“We believe that there are traitors, here, in the Keep,” Magda told her. “I think they had you put down here to keep you from helping our people.”
“I thought that I had made the worst mistake of my life in coming here,” Naja said, shaking her head. “I’m glad to learn that what I believed really is true, that there are good people here, as I had heard. But maybe it is not that there are traitors here.”
Magda frowned. “What are you talking about? Why would the men who captured you put you down here, if they weren’t collaborators with those in the Old World?”
She looked from Magda, to Merritt, and back to Magda. “Maybe dream walkers possess them and made them do it.”
Merritt stiffened. “Do you think that could be what is really going on?”
“It’s possible. Dream walkers can make people do terrible things.”
Magda let out a sigh. “We don’t know what is really going on. That’s why we came down here looking for you. We hope you can help us learn the truth.”
“If this place is shielded,” Naja said, “then maybe in here we are safe from the dream walkers hearing us.”
“That’s possible,” Merritt said. “The dungeon is heavily protected with some of the most powerful suppression shields ever created.”
“Your sword has a newly created form of magic,” Magda said. “It works down here in spite of the shields. The dream walkers were likely also created after these shields, so the shields may not be able to protect us from them.”
She cast a meaningful look at Naja.
Naja caught her meaning. “If one of them found me and was in my mind, watching us, I wouldn’t know it.”
Magda looked up at Merritt. “We can’t trust that the bond will work through the shields. We only know for sure that it works when not shielded. We dare not take a chance. Before we talk, we’d better first get her out of here and then get her protected from the dream walkers.”
“She’s right,” Naja said. “If you have a protection that works, then we need to get out of here and use it.”
Merritt lifted his sword a few inches and then let it drop back into its scabbard, making sure that the weapon was clear.
“As soon as you feel strong enough to go, we’re ready. We’re glad to have you on our side in the war, Naja. And we do need your help,” Merritt added. “Just as soon as we heal you.”
“If there are traitors in the Keep, spies who are working for Emperor Sulachan, and not merely dream walkers using people, then you need my help more than you realize.”
Magda didn’t like the sound of that.
Before she could say anything more, Naja started sinking again toward the ground. Both Magda and Merritt held her up.
“We need to get out of here,” Merritt said to Magda. “I think that she’s as recovered as she is going to get until I can heal her. We can’t wait any longer. We need to get her out of here, bonded, and healed. She’s strong, but her injuries are serious. It can’t wait any longer.”
“He’s right,” Naja said through gritted teeth from a stitch of pain. “I’m able to stand, now. Let’s go.”
Magda nodded. “We’ll help hold you up as best we can, but it’s narrow and you’ll have to be strong for a little bit longer. Merritt can carry you once we’re out of the dungeon.”
“Thank you both,” Naja managed between gasps of increasing pain.
Chapter 74
Now that the surge of excitement from being cut down from the chains was wearing off, it was clear that Naja’s strength was flagging. By the twitches of her brow, Magda could see that even though she didn’t complain, she was enduring increasingly serious waves of pain. Her determination was keeping her moving better than Magda would have thought possible.
Naja had difficulty trying to make it out through the small doorway of her cell. It was proving easier to stand than to bend. Merritt held an arm on the outside of the doorway while Magda, still in the inner cell, held her other arm. After Naja was through, Merritt picked the woman up in his arms and carried her across the outer room. He stopped before the outer door, still holding Naja in his arms.
He gestured with a tip of his head. “Check outside,” he whispered to Magda.
Magda carefully stuck her head out of the doorway and peered into the darkness.
“It’s too dark to see,” she told him.
“Take the light. I’ll carry her.”
Magda lifted the heavy glass light sphere from his hand. Merritt rearranged his hold on Naja while Magda stuck the light out into the passageway, checking. She signaled to Merritt that she didn’t see anything.
Naja wrapped her arms around his neck to help hold on as he bent low to pass through the slightly larger outer doorway and follow Magda into the narrow tunnel. Merritt was easily able to carry the woman, but in places it was so narrow that he had to turn sideways and even then it was a tight squeeze.
“How are we going to get her past the guards?” Merritt asked as he followed behind Magda.
Magda looked back over her shoulder without slowing. “I guess we bluff our way out the same way we bluffed our way in.”
Merritt looked more than a little skeptical. “You really think they’ll go for that with us trying to leave with her?”
“I’ll tell them that we have to take her to my soon-to-be new husband because he personally wants to question her.”
Merritt let out a sigh as if to say how unhappy he was with such a sketchy plan, and that he didn’t think for a minute that it was going to work.
“Unless you have a better idea,” she said.
“We can try it. You know my backup plan.”
Magda hadn’t liked his backup plan of killing the guards, but now that she’d seen the condition Naja was in, Merritt’s suggestion that they might have to kill the guards was not sounding like nearly such a bad idea. She still didn’t know, though, if the two guards actually had anything to do with what had happened to Naja. They might be nothing more than they seemed: guards who didn’t know what was really going on.
Before they reached the outer doorway to the dungeon entrance, where the two guards would be waiting, Merritt came to a halt.
“Do you think you can walk?” he asked Naja in a quiet voice. “Just until we get past the two guards? I may need to get at my sword.”
She nodded. “I’m getting some of my strength back. Put me down.”
He set her on her bare feet. For a moment Magda wondered if the woman was going to be able to stand, but she steadied herself and with an effort straightened her back.
“I’ll go first and do the talking,” Magda whispered. “Naja, stay close behind me. We’re going to try to walk you right out of here before they have a chance to argue.”
The three of them made their way silently the remaining distance down the stone tunnel toward the light coming from the outer door. The lamplight from the doorway was a relief, because that meant the heavy iron door was still standing open. Magda hiked up her skirts and boldly stepped over the raised threshold out to the area where the guards waited.
Naja’s hand lightly touched Magda’s back for guidance as she stayed close behind.
The two burly men stood waiting, one a little in front of the other, blocking the iron stairway up out of the dungeon. The big man in front had his thumbs hooked on his belt. The men were close enough that she could smell how badly they stunk.
There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver. Magda hoped that Merritt had enough room to use his sword if needed. If he did have to go for his sword, Magda intended to pull Naja out of the way and protect her.
“Well, well,” the guard in front said. A depraved grin widened as he spotted Naja in Magda’s shadow. “Look who we have here out in the light.”