Darkness Weaves (11 page)

For this cell was no dank pit where prisoners were left to rot in chains, although no man had escaped from here in all the dungeon's long history. This was a very special cell. Here the monarchs and emperors of Thovnos chose to incarcerate political prisoners whose threat to their established order demanded that they be imprisoned beyond hope of escape--yet whose rank required certain considerations and privileges. Death was a more certain warden, but it was often expedient to confine a popular figure herein--until public sympathy waned, and his demise could be handled discreetly, conveniently.

M'Cori thought she could discern a still figure stretched upon the chamber's narrow bed. She moved closer, a note of alarm rising in her voice. "Lages?"
The figure on the bed started as she stepped close. He gasped hoarsely and blindly struck out at her. M'Cori cried out, as a powerful blow of his arm slammed back her hesitant touch.

The youth shook himself awake. "M'Cori!" he breathed. "It's you! By Horment, I'm sorry I startled you, M'Cori. I was in the midst of a nightmare and I..."

His voice trailed off as he haphazardly brushed his fingers through his disordered brown hair and wiped the cold sweat from his stubbled face. He fumbled for his water jug.

"Hate to strike a light, darling--I'm such a mess," he apologized. "Didn't really expect you until tomorrow, or I would have straightened the place up. Hey, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

His voice became edged. "M'Cori! Don't hide anything back! Have they...?"

She hurried to his side, cutting short his sudden panic. "No, Lages! Stop it, please! Father has decided nothing yet. Nothing has changed."

Her eyes clouded. "Lages, it isn't night. It's the middle of the day."

Lages cursed and swung to his feet. "Wait--I'll strike some more light. Middle of the day, do you say? Damn it, I've slept too long again. Wait--I'll make it day down here, too. High noon, if you like. I'm getting to be a vegetable down here, damn it all--a mushroom. Day, night, what difference! I eat when I'm hungry, I sleep when I'm tired. Lately I'm not too hungry, so I sleep most of the time. Someday I'll just not bother waking up, and I'll snore away here until the world outside has long forgotten Lages. There! Two lamps for morning, three for noon, and I'll blow one out for evening. Midday, you said--that means all three."

He turned to her then and saw the horror reflected in her face. Uneasily Lages realized that his words were bordering on a lunatic's raving. He straightened his rumpled clothing and muttered reassuringly, "Forgive me, sweetheart. That nightmare still has my nerves all shot to hell. Get used to talking to myself down here, and I forget how to converse intelligently."

He smiled crookedly, and she brightened hopefully. "Sorry if I frightened you," he went on, trying to push away the nightmare.

The nightmare that haunted him with every sleep. The nightmare of the young man who lay trapped and helpless in his cell--who cowered like a whipped slave in a dark corner, as he heard the footsteps of his executioners marching closer. Closer, ever closer. Never quite reaching the door--before the slave began to scream in spineless terror. And then Lages would wake up, screaming.

Someday the footsteps would reach the door and enter. Someday he would not wake up. He shuddered. It was degrading enough to have to wait here, wait to be led out and slaughtered like some condemned felon. But to be tormented by the fear that his enemies would find him groveling on the floor...

He knew he did not fear death. Even so ignominious a death as doubtless lay in store for him. Distasteful. Something to be fought, to be avoided as long as possible. But he did not fear death. Then why the nightmare--why the dreams of cowardice? Could any man say for certain how he would ultimately face death? His captivity was eating away at his mind. Perhaps his manhood was rotting away as well. Maybe in another month--or another... For the thousandth time he cursed the fate that had let him be taken alive by his enemies.

The cell was no longer silent. Someone was speaking. Speaking to him. It was M'Cori. Gods, he had all but dismissed her from his thoughts. Hoping she had not noticed his withdrawn silence, Lages started to smile--and realized he had been smiling blankly for several minutes now. Had she noticed? She appeared not to have. Was she then behaving discreetly toward one whose mind was starting to wander? He forced himself to concentrate on her nervous account of the past week's court gossip, of a newly arrived troubadour, and similar inanities.

She sensed that he had returned to her, and cut short her chatter--looking toward him anxiously. Outside the barred doorway, the guards stood impassively. Lages wondered if Maril enjoyed hearing their reports of his increasingly disordered conduct.

