The Hidden City

Alcan had been unceremoniously dragged below decks and confined in a cramped compartment that smelled of the bilges and was totally dark. After they had been two hours at sea, the compartment door had opened and Krager had entered with two swarthy sailors, one carrying what appeared to be a decent meal, and the other, two pails of hot water some soap and a wad of rags for use as towels. Ehlana had resisted an impulse to embrace the fellow.
    ‘I’m really sorry about all this, Ehlana,’ Krager had apologized, squinting at her nearsightedly, ‘but I have no control of the situation. Be very careful of what you say to Scarpa. You’ve probably noticed that he’s not entirely rational.’ He had looked around nervously, then laid a handful of cheap tallow candles on the rough table and left, chaining the door shut behind him.
    They had been five days at sea and had reached Arian, a port city on the edge of the jungles of the southeast coast some time after midnight. Then she and Alcan had been hustled into a closed carriage with the pouchy-eyed Baron Parok at the reins.
    During the transfer from the ship to the carriage, Ehlana had discreetly looked at each of her captors, seeking some weakness.
    Krager, despite his habitual drunkenness, was too shrewd, and Parok was Scarpa’s long-time confederate, a man evidently untroubled by his friend’s madness. Then she had coolly appraised Elron. She had noticed that under no circumstances would the foppish Astellian poet look her in the eye. His apparent murder of Melidere had evidently filled him with remorse.
    Elron was a poseur rather than a man of action, and he clearly had no stomach for blood. She had recalled moreover, how vain he had been about his long curls when she had first met him and had wondered what form of duress Scarpa had used to force him to shave his head in order to pose as one of Kring’s Peloi.
    She had surmised that the violation of his hair had raised certain strong resentments in him. Elron was clearly reluctant to participate in this affair, and that made him the weak link. She kept that fact firmly in mind now. The time might come when she could use it to her advantage.
    The carriage had carried them from the waterfront to a large house on the outskirts of Arian. It had been there that Scarpa had spoken with a gaunt Styric with the lumpy features characteristic of the men of his race. The Styric’s name was Keska, and his eyes had the look of one hopelessly damned.
    ‘I don’t care about the discomfort!’ Scarpa had half-shouted to the gaunt man at one point. ‘Time is important, Keska, time! Just do it! As long as it doesn’t kill us, we can endure it!’
    The next morning the significance of that command had become all too obvious. Keska was evidently one of those outcast Styric magicians, but not a very good one. He could, with a great deal of clearly exhausting effort, compress the miles that lay between them and Scarpa’s intended destination, but only a few miles each time, and the compression was accompanied by a horrid kind of wrenching agony. It seemed almost as if the clumsy magician were jerking them up and hurling them blindly forward with every ounce of his strength, and Ehlana could never be certain after each hideous, bruising jump that she was still intact. She felt torn and battered, but did what she could to conceal her pain from Alcan. The gentle girl with the large eyes wept almost continuously now, overcome by her pain and fear and the misery of their circumstances.
    Ehlana drew her mind into the present and looked about warily. It was approaching evening again. The overcast sky was gradually darkening, and the time of day Ehlana dreaded the most would soon be upon them.
    Scarpa looked with some scorn at Keska, who slumped in his saddle like a wilted flower, obviously near exhaustion. ‘This is far enough,’ he said. ‘Set up some kind of camp and get the women down off those horses.’ His brittle eyes grew bright as he looked Ehlana full in the face. ‘It’s time for the bedraggled Queen of the Elenes to beg for her supper again. I do hope she’ll be more convincing this time. It really distresses me to have to refuse her when her pleas aren’t sufficiently sincere.’
    ‘Ehlana,’ Krager whispered, touching her shoulder. The fire had died down to embers, and Ehlana could hear the sound of snores coming from the other side of their rude camp.
    ‘What?’ she replied shortly.
    ‘Keep your voice down.’