The Fifth Sorceress, page 64
As they began to traverse the bridge, several of the Minion warriors called out to Geldon, bidding him hello, and laughingly insulting the two apparent captives with filthy warnings of what would happen to them inside the Recluse. Geldon laughed along with them, careful to neither stop to talk nor speed up his advance. The dark, leathery pairs of wings Tristan could see out of the corners of his eyes made him acutely aware of the sword and knives across his back as the three of them continued across the bridge. So far so good, he reassured himself.
When they reached the drawbridge and the first portcullis, a squad of five Minion officers, completely armed, began to walk briskly toward them from the gate towers, the heels of their barbed leather boots snapping crisply on the dried wood of the bridge. From their midst emerged another, larger and stronger looking than the rest, carelessly holding a jug of red wine. He was obviously in command.
‘Halt!’ the lead officer ordered.
Geldon obediently brought his horse to a stop. As the other two horses followed suit, Tristan’s knuckles whitened in their grip on the reins to his horse, and his breath momentarily caught in his lungs.
The senior officer smiled. In size, he was almost the equal of Kluge. Looking up at the dwarf with a leering, vengeful sneer, he asked, ‘So the hunting was good, eh? Mistress Succiu will be pleased. We thought you were never coming back.’ A loud, wet belch emerged from his mouth, and he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I hope these two will be worth the trouble.’
He began to walk unsteadily around the rear of the prince’s and wizard’s horses, his free hand on the hilt of the dreggan at his side as he enjoyed his little game. For a time he surveyed the two cloaked figures as if he were considering a purchase at the market. Then he stopped next to Tristan. The prince stiffened. He’s drunk, Tristan realized frantically. This could make things much more difficult.
As the officer’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed with curiosity, Tristan heard the clear, unmistakable ring of a dreggan being drawn from its scabbard. Suddenly, the steel blade clanged piercingly into the night as the officer touched the button on the hilt and loosed the tip of the blade forward. Tristan’s heart skipped a beat.
The officer raised the sword awkwardly and then gave a sharp, taunting poke to Tristan’s ribs. The tip of the blade went through the cloak, piercing his black leather vest and cutting him, drawing blood. Tristan could feel the sticky liquid running down the length of his abdomen in a slow, warm trickle. But still he managed not to flinch, and continued to sway slightly in his saddle as if too drugged to notice. The Minion officer looked skeptically at the dwarf, the point of his dreggan still at the prince’s side.
‘Men or women?’ he asked the dwarf drunkenly. He obviously hoped it was women.
‘Men,’ Geldon said angrily. ‘And if they enter the Stable harmed it will be you who will answer to the second mistress for it.’ He glared at the officer as the winged one continued to smile arrogantly back at him.
It was clear the officer was unimpressed with the dwarf’s warning as he took another draught of the wine, much of it running sloppily from his mouth and down the front of his chest. Raising the sword a little higher, he pushed harder and then began to twist the blade, smiling in contempt at the dwarf as he did so. It was all Tristan could do to keep from crying out in pain. The steel had gone deeper, through the muscle, and Tristan could feel it twisting and grating against the bone. The pain was excruciating, setting his entire right side on fire. Hold, his mind shouted at him. Ignore the pain, or we all will surely die. The Minion officer smiled lopsidedly as he watched the trickle of blood that had begun to run down the length of the shiny blade. He looked the dwarf hard in the eye.
‘Very well.’ He snorted, obviously pleased with himself. ‘You may pass.’ The bloodstained tip of the dreggan suddenly came out and up in a swift arc to end less than an inch from Geldon’s right eye. ‘But if asked, the slave was injured during his capture. Do you understand?’ It wasn’t a question, it was a command. ‘I could make life very hard for you if I chose to. And provided I didn’t kill you, you little bastard, I doubt Mistress Succiu would care at all.’ He laughed and slapped Geldon’s horse hard on the rump with the flat of his blade. ‘Go!’ he shouted. He took another swig of the wine. ‘Go and report to your owner! And take your precious slaves with you.’
