Flanked by six armed trolls.
Chapter 41
"If you have an explanation," Simrahi said calmly, "I will listen to it now."
Beside Danae, Ravagin slid forward and dropped off the chair onto the floor in front of the castlelord.
"I'd be happy to give you one," he said wearily, turning to offer Danae a hand. She came down beside him, keeping hold of his hand. "But I'm not sure what it would prove," he added, turning back to Simrahi. "As of yesterday you had already made up your mind about us. I doubt the events downstairs have changed that opinion any."
Simrahi simply cocked an eyebrow. "You may be surprised," he said, eyes flicking to the scorpion glove on Ravagin's hand. "Tell me, Ravagin, why did you join my treasonous guard master in his attempt to usurp my rule?"
Ravagin held his hands out, palms upward. "You had virtually condemned us to death, my lord, with no hope offered of reprieve. When one is offered freedom under such circumstances, one has no choice but to take it."
"Indeed. Then why did you turn against him at the end?"
It seemed to Danae that Ravagin stiffened slightly. "That question should need no answer."
"Why not? Neither of you are citizens of Numant Protectorate—you owe me neither loyalty nor love. For that matter, from what little I can learn about you it is unclear that you owe loyalty to anyone on Shamsheer."
"Perhaps one from whom no loyalty is demanded is more able to give it of his own free will,"
Ravagin said quietly.
"Perhaps." Simrahi's eyes flicked to Danae. "And you, Danae? Where does your loyalty lie?"
"With Ravagin, my lord," she said automatically. The words suddenly registered in her fatigued brain
— "That is, in the way Ravagin has already said," she corrected, feeling blood rushing to her cheeks.
A touch of a smile flickered across the castle-lord's face. "I think perhaps you were correct the first time." His gaze returned to Ravagin and he sobered. "You entered my, private tower through sorcerous means, yet did me no harm. You took my bubble unlawfully, yet used it in my defense.
You allied yourself with treason, yet in the end used that alliance to expose and destroy it. Is this a fair summary of events?"
A shiver went up Danae's back as she realized what Simrahi's words and phrasing meant. They were on trial again; an informal trial, but no less real for that.
And it was clear that Ravagin recognized that, as well. "Only that our intentions remain as I stated them at my hearing yesterday, my lord," he said, matching the castle-lord's formal tone. "We wish merely to pass peacefully through Numant Protectorate and continue our journey."
"To where?"
"I am not permitted to say, my lord."
For a long moment Simrahi gazed at them in silence. Then, raising one hand, he tapped the nearest troll on its side. "You will escort Ravagin and Danae to the sky-plane landing area," he ordered it.
"They are to be allowed to leave Castle Numanteal. They are not permitted to return. Ever."
"Acknowledged," the troll said, taking a step forward.
Ravagin bowed his head briefly. "Thank you, my lord. We will not betray your trust."
"No thanks needed," the other said. "And less trust than you may imagine. I need not rely totally on your statements; though you were apparently unaware of it, I have been following the events of this night ever since you entered my sky room and learned to command my bubble."
Ravagin's hand, gripping Danae's, suddenly tightened. "You—? But no trolls came to attack."
"I sent none. Like the trolls, the bubble is mine to take command of at any time." Simrahi's eyes bored into Ravagin's. "I confess that I felt a certain amount of curiosity as to your purposes, as well as your means of entry. And I was not disappointed. There is a great deal more to you than one would first imagine, Ravagin. To both of you," he amended, nodding courteously to Danae.
"Someday I hope to discover just where it is people like you come from."
Danae held her breath... but Ravagin merely shrugged slightly. "It is not in my power to satisfy your curiosity, my lord."
"I thought not." The castle-lord took a deep breath. "At any rate... day will soon be here. If you wish your departure to be at all secretive, you had best take it quickly."
Ravagin again bowed his head. "Again we thank you, my lord." He hesitated a fraction of a second.
"And we leave you with a warning: Habri's treason may not be the last such attempt on your rule.
You had best be on your guard."
Simrahi's expression turned to flint. "I do not need outlanders to tell me how to defend the Numant Protectorate," he bit out. "Depart—now—and do not forget you are barred from ever returning to this castle. Do not forget; for the trolls will certainly not." Turning his back, he strode away from them, all but one of the trolls falling into a loose defensive pattern around him.
"You will go to the sky-plane landing area," the remaining troll said, taking another step forward.
"No argument," Ravagin sighed. Letting go of Danae's hand, he stepped closer to slip his arm around her waist, holding her tightly to him as they headed down the bloodstained stairway.
Fifteen minutes later they were seated on a sky-plane, soaring over the castle wall and heading southwest toward the Tunnel. Ten kilometers as the birdine flew, Danae remembered; perhaps ten or fifteen minutes by sky-plane. We're going to make it, she thought. This time we're realty going to make it.
Five minutes later, Ravagin brought them down in the middle of the Harrian Hills.
"All I know," Danae growled as he sent the carpet away, "is that you'd better have one damn good reason for this."
"I hope I don't, actually," he said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "I hope like hell I'm being overcautious. But after everything that's happened, I'd rather err that way than the other. Come on—
the Tunnel's this direction. We should be there in an hour or so."
"We'd better be," she said, setting off with a sigh. "In case you haven't noticed, we haven't had a lot of sleep in the past few days. I'm about dead on my feet—and we might get that way permanently if Simrahi catches us out here."
"He only told us not to come back to the castle," Ravagin reminded her.
"I somehow doubt he's going to be worried about the strict letter of the law," she shot back. "And we were getting along so well with him there at the end—why did you have to go out of your way to irritate him, anyway?"
"I didn't 'go out of my way,' " he growled, "and I don't think a little irritation really stacks up against life and death, do you?"
"Life and—?" She broke off. "You mean... the spirits?"
He shrugged uncomfortably. "It's one of the things I had in mind," he said. "What better place for them to take control of than the protectorate containing the Tunnel to Threshold?"
"Oh, God," she murmured. "You think Simrahi will be able to keep them back? He doesn't even know what it is he's up against."
"He can't stop them," he admitted. "Not for long, anyway. It's going to be up to us, Danae—us and whatever the Twenty Worlds can gather together to throw at the problem."
"Great." Something he'd said a minute ago... "Were there any other reasons you gave Simrahi that warning?"
"Yes. One."
"Care to enlighten me?"
"No. Not now, anyway. Suffice it to say that if what I was trying to do works, we'll hopefully never know it." She had to be content with that.
An hour later they carefully topped the last hill and came within view of the Tunnel... to find four trolls standing guard at the entrance.