Terry Brooks - Bloodfire Quest

When they arrived, almost the first thing they saw was what remained of the Ard Rhys’s head spiked atop the gates, and the shape-shifter’s first thought was that they were too late to save Redden, as well. Tesla Dart insisted this was so. If one prisoner was dead, so was the other. Especially if the one who was dead was Khyber Elessedil. Tael Riverine did not keep his enemies alive unnecessarily, and the Ard Rhys had been the one who mattered. The boy meant nothing to him.

Now, crouched close to the fortress walls, the argument resumed.

“I’m not asking you to go inside with me,” Oriantha pointed out. “I’m asking you how I can get in. Do you know a way?”

“You walk in, you will be carried out. In pieces!” The Ulk Bog was having none of it. “Forget this!”

“Do you know a way?” Oriantha repeated.

“Over the wall. Climb it, you get in!”

“No secret passageways, no hidden doors? Did Weka Dart teach you nothing?”

“Not talk that way of him!” The Ulk Bog was beside herself. “He dies for Straken Queen! Is that not enough? Doesn’t owe you, her or me!”

Oriantha looked away, studying the fortress some more. Apparently she was going to have to make it the rest of her way on her own. Climbing might work, she thought, but how do I find my way once I am inside? How do I find Redden?

“Don’t do this,” Tesla Dart said suddenly, grasping her arm. Her voice had dropped to a whisper, as if in speaking louder she might be heard by others. “He is dead. Let him go.”

Inwardly, Oriantha was afraid this was so. But she was determined to make sure, nevertheless. She was resolved not to leave him if he was alive.

“We will wait here until it’s dark, and then I will scale the walls and search for him. In my shape-shifter form, I will not be so easy to spy or to catch. If I don’t find him by morning, I will come back out again and we will leave.”

Tesla Dart sagged back with a moan of despair, shaking her head so hard the clusters of hair sprouting from it quivered. “You will not come back,” she said. “You will not.”

High within the imprisoning towers of Kraal Reach, Redden Ohmsford sat alone in the cell to which he was confined, staring at the patterns of the stonework on the floor. The seams between the slabs ran this way and that, forming endless rivers of grout that crisscrossed and angled and curved from wall to wall. There were bits of dust and debris, the carcasses of dead bugs and stains that interrupted the otherwise intriguing flow, and he kept coming back to them as his eyes wandered listlessly through the maze. He should remove them. He should clear them out so that nothing blocked the way. He thought to do so over and over, but he couldn’t seem to muster the strength.

In point of fact, he couldn’t muster the strength to walk to the window and look out over the countryside. Bleak as it was, empty and pitiless, it nevertheless would have offered him a change of view. Wouldn’t that be better than just sitting where he was, studying the slabs and grout of the flooring? But if he did that, he would end up glancing down at the east gates—because curiosity would demand it of him—thinking that this time her head would be gone from where it had been fixed on the spike atop the ramparts. In the beginning, he was sure they would leave it in place only a few days, a reminder and warning. But days later, it was still there, the scavengers picking at it, reducing it to something unrecognizable—to a horrific caricature of what she had looked like in life. Finally, he had quit looking out the window at all, quit exposing himself to the feelings that tore at him, quit letting hope interfere with reality.

Let the dead rest in peace. Give the Ard Rhys that much. Or as much as could be expected, given the nature of her demise and her treatment subsequent thereto.

Khyber Elessedil.

Gone with the rest of them.

And now he was the last. The very last.

He couldn’t know this for sure. He had seen most of them die right in front of him, had seen the bodies or pieces of the bodies afterward, so of those he had no doubt. Oriantha and Crace Coram were unaccounted for, but he was certain they were dead, too. He could sense it in the same way he could sense what it would do to him to look out the window. They had been carried off by a dragon and had died in a faraway place, but they had died all the same. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

Just as there was no point in pretending any longer that he might find a way out of this nightmare.

He would have cried, thinking of it, but he was all cried out. He had shed all the tears he had left to shed. He was frightened and desperate and burdened with an unshakable sense of hopelessness. His chances of ever going home again, of ever returning to his old life, were gone. All prospects of such a miracle had dimmed to darkness. He was passing his time now awaiting the arrival of his own death. It was coming to claim him; he could feel it. It was just a question of when.

His days had grown endless. He had lost all track of time. When he had been brought back to the fortress following the battle between Khyber and Tael Riverine, he had been taken immediately to this cell and left there. No one had spoken to him during the return trip. The only words uttered were those of the rabble that tracked his cage as it rolled through the countryside, an indecipherable barrage of taunts and jeers. He could still recall the sound, a cacophony rising up from the mob’s dark mass. His champion had died defending herself, and his turn was coming. What weapons did he have to call upon? What magic did he have that could defeat the power of their Straken Lord?

None, he knew.

He had no weapons and no magic that would ever make a difference. Not while he wore the conjure collar.

He felt the weight of the collar around his neck, a constant reminder of his reduced state. Even thinking of it caused him to wince involuntarily. He had tried over and over again to remove it or at least loosen it to relieve its pressure. But each time the pain it had generated was so intense that it doubled him over and left him writhing on the stone floor. Each time the extent of his helplessness had been reinforced.

Until at last he had stopped trying.

Until finally he had accepted that it was never coming off.

There was nothing left for him after that. He sat in his cell, his prison, his jail, and waited for his inevitable execution. He had no meaningful expectations left. What expectations could there be? That a miracle would happen and someone would come for him? That he could still find a way out of this madness? Impossible! Who even knew where he was? Even those who had remained behind, stranded on that ledge with the Goblins coming at them from every direction, were probably dead by now.

Even Railing.

But he didn’t believe it. Oddly, it was the one hope he clung to. Railing was still alive, still out there somewhere searching. His brother would never give up. It might be hopeless for him, but it wouldn’t be for Railing. Not now, not ever. Railing was his twin, his other half, his shadow self, and he was alive and well and hunting for Redden. Railing would never be satisfied with leaving things as they were. Even if it killed him, he would find a way to reach his brother.

Of course, he was aware of the impossibility of this happening. And the thought of Railing dying, too, brought down by his efforts to reach him, was more than he could bear.

They brought him food and water, and sometimes he ate and drank. But mostly not. Sometimes they pulled back the metal plate set in the cell door that served as a peephole and looked in on him to see what he was doing. He never bothered to look up, never cared if they were looking at him or not. He ignored them. He tried to pretend they didn’t exist.