She kicked apart a packing crate and fashioned one of the broken slats for use as a club. To make it more lethal, she pried out some nails from the lid of a barrel, and, using another plank as a hammer, drove the nails into the end of her makeshift club, so that it was studded with points. Kit did not hope to be able to fight her way free. She hoped to put up such a vicious battle they would be forced to kill her.
This done, there was nothing else to do. She paced the storeroom until she was exhausted, then sat down on the chair. She lost all sense of time. The darkness swallowed the minutes, the hours. She was determined not to sleep, for she had no intention of wasting her few remaining hours of life in slumber, yet the silence and the boredom, the fear and the tension got the best of her. She closed her eyes. Her head sank down on her breast.
She woke suddenly from her fitful doze, thinking she’d heard sounds outside the door. She was right. Someone was putting a key in the lock.
It was time. Her executioner was here.
Kit’s heart clogged her throat. She could not catch her breath, and she thought for one moment she might die of sheer terror. Then, with a gasp, she could breathe again. She grabbed hold of the club and crept across the room, groping her way in the darkness until she found the door. She put her back against the wall. When the door opened, those looking in would not see her. They would be surprised and she would have her chance. She crouched, club in hand, and waited.
The door creaked open slowly, an inch at a time, as though someone were pushing it stealthily, fearing to make too much noise. This was odd. An executioner would have just thrust it open. Light spilled inside, not the harsh light of day or the flaring light of torches, but a thin beam of light that went stabbing and poking about the storeroom, falling on the empty chair, then glancing off barrels and boxes. The air was scented with the fragrance of exotic flowers.
No executioner smelled that good.
“Kitiara?” whispered a voice—a woman’s voice.
Kitiara lowered the plank. Keeping it hidden against her thigh, she stepped around the door. A woman swathed in a black velvet cape with a deep purple lining stood in the door. She pulled the hood back from her head. The light of her ring shone full on her face.
“Iolanthe?” Kit asked in profound astonishment, the name coming to her at the last moment.
“Thank the Queen!” Iolanthe breathed, seizing hold of Kitiara’s arm and hanging onto it as though relieved to touch something solid and real. Light beamed from a ring on her finger, stabbed wildly about the room. “I didn’t know if I would find you still alive!”
“For the time being,” said Kitiara, not certain what to make of this unexpected visitor. She shook loose the woman’s grip and looked out past Iolanthe, thinking she must have brought guards with her. There was no one there. She could not hear breathing or the jingle of armor or the shuffle of boots.
Suspicious, fearing some trap, though she could not possibly imagine what, Kitiara rounded on the witch.
“What are you doing here?” Kit demanded. “Did Ariakas send you? Is this some new torment?”
“Keep your voice down! I silenced the guards at the door, but others may come at any moment. As for why I am here, Ariakas did not send me.” Iolanthe paused, then said quietly, “Takhisis did.”
“Takhisis!” Kitiara repeated, her astonishment growing. “I don’t understand.”
“Our Queen heard your prayer and she bid me set you free. You must keep your vow to her, however,” Iolanthe added. “You must spend the night in Dargaard Keep.”
Kitiara was stunned. She had said that prayer out of desperation, never believing for a moment there were immortal ears to hear, or immortal hands to turn the key in the lock. The thought that Takhisis had not only heard but had answered and now expected her to keep her promise was almost as frightening as the cruel death she was facing.
Kit would have felt considerably better if she had known that while Takhisis may have been listening, it was Iolanthe’s ears that had heard her prayer. The witch had splashed perfume on her hands to mask the scent of burnt hair.
“Did you bring me a weapon?” Kit demanded.
“You won’t need one.”
“I will if they try to capture me. I won’t die with my guts hanging out,” she added harshly.
Iolanthe hesitated, then she reached into her tight-fitting sleeve and drew out a long poignard, the type that wizards are permitted to carry in their own defense. She handed it to Kit, who grimaced at the lightweight, fragile-looking blade.
“I guess I should thank you,” said Kit ungraciously. She didn’t like to be beholden to anyone, much less this perfumed trollop. Nevertheless, a debt was a debt. “I owe you one…”
Thrusting the poignard in her belt, she started to walk out the door.
“Bless the woman!” Iolanthe exclaimed, aghast. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving,” said Kit shortly.
“Will you walk about the Queen’s temple dressed like that?” Iolanthe gestured at Kit, who had on what she usually wore beneath her armor—a blue gambeson embroidered in golden thread with the symbol of the Blue Dragonarmy.
Kit shrugged and kept walking.
“No strangers are allowed in the Temple after the close of evening worship,” Iolanthe warned her. “The dark priests patrol the halls. You might as well not bother leaving your prison at all, for they will be returning you to it shortly. And what will you do about the magical dragon traps at each gate?”
Each of the gates was guarded by the armies of a different Highlord, each dedicated to one of the colors of chromatic dragons. Thus there was a red gate, a blue gate, a green gate, and so on. Each gate had traps that mimicked the breath weapon of the dragon it honored. The corridor leading to the red gate was lined with the stone heads of red dragons that would breathe fire on any hapless interloper, incinerating him before he was halfway down the corridor. The Gate of the Blue Dragon crackled with lightning, that of the green dragon spewed poisonous gas.
“I know the phrase to disarm the traps,” Kit said over her shoulder. “Every Highlord does.”
“Ariakas ordered the phrases changed after you were arrested,” said Iolanthe.
Kitiara halted. Her hands clenched. She stood a moment, cursing beneath her breath, then turned to face the witch.
“Do you know the new password?”
Iolanthe smiled. “Who do you think worked the magic?”
Kitiara didn’t trust this witch. She didn’t understand what was going on. She found it difficult to believe Iolanthe’s story that Queen Takhisis had sent her, yet how could the witch have known about Kit’s prayer? Like it or not, Kit was going to have to put her life into this woman’s hands, and Kit did not like it!
“So what is your plan?” she asked.
Iolanthe shoved a bundle of cloth at Kit. “First, put this on.”
Kit shook out the folds of the black velvet robes worn by the dark priests. A sensible idea, she had to admit. She fumbled her way into the garb, trying to shove her head into the sleeve hole in her haste, and then putting the robes on backward. With Iolanthe’s help, Kit managed to sort it out. The black, smothering folds enveloped her.
“Now what?”
“We will attend the midnight rites in the Dark Abbey,” Iolanthe explained. “There we will mingle with the crowd and leave with them, for the dragon traps will be disabled to allow them to pass. We must hurry,” she added. “The service has already started. Fortunately, the Abbey is not far from here.”
They left the storeroom; the glow from Iolanthe’s magical ring lit the way through Ariakas’s chambers. The main door stood slightly ajar.
“What about the guards?” Kit asked in a whisper.
“Dead,” Iolanthe replied dispassionately.