Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (83 page)

“This is better,” Atopol decided, as they crept into a chamber tilted at an odd angle.  There was a small chamber-like space near the highest point of the chamber, perhaps once the rafters of the structure.  The outer walls were cracked enough to allow a surprisingly good view of the plain of desolation as well.  “Cats like to be up high,” he added, taking off his gloves.  “What are we doing here, again?”

“Basic reconnaissance, gather what intelligence we can on the defenses and the troops here, and seek out the location of any prisoners.  What else would we do?”

“Escape?” offered her brother hopefully.

“If we could establish that Princess Rardine is here, we’d have a victory.  If we can rescue her . . . well, how could we not try?”

“Because this place is crawling with undead and goblins and maybe undead goblins?” countered Atopol.  “We are not prepared for a rescue mission!”

“We’re here!” Gatina insisted.  “We’re doing this!”

“Well, if you want to look for a prison,” Atopol suggested, unhappily, that building over there looks like one.”  He pointed to a square, squat structure at least three stories tall, with a low-peaked roof.  It looked particularly dire.  Though there were windows aplenty in the place, they were firmly and thoroughly covered with thick iron bars.  “You can see the hands of their prisoners.  And sometime their faces,” he added, sadly.

Tyndal looked himself, using Grapple to adjust his perspective.  Atopol was correct.  He could see thin, hopeless faces and gnarled, battered hands at the windows of the keep.  Slaves to be used to build their mighty fortress, he realized.  And perhaps spare hosts for their shock troops.  It was guarded by gurvani, he saw.  Hobs.

“That’s certainly a prison,” he agreed.  “A good place to start.”

“Well, it will save them travel distance when they capture us and throw us in,” the shadowmage said, darkly.

“Darkness!  You are such a baby!  I’ll sneak over there, see if she’s inside, and be back in an hour!”

“No, you won’t!” Atopol ordered.  “We’ll all go!”

She snorted.  “You think I’ll get in undetected with you two clumsy lunkheads stumbling around?”

“No one is going to expect someone to be trying to break into the place,” reminded Tyndal.  “All the security is designed to keep them in.  Hells, the entire island is a prison.  You don’t want to know what’s in that lake,” he said, shaking his head.

“So let’s go break into prison and rescue a princess,” Atopol sighed. 

“Let’s make certain we have a place to retreat to,” Tyndal said, unscrewing the pommel of his sword and removing the Waystone.  He tucked it securely in a crevice, then buried it with sand.

It took less than an hour to cross the debris field without being detected, and Tyndal proved correct: the hobgoblins who guarded the prison were far more concerned with what was going on inside, not who was skulking about outside.  The first two sentries were already asleep, even though it was the middle of their nocturnal “day” – but Tyndal knew plenty of sentries took naps on their shifts, at all hours of the day.  The goblins weren’t any different. 

He left them in an even deeper stupor, one they were unlikely to arise from until long after their shift.  It served them right, he reasoned, for their dereliction.  The turnkeys within were more interested in their dice game than the doorway, and the three of them crept by without alerting them.  After that, they were in one long corridor after another, each with a dark cell.  The ones on the exterior of the building had tiny heavily barred windows, though the scenery was bleak.  The ones inside were smaller and dank. 

Tyndal did his best to see who was in each one, but it was difficult.  In some cases the prisoner had been in captivity for so long that they were unrecognizable.  Some were crammed several to a room, trying to sleep as best they could in miserable conditions. 

But all the prisoners seemed to be men – well-muscled, but poorly fed workers, penned for the night for a few brief hours before being forced back to their jobs, Tyndal reasoned.  Strong men being used for their labor and used up.  Not all the bodies he passed lying in the cells had the glow of life about them.

Nor, he discovered, as he came to the last cell on the block, were they all necessarily human.

The cell was smaller than the others, due to its position on the block, but they gurvani had made good use of the squat conditions by finding smaller prisoners to keep within.

“Karshak!” Tyndal said, aloud, as he saw how the sleeping figures differed. 

What?
Atopol asked, mind-to-mind . . . which made a lot more sense when you were sneaking through a dark prison full of anxious slaves on the middle of an island packed to the shore with evil, Tyndal realized.

They’ve got Karshak prisoners here
, he said, excitedly. 
Like those you saw in Sevendor?  Strong as oxen, and can work all day.  You should watch the masons at the mountain work, sometime. 

“Dradrien,”
a muffled voice croaked in the darkness.

Gatina froze – a pose so motionless, she could have been a shadow in the gloom.

“What?” Tyndal ventured in a whisper.

“We . . . Dradrien . . .
not
. . . Karshak,” the voice rumbled.

“Who
are
you?” Tyndal asked, though he knew it as risky.  So, apparently, did the prisoner within.  He scooted closer to the bars, until Tyndal could smell him.  Definitely not the dusty scent of a Karshak, he knew.

“We . . . Alon Dradrien,” he said, with a little more confidence.  “Prisoners.”

“The gaol gave that away,” Tyndal agreed.  “All right, so you’re Iron Folk – Dradrien. 
Why are you here?”

It took a moment for the creature to find the right words.  Clearly he knew little Narasi.

“Came . . . find . . . uncle,” he stammered.  “Smith. 
Great
smith,” he added.

“Your uncle?  Is he here?” Tyndal insisted.

“Not
here
,” the Dradrien said, shaking his shaggy head.  “High prisoners in great tower,” he said, each word said with deliberation and a lot of grunting.  “Work forge.”

“Have you seen a girl?  A human girl?” asked Gatina, impatiently. 

The Dradrien considered.  “Female,” he finally grunted.  “Yes.  High prisoners in great tower," he said, nodding.

“She’s not
here?
” Atopol asked, disappointed.

