Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

Taking off his pot helm, one of the warriors strode over to Sarcyn. He had a lined, tanned face, a thick gray beard, and bushy black eyebrows.

“You speak Deverry speak?”

“I do.”

“Good. I speak Deverry speak. Not good good, but I speak. Others speak good good, back inside. Talk then. I Jorl. You stand up?”

“I don’t know if I can. Here, good Jorl. I don’t understand this. Who are you?”

“Mountain people. No worry, lad. We rescue. You safe.”

Sarcyn let his head slump forward and wept, the tears pouring like a child’s while Jorl cut his hands free with a tiny dagger.

It took several dwarves to get Sarcyn back into the saddle. They collected the other mounts, then set off on foot, leading the apprentice along. Although he was dimly trying to figure out why they’d rescue him, it took most of his will and attention just to stay mounted. Finally, as the twilight was growing gray, they marched down a narrow valley and straight toward a cliff. As they came closer, Sarcyn heard a grinding sound.

“Oh, by the gods!”

A huge door was slowly opening in the cliff face. Just as they reached it, it held steady and open. When Jorl led his party into a high, square-cut tunnel, other men came forward carrying lanterns and speaking in a language that Sarcyn had never heard before. He glanced back to see the door slowly being winched shut behind him. The sight of the disappearing crack of twilight made his head swim. Suddenly hands reached up and grabbed him to lower him gently down. Jorl’s face leaned over him.

“We get litter. Carry you.”

Sarcyn wanted to thank him, but the swimmy darkness enveloped him.

When he woke, he was lying on a narrow pallet in a pitch-dark chamber. At first he panicked, because there was not a crack or shimmer of light, not even the variations of darkness as in a normal nighttime chamber. Gradually he became aware that he was clean, naked under a soft blanket, and that his burns throbbed only slightly. His broken lip, too, had been smeared with some pleasant-smelling salve. In a few minutes a door opened with a burst of light. A fellow who was about four feet tall walked in, holding up a lantern.

“The Wildfolk said you were awake,” he announced. “Can you eat?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll bring you somewhat, then.”

He set the lantern down on a little table near the door, then went out, shutting the door behind him. Sarcyn heard the sound of a heavy bar being dropped on the outside. So he was a prisoner, if a well-treated one. Although the room was only about ten feet on a side and carved out of the living rock of the mountain, it was far from being a cell. On the floor was a solid red carpet, and beside the pallet and the table there was a squarish chair with a high back and cushioned seat that looked as if it would be quite comfortable for someone with very short legs. Near the door, discreetly covered with a square of cloth, sat a chamber pot, and next to it were his clothes, washed, dried, and carefully folded.

Moving slowly, because his head was still light, he got up and dressed. He was not surprised to find that his sword was nowhere to be seen. He was just finishing when the fellow returned, bearing a wooden tray with two bowls on it.

“Do you like mushrooms?”

“I do.”

“Good.” He set the tray down on the table. “All the movables are a bit small for you, aren’t they? Well, you won’t be here long.”

“Can you tell me where I’ll be going?”

He paused, head tilted as he considered, then shrugged and went to the door. He held it a bit open so that Sarcyn could see the two heavily armed soldiers on guard before he spoke.

“The Master of the Aethyr’s coming to fetch you.”

He stepped out, slamming the heavy door shut just as Sarcyn leaped for it more in terror than in a rational attempt to escape. He slammed into it and leaned there spread-eagled, listening to the sound of the dropping bar, then began to sob in near-soundless gulps. Finally he pulled himself away and began to pace round and round the room. Up near the high ceiling was an opening that had to be an air vent, but it was only a foot square, far too small to squeeze through. Maybe he could pretend to be ill, then overpower his keeper—but there were the guards. Maybe he could withdraw his aura, slip out—if they ever opened the door again before Nevyn arrived. Or he could summon Wildfolk to create a distraction; maybe he could even get one to lift the bar on the door.

All at once he stopped pacing as a thought went through him like an arrow: he didn’t want to escape. He sat down very slowly on the floor near the table and considered it again and again: he had no desire to be free. He was weary, exhausted in his very soul, far too tired to run, and if he escaped, he would be always running, from Nevyn, from the law, from the Hawks, from the terror of his own memories, running, always running, always lying, always on guard.

“The deer on a hunting preserve have more peace, truly.”

He smiled, a bitter, twisted smile, at his own words. So he was going to die. Nevyn would turn him over to the gwerbret, no doubt, and he would be killed. It was better than being in the hand of the Hawks, of course. At the worst he’d be broken on the wheel, but he’d seen and heard enough of Blaen to know that most likely he’d be given a merciful hanging. He felt a certain perverse pleasure, too, in realizing that all the crucial facts he’d gathered would die with him. The Old One would never know about Rhodry’s mixed blood. When he smiled at the thought, he realized that he’d hated the Old One for years, hated them all, every dark master and apprentice and Hawk that ever he’d met, hated them as, indeed, they must have hated him. Well, he’d be rid of them now.

When he held up his hands, he half expected to find them shaking, but they were perfectly steady. He wanted to die. He saw, suddenly, that his inevitable death would be not an execution, but an assisted suicide. For years he’d felt like an empty, hollow farce of a man; now the thin, false shell he presented to the world would collapse and be swallowed up by the void inside him. The long weariness would be over. He smiled again, and as he did, he felt a warm calm envelop him, as if he floated in a hot perfumed bath, as if he floated a few inches off the floor, so light and calm and safe did he feel now that he wanted to die. No one would ever force him to go against his own will again; no one would ever hurt him again. Still smiling, he drew over the tray of food. He was perfectly calm and very hungry.

By the time he finished eating, the calm had become a weariness so deep that he could no longer hold up his head. He lay down on his stomach, pillowed his head on folded arms, and watched the shadows thrown along the floor by the lantern. At times he floated out of his body, then slid back, moving back and forth between the etheric and the physical without any conscious effort or control. He was out of the body, in fact, when the cell door opened and Nevyn strode in, accompanied by the dwarf who’d brought the food. Even though Sarcyn had never seen the old man before, he knew that he was facing the Master of the Aethyr by his aura, a near-blinding blaze of pale-gold light.

“Worms and slimes!” the dwarf snapped. “Is he dead?”

“I doubt it.” Nevyn knelt down by Sarcyn’s body and laid a hand on the back of his neck. “He’s not, but in a trance.”

All at once Sarcyn felt the blue light swirl around him. He felt as if his body were sucking at him; no matter how hard he fought, it pulled him down the silver cord until at last he heard a rushy hiss and a click. With a grunt he opened his eyes and saw Nevyn leaning over him.

“Good,” the dwarf said. “Well, I’ll be right outside if you need me.”