finally snapped.
'I asked a question, slave.'
Vala glared at him and refused to answer. She was not worried about revealing the presence of her visitors-the delusions were hidden safely inside her mind-but she could not obey, not even in this. Once she started to surrender, it would grow easier and easier, until she finally belonged to them in spirit as well as body.
'You defy me?'
Feslath grinned and took the whip off its hook. He did not even need to look to find it.
'As you like. Assume the position.'
Vala was supposed to turn her back and bow her head so her eyes would be protected.
Instead, she glared straight into Feslath's eyes and said, 'Go suckle a veserab.'
The whip caught Vala across the chest almost before she had finished the curse. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of a scream, she clenched her jaw and took the next strike in silence as well, but the third caught her across the ribs and forced an involuntary gasp. Feslath, in particular, was a master of the technique and delighted in forcing her body to emit the sounds her mind held in check.
The next lash caught her across the previous one, and Vala began to grow dizzy. The assault would not end until she fell unconscious. Praying that he would keep landing his strikes on top of each other, she glared into his eyes and watched his arm draw back.
A dark-cloaked figure rose behind Feslath and caught his arm by the wrist. Feslath's eyes flared red, and he spun around to find the butt of a large black staff crashing into the side of his head. His knees buckled, and he melted to the floor like a suit of empty silks.
Khelben Arunsun, standing fully six feet tall, kicked the shadow lord in the ribs-hard-to make certain he was unconscious, then came to kneel beside Vala.
'You could have answered him,' he said.
Vala shook her head, and vaguely aware of her gaping jaw, gasped, 'You are real.'
Khelben nodded, but made no move to undo her manacles.
'Does that mean you'll help us?' he asked.
Vala shook the chain by which she was attached to the wall.
'Does that mean you'll get me out of here?' she asked in return.
Khelben's face grew impatient.
'We'll come back for you, but our mission depends on secrecy and surprise. We can't take you along now without the risk of drawing attention to ourselves.'
Vala considered this a moment then pointed her chin at Feslath's fallen figure.
'You're already running that risk,' she said. 'And no offense, but if you're going after the mythallar, I don't like your chances of getting back here to rescue me before this rock hits the ground.'
'The fate of Faer?n itself hangs in the balance!' Khelben's voice was deep and righteous. 'You would bargain for your own life?'
'I have a son who needs a mother.' Vala didn't flinch at Khelben's angry scowl, but added, 'I am not the one who is bargaining.'
'She has a point, Khelben.'
Dove and the other three Chosen appeared on the floor between them, still no more than a hand high.
Dove continued, 'We promised Arts-'
'We will keep our promise,' Khelben insisted, 'without risking our mission.'
'You're sure our mind wiping magic will work on a Shadovar?' Alustriel asked. 'They are not beings of the Weave.'
'Even if it does, there will still be the lump on the guard's head to explain,' Storm said. 'Hell wonder how he got it, and that in itself might give us away.'
'I know a way it won't matter,' Vala said, seeing her chance.
Khelben looked to her and raised his brow.
Vala explained her plan, and when she finished, Khelben continued to study her with narrowed eyes.
'This will work,' Vala said. 'It stands a better chance than your memory-stealing magic.'
'Alustriel's memory-stealing magic,' Khelben corrected. 'That's not what worries me.'
'Then what does?' Laeral asked.
'Vala,' he said plainly. 'It's not as though she's helping us out of the goodness of her heart. If Galaeron couldn't tell us where to find the mythallar, how do we know Vala can? She might be lying so we help her escape.'
'Galaeron returned to the Palace Most High via Telamont’s magic,' Vala said. 'I walked home.'
Khelben continued to look doubtful.
'What if I were lying?' Vala asked. 'Would you leave me here to fall with the city?'
'Of course not,' Alustriel said. 'We promised Aris we wouldn't.'
'Then why should I lie?'
Finally, Khelben smiled and said, 'I suppose you're right at that, aren't you?'
Khelben dragged the unconscious guard over to Vala and laid him at her feet. While she used the heel of her foot to make it look as though she had knocked him unconscious, Khelben removed the keys from his belt and undid her manacles. Once she was free, Vala wrapped the chain around his throat and began to choke him. None of the Chosen watched this part. They clearly wished there had been another way.
Not Vala. She had only to think of the beatings she had suffered at Feslath's hands for this small vengeance to seem not nearly enough. The thought sent a chill down her spine, and she found herself wondering if it was only magic-users who could let their shadows inside.
Once the guard was dead, Vala took his equipment and dressed herself in his clothes, and Khelben shrank himself back to the size of the others. She stuffed all five of the Chosen into her pockets, and aided by spells of invisibility and silence, crept down the stairs to the base of the confinement tower. Here, she had to kill two more guards, the first when he turned toward the opening door, the second while he was struggling with the dying body she had shoved into his arms. Leaving the bodies inside the stairwell behind the locked iron door, she used the second one's cloak to wipe the blood off the floor, then tossed it into a garderobe and left the area.
From there, it would have been a simple matter to descend the back stairs and vanish into the city. Instead, Vala entered a servant's passage and traversed the back of the great palace. Though she passed a constant stream of maids, pages, and butlers, she remained concealed from both eye and ear, for the magic of the Chosen was powerful enough to remain effective even after combat had been joined.
A quarter hour later, Vala emerged from the servant's passage into the dusky lobby outside the prince's private wing. The great anteroom doors were closed and guarded, as they had been since his return from the battle on the High Ice, and for a moment she despaired of making her plan work. There was no other way into the wing-at least that she had ever seen-and even invisible, she could not best a dozen of Escanor's shadow lords.
But, as Vala had hoped, the prince's duties could not be ignored even when he lay half-dead in his bed. It was not long before a courier approached the great doors bearing a shadow-filled message bottle. Vala fell in on his heels, following so closely that when a guard ordered him to stop three paces from the doors, she had to dodge around his side to keep from running into him. The guard took the message bottle and dismissed the courier, waiting until he had vanished down the corridor before he turned and knocked softly on the door.
Vala stood at the guard's side for a seeming eternity, barely daring to exhale lest her breath tickle the hair on his arms. Finally, a steward opened the door just far enough to lean out and take the message bottle. It would probably have been wise to wait for a serving maid or some other domestic whose duties would require opening the door more than a shoulder's width, but there was precious little time to make the decision, and Vala knew that the deaths in the confinement tower would not go unnoticed for long. She dropped to her haunches, pivoting around in front of the guard, and duck-walked sideways through the narrow opening, trying so hard not to step on his heels that the closing door caught her foot.
The guard called something to the chamberlain, who was already a step away, then shoved with his shoulder. Vala's foot seemed to fold along the length, but the heavy door bounced back enough for her to pull her foot into the room after her.
The door clicked shut, and Vala dropped to her seat, at once sighing in relief and opening her mouth in an
