The next time Maq woke it was to the sounds of guards conversing in the guttural minotaur tongue. She heard the repeated metallic clink of keys banging together on a large key ring. The guards sounded nervous. Moments later, several pairs of hooves came clicking down the stone stairs. Maq pressed her face against the opening in her cell door. In the eerie light cast by several large braziers of glowing coals, Maquesta saw Attat sweep into the central court of his dungeon, which Maq could now see was used for torture. She stepped back away from the door and let the shadows hide her.
She heard Attat stalk directly over to Melas's cell. He called for one of the guards on duty to open the door.
"You have ruined my plans!" Attat spoke loudly, but Maq wondered if her father were even consciousness. She heard a dull thud, followed by a wince of pain.
"Get up when I'm speaking to you!" Attat said something in the minotaur language to the guards. Maq heard a rustling in the cell, then a sharp exclamation from her father. The guards must have grabbed him by his arms and forced him to his feet, wrenching his wounded shoulder. She couldn't bear to listen.
"There, that's better," Attat continued. "Normally I would have had you all killed for daring to attack me. But with Averon dead, I wanted you to go after the morkoth. I thought a week in my dungeon would teach you to have greater respect for me. But I see now that you're of no use to me in your condition.
"There's nothing for it-I'll have to find a new captain and crew, and you all will have to die. You last, Melas Kar-Thon, so you can watch your sailors pay for your foolishness and so you can watch your woman pay for your affront to me."
"Lord Attat! Lord Attat! May I please have a word with you?"
Maquesta summoned all her strength and presence of mind to call out to the minotaur noble. She had propped herself up against the wall for support, and maneuvered around to the door again, holding on to the bars with her fingers.
Attat, however, gave no sign of having heard her, or perhaps merely did not wish to respond. He began to walk toward the stairs.
"I can captain the Perechon! I can capture the morkoth for you!"
With a minotaur's infravision, his ability to see remarkably well in the gloominess of the dungeon, he turned and peered at each of the cells until his eyes lit on Maquesta's hands.
"And who might you be?"
"Maquesta Kar-Thon, daughter of Melas. I grew up on the Perechon. I've sailed my whole life. The crew knows me. I can do it. I even steered the ship through some tough conditions in the race."
"Daughter?" he purred. "I thought you were his doxy."
Attat's laughter echoed off the dungeon's walls. "I like a girl who has dreams, but not ones that I have to pay for," he said harshly. "I do thank you for one thing, however. Now that I know who you are, I can be sure to have you killed last, so you can watch your father die. Slowly."
Attat clapped his hands, and the guards came running. "I want them fed, though not much, and give them water. I want them reasonably healthy, clinging to life, thinking they have a chance. There's no satisfaction in it if they're praying for their deaths."
Over the next few days, Maquesta was forced to witness the horrific tortures of Magpie, Canin, and Gorz. The guards brought both her and her father out of their cells to watch the macabre rituals. For Canin it was the rack. Then, weakened by hours of torment, he was thrown back into his cell with a bullywug, which finished him off and then ate him.
For Magpie, it was hot coals and branding irons, followed by a one-sided encounter with a griffon. When Maq closed her eyes and covered her ears, she could still see the blood and hear his screams.
Gorz hung from his wrists for hours while a case lined with sharp spikes slowly closed around him, piercing his skin. The guards sneered that they left him alive so they would have someone to torment tomorrow.
Maquesta cursed herself for selecting the men to accompany her, her father, and Averon to the minotaur lord's. If the men had stayed behind on the Perechon, they would be safe and free. Tears streamed down her face, and she wondered if the rest of the crew had already left the ship. At least they would not fall prey to Attat, she told herself.
Through the horror, Maq was still thankful she could be near her father, though his condition was rapidly worsening. When the guards were preoccupied with their amusement, Maq did what she could to clean Melas's wound. The infection seemed to be spreading down his arm. Most of the time, he rambled-about Mi-al, about sailing ships, about his youth, but never about Averon.
Only once did the fog seem to lift completely. He looked at Maq clearly. "I got you into this mess, Maquesta, and it's all because I trusted someone I shouldn't have. Never make that mistake-promise me. You can trust your family, but no one else. Promise me you'll never forget. Promise!"
He grasped her arm and held her gaze until she nodded. "Yes. I promise," she whispered.
"Money is something that will never betray you, either. Remember that, too!" She nodded again.
Maquesta studied the dungeon's layout and the guards' routines every chance she had in the hopes of divining some means of escape. The cells extended in a horseshoe pattern around three sides of the large central area where the torture implements were prominently displayed. The only prisoners were, or had been, the Perechon crewmembers-except for one minotaur, a muscular, imposing figure whom Maq had never heard speak. While clearly a prisoner, the minotaur had something of a special status in the dungeon. Maq had never seen him tortured, for one thing. With his legs shackled, he was sometimes allowed out of his cell by the guards and commanded to aid them by doing such things as handing them hot branding irons while they "worked." From the way the prisoner minotaur regarded such activities, however, that may have been a type of torture.
The narrow stairway leading up to the rest of Attat's palace was located on the fourth side of the torture chamber. The stairs afforded the only way in or out of the dungeon.
As a result, only two guards were routinely assigned to stand watch at a time, on rotating shifts. The two who worked at night seemed less responsible than the others, Maq had observed, occasionally bringing a flask of spicy spirits that they would imbibe late in the evening. It was during one of these episodes that Maq saw a dirk slip from one of the guard's harnesses. Without realizing what had fallen, the guard inadvertently kicked the dirk underneath one of the hot coal braziers, which sat on short legs, close to the ground.
The next day, Maquesta was let out of her cell to watch the final torment of Gorz, who was beaten until his flesh was bloody and then thrown in an iron-barred cage with an ice bear. While the guards watched the grisly scene with growing excitement, she edged away from them, squatted by the coal brazier, and reached about for the dirk. She burned her hand, but she managed to wrap her fingers about the weapon. Taking a quick look around before extracting it, Maq realized that the minotaur prisoner had seen her. His eyes met hers, and while his face remained impassive, she didn't believe he would sound a warning. Maq slipped the dirk into her back waistband and watched helplessly as the bear finished devouring Gorz.
Only Vartan, Hvel, herself, and Melas were left. She wasn't even certain Vartan was still alive, or what kind of condition he was in. He was never allowed out of his cell, so she hadn't seen him since they were all thrown into the dungeon. Still, Maquesta hadn't seen him tortured and killed, so that was some consolation. Hvel was alive. At night when the guards were drinking, he called to her. But he was not doing well. They were feeding him the same amount passed under the door to her, which was little, and the guards continued to berate him, teasing him about how he would be tortured and what creature he would soon fill the belly of.