“High prisoners in
great tower
,” the prisoner repeated, with some satisfaction.  “Can show,” he added.  “Free us!”

“It’s going to be hard enough sneaking around without three—” Tyndal.

“Dangerous,” Tyndal informed the poor creature. 

“We
die
here soon!” he shrugged, sadly.  “Free us!  Can show great tower!”

That would be a big risk, Tyndal
, Atopol pointed out.

She’s not in this gaol,
he said, flatly. 

I heard.  High prisoners in great tower.  So we know she’s here.  We can send an army, later.  Right now, let’s just get out of here!  Every breath we take is one closer to capture!

We need to rescue her,
Tyndal insisted. 
If these three clods can show us where she is, we can do the rest!

We?

Okay, then
I
will,
Tyndal said, shrugging. 
You can just watch.

Atopol groaned again, but he did not object.  Tyndal looked the creature in the eye.

“Name?” he asked, keeping it simple.  Clearly the Dradrien had only begun learning Narasi.

“Jarn,” he said, pointing his stubby but strong finger at himself, then the fellow next to him with the gigantic nose.  “Gref. Agarth,” he said, as he pointed to the thinnest of the three. 

“All right, Jarn, let’s see if you are gentlemen.  You’ll be
good
, if I free you?” he asked the three Iron Folk, as if he was speaking to a five-year-old human. 

“Ten years’ service!” the poor Dradrien promised, unexpectedly.  “
Free
us!  Can show great tower!”

Tyndal’s mind raced.  He knew little about the Alon Dradrien, even why their name was reversed compared to all of the other Alon.  They were masterful at metallurgy, he recalled, as adept at iron and every other metal as the Karshak Alon were with stone.  He remembered that there was some enmity between the two sub-species – races – clans – of the Alon that the Narasi collectively called “dwarves”, but the details were more mysterious than the culture of the Alka Alon to humanity. 

He knew that the Iron Folk did not live near the Five Duchies (although where they did live, or where they lived under, was also unknown).  They had to have traveled a long way.  Considering their famed skill with metals, an offer of service was hard not to consider.

“Contract?”
he asked.  He knew the Karshak, the distant cousins of the Dradrien, held contractual agreements in almost sacred awe.  He hoped the Dradrien had a similar cultural prejudice.

“Contract,” the Dradrien conceded with a heavy sigh, after conferring with his fellows.

“We have an agreement, then.  Let me just get you out . . .” Tyndal bent and invoked magesight to start to work on the lock.  Gatina pushed him aside impatiently. 

“Isn’t this why you brought us here?” she asked, working a tiny wire into the crude mechanism.

“
I
didn’t bring you at all,” he protested.  “
You
showed up in the middle of a fight.  The Nemovort decided to bring you along.  I’m just being opportunistic.”

There was an audible click as she forced the heavy iron lock open.  Atopol hurriedly dabbed the iron hinges with oil from a flask on his belt before Tyndal pulled it open.  It swung without grating, the way he’d expected it would.

That was really sneaky
, he praised the thief.

That’s why we’re good at taking other people’s things,
he replied. 
We cheat.

The three dumpy little figures hurried out of the cell with incredible alacrity once the thick iron gate was opened.  They followed Atopol as he led them down to the only entrance of the place, and paused while Tyndal rendered the two turnkeys unconscious.

“All clear, let’s go!” he urged, waving the three dump non-humans through the doorway.  “Lead on!”

Even though it was dark, there was a lot of activity on the island.  They had to hide several times as they snuck through the shadows as they approached the dark, looming tower.  Though the human slaves who carted debris from around the stump of the old spire were sleeping, the gurvani workers and draugen overseers labored through the night to build upon what remained. 

It was more than repairs and reconstruction, Tyndal could see.  Though the foundations of the old Alka Alon tower remained, the spire replacing it was unlike the previous edifice.  Instead of a single slender spire, there were now four smaller towers, four stories tall, with crenellations and arrow slits built into the upper stories. 

This was a fortress, first and foremost, Tyndal realized, as he studied it closely.  The spire was the center of the new structure, dominating it, but the foundations being laid across the rest of the island, through former parks now choked with debris and across wrecked neighborhoods and the ruins of civic buildings, looked extensive. 

There were three other large buildings being constructed around the spire, and innumerable smaller sheds.  From a black basalt pyramid being assembled in the western precinct, to a sprawling series of halls in the north that could only be a barracks, the entire ruined island was being brought back into a pale mockery of the land it was.  Other foundations promised unimagined dangers in their future – whether fighting decks for war machines, habitats for dragons, whatever the undead preferred to . . . un-live in, laboratories, storehouses, arsenals, foundries – there was no guessing what the massive complex would become. 

But it was Anthatiel no more, even in ruin.  The City of Rainbows had fallen.  This was Olum Seheri, now.  Where the mist once flew into the air from the five mighty waterfalls, now some foul sludge spilled across the surface of the great mountain lake.  The mist from the falls cowered across the water, clouding the air beyond a few feet in any direction until the breezes that blew from land to water kept them at bay.  It gave the entire island a gloomy cast that suited its new management.

He climbed the hill of debris carefully and deliberately, trying to see as much as he could with every ascending step.  The three Dradrien motioned them closer to the foreboding structure, though it was clear they feared every step they took. 

“
There
,” the leader, Jarn, said, pointing a surprisingly long and dirty forefinger at the tower, unnecessarily.  “Ten levels.”

Tyndal was anxious to be this close to the place – the ground floor was swarming with gurvani and draugen going on errands.  He cast his gaze instead at the upper sections of the growing spire.  He found the tenth floor and searched with magesight, one window at a time.  He found her, the third window over.