Geldon waited for no further inducement. He quickly led the prince and the wizard under the portcullis and through the outer ward of the Recluse, heading toward the second portcullis, the one that protected the entrance to the inner ward and the forebuildings that lay beyond it.
The Minion officer turned around to grin at his four smiling troops and lifted the wine jug to his lips. Then, as he watched the dwarf and his two slaves make their way into the main structure of the Recluse, he wiped his dreggan clear of blood. Once the three horses were finally out of sight, he threw the wine jug to his men and replaced the sword in its scabbard, sober once again. Obviously confused, his men watched as he did something unexpected: climbing the stairs to the top of the gate tower, he lifted a torch into the air and quickly waved it back and forth.
From across the inner yard, at the top of the wall between the second pair of gate towers, the lone Minion officer saw the waving flame, and his eyes narrowed in delight. Smiling, he walked out from his hiding place, stretched his long, muscular wings, and flew effortlessly down into a shadowed area of the inner yard, landing as lightly as a feather.
Kluge turned to look through the inky night and across the broad length of the inner yard as the dwarf, wizard, and prince finally made their way to the side of the forebuilding and through the hidden door that led to the Stables.
Welcome, he thought. Welcome to the Recluse, Lead Wizard and Chosen One. He could hardly contain his joy. The officer he had chosen had played his part well, and the Eutracians had been completely unaware. He paused in his thoughts, gazing jubilantly at the three red moons that had finally made complete appearances in the night sky. Lowering his dark head he looked back at the Recluse, its exotic architecture silent and sprawling like a giant spider crouched upon the great courtyard as he stood there alone in the moonlight, his lengthened, muscular shadow stretching ominously across the ground. His hand tightened around the hilt of his dreggan, and his jaw clenched.
Welcome, Chosen One. The small wound in your side is nothing compared to what I shall honor you with.
This is the place where you shall die.
Tristan heard Geldon close the door behind them with a heavy, quiet finality. The dwarf immediately drew his finger across his lips, indicating silence.
‘Keep your cloaks on,’ he whispered seriously as he moved toward the doorway of the little room and peered out into the adjoining hall. ‘We have entered through a small side door used only to bring in slaves. As you follow me, be sure to continue to appear drugged. The Stables are below ground level, and we must pass through another area first.’ Stepping back closer to the prince, he saw that the wizard had lifted Tristan’s robe and was examining his wound. Blood was dripping down Tristan’s side.
‘I cannot use my craft to stop the bleeding,’ Wigg snapped in frustration. It was obvious to Geldon that the struggle to hide their endowed blood was becoming a great strain on the Lead Wizard.
The dwarf produced a small rag from one of his pockets, and Wigg pressed it against the wound. The prince flinched at the painful contact. ‘Hold this against your side,’ Wigg said apologetically. ‘The last thing we need is a trail of endowed blood down the hallways of the Recluse. The more of it there is, the more difficult it becomes for me to hide its presence.’ He released control of the rag to Tristan. ‘I’m sorry, but this is the best I can do for now.’ Then, carefully and slowly, Geldon took up their chains and led them out into the hallway.
Doing his best to look drugged while also holding the rag against his side, Tristan cast furtive glances around him as he shuffled along behind the dwarf. What he saw amazed him. The intersecting hallways of the Recluse were gigantic and seemed to stretch on endlessly, with curved, vaulted ceilings that rose at least thirty feet into the air. The highly polished marble was of the palest blue, shot through with darker indigo streaks that randomly crisscrossed each other like the paths of shooting stars in the night sky. The light in the hallway was very bright, emanating from numerous wall sconces, each of which seemed to be made of solid gold. The warm, rather humid air was scented with what seemed to be fresh lilac. He narrowed his eyes, thinking. The entire effect was one of great beauty and grace, creating a façade of tranquility that intentionally seemed to overlie what he knew to be the true, barbaric nature of the place.
