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menagerie. Janos also showed me various techniques he knew with which a man without a weapon need
not abandon hope or life even if one or more armed men attack him.
I spent hours pacing in front of the windows, trying to come up with a plan for an escape. Janos,
however, seemed to slip into that semitorpor I'd seen in the Rift. Perhaps I might have chided him, but I
remembered a tale written by a small trader who'd been captured by the Ice Barbarians of die far south
and spent several years as their captive/guest before being released. He said he learned there are only
two times to escape: the first immediately after capture, before your guards have time to put all their
coun-termeasures in place; or after a long time has passed, when the sentinels have been lulled by your
seeming acceptance of your plight. And I knew, when I saw how Janos' eyes blazed when he looked
across Lycanth to the hills that meant freedom, that he, too, was familiar with the rules of an evasion and
was biding his time.
We were fed well, twice a day-the menus constantly varied. We never saw a warder, however, and I
remembered Symeon's words that he and the Archons would know when we were broken
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and ready to tell everything. But that appeared to be in the distant future. Boredom, anger, annoyance,
frustration, worry about what was going on in Orissa, even an increasing edginess that Janos laid to a
certain amount of the invisible assaults getting past his counterspells-none of these were enough. I made
the mistake of thinking I was unshakable, that Symeon himself would die of boredom before I did.
They came for us after midnight. The outer door crashed open, and cleated boots slammed down the
corridor toward my bedchamber as I woke and stumbled out of bed. I heard shouts from Janos' room,
then blows. Six men burst into my chamber, men wearing mail corselets and helmets with face guards.
They were armed with iron-bound truncheons and carried long daggers sheathed at their waist. For a
moment, I was in wonderment-if this was the beginning of the "bad side," why hadn't they sent the Finder
or other creatures from the depths to awe and horrify us? My question was answered when I was hurled
to the floor. As I stumbled to my feet, one of the men smashed me in the face with a gloved hand.
"Tha's t' make sure you'll be doin' as we say," he snarled, and I smelled sour beer on his foul breath. In
that instant I realized, and have since confirmed, that man can be more awful than the vilest demon of the
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pits. They shouted me into clothes, chained my hands and feet, and shoved me out of the room. Janos,
his face bloody, was slumped against the corridor wall outside; another six men and an officer were
around him. We were chivied down, down, below the main floor of the castle and far underground. The
air grew danker, the stones dripped, and the stairs grew narrower and mold covered. The risers were
worn down by century after century of men and women who'd been forced down them, and I wondered
how many victims had ever come back into sunlight.
"Y're out under th' bay now," one of the guards growled. "Give you somethin' t' think about, lookin' up,
knowin' there's no blue sky or green grass above you. 'Specially when the ceilin' starts leakin'."
There were no sentinels stationed at the barred and locked gates, yet they nevertheless swung wide as
we approached. Finally we reached the bottom. The stones around us were niter-whitened and very old,
set one on another with no mortar showing. The iron gates and torch standards were black and rusty,
and the wooden doors and occasional table or crude chair were dark with age. We passed a large cell.
Inside were skeletons, some
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hung from rusty chains, others scattered where the men had died. There was no sign of a door. Had
these long-dead prisoners been transported inside by sorcery, and then forgotten? No one seemed to
notice the bones except Janos and me. After that, I saw, in the flare of torchlight, a round metal plate in
the floor, with a central vent perhaps a foot long by six inches. As we passed over it, I heard, from
below, giggles, interspersed with the chitter of rats. The plate appeared to have been cemented into the
stone flagstones when they were first laid.
Now the corridor was barrel arched. To one side, I saw an open door, no larger than that for a baker's
small oven. It was the entrance to a cell, less a compartment than a coffin. There was a stone bench cut
into one wall. A prisoner would have no room to stand or stretch. Further on, there was a stain spattered
across a stone wall that looked as if someone had cast a bucket of paint and then let it dry. One of the
guards saw I'd noted the stain. He tapped his great club and smiled, as if recalling a particularly pleasant
memory. I glanced into another room. This was the guardroom. From my glimpse, I guessed the guards
were allowed to take prisoners from their cells for whatever purpose pleased them. I looked away.
The corridor opened into a large semicircular chamber. Around the arc were heavy bars between stone
pillars that I thought at first were separate cells, but saw was one large holding area. The reason for the
unusual design of the dungeon was clear-the prisoners held in the cell were expected to witness what was
going on in the open room across. It was the torture chamber, set apart by two huge iron doors, now
blocked open. Perhaps the chamber was the same one I had seen when Janos allowed his counterspell
to slip for a moment. There was the paleness of a woman's body, bound to a rack, and beside her a
glowing brazier, pincers, and other iron implements red- or white-hot in the coals. Her mouth was open,
as if she was screaming, but there was no sound. Perhaps there was a spell cast to prevent screams from
disturbing the guards, or perhaps the prisoner was beyond screaming. I also saw, before I forced my
eyes away, other doomed prisoners, half a dozen of the black-clad inquisitors, chains dangling from the
ceiling and walls, and implements of agony, from the boot to the rack.
The guard's officer moved his hands over cell bars, and a door opened. Our manacles were unlocked,
and we were hurled into the cell. "Watch the room across," the officer advised. "So you won't think you'll
be forgotten forever." His men found
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this hilarious. They marched out of the chamber, and there was no light except for a torch at either end
of the large room, and the glare coming from the horror scene across. I sagged down, onto the muck and
filth some long-ago-scattered straw did nothing to sop up. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]