Malik's face smashed into stone as his tactic succeeded in angering the prince and distracting him from the gaff.
"I told you never to call the Hidden One by name."
"My apologies," Malik said. His voice sounded rather nasal, for his nose had been shattered and was pouring blood down over the Karsestone. "I only meant that this is certainly the last place the Most High would look for his stolen Karsestone."
"What makes you think it is stolen?" Yder asked, not quite able to keep the smugness from his voice.
Ever wary of the Seraph's ability to escape, the prince pinned Malik’s neck to the stone with one hand while he removed the chain from the manacles and attached it to a ring hanging from an iron post alongside the altar. Malik didn't know whether to be glad his plan had worked or ashamed it had taken so long for him to see the true nature of things.
For the Shar worshipers to tolerate the Karsestone's brilliance in their temple-and, more importantly, for the goddess not to strike dead the ones who permitted it to be there-the boulder had to be of inestimable value to the Nightsinger. Malik no longer doubted that much-it was the source of the Shadow Weave, as Mystra's curse had caused him to blurt out, or something that she wished to keep hidden from the other gods.
More terribly, if Shar considered Shade a safe place to hide such a thing-and if Telamont Tanthul truly had given the Karsestone to Yder for the Hidden One's temple-then she had to feel secure in her control of the city. For Shar to feel secure in her command of the Shadovar, she had to control the Shadow Weave itself.
"The spiteful hag!" Malik cried. "She has commanded it all along!"
"Curse her now all you wish, Malik."
Yder spun him around then flipped him onto his back and fastened another chain to his second manacle.
"Before this is done," the prince added, "you will sing her praises."
"And you will lick the offal from my boots!" Malik shot back. "The Shadow Weave is Cyric's by right! Am I not the one who saved the life of that fool Galaeron so he could betray his word to Jhingleshod and steal this stone?"
It was his own anger that compelled him to say this and not Mystra's curse, but he knew it was a mistake the moment the words spilled from his mouth. Yder's yellow eyes turned as bright as the sun. He bared his ceremonial fangs and bent so low that Malik feared the prince would bite his nose from his face.
"Is that why you came here?" he demanded. "To steal the Hidden One's crown?"
Malik said nothing and looked away.
"Answer!" Yder commanded. "Answer, or I will feed you to your own shadow."
The prince pulled his head aside so that Malik could see his shadow's hateful eyes glaring down at him. No longer did the monstrous thing seem dependent on Malik for its form. It looked as thick and as solid as any giant he had ever seen. Malik looked away on the pretext of meeting Yder's angry gaze.
"Do you think I am afraid of my own shadow?" he demanded. "I am favored of the One. I have seen a thousand things that were a hundred times worse… though never any who know all the wretched things I have done in my life."
"Look!" Yder grabbed Malik's aching jaw and forced him to stare up into his shadow's angry eyes. "You have seen the trouble Galaeron's shadow has brought on him. What do you think yours would do, were I to let it inside you?"
"Why should I fear such a thing?" Malik squeaked. "If a shadow is all the things I am not, this one is undoubtedly as charitable as I am selfish, as trustworthy as I am corrupt, as brave as I am craven. My shadow would only make me all the things that women desire and men admire."
"What of Cyric?" It was the shadow that asked this question-and that flashed a brutal purple smile as it did so. "How would he feel about a Seraph who was all those things?"
The blood went cold in Malik's veins, and he swung his gaze to Yder.
"What was your question again?"
CHAPTER TWELVE
1 Eleasias, the Year of Wild Magic
In the dim light of the cell, the link was easier for Vala to feel than to see, even with skin numbed by cold and calluses. She worked her foot up the chain until she felt pit-roughened metal, then pinched the loop between her toes and lifted it toward her mouth. Even flexible as she had grown over the past couple of months, she could not bring it all the way to her face. Once the chain went taut, she used her leg muscles to pull herself closer. She let her toes slide down one link then spit a mouthful of saliva onto the pitted surface.
Vala had her doubts about whether she could actually spit her way to freedom, but with her hands manacled behind her back and no other tools to work with, it was the best she could do, and it gave her something to focus on when she was not being abused by Escanor or his retainers. She could not just sit there in the dark, waiting between sessions. She had to keep trying, to know she was at least attempting to escape.
Besides, when she had started, there had been no pits in the link at all. Vala let the chain go slack, then wrapped her toes into it and began to jerk downward against the eye hook that secured it to the wall. A hundred times, then find the link and spit. If she just kept working at it, something would give. The hook would loosen in the wall, or the link would grow rusty and break, or a guard would think she had lost her mind and grow careless enough to let her kill him. Something would happen. It had to, if she was ever to see her son again.
A voice whispered, "Vala?"
Vala hit the end of the chain and was back on the floor before she realized she had jumped. She spun on her seat, her legs cocked for thrust kicks, and found no one there.
Great, she thought. Something has happened. I've started to hear things.
"We're not going to hurt you," the voice said.
Vala squinted toward the voice and saw nothing but murk, then a tiny man in black robes hopped onto her foot. She wasn't just hearing things. The man-the delusion, she corrected herself-had an unruly black beard and dark eyes, but his face and arms were too light to be Shadovar.
"No need to cower, my dear," he said. "We're friends of-"
Vala flicked the figure off her foot and heard it hit a wall with a real-sounding thud. She was cowering, frightened of her tortured mind's own phantasms.
"I won't let this happen," she said to herself. Vala straightened her shoulders and raised her chin-but she did not lower her leg. "Go away!"
"Softly, child!" This time the voice was female, and it came from over near the door. "Mind the guard."
Another voice, on her other side, began what sounded like a spell. The bearded figure returned, this time flanked by two female figures with flowing silver hair, and Vala realized that, phantasms or not, they were all around her. There could be hundreds of them out there in the dark, swarming over the floor. Thousands, maybe, an army of dark little shadow faeries come to feast now that her flesh was suitably battered and bruised. She screamed. She could not help herself, the sound just erupted as she let out her next breath.
The shadow faeries cringed and looked toward the door, and in the next moment Vala was silent. Her mouth remained open and her throat continued to vibrate, but there was no more sound.
The male faerie looked toward the door and asked, "The guard?"
"Still thinking about it," the female voice whispered. "He's curious, but not alarmed."
Vala could see her, another silver-haired faerie down on the floor, peering around the corner of the archway.
"Keep an eye on him," the male said.
Followed by the two silver-haired females, he circled toward Vala's head. They were joined by a third female, which fluttered over from behind Vala and settled on the floor next to them. Vala tried to spin around to bring her feet toward them but one of the females made a motion with a sliver-sized wand, and she found herself unable to move.