In the dark, moonless night, clouds covering the stars, the Sjoloper slipped through the blackness to come alongside the unwary craft, and Egil and his Hawks quietly clambered over the wales and up.
Filthy and athirst, with whips flailing against their backs, all the men stumbling in chains, Egil and his crew were driven along the twisting passageway through thick, stone bulwarks and into the courtyard beyond. Behind them, hinges shrieking, the massive main gate slowly swung to and slammed shut, and a huge bar ponderously rumbled across to thud home in a deep recess embedded in the high, buttressed ramparts. And with gears clattering and ratchets clacking and iron squealing, a mighty portcullis screeched downward in its track, its iron teeth grinding down to bottom out in deep socket holes drilled in the stone pave below.
Straight before the captives stood a large, dark building-the main hall-a hundred or more feet wide and three storeys high. To the left and against the stone bulwark were stables and a smithy and outbuildings. To the right, in the northwest corner and abutted against the wide ramparts stood a tall tower. Little of this did Egil get to see as he was shoved forward by his Drokken guard, yet he saw enough to know that he and his Hawks were caged.
They were driven shuffling across the courtyard and into the large building and down, their chains rattling and manacles clacking, as down the narrow stairwell they floundered to come at last to the foul mews below.
"So, you are the captain of the raiders." Egil remained silent.
The Mage turned from the window and stared at Egil. "And you would have the wealth of my ship?" Again Egil said nothing.
"Fool," hissed the Mage.
Egil had been wrenched from the cell and shoved roughly up and across the courtyard and into the tower. Up a spiral stairwell round the walls he had been driven, two Drokha and a swart man taking turns ramming a prod into his back, sniggering as they did so. They had driven him up the twisting stairs and into the room at the top, the room where awaited the Mage. Tall he was and gaunt and pale, with no hair whatsoever on his head-neither locks nor eyebrows nor lashes nor moustache nor beard. His nose was long and straight, and his eyes dark, obsidian, his lips thin and bloodless, and his fingers long and grasping and black nailed. He wore a blood-red robe.
This was the Mage whose ship Egil had boarded.
This was the Mage who had caused his defeat.
And now they stood in a room high atop the tower in the strongholt of the Mage, in the fortress where Egil and his crew had been dragged in fetters.
The Drokha and the swart man had chained Egil to a ring in the floor and then had left him alone with his captor, and now Egil and the Mage faced one another- one silent, the other sneering.
"I am Ordrune, Captain. And your name…?"
Egil said nought.
"Your silence is of no moment," said Ordrune. "I will have your name shortly. You will be eager to speak." The Mage turned aside and made his way across the room.
The chamber itself was completely circular, perhaps thirty feet in diameter, and here and there stood tables laden with arcane devices: astrolabes and geared bronze wheels and alembics and clay vessels, mortars and pestles, clear glass jars filled with yellow and red and blue and green granules, braziers glowing red… with tools inserted among the ruddy coals. Small ingots of metal lay scattered here and there: red copper, yellow brass, white tin, gleaming gold, argent silver, and more. And 'round the walls there were casks and trunks and cabinets of drawers and a great, ironbound, triple-locked chest, and desks with pigeon holes above, jammed with scrolls and parchments and papers. And four tall windows equipped with drapes were set in the stone at the cardinal points.
Elsewhere, tomes rested on stands; books resided on shelves. Here and there were chairs, equipped with writing flats, with pens and inks and vellum sheets alongside.
This was Ordrune's laboratory, his alchemistry, his arcane athenaeum. This was his lair. This was his den. This was the heart of the Wizardholt.
And here in the very core stood Egil, shackled to the floor, his own heart beating as Ordrune slipped a dark glove on a long-fingered hand and from among the fiery coals of a brazier he extracted a searing pair of tongs shimmering yellow with heat.
Ordrune turned and faced Egil. "Your name…?"
Egil paled, but said nought.
A smile played about the corners of Ordrune's bloodless lips. "Fool." With his free hand he took up an ampoule and released a drop of liquid onto the blazing pincers, then stepped toward the young man, the tongs sizzling, sputtering, tendrils of smoke rising up.
"What better lesson can you learn than the one I teach you today?"
Egil braced himself, ready to fight, for even though he was shackled to the floor he had the freedom of movement to the end of his chain.
And then the smoke from the sizzling tongs reached him, and his will to fight vanished.
Ordrune stepped before him, raising the burning pincers to Egil's face. But suddenly Ordrune's lashless eyes widened in delight, and a smile creased his hairless face. He lowered the tongs. "What better lesson? Oh, my. I do have a better one, indeed."
Guards marched Egil down and out from the tower and across the courtyard to the main building, where he was allowed to bathe and groom himself and given clean clothes. Then, shackled once more, he was escorted down and through a labyrinth of passageways to a chamber. Circular it was, similar in dimension to the room atop Ordrune's turret, and so he deemed he was in an underground hold directly below the tower. There he was again manacled to the floor, yet this time he was set at a table piled with sumptuous foods and breads, with wines and pure water to drink.
Although round like the laboratory atop the spire, this room was no alchemistry, but a chamber of horror instead, for it held manacled tables and hanging, man-sized iron cages and fetters dangling down on chains and chairs equipped with leather straps, and tables aclutter with pincers and knives and mauls and screws and nails. There were slender, round wooden poles embedded in the floor, their upright sharp points and shafts stained rust red, as of dried blood. Braziers of burning coals, metal boots, wheeled racks, iron slabs like massive leaves of a book, and other such hideous instruments set 'round the walls. A large vat filled with a drifting liquid stood off to one side, and across the room, from behind an iron door barred with three massive iron beams there came the sound of slow monstrous breathing and the stench of carrion.
All this did Egil take in as he drank water and ate great chunks of bread and meat. "When at war, my boy," had said his father, "eat your fill every chance you get, for you never know when the opportunity will come 'round again." And so in spite of the putrid malodor, Egil, clean-bathed and -clothed, stuffed food down his gullet as he waited alone in silence.
Ordrune came first and then they dragged in filthy, disheveled Klaen, and the young man's eyes widened at the sight of his well-groomed captain sitting at feast. They shackled the Fjordland raider to a dark, thick slant-board, and Ordrune turned to Egil. "Where shall we start first, Captain? The hands? Oh yes, let's do."
Ordrune sauntered to a table and took up a massive hammer, then stepped to Klaen's side and held the spike-faced maul up before the young man's gaze. "I use this… tool to make meat tender for my"-he glanced at the barred door-"pet." Klaen's eyes filled with terror and a moan escaped his lips, and he struggled against his bonds, to no avail.
Egil leapt to his feet and called out, "Egil! My name is Egil."