There was one man who knew them all, much as a rat knows its secret pathways into the larder. Like his brother rats, this man now scurried along hidden corridors in the darkness, oblivious to the curses the Imperial House heaped upon him.
The castle’s record as a fortress was impeccable. And yet, in its twice a thousand years of existence, it had housed a score of short-lived dynasties. The old records that lined the dusty shelves of its library detailed a murky history of plots and counterplots. As a result, secret passageways carved of rock, dark memorials to those sinister doings, met and diverged in the black silence beneath the castle’s dancing floor. Many had been dug since the coming of the dragon, and thus the House was blind to them. But all were known to the man who now added his inaudible tread to the weight of the heavy quiet.
He had an affinity with darkness. The black of the hellhole of Chaomonous could not compete with the inky darkness of his heart. His face was the stuff of nightmares. His name was Admon Faye.
He searched for something. Gliding from door to door in the dungeon, he hovered and listened to the movements within each cell only long enough to be sure its occupant wasn’t his quarry. It was a testimony to his expertise in the art of silence that the denizens of this dank place, their ears sharpened by the absence of light, never heard him pass.
He left one corridor, slipping cautiously into the torchlit stairway to descend even further into the pit. He tiptoed into a fetid chamber, half lighted by a torch in the stairwell behind him. On the far side of the room, the dark side, he found a grate in the floor and knelt to listen.
“Here,” he thought to himself. From the cell below the grate he could hear the shallow breathing of a child or a woman. He struggled to lift the heavy grillwork. It wasn’t fastened down.
“Food? Food at last?” Bronwynn called up weakly. “Where’s the torch?” When he didn’t answer, she whispered, “Who’s there?”
“Hush!” he ordered in a sharp whisper; then he uncoiled a length of rope from around his waist and tied a loop in one end of it. “Wrap this around you,” he whispered again, and he dropped the rope into the emptiness. It slapped the straw below, and he heard the woman shuffling toward it. She did not speak again until she stood beside him in the chamber.
“Who are you?”
Admon Faye kept his face turned from her and the dim torchlight to his back as he bent to murmur, “Grab my belt and follow me out.”
They quickly left the dungeon and soon were into the subterranean maze.
As they made their way through it, there was only one exchange between them. “Pehnen?” the young woman whispered, and Adroit Faye stifled a snicker.
There was a convenient crevice in the rock just a few feet above the level of the river. Admon Faye did not hesitate when they reached it, but vaulted out of the crevice to land in a rowboat secreted below it.
The young woman popped her head out, wincing in the first sunlight she’d seen in months, but determined to discover who had rescued her.
Once she saw the legendary face of Admon Faye, she was tempted to climb back inside. “You!” She spat into the boat, Lady Bronwynn,” Admon Faye ordered quietly. “I’m in no mood to get an arrow through my back, and, I trust, neither are you.”
Without another word Bronwynn wedged her body through the crack and tumbled into the boat. Though she had little stomach for what lay before her, it was surely better than what she’d left behind. She lay back in the small craft and enjoyed the sun on her face, while Admon Faye merged them effortlessly into the anonymous traffic of the great river of Chaomonous. The Imperial House watched it all in fury.
CHAPTER THREE
In the Slaver’s Sewer
IT’S ONE OF THE IRONIES of large cities that frequently the pockets of greatest lawlessness are found in the very shadow of the seat of law.
The heart of the criminal subculture of Chaomonous lived within a five-hundred-yard radius of the palace. Bronwynn’s escape by boat had lasted all of four minutes long enough for Admon Faye to steer them from the foot of the castle’s granite foundation to the mouth of a nearby sewer. Chaomonous was proud of its sewer system, but no one in the city felt prouder than the thugs and thieves who made it their private highway. Within minutes of her rescue from Ligne’s dungeon, Bron-wynn found herself locked away in yet another cell. As far as she could tell, her circumstances hadn’t altered a bit She’d only changed locations and jailers.
Now she stood behind the door with a small rough stool in her hand, awaiting Admon Faye’s return. She heard the scrape of an oar against the sewer wall, then another scrape of wood on rock as a boat was moored in place. There were some mumbled words, but no reply. She hoped that meant he’d come alone.
Not that it made any difference. She’d tangled with Admon Faye before, far to the north in the land of Lamath and her cheek had borne the imprint of his teeth for weeks afterward. Rosha mod Dorlyth had nearly killed the hideous slaver on that occasion, knocking Admon Faye headlong into a pit as dank and dark as this one. But the cutthroat was a powerful man he’d survived. In her much-weakened state, Bronwynn knew she had little chance of escaping him. But she could surely let her feelings be known.
The key turned in the lock, and Admon Faye thrust his stomach-churning visage inside. Then he jerked back, yelping in pain, as Bronwynn sent the stool crashing savagely off his forehead. He slammed the door open and kicked the bouncing stool aside, then grabbed Bronwynn by the collar of her filthy dress. He hoisted her up until her face was scant inches from his glaring eyes, and spat out, “You may be a Princess, dearie, but a strap will peel your hide as easily as it will a slave girl’s 1” She trembled with fury and fear. Then inexplicably, he dropped her, and all anger drained from his face. He righted the stool, shoved it over to a rude table, and motioned her toward it. “Sit down. I’ve brought you some breakfast.”
“Why are you keeping me here?” she screamed. “Are you planning to sell me back to Ligne, is that it? So you can finally make a profit on my death?”
Admon Faye rotated his little finger in his ear and shook his head.
“Really echoes when you yell in this place. Sit down and eat.”
“I’m not eating anything until I find out why I’m here!” she screamed again with exaggerated shrillness.
“Just what do you think I’ve come down here to do?” Admon Faye yelled back. It was Bronwynn’s turn to stop her ears. The slaver laughed.
Then he ducked out the door to the boat and quickly returned with two tankards of drink, a loaf of bread, a pot of honey, and several chunks of cheese. Bronwynn’s mouth watered involuntarily. It seemed like years since she’d tasted anything but stale bread-crusts in gravy. She plopped onto the stool, tore the bread in half, and soon had her mouth crammed full of the heavenly stuff. Admon Faye went out a second time, returning with another stool. He closed the door behind him, sat on the stool, and leaned his back against the wall. “Surely you understand, girl, that I don’t act as barmaid to
J The Wizard tn Waiting all my captives. Don’t think I’d trouble myself to steer that boat down here through the slime just to watch you feed your belly.”
“Then why have you come?” Bronwynn asked, her mouth full of cheese and her fingers dripping with honey.
“We need each other, Bronwynn. You and I.”
Bronwynn was startled. For the first time, Admon Faye had revealed to her his crooked excuse for a smile. The sight threatened to rob her of her appetite, but the smell of the cheese won her back, and she quickly stuffed more of both it and the bread into her mouth. “I need you?”