At last Geldon slowed and led them into a much larger, circular room with a stained-glass ceiling, into which spilled a number of other hallways. In the center of the room was a blue marble spiral stairway leading downward. Without hesitation the dwarf headed right for the stairs, and together they descended, single file, into the bowels of the Recluse.
The stairway was as wide as the corridor had been, and as brightly lit. On and on they went, traveling lower with every step, and it seemed to Tristan that the stairs would never end. He could not recall ever having been so far below ground, even in the Redoubt of the Directorate back at the palace in Tammerland. After what seemed like forever, they stopped, their way barred by a stone door. Pushing hard, Geldon swiveled it inward upon its hinges. He peered quickly into the room beyond, and then beckoned them in.
What Tristan saw next made his heart recoil.
The chamber was clearly a place of torture. It was very large and constructed of dark, rough-hewn stone. Flames roared full blaze in a fireplace, and in the center of the room was a blacksmith’s hearth, fueled by hot coals. A collection of iron rods and branding pokers had been shoved into the bright, orange embers, their ends aglow with heat. In one corner sat an enormous cauldron.
Tristan stood spellbound as he continued to look around the room, the flames from the fireplace creating menacing, ephemeral shadows that danced lightly across the walls. Scattered around the room were several roughly fashioned wooden chairs, each of which had manacles and turnbuckles attached to its arms and legs for holding a prisoner in place. A long, flat table stood a little way off, with what he could only imagine to be disemboweling tools lying on a wooden tray next to it. The tools were covered in dried, crimson-black blood. Flogging whips and chains of all descriptions hung upon the walls, and a stretching rack angled threateningly up against one of the room’s supporting beams. He realized that he had begun to sweat, as much from the heat in the room as from the nature of its purpose. And then, suddenly, he detected the smell.
It was like nothing else he had sensed before, a sweet, sickly aroma combined with a stench like that of raw meat burning. The powerful fragrances slowly curled up and entwined around the three of them as they stood there, in horrified silence, the crackling fire the only sound – at first.
Then Tristan heard the first light drip. It sounded like the familiar soft plop of a raindrop falling upon a broad leaf in the forest. And then there was another, and yet another. He looked down, his first reaction to check the wound in his side, but it had stopped oozing, and was already scabbing over. Following the sounds of the dripping, he finally found their origin. It was blood, and it was dripping upon the three of them from above. And whether he had a full lifetime remaining to him or whether he would die this day in the Recluse, Tristan instinctively knew that what he saw above him would haunt his dreams forever.
At first nothing could be seen; the room was too dark, and the ceiling timbers were so large and recessed into the roof above. But the longer the three of them stood there and looked, the more obvious the nightmare became. Naked people, apparently simple citizens of the countryside, had been hung from the ceiling in between the rafters. But they were not suspended by the neck, as was the usual way of hanging. These poor souls had been disemboweled. Part of their entrails hung crazily out and over the sides of their bodies. Their hands and feet had been nailed to the ceiling, suspending each of them faceup, in grisly human arches of death. In many cases their genitals had been horribly mutilated, and the prince also saw that some had suffered having their eyelids crudely sewn shut with strips of rough leather.
There had to be at least twenty men and women suspended there, twisting and bleeding, their entrails hanging impossibly over the sides of their bodies, the blood dripping casually to the floor. Then, suddenly, he noticed something else.
Each of them had been branded with the sign of the Pentangle. The five-pointed star could be seen scorched into the naked skin of each body at various places. That accounted for the stench, Tristan realized in disgust. Looking again at the room, he made another grisly deduction. It also accounts for the dried blood on the disemboweling tools, and the iron rods still heating in the hearth, he realized. These people have been dead for only a short time. Looking over silently at the dwarf, he could see that even Geldon was in shock at what he saw.
‘What in the name of the Afterlife happened here?’ Tristan whispered incredulously.
Geldon hesitated, as if trying to choke down the impulse to vomit. He swallowed hard. ‘The Afterlife has very little to do with what has happened here,’ he said quietly. ‘I have come through this room hundreds of times over the last three centuries, sometimes even when it was in use.’ He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. ‘But even I have never seen such savagery as this.’ Geldon looked to the Lead Wizard for comfort and guidance, as if Wigg always had the answer to everything.
