Lynn Flewelling - Shadows Return

Lost in blackness and choking on the charnel stench, Seregil heard a distant scream.

Blind, chilled, and rapidly losing consciousness, Seregil tried to get to Korathan’s wands inside his coat, hoping that breaking them all at once would alert the prince that something had gone terribly wrong. But the monster’s grip was too tight. Desperate to leave some sign that would be recognized, he slipped Klia’s ring from his finger and let it fall, and with it a prayer that it be found by a friend.

Alec had just had time to drop his bow and draw his sword before the blackness bore down on him.

“Seregil!” he yelled, caught in darkness and the grip of the black nightmare. A dra’gorgos-or at least that’s what he thought he’d heard Seregil shout before the world went black. He tried to fight, but something hit his arm, numbing it except for a burning pain in his hand.

The hilt slipped from his fingers and his consciousness with it.

SEREGIL WOKE IN darkness, chilled to the bone and caught in a wave of gut-wrenching nausea. His mouth was filled with the mingled bitterness of bile and iron; his teeth grated against a thin, flat metal plate that pressed on his tongue. He shuddered at the sensation and another wave of nausea threatened. The sour reek of vomit was strong, and a rushing, pounding sound filled his ears. Wherever he was, it was dark and moving. As his mind cleared, he recognized the sounds.

A ship. Bilairy’s Sack, I’m in a ship’s hold. How the-?

Moving his arms and legs carefully, he ascertained that although no bones seemed to be broken, he was shackled hand and foot. Gagging, he tried to sit up, but his head felt too heavy. He collapsed back on his side and felt rough planking against his bare skin. Metal dug into his temple, and the plate between his teeth shifted, cutting the side of his mouth. He was naked, too.

Just his luck.

They’ve got me in branks.

He rolled slowly onto his back, trying to ease the pressure of the iron cage around his head. Rough chain bit into the underside of his jaw, holding the wretched apparatus in place.

The last thing he recalled was the ambush in the forest. How in the name of the Four had he gotten on a ship? And in this condition, too?

What became of Phoria’s message sticks? he wondered dully. And what will she do when no word arrives?

He was still too addled from the dra’gorgos attack to get further than that, but knew from experience that the illness was probably his usual reaction to magic. His first thought was that someone had sent him here by a translocation spell, but if so, the effects would be wearing off by now. Instead, he was still wretchedly sick, and it was making it hard to concentrate. And since he wasn’t given to seasickness, something must be acting on him, probably some spell on the shackles. He never knew how a new magic would affect him, but more often than not it was unpleasant. This certainly fit the pattern.

He pulled weakly at the shackles and heard the dull drag of heavy chains against wood. There was a long bar between his hands, making it impossible to use them effectively, and another between his feet. He dragged his right hand awkwardly to his face and used his lips and cheek to examine the thick metal band around his wrist. It was a handspan wide, and he could feel neither lock nor seam. He twisted his wrists and the bands cut into his flesh; too tight to wiggle out of, even if he disjointed his thumbs. That was almost a relief; it had been a long time since he’d had to use such drastic measures and he was in enough pain as it was.

As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he found he could make out a thin sliver of light far overhead that was mostly likely a hatchway. Squinting, he made out the heavy staples his chains were secured to, and then, further away, the shapes of others bound as he was.

“Ah- ek!” It was impossible to speak properly around the branks. “Ar-ek? ’ere are you?”

Suddenly the darkness was filled with frantic voices, all of them as garbled as his own, and none of them Alec’s.

Exhausted and sick, he lay still, trying to ignore the terrible discomfort, and the stink of his own vomit pooled near his head.

Over the rush of the waves against the hull, he could make out the thump of bare feet on the deck overhead, and voices. When he finally made out a few words, his heart sank even lower. They were speaking Zengati.

So, he was on a slave ship, and Alec wasn’t with him.

Seregil clenched his teeth against the iron plate, using the shivery pain to fight down a burst of panic. He couldn’t afford any distractions. He tried to tell himself that Alec could have escaped, but memories of the ambush in the forest won out. Whoever his captors were, they had killed anyone they didn’t mean to take.

And Alec wasn’t here.

Panic won, and he thrashed in impotent rage, until he was bloody and too weak to move.

For the first time in a very long time, he was helpless.

ALEC WAS DEEP under dark water, unable to breathe. He could see a light glimmering far overhead, and he tried desperately to swim up to it, but his body was heavy and his arms didn’t work right. An undersea swell tugged at him and filled his ears with its soft roar. The more he struggled, the more he sank. Giving up, he used the last of the air in his bursting lungs to cry out for Seregil-

The unpleasant scrape of metal against his teeth brought Alec out of one nightmare and into a new one. The sound of the sea was still in his ears, and the world was still moving, but daylight smarted his eyes. He was in a cramped, plank-walled room. A tiny window showed only a square of blue sky and a few white seagulls. Even without that, he could tell by the rolling motion of the room that he was aboard a ship under full sail.

How in the name of Bilairy had he gotten on a ship?

Badly disoriented, he looked down to find that his wrists were locked in wide metal bands, and a long bar was fastened between them to keep his hands apart. One end of a heavy chain was fastened to the middle of the spanner, and the other to a heavy metal staple in the wall. His fingers found metal straps between his eyes and around his head.

Someone had put him in branks, like the one Thero had worn when they were captives together on that Plenimaran ship. The same sort of wide, silvery bands of metal encased his wrists. Someone had mistaken him for a wizard and taken serious precautions.

Otherwise, he’d been made comfortable. He lay on a narrow bunk, warmly swathed in blankets. His clothing was gone, he noted uneasily, but otherwise, he seemed unharmed.

For now. Mardus and his necromancers had taken good care of Alec, too, as long it had suited them. How in hell had he come to be in the same damn situation twice?

He closed his eyes. He remembered the ambush, and something black and horrible rushing at him, surrounding him with numbing cold and a breathtaking stench. And Seregil yelling…

Panic rose again, stronger this time, as it sank in that he was alone.

He slid off the bunk and staggered unsteadily toward the window, but the chain wasn’t long enough. He could get off the bed to stand, but no further. He climbed back onto the bunk and stood up on it to give him a different view out the window.

There wasn’t much to see-just some taut ropes and a section of rail, and beyond that, open sea. He couldn’t find the sun to judge the hour.

A chill, salt-laden draft caressed his skin, bringing gooseflesh out on his arms. He sat down and awkwardly dragged a blanket up over his knees with one hand.

The bunk was built into the wall-just bare boards under a thin mattress stuffed with wool. There was nothing loose lying about except two small wooden buckets on a shelf at the end of the bed. The empty one stank of piss, and was clearly meant for a chamber pot. The other held water. He leaned over and sniffed it suspiciously, but it seemed clean. Thirst overrode caution and he sucked up what he could, trying to wash the metallic taste from his mouth. Resuming his vigil, he tried to ignore the fear blossoming in his belly.