Orim staggered back. It was just like the attack on the Cho-Arrim village, this tide of killing monsters. They slashed and impaled and eviscerated. Dead crew littered the deck. Blood covered everything. Even Facade herself was being ripped apart. Soon, the ship and all hands living would be dragged to their deaths in the destroying sea.
Orim was surrounded. Saprazzans hemmed her in on all sides. She had no weapons. As they converged, rushing in to slay her, she could only hold up her silver-shimmering hands in futile supplication.
Then, the Saprazzan warrior beast surged up from amidships, grasped her in one huge and horrible hand, and dragged her overboard. Down, down into the dark waters of night they sounded.
Twilight waters receded above. Facade was only a black shadow there, only a slender leaf lying on the evening waves. The darkling sea below was bone cold and endless. It crushed Orim more viciously than the claws of the beast.
Already, light had quit the waters, and warmth with it. In moments, the sea would shatter her eardrums, burst her sinuses, and flood into her lungs. Only the Saprazzan beast remained-its fury, its agony. Orim reached up toward the creature's shoulder, and her hand settled on the harpoon wound there. A twitch of pain went through the creature. She could tear at that wound, perhaps win free as the beast spasmed-or she could show the Saprazzan that she was Cho-Arrim, that she was kin.
Silver light appeared in an aura about her hand. Magic awoke from streaming seawater. Warmth suffused her hand in a tingling glove. It sank into the harpoon wound, coursing deep along ruptured tissues. The glow intensified, and it stitched tissues together.
The warrior beast released a great moan that might have been anger or ecstasy. It only dove deeper.
Heedless, Orim continued healing its wound. She stopped only when the cold black deeps drew her own life away.
Chapter 12
Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn might not have been crushed by rubbish, but neither had they been coddled by it. The three were spattered and smudged and foul-smelling when they were yanked up from their filthy knees. Soldiers further shackled them, loaded them on their bellies on a wagon, chained them yet again, and hauled them back to the city. No baths-but neither were they executed.
Simple termination was not enough for these three. They had publicly humiliated the chief magistrate and his minions. Their deaths would publicly repair the damage they had done.
So, it was chains and more chains, dungeons, and dank bread, nothing to drink but the septic swill that trickled through the prison catacombs. No baths, and no escape- not by brute force or cunning contrivance, not by ruse or bribe. These rock-hewn cells were too hard, cold, and deep, their bars impassable, their guards implacable.
Then, suddenly, a few weeks into their imprisonment, there were baths. Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn were marched out of the hole. Washed, powdered, dressed-but still shackled-they were led by a full regiment of soldiers. Their escorts conducted them toward the Magistrate's Tower in the center of the city. Gerrard scanned the crowd for signs of Atalla, Takara, or Hanna-but no outside aid appeared. He twice tried to improvise an escape but only got yanked back in line and flogged.
The soldiers conveyed their prisoners into a small upper chamber, near the Magistrate's Tower. It was called an "ambassadorial apartment" and looked pleasant enough, though in truth it was as inescapable as the prison had been. Fifteen-foot-thick stone walls, a ceiling of plastered metal plates, triple-barred windows above a fifty-foot drop, three separate iron-banded doors, guard towers watching the four comers of the structure-whatever ambassadors resided here were in truth political hostages.
That's what Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn had become- political hostages. Someone had made a deal, and they were the security on the deal. Still, this was a cleaner, warmer, more comfortable prison than below-furniture and books, clothes and beds and "Wine anyone?" asked a familiar voice.
As the soldiers filed out the triple doors, Takara made her way in, carrying a wooden crate. Her red hair seemed flame in the dark entryway, and her lips were equally red around a smile.
Gerrard gaped at her, astonished. "What are you doing here-why have they let you-what is all this-?"
"What is all this?" Takara echoed. She lugged the crate to a low table, set it down, and pulled on the top. Nails complained but were no match for her strength. The lid came away, revealing two dozen corked green bottles carefully packed in straw. "All this is wine."
Shaking his head in confusion, Gerrard approached. "No, I mean all of this? Why are they letting you in here-?"
"I made a deal, Gerrard," Takara replied, hefting a bottle and staring with admiration at it. "In Mercadia, deals are more powerful than armies. The deal I made brought you up out of the pit, sent Hanna, Orim, and Sisay off to get another piece of your Legacy-will even allow us to fix the ship and get out of here. You're still prisoners, of course, but part of the deal is visitation rights-and wine." Producing a corkscrew from her pocket, Takara yanked the cork from the first bottle. "Have some?"
Gerrard shrugged, taking the bottle in hand. "No wineglasses?"
"Don't get uppity," Takara replied, already working over a second bottle. "How about you, Tahngarth? I can't remember if minotaurs like this stuff-"
"Not in such piddling quantities," Tahngarth said, striding across the room to grasp the opened bottle. He smiled ruefully and took a long draw. "Gerrard will owe me a bottle from his case, when it arrives," he said dryly.
Takara laughed. "Then I'll owe you one, also." She lifted her own bottle. Only after a deep draught did she seem to notice Karn, standing like another piece of furniture near the window. "I don't imagine silver golems-"
"You are right," interrupted Karn, his voice a quiet rumble like distant thunder. "I require a different sort of… lubrication."
That brought laughter from everyone except the golem.
Gerrard smiled sadly and slouched into a low chair, his wine bottle hanging from his hand. He shook his head. "How did we ever end up here?"
Takara took a seat opposite him and drew a deep breath. "A dangerous question. I asked it often when I was a prisoner on Rath. The answer always came down to betrayal. I had been betrayed."
After a long swallow, Gerrard said, "Betrayal. Yes, that's awful stuff. Someone betrayed you into Volrath's hands, and then your father betrayed Sisay to get you back. It's the filthiest business-betrayal."
"It was my brother," Takara said, her eyes focused beyond the room. Embers smoldered in her gaze. "He betrayed me."
"Your brother? I didn't realize you had a brother."
"Ha! Of course you didn't," she said acidly. "I never talk of him. He wasn't really even my brother, only a usurping orphan. He was always jealous of me. He was always trying to steal what was mine. He betrayed me, cut me off from my father, destroyed my whole life, and sold me into slavery."
Shaking his head in compassionate outrage, Gerrard said, "That's horrible. You talk about your hatred, how it makes you strong. Now I see just how much reason you have to hate."
She stared directly at him, and her eyes were piercing, almost predatory. "So, how did you end up here? Betrayal?"
A speculative smile crossed Gerrard's face. "Well, there was that bastard Xcric-" he gently shook away the thought- "but, no. I'm through with blaming everyone else for my problems. I'm here because of my own failings, not someone else's."