With a parting gibe and a wave of her hand, Lady Odila mounted her horse, grabbed the reins of the pack mule, and cantered out of the yard, leaving Gerard to the mercies of the warden and his guards. In vain Gerard protested and argued and demanded to see the Knight Commander or some other officer. No one paid the least attention to him. Two guards hauled him inside with ruthless efficiency, while two other guards stood ready with huge spiked-tipped clubs should he make an attempt to escape. They cut loose his bonds, only to replace the rope with iron manacles.
The guards hustled him through the outer rooms where the warden had his office and the jailer his stool and table. The iron keys to the cells hung on hooks ranged in neat rows along the wall. Gerard caught only a glimpse of this, before he was shoved and dragged, stumbling, down a stair that ran straight and true to a narrow corridor below ground level. They led him to his cell with torches—he was the only prisoner down on this level, apparently—and tossed him inside. They gave him to know that there was a bucket for his waste and a straw mattress for sleeping. He would receive two meals a day, morning and night. The door, made of heavy oak with a small iron grate in the top, began to close. All this happened so fast that Gerard was left dazed, disbelieving.
The warden stood in the corridor outside his cell, watching to make certain to the last that his prisoner was safe.
Gerard flung himself forward, wedging his body between the wall and the door.
“Sir!”—he pleaded—”I must speak before the Knights’ Council! Let them know Gerard uth Mondar is here! I have urgent news! Information—”
“Tell it to the inquisitor,” said the warden coldly.
The guards gave Gerard a brutal shove that sent him staggering, manacles clanking, back into his cell. The cell door shut. He heard the sounds of their feet clomping up the stairs. The torch light diminished and was gone. Another door slammed at the top of the stairs.
Gerard was left alone in darkness so complete and silence so profound that he might have been cast off this world and left to float in the empty nothingness that was said to have existed long before the coming of the gods.
18
Beryl’s Messenger
Marshal Medan sat stolidly at his desk in his office that was located in the massive and ugly building the Knights of Neraka had constructed in Qualinost. The Marshal considered the building every bit as ugly as did the elves, who averted their eyes if they were forced to walk anywhere near its hulking, gray walls, and he rarely entered his own headquarters. He detested the barren, cold rooms. Due to the humid air, the stone walls accumulated moisture and always seemed to be sweating. He felt stifled whenever he had to remain here extended periods of time and the feeling was not in his imagination. For the greater protection of those inside, the building had no windows, and the smell of mold was all-pervasive. Today was worse than ever. The smell clogged his nose and gave him a swelling pain behind his eyes. Due to the pain and the pressure, he was listless and lethargic, found it difficult to think.
“This will never do,” he said to himself and was just about to leave the room to take a refreshing walk outside when his second-in-command, a Knight named Dumat, knocked at the wooden door.
The Marshal glowered, returned to seat himself behind the desk, and gave a horrific snort in an effort to clear his nose.
Taking the snort for permission to enter, Dumat came in, carefully shutting the door behind him.
“He’s here,” he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.
“Who is it, Dumat?” Medan asked. “Another draco?”
“Yes, my lord. A bozak. A captain. He’s got two baaz with him. Bodyguards, I’d say.”
Medan gave another snort and rubbed his aching eyes.
“We can handle three dracos, my lord,” said Dumat complacently. Dumat was a strange man. Medan had given up trying to figure him out. Small, compact, dark-haired, Dumat was in his thirties, or so Medan supposed. He really knew very little about him. Dumat was quiet, reserved, rarely smiled, kept to himself. He had nothing to say of his past life, never joined the other soldiers in boasting of exploits either on the battlefield or between the sheets. He had come to the Knighthood only a few years earlier. He told his commander only what was necessary for the records and that, Medan had always guessed, was probably all lies. Medan had never been able to figure out why Dumat had joined the Knights of Neraka.
Dumat was not a soldier. He had no love for battle. He was not prone to quarreling. He was not sadistic. He was not particularly skilled at arms, although he had proven in a barracks brawl that he could handle himself in a fight. He was even-tempered, though there were smoldering embers in the dark eyes that told of fires burning somewhere deep inside. Medan had never been more astonished in his life than the day almost a year ago when Dumat had come to him and said that he had fallen in love with an elven woman and wanted to make her his wife.
Medan had done all he could to discourage relations between elves and humans. He was in a difficult situation, dealing with explosive racial tensions, trying to retain control of a populace that actively hated its human conquerors. He had to maintain discipline over his troops, as well. He laid down strict rules against rape and those who, in the early days of the elven occupation, broke the rules were given swift, harsh punishment. But Medan was experienced enough in the strange ways of people to know that sometimes captive fell in love with captor and that not all elf women found human males repulsive.
He had interviewed the elf woman Dumat wanted to marry, to make certain she was not being coerced or threatened. He found that she was not some giddy maiden, but a grown woman, a seamstress by trade. She loved Dumat and wanted to be his wife. Medan represented to her that she would be ostracized from the elven community, cut off from family and friends. She had no family, she told him, and if her friends did not like her choice of husband, they were no true friends. He could not very well argue this point, and the two were married in a human ceremony, since the elves would not officially recognize such a heinous alliance.
The two lived happily, quietly, absorbed in each other. Dumat continued to serve as he had always done, obeying orders with strict discipline. Thus, when Medan had to decide which of his Knights and soldiers he could trust, he had chosen Dumat as among those few to remain with him to assist in the last defense of Qualinost. The rest were sent away south to assist the Gray Robes in their continuing fruitless and ludicrous search for the magical Tower of Wayreth. Medan had told Dumat plainly what he faced, for the Marshal would not lie to any man, and had given him a choice. He could stay or take his wife and depart. Dumat had agreed to stay. His wife, he said, would remain with him.
“My lord,” said Dumat, “is something wrong?”
Medan came to himself with a start. He had been woolgathering, staring at Dumat all the while so that the man must be wondering if his nose was on crooked.
“Three draconians, you said.” Medan forced himself to concentrate. The danger was very great, and he could not afford any more mental lapses.
“Yes, my lord. We can deal with them.” Dumat was not boastful. He was merely stating a fact.
Medan shook his head and was sorry he’d done so. The pain behind his eyes increased markedly. He gave another ineffectual snort. “No, we can’t keep killing off Beryl’s pet lizard men. She will eventually get suspicious. Besides, I need this messenger to report back to the great green bitch, assure her that all is proceeding according to plan.”