floor. She would start looking there.
From where she stood, Ythnel could see a stairway that led up just past the protruding corner of the audience chamber. She darted across the hall and ascended. The stairs ended in another great hall much like the one below. The numerous tapestries hanging along the full length of the hall, however, depicted members of the Karanok family, often in locations Ythnel guessed were somewhere in the city. While she recognized a few faces, there were many she did not. She hoped the unfamiliar ones were from generations past. It was an unsettling thought that this fanatical family might be so prolific that the woven portraits represented numbers in their current ranks.
Even if it were so, there was nothing Ythnel could do about it. It was best to concentrate on the problems at hand, and her largest one was determining which of the many doors lining the hall led to the chambers of Jaerios Karanok. Checking each one would not only take an incredible amount of time she did not have, but it would also greatly increase her risk of discovery. Yet she had no way of knowing otherwise.
Caught by indecision, Ythnel remained rooted at the top of the stairs. There were three doors within twenty feet of her, two to her left at the end of the hall and one straight ahead. While she debated which one to open, a noise at the bottom of the stairwell caught her attention. Someone was coming upstairs, and whoever it was, was moving quickly. Forced to choose before she was discovered, Ythnel moved briskly to the end of the hall and tried the door on her right. It opened, and she stepped inside without looking, just as she heard whoever was behind her reach the top of the stairs. She left the door cracked enough to peer back out into the hall. An older man in a white night robe, his head crowned in a wreath of gray hair, swept around the corner from the stairs and headed down the hall away from Ythnel. At about fifty feet, he turned to his left and disappeared down a passage Ythnel hadn’t realized was there. Moments later, she heard the distant echo of someone knocking, and a muffled voice calling for Lord Jaerios. Then there was silence.
While Ythnel waited, crouched behind the door, it occurred to her she didn’t know where she was hiding. She turned, half expecting to see the room’s occupant glaring at her balefully. Fortunately, there was no one. Moonlight spilled in from a window in the wall to her left, just five feet from the door. It appeared she was in some sort of study. Bookcases lined the right and back walls. A large desk sat in the middle of the room, with a high-backed chair on the far side and a single, nondescript chair on the near wall. A marble bust stood next to an unlit candelabrum, both bathed in the pale luminescence of the moon. The bust looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place who it was supposed to be.
Voices in the hall returned Ythnel’s attention to the door.
“The fire in the palace is contained to the dungeon, my lord. However, with at least two other fires burning in the city, I thought it prudent you were notified.”
The older man in the robe she had seen earlier came into view first, talking over his shoulder to someone behind. Before he finished speaking, Ythnel saw who followed. Lord Jaerios’s gray-streaked dark curls were tousled, and he wore a silk robe of deep crimson over his night clothes. His current state was a far cry from the regal commander she remembered seeing, but there was no mistaking the man who had condemned Ythnel to death. The pair was trailed by a single guard as they made their way to the stairs. It was all Ythnel could do not to rush out and attack them. Her retribution on Jaerios would have to take another form, however. She could not risk an alarm being raised now.
Once the three passed beyond range of her hearing, Ythnel slipped out of the study and down the hall to Jaerios’s chambers. The short passage off the main hall led about twenty feet before turning sharply to the right to end at a closed door. It was the room beyond the open door at the corner of the passage that Ythnel entered. The long, rectangular room had two windows in the far corner, one on each wall. While less ostentatious than his son’s room, Jaerios’s bedchamber was still richly furnished. The four-poster bed against the wall to the right of the door was a dark-stained wood with beautiful grain and lightly gilded trim along the head- and footboards. A matching bureau stood just to the left of the door. In the far corner was a writing desk and chair, positioned so that whoever sat at it would have excellent views of the palace grounds out both windows.
Closing the door to prevent anyone from hearing her search, Ythnel rummaged through the bureau drawers first. She pulled handfuls of neatly folded clothing from their resting places and tossed them to the floor, but her efforts yielded nothing. Her scourge medallion was not tucked beneath a stack of underclothes, nor did any of the drawers have a false bottom in which something could be hidden.
Frustrated, Ythnel stormed over to the writing table. She gave a cursory glance to a freshly inked letter that seemed to be informing an ally or family member that the purging of Luthcheq had finally been accomplished. With a dismissive snort, she set it back down and inspected the other objects that sat on the desktop. A small ceramic jar held a dark fluid that Ythnel guessed was ink, but was too narrow at the neck to have stored her medallion. The slender, wood box next to it kept Jaerios’s writing quill. Ythnel sighed, ready to give up. The desk had a center drawer, but at this point, she felt certain the medallion wouldn’t be found. Shrugging to herself, she decided to check anyway, opening the drawer only partway with a half-hearted tug. A ream of blank parchment was stacked inside, slightly skewed from the force of the drawer opening. Ythnel started to push the drawer shut when she noticed a slight bulge in the center of the stack of paper.
