The Iron Palace (48 page)

She was midway across it when she heard doors slam and was plunged into absolute darkness. There were the sounds of soft-soled footsteps, and then Yim felt hands on her body. There were too many hands to count, and though they were groping in the dark, their own ers seemed to know what they were doing. Almost instantly, Yim’s arms were seized. A hand touched her face and then her nose before sliding over her mouth to cover it just as she was about to shout. Hands discovered her legs and traveled down them to grip her ankles.

A voice spoke. “Do you have her?”

Many voices answered, “Aye.”

Yim heard the inner door being opened. A voice called, “Bring light!” Soon the stairway reflected torchlight. A moment later, Yim saw the torchbearers descend the stairs. They wore the robes of the Devourer’s priests. When they stepped into the room, Yim could see her captors. The seven men restraining her all looked like soldiers, despite
being unarmored and unarmed. However, a priest seemed in charge. “Bind her hands and gag her.”

Yim’s wrists were crossed behind her back and securely tied with a rope so smooth that it felt like silk. A leather gag quickly replaced the hand covering her mouth. The leather seemed new. It had been oiled with a fragrant spice. Then one of the men searched her clothing and took the knife. “Now the blindfold,” said the priest.

Black silk was tied over Yim’s eyes, and she was in darkness again. “Good work, men,” said the priest’s voice. “We’ll take her from here.” The hands gripping her arms were replaced by different ones. Yim heard retreating footsteps, then the priest spoke again. “My lady, you will need to climb some stairs, quite a few I’m afraid. We’ll go slowly so you won’t stub a toe.”

My lady!
thought Yim.
That’s what Bahl’s men called me before
. They must know who I am! Moreover, Yim realized that they had been expecting her and had prepared a trap. The way she had been so quickly captured in the dark marked precision achieved through long drilling.
That rope was left to lure me here
.

What terrified Yim even more than being captured was the likelihood that her reception was Froan’s doing. Instead of stepping up and greeting her, he had her bound like a thief. It certainly boded ill for their talk together, especially the gag.

“Come,” said the priest. The hands gripping Yim’s arms gently forced her forward. They stopped her a few paces later. She heard one of her captors say, “Ye’re afore the steps m’lady.” Yim found the first one with her foot. Then she was solicitously forced to climb flight after flight of stairs. Eventually, she halted on a landing where she heard a door open with a creaking, metallic sound. Then she was climbing stairs again, except they were spiral ones and there were no landings. The air was dank and chilly, and it had a foul odor that seemed a mixture of smoke and putrescence.

Yim’s legs ached by the time her captors halted her, opened another metal door, and forced her into a chamber. They maneuvered her about until the backs of her knees touched something. “There’s a bed behind ye, m’lady. Sit down on it.” Yim did. “Now, lie down on yer back.” Yim obeyed, and felt her captors grab her ankles. “Don’t be alarmed, my lady,” said a voice. “Ye’ll be treated with the utmost respect.” With that, her legs were spread, and her ankles were manacled. The irons felt cushioned inside, but their grip was firm.

Then Yim was made to sit up in the bed so her wrists could be untied. After they were freed, she was told to lie down again and her wrists were put in cushioned manacles also. Yim’s restraints forced her into a loosely spread-eagle position. She could move but only within limits, and her hands couldn’t touch her face. Finally, to Yim’s relief, her blindfold and gag were removed.

Yim looked around. She was in a windowless room with a ceiling, floor, and walls made of dull black stone. She was lying on a feather mattress and shackled to a large bed made of iron. It was elegantly crafted, considering its function. The four posts were cast in the form of richly detailed soldiers, each different but each tugging at a manacle’s chain. There was an elaborately carved ebony table holding an oil lamp in the form of a silver skull. A silver tray also sat on the table. It held a golden bowl of honeyed fruit and a golden wine ewer and goblet.

Yim paid less attention to these items than to the men in the room. They were all robed as priests. Initially there were four, but two left after removing her gag and blindfold. Summoning up a voice of outraged authority, Yim said, “What’s the meaning of this?”

The elder of the remaining priests smiled, seemingly amused by Yim’s tone. “Why, my lady, all this is for your own protection. You must confess that you’ve been careless with your person. Climbing walls at night! You’re fortunate to be uninjured.”

“I had to get in some way.”

