“Well, sir, may we have your answer?” Tretar nudged Hugh with the toe of his polished shoe.
“You don’t need an answer,” Hugh said. “You’ve got me and you know it.”
“Excellent,” Tretar stated briskly. Rising to his feet, he beckoned to several of his men. “Remove the lady to the dungeons. Keep her drugged. Otherwise, she is to be well treated.”
The elves lifted Iridal to her feet. She opened her eyes, stared around drunkenly, saw her son and smiled. Then her eyelids fluttered, her head lolled, she slumped in the arms of her captors. Tretar drew her hood up over her head, hiding her features.
“There, if anyone sees you, they will think that the lady is merely suffering from a surfeit of wine. Go on.”
The elves half carried, half dragged the stumbling Iridal out the door and down the corridor. Bane, his arm around the dog, watched without interest. Then, face brightening, he turned to Hugh.
“When do we leave?”
“It must be soon,” Tretar advised. “Rees’ahn is already at Seven Fields. Stephen and Anne are on their way. We will provide you with whatever you need ...”
“I can’t very well travel like this,” Hugh remarked from his place on the floor.
Tretar regarded him attentively, then gave a single, brief nod. “Release him. He knows that even if he did manage to escape us and find his way to the dungeons, the lady would be dead by the time he reached her.” The elves cut Hugh’s bindings, assisted him to his feet.
“I’ll want a short sword,” he said, rubbing his arms, trying to restore the circulation. “And my daggers back. And poison for the blades. There’s a certain type. Have you an alchemist? Good. I’ll speak to him myself. And money. A lot. In case we have to bribe our way through the lines. And a dragon.”
Tretar pursed his lips. “The last will be difficult, but not impossible.”
“I’ll need traveling clothes,” Hugh continued. “And so will the boy. Human. Something peddlers might wear. And some elven jewels. Nothing good. Cheap and gaudy.”
“That will not be a problem. But where are your own clothes?” Tretar asked, with a sharp look.
“I burned ’em,” Hugh responded calmly.
Tretar said nothing more. The count was longing to find out how, from where, and from whom Hugh had obtained the magical uniform of the Unseen. But he must have guessed that on this point Hugh would keep silent. And perhaps the count had a fair idea anyway. Surely, by now, Tretar’s spies would have connected Hugh and Iridal with the two Kir monks who entered Paxaua. Where would Kir monks go but to their spiritual brothers, the Kenkari?
“I’m taking the dog,” Bane announced, jumping excitedly to his feet.
“Only if you can teach it to fly dragonback,” Hugh told him. Bane appeared crestfallen for an instant, then ran off to his bed, commanding the animal to follow.
“Now, this is a dragon,” Bane said, pointing at the bed. He patted the mattress. “You get up here... That’s it. And now sit. No, sit. Hind end down.”
The dog, tongue out, ears up, tail wagging, entered into the spirit of the game, but appeared uncertain what was required of it and offered a front paw to shake.
“No, no, no!” Bane pressed on the dog’s rear portion. “Sit!”
“Charming child,” observed Tretar. “One would think he was going on holiday...”
Hugh said nothing, eyed the dog. The beast was magical, as he recalled. At least he supposed it must be. He’d seen it do some strange things. It wasn’t often separated from Haplo and, if it was, there must be a reason. But Hugh was damned if he could figure out what. Not that it much mattered anyway. There was only one way out of this, as far as Hugh could see. An elf entered the room, glided over to Tretar, spoke in an undertone. Hugh had sharp hearing.
“Sang-drax ... all going according to plan. He has the dwarf... she will arrive in Drevlin safely, story of escape. Emperor’s pride saved... Kicksey-winsey saved. Boy can keep the dog...”
At first, Haplo had no difficulty following Sang-drax and the dwarf. With her heavy boots, her short legs, which couldn’t quite keep up with her supposed rescuer, and her huffing and puffing from the unaccustomed exertion, Jarre was moving slowly and making enough noise for the Kicksey-winsey itself. Which made it all the more inexplicable when Haplo lost them. He had followed them down the hall outside Bane’s room, down the stairs. But when he reached the bottom of the staircase that opened into another hallway (the same hall through which he’d entered) the two were nowhere in sight. Haplo, cursing in frustration, ran down the hallway, gaze sweeping the floor, the walls, the closed doors on either side.
He was near the end of the hall, almost to the front door, when it occurred to him that something about this was wrong.
Lights were burning, where before it had been dark. No footmen yawned and gossiped in the entryway. He saw, in sudden perplexity, that there wasn’t an entryway. Reaching the end of the corridor and what should have been a door, Haplo discovered a blank wall and two more corridors, each of which branched off in opposite directions. These halls were far longer than normal, far longer than would have been possible, considering the size of the building. And he had no doubt now that if he ran down either one, he would find both led to other corridors.
He was in a maze, a maze of the serpent-elf’s magical creation, a frustrating, nightmarelike concoction that would have Haplo running endlessly, going nowhere except insane.
The Patryn came to a halt. He reached out groping hands, hoping to touch something solid and real, hoping to dispel the magic. He was in danger, for though it appeared to him as if he were standing in an empty corridor, in reality he might be standing in the center of an open courtyard, surrounded by a hundred armed elves.
This was worse, far worse, than being struck suddenly blind. Deprived of his sight, he could have relied on, trusted his other senses. But now his brain was forced to argue with his senses; the dreamlike quality of the illusion was unnerving. He took a step, and the corridor swayed and slanted. The floor he could feel beneath his feet wasn’t the floor he saw with his eyes. Walls slid through his fingers. Yet his fingers touched something solid. He was growing dizzy, disoriented.
He shut his eyes, tried to concentrate on sounds, but that proved unreliable. The only sounds he heard were coming through the dog’s ears. He might have been standing in the room with Hugh and Bane.
Haplo’s skin prickled, the runes activating. Something, someone was coming up on him. And here he stood, with his eyes shut, flailing about helplessly. Now he heard footsteps, but were they near him or near the dog? Haplo fought down a panicked urge to lash out wildly.
A breath of wind touched his cheek. Haplo turned.
The corridor was still empty, but, damn it, Haplo knew someone was there, someone right behind him. He worked his magic, caused the sigla to shine blue, envelop him in a protective shield.
It would work against mensch. But not against...
Pain burst in his head. He was falling, falling into the dream. He hit the ground, the shock jolted him back to conscious awareness. Blood rolled into his eyes, gummed the lids. He struggled to open them, but gave up. It hurt to look into the dazzling light His magic was unraveling.
Another blow...
Gigantic birds—horrible creatures with leather wings, razor-sharp beaks and tearing teeth—attacked Haplo. He tried to escape, but they dove at him, repeatedly. Their wings beat around him. He fought, but he couldn’t see them. They had pecked out his eyes.
He tried to run from them, stumbled blindly over the rough and uneven terrain of the Labyrinth. They swooped down on him, talons raked across his naked back. He fell, and when he did, they were on him. He turned bleeding eye sockets toward the sound they made, the raucous cries of glee and chortles of sated hunger.
He struck at them with his fists, kicked at them with his feet. They flew just near enough to tease him, let him wear himself out. And when he collapsed, weak, they perched on his body, dug talons into his skin, tore out great gobs of flesh, and feasted on it and on his pain and his terror.