At first, the crystal flashed brightly, too brightly for safety, but he soon learned to keep it masked with his fingers so that only a dull glow shone on the steps ahead.
Spaces between pebbles lengthened, but every now and then, he would spy one and add it to the growing collection in his hand. With every stone he found, the feeling that Sonia was ahead grew stronger.
He climbed until his legs trembled beneath him. He climbed till he at last recognized how hungry and thirsty he was, and bitterly regretted that he had not forced himself to eat and drink in Fleet.
But at last, the steps ended, and Rye found himself standing on a broad landing, facing a stone wall and an iron door streaked with rust.
In front of the door lay two blue pebbles.
No message could be clearer, and as Rye picked up the pebbles, he knew that whatever Olt’s notice to his guards had said, Sonia was up here, behind that heavy, rust-stained door.
He pressed the light crystal against the iron and slowly a flickering, misty window appeared.
The window was not nearly as clear as the one in the tavern had been. Wondering nervously if the crystal’s power was wearing out and if this meant that the hood of concealment would also soon stop working, Rye squinted through the haze, into the room beyond the door.
A wave of heat flooded through him.
He saw a great, snarling silver head crowned with spines. Below the head, a glittering snakelike body coiled rigidly to make a savage throne. And on the throne, in the embrace of the lifeless but magically preserved serpent, sat a shrunken shadow of a man, wizened as an old, forgotten bell fruit long after summer had passed.
Rye knew that this was Olt.
Nodding inside the white-furred hood of his purple velvet cloak, Olt’s face was like a death’s head. His thin, seamed lips had shrunk back from his yellowed teeth. His skin hung over his bones, blotched with rough, gray-green patches that looked like fungus. His hands, clutching the coils of his bizarre throne, were like the hands of a skeleton.
But his sunken eyes, ringed in shadow, were burning. And they seemed to be looking straight at Rye.
The door clicked and began to creak open. Rye jumped aside, muffling the light crystal under his jacket, his heart crashing in his chest.
Bern the Gifter appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his helmet, but his black club was in his hand. He looked around the landing. Flattened against the wall, Rye crossed his fingers and wrists.
“There’s no one here, my Chieftain,” Bern said.
“I felt a presence,” a cracked voice whispered. “Look again!”
Bern frowned down the steps, then glanced around the landing once more.
“There’s no one here, my Chieftain,” he repeated, turning back into the room. “Perhaps you felt one of the prisoners waking. The two new ones were definitely regaining consciousness when we arrived. Shall I …?”
Eagerly he raised the black club.
“No!” Olt rasped. “Leave them! I have control of them. You are far too free with your scorch, Bern! Thanks to you, one of the sacrifices is damaged. Only look at her!”
Rye caught his breath. Sonia! Without considering the danger, he whirled around and pressed the crystal to the wall. Instantly the stones seemed to dissolve before his eyes, and he had a clear, sharp view of another part of Olt’s chamber.
One part of his mind registered with relief that the crystal was not failing after all and that iron must simply lessen its power. The rest of his attention was fixed on what he was seeing.
The stiff, glittering coils of Olt’s sea serpent throne were to the right of the picture now. Not far beyond them, seven figures lay in line. Their eyes were closed. They floated a handbreadth above the floor, as straight and rigid as if they were suspended on invisible wires.
There were three males and four females. Sonia was one of them. She lay beside Faene D’Or, the fiery golden red of her hair trailing on the stones, which seemed to be spattered with gleams of light.
Rye gaped at the seven floating figures, trying to accept what he was seeing.
The prisoners were here, in Olt’s chamber! But they were supposed to be in the holding pit in the dungeons. The notice given to the guards on the gate had clearly stated it.
Most of the seven might have been asleep in their own beds, so peacefully did they lie. Only Sonia’s face showed signs of tension. Only her eyelids flickered, as if she was trying to resist the spell that held her motionless in a charmed sleep.
Rye’s heart was wrung. It was terrible to see Sonia still fighting, trying to open her eyes as if this would give her some control over what was happening to her.
Sonia, I am here! he tried to tell her in his mind. I have found you! Do not despair!
Sonia’s brow wrinkled slightly. And Rye thought that for a moment the lines of strain on her face lessened, almost as if she had heard him.
Olt’s breathy, rasping voice floated through the open door, cutting through his thoughts.
“The scrawny one was badly weakened by her second scorching. See for yourself!”
A skeletal hand, rattling with loose gold rings and horribly patched with gray-green, appeared in Rye’s view over the serpent coils. It was gesturing not at Sonia but at the smallest of the floating prisoners.
The girl looked frail as a bird. Her short black hair was dull and lifeless. Her eyelids were veined with blue. Her mouth hung a little open, showing small, crooked teeth, and her skin was bleached to the color of old parchment.
“I had to scorch her a second time, my Chieftain,” Bern was whining. “We had no choice. She tried to escape when we moved her from the pit.”
Hearing the fear in his voice, Rye reflected grimly that the swaggering Bern was a very different man when he was dealing with his master.
“The second dose would not have harmed her if she had not been scorched too heavily when she was first taken!” snapped Olt.
“I’m sorry, my Chieftain,” Bern mumbled. “As I told you, the girl was hiding in a goat house, behind the beasts. Several scorch beams meant for the animals hit her instead. It was an error. The men responsible have been punished.”
Rye stared at the small, black-haired girl floating helplessly just above the ground, her arms crossed on her chest. Words scratched over and over again on a rough stone wall came vividly into his mind.
How long had this young girl hidden herself in that lonely shelter, scratching her plea on the wall over and over again as if it were a talisman that could keep her safe? Hours? Days? Weeks?
And it had all been for nothing. The Gifters had found her — felled her goats and dragged her out of her hiding place like a stalker bird plucking a snail from its shell.
Olt’s hand made an impatient gesture and fell heavily onto the serpent coils that formed the arm of the throne. Silver scales pattered to the floor like rain, to join the other gleaming fragments scattered there.
Dimly, Rye realized that the magic that preserved the serpent was beginning to fail. Just as the magic that preserved Olt himself was failing. The sorcerer and the symbol of his power were disintegrating together.
“The girl was not worth taking in any case!” snarled Olt. “She is a miserable specimen! Plain, ill-bred, and undergrown — barely acceptable! With her heart strained as well, she will be of little use to me. If time were not so short, I would demand a replacement.”
“Oh, my Chieftain —”
“But time is short, so I will not demand it,” Olt cut in coldly. “Fortunately for you, the two you brought to me today from Fleet will make up for the scrawny one’s weakness. The copper-head is strong — very strong.”
“I knew you’d be pleased, my Chieftain!” Bern babbled. “When I saw her —”