“Wuh-ate. Gemmee. Minnit,” he said, staggering but not falling. He was too bound in by yfelgopes to fall over completely. One of them gave him a shove and he toppled the other way, where he was shoved roughly back into the circle again.
They kept on like that for a while, treating him like a pinball, then finally stopped. Daniel heard the sound of keys clanking and an iron lock squeak, and then he was shoved sideways into the darkness. He sprawled and hit the ground on his right side-thankfully, not his bruised left-and rolled onto his stomach.
Words were shouted at him, but through the pain he couldn’t arrange them into meaning. He lay there for a few moments, pressing the hot, throbbing side of his face against the cool, damp stone floor. Then he started to shiver, so he got up and, feeling his way awkwardly with his bound hands, found the sides and corners of the room he was in. The walls were roughly carved and, it seemed, almost perfectly cubic. There was a flat ridge opposite the narrow, iron door that ran the length of the wall. It was probably meant as a bed, but there was no matting on it.
He sat and hunched over, moaning softly, his fingers gently touching and inspecting his face. Nothing seemed to be broken, apart from his skin. It was hard to tell sweat and saliva from blood in the darkness. He moved his jaw open and from side to side to stop it from tightening up and then started probing the rest of him. Everything seemed pretty much intact, but it was hard to feel his ribs with his hands, bound as they were. He had taken quite a blow, though. How could he tell if he had a concussion? What were the tests for that? What was the treatment? He stretched out on the stone slab and closed his eyes but tried not to fall asleep.
It was hard to do. He fought to keep his eyes open, but already he could feel the slide into sleep that brought the terrible falling sensation. Maybe he should just go ahead and embrace the feeling-it couldn’t be very long before he slipped into unconsciousness. But there was something at the end of the fall that he could feel waiting for him, so he resisted it.
It may have been as much as an hour before he heard footsteps in the corridor again. He sat upright and stilled his breathing, listening to try to guess how many approached. His eyes had adjusted slightly to the darkness, but he still couldn’t see the inside of the cell. He could make out the cutaway sections of the iron door, a dull, dark grey against pure black.
It was the yfelgopes again. He could hear the slaps of their thin leather shoes. He tried to prepare himself, but he didn’t anticipate the apologetic whisper that issued from outside his door.
“Hsst! You in there.”
The whisper was an enquiry, not a shout or an order.
“Hello?” he ventured, his mouth still swollen but thankfully numb.
“You are Daniel, the lifiende. Daniel the quest-finisher.”
“Yessh,” he answered. “An’ you?”
“Incorrect,” the voice responded. “Incorrect order. Please listen and answer. We will ask four questions and then answer four of yours. What was your intent in coming here?”
Daniel paused for a moment. Was this another trick?
“Can. . trust. . you?”
“Incorrect! You must answer-”
“It is a valid query,” another voice piped up. “All answers he may provide are reliant and conditional on the answer to his.”
“Valid! A turnaround, then! You may ask three questions, and then we ask.”
Daniel swallowed in agony. “Who. . are. . you?”
“Disloyals,” the voice said with a sort of angry pride. “Rebels, mutineers, dissidents. We started following Gad because it made sense, or so we thought. However, reason cannot now condone his actions. We have begun. . to doubt.”
“What. . mean. . doubt?” Daniel asked.
“Incongruences. Incongruences in spoken rhetoric, and inconsistencies in action. At first niggling irregularities, but on investigation turn out to be vast disconnects-rifts in reason. Bad logic. Undeniable, unconscionable. For those of us who believe, there is only one option: resist.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow. This was an interesting development. “Why. . still. . here?” he asked, mentally registering his third question.
“Where else to go? We do not know much of the caves of the Ni?ergearders, and would we be able to explain ourselves to those who found us? Would we be given the opportunity? Best to wait until better circumstances. These circumstances.”
“How. . many. . of you. . are there?”
“That was your last question.”
“One more.”
“No! Us first. Who else is here with you?”
Daniel thought and framed his reply, sucking in saliva. “Just me. But more. . on way.”
“Reinforcements? An army?”
Daniel thought. “Yes.”
“Is it Godmund?”
“No.”
“That is three,” said a third voice from the door. “He shall have more, and then we. One each, until the finish.”
“How. . many. . of you. . are there?”
“Thirty-seven,” the voice answered promptly. “That we are in contact with-that we know of. There may be others whose system of logic has led them to doubt. It is often hard for us to find who those may be. Now we ask: what were your intentions in coming here?”
Daniel decided to chance it. “Liber. . ation. We wish to. . defeat Gad. . once and. . for all.”
There was a short muttering from the other side of the door. “Do you wish for another question?” he was asked.
Daniel thought. Who was it who could help him in this situation? “Where’s. . Godmund?”
“We do not know. His presence is completely unknown. Those who have gone to seek him have not returned.”
“What. . happens now?”
“A question out of order!” shrilled one voice.
“But a vital question-most vital.”
“A good question indeed. We break you out-abscond. We search for the survivors of Ni?ergeard and wage righteous war on our erstwhile comrades.” There were grunts of agreement from those with the speaker.
“Good. Let’sh. . do it.”
VI
“We must be methodical, Freya,” Vivienne told her, nodding her head in earnestness. They stood in the Langtorr greeting hall. “Floor by floor, room by room, and always together.” Freya had thought this went without saying, but she nodded anyway.
The dining hall and the adjacent kitchen had revealed nothing of interest. The long hall was just as Freya remembered it, with the metal tables and benches perfectly aligned-bare and waiting to be used. The kitchen was just as barren. It was a sort of tragedy, even when she’d first visited it. She’d never seen any Ni?ergearder eating anything-that was something that they sacrificed along with their mortality, their right to die and their need to eat.
And yet, here was a kitchen, fully equipped, but not manned by any cook or chef.
There was a pantry with dry, stone walls and barrels that contained salt and some sort of dry, thick-sliced meat that was not rancid, as far as either of them could tell. Freya had remembered it from her first trip, and after Vivienne had seen Freya gnaw off a piece, she tried some as well. There was also some dry, dark, cracker-like bread in a wooden box on a shelf. They both selected some meat and bread and stuck them in their
