Dhayelle opened the door of the dumbwaiter and pulled out the food cart that she had sent don. Wheeling it down the narrow hall, she passed several dozen of Radigan's hooligans. To each, she fawned and whispered, “Mealtime for the prisoners.” At least those were the words she tried to speak. Her throat was so dry that nothing intelligible came out.
Most of the soldiers ignored her. A few laughed at her meek demeanor and one pinched her bottom. At any moment one of them would surely question her presence down here. Putting on her most submissive air, she shrank from their indignities and waded further yet into the heart of the enemy.
On the lowest level of the Citadel, where the head-high passageway opened up into a wide rotunda, she came upon two formidable vault doors of oak, trimmed in iron.. These were guarded by three brutes who appeared to have been chosen for this duty on the basis of their strength, loathsome appearance, and surly humor. One look at them and Dhayelle was thankful for the explicit orders from Devil Throat that forbade these repulsive predators from any physical contact with the prisoners.
The left-hand edge of the wide foyer fell away into an open canal in which the guards lounged fell away into an open canal. A stairway chiseled out of wet, gleaming rock wound down toward the water. This canal was the back entrance to the Citadel, an entrance known to few. It was, of course, no secret to anyone who visited the vaults, and therefore no secret to Devil Throat and his henchmen. As soon as Dhayelle saw it, she felt certain that this backwater entrance was how this army of thugs managed to come and go from the Citadel without being spotted.
“Lunch,” squeaked Dhayelle, in her mousiest voice. As she had expected from listening to the kitchen crew, she was not allowed into the nearer of the vaults. That one was crowded with men--Ehiloru and the male senators of Orduna--and its doors were never opened. One of the guards unbolted an iron latch that revealed a small window, little more than a slit. The metal edges of the opening were freshly filed, evidence that the slit was a recent addition to the vault. She shoved tray after tray of gruel, now cold after her long walk from the Citadel’s kitchens, through the window, and moved on.
The woman senators were fewer and less dangerous, not worth the pains of altering their vault door. One of the leering guards was only too eager to open that door for Dhayelle. As he did, he and the other thugs craned their necks to ogle the Tishaaran beauty who had been thrown in among the five Ordunese legislators.
“Here, I’ll take that in,” said one of them.
“Thank you, kindly, sir, but guards are not to enter this vault,” Dhayelle protested meekly. “Orders from you know who.”
“Who’s gonna know about it?” challenged the guard, all but drooling in his eagerness. “Me and my buddies ain’t gonna squeal. And you ain’t even thinking about squealing.”
Dhayelle stifled her panic. She had no time for delays, no contingencies for altered scenarios. Unless she got the prophet to safety in the next few minutes, Ehiloru would be a corpse before the mob arrived.
“He sees everything,” she whispered ominously. The seed of doubt easily took root in such well-conditioned soil. With a snarl of anger, the guard shoved her into the room, sending her and the bowls of gruel clattering to the stone floor. The door slammed shut behind her.
Five well-dressed women rushed to the upended bowls of gruel that spilled over the stone floor. The other woman, dressed in clothes far more stylish than those Dhayelle had lent her, helped her to her feet.
“Madame Dhayelle!”
The weeks of sunless, squalid captivity had failed to diminish the Tishaaran’s looks or her sweet nature. She radiated a softness and warmth that melted the heart of any onlooker. Providing the onlooker had a heart, Dhayelle thought, thinking of the Citadel's security forces.
Of far more importance to her, however, was a contrasting quality. She felt a surge of satisfaction at the surprising strength of the Tishaaran's arms. Windglow had assured her that Shaska could give a good account of herself in any physical exercise, at least for a short burst--her endurance was limited in the Second Realm. He had not exaggerated. Dhayelle had taken it for granted that the elderly Ordunese women would be close to useless in what was to follow, and nothing she saw in their fearful, whining natures and soft physiques changed that opinion.