“Our door has always been open to you. All you needed to do was present yourself. We would have welcomed you.”

“Like this, I suppose.”

“Admit it, you’ve proved troublesome in the past.”

“And what does Lord Bahl have to say of this treatment of his mother?”

The priest smiled. “I’m told he grieves for her untimely death.”

Yim gazed into the priest’s eyes, and saw that he was partly telling the truth: Froan believed that she was dead, though the priest didn’t know if he grieved. “Then he’ll be pleased to learn the contrary,” Yim said.

The priest shrugged. “Mayhap. Who knows? It’s not my place to tell him.”

“Whose is it?”

“Why, the Most Holy One. Who else to give such joyous news?” The priest grinned sardonically. “Or not, as he deems best. It’s a matter you two can discuss.”

“When?”

“In good time, my lady. In good time. Until then, this holy one will tend you.” He nodded at the other priest, a young, lanky, thin-faced man, with a hawk nose, pimply face, and a shock of wild blond hair. “He’ll give you food and drink, bathe and dress you”—the priest gave a shallow metal pan a distasteful look—“and deal with other necessary functions. My vigil is over. I bid you good riddance, my lady.”

The elder priest departed from the room, and Yim focused her attention on the remaining one. “Do you have a name?”

“Ye may call me Holy One.”

“What if I don’t think you’re holy?” asked Yim.

“But I am holy,
m’lady
,” said the priest, putting a sarcastic twist on the last word. “Holiness is power, and ye’ll find me fulsome powerful. Ye eat and drink at my leave. If ye wish to make water, ye must beg my assistance.”

“It seems you forget who I am,” said Yim.

“Ye’re only a hole to me. One Bahl entered it, and another came out. Don’t think ye’re something special.”

“Your god’s within me,” said Yim, still trying to gain some leverage. “If you don’t believe me, touch my flesh. It’s as chill as your lord’s.”

“My lord’s the Most Holy One. Bahl is but his tool. As for yer chill—’twill be departing soon enough, although I doubt ye’ll be glad to have it go.”

“Do you speak of the suckling?” asked Yim.

The young priest’s pale face appeared to grow paler. He refused to answer and seemed to become engrossed in gazing at his fingernails.

“So, I’m not supposed to know about that?”

The priest continued to look away.

“When the Most Holy One visits me—and he most certainly will—I’ll say you told me all about it.” Yim watched the priest’s face grow paler yet. She smiled. “Or not, as I deem best. Now, tell me your name.”

“Ye know a word, nothing else.”

“The Devourer within my son is incomplete until he drinks my blood in a ritual called the suckling. There’s no Rising without the suckling. Until it happens, I’m very precious indeed. So best tell me your name.”

“Tymec, m’lady.”

“Well, Tymec, serve me some wine. Climbing a wall is thirsty work.”

As Tymec went to get Yim’s wine, what ever minor satisfaction she felt was quickly swallowed by despair. Her sense of doom was absolute.
I’ll never see Froan. Gorm will see to that
. Gorm’s trap had worked perfectly, and she was certain that the suckling had been planned with equal thoroughness.
I’ll die, and my death will destroy my son, and he’ll destroy the world
. Tymec brought the goblet to her lips. Yim drank, barely tasting the wine. Her sole thought was that, of the three things that would inevitably happen, her death would be the least tragic.

H
ONUS WAITED
in the crevice for dawn as he mulled over what had happened. He was far too distraught to sleep. To be separated from Yim once again was devastating. Worse, he feared that she was headed for disaster or had already encountered it. As soon as there was light, Honus peered from the crevice at the palace, anxious to discover some indication of Yim’s fate.

He noted a change immediately: soldiers manned walls and watchtowers that had previously stood deserted. Watching whole squads of armored men pace behind the crenellations erased any doubt that the Iron Palace was an active fortress. Honus came up with two explanations for the change, and both spelled trouble. The first was that Yim had been caught, and Lord Bahl had set the guards to deter further intruders. The second was that the absent guards had been part of a trap, a ploy to make Yim overconfident. The return of the guards was a sign that the trap had worked.

