waste-bucket. The stench of my own faeces, the lack of space, and the impenetrable blackness had combined to drive me to despair. I exhausted myself in self-recrimination, reliving Janos’ fate a thousand times.
And now she wanted me.
“Move!”
The brightness stabbed my eyes. I marched as best my chains allowed, hustled along by a guard on each arm. Squinting through my eyelashes, sun-blind as a dune mole, I perceived that we crossed an open courtyard, which completely surrounded a tall, slender tower fabricated of quarried rose-quartz blocks. My half-boots scuffed up puffs of dust as we crossed that sandy space and rounded the tower’s base. We halted before a solid, ironbound door. One of the guards fumbled at his belt for keys, the other man mined his left nostril for delicacies.
I had long wished to know where I was held captive. The accents of my jailors sounded eastern to my untutored ear; the few sounds that drifted to my ear, unfamiliar and unwelcoming. But now, glancing at my captors, I saw foreign garb as well. Were we in Hakooi, fabled for its minstrels? Or as far as desert Lorimere, fifty leagues and more from Yarabi Vale? It was certainly further afield than Arlak Sorlakson had ever travelled.
A rough blow against my shoulder plunged me through the doorway onto my already aching knees. “Up!” A boot propelled me forward as if I were some mangy cur the guard wished to kick out of his way. The chains tangled up and I crashed headlong into a flight of stone steps.
The gloomy hallway stank of dead animals. I spat blood. Hopefully I had not lost any teeth. What use, rattling my chains at this treatment? I said nought as they hauled me bodily up the dank stairs, for I was too weak to climb.
We plodded up and up that spiral staircase until I imagined we should arrive in the heavens themselves. My legs felt as ribbons blowing in a breeze. The starvation diet I had endured during my incarceration allowed them to handle my weight with the ease of grown men lifting a child. At length the guards halted before a second, smaller door. The one to my left gestured abruptly for his fellow to knock. The other balked. Even I sensed the strangeness emanating from those plain hardwood panels.
“Enter!”
Jyla’s voice. I fought an urge to scratch my skin as though I had been covered in a thousand exploring ants. The door swung open upon well-oiled hinges. A hard palm thrust me inside. The guards dared not cross the threshold; instead, they scrambled back down the stairs, shoving and scuffling to be fastest to depart. This speared the fear of Ulim’s Hounds into my quoph.
A magnificent chamber greeted my awed gaze. Surely, far larger than the tower could support? The floor was a mirror-still pool of clear liquid–presumably water–so depthless that the effect was of standing on the edge of a cliff and peering over a vertiginous drop. My eyes rolled upward. Above my head, a domed, cobalt-hued ceiling arched to an impossible height, supported by ornate columns of priceless lapis lazuli. An evocative smell teased my nostrils–rich, exotic spices for which I had no name, which I traced to a brass brazier set upon a pedestal of highly polished onyx in the centre of the pool. The pedestal was perhaps three paces across, and raised but a handspan above the pool’s surface.
Fluid movement behind the brazier brought the woman Jyla to my notice. Barefoot, robed in purest white samite, she trod a stately circuit around the pedestal’s circumference. She wore a towering headdress draped in an ornate netting of tiny, blood-coloured crystals, and her slender neck bent with a heron’s suppleness to support its weight. The water conveyed her soft, sibilant chanting perfectly to my hearing. The language was archaic and melodic, falling upon my ear with a subtly hypnotic power. Even from a distance, the sight of her spread the chill of an Alldark ice storm through my veins.
A familiar paw crushed my left
And now she wanted me.
“Move!”
The brightness stabbed my eyes. I marched as best my chains allowed, hustled along by a guard on each arm. Squinting through my eyelashes, sun-blind as a dune mole, I perceived that we crossed an open courtyard, which completely surrounded a tall, slender tower fabricated of quarried rose-quartz blocks. My half-boots scuffed up puffs of dust as we crossed that sandy space and rounded the tower’s base. We halted before a solid, ironbound door. One of the guards fumbled at his belt for keys, the other man mined his left nostril for delicacies.
I had long wished to know where I was held captive. The accents of my jailors sounded eastern to my untutored ear; the few sounds that drifted to my ear, unfamiliar and unwelcoming. But now, glancing at my captors, I saw foreign garb as well. Were we in Hakooi, fabled for its minstrels? Or as far as desert Lorimere, fifty leagues and more from Yarabi Vale? It was certainly further afield than Arlak Sorlakson had ever travelled.
A rough blow against my shoulder plunged me through the doorway onto my already aching knees. “Up!” A boot propelled me forward as if I were some mangy cur the guard wished to kick out of his way. The chains tangled up and I crashed headlong into a flight of stone steps.
The gloomy hallway stank of dead animals. I spat blood. Hopefully I had not lost any teeth. What use, rattling my chains at this treatment? I said nought as they hauled me bodily up the dank stairs, for I was too weak to climb.
We plodded up and up that spiral staircase until I imagined we should arrive in the heavens themselves. My legs felt as ribbons blowing in a breeze. The starvation diet I had endured during my incarceration allowed them to handle my weight with the ease of grown men lifting a child. At length the guards halted before a second, smaller door. The one to my left gestured abruptly for his fellow to knock. The other balked. Even I sensed the strangeness emanating from those plain hardwood panels.
“Enter!”
Jyla’s voice. I fought an urge to scratch my skin as though I had been covered in a thousand exploring ants. The door swung open upon well-oiled hinges. A hard palm thrust me inside. The guards dared not cross the threshold; instead, they scrambled back down the stairs, shoving and scuffling to be fastest to depart. This speared the fear of Ulim’s Hounds into my quoph.
A magnificent chamber greeted my awed gaze. Surely, far larger than the tower could support? The floor was a mirror-still pool of clear liquid–presumably water–so depthless that the effect was of standing on the edge of a cliff and peering over a vertiginous drop. My eyes rolled upward. Above my head, a domed, cobalt-hued ceiling arched to an impossible height, supported by ornate columns of priceless lapis lazuli. An evocative smell teased my nostrils–rich, exotic spices for which I had no name, which I traced to a brass brazier set upon a pedestal of highly polished onyx in the centre of the pool. The pedestal was perhaps three paces across, and raised but a handspan above the pool’s surface.
Fluid movement behind the brazier brought the woman Jyla to my notice. Barefoot, robed in purest white samite, she trod a stately circuit around the pedestal’s circumference. She wore a towering headdress draped in an ornate netting of tiny, blood-coloured crystals, and her slender neck bent with a heron’s suppleness to support its weight. The water conveyed her soft, sibilant chanting perfectly to my hearing. The language was archaic and melodic, falling upon my ear with a subtly hypnotic power. Even from a distance, the sight of her spread the chill of an Alldark ice storm through my veins.
A familiar paw crushed my left
Similar Books
