Then the wall opposite their entrance slid aside, revealing a larger room, of gray stone like the octagonal chamber they had first arrived in. This room, however, was not empty, as the others had been.
Chained to the far wall were seven people, four men and three women, all wearing white robes like those Bredon, Geste, and Imp had just put on. All seven sat slumped against the stone, their wrists, ankles, and necks bound by massive bands of metal, linked by tangles of heavy chain to each other and to ring-bolts in the wall behind them. All seven appeared to be sunburnt in varying degrees, presumably by Thaddeus's machines.
Bredon immediately recognized the woman in the center as Lady Sunlight; even without her shimmering garments, even with her hair matted and bedraggled and her skin an uncomfortable shade of red, she was unsurpassably beautiful, and he felt something twisting and churning inside himself at the sight of her chained. He fought for control of himself, struggled not to simply run to her side.
“Aulden!” Imp shrieked. She dashed forward and flung herself upon the man at the far left of the group, a sturdy, sandy-haired man with a long nose and only a faint pinkness to his skin. Bredon remembered his face from the quick glimpse Thaddeus had given them.
Aulden looked up just before Imp landed on him. His expression was a compound of surprise and joy at the sight of her, but Bredon thought he saw an underlying hopelessness.
“I don't believe this,” Geste muttered, standing in the doorway. “Chains! Genuine steel chains!"
Distracted for a moment from Lady Sunlight, Bredon started to ask what else Thaddeus would have used, but stopped himself. He could have used any number of methods of confinement, from barrier fields to neural repatterning.
Chains, however, worked quite well enough.
Imp and Aulden were smothering each other with kisses, and the other six were looking up with some interest at the newcomers. Bredon suddenly found himself overcome with shyness, faced with so much attention from strangers.
“Hello, Geste,” one of the women said, a brown-haired, round-faced woman.
“Hello, Sheila,” the Trickster replied.
“Who's that with you?” she asked. “Has someone got a new body?"
“No, no, nothing like that; this is Bredon the Hunter, from a village out in the grasslands."
Bredon bowed in acknowledgement, looking only at Lady Sunlight, hoping to see some sign in her reaction that she saw him as something more than an ordinary savage.
Lady Sunlight said nothing, did not react visibly at all.
“Pleased to meet you,” Sheila replied. “Forgive me if I don't stand up.” She rattled her chains with a wry shrug. “So, what brings you here?"
Geste smiled.
Bredon tore his eyes away from Lady Sunlight, forcing himself not to stare at her any longer, and looked at the other captives; they were not impressed with Sheila's banter. The dark, intense little man he guessed, from descriptions in old legends, to be Rawl the Adjuster. The third woman, sallow-skinned and black-haired, had to be Madame O. Both the other two men were big, black-haired, and brown-eyed, but one was pale and heavily bearded, while the other was swarthy and had only a light, grey-flecked beard; Bredon had no way of guessing which was Brenner of the Mountains and which was Khalid.
“Are you going to get us out of here?” the swarthy one demanded.
Geste's smile vanished. “I wish I knew,” he said.
“That,” said Thaddeus from behind them, “is not the answer I wanted, indicating, as it does, a certain lingering hope that outright surrender can be avoided."
Geste and Bredon turned around slowly; Imp, still wrapped in Aulden's arms, paid no attention.
Thaddeus stood in the doorway from the metal corridor, a towering black-haired figure in brown leather-or a synthetic approximation of leather. Bredon was not certain just how he could tell, but he had the impression that this was a real person, not a transmitted image. Perhaps it was because this Thaddeus stood his awesome full height, at least two and a half meters.
“Hello, Thaddeus,” Geste said.
“Hello, Geste. Are you satisfied now that I have not tampered with my captives?"
“Well, no, not yet. I just got here."
“Imp, are you satisfied?"
Imp looked up, brushing hair out of her face. “It's Aulden-but how could you treat him like this, you monster?"
Thaddeus shrugged. “I don't love him as you do."
“Thaddeus, we have to talk this over. You don't need to do all this,” Geste said.
“Oh, I don't? What do you know about it?” Thaddeus sneered.
“I know that it's stupid! What can you get from ruling an empire that you can't get peacefully?"
Thaddeus smiled with bitter amusement. “Are you really asking that?"
“Yes, I am! Look, can we go somewhere and talk about this?"
“You don't want these people to hear?” Thaddeus asked, with a wave at the others.
“No, that's not it,” Geste said. “All right, we can talk here."
“No, no,” Thaddeus said, holding up a hand. “We'll find someplace more comfortable. Come along, Imp."
“No!” she said. “No! I won't leave Aulden!"
Thaddeus shrugged again. “Suit yourself. Monitor, watch her closely. Don't let her out of this room, or obey her orders. And don't disturb me.” All but the first phrase he addressed to a red light that gleamed above the door. It blinked an acknowledgement, and he turned back to the Trickster. “All right, Geste, come along.” He waved, and Geste followed.
Bredon started to follow as well, and Thaddeus gestured. “Leave that here, though,” he said.
Geste said nothing, but Bredon stepped back, and waited politely until Thaddeus and Geste were out of sight.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"’… so you have found me,’ Aulden the Technician said. ‘Now, what do you want of me?'
"'They say, in my village, that you can do anything,’ Golrol said. ‘Is it true?'
"Aulden stared at him for a moment, and then said, ‘Very nearly, at any rate.'
"'You can do anything?’ Golrol persisted.
"'Yes,’ Aulden said, ‘I can.'
"'Really?’ Golrol asked.
"Yes, I said,’ Aulden told him. ‘I can be anything and do anything.’ He instantly transformed himself into a giant, a hundred meters tall, and then vanished completely, and then reappeared as a sunflower with Aulden's own face, and then appeared human once more. ‘I can fly to the stars,’ he said, ‘or make their fire burn here on the ground. I know the secrets of time and space. I can make birds swim and fish fly. I can build a tower in a single night that will reach so high you cannot see the top. I can shake the earth and shatter the sky.'
"'So you say that you can do anything,’ Golrol said.
"'Yes, I told you,’ Aulden answered. ‘Try me; name a task, and I shall perform it.'
"'Can you bring me snow from the mountaintops, even now in midsummer?’ Golrol asked.
"'As easily as you can snap your fingers,’ Aulden replied, and he spun about, and held out a handful of snow.
"'Can you lift an entire mountain, then?'
"Aulden laughed, and said, ‘Easily.’ And he waved his hand, and with a rumble and a roar, one of the distant mountains tore itself free of the earth and rose into the sky, like the Skyland itself.
"'And can you create a mountain from nothing?'
"'Of course!’ said Aulden, and behold, with a great rending crash a mountain rose from the plain where none had stood a moment before.
"'And can you create a mountain so great that even you cannot lift it?’ Golrol asked innocently.
"And Aulden paused, and stared at him, and slowly a smile spread across his face, and he began to grin, and then to laugh, and then to roar with laughter.