Wait, wait for us. We'll for you, come for you, soon, not yet, but soon. Wait for us.'
Down on your bones. Down on your knees.
Down on your bones in the dark.
They can break anything they care to. Ribs, collarbone, elbow. They can pick and choose. Knee, ankle, crutch.
Crouched in the darkness, he waited for them to come and choose. Sometimes something coughed, or a chain clinked. Far down a cellblock corridor, a torch guttered low, then out.
Finally, he realised they had no special plan for him. Showing him the torture chamber had been a working routine. It meant nothing. Showing him the lopsloss had been another working routine. That meant nothing, too.
They would remember him in a year.
'Blackwood. Black… wood.' It was Mystrel.
Blackwood sat up on the straw where he had been lying for half of eternity. He listened. 'Black… wood.'
The voice was distorted by echoes. Faint as the beat of the wings of a bat deep underground. 'Black… wood.'
He tried to shout – but fear was strangling him. 'Black… wood.'
He bowed his head and breathed the damp, fetid air, till fear was overcome and he was able to shout: 'Mystrel!'
He had not seen her since a soldier from the raiding party had knocked him to the ground. He had feared her burnt in the blaze when the soldiers had fired the house.
'Blackwood!'
'Are you all right?'
Right ight ight… echechecho through hollow stone, through dank places black as the wing of the bat, the scaffold's drop-hole.
'Yes!'
Suddenly there was a hoot as if from an owl, then a bark as if from a dog, and soon the whole line of cells was clamouring as prisoners jeered, mocked, barked, howled and hammered against the bars. The sound only died away when one of the executioner's assistants arrived, bearing a new torch.
The torch prowled up and down.
Tread of iron-shod boots on stone.
Boots which halted. In front of Blackwood's cell.
Saying nothing.
'Mister,' said Blackwood. 'The woman… the woman is my wife. Can you… can you… can you bring me my wife?'
The strawman mask studied him in silence. Then it nodded.
Blackwood waited… and waited. Then the straw-man came back, unlocked the door and threw inside the battered bloody body of Murmer the fodden. Then locked the door and went away again.
Someone was asleep; Blackwood could hear muttering, and teeth grating together. He sat in shadow, becoming shadow. Murmer huddled silently in one corner of the cell. Blackwood knew the fodden was watching him. What did it expect? To be pulped to death? He was tempted, truly – but knew the fodden was old, its mind addled by age and hibernation. It couldn't help itself. So help it into the darkness, then. Kill it! Yes? No…
Not yet, at any rate.
For if he killed the fodden, the guards might hurt Mystrel. And if he didn't? What then? What would they do to her at the end of a year? He knew the answer. His eyes were hot, hot and burning. The best they could hope for was to die. But, thinking of his unborn child, he knew he could not permit himself to hope for that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nin: one of the weakest of the eight orders of wizards, having power over the minds of wild things.
Miphon woke to sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows of the top room of Nin's four-storey tower. Wondering why he had slept so well, he remembered that the castle stones had no voices. For once he had slept without hearing stones, rocks and mountains grumbling and complaining. The process used to build the castle had killed all life in the rock thus employed, letting Miphon sleep without that mournful cry always in his head: 'Lemarl…'
A broken windowpane allowed him a clear view across the glitter of the Hollern River and the trees of Looming Forest to the distant northern mountains of the Penvash Peninsular rising high and steep under the blue vault of the heavens.
Momentarily, he remembered an ocean-going canoe of the Driftwood Islands which had been named The Blue Vault of the Heavens. But that was long ago and far away… and he could never go back. It was too late for that. Years too late.
He slopped out, making use of a drop-shaft which overhung the flame trench. He ate some siege dust, through it almost choked him – they would have to arrange rations with the castle. He would see if he could sort something out with the cook or quartermaster before he saw Comedo.
'Enter,' said Prince Comedo.
Miphon went into the prince's room. The first thing he saw was a girl – small, thin, pale, hairless and almost breastless. There was blood on her thighs. She parted curtains, vanishing into an adjoining chamber.
Miphon bowed, and tried a few courtesies on the prince, inwardly lamenting the deficiencies of the Galish Trading Tongue. Designed for haggling, it permitted few flatteries. Translated into Galish, words like 'Greetings, my lord' meant, literally, 'Hi, camel master', while 'I am at your service' suggested something like 'I'm willing to bargain'.
Miphon need not have worried. Prince Comedo, having received much homage in Galish, believed that phrases such as 'Hi, camel master' were tokens of great respect. All his life, Galish had been, to him, a formal, courtly tongue; he was completely ignorant of the irreverent, vernacular life the Trading Tongue lived in the marketplaces of the Salt Road.
Abruptly, Comedo demanded how one became a wizard. Miphon was taken aback, but, recovering swiftly, spoke in generalities about Venturing, Testing' and Proving.
'Heenmor said as mucli,' said Comedo, apparently irritated. 'But he never told me precisely what makes a wizard.'
'You wish to know, my lord?'
'Yes!'
'The heart of the matter is service,' said Miphon. 'One works as a humble apprentice for many years. One studies with humility. One serves another who is prepared to teach.'
'Is that the only way?'
'Yes. One must serve.'
'For a long time?'
