Until they came in sight of the horror that was their destination, a fortress that was black and massive and terrifying, and the boy knew instinctively that this was a place from which no one ever returned. Up the winding road they went to the summit of the bluff, and then huge iron gates and craggy walls swallowed them up. They were hauled from their cages while their captors and their animals howled and huffed and snorted and growled and breathed on them from so close at hand, they could feel their heat and smell their odors.
Dragged into the bowels of the formidable keep, away from the last real light and air he or the Ard Rhys would probably ever see again, they were brought into a windowless room and chained to a wall, side by side, their arms and legs spread, their torsos pinned in place, fastened so that they could barely move and still could not speak. Redden remembered the hard cold feel of the stone pressing up against his back as he sagged against it, exhausted and deeply ashamed of what had become of him. He remembered his fear as he waited to discover his fate, far away from his home and his brother, deep in a savage land he barely understood. He remembered the companions and friends who had stumbled unwittingly into the Forbidding with him, all either dead or lost now. Gone.
He remembered exchanging a single look with the Ard Rhys, a look that said more than any words could hope to express.
The Straken Lord had entered the room then, his minions bowing or dropping to their knees instantly, acknowledging his power and position without hesitation or restraint. Tael Riverine was big and powerfully built, standing close to seven feet, his body studded with spikes and rippling with muscle. He wore leather garments that barely covered him, all of them draped with colorful feathers and ribbons, and there were blades strapped everywhere. His nearly featureless face was expressionless and his blue eyes hard and bright with purpose.
He gave Redden a brief glance and then turned to gaze for a longer time on Khyber. “You are not her,” he said finally.
She stared at him, not comprehending.
“You are not the Straken Queen!” he roared with such fury that everyone cringed away from him. “Tarwick!”
A lean feral creature that looked as if a strong wind might blow it away bounded from the crowd of onlookers and dropped to the floor in front of his lord. “Master?”
“Fit them with the collars.”
The creature scrambled up, produced a pair of metal collars, and locked them in place about the prisoners’ necks. Then it released Redden and Khyber from the wall, unshackling them from their chains, freeing their arms and legs, and letting them drop to their knees.
“You wear conjure collars,” the Straken Lord told them. “While you wear them, you must obey me. They will teach you to do so. Disobedience or disrespect will result in punishment.” Khyber Elessedil started to rise. “No, stay where you are. On your knees. Bow to me.”
What followed was the lesson he had intended to teach them all along—a lesson that was to establish his dominance and their servitude. When Khyber continued to rise, the Lord of the Jarka Ruus gestured casually and she jerked upright with a scream, consumed by a terrible pain. As she collapsed and Redden tried to catch her, he was treated to a similar demonstration. The pain was excruciating, radiating out from the collar all through his body, and he dropped to the floor and lay writhing in shock for long seconds.
“This is how it will be if you fail to do as I wish,” Tael Riverine advised. “If you fail to call me Master. If you speak out of turn and without being asked. If you attempt to remove the collar for any reason. If you try to use your magic.”
He saw the stunned looks on their faces. “Yes, I know of the magic you wield. You have been watched and your powers noted. You are no mystery to me. You are only slaves. You are mine to do with as I choose. Do you understand? Answer me.”
Both had murmured, ‘Yes, Master,’ and their servitude had begun in earnest.
It was the beginning of their imprisonment. Since that day they had been confined to separate cells, always kept apart and solitary. They lived within their tiny dark spaces and awaited their Lord’s pleasure. Their magic, which should have served them well, was useless. Redden had tested his early, and the resultant pain had persuaded him not to try again. He had fiddled once with loosening the conjure collar and suffered a similar fate. He assumed it was the same for Khyber. He had examined his cell from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, searching for a way to escape. There was none. He had considered trying to overpower his jailers, but they almost never appeared when he was awake and then only in force.
He wondered anew what had become of Khyber. In that first meeting, Tael Riverine had demanded to know what had become of the Straken Queen, how Khyber dared to call herself Ard Rhys, how she had found her way into the Forbidding, who else knew there was an entry, and so on. Dozens of similar questions were thrown at her, one after the other. When she had failed to answer him fully enough, fast enough, or respectfully enough, he had used the lash of the conjure collar on her until finally she collapsed unconscious at his feet.
He had not bothered with Redden. In truth, the boy was not even sure why he was still alive.
By now, he had come to believe it didn’t matter. His life was over in any event. No one was coming for him. No one knew how to reach him. Not even Railing and Mirai—though he believed they would try—could save him from this.
He looked down at himself. He had not washed since he had been brought here. He had not shaved or cut his hair. He wore the same clothes in which he had been captured. He smelled and he itched from things he did not want to think about. He was miserable all the time, and what small hope he had harbored at the beginning of his misery had long since faded away.
Now and then, he found himself thinking about the reason he had come here in the first place—to search for the missing Elfstones. How far away that seemed. How unimportant. He thought of it as a monumental miscalculation, an effort that never should have been attempted, a foolish and reckless undertaking that had killed more than half their company and left them with nothing to show for their loss.
If he had it to do over again …
But he didn’t have it to do over, so there was no point in dwelling on it. Each time the subject surfaced he quickly let it slip away.
He did, however, wonder frequently about Tesla Dart. What role had she played in the fate of the expedition? Had she arranged their capture or had she tried to warn them away from it? He was uncertain even now. Tesla had appeared and vanished again too often for him to know what to think. It might have been her intention to help them, but she might just as easily have been leading them into a trap.
He had no way of knowing this, just as he had no way of knowing much of anything else, and trying to come to terms with his uncertainty was the worst part of his suffering.
Then, all of a sudden and for no discernible reason, his jailers came for him, accompanied by the creature called Tarwick, and brought him to a room where a tub of hot water waited and allowed him to bathe. Afterward, they cut his hair and gave him clean clothes and hot food. They took him to a different room—still a cell, but with a barred window that allowed in light and fresh air and let him look out over a ragged, rolling landscape as riven and desolate as everything else.
The only favor they did not do for him was to remove the conjure collar, but he had no illusions about that happening. They might be treating him better—relieving a fair amount of his discomfort—but they had no intention of giving him a chance to escape. To emphasize the point, they continued to lock the door to his cell day and night.
This new, improved treatment continued for the better part of a week, and he felt his strength and self-confidence returning. He wondered if similar consideration had been extended to Khyber Elessedil, but he never saw her and no one spoke about her. Once, right at the beginning of his change of circumstances, he tried asking Tarwick what had become of her. But the Straken Lord’s servant quickly put a finger to his lips and lightly touched the collar about Redden’s neck.