The old one’s eyebrow came up as he closely investigated the corpses, silently walking beneath them and examining them much the way a healer would do. ‘These people have been tortured for a very special reason,’ he ruminated, half to himself. He returned to stand beside the dwarf and the prince. ‘Although they could have known nothing, it is possible the poor devils were questioned about us.’
‘There is another reason for their suffering,’ Geldon said sadly.
Wigg clasped his hands together within the sleeves of his cloak. ‘And that is?’
‘The worst reason of all. The Coven enjoys it.’ Tristan’s heart recoiled as he wondered whether Shailiha could have had any part in what had happened here. He tried to blot the prospect from his mind.
‘We leave here now,’ Wigg ordered. ‘How much farther to the Stables?’
‘It is a rather long and winding walk from here,’ Geldon replied. ‘Behave exactly as you have up to this point. You are still supposedly drugged and bound by the chains. If we are stopped by anyone, be certain not to speak.’ He took up the chains and led his companions to a stone door at the other side of the room.
It was indeed a long way, through a maze of blue marble corridors identical to the previous ones, and after a time the prince was beginning to wonder impatiently if they would ever reach their destination. His heart beat quickly at the thought of coming closer to Shailiha with his every step. He could almost feel her presence as he followed the dwarf through the great subterranean halls.
They were in a busier part of the Recluse now. From the recesses of his hood, Tristan saw all kinds of people coming and going about their business. Kitchen workers and handmaidens, scullery maids, and even the occasional Minion warrior. The Minions were almost always fully armed and moving with seemingly great intent. No one showed any particular interest in the three of them, however, except for the occasional palace worker or servant who nodded at the dwarf in silent greeting. Geldon always nodded back carefully, never stopping to speak even if the other person appeared to want to.
Finally, the dwarf stopped before a magnificent pair of black double doors. The sign of the Pentangle was inlaid into each of them, glistening brightly in solid gold. A huge, armed Minion warrior stood at attention at either side of the doors. Tristan’s heart skipped a beat as the dwarf brazenly walked directly up to the doors as if he owned them and stared defiantly at the winged warriors.
‘New slaves for the Stables,’ he said imperiously. Tristan was suddenly reminded that, despite the dwarf’s physical stature, Geldon was nonetheless the emissary of the second mistress and would therefore command at least a modicum of respect, even from the Minion guards.
The guards gave the two figures behind Geldon a perfunctory glance, and then the one on the right stepped before the door on his side and, without a word, opened it to allow them in.
Saying nothing, Geldon led his charges into the next room, and Tristan could hear the enormous marble door close heavily behind them. At a nod from Geldon, the prince and wizard threw back their hoods and looked around. What they saw defied description.
The room they were standing in was huge, rivaling in size the Great Hall of the royal palace in Tammerland. Walls and floor were marble of the faintest rose, shot through with both indigo and white streaks. The ceiling was even higher here, almost double the height of the hallways, and made of the palest blue marble, with the occasional gray streak running through it.
Everywhere he looked the prince saw nothing but opulence and comfort. Chairs, sofas, and loveseats of every shape and size filled the room. Long tables of food and drink were piled so bountifully high that he thought at first some of their contents might fall off onto the highly polished rose-colored marble floors.
Handmaidens came and went, refilling the tankards of wine that sat upon the tables and bringing ever-more-appealing food to replace immediately whatever was taken. There were cascading fountains and cool, serene swimming pools. The soft, gentle music of a flute and lyre wafted upon the air. And nearby, with various colored oils warming over low flames standing ready at their sides, stood tables for massage.
Then Tristan noticed the strange scent. A curious combination of sweetness combined with heavy musk, it seemed to wash over the entire room. In fact, the longer he stood looking, the more he could detect the presence of it in the air. It seemed to give the atmosphere in the room a distinctly violet hue.
