Kushiel's Chosen

even a pallet to relieve it. I moved past my own door-no sound yet, Fabron still unconscious-and tried the fourth door.
    Empty.
    Cursing softly under my breath, I fought with the jangling iron ring, seeking the key for the fifth door. At last I found it; it fit, the door opened.
    I knew from the stench that this one was inhabited.
    What I saw in that cell, I do not like to remember. A man's figure or somewhat like it, crouching at the wall beneath his window, scrabbling at the stones with long, curved nails. He turned toward the light with a whimper, throwing up one forearm to shield his eyes, showing his teeth in a grimace. His hair was greying, snarled and matted with long years' neglect. I took a step back from the doorway, holding the lantern high to illuminate my face and show I was no guard.
    "You are free," I said softly in Caerdicci. "Although I do not know for how long. Someone attacks the fortress. Stay if you wish, or go if you will risk it. You are free to choose."
    He lowered his arm and peered at me, blinking. His mouth worked, but no human sound emerged. "Wh... wh ... wh ... ?"
    "I don't know," I said. Whatever he sought to ask, I had no answer. "All I can offer is a chance. Take it or not, and Blessed Elua keep you."
    Swallowing hard against the horror of it, I hurried to the next cell and the next, fear and bile rising in my throat. I set them all free that night, my prison mates, Asherat's captive mourners. Nearly every cell was as bad as the first. Some I knew by sight. The Banger stood before his window, pounding his bruise-blackened forehead against the bars-that was the sound I'd heard for nights on end. The Pleader had been there the shortest time, next to me. He stood upright, blinking wide-eyed at the light. A youngish man, not thirty years old; his hair had grown only to his shoulders. "Please?" he asked tentatively. "I swear, 'twas not my dagger, I swear it, my lord! Only let me go, and I'll prove it, I'll bring you the man who did it. Please, my lord? Please?"
    "You are free to choose," I murmured, sick, repeating my litany. Six times I had said it already; eight times before I was done. All along the corridor, the brass-bound cell doors stood open and ajar, dark, gaping mouths emitting the reek of ordure and foulness and the rhythmic surge of grieving sea, pierced with distant shouting. Somewhere, above, I could hear the sound of running steps.
    But the corridor stood empty, save for me; and quiet. All their' voices had fallen silent.
    I could not force them to go, could not force them to choose, when I knew not what transpired. I had done all I could. Bending at the waist, I set down my lantern at the head of the corridor, leaving it to illume the empty walls. Let them have that much, at least, I thought.
    It was safer for me to move in darkness, even if I knew not where I went. It had been a long time, since I'd employed the physical arts of covertcy in which Delaunay had trained me, but I had not forgotten. A body in shadow stands less chance of being seen. Watchers in light are blinded by light; always, always, stay to the shadows.
    Wrapping Fabron's keys in a fold of my gown to stifle their jangling, I made my way to the foot of the stairs that led away from the dungeon.

FORTY-SIX
    For several long moments I crouched and listened at the head of the stairs. There were voices somewhere on the far side of the door, faint with distance. I tried to remember the layout of the fortress from my single glimpse of it. I would have failed miserably had Delaunay been quizzing me on it; numb with shock and wanting only to die, I'd paid scant attention. Still, I did not remember any guard set on the door itself.
    I had to take a chance. I tried the handle, and found it locked.
    Well and good, there must be a key on Fabron's ring. I unfolded them from my gown and sorted through them by touch in the dim light cast by the lantern in the corridor behind me. There were three that were larger than the others, and one smaller. I tried one of the larger, then a second, and that one unlocked the door. Muffling the keys once more, I worked the latch and opened the door a crack, peering through the gap.
    There was not much to see, and little light in which to see it. An empty wardroom, it seemed, with a bench along the section of wall visible through the cracked door and an unused charcoal brazier. I daresay the cells grew cold and dank in the winter; the room must serve as a place for guards to warm their