"Like this, my lady."
The tongue-and Cale still wished Muenda had found another word for it-felt slightly warm and tacky, but not so sticky as he'd imagined. He wrapped it around his body three times and reached up to tickle it. When it squeezed him, Cale tried not to think of a constrictor snake.
Within moments, the tongue lifted him nearly all the way to the surface of the great beast's belly. He looked for Muenda but saw only hundreds of other tendrils. Some of them had withered to lumps, while others were kinked and curled close to the skwalos's translucent hide. He wondered how he would get from the belly of the beast to its back.
"Uh, oh," said Cale, as he realized the full implications of the term Muenda had used for the tendril in which he'd willingly placed himself.
He looked up to see the huge mouth of the skwalos open to receive him. Before he could call out to Shamur, the creature's great lips closed.
An instant later, the skwalos swallowed him whole.
CHAPTER 9
Twice more, Tamlin feigned sleep while his captives entered the prison to remove his bowl and replace it with another. The guards dared not approach the cage with the darkenbeast crouched atop it. Instead they snagged the old bowl with a fishing gaff and pushed the new one back from a safe distance. All the while, they whispered their fears over the botched kidnapping and argued about which of them would have to dispose of the transformed rodent when the order came to kill their captive.
The former rat was the size of a wolfhound.
Tamlin could hear the hunger gurgling up from its belly, but the creature obeyed its master's command and never left the top of the cage. Still, its jaws yearned down toward Tamlin, and hot drool dripped onto his face.
"Stupid rat creature," muttered Tamlin, grateful for the bars.
Feigning slumber was easier than actually sleeping. Naturally, Tamlin didn't trust his captor, but he couldn't imagine a sound reason for the man to lie about the death of his parents.
As the third or fourth wealthiest House in Selgaunt, and with political influence exceeding even that high station, the Uskevren were frequently the targets of scandal, intrigue, kidnapping, and recently even assassination. Because the Uskevren had so far, individually and on one glorious occasion as a group, defeated even the most powerful assaults, Tamlin had begun to think of himself as invulnerable.
Only last year he'd single-handedly defeated a troll. He'd every reason to feel confident that he would survive this trial and revenge himself on his captors. All he had to do was turn the tables on the villains, perhaps by luring a guard close enough to knock him senseless against the bars and take his keys and weapon.
That cheerful illusion dissolved in a stream of hot piss from the darkenbeast above. Tamlin barely moved to avoid the noxious stuff. After six days in this wretched captivity, he was beyond humiliation.
There was precious room to spare in the center of the cage, befouled with the darkenbeast's urine. He dared not he too close to the bars for fear that the creature could reach him with its razor-sharp claws. Instead, he turned away from the filth as much as possible and hugged his knees to his chest.
When at last his aching body could relax enough to surrender to sleep, he escaped mercifully into his old dreams.
In a great castle filled with music and spring perfumes, Tamlin dances among his guests. The fairest ladies approach him one by one, and he favors each with a jeweled scarf. The price: a long, melting kiss. If their consorts object, the men are too polite to show it. They smile and bow to their lord.
A commotion at the entrance, and the guests part. The Vermilion Guard drag a dirty elf into the hall. His rags are an offense to the fine attire of the nobles around him.
A disobedient slave, reports the captain.
You know my will, says Tamlin.
The captain draws his sword. The guards grasp the elf's hair and pull back his head.
An elven lady, the most beautiful woman ever to grace Tamlin's dreams, runs forward. She falls to the gleaming marble floor and throws her arms around Tamlin's knees.
Mercy!
Tamlin sneers at the word. He kicks away the pleading woman.
(Tamlin gasps at his own cruelty. He wants to apologize. He wants to take it back. He wants-)
The vanes! Commands Tamlin. He notices the approving nods among his guests. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees the cruel, anticipatory smiles as his noble subjects hurry for a good vantage in the towers above.
The elf woman begs again, My lord, please. Remember-
Tamlin slaps her face hard enough to turn it away. He follows his guests, pausing briefly by his trio of elf concubines. They sit placidly in their tiny carriage, the fine chains that join their silver collars tinkling as they raise their faces to accept the strokes of his hand. With one hard glance back at the weeping woman, Tamlin raises his palms to the sky and rises up, up, and up…
Tamlin awoke breathless. The ugly turn of his dreams shocked him, but he knew that some real sound had shaken him from the nightmare.
He thought he heard, from near the door, the scrape of leather on stone. At first it seemed to come from inside the prison, but he could see no one in the feeble light of the magic circle. He heard a familiar voice call from outside, at least two chambers away.
It was his father's voice.
"We have the ransom," called Thamalon. "Now send out my boy…"
Tamlin couldn't make out the rest of his words over the babble of his captors' panic.
"Impossible!" one of them shouted.
The rest was a clamor of slammed doors and heavy furniture shoved against them.
Tamlin strained to overhear more of their conversation, but he caught only phrases and curses.
"… thought he was dead…"
"… supposed to send anyone here, anyway!"
"Somebody had better tell…"
The door to his prison opened, and three men stepped in.
"Kill him if they get through," one ordered the others.
One of the remaining guards shut and barred the door, while the other watched the darkenbeast.
Tamlin squeezed the bloody fingers of his ruined right hand and prayed he could keep a fist with them. If he weren't already wounded, he might have liked his chances against a single opponent. Considering his state, he said a prayer to the Lord of the Dead.
"Dread Kelemvor," he murmured. "If it's not too much trouble, please take the other fellows first."
One guard stepped toward the cage, careful to remain out of range of the darkenbeast. Behind him, his fellow held the torch high.
"Listen," said Tamlin. "There's no point in killing me. That will only ensure your own death."
Both guards ignored him, their gazes locked on the monster perched over his cage.
"There's a good boy," the guard crooned to the darkenbeast, and he took a cautious step forward.
"Think of the reward you will have for turning against those criminals out there," Tamlin added. "I will personally see to it that-"
Tamlin spied movement behind the guard with the torch. Something dark wriggled out of a narrow coal chute and poured itself into the shadows. When the figure rose up behind the torch-bearing guard, Tamlin saw it was a young, leather-clad woman.
His sister, Tazi.
In the months since Tamlin had last seen her, she'd changed somehow. Even beneath the mask of coal dust, her face seemed different somehow-stronger, more angular, even dangerous. With her cool expression and her dark hair tied back in a simple knot, she looked somehow austere.
Not unlike our mother, he thought.
Tazi broke the illusion with an unsmiling wink at Tamlin, then she put a finger to her lips.