"I see it does not surprise you. Of course, you saw him there in the forest, watching. Just as you yourself watched."
He had known she was there. Hatred coursed through Brie's veins like a swollen river overflowing its banks. She wanted to kill Balor, wanted to see him lying dead on his gold velvet rug, blood flowing down his face, like her father....
"Now"—Balor's rich voice broke into her thoughts—"time grows short. And I have a rendezvous with a sea serpent." He smiled to himself, a silken, golden smile.
Brie stared ahead, unseeing.
"Sadly, I cannot take you north with me to marshal my forces. But though I may be gone long, rest assured you shall not lack for food and drink. And when I am done, I shall return for you." He rose, coming up behind her.
Balor put his hand on Brie's neck. She fought back the nausea rising in her throat. Deftly he unclasped the bioran holding her braids in place, then he deliberately, slowly, ran his fingers up her scalp and through her hair, unweaving the plaits. His fingers were like talons.
"My pretty cousin," he said softly. "We shall rule it all, together." His words caressed, beckoned. "This little land, Eirren, and, one day, Scath..."
Abruptly he released her and moved to the door. Picking up her bow and quiver, Balor smiled at Brie. "I shall find a safe place for these before I depart."
Then he was gone. She could hear him lock the door from the outside.
Brie's body snapped and sagged. The hot prickling palsy that had trapped her limbs was gone. Rising from the velvet-and-gold chair, she ran to the door. She twisted the handle, pulling hard. The door didn't move. She strained and tugged, kicked the unrelenting surface, even tried forcing her fingers into the infinitesimal space between door and wall.
Breathing hard, Brie leaned her back against the door and gazed around the room. Then she searched its periphery, lifting tapestries, looking behind gilt-framed paintings. There were no windows and no other doors. She found her bioran on a small gilt table and refastened her hair, her hands shaking slightly.
One thing she discovered in her search was an ornate cupboard that was apparently the source of the food and drink Balor had promised to provide. Inside were stacks of brisgeinlike bars, as well as dried fruit and biscuits. There were three large, long-necked carafes of clear water, and another with honey-colored wine. The cupboard's contents would not sustain a person more than several weeks; Balor must have a way to replenish it, Brie thought.
She had no illusions that she could best Balor when he returned for her, either by outright resistance or by trickery. His power was too immense.
She crossed again to the door and leaned down to examine the keyhole. During the early days of her quest to find her father's killers, before she met up with Collun and Talisen, Brie had encountered a wide assortment of fellow wanderers. One of the more interesting had been a thief named Jinn. At the lodging house of a prosperous smuggler, Jinn had taught Brie the finer points of picking a lock.
She would need something long and pointed. Brie's gaze fell on a golden lantern. It had a thin handle. Straightened, the handle could make an excellent lock pick. Aided by a golden fork from the table, Brie pried the handle out of the lantern. Then she took up a heavy, shimmering bookend and hammered the handle into a straight line.
Crossing to the door, Brie stuck the point into the lock and wiggled it into the mechanism. Unfortunately the lock bore no resemblance to the one on which the thief had taught her. But finally, just when she was on the verge of giving up, she gave a last frustrated jiggle and turn, and there was a click. The door silently swung open.
"Thank you, Jinn," she breathed.
But Brie couldn't help thinking it had been too easy. And indeed, when she finally stood before the great arched doorway at the bottom of the bell tower, she knew why. There was no way through this door.
She had gone over every inch of the unyielding stone surface. There was no lock. And though she was hardly an expert in such matters, she felt sure it had been sealed by sorcery.
Brie sank to her knees. The great stone cylinder in which she was trapped pressed down on her. For a moment she felt lost, withered by despair. Bleakly she gazed up at the flickering lanterns. She wondered if, like the food in the golden room, the oil in them would be replenished until Balor returned for her. Or perhaps he would not return for her and this bell tower was to be her tomb. And perhaps indeed that would be a better thing; Brie thought of Balor's talon-hand on the nape of her neck.
She put her hands to the sides of her head. "I must find a way out," she murmured.
Windows. She remembered seeing them from the outside, just a few, arranged randomly along the length of the tower. And there were golden tapestries that could be fashioned into a rope of sorts, to climb down. She would search the rooms, one by one, until she found a window.
And perhaps she might even find her bow and quiver. She suddenly remembered the arrows lying on the gold brocade—all alike. Where was the fire arrow? It had been in her quiver when she left the campsite.
Brie ran up the circular stairway, arriving out of breath at the first landing. She approached the nearest of the three doors, then hesitated, an unreasoning fear taking hold of her.
Trying to subdue the dread, she slowly turned the handle, opened the door, and looked in. It was dark inside. Brie returned to the landing and took a lantern off the wall. Holding it in front of her, she entered the room. It appeared to be empty, barren. The walls were of stone, dripping with moisture. She spied a window. But as she started toward it, something beneath her feet made a cracking, splintering sound. She looked down to see that the stone floor was covered with bones.
For a moment she froze, then resolutely made her way across the grisly carpet. As she approached the window she saw that it was heavily barred with iron. She tugged on one of the bars; it was unmoving, set deeply into the stone.
She made her way back to the door, spying rusty iron chains and manacles trailing from the walls. Shutting the door behind her, she had the fleeting thought that, except for luxurious trappings, there was little difference between this room and her golden prison cell.
Brie opened the second door on the landing, expecting it to be another dungeon. Instead she found a lush greenhouse with large, abundant green plants. The floor was covered with a thick layer of moss, and Brie crossed the spongy surface to the vine-choked wall. The air was rich and damp, and she started to sweat. She became aware of a musty, rotting smell. It reminded her of the stench of the cro-olachan vine, the blood-drinking plant she and Collun had once come across in their travels. She peered at the vines closely. They did not appear to be cro-olachan, but she took great care as she poked and pushed through them to see if there was a window. There was none.
And so Brie went through the rooms of the bell tower, one by one, each one stranger and ranker than the last. There was a room crawling with insects—black, brown, green, yellow, and orange. They covered the floor and walls, a moving buzzing mass. To look for a window, Brie had to brush them off the walls, her hand covered with her tunic. They glanced off her face and body, some flying frantically around her head.
Then she came to a room with honey dripping off its walls; and a room furred with spiderwebs, with one enormous spider hanging up in a corner. It seemed to see her when she opened the door and immediately scurried along the wall toward her. She slammed the door shut. The floor of one room was covered with small dead birds that she had to wade through, their little lifeless talons scratching against the stone floor. There was a room of shadow and fog, and a room lit by hundreds of ever-burning candles.
One room Brie could not enter, so oppressive was the evil that pulsed from inside. Strange whispering sounds emanated from within the room's yellow darkness. She was able to cast only the briefest of glances, then she pulled the door shut with a shaking hand. It felt as though the door resisted, as though someone on the other side pulled against her. Sweat stood out on her brow as she ran up the circular stairway to the next landing and the next door.