Gerard couldn’t imagine that Mina had any great love for kender. The magical Device of Time Journeying the kender carried was probably the prize the girl was after.
“Which means,” said Gerard to himself, “that if the kender can be found, we should be the ones to find him.”
He made a mental note to tell the Solamnic Knights to be on the lookout for any kender calling himself Tasslehoff Burrfoot and to seize and hold said kender for safekeeping and, above all, not let him fall into the hands of the Dark Knights. This settled, Gerard waited for nightfall.
11
The Prison House of Death
Gerard had no difficulty slipping unobserved into the city. Although his first choice had been blocked up—showing that the Dark Knights were working to stop up all the “rat holes”—they had not yet found the second. True to his vow, Gerard never revealed the location of the entrance site.
The streets of Solanthus were dark and empty. According to the innkeeper, a curfew had been imposed on the city. Patrols marched through the streets, forcing Gerard to duck and dodge to avoid them, sliding into a shadowed doorway, ducking behind piles of rubbish in an alleyway. What with hiding from the patrols and an imperfect knowledge of the streets, Gerard spent a good two hours roaming about the city before he finally saw what he’d been looking for—the walls of the prison house.
He huddled inside a doorway, keeping watch and wondering how he was going to manage to sneak inside. This had always been the weak point of his plan. Breaking into a prison was proving just as difficult as breaking out.
A patrol marched into the courtyard, escorting several curfew violators. Listening as the guard made his report, Gerard found out that all the taverns had been shut down by order of the Dark Knights. A tavern owner, trying to cut his losses, had secretly opened his doors to a few regular customers. The private party had turned rowdy, drawing the attention of the patrols, and now the customers and the proprietor were all being incarcerated.
One of the prisoners was singing at the top of his lungs. The proprietor wrung his hands and demanded to know how he was supposed to feed his family if they took away his livelihood. Another prisoner was sick on the pavement. The patrol wanted to rid themselves of their onerous burden as quickly as possible, and they beat on the door, yelling for the gaoler. He arrived, but he didn’t look pleased. He protested that the jail cells were filled to overflowing, and he didn’t have room for any more. While he and the patrol leader argued, Gerard slid out of his doorway, darted across the street, and took his place at the back of the group of prisoners. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, hunched his shoulders, and crowded as close to the others as possible. One of the prisoners glanced at him, and his eyes blinked. Gerard held his breath, but after staring at him a moment, the man broke into a drunken grin, leaned his head on Gerard’s shoulder, and burst into tears.
The patrol leader threatened to march away and leave the prisoners in the street, adding that he would most certainly report this obstruction of his duty to his superiors. Cowed, the gaoler flung open the door of the prison and shouted for the prison guards. The prisoners were handed over, and the patrol marched off.
The guards herded Gerard and the others into the cell block.
The moment the gaoler came in sight, the prisoners began shouting. The gaoler paid no attention to them. Shoving his prisoners into any cell that could accommodate them, the gaoler and his guards left with all haste.
The cell in which they stuffed Gerard was already so packed that he didn’t dare sit down for fear of being trampled. Adjoining cells were just as bad, some filled with men, others with women, all of them clamoring to be set free. The stench of unwashed bodies, vomit, and waste was intolerable. Gerard retched and clamped his hand over his nose and mouth, trying desperately and unsuccessfully to filter the smell through his fingers.
Gerard shoved his way through the mass of bodies toward the back of the cell, as far from the overflowing slop bucket as he could manage. He had feared he and his clothes might look too clean for what he planned, but he no longer had to worry about that. A few hours in here and the stench would cling to him so that he doubted if he could ever be free of it. After a brief time spent convincing himself that he was not going to throw up, he noticed that a neighboring cell—one that was large and spacious—appeared to be empty. Nudging one of his cellmates in the ribs, Gerard jerked a thumb in that direction.
“Why don’t they put some of us in there?” he asked.
“You can go in there if you want to,” said the prisoner, with a dark glance. “Me, I’ll stay here.”
“But it’s empty,” Gerard protested.
“No, it ain’t. You just can’t see ’em. Good thing, too.” The man grimaced. “Bad enough lookin’ at ’em by daylight.”
“What are they?” asked Gerard, curious.
“Wizards,” the man grunted. “At least, that’s what they was. I ain’t sure what they are now.”
“Why? What’s wrong with them?”
“You’ll see,” the man predicted dourly. “Now let me get some sleep, will you?” Squatting down on the floor, the man closed his eyes. Gerard figured he should try to rest, too, although he guessed gloomily it would be impossible.
He was pleasantly amazed to wake up some hours later to find daylight struggling to make its way inside the slit windows. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he looked with interest at the occupants of the neighboring cell, wondering what made the wizards so very formidable. Startled, Gerard pressed his face against the bars that separated the two cells.
“Palin?” Gerard called out in a low voice. “Is that you?” He honestly wasn’t certain. The mage looked like Palin. But if this was Palin, the usually conscientious mage had not bathed or shaved or combed his hair or taken any care of his appearance for weeks. He sat on a cot, staring at nothing, eyes empty, his face expressionless. Another mage sat on another cot. This mage was an elf, so emaciated that he might have been a corpse. He had dark hair, unusual in the elves, who tended to be fair, and his skin was the color of bleached bone. He wore robes that might have started out black in color, but grime and dust had turned them gray. The elf sat still and lifeless as Palin, the same expression that was no expression on his face.
Gerard called Palin’s name again, this time slightly louder so that it could be heard over the coughing, hacking, wheezing, shouting, and complaining of his fellow prisoners. He was about to call again when he was distracted by a tickling sensation on his neck.
“Damn fleas,” he muttered, slapping at it.