“Prepare to escape,” Dhayelle whispered to Shaska. She put a finger to her lips, purposely excluding the Ordunese. The fewer involved in this, the less chance of anyone spoiling the timing. It occurred to Dhayelle that Shaska could not have known that she was an ally and not a traitor, yet she seemed instinctively to trust her. How different from that other one, that Delaney! Ah, well, it was this very trusting nature that got Shaska behind these bars in the first place.
After the prisoners had eaten, Dhayelle waited for the sound that would trigger the escape. At the first clink of metal into the keyhole, she motioned Shaska against the wall next to the door. Her heart pounding, she waited for the moment she had been dreading ever since they had laid their plans. The instant the key freed the lock and the door began to swing open, Dhayelle threw herself at it. The blow so staggered the doorkeeper that he backpedaled clear across the foyer and toppled over the open ledge into the subterranean pool. The edge of the door clipped a second guard on the face. He fell to one knee, holding his jaw and cursing.
Dhayelle wrestled the keys out of the lock. But the third guard, a giant of a man who had been standing by the other vault, rushed over. Laughing uproariously, he grabbed Dhayelle by the hair.
“Help!” cried Dhayelle, gripping the keys with both hands, eyes watering as a clump of her thick hair came out by the roots. “Not me! The keys! Open the other vault! Quick! Get Ehiloru out! In that cell over there!”
She flung the ring of keys to Shaska. But her tormentor threw out his leg and managed to deflect them toward the wall. Blood spurting from his nose, the other guard dove for the keys just after Shaska reached them. He grabbed her hand and tried to crush it, but she ducked, and flipped him over her back.
Keys firmly in her grasp, Shaska sprinted to the far vault. The giant guard, no longer amused, threw Dhayelle to the ground and raced after Shaska. Dhayelle kicked out her leg in time to trip him. Before he could get up, she leapt on his back and dug her fingers into his face.
Her heart soared as she saw Shaska fit a key into the lock. Another second and the door would be open! The prisoners would pour out of their cramped cell and overpower the few guards. They would be free. Of course, they could not fight off any reinforcements that might arrive, but if the timing was as it should be, a mob of Ordunese would soon be on their way. If not . . . Dhayelle shot a glance at the stair leading to the landing by the canal, wondering how many boats were available to sail out the underground entrance.
But there was more than one key on the chain, and Shaska was having poor luck in locating the right one. Just as she found the key that fit, the bloody-nosed guard reached her. Shaska slipped out of his grasp and knocked him to the floor. She could not shake his grip on the key ring, however, and he pulled her down with him. Like a pair of trophy pike thrashing on a stringer, they wrestled on the floor for the keys.
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The giant guard rose with Dhayelle still clinging to his back. He smashed her against the wall, crushing her ribs and knocking the wind out of her. As she sank to the floor, she watched in despair as the plan fell apart.
“Shaska, look out!” she croaked, as Shaska and the guard rolled toward the precipice by the open stair. By now, the bloody-nosed fellow had learned to respect the surprising strength of his adversary. He fought hard and his superior weight began to tell. As he began to get the upper hand, the giant guard left Dhayelle crumpled against the wall and rushed in to help. Far below, the third guard, dripping wet, dragged himself up the stairs. Hatred burned in his eyes.
With a tremendous jerk that nearly wrenched the man’s arms out of his socket, Shaska spun her bloody-nosed attacker into the onrushing path of the giant. The collision knocked both men off their feet. But it also ripped the key ring from Shaska’s grasp. The bloody-nosed man held on to it as he bounced backward off the giant and rolled off the ledge in almost exactly the same spot that the third guard had earlier fallen. His shout echoed off the walls of the cavern, as did the splash that followed.
The giant guard huffed like a bellows as he dusted himself off from his fall, spewing foul curses and burning for revenge. The third guard slowly approached from the stair. Dhayelle struggled to her feet. Perhaps there was still time. “Quick! Throw me the key!” she cried.
