“I don’t know,” said Minrah, “but I figured that boded ill for you. I got it the day after I confronted him and demanded your release.”
Cimozjen handed the paper back to Minrah. “Hold for a moment,” he said, espying an Aundairian officer walk toward the trio.
“Excuse me, Minrah Penwright?” said the officer as he closed. He nodded to Cimozjen and Four in turn. “Pardon the intrusion, my good men. Minrah, I thought you should know that we have completed our search of the premises.”
“And …?”
“While we have found several caged beasts, we have not uncovered any direct evidence of enslavement. Certainly nothing that would withstand the Code of Galifar. Yet … that is, perhaps you should accompany me.”
“Captain,” said Minrah, “this is Cimozjen Hellekanus, the man whose saga I told to you. He was held against his will. And this is Four, whom they enslaved from the time he was created until a week or two ago when we freed him.”
The captain glanced at them again. “Pleased to make your acquaintances. You should accompany us as well.”
Cimozjen and Four grabbed their gear. The captain led them through the chambers and hallways beneath the arena until they came to a long corridor with a dozen open archways all along one wall.
The captain gestured them forward. “This is what we found,” he said.
Cimozjen moved down the hall, peering into the open doors. “Yes, this is the sort of room I was kept in. Pallet bed, buckets for food and slop … but I see no manacles. How could they …” His words drifted off as he became aware of the weight of the shield upon his back. Manacles could easily have been unlocked from their footing and dumped into the shield, or into something like it, never to be seen again. He sighed heavily.
He inspected the door, and noted the lack of an interior latch. “There was such a door on my room, but it led not into the hallway, but almost straight into the arena.”
“That’s impossible,” said the captain. “We’ve checked every exit from the arena. They all lead to hallways or common rooms.”
“Magic,” said Minrah. She was standing in a doorway, running her hands up and down the frame. “Runes carved into the frame, but every frame has been marred. I’ll wager that a mage could ensorcel these, connecting them to the arena. That way, the only places prisoners could go would be straight from their pen to the arena and back.”
“There’s more,” said the captain, and he gestured down the hall.
Cimozjen walked slowly along, following the captain’s direction. Two more doors, and he saw what the captain meant. A body lay in the middle of the room in a pool of blood, his face crushed by a spiked instrument.
Cimozjen kneeled down beside the body and placed his fingers on the man’s throat. There was no pulse, but the skin had not yet gone fully cold. “They killed them.”
“Yes, they did,” said the captain. “And they did a thorough job. We can’t identify him by his features, and he has nothing on him to indicate his name or allegiance.”
Cimozjen moved to the next archway. “And another.”
“And more down the hall. Worse yet, there’s a whole room with crates that contain nothing but wrecked warforged just a little further on.”
Cimozjen shook his head. “They killed them all,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Killed them so they’d not tell you they were being held prisoner.”
“You know that, and I know that,” said the captain. “But the Code of Galifar treats these as simple murders. We could perhaps try a diviner or a necromancer, but that’s expensive and the results they can get are spotty at best. And we have hundreds of potential murderers that we’ve arrested, and who knows how many more got away?”
“I saved not even a one of them. They all died.”
“Not the one in the last cell,” said the captain. “You should take a look.”
Cimozjen walked to the last opening and peered in cautiously. There, in the center of the room, stood a man dressed in worn peasant’s clothing. He looked at Cimozjen, not a flicker of recognition in his eye.
“Ripfist!” blurted Cimozjen.
“What?” said Minrah. “Who?”
“They call him Ripfist,” called Cimozjen over his shoulder. “He’s … he’s had monastic training of some sort. A combat monk.”
“A monk?” asked Minrah. “Is he Aundairian?” She scooted quickly down the hall, shielding her eyes from the corpses that lay in the rooms.
Cimozjen looked in his eyes. The man had a glassy stare, deep behind which moved a semblance of consciousness, like the shadow of a leviathan stirring at the bottom of a calm, still lake. “I doubt if he even knows any more,” said Cimozjen.
He moved slowly, subserviently into the room. Ripfist watched him with awareness, but no interest. Cimozjen moved closer, and saw that his hair was a tangled mess on one side of his head. He leaned closer and blew gently, moving a shock of hair enough to see a large jagged scar on the side of his scalp near the front.
He heard Minrah pad into the room behind him and gasp.
“He appears to have taken a nasty blow to the head,” said Cimozjen. “Be careful, though, he still has all his deadly instincts, and there’s no way to tell what might ignite his fury.”
Minrah moved closer and sat on the floor. Cimozjen backed away to the door so as not to crowd Ripfist. Four was walking down the hall to see as well, and Cimozjen gestured for him to remain where he was.
Minrah leaned forward and patted the ground. “Come and sit, please. Can we talk?”
“Talk …” said Ripfist blankly.
“Yes, talk.” She patted the ground again and smiled. “Will you come and sit? Come!”
“Sit,” said Ripfist. His brow clouded for a moment. Slowly, uncertainly, he lowered himself to the floor, sitting on his heels with his hands resting on his thighs.
“My name is Minrah,” she said. She spoke gently, as though to a shy child. “Do you remember your name?”
“No, I … I do-” he tried to say something else, but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. He scrunched up his face in anger and frustration, and looked about the room. It seemed he was almost ready to cry.
“That’s just fine,” said Minrah. “Don’t you worry your head.”
Ripfist raised one hand to his scar. “My … my head, it …” He looked at Minrah and licked his lips. “Sit,” he said with a tentative smile.
“That’s right,” said Minrah. “We’re sitting together, you and I. It’s very nice, isn’t it?”
The smile flickered about his lips again, but never reached his eyes.
“Are you from Aundair? You sound like you are. You have a lovely accent.”
“Aundair,” he echoed, and a genuine warm smile crossed his face.
Minrah looked over her shoulder. “This could be too good to be true, Cimmer. An Aundairian monk? Grouped with the other elites, like Torval? If he’s a member of that secret society, why, the gnomes would-”
“What secret society?” asked Cimozjen quietly.
“I told you about it before, Cimmer,” said Minrah. “Some sort of secret assassin’s cult or something that the gnomes wanted to know more about. They said it was called the Quiet Touch, and they-”
“The Quiet Touch,” said Ripfist. His brow furrowed. He leaned forward and gripped Minrah’s knee.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Minrah. “The Quiet Touch. You know about it?” She placed her hand gently over his. “Were you one of the Quiet Touch?”
“The Quiet Touch,” said Ripfist, pride and confidence making an appearance in his tone even as his eyes darted about. He squeezed Minrah’s knee warmly.
“That’s right,” she said. “The Quiet Touch. Can you tell me anything, anything at all? What do you remember?”
Confusion clouded Ripfist’s face. He dropped his hand from her knee and looked around. “Wh-where …”
“You’ve been a prisoner,” said Minrah. “Do you understand? You were captured, but we-”
Ripfist shook his head, scared. “No capture.”
“Easy, everything’s fine now,” said Minrah compassionately. “You were captured, they held you prisoner, but-”