The three were bundled into a high-sided cart. Alinea and Durwin edged Trenn carefully to the bottom of the cart and settled, as best they could, beside him.
“Not a word about the others,” Durwin warned in a whisper.
“Take them away!” yelled the rider with the wicked scar, who seemed to be the commander of the company on the shore.
The cart bumped off into the woods, rocking as if to overturn. Neither the driver of the cart nor the four accompanying soldiers paid the slightest attention. The cart passed through a thin, unhealthy wood made up of wiry trees and straggles of vines. Rocks with sharp edges thrust out of the ground making the going exceedingly strenuous. And though it was sunrise, the dire wood seemed to banish the light, steeped instead in perpetual gloom.
“This is a cheerless place,” noted the Queen.
“So it is. Any place the necromancer calls his own is cheerless; and, I fear, a good deal worse.”
The cart and its contents bumped and rumbled over rock and root. Eventually they reached a feeble trail scratched into the stony soil. The surrounding wood thinned as they proceeded along.
It soon became apparent that they followed a struggling brook; the splash of its churning water could be heard close by. Rude hills rose on either side covered with dense, though sickly, vegetation of unpleasant sorts. An air of quiet doom hung over the valley which they trod. Only the forlorn call of an occasional bird and the groan and whine of the wagon’s ungreased wheels broke the oppressive silence.
After an hour or longer-time seemed irrelevant in this place-the cart turned onto a wider path and began a steep ascent. Alinea looked round with wide, frightened eyes.
“Do not be afraid, my Lady,” soothed Durwin. “He is not so terrible that he cannot be faced. Evil always misrepresents itself. Pray instead for Theido and Ronsard; they may yet escape. That is greatly to be hoped.”
“I will do as you ask, though I have not the knowledge of the god that you possess.”
“It matters not what words one uses. He hears the heart itself.”
After a long ascent the cart rolled to a level place, a wide ledge of stone carved out of the steep mountain. From there, peering over the cart’s high sides, the unhappy prisoners could see the hunched hills through which they had been traveling. The sun was well up, and yet seemed dim and far away. A sulky mist draped the hills and gathered thick in the miserable valleys. The land seemed shroud-wrapped and forsaken.
From somewhere a keening wail rose into the air like a lost soul crying for release.
“Just a gull,” replied Durwin looking above. But his tone lacked conviction.
Once more the silence crept back. And then “Ohhh… ohhh…” a low moan escaped into the air. Durwin looked at the Queen and then at Trenn. An eyelid flickered. A finger twitched.
“So it is! He is coming round.” Durwin, hands tied behind him, could do nothing to ease Trenn’s entrance back into the realm of the living. But he bent his head close to Trenn’s ear and whispered, “Rest easy now. No need to fear. We are with you. Take your time.”
Presently the warder opened his eyes and stiffly turned his head. “Trussed up like chickens, aye,” he said.
“Oh, Trenn. You are all right.”
“Yes… ohh,” he winced as he tried to move to sit up. “But I may be better with some looking to.”
“You have had a horrid gash,” said Alinea. “Just lay back.”
“Where are the others?”
“Shh!” Durwin warned.
“We do not know-could not find them this morning.” He looked doubtful. “But we had no time to look.”
“Where are we? Nimrood’s isle?”
“It appears we are on our way to meet him.”
“You should not talk so,” whispered Alinea. “Rest now while you may.”
No one spoke for a long time after that. Each nursed his own thoughts and discouraged the fear which grew like a dull ache with each step closer to Nimrood’s foul roost.
Finally, “There it is!” Durwin inclined his head past the driver of the cart. Alinea turned and Nimrood’s castle, like a blackened skull set upon a rock, swung into view.
“What a ghastly ruin,” said Alinea.
“So it is.”
Black stone battlements rose straight up from the rock of the mountain. A maze of stairs and dark entrances carved in the stone like the tunneling of worms weaved throughout. Odd-shaped towers of irregular heights thrust themselves above the great domed vault of the hall. Empty holes of doorways and windows stared like eyeless sockets out from the squat jumble of apartments around the dome. Dark shapes of birds flapped through the cool air above the castle and shrieked at the approach of the cart.
The winding road to the castle had here been built upon the back of a ridge. The road, only wide enough for the wagon with a man on either side, twisted up sharply. The mountain fell away in a steep run to either side. The ridge ended in an abrupt precipice just before the long, narrow, iron-studded drawbridge.
The cart lurched to a halt before the raised drawbridge. The chasm, falling down in a sheer drop from a breathless height, stretched before them. Below, ringing like the clash of sword upon shield, a noisy cataract fought its way to lower ground.
With a prolonged groan the drawbridge began to lower. It thumped down with a hollow knock and the cart rumbled over it; each creak of the cart was magnified; each step of the horse’s ironclad hoof sounded a death knell which rolled away to echo in the chasm below.
Squeaking in protest, the cart bumped across the drawbridge and through the dark gatehouse under the baleful stare of an owl perched in the beams. The gatehouse was as dark and damp as a cave. Water dripped from the ceiling and trickled down the sides of the stone walls with a snickering sound.
Trenn, now sitting up in the cart, let out a low whistle which reverberated through the tunnel. “It is hollow beneath this road,” he said after listening to the echo die away. “I would not like to find what lurks down there.”
“Courage, friends. Our enemy seeks to break the spirit. Resist him. Do not give in to fear.”
“I fear no mortal man,” said Trenn. A tremble shook his voice. “But this sorcerer-”
“Is a mortal man like any other. He has powers, yes, but he can be beaten. He can be defied.”
“The King is here,” said Alinea. Though Durwin could not see her in the darkness, from the sound of her voice he knew she must be close to tears. “How long, oh, how long?-this wretched, hideous place.”
“Take heart, my Queen. The King is strong and, unless I am far wrong, his imprisonment has not been unbearable. He is able to withstand.”
“Your words are well spoken,” sniffed Alinea. “I am his Queen and I, too, shall withstand.”
The cart rolled suddenly out of the dark gatehouse tunnel and into the light of a misshapen and unkempt courtyard. A man dressed in a sable cloak, dark tunic and trousers with high black boots was waiting.
“Bring them,” he said and turned on his heel and disappeared into the yawning entrance of the castle. The prisoners were handed down and marched through a maze of corridors and passageways. The castle seemed deserted, so few servants did they meet. Without ceremony they were thrust unexpectedly into the throne room of Nimrood.
The sorcerer awaited them, eyes half-closed as if in a daydream, sprawled upon his great black throne as if flung there at the height of some monstrous passion that left him limp. Oily torches behind the throne spewed thick, black smoke into the room and cast a slippery glare roundabout.
“Welcome to Karsh, my friends,” the sorcerer mocked. He neither opened his eyes nor lifted a hand in acknowledgment of their presence. “I have been waiting for you. I have only to wait. In time everything comes to me.”
“Even death and destruction-the end of your schemes,” replied Durwin calmly.