“I’m going back inside,” I said.
Paulo sighed. “I’ll watch then. Best be quick.”
I nodded and stepped out of the laurel thicket, only to have something large and fast and heavy slam into my head. As the darkness closed in, I caught a hazy glimpse of a knobby cheekbone and grinning yellow teeth.
CHAPTER 14
One tentative finger on the throbbing knot that was my temple sufficed to remind me of the thick wooden stick I’d seen coming at my face when I stepped out of the laurel thicket. The manacles had come later, as well as the fiery laceration about my neck that felt like someone had started to slice my head off, but changed his mind halfway. My eyes didn’t seem to be working. I hoped that was a result of the sticky glop that coated them - probably blood from my head. Though I was wickedly thirsty, anxiety enabled me to muster enough spit to wipe it off and reassure myself that I could still see.
I was neither in the amethyst cave nor in the garden of the Source. A dungeon would be more apt a name. Comigor Keep had housed two levels of dungeons, long abandoned in the days when I would explore them, crawling through rotted straw and pools of murky sludge to play at knights and sieges. This dungeon looked and smelled disturbingly well used.
My cell was small, its stone walls relieved only by an iron door with a barred window set into it. Somewhere beyond the door was a blazing torch that sent dancing shadows through the bars. The floor was straw-covered stone, not clean, but dry, at least. My wrists and ankles were chained to the rear wall of the cell, loose enough that I could sit, lie down, or stand as I pleased.
The chains clinked heavily as I staggered to my feet. Standing up allowed me to peer through the barred window, but I quickly decided sitting was preferable. My head spun like a whirlpool. Besides, I didn’t like what I saw when I stood: more cells like mine across the way, two dark-stained flogging posts standing sentinel in between, and a wooden rack with a variety of whips, straps, hooks, and other metal implements hanging on it. I sank back to the straw, just as happy not to know whatever else lay beyond my field of vision. I’d used such things in Zhev’Na and needed no reminders. The place stank of untimely death.
“Hello,” I called out, as authoritatively as I could manage from my swollen face. “Is anyone there? I want an explanation!”
“Not bloody likely.” The faint voice came from somewhere beyond my cell door.
A knot in my gut loosened a bit, and I rested the back of my head on the wall. “Are you all right?”
“Been better. Should of kept my mouth shut early on, I guess. Knew it.”
Venturing to my feet again, I stretched my chains to their limit and squinted through the barred window. He sat at the foot of the second flogging post facing away from me. His hands were secured behind the post to a chain that dangled from a beam over his head, twisting his arms up awkwardly behind his back, and bending him forward so that his head almost touched his knees.
“How’d we get here?”
“The old man’s quick… give him that.” Paulo’s speech was tight, halting, breathless. He must be hurting. “Had you snoring and a noose around your neck before I could get untangled from the bush. Told me the cord would take your head off if I didn’t carry you back through the portal real careful. Sorry. Didn’t believe him at first.”
“I’m all right. So we’re back in the Blue Tower?”
“I took you as far as the stair. Maintainers come… hauled you off. Don’t remember much after that. Woke up here and wished I hadn’t. He’s wicked afraid of you.”
“He believes I’m the king.”
“You heard… in the cave. Not much mistake about it.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Best make sense of it. In a hurry, maybe. They’re not even asking me any - Oh, demonshit… ” He began retching violently.
“Hold on. I’ll get us out of here.”
After a little while, I couldn’t hear him any more. Not even a moan.
“Hey, are you all right? Paulo!” No amount of shouting or rattling my chains roused him. I almost broke my wrists jerking on the cursed manacles.
The Guardian despised Paulo. I remembered his question to the Source about insolent strangers. I had to get Paulo away before the bastard killed him. But I had nothing to work with. My cell was absolutely bare. Not a spoon, not a pebble, not anything to use. No weak links in my chains. My wrists were already raw.
That left only one way to do anything in a hurry, no matter how much I hated it. I focused my attention on the shackles that bound me to the wall, hearing the words the Lord Notole would have used to teach me: Mold your thoughts around the iron. See it. Feel it. Hear it. Take in its essence of brittle strength, of holding, of restraint and connection. Now reach for power… draw it together… shape it to your desire… thrust it between the links and wrench them apart…
Nothing happened.
Pitiful beggar… Try again. I worked harder, shoving aside my worries about Paulo and maintainers and Singlars, concentrating only on the work, drawing together everything I knew of such enchantments, reaching for whatever power I could find while keeping my back against the door in my mind, and my thoughts as far as possible from the Lords of Zhev’Na. No better result.
Demonfire, how could I have nothing? Maybe sorcery didn’t work in the Bounded or it was dampened by some binding enchantment around the cell or the dungeon. Surely I’d know whether or not something like mordemar was hampering me; it would have eaten away half my mind as it had done to the Dar’Nethi slaves in Zhev’Na.
A faint moan came from beyond the cell door.
“Paulo! Come on, answer me! Wake up!” If sheer will and effort could have broken chains or pulled down a stone wall, I would have been free at once.
Silence.
Try again. Dropping to my knees and closing my eyes, I delved deep inside my mind, clawing for any scrap of power. Something had to be there. I was Dar’Nethi. I tore through my stores of knowledge and experience, pushed past the evidence of my senses, tossed aside sounds and images and memories, seeking the power born in me because I was my father’s son, the power nurtured and grown in me because I was the Lords’ favored pupil.
Deep… very deep… something huge and unidentifiable began to expand within me, crushing my lungs until I could not breathe. Swelling my chest until I felt as wide as Ob. Stretching my skin to the verge of ripping. Filling my veins until I must surely spray blood from my fingertips. My eyes felt pushed out of their sockets, and my head seemed to split in two until I could see myself cringing in terror against the wall of my cell while still feeling the enormous pressure within.
Horrified, certain that this was exactly what I had feared, some intrusive power of the Lords, I fought to push the monstrous thing back where I’d found it. Control. I needed control.
It required every thread of will and strength I could muster to bury the monster again. But, after much too long a time, bury it I did.
“Gods and demons, Paulo, I can’t… ” I was on all fours, my head drooping, sweat dripping from my face and neck. My breath came in wheezing gasps; I could scarcely even whisper. “Wake up, Paulo. Please, wake up.”
Somewhere amid the slowing beats of my heart sounded a dull thud, accompanied by a soft groan. Hanging onto the wall, knees wobbling, I got to my feet again, strained forward, and peered out of my cell.
Paulo couldn’t possibly answer me. Two of the Guardian’s thugs had unlocked him from the suspended chain and thrown him on the floor between the flogging posts. Bloody stripes crisscrossed his back and shoulders. He had curled into a ball, and even as I watched, the taller of the two guards aimed his heavy boot at Paulo’s head.