Brooks, Terry - High Druid's Blade - The Defenders of Shannara (9780345540713)

There was no response. She waited a few minutes and then tried again. Still no response. Good enough.

Retrieving the pick from her waistband, she began working it around in the keyhole. It was harder going this time, the lock larger and less easily maneuvered. But in the end it gave a familiar snick and released.

Pocketing the lock pick, she gently twisted the handle and felt the latch give. Standing where she was, with the door partially cracked, she listened for sounds of someone waiting outside. When she heard nothing, she opened the door farther and took a cautious peek outside, looking first one way and then the other down a long hall. She was not anywhere she had been before. She was not anywhere she recognized. If she was back in Dark House, as she assumed, she had been taken to a different part of the building than where she had been kept before. This area was shadowy and empty feeling, as if no one was anywhere about.

Still, she took her time before she stepped from the room into the hallway and began edging her way carefully along the wall, stopping often to listen for the sounds of movement or voices. But everything was still. She had chosen to turn left, but she had no idea what way she should be going. She needed some sort of indicator to give her a sense of direction so she could figure out how to get free of the building.

When she reached the end of the hallway, she was facing a wall. No stairway led either up or down. She turned around in frustration, her fears heightening, and retraced her steps, working her way toward the other end of the corridor, forcing herself to keep her pace slow and steady. This time, she found that the hallway bent to the left, and in the dimness cast by the passage lights she could just catch sight of stairs leading down.

She was just starting ahead again—freedom in sight—when a door opened in front of her and an old woman emerged. The woman was bent and worn looking, dressed in a skirt and blouse that were stained and old, a scarf tying back her long gray hair, and high-top boots on her feet. She was hauling a bucket and mop, and she carried a collection of rags under one withered arm.

A cleaning woman, Chrys thought, freezing in place. Too late to go back or try to hide. She waited for the old woman to turn the other way, to not notice she was there.

Instead, the old woman turned directly toward her and froze. For long moments, the two just stared at each other.

Then Chrysallin raised a finger to her lips in a universally recognizable plea for silence. The old woman watched her, then nodded in agreement. Chrys moved in front, heading for the stairway. As she angled past, the old woman beckoned her to step close.

Leaning in, the other whispered, “There are guards at the bottom of the stairs. If you want out, there is a better way.”

Chrys hesitated, then nodded. “Can you show me?” she whispered back.

The old woman nodded and wordlessly led her back the way she had come to a door she had already passed, opening it onto a hidden set of narrow steps. Motioning for her to follow, she led Chrys down three flights of stairs into a cellar crammed with boxes and smelling of damp and mildew. What light there was came from slits cut into the stone of the foundation walls, almost at ceiling height, and covered over with a heavy, diffuse glass.

The old woman led her across the cellar floor, winding through the stacks of boxes, avoiding places were water had pooled and cracks in the floor had opened. Once or twice, Chrysallin thought she saw movement in the shadows—quick and furtive. Rats. She stayed close to the old woman, her guide through this gloomy country she did not know. It took them a long time to reach the far end, and then they were at an old ironbound wooden door recessed deep in the stone of the wall. The old woman stopped there, released a series of locks and latches, and pulled the door open to the outside.

Chrys peered past the woman’s stooped shoulders to a twilight in which stars were just beginning to come out in a darkening sky. In front of her, steps led upward to a street lined with houses and streetlamps. She could hear the distant sounds of voices and the movement of carriages and horses.

She could smell the fresh air of the city. She could taste her freedom.

She turned to the old woman who was watching her through rheumy eyes, hands clutched to her breast like a supplicant. “Go on, now,” she hissed. “Run!”

Chrysallin almost bolted, but then she hesitated. “Will you tell me your name?”

The old woman smiled. “It’s Mischa.”

F

OURTEEN

EXPECTATIONS DANCED THROUGH CHRYSALLIN’S MIND AS SHEfled Dark House and Arcannen for places unknown but infinitely safer. She ran through the twilight and darkness toward freedom, thinking at first only to put distance between herself and her captors but then realizing a plan was necessary. Afoot, she could never hope to escape. She needed an airship in which to fly to her brother at Paranor. She needed to find the airfield she had found with Jayet the last time she was here.

It was not as difficult as she had imagined it would be. She remembered the route easily enough, and she found the landmarks that would guide her on her way. She tracked them successfully, one after the other, taking care to remain clear of crowds and unfriendly places, doing what she could to make herself invisible to those she passed. At first, her running drew unwanted attention, and so she slowed to a fast walk in places where there were crowds. But soon she was far enough outside the heart of the city that only a handful of other people appeared, and she broke into a run once more.

She was in sight of the airfield when the men came out of the shadows between buildings on both sides, and she was trapped. They swarmed over her, bearing her to the ground, pinning her arms and legs. She was tall and strong for a fifteen-year-old girl, and she was not easily taken. But in the end, she was taken nevertheless.

What happened after that was horrifying. She lost consciousness at one point while fighting to break free—a blow to the head delivered by one of her attackers that dropped her into a blackness in which she seemed to drift for a very long time. When she came awake, she was lying on a table in a darkened room, her arms and legs pinned in place by cuffs about her wrists that were pulled tight by ropes attached to rings set into the legs of the table. A sheet covered her, and her clothes were gone. Again. She was fuzzy-headed and oddly disoriented. She could barely make herself care about what was happening to her, although she was aware of her situation. She wondered who had her now. It had to be Arcannen and his minions, didn’t it?

She tried to see through the darkness beyond where she lay, sensing there was someone present, hidden back in the gloom. But she couldn’t make anything out. So she lay passively, having no other choice, waiting to see what would happen next.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Almost as soon as she resolved to be patient, a door opened and men in hoods and robes entered the room. Smokeless torches were ignited on poles set at both ends of the table on which she lay, providing illumination that reached no farther than her immediate surroundings. The men—four in all—placed themselves at the corners of the table. None of them spoke. They just stood silently, looking down at her.

“Begin,” said a muffled voice from the darkness.

They did. They went to work on her with callused hands, wooden clubs, metal implements, and vicious promises. They started with her feet and worked their way up her naked body. They left no part untouched. They were thorough and systematic in their efforts, and from the beginning it was clear they possessed neither sympathy nor compassion for her suffering. They hurt her every time they touched her. They hurt her in so many ways she lost count. She could not see what they were doing, and her inability to anticipate only added to her pain. She screamed and cried and begged them to stop, but nothing helped. It was as if they didn’t hear her. It was certain that they didn’t care. These were men who had done this before. They were men who enjoyed their work.