"Has your father made any further mention of me?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

She shook her head solemnly, rippling the waves of blond hair. He noticed her perfume for the first time and remembered that he should have complimented her on her appearance. Clearly she had spent hours planning and preparing for this half-hour. She was gowned and groomed as if to attend a banquet. He wondered if it were too late to express his appreciation--without giving her the impression he hadn't noticed earlier. He decided it was not.

"No, Father pretends that he has forgotten all about you. Never does he mention your name. It's his favorite trick when anything happens that disturbs him deeply. Darling, I'm sure he means to spare you. Why else would he have kept you alive these last--?"

"These last two months," Lages finished for her. "There's any number of reasons, but don't worry yourself over it. After all, I've lasted two years under Maril's thumb, and I'm still not down."

But damn close to it now, he told himself. Third time is the last.

Lages had been at sea while Efrel was weaving her conspiracy with Leyan, and consequently he had not been implicated in the plot. Certain of his son's loyalty to him, Leyan had postponed involving Lages until the final moment. Thus the first knowledge Lages received of his father's tragic fate came when he returned to port, and his fellow officers reluctantly declared him under Imperial arrest. Showing unwonted mercy, Maril did not execute Lages with the others of the conspirators' households, but chose instead to keep him under careful surveillance.

Enraged over his father's death, Lages had recklessly plotted to kill Netisten Maril. His abortive conspiracy had never a chance to take form, and Maril this time placed Lages under genteel confinement. He imprisoned his nephew within a suite of rooms inside the Imperial palace, extracting from Lages his solemn promise to engage in no further conspiracy against his uncle. Again the Emperor departed from character to show mercy.

With the help of some friends, Lages made a daring escape from his gilded prison. Gathering together a number of his uncle's enemies, Lages this time organized an almost successful attempt to assassinate the Emperor and seize the throne. In his hatred of his uncle, Lages gave little thought to the fact that he was being used by powers whose only ambition was to gain control of the Empire for themselves. Using Lages for a figurehead, his fellow conspirators had developed a considerable popular following for the fiery youth. Again Netisten Maril had crushed the conspiracy, and Lages once more became his prisoner. But this time there was to be no escape for Lages, no one that he could turn to for help. He was buried alive. Only M'Cori was privileged to visit him, and she would never betray her father--or so Maril believed. The weeks had dragged by, while Maril ferreted out the last of Lages's co-conspirators. And Lages knew that this time Netisten Maril would grant no reprieve to the nephew who hated him.

"I brought you a few things," M'Cori was saying. She held up her basket with the delighted air of a child bestowing treasured gifts upon a favorite playmate. It was this ingenuousness--this ability utterly to divorce herself from her surroundings, from reality, to draw others into her enchantment-that made him love M'Cori, so Lages told himself.

"A sword and a set of keys, I hope," he said with unconvincing levity.

M'Cori flashed a smile. "I'm afraid your guards confiscated that along with the battle-axe I had tucked away in my coiffure."

She blushed nicely as he took this chance to pay some painfully awaited compliments. "They missed the magic ring of invisibility I slipped into my decolletage, though," she added wickedly.

"Where is it, then?" he asked.

"I can't find it myself now," she laughed. "It's charm must work too well."

"Might I help you search for it?" Lages suggested. M'Cori kicked at him playfully and reached into her basket. Lages caught the secret promise in her averted eyes, though this was hardly the time and place. '

"Here," she said, extending a heavy flask. "I stole a bottle of Father's imported brandy from his most secret cellar bin."

Lages sighed his appreciation. "What other surprises, little magician?"

"Well, here's a book. I thought you might want to read."

"What sort of book?"

M'Cori kept her eyes lowered as she proffered the opulently bound volume. "Well, it's poetry. Written by Pacin of Tresli. I know you'll think it's awfully tender stuff. But it's mine. My favorite book. I read it a lot. I mean, I thought you might like to look through his poems--if you knew that I liked them and that they mean a lot to me. Then you'd have something that was dear to me. Something to keep with you while you're down here."

