he then killed the workers who knew of it. It would hold the source of his power, and the power of his descendants. Your grandfather used this room. Your father had no skill at all for potions, so he utilized it through me. One day the knowledge contained here will be entrusted to you.'
She felt confused. 'Is this some kind of sorcery?'
Jorani's lips turned upward, as close to a real smile as his dour face could master. 'Chemistry,' he said. 'The study of plants, of animals, of snakes, and of insects. There is my most treasured possession.
Be careful. Do not touch it.'
Ilsabet peered into a blown-glass bubble hanging from one of the room's crossbeams, but it seemed to be filled with cobwebs, nothing more.
'Look closely,' Jorani said.
Ilsabet did, squinting, finally making out the form of a tiny spider. It had spun its web so thickly that Ilsabet could hardly see it in the center of its container.
'Though the exit is uncovered, the spider is a lazy beast that has no inclination to leave the comfort of its home so long as I drop a fly into its web every day or so. No! Don't touch even the web, and don't put your face too close to the top of the bubble. It might think you are prey and attack.'
As Ilsabet studied it, she had to admit it was a marvelous creature. Silver gray with white crisscross markings on its body and white bracelets at the end of each leg, it would practically disappear on a background of old wood or rotting fabric.
'It's the most dangerous specimen in this collection,' Jorani told her. 'A brush against its web will make a man ill. Put a pinch of the web in a man's food and he will have convulsions, mental confusion, fever. A bit more, and the victim falls into a coma and dies. Needless to say, the sting of the spider itself is lethal.'
If it had moved in any way, Ilsabet would have fled the chamber in a moment. 'Is there an antidote?'
'None, though it is believed that a person may build an immunity to the poison by touching or ingesting small pieces of the web. One of your ancestors experimented on prisoners with no success. They all died.'
Ilsabet stared at the creature, so small, so retiring, its web gray like the fog that rose every night from the river.
'And here,' Jorani went on, pointing to a number of glass vials arranged on a shelf, 'are the more usual poisons-arsenic, bitter apricot, quicksilver, ergot, dried mushrooms…'
'What is this?' Ilsabet asked, pointing to what looked like a huge urn of sand that gave off a faint, sweet odor.
'The source of battle confusion. Deep inside the urn is a colony of cave ants. These creatures never see the light. When they do, they become frantic, confused. They secrete a drug that rubs off on the sand. I grind their bodies and the sand together to a fine powder. Released upwind from an enemy camp just before a battle, the powder raises the enemy's fear. The ant colony is much smaller now, their sacrifice hardly worth it.'
'Such simple things,' Ilsabet said with disappointment.
'Most things are simple at their core. The real talent comes in the combinations. I'm considering mixing ergot with the ant sand to see if there is a way of driving troops into a frenzy in which they would see their comrades as the enemy and kill one another. But now that the war is over, it would have no use.'
'Just knowing would be reason enough,' Ilsabet said.
'I also have no subjects for my experiments. The rebels are all being freed.'
Ilsabet said nothing. There would be great poverty in their battle-torn land, and criminals in plenty soon enough. She pictured murderers and thieves in their underground cells, driven mad by the powders and potions, afraid of their comrades, the dark, the cells themselves. What remarkably fitting justice. The thought made her tremble, and she turned toward Jorani with her face pale, her lips slightly parted. 'When will you start to teach me?' she asked.
'As soon as Peto leaves. In the meantime, there are things about this castle that I can show you, child.'
She did not correct him as she had Greta. He was her teacher. She would have to prove herself to him. She'd do so soon, she vowed.
The rebels had expected Baron Peto to be their savior. Instead, after killing the hated Janosk, he seemed too willing to compromise with the rest of the defeated. When they learned that Nimbus Castle would still hold a breathing Obour baron, they mustered what forces they could and issued an ultimatum. Baron Peto did not respond, and they attacked the following day.
It was a suicidal gesture. They'd known as much even before they marched onto the peninsula and taken their places in front of the castle gates.
Ilsabet stood in her father's chamber room, looking down at the motley group of soldiers. She wanted to see everything, to experience the thrill her father must have felt as he rode into battle. She'd even toyed with the idea of hiding her hair under a helmet, her lithe form under padded battle armor, and joining the troops, but it was all a fantasy, nothing more. She'd have been discovered in a moment. So she settled for the best possible vantage point and prayed that river fog would not be thick that evening.
The castle gates opened, and the Sundell and Kislovan soldiers, united against a common enemy, marched out and fought side by side.
For a time, she was so lost in the emotions of the battle that she even forgot her hatred for Peto, or her fear for Jorani fighting somewhere on the field below her. Instead, she saw the obvious outcome by the numbers on both sides and thought with happiness of the captives that would be taken to sit miserably in the caverns below. Jorani would have no excuse for putting off her education any longer. They would learn together.
In the days since Ilsabet had visited Jorani's secret room, she had explored a multitude of such rooms and passages throughout the castle. There was, for example, the narrow corridor running from her father's chambers past the family's private rooms and the many guest rooms on both sides of it-with spy holes for each, she was pleased to note-ending finally in a pair of tiny, elegant rooms whose high arched windows faced the rising sun. Because of the placement of the outer walls, the windows were hidden from view from anywhere near the castle. As she stood there, she felt a sudden chill against her uncovered hands and thrust them deep into her pockets.
'It is said that one of your ancestors kept a slave girl secretly imprisoned here,' Jorani said. 'When his wife heard of it, she waited for him to leave the castle, then accused the girl's servant of some crime and had her killed. Though no one brought her food, the girl was able to obtain some water. She died of starvation not more than a day before her lover returned. It is said that if you go into the room at dawn, you can hear her weeping.'
Ilsabet walked slowly toward the door, turning at the threshold. 'Have you done so?' she asked.
Jorani nodded. 'I heard nothing. Perhaps I do not have that gift. Come, I'll show you a way to the dungeon.'
It descended in the same steep spiral as the known stairs, curving below them with little more height than that of an average man. Jorani had to walk in a crouch lest he hit his head on the staircase above him and alert some sharp-eared servant to his presence.
As they passed below ground level, the walls and stairs became damp and slippery. 'Hold tight to the rail,' Jorani cautioned. The slimy coating on it made Ilsabet thankful she was wearing gloves, but she wondered how well her grip on it would hold if she lost her footing.
The staircase ended below the level of the cells, then a narrow passage slanted upward at an easy angle. It had been designed that way on purpose, Jorani had told her earlier, so that anyone coming down the stairs could use a light, then extinguish it and travel on in the darkness, secure in the knowledge that the floor was smooth and they would not fall.
Jorani did so now, and they used the passage as it was intended to be used, exiting in the back of a subterranean storage room. As they felt their way around the kegs and rotting chests of forgotten supplies, Ilsabet groped for Jorani's arm and whispered, 'There's light ahead.'
His fingers touched her mouth, then her ear. Understanding, she listened, and heard voices-one soft, almost consoling; a second, louder and angrier.
'The rebels…'
This time he covered her mouth. She understood and fell silent, following behind him in the near perfect
