“Pahd,” Sarie whispered, “do you think…”
“Yes, my love,” Pahd murmured, hugging her trembling body close to his own. “I think our shaper has made good his promise.”
“It scares me,” Sarie whimpered.
Pahd licked his lips and didn’t reply. There wasn’t a warrior in the world who could cause him concern. But this scared him witless.
“Stop!” Flayh commanded.
Why? the castle sneered, and Flayh’s own window blew open with a bang.
Undaunted, he chanted again: “By the powers of the wind, by the powers of the sea, by my powers you begin, all your powers rest in me!”
The High Fortress laughed aloud. Flayh was ready for that Without a word he altered shape and his magic transformation turned the laughter of the Fortress into a long howl of pain. Flayh did not hurry to resume his human form. When at last he did, it was Flayh who was laughing and not the Fortress.
Who? the High Fortress asked him.
“I am your master,” Flayh said quietly, and he blew out the candle. For the rest of the long night, Flayh sat in his black room smiling.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
From Troupe to Troops
THE ONRUSHING SLAVERS did not stop with the coming of daylight. They just left the main road and spent the entire day in the saddle. No words were exchanged, not even during the infrequent pauses in their journey. This trip had a very different flavor from Bronwynn’s exhilarating ride through the Great South Fir. Raucous laughter had been replaced by muffled grunts. Wild careening over bushes and brush had given way to disciplined, orderly riding, the kind one would expect from a crack equestrian brigade. Every slaver present knew he had entered the territory of a deadly enemy. No one was foolish enough to take the Golden Throng of Chaomonous lightly especially not when he considered the reputation of Lord Joss. Several of the slavers had spent time as Joss’ captives and had shared sobering stories of his cruelty. It was in deference to Joss* skill as a tactician that the troop divided at midday. While the bulk of the riders forded the river twenty miles north of the capital, sixty of the finest horsemen continued southward. They were to make a carefully planned raid on the city*s northwestern suburbs. Admon Faye felt confident that the raid would draw Joss out of the castle and cover his larger contingent’s entry into the city sewers.
After twenty-seven hours of nearly nonstop riding, the larger unit of the house of Faye abandoned their exhausted horses at the northeast edge of Chaomonous. In minutes all were underground, Bronwynn included. She plugged her nose with cotton against the fetid odor and took her appointed place in a low, lean boat. An hour later, just a few minutes after midnight, they were all assembled in a subterranean cavern beneath the warehouse of one of Admon Faye’s many “business associates” one who knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Several lamps guttered in the close, foul cave, casting a flickering light on Admon Faye’s face as he stood to address them:
“Here we sleep. Five hours no more. We’re within a few hundred yards of OUT target, so keep silent and get some rest. You’ll be awakened by squads and ferried across to the point of entry at the base of the fortress. Once inside, wait in the cavern until all have assembled.”
“Only one boat at a time?” a boatman asked. He knew the answer, but wanted to be sure everyone else did too.
“As planned,” Admon Faye grunted. “One boat the guards won’t take notice of. Fifteen boats at once would insure us all of a grave at the bottom of the river.” Admon Faye searched the faces of his fellow cutthroats, seeking any signs of undue nervousness that might indicate duplicity. He found none. His eyes lingered on the face of Bronwynn.
Angry? Bored? Or just sleepy and cross? Whatever, it was clear from her grim look that she was far from happy. The slaver dismissed it. He didn’t expect her to be.
“We wait in the corridors below the house until after its occupants have had breakfast. Breakfast within the walls is a feast as we shall all discover, when our little Bronwynn is the Queen,” he added with a wicked grin. “After the meal, the guards will be stuffed and sleepy from then- long night of defending the suburbs totally unprepared for our invasion. We’ll have diminished their number still further, I hope. I’ve scheduled a second raid on the western side of the city at a little after dawn, and Joss should be reacting to squelch it just about the time we attack. Sleepy, full, lulled by the false security of knowing where the enemy is, Ligne’s guards will be raw meat for our cutting.” Admon
Faye paused and allowed himself a satisfied smile. “It’s a good plan,”
he affirmed. “There’s not a thing that can stop us.”
Bronwynn stared absently beyond the slaver at the garbage and clung drifting atop the surface of the waterway. It somehow seemed the only appropriate backdrop to this entire episode.
A few hours later, the boat was pushed away, off to deliver its first load. Bronwynn fingered the hilt of her dagger and waited her turn.
The night had come and the occupants of the Imperial House had long been still, when Pelmen suddenly awoke, his body drenched with sweat.
He raised himself off the cot and felt the steam rising off the floor.
He reached out in the pitch darkness to touch the wall he knew was there and snatched his hand away from the hot stone. “You’re steaming!” he gasped.
Seething, actually, the Imperial House growled from its bowels.
“Angry?” Pelmen whispered.
Infuriated! the House thundered, and the steam continued to rise.
“Why? And where’s this steam coming from?”
While you’ve been slumbering, an army of thieves and robbers has crawled through the crack in these foundations! the Imperial House roared. As to where the steam is coming from, you will find the water is rising in the caverns.
- “Water?” Pelmen asked. The cryptic sprang immediately to mind:
“Deal gently with the House that speaks, lest it make the waters rise.”
“Are you causing the water level to rise?”
Certainly. In the same way in which this House cooked the fish.
“You have to stop!” Pelmen shouted, and he leaped from his cot. He jumped back onto it immediately, however. The floor singed his feet.
He quickly found his sandals and strapped them on, even as the castle snarled back:
Why should this House wait! Do you expect the Imperial House of Chaomonous to permit an invasion from without? Why do you think this castle was summoned to life in the first place? It was to protect this castle’s occupants against vermin like this.
Pelmen crawled into his garments as he asked, “How many are there?”
Less than a hundred. No! More of the scum seep in at this very moment! The Imperial House seethed in fury. “Who leads them?”
This House knows few human faces “Is it the man who took Bronwynn from your dungeon!” Pelmen asked. The House was silent for a moment.
It is that very rodent.
“Admon Faye,” The power shaper nodded; he stood in the middle of the room and tried to clear his head to make plans. Obviously this was the other plot Serphiraera had envisioned one of two doomed to fail.
Dismissing for a moment this reminder that his own scheme was similarly destined, he appealed to the House to recognize the outcome of its heated solution to the problem. “I take it you’re planning to cook these invaders out of your tunnels in the same way that you boiled the fish.”
You guess rightly.
“But these tunnels connect to the lower dungeons. Won’t that boil the Lady Serphimera as well?”