"Where are we?" asked Oreg after a moment. He didn't loosen his grip on me, but his voice sounded almost normal, if a bit muffled.
"Buril," answered Tosten when he saw that I didn't know. "Garranon's estate."
Garranon was dealing with the Vorsag? It didn't fit what I knew of him, but neither did Bastilla's new persona.
"How did you get here?" Oreg asked. "Where's Bastilla?"
"Bastilla brought us," I said as conversationally as possible when chained up with a man clinging to my leg. "She's responsible for the damage to Tosten. And she's not Ciernack's slave, she's Kariarn's. He seemed to indicate that she'd been altered somehow by the Cholynn—to turn her into his loyal creature. Can that be done?"
"Only if she consented first," he said.
"Did you know that she wasn't what she seemed?"
Oreg pulled away and looked at me finally. Even though the room was dark, his pupils were pinpricks. "I knew she was a mage as soon as she stepped onto Hurog land, stronger than she knew or at least stronger than she would admit to. Beyond that…once such altering as you spoke of is done, it is not an easy thing to detect, not even if you know to look for it."
I nodded. "She fooled me, too. Kariarn called her a chameleon." I smiled at him. "She's like me. She can be anybody she wants to be."
"No." Tosten interrupted abruptly. "Not what she wants to be. I've been thinking about that. You wanted someone to rescue, Penrod and Axiel wanted a lover with no strings. I…she let me talk to her, about how…about things. She stayed away from Ciarra because she couldn't understand what Ciarra wanted. That was how her act worked. As long as we saw what we wanted to see, we didn't look any further."
Oreg nodded, releasing his grip on me entirely so he could look at Tosten. "Ward becomes exactly what he wants to become, usually to the vast irritation of the people around him. He can't get rid of the stubbornness or the honor."
"Or the belief that he has to take care of anyone he meets." Tosten sounded both superior and pleased.
"Tosten," I said. "There are some things you should know—in case you get out of this and I don't. Oreg is not one of Father's by-blows. He was bound to Hurog the day it was built. He's our family ghost—though he's more a mage than a ghost."
Oreg turned betrayed eyes to me—though how else he expected me to explain his recent actions, I don't know. Tosten looked at me almost the same way.
"Oreg's the ghost?" Tosten said. "And you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't know until the day Father died," I replied. "And, well, it seemed as if it were Oreg's story to tell, and he didn't choose to." That didn't seem to soothe either of them, so I changed the subject. "Oreg, could you get us out of here?" I jangled my chains meaningfully.
"Yes, master."
Tosten's eyes widened as Oreg echoed Bastilla's response to Kariarn's orders.
I rolled my eyes. "Don't sulk, Oreg. Tosten, quit looking so—"
A weird mewling moan filled the air, starting high, like a stallion's shrill whistle and then dropping so deep that the stone against my back vibrated.
Oreg came to alert like a hunting dog on the scent. "Basilisk. Where did they find a basilisk?"
"Basilisk?" asked Tosten.
"Shavigmen called them—" Oreg paused, looked suddenly enlightened, and gave me a wry smile. " — stone dragons. Perhaps that is what the Oranstonians call them, too."
"Silverfells's stone dragon?" I asked.
Oreg's eyes dropped. "Basilisks smell like dragons."
"So what's a basilisk?" I asked.
Oreg relaxed gradually. "It's a lizard about four bodylengths from nose to tail and weighs at least four times as much as your horse. It's as smart as a dog or a little better and has a bit of magic."
"What kind?" I asked.
"It turns people to stone." Tosten sounded breathless, but I expect that was as much pain as excitement over Kariarn's creature. "There are a few songs about them. Remember 'Hunt of the Basilisk, Ward?"
He hummed a few notes that sounded vaguely familiar, so I nodded.
"Silly song." Oreg sounded smug. "What predator would turn its food into stone? What it can do is catch your eye and hold you still so it can enjoy a leisurely meal."
"You think Silverfells's stone dragon became this basilisk? I didn't think the stone carving was supposed to be as big."
"When you turn something into stone, you take out the moisture that makes most of the bulk of flesh. A really good mage could turn you into a pebble," said the really good mage before me. He looked better, though it was difficult to tell since the cell was dimly lit. His left hand still maintained contact with my leg.
"Oreg," I said after a moment's thought, "would you take Tosten back to where you were? I think I ought to stay here. Kariarn's planning something. But I need to get Tosten out so Kariarn doesn't have a lever on me."
Oreg shook his head. "I can't. I could take him out of the castle. But I can't get any farther from you than that."
His state being what it had been when he'd answered my call, I believed what he said. "Can you take him to Hurog?"
"No—nor get myself back there any way that you could not."
I stared at him a moment. "I thought you were Hurog?"
He nodded. "I can find out what's going on there, but I can't affect it from here. This body can't leave you—as you have seen—unless it is in Hurog. And Hurog is too far for my powers to take me."
Tosten shifted uncomfortably, but moving didn't seem to help. I frowned at him but asked Oreg, "Could you take us all out of here—to where Axiel and Ciarra are?"
Oreg shook his head. "Ring magic brought me, but it couldn't send me away. I could take you out of the keep, though."
"Are you sure we're at Buril?" I asked Tosten.
He nodded his head. "Apparently, Kariarn has had people stationed here for a long while."
"Garranon is hosting the Vorsag?" I muttered to myself. It still didn't sound right. Beckram had told me that Garranon had been one of the "hundred," but Garranon had no reason to betray Oranstone.
"Someone is coming," said Oreg.
"Hide yourself," I whispered.
Tosten collapsed back onto the floor just as the door opened and three men came into the room. They unchained and escorted me out of the cell without noticing Oreg as he stood beside them. Oreg had hidden that way all the time at Hurog, but I hadn't been sure he could do it here.
Conditioned by Hurog, where the prison cells were under the guard's tower, I was surprised to be led down three sets of stairs and into what could only be the great hall. The room was much larger than Hurog's great hall and smelled woodsy and damp. Kariarn and a full ten of his men awaited me near the large fireplace on one side of the room. Bastilla was conspicuously absent. I wondered where she was.
"My lord," Kariarn greeted me with a smile, as if I'd come visiting rather than from a holding cell. "How kind of you to join us. You know Garranon, of course, but his lady doesn't attend court, so you won't have met Lady Allysaian."
His men parted until I could see that Garranon was indeed there, but he didn't look happy about it. There was a bruise covering half of his face, and his hands were chained behind his back—unlike mine. The Oranstonian's feet were chained tightly to his arms and each other so that if he walked, he'd only manage a stumbling shuffle. It was Stala's recommended method of moving dangerous prisoners. Garranon must not approve of the use Kariarn was making of his keep. It made me feel curiously relieved that the man who'd taken Hurog from me was not a traitor to his country.
At Garranon's side stood a girl a little younger than I and only a bit taller than Ciarra. She was no beauty, clad as she was in a dirty, ripped court dress, but she held herself with such pride that it didn't matter. She stood next to her husband without touching him, leaving no one in doubt of her allegiance, though she wore no chains herself.