Lost in the Palace was not a matter for panic so I didn’t. I confess to a certain amount of frustration, though.
You would think my situation vulnerable to the application of common sense. I sure thought so.
One good rule proved to be not to enter any corridor dustier than the one I was using. Another was to avoid apparent shortcuts religiously. They never led anywhere I wanted to go. Most important was, don’t yield to emotion or frustration.
The Palace is the only place in the world where you can step through a doorway and end up on a different floor. I found out the hard way. And it was not any sort of elf magic. It came from the place being a conglomeration of ages and ages of add-ons built upon very uneven ground.
My anxiety reached the point where I elected to pursue what seemed the wimp route. I decided to go down to ground level, find one of the Palace’s thousand postern doors, which can be opened only from the inside, and get out into the street. Out there I would know where I was. I would walk around to the entrance I used regularly. Then I would be home.
It is really dark in there in the middle of the night. I found that out after I stumbled descending a stair and dropped my lamp.
It broke, of course. And for a while there was a lot of light down below. But soon the fire burned out.
Oh, well. It was a certainty that there would be a door to the street below. The stairwell curved down against an exterior wall. I had leaned out a window to make sure before I ever entered it.
Descending an ancient stair that spirals isn’t easy when there are no handrails and you cannot see what you are doing. Nevertheless, I got to the bottom without breaking any bones, although I did slip a couple of times and endured one long spell of vertigo after passing through the smoke from the burned lamp fuel.
Eventually the stair ended. I felt around for a door. As I did so I frowned. What was I doing? Took me a moment to reach back into my head and bring up the answer.
I found the door, felt around for a release. I found an old fashioned wooden latch bar, which was not what I expected at all.
I yanked, pushed. The door swung outward.
Wrong answer to your problem, Murgen.
Within that fastness nothing moves, though at times mists of light shimmer as they leak over from beyond the gates of dream. Shadows linger in corners. And way down inside the core of the place, in the feeblest throb of the heart of darkness, there is life of a sort.
A massive wooden throne stands upon a dais at the heart of a chamber so vast only a sun could light it all. Upon that throne a body sprawls, veiled by shoals of shadow, pinioned by silver knives driven through its feet and hands. Sometimes that body sighs softly in its sleep, impelled by bitter dreams acrawl behind its sightless eyes.
This is survival of a sort.
In the night, when the wind no longer licks through its unglazed windows, nor prances along its untenanted halls, nor whispers to its million creeping shadows, that fortress is filled with the silence of stone.
55
No will.
No identity. At home in the house of pain.
56
There you are! Where have you been? Welcome back to . The house of pain?
57
The house of pain. I went there but do not remember the journey or the visit.
I was on hands and knees on broken pavement. My palms and knees hurt. I lifted a hand. My palm was torn. Blood oozed from a dozen abrasions. My mind was numb. I raised my other hand, began picking out bits of paving brick.
Fifty yards away the side of a building glowed olive, pulsating. A circle of masonry blew outward. Shadows sprang out of the darkness. With weapons bare they scrambled through the hole. Shouts and the clang of metal came from inside.
I got up and wandered that direction, vaguely interested but not sure why, not even thinking definable thoughts.
“Hey!” A shadow at that hole stared at me. I did not yell so that must have been the shadow. “That you, Murgen?”
I kept walking, head spinning. My course curved to the right. I banged into the side of a building. After that I had a sure means of navigation. Like a drunk I steered by keeping one hand on the wall.
“Here he is!” The shadow pointed at me.
“Candles?”
“Yeah. You all right? What did they do to you?”
I had little pains everywhere. I felt like I had been stabbed and cut and burned. “Who? Nobody did anything?...” Did they? “Where am 1? When?”
“Huh?”
A man leaned through the side of the building. He wore a scarf wrapped around his face. Only his eyes were visible. He studied me momentarily, popped back inside. Somebody in there yelled.
People jumped into the street. Some carried bloody weapons. All were masked. A couple grabbed my arms and took off.
We scurried through darkened streets in a nighted city and no one would answer my panted questions so for a while I had no idea when I was, or where. Then we crossed an open space from which I glimpsed the citadel of Dejagore.
That answered my most immediate questions.
But a new crop sprouted. Why were we outside the Company’s part of town? How had I gotten there? Why didn’t I have any memories of this? I recalled sitting with Ky Dam, secretly lusting after his granddaughter...
The men accompanying me removed their wraps and masks. They were Company. Plus Uncle Doj and a couple of Nyueng Bao sprites. We ducked into an alleyway that led to Nyueng Bao territory. “Slow down,” I gasped. “What’s going on?”
“Somebody snatched you,” Candles explained. “At first we thought Mogaba did it.”
“Huh?”
“Shadowspinner’s taken his whole army off after Lady. We could walk away if we wanted. We thought he decided to take a hostage.”
I did not believe Spinner was gone. “Uncle Doj. The last thing I remember was sipping tea with the Speaker.”
“You began to behave oddly, Stone Soldier.”
I growled. He did not apologize.
“The Speaker thought perhaps you had been drinking before you arrived. He instructed Thai Dei to take you home. He was offended. You proved to be such a burden that Thai Dei was unable to defend himself when you were attacked. He was beaten badly but managed to get home with word. Your friends began looking for you as soon as we informed them.” His tone suggested that he wondered why they had bothered. “They seem more skilled than they pretend. They pinpointed you quickly. You were not in the citadel, which is where Mogaba would have confined you.”
“How did I get clear across town?” I winced. In addition to the other pains I had a hangover-type headache. I had been drugged.
Nobody had an answer for me.
“Is this the same night, Uncle?”
“Yes. But many hours later.”
“And it definitely wasn’t Mogaba that grabbed me?”
“No. There were no Nar in that place. In fact, soon after you were taken someone attacked Mogaba, too. They may have planned to murder him.”
“Jaicuri?” Maybe the locals wanted to get to the heart of the problem.
“Perhaps.” He did not sound convinced. Maybe he should have taken prisoners.
“Where’s One-Eye?” Only One-Eye could have ripped that hole in the wall back there.
Candles told me, “Covering our backtrail.”
“Good.” I was near normal now. Which meant I was as confused as ever, I guess. Whoever grabbed me had done some slick work to sneak through Nyueng Bao territory unnoticed.
Uncle Doj divined my thoughts. “We have not determined how the villains managed to ambush you, nor how the others got so close to Mogaba. Those four did pay in blood.”
“He killed them?”
“By all reports it was an epic battle, four against one.”
“Goody for Mogaba. Even he deserves a little happiness in life.” We were approaching the tenement that masqueraded as Company headquarters. I invited everybody in. The boys got a fire going. When One-Eye showed up I suggested he see if he could not scare up some beer, that I had heard there was some floating around and we sure could use a drink.