"Thank you, M'Cori," Lages said gallantly. "I'll read these poems over carefully at night. If it would please you, I'll even learn them all by heart. Recite them to you like your personal minstrel."

She laughed at his proposal, but there was a faint catch before she continued. "Here's one more present I brought." Carefully she reached into her basket and lifted out a small bouquet of wild flowers. Timidly she displayed the handful of colored fragrance to Lages--hoping desperately that he would accept them, terribly afraid that he would laugh, or be insulted.

"Flowers, M'Cori?" he asked her in wonder.

"I picked them with my own hands in the meadow this morning. My maids think I'm mad," she said hesitantly. "Oh, darling, I know it's silly for a girl to bring flowers to a man! Only I keep thinking of you locked away from the sunlight down here. I thought something full of life like these flowers--I thought maybe then it would be like... like..."

"Like capturing a fragment of the sunlight and bringing it here to me," Lages finished for her.

M'Cori nodded and smiled her appreciation of his understanding. Since she had nothing more to say, she let Lages hold her close for a while. Kissing, they were oblivious to the impassive scrutiny of the guards.

She nestled her head under his chin and clung to him in silence. Lages felt each beat of her heart against his chest. He felt her relax slowly in his arms--content for the moment, like a child at rest. He wondered if she had gone to sleep, so still she lay, when abruptly she pushed away from him.

She ran her soft hands over his face in elaborate disdain. "Your face is like a scrub brush! You've scratched me to ribbons! Why don't you either scrape that mess off, or let it grow out?" She looked at him in appraisal. "You'd look sort of dashing with a full beard, you know. If you kept it trimmed neatly."

Lages started to protest, but realized she was just trying to goad him out of his apathy. Instead he told her slowly, "You're my last hope, M'Cori. I would have given up--gone mad with despair long ago, if it weren't for you."

The captain of the guard discreetly cleared his throat from the doorway. "Milady, you'll have to go now. I've let you stay almost an hour already, and your father will have my hide if he finds out."

Reluctantly she got up to leave. "I'll be back, beloved," she whispered. "And you'll get out of here--I know you will. I'll keep begging Father to parole you--at least to move you to a cell in the tower. I know he means to spare your life, Lages!"

He found himself almost sharing her optimism. "Sure, darling. Keep trying, in any way you know how. I know you're doing everything you can for me. And I'll be waiting for your next visit."

"Goodbye, Lages," she called from the door. "Don't forget the priestess's prophecy."

He listened to her departing footsteps. Yes, the prophecy. Don't forget the prophecy.

Long ago--how long ago? They were three half-wild kids on a spree at a holiday carnival. M'Cori, Roget, and Lages--they had slipped away from Leyan and run amuck through the throngs and stalls. In one dark booth they had discovered an ancient crone, who swore to them that she was the last priestess of Lato, a devil-worship suppressed decades before by the priests of Horment. She said that if they would let her taste a drop of their blood, she would tell their fortunes.

An exchange of dares had made it impossible to back out. Solemnly each had pricked a finger Roget's dagger and thrust the ruby-spotted tip is the hag's toothless mouth. She had sucked so rapaciously that it seemed their fingers would be stripped of flesh.

For Roget she forecast fame and glory as a warrior; for Lages, a kingdom to rule; for M'Cori, marriage to her dearest love, who would be a prince and would father her seven strong sons. They had left quarreling over whose fortune was the brightest, and when Leyan at last found them, he had been tremendously alarmed at their adventure. They never saw the old priestess again.

He shrugged, feeling the bitterness return. Prophecies and childhood dreams. True, Roget had found fame and renown as a warrior, but he had encountered death as well--shot from ambush by some unknown assassin after his glorious triumph over the rebels on Fisitia.

And the man whose throne Roget had died to preserve had butchered their father. Now Lages was the rebel. And his fortune was almost played out.

Grimly Lages contemplated M'Cori's gifts. Insipid poems. And flowers. Just the thing he needed to escape this cell, this fate. At worst they only reminded him of his imprisonment here below ground.

He snatched up the bouquet in his fist and glared at it angrily. Whether he wanted to trample the blossoms into the floor, or press them to his lips--Lages could not decide.