Shaska stared over the ledge at the sputtering man who splashed to shore in the pool below, her features distorted by despair. By this time the struggle had aroused great curiosity in the prisoners locked in the first vault. They banged against the doors and clamored for help. The Ordunese women peeked timidly out from their vault.
“They took it!” cried Shaska. “I am sorry, but I could not hold on to it.”
Two thugs now moved menacingly toward her. From far down the hallway, Dhayelle heard the clatter of three more curious soldiers.
“You want to come out of your shelter and play rough, pretty girl?” said the sneering giant. “That’s the best news I’ve heard since we arrived in this stinking realm. Let’s play.”
“Into the vault!” screamed Dhayelle. She held the door open as the Ordunese women retreated back into their darkness.
“What?” cried Shaska. The command made no sense at all. What was the point of locking themselves in the vault right where these ogres wanted them? They would come in after them just as soon as the guard with the keys climbed out of the pool.
“Get in here!” insisted Dhayelle.
Shaska stared at the drawn swords wielded by men with lecherous grins. Instinctively, she obeyed. Dhayelle yanked her in and pulled the vault door shut. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks that it locked. Now that she thought about it, there had been no reason to suppose it would lock without the key.
“Why did you do that?” asked one of the trembling Ordunese, her eyes bulging in terror. “We’ve been well-treated until now. Now you have gotten them so angry they could--”
She left the sentence unfinished. Dhayelle leaned against the wall, her heart pounding, muscles numb,feeling aches in places she had forgotten existed. “I don’t know,” she gasped. “What does it matter anyway?” Resting her head on the crumbling limestone wall, she sobbed, “Oh, Ehiloru, I tried! I tried! I’m sorry!”
Across the room, Shaska took pity on the exhausted woman. Only then did it occur to her that she, herself, was not even breathing hard. Ever since entering the Second Realm, her energy had flamed out more quickly than a wet match. Now, even after a long and furious struggle for her life, she felt as fresh as if she had just risen from her bed, as she might have felt back in the Third Realm. Under the present circumstances it was hardly a matter of importance. They were doomed, and that was all the really counted. But the curious phenomenon offered her a distraction from the agents of death that were gathering at the door of her vault.
Windglow had scrunched himself into that high closet shelf so often that he had begun to think of it as his personal den. His body, however, never adapted to the discomfort. His aching ligaments, fraying more with each period of confinement, begged for relief. He began to stretch his legs, and even let them dangle off the edge of the shelf. It seemed safe. After all, the soldiers had already performed their usual perfunctory search of the corridor. Then the creaking sound of an oil-starved hinge penetrated the wall, alerting him to the arrival of someone in the command room.
So this was it: the final meeting before it all broke loose. Windglow had been anticipating it for days. Another week’s worth of eluding the Citadel goons had emboldened him to the point where he had even used one of Dhayelle's hat pins to scrape a tiny peephole into the mortar between a couple of bricks.
Squinting through the tiny crack, Windglow caught a brief glimpse of Eldorean. He was a rather plain man with a large, rectangular forehead, a flat nose, and white hair that hung limply at his neck. The only other person Roland could see was Mercuto, who, in contrast, cut a handsome figure in the green-trimmed tunic of the Ordunese Senate. He possessed, in addition to thick, well-groomed hair, the straightest, whitest teeth that Windglow had ever seen.
I wonder where Radigan is?
“The message just arrived,” said Mercuto. “Ishyrus has come. Radigan rode like a cyclone out to welcome it.”
“It still worries me that he is messing around with the Fifth Realm,” said Eldorean, licking his chronically lips. “Always has.”
“So be worried if you have to. Just as long as you do your job. You know the orders. We need to move things along as quickly as possible.” Mercuto studied Eldorean curiously. “Is there some problem? You don’t seem well.”