Opening the drawer the rest of the way, she lifted the corner of the pile and looked underneath. There lay the small scourge, nine straps of five-inch long leather secured to a four-inch handle of iron. Ythnel smiled triumphantly as she scooped up the medallion and fastened it around her neck by two of the leather straps. She felt whole again with it tucked under her breastplate and nestled against the flesh of her chest; an emptiness in her heart she had tried to ignore was now filled. Regardless of what she had been taught during her time at the manor, this symbol of her faith had become a link to her goddess she could not do without, and she intended to never lose it again.
Her purpose accomplished, all that was left for Ythnel was to figure out how to leave. Walking back out the front door was not going to be an option. The fire in the witchweed storeroom had likely alerted the palace to the presence of a malicious agent, and anyone who could not be readily identified would be stopped and questioned. She would have to find an alternate means of escape. It was not an easy task considering she was unfamiliar with the layout of the palace. Standing around in Jaerios’s bedchambers was not going to change that, though it might certainly increase her chances of getting caught. Still pondering what to do, Ythnel left the room and headed back down the hall toward the steps. She paused at the head of the staircase, listening for the sound of anyone approaching. She could hear the echoes of footsteps and the murmurs of distant voices, but the sounds came and went, with no one appearing at the bottom of the stairs.
Perhaps they were still fighting to contain the fire in the dungeon, Ythnel thought. Even so, that did not change her options. The activity below told her that she would be discovered before she could cross the great hall.
Feeling exposed, Ythnel decided to hide in the empty study to think things through further. She left the door cracked again so she could hear in case someone climbed the stairs to this level. For several moments, she paced in silence before the single window, which was divided into many square panes by thin strips of wood and stretched from floor to ceiling. The grounds outside extended off into the darkness. A single outbuilding sat a few yards away at the edge of visibility. Ythnel paused and looked up into the night sky. Clouds were converging, the stars no longer visible and the moon a pale haze behind the billowy, dark gray forms. No torches or lanterns where lit on this side of the palace. It was as though this small section of Luthcheq was cut off from the rest of the world.
Inspiration struck Ythnel, but she would have to move fast. The fire would occupy the attention of people inside the palace, but what she planned would probably make enough noise that anyone outside might come to investigate. She moved to the chair on the near side of the desk but changed her mind and went to the pedestal that supported the marble bust. She had finally recognized who it was and thought it fitting that Lord Jaerios would aid her escape. Ythnel tried to rock the pedestal, but it wouldn’t budge. For a moment, she panicked, unsure if she could get her idea to work. But she swung around so she was between the window and the pedestal and began to slide the bust to the edge. It was incredibly heavy, and she wondered if she would drop it once its full weight was brought to bear. She paused for a moment to gather her strength, and with one last effort, Ythnel pulled the bust from its pedestal, letting the statue’s weight and the momentum pivot her around. She released the bust as she turned toward the window, and the marble piece crashed through the glass and wood to fall head-first, so to speak, almost twenty feet to the paving below and shatter.
There was no time to catch her breath. Ythnel shoved and tugged the heavy desk toward the broken window until it was just a few inches from the ledge. Taking her whip from her belt, she tightly wound the tapered end around one of the desk’s legs. She gave it a few hard tugs to make sure it wouldn’t come undone and the desk didn’t move. Then she tossed the handle out the window. Peering down, Ythnel saw it come up short, leaving her a good drop of at least six feet. For a moment, she considered running back to Jaerios’s bedchamber and grabbing his sheets, but she decided it would take too long. Knocking several large pieces of glass out of the way, Ythnel let her spear fall to the ground outside, swung over the edge and lowered herself down the whip. She dangled for a breath when she reached the handle, looking at the ground below, before letting go to land on the balls of her feet. Forced to leave the whip behind, Ythnel retrieved her spear, darted to the corner of the palace, and glanced at the gate. A group of guards huddled there, but they broke apart as she watched, some heading back out into the streets and others to the palace. Ythnel ducked back behind the corner, and when she checked again, only one guard remained.
Ythnel skirted along the front of the building, keeping her back to the stone, until she reached the side of the grand staircase. Then she drew herself up and moved boldly out into the courtyard toward the gate.
“It’s starting to get crowded in there,” she said gruffly as she neared the gate guard. “Captain ordered me back to my regular station.”
Without waiting for a reply, Ythnel jerked the gate open and walked into the street. Citizens still clogged the area, but any celebrations had ceased, and most were craning their necks to catch a brief glimpse of what was happening beyond the gate. Some were whispering to one another in anxious voices about what was going on. They parted easily for Ythnel in her guard disguise as she headed south toward the Temple of Entropy.