Suddenly he whipped around to face her. “I’ve heard you and Kherda talk about the acting troupe here in the ca-c-c-castle. Let m-m-me j-j-join with them!”
“Acting troupe!” Ligne exploded. “What for!”
“I know they’re d-d-doing a p-play in p-praise of you. I c-could be in it! Grow more c-confident!”
She stared at him a moment, a hand on her hip, then strolled over to the spilled Drax pieces and picked one up from the floor. She studied it a moment, tossed it in the air and caught it, and then looked at him. “Maybe I’m expecting too much of you. Maybe Gerrig could teach you a thing or two about women, at the very least.” She thought for another moment, then dropped the piece on the floor again. “Come along. Well find your actors. And maybe I can reclaim my lost clown as well. This palace has been dull all afternoon.” She marched smartly out of the game room, snapping her fingers at Carlad, who leaned on the wall outside the door.
It took several inquiries for them to find the rehearsal hall in this labyrinthine palace. Ligne had never bothered herself to seek it out before. Her arrival took the troupe very much by surprise. She slammed open the door and stalked in, leaving Gerrig dangling in mid speech
“Why why, my Lady, what a pleasant surprise,” Gerrig stammered, panicked by the thought of having to perform immediately. He hadn’t seen Pelmen since then- encounter in the garden the day before and had no idea where he was now. “Ah what can we do for you?”
Ligne waved her hand, and Rosha walked into the room, followed by a bored Carlad. “This is my consort,” she announced. “Give him a part.”
“Why, ah ” Gerrig swallowed. “We don’t normally do that kind of thing.” but certainly, of course, we’ll surely find a part for him to play in our little entertainment, won’t we, friends?” He raised his eyebrows at the others and nodded vigorously. They all chorused their approval of the idea.
“And, Gerrig,” she added, leaning toward him, “while you’re teaching him to use his tongue, show him a few things about using his body as well, hmmm?” She winked at him.
Gerrig smiled anxiously, hoping it looked as if he understood what she was talking about “Certainly! We’ll do it.”
“Another thing. This room’s too cramped, and too far away from my apartments. From now on, you rehearse in my throne room.”
The big actor gagged, then recovered quickly to protest “My Lady! This play was to be a surprise. How can we ”
“I’ll not be there when you’re rehearsing, idiot!” Ligne snapped. Then she looked around. “Where*s my fool?”
Ah! Yes! Your fool. Ah, Parmi, where is that fool Gerrig asked nervously.
“He’s not with you, my Lady?” Parmi asked. “If he were with me,”
Ligne said with a mocking patience that dripped sarcasm, “do you think I’d be looking for… him? Where is he?”
“He is… perhaps… indisposed…”
“By what?”
“Ah… natural causes?”
“You mean he’s sick?”
“Perhaps…”
“When you see him, send him to me. If you’re going to have my Rosha, I need some entertainment, don’t I?”
“Most certainly you do, my Lady.” Gerrig grinned. “And I’ll see to it that you get that entertainment just as soon as the clown reports to rehearsal. And, of course, we’ll work your fine young man into the script!”
Ligne didn’t hear the last of his speech. She’d already disappeared out the door. Gerrig smiled and nodded at Carlad, then sidled up to Yona and whispered, “What do we do now?”
“Apparently we move to the throne room.” Yona shrugged. To himself, he added, “And perhaps a little closer to the truth.”
The House was still laughing at Pelmen hours later, when the exhausted shaper finally slumped against one of its walls. As near as he could tell, Pelmen had crossed his own path three times. He couldn’t even find his way back to the cistern. In frustration, he raised his head and appealed to the Power. “I don’t suppose you know the way out of here, do you?”
Of course, cackled the Imperial House. But if you won’t lis The House was interrupted by a shocking event. A powerful wind whistled through its caverns a wind it neither initiated nor permitted.
Where did that come from? it bellowed in amazement. Pelmen shook his head and muttered, “You make it seem so easy.” Then he hopped up and let the wind rush around him. He turned his back on it and let its pressure…” guide him down the tunnel.
Magic? the Imperial House wondered. If so, this magic felt like nothing it had ever experienced. It was painless and cleansing.
Pelmen was impelled by the wind past branching corridors that were free of even the slightest breeze. He had no light to walk by, but he made no effort to kindle any. He knew that now he wouldn’t be able to.
This wind knows these caverns! Amazing! the castle gasped. For the wind was guiding Pelmen to the very tunnel through which Admon Faye had penetrated the lower dungeons.
Pelmen walked on boldly, passing yet another intersection of passages.
Then the wind died as suddenly as it had come. At the end of the corridor he could make out a dim light. He walked swiftly toward it, and found it was shining through a small hole, just large enough to crawl through. He got down on his hands and knees and listened.
Pelmen had spent more time in dungeons than he cared to remember.
During Talith’s reign, he’d even been a guest in this one. He knew that prisons sounded different when there were guards present than they did when the warders were gone. He listened for the telltale sounds of soldiers. Sure, at last, that the way was clear, he shoved his shoulders into the small opening and wiggled through.
He saw immediately why the hole had never been plugged. It was hidden under a low outcropping of rock in a dark corner of this cell. As he pulled his feet through, he noticed three skeletons dangling from the walls, each still held in place by an ancient collar and chain. Pelmen wondered briefly if these were his predecessors in the office of court jester, but they’d been here too long for that. This cell had long gone unused. The door was ajar. Torchlight flickered in the hall beyond. He listened, then slipped out to investigate the corridor. It was cemetery silent. Most of these cells were clearly vacant. These were the lower dungeons there was another floor of cells above him. It made sense that a lazy warden would pack those above to capacity before filling these lower rooms, thus saving himself extra trips up and down the stairs. Besides, it seemed Ligne preferred killing her enemies to holding them captive. Would Bronwynn be on the upper level? Or could she already be dead?
He decided to search this floor thoroughly first. He crept down the hall, listening at each door and peering ! through its food slot. He paused at each only long enough to assure himself there was no one inside, then moved on to the next.
He stopped he heard a chanting. He glanced toward the spiral stairway that led to the upper floor, but that wasn’t the source of the noise. He traced the sound past the f; stairs to a cell door beyond them. He slipped cautiously toward it, then knelt to listen. It was a woman’s voice.
“Bronwynn,” he whispered, wishing immediately that he ,; hadn’t. The chanting within stopped, and there was a long period of quiet shuffling within the cell. Pelmen tried to listen to that and watch the stairs as well.
A woman’s voice suddenly came through the oaken barrier. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Prophet, but I’m not your initiate. I have been expecting you, though.” Pelmen forgot all caution, as her name tore from his lips. “Serphimera!”
Many miles to the north, in another dungeon cell, sat the Prophet of Lamath.
“He wasn’t a prisoner. Erri the Prophet, formerly Erri the sailor, had simply taken over the prison of the King of La-; math as the headquarters for the new faith that Pelmen had established. He never called himself the Prophet that honor he reserved for Pelmen. But Peimen called him that, > and so did everyone else. Like it or not, Erri answered to the name.