Either way, Yim was Lord Bahl’s prisoner. Nevertheless, Honus liked the second explanation less, not because it was less likely, but because it was more disturbing. It meant that he had failed to be sufficiently wary. In retrospect, the forgotten rope seemed too good to be true, like a door left open to lure in a thief. Too late, Honus concluded that had been the case. Furthermore, a trap meant that Bahl had known that Yim was coming. Probably, he had been informed by sorcery, something that always made Honus uneasy.

Uneasy or not, Honus knew what he must do. Both as Yim’s lover and her Sarf, he felt bound to rescue her. “Attempt to rescue her” was more accurate, and Honus realized it. His chances for success were negligible. He was vastly outnumbered and had no clue as to Yim’s whereabouts within the huge complex. Nevertheless, he was determined to act because the thought of inaction was unbearable.

Yim’s night in the Iron Palace was only a little more restful than Honus’s on the rocky ledge. Her bed was luxuriously soft, but horrific dreams lurked and pounced the moment she drifted off to sleep. They startled her awake, and afterward, the memories of them made her loath to shut her eyes again. Yet exhaustion eventually left her with no choice, and she endured the bloody nightmares.

When Yim awoke in the dim, windowless room, she had no idea how long she had slept. She still felt tired, but that could be the result of a troubled sleep and not a short one. Yim was certain that her gruesome dreams were the result of the Devourer’s pervasiveness.
Its greater part lurks within Froan, and he’s inside the palace—perhaps only a few floors away
. Yim wondered if her presence might somehow affect her son and alert him to her nearness. Upon further reflection, she doubted it. Moreover, even if Froan felt her presence, the Devourer’s servants seemed firmly in control.

When Tymec saw that Yim was awake, he fed her and tended her other needs. Afterward, he made Yim maneuver within the confines of her chains so he could position a thick canvas-covered pad beneath her. She discovered its purpose when he undressed and bathed her with cold water that had an unpleasant herbal smell. Tymec tried to hide his interest in her body, but his manner of washing betrayed his lust. Yim chose to ignore him and stared at the ceiling throughout. To her great relief, Tymec didn’t wash her hair and discover the comb.

When Yim was washed and dried, the pad was pulled
away and she was dressed in new clothes. Her outfit consisted solely of a long tunic fashioned out of a rectangle of fine black cloth. It had a neck hole in its center, and when it was pulled over her and tied closed with a silken cord, it was a fairly modest garment. After Tymec finished dressing Yim, he pulled a chain suspended from a hole in the ceiling. That seemed to confirm Yim’s assumption that she was being prepared for something.
The suckling!
Yim forced herself to appear calm, but her heart started pounding rapidly.

Yim waited a long while before the door to her room opened. The Most Holy Gorm entered, looking not a day older than the last time she had seen him. Tymec immediately rose to his feet and bowed. “Wait outside” was all Gorm said. He waited until the door was closed before approaching Yim with a grin. “One of the advantages of long life is that it teaches patience. I always knew this moment would come.”

“That’s a lie,” said Yim. “You had no idea when we last spoke.”

“You mistake my meaning,” replied Gorm. “The intervening period was different than I expected. The other mothers lived in luxury, not a bog. But this ending was foreordained.”

“You mean the suckling?”

For an instant, Gorm looked surprised. “How did you learn about that?”

“General Var told me before he lost his head. So when does the party start?”

“You might as well ask the general. You’ll find me no more talkative.”

“I ask because I’m resigned to my fate. My only wish is to see my son before I die and speak with him one last time.”

“So now you’re asking, not demanding?”

“It’s but a small request. What difference could it make?”

“Let’s stop this game. You know my answer. No.”

“Why?”

“I’d not permit it, if only to cause you grief. But I’ve other reasons, too.”

“What are they?”

“The only thing I’ll tell you is that you’ll soon die. Perhaps Var revealed the manner of your death. If so, know it’s unavoidable.” Gorm paused a moment. “On second thought, I’ll tell you something more: what ever you did to your son in the bog didn’t take. He was quite bloodthirsty by the time we found him. He’d already recruited a band of cutthroats, slaughtered an entire town, and was marching east, slaying everyone in his path. As they say, blood will always show. He was thrilled to learn he was Lord Bahl.

“Moreover, he’s proved adept in other ways. Inflaming minds comes easily to him. He gained the knack without instruction. This bodes well for the Rising. Before next spring, Bremven will be awash in blood, and Karm will only be a curse upon the lips of the dying.”