“Well, no. It’s just. How are you going to . . . execute the prophet?”
“In the most brutal way possible, per Radigan’s orders. Gore will inflame the passions of his admirers and that’s what we want.”
Eldorean seemed to cringe. “It’s hard to feel good about this.”
“I suppose. What is your point?”
“I wish there were some other way.”
“There are many things I wish for. But when wishing is done, you take what’s there and do what you have to do. Don’t give the prophet another thought. He’s my responsibility. You worry about you. Are your men ready?”
“I left orders for the Southern Division of my army to arrive at Orduna’s main gate early this morning. When I give the word, they shall enter the gate and stand ready for action.”
Mercuto clapped him on the shoulder. “The game is now in motion. We shall reap the rewards of our preparation and our loyalty. Can you appreciate what Radigan and Ishyrus have accomplished? To actually shatter the laws of nature that have ruled the realmlands since time beyond record!”
The statement was as far beyond Windglow’s comprehension as if he had been told the sun had fallen out of the universe. He had occasionally heard mention during these meetings of some breaking of the realm bonds, but had never understood what it meant. Certainly it could not be meant literally. And he had never understood why Ishyrus would risk a journey so deep into the land of mortals.
“This moment would never have been possible without my getting a foothold for Radigan in the Citadel,” continued Mercuto, rubbing his hands. “And it was you who facilitated the crucial experiments on Reef’s Island, Eldorean. Draw strength from that remembrance. These deeds have earned us a high place in the reign of Radigan here as well as in the everlasting reign of Ishyrus over all the realms.”
“All I can say is that I am glad we are on the right side of this. I, for one, would hate to have to face the Nephilim without Radigan’s and Ishyrus’s protection.”
“We have done our part well,” said Mercuto with a dreamy smile. “History shall honor us as--”
“A couple of lard-bellied wangle wigs with snot for brains!” shouted a small voice that echoed in the closet walls around Windglow. Windglow gaped in both amazement and horror at the downy little companion on his lap.
“Shhh!” he begged, shaking his head, trying to wake himself from a bizarre dream.
“Who are you afraid of? Weedface and Flibberslop out there!”
“Guards!” shrieked Mercuto in a cry that shriveled Windglow’s skin. “What is going on? Who allowed these spies in here?”
Thundering boots and enraged shouts converged on the conference room. Still in shock over Puddles’ speech, Windglow began the agonizing process of unwinding himself from his cramped posture.
As Mercuto barked furious orders to the bewildered guards whom he summoned, a breathless Flaymond broke into the room. “Mercuto! Eldorean! It’s happening already! A mob has already formed in the courtyard and they are beating down the doors of the Citadel.”
“Not yet!” cried Mercuto. “Who disobeyed their orders? What fool spilled the rumors before the time? He shall be fed to the Nephilim!”
Flaymond skewered Eldorean with a look of contempt. “They say that Brooking soldiers are among the rabble and are encouraging them.”
“What?!” yammered Eldorean. “B-b-but, that is not possible! They were to go nowhere without me! They had explicit orders to stay at the gate until I summoned them!”
“You weak-spined wart!” snarled Mercuto. “You and your sudden attack of conscience! Radigan wondered if it was wise to have delegated so much authority. He didn’t trust you and neither did I.”
“I have done exactly as I’ve been asked!” insisted Eldorean, hotly.
“I don’t believe anyone asked you to feel pity for the prophet, nor to send your division into the city to muck things up. Flaymond! Take this incompetent Lord of Rushbrook and throw him in with the senators. Guards! A spying worm has burrowed behind that wall. Find him and kill him immediately if you wish to live beyond sunset!”
Windglow sprang off his shelf. His legs buckled and he hit the floor. Tucking Puddles under his arm, he arose and limped off into the dark corridor, praying for the rapid return of his circulation. He could already see the dim lights carried by Radigan’s minions flickering on the wall as they entered the passage.