"That's up to Pitrick." She looked into his face for the first time. "You should have anticipated the consequences of your actions," she added angrily.
"Who is 'Pitrick?' "
"Chief adviser to Thane Realgar."
They rode upward in silence for a few moments. The cage passed into a hollow cylinder in the bedrock, then emerged onto a flat platform, perfectly square and approximately a hundred feet on each side. The ceiling was quite high, nearly at the limit of Flint's vision in the darkness. It appeared to be a natural cavern roof, not an excavated ceiling, though how it came to be suspended atop four square walls puzzled
Flint. Each of the walls held a sturdy gate, and each gate was guarded by a pair of derro wearing the same purple plumage as the sentries in the tunnel.
The cage lurched to a halt, and one of the derro swung the gate open. "Out, now," ordered the captain. She and the guards stepped behind Flint. The captain approached one of the doors, but stopped when Flint called to her.
"Wait!" the hill dwarf shouted.
The frawl turned and looked at him curiously. He noticed that several of her coppery curls had fallen over one of her eyes. Impatiently, she pushed the offending locks away.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Might I know your name?" Flint felt compelled to ask the question.
She hesitated a moment, and Flint thought her face soft ened in the bare light.
"You might," she said, turning on a polished heel. She marched to a gate in one of the walls, which the derro guards hastily opened. They just as hastily closed it behind her, and she disappeared from Flint's sight.
"Captain Cyprium to see you, my lord," intoned the burly derro sergeant who guarded Pitrick's door.
"Send her in." The voice, from within the apartment, sounded to Perian like the rasp of a reptile. She stepped through the door, and it was quickly closed behind her.
"Do you have news, or is this a visit for pleasure?" Pitrick inquired. Sitting in a hard granite armchair, wearing a robe of golden silk, the adviser looked up with interest at the cap tain's entrance.
"We've captured a hill dwarf at the tunnel," she reported flatly.
Pitrick sprang to his feet, his grotesque frame moving with surprising agility. "Excellent!" he cried, clapping his hands in delight.
"He seems pretty harmless," Perian added.
"Your opinion is of no interest to me," sneered Pitrick. "I will decide his status, and his fate."
"Shouldn't you take him to the thane?"
The hunchback limped over and looked up at her with a cruel grin. Now Pitrick's face pressed close to hers, and the stench of his breath brought the usual revulsion. "His Excel lency has given me control of all matters relating to the tun nel and the trade route. I have no need to consult him. And need I remind you, my warrior pet, that 'matters relating to the tunnel' now include you."
Pitrick turned away from her. "I will see the prisoner, but not here. Take him to the tunnel beyond the North Warrens — you know the place." Perian felt sick to her stom ach. Yes, she knew the place.
"Oh," added Pitrick, twisting to face her again. His grin had eroded to a thin, sly smile. "Catch one of those Aghar that forever raid the garbage dump. Bring him along with the hill dwarf. Have them all at the tunnel in four hours."
"A gully dwarf? Why?" The Aghar, or gully dwarves, were common pests in Thorbardin. They were the lowest form of dwarf, so dirty, smelly, and stupid that few of the other dwarves could tolerate their presence. The Aghar lived in' secret lairs and often emerged to rummage through garbage dumps and refuse piles, seizing "treasures" that they would hasten back to their lairs. But they're harmless little creatures, Perian thought.
"Never mind why!" barked Pitrick, startling her with his vehemence. "You will obey me! Or — " His voice dropped ominously "- or you will pay the price for insubordina tion."
The sudden glow in his wild eyes left no doubt in Perian's mind as to what that price would be.
Flint was startled by the look on the Theiwar captain's face as she emerged from the gate and stomped back to the cage. She would neither meet the hill dwarf's eyes nor an swer any of his questions, except one.
"My name is Perian Cyprium," she told him.
"Flint Fireforge," he said simply.
The cage took them back to the street level, where they marched down the avenue, around a corner, and along sev eral smaller streets. Everywhere Flint saw busy derro, mov ing quickly and silently about their business. Never had he seen a place that was so populous, yet seemed so exception ally ominous and grim.
They came to a barracks building where several platoons of purple-plumed guards stood or lounged about a court yard. Here Flint was thrown into a cell, where he sat idly and undisturbed for several hours.
When a pair of derro guards eventually pulled him out and prodded him into the street, he was greeted by Perian and a half-dozen guardsmen. The latter, he saw, held in tow a miserable-looking gully dwarf. The little fellow's nose was running and his wide, staring eyes were red and bloodshot.
He looked fearfully from one mountain dwarf to another.
Flint was surprised to see an Aghar here, but no sooner had Flint joined the gully dwarf than Perian barked, "Follow me," leaving no room for questions. She led them on a long march, but stayed well to the front so Flint had no chance to talk to her.
The only sound other than the cadence of their march was the sniffling of the gully dwarf, which persisted even after one of the derro ordered him to stop, slapping his face for emphasis. They left the great cavern of the city to enter the narrow tunnel again, back in the direction where Flint had entered. He had no illusions that they meant to release him, however.
This thought was confirmed when the silent march turned abruptly into a narrow, forbidding cavern that branched off of the main tunnel.
You've been in worse predicaments than this, Flint told himself, although he was at a loss to remember one.
The captain stopped at the lip of a dark, yawning chasm.
The edge of the pit was stony, like the floor, and dropped away suddenly. Flint wondered briefly what had caused the curious scratches around the lip, but the answers that oc curred to him quickly made him drop that line of thinking.
The pit opening was quite large, he noted, the far side being hard to distinguish in the darkness, even with his dwarven vision. The sides looked gravelly and crumbly — impossible to climb, Flint concluded. The vertical sides angled slightly, forming a rough chute.
The derro guards were arrayed in a semicircle around the Aghar and Flint. Perian stood several paces away. Flint got the distinct feeling that she was waiting for something.
Before long they heard the sound of another approach, though it could hardly be called a march. A footfall was fol lowed by a scraping sound. This pattern was repeated, over and over. Finally, Flint saw why.
The dwarf who entered the cavern was the most repulsive example of the derro race Flint had ever seen. This gro tesqueness came from far more than the derro's distorted posture, or his thin lips seemingly fixed in a permanent, cruel sneer. It was more than the straggly beard or thin, oily hair.
It was the eyes.
Those horrid orbs locked onto Flint, opened wide in a white stare of almost insectlike detachment. But when they flashed with hatred, their intensity blasted Flint like air across a furnace.
"You are the hill dwarf," the creature spat, the last two words sounding like a curse.
Flint maintained his composure, though he knew he could not conceal his revulsion. "And you must be Pitrick," said Flint.
The derro guards stepped back, creating a path for Pitrick to Flint. Though the hill dwarf was certain he had never seen this derro before, there was something about the medallion that hung around his neck…