be sheared and were only too happy to gore anybody associated with the task, but in time it was done, and the dirty rothe clippings were gathered in huge bales and brought up to vats set up outside the castle kitchens to be boiled clean.
Jack naturally carried his first armful of the stuff to the cauldron where the dark-haired girl worked. As he helped her get the shearings into the hot water, he said in a low voice, “A pleasure to meet you, finally, even if the circumstances are regrettable.”
“I remember you,” she whispered in reply, careful not to look at him directly or to interrupt her work. “You were the one that bugbear beat the day we arrived.”
Jack nodded. “It’s a habit of his, which I am trying to discourage. You are Seila Norwood, are you not?”
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“I heard what Fetterfist said when he sold you to the dark elves.” He went to fetch another armful of shearings, and brought them back to her cauldron.
“How long have you been here?” she asked when she spoke again.
“I came here perhaps a tenday before you arrived.”
“Then I am sorry for you. This place is horrible, and the drow … I never imagined such cruelty existed. They are monsters, each and every one of them.” She fell silent as one of the kitchen overseers moved by, stirring the greasy wool with a heavy paddle until the overseer moved away. “I should have made Fetterfist cut me down rather than throwing down my dagger. Death would surely have been better than this miserable existence.”
Jack shook his head in disagreement. “You must not give in to despair, dear lady. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
“Hope? What hope? I see little cause for hope.”
“Sooner or later the dark elves’ vigilance must wane,” Jack pointed out. He went for another armful of wool, careful to look like he was working hard enough to avoid a beating but not so hard to make an overseer wonder why he was doing more than he had to. When he returned to the girl’s cauldron, he resumed where he’d left off. “They may be clever and cruel, but surely there is some opportunity for escape they have overlooked. Needless to say, finding it will be quite impossible if you end your life.”
Seila Norwood laughed bitterly. “Escape? Believe me, I’ve tried. Even if we got away from the Tower and the fields, we’d be lost in the Underdark, with miles of monster-filled tunnels between us and home.”
“Oh, that,” Jack answered. He gave a small shrug. “That part concerns me not at all. I know the way back to the surface.”
“You do?” She straightened and looked more closely at him.
“I do. There is a levitating stone platform not very far from here that can take us up to the lower halls of the old dwarven city of Sarbreen. It is true that Sarbreen is haunted by its share of dangerous monsters, but I am reasonably well acquainted with its halls and passages. I feel confident that I can avoid them and find my way back to Raven’s Bluff.”
“Grelda,” she muttered under her breath. Jack fell silent, just as the half-orc kitchen overseer stomped past, fixing one ill-favored eye on Jack. He hurriedly dropped one more handful of rothe wool into the cauldron, and went for another load. The heap of shearings was growing smaller all too fast; he didn’t want the conversation to end.
When he returned, Seila glanced around carefully and asked, “If you know the way out, why are you still here?”
“The difficulty lies in eluding the guards and overseers in the rothe fields. I doubt that I could reach the transport-platform without being caught, and even if I did, it seems very likely that it would be guarded.” Jack shrugged. “This would be much easier with my magic, but it seems to have deserted me.”
“Your magic-are you a wizard, then?”
“A wizard, bah! Mummers and fakers, in my opinion. No, I am a sorcerer of some skill among my many other talents … but, as I have just noted, my magic seems peculiarly fickle these days.”
The girl frowned, digesting Jack’s remarks. Then she gave herself a small shake, and glanced up to meet his eyes. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Jaer Kell Wildhame,” Jack answered. “Formerly of the Vilhon Reach, which I understand is no longer in existence, having been destroyed by some untoward event known as the Spellplague. My friends call me Jack.”
“The Vilhon Reach?” Seila said. “I don’t understand. How is that possible?”
“It is something of a long story. You see-”
He was interrupted by the whistling sound of Malmor’s stinging-rod striking flesh and a cry of pain from another field-slave a short distance away. “That’s all, maggots!” the bugbear shouted. “No more loafing to be done here. Back to our paddocks, our paddocks. The rothe are waiting, yes, yes.”
Seila grimaced. “You must go, Jack,” she said under her breath.
“So it seems.” He made a show of picking up tufts of wool he’d dropped nearby, delaying the inevitable. “Do not despair, Seila. There must be a way out; sooner or later I will discover it. When I do, I promise you, I will not leave you here. Our chance will come, and both of us will see the sunlight again. I swear it.”
“Brave words,” she murmured with a small smile.
He paused just long enough to give her a wink, then hurried over to join the other paddock-slaves as they trudged back down to the fields. It was unlike him to make a promise with the full intention of keeping it, but he realized that he meant every word of what he’d said to Seila. The feeling was unsettling, and he paused to examine it more closely. “Well, of course,” he told himself. “If I escape alone, I would find myself a penniless vagabond in the city streets. But if I rescued a noblewoman from the drow, who knows what sort of reward I might expect? Why, Seila Norwood might be worth rescuing even if she were a scrawny, plain-faced shrew, which of course she is not.” If he knew where the dark elves were keeping a coffer full of precious gemstones, he would certainly try to carry it off when he made his escape. A valuable captive was not much different, when one considered the question carefully.
Under Malmor’s eye, the slaves returned to the fields and resumed their normal duties. The rothe were in an especially murderous mood after their shearing, and several of Jack’s fellows were gored before the herds settled down again. Despite this, his spirits were high for the rest of the day, as he replayed his conversation with Seila Norwood again and again in his mind. It was about the only pleasant experience he’d had since his removal from the mythal stone.
The next day, Dresimil Chumavh sent for Jack.
He was engaged in shoveling rothe feed from the back of a wagon into a feed trough when Malmor led a trio of dark elves into the fields. “There, masters,” the bugbear simpered. “You see, I have looked after him, after him. The human is well.”
Jack didn’t feel very well. He was cold, filthy, and exhausted, and he’d lost at least fifteen pounds from his wiry frame in the tendays or months he’d been enslaved. He paused in his shoveling, wondering what new devilry was at work.
“You!” one of the drow soldiers snarled. “Come here!” Jack dropped his shovel and wearily climbed down from the wagon, presenting himself before the warrior. The fellow looked him over and frowned. “Are you the one called Jack Wildhame?”
“I am,” Jack replied. Seeing a flicker of dissatisfaction in the dark elf’s eyes, he quickly added, “I am, master.”
The dark elves frowned in distaste. “He stinks,” one of the others announced. “We cannot bring him before Lady Dresimil like that.”
“The kitchens,” the first drow decided. “They’ll have a washtub. You come with us, slave.”
The soldiers marched Jack back up to the Tower kitchens. Jack kept his eyes open for Seila, but she was nowhere in sight. On the bright side, the dark elves instructed the kitchen slaves to make ready a washtub, and ordered Jack to clean himself quickly in the hot water. When he’d finished with the worst of the grime and filth, the guards produced clean servant’s clothing matching that worn by the other workers in the castle. For the first time in days and days, Jack felt warm and clean, even if he couldn’t quite get the stink of the rothe off of him. Satisfied that he was as presentable as he was going to get, the drow soldiers took him through the Tower’s echoing stone corridors before leading him out through the stronghold’s main gate. They turned onto the road Jack had been brought down when he first arrived, and set off toward the lakeside ruins at a quick pace. Weakened as he was by
