With the decision came a sense of relief. Murtagh nodded, put away the coin, and hurried on his way, feeling fit to face the trials of an uncertain future.
Would Thorn agree? Murtagh felt sure he would, once he shared his mind with the dragon. Unless, of course—
Someone collided with him from the side. He shoved the person away, ready to kick and punch and fight.
“Murtagh!” exclaimed a low, urgent voice.
Dismay gripped Murtagh as he saw the same unpleasantly familiar face he had spotted outside the citadel not two days past: pale Lyreth in his drab finery. And surrounding them were Lyreth’s guards: six burly men with necks like bulls, the faint whiff of rotting flesh clinging to them. Ex-soldiers of the Empire, spell-warped to feel no pain.
“Murtagh, it is you,” said Lyreth, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Murtagh clenched his teeth. Thorn’s alarm was a rising note of anxiety at the back of his mind. He considered bolting, but there were other people on the street, and he saw a squad of soldiers two houses away, marching toward them….
Lyreth drew closer, his eyes darting about, the whites showing with some combination of fear and concern. “I thought I saw you a few days ago, but I wasn’t certain. What are you doing here? Don’t you know what they’ll do to you if they catch you?”
“I need to go,” said Murtagh, and started to pull back.
Lyreth caught him by the sleeve and held him with a surprisingly strong grip. His breath smelled of lavender and peach liqueur, but it wasn’t enough to conceal the sharp stench of nervous sweat from under his arms. “You can’t stay out here. The magicians of Du Vrangr Gata are everywhere, and there are elves in the city. Elves! Come, come, hurry. You’ll be safe at my house. Hurry!”
Murtagh! growled Thorn.
I know!
The guards closed in around Murtagh, preventing him from stepping away as Lyreth pulled him up the street. And Murtagh had no choice but to accompany his unexpected and thoroughly unwelcome companions.
CHAPTER XIV
Duel of Wits
Murtagh kept careful track of the streets as Lyreth hurried him through the city. If he had to run, he wanted to know exactly where he was.
Lyreth brought him to a small stone house—one of the few all-stone structures in Gil’ead—tucked away in the corner of a square that was surrounded by cramped log-built dwellings jammed cheek by jowl. The ground was dirt, and there was a watering trough in the center for horses. The whole place felt dark, sheltered, and somewhat decrepit, and the only other living creature to be seen was a bedraggled rooster pecking at the dried mud outside what looked to be a candlemaker’s shop.
Lyreth used an iron key to unlock the front door of the stone house, and then he waved Murtagh in. “Quickly, quickly now.”
Wary—and somewhat curious—Murtagh entered. As dangerous as the situation was, his desire to know was stronger than his sense of self-preservation. How were the former members of Galbatorix’s nobility surviving? In a different set of circumstances, he knew he would have been the one hiding like a rabbit trying to escape a hungry hawk.
The building’s shabby face belied its luxurious interior. Dwarven rugs covered the tiled floor. Carved balustrades lined a marble staircase that climbed to a second story. Dramatic portraits hung on the walls—portraits that were too detailed, too lifelike, to have been created without the help of magic. A gold and silver chandelier hung from the wood-braced ceiling, and cut gems dangled from the chandelier in a rainbow of tears.
“This way,” said Lyreth, leading Murtagh past the anteroom into a modestly sized but beautifully decorated dining hall. Silken tapestries depicting battles between dragons, elves, and humans adorned the walls, and the candlesticks on the long table looked to be solid gold.
“Please, make yourself comfortable.” Lyreth gestured at a velvet-backed chair at one end of the table.
Murtagh counted thirteen chairs around the table, including his own. The number gave him a cold chill of realization.
He took off his bedroll and set it down by the table, close at hand. Then he gathered his cloak and sat. “What is this place?” he asked. He suspected he already knew the answer.
“A place of safety,” Lyreth said, seating himself. He waved at the guards, and two of them took up posts by the entrance while the others filed out of the hall. “Formora had it built as a sanctuary from Galbatorix if ever the need arose. Also”—he indicated the chairs—“as a location where the Forsworn could meet in private, away from the king’s prying eyes.”
Formora. She had been an elf, and one of Galbatorix’s favorites among the Forsworn. By all accounts, she had been cunning, cruel, and capricious to the extreme, even as measured by the standards of her fellow traitors. Murtagh remembered Lord Varis telling him that, when she was provoked, her habit had been to cut her foes apart with magic, piece by piece…while keeping them alive for as long as possible. That, and she had been overly fond of candied fruits.
Murtagh glanced around the room. He’d heard of such places before. Secret hiding holes where the Forsworn could protect themselves, if not from the king, then at least from the king’s other servants. Galbatorix’s followers—willing or otherwise—were hardly known for their cooperative nature, and the king had encouraged their backstabbing and bloody machinations with often undisguised glee. The walls of the house would be laced with powerful wards, and more than wards: traps that would far exceed the strength and complexity of those he had encountered in the catacombs. The whole structure was probably riddled with charged gems.
“Were they ever truly free of Galbatorix’s gaze?” Murtagh said.
Lyreth shrugged. “Were any of us?” He clicked his fingers, and a manservant in a fine woolen coat hurried into the hall, his polished bootheels tapping a precise tempo against the hard floor. The man placed a silver platter on the table and offloaded a decanter of cut crystal, a bottle of wine, two gold goblets, and a tiered tray of assorted delicacies: sweetmeats, aspic with candied fruit, bite-sized berry pies, and what looked to Murtagh like honey-glazed pastries.
His mouth watered. It had been well over a year since he’d tasted anything resembling proper fine food, and he found himself suddenly nostalgic for the flavors of his childhood.
The servant poured the wine, and then brought Murtagh one of the goblets as well as the tray of delicacies so that he might make his own selection.
Murtagh took some of the aspic, a berry pie, and two honey-glazed pastries. The servant then attended to Lyreth, who selected a sweetmeat and nothing more.
“You may go,” said Lyreth, and the servant bowed and retired from the room.
A honey-glazed pastry was halfway to Murtagh’s mouth when thoughts of poison and spells stayed his hand. Lyreth noticed and, in an offhand manner, said, “The food is safe, if you’re wondering. The wine too.” And he gave Murtagh a crooked smile before taking a sip from his own goblet.
Murtagh deliberated for a moment and then popped the pastry into his mouth. It melted with sweet, buttered deliciousness, and he fought to keep his pleasure from showing.
“My family acquired this place some years ago,” said Lyreth, nibbling at the sweetmeat on his plate. “We kept it as a safeguard against exactly this sort of eventuality.”
“Mmm.” Murtagh tasted the wine; he recognized the vintage. A red grown in the vineyards of the south, near Aroughs, bottled near fifty years ago. He doubted more than a few dozen bottles remained in the land. “You honor me,” he said, raising the goblet.