Prisoner of the Iron Tower (14 page)

A sound issues from the gateway in wave after sickening wave, the sound of disintegration, a grinding and groaning that judders through him until he feels himself drawn helplessly toward the rent in the sky.

Then he is sucked into a whirling vortex; a chaos that crushes all consciousness from him—

And spits him out into a harsh, dry place. Light washes over him, the cruel, blinding light of an alien sun.

The gate still gapes behind him, darker than a thunder-wracked sky. Little crackles of energy fizzle across the opening. It seems to him that the bolts of energy are forked tongues, flickering from the carven mouths of great winged serpents, whose coils tower above him, forming the great arch of the door. And somewhere high above, a serpent-eye, bloodred, fixes him in its burning gaze.

The gate—still a chance of escape.

He flings himself back toward the darkness and the curling fiery tongues lash out, binding him, spread-eagled across the gate. They sear into his wrists and ankles, a white-hot agony.

“Let me go!” he roars. He screams his rage aloud, yet no sound emerges. He is mute.

There are forms, vague and shadowy, looming up out of the intolerable brightness of the unknown sun. Strange, deep voices issue from his shadow-captors.

“Do not approach it yet. It is still too strong. Wait till it weakens.”

“See how it shimmers. Like a dragonfly in the sunlight.”

“Let me go!” he screams again, but still his plea goes unheard. And now he feels his life force ebbing from him. The harsh rays of the sun are draining it fast. He is fading. . . .

“Its light is dimming. We will lose it!”

“Wait!” That one voice again, which buzzes in and out of his consciousness, is commanding.

This terrible sun is searing the luminous liquid from his veins. The air is too thin; it is poisoning him. He is drying to dust, like a fallen leaf.

“Dying . . . help me . . .”

Anguish bleeds through him. He is dying here, alone, torn from his kin, against his will.

“Send it back. Look—it is in torment.”

“No!”

“The doorway is still open—”

“Then I will shut it.”

The bloodred glare is extinguished. With a sucking sound, the gaping rent seals itself—and his last means of escape is gone.

Frenzied rage shudders through him. What do they want of him? What possible use can they make of him? They will pay for what they have done. If it is the last thing he does, he will make them suffer as he has suffered at their hands.

“By all the gods—what’s happening to it?”

“Stand back.” That cold, authoritative voice again.

“Can’t you see? We’re killing it! It’s in some kind of death-throes. We should send it back. Before we have its death on our consciences.”

“Daemon-spirit. Can you hear me? I can save you. But first you must give me your allegiance.”

“Never!” he cries back with the last of his strength—although he has no idea whether his tormentor can hear him.

Eyes stare into his. Strange eyes, not luminous and dazzling like those of his own kin, but small, fringed by flesh and curling fronds of hair. Ugly eyes, hardened by a hunger for power and dominion. This creature with the small, ugly eyes wants more than his allegiance. It wants to dominate, to bend him to his will.

To make him his own.

“He’s coming round.”

Gavril could smell the breath of his captor, foul with the reek of raw onion. He tried to turn his head away, and felt strong hands pressing him into the bare boards until his spine protested.

“Hold him down. He may attack again.”

“Let—me—go.” He twisted his head from side to side, desperate to free himself, but still they held him pinned down to the floorboards.

“Twenty-One.” This new voice came from farther away; it was crisp and businesslike. “I will give you a choice. If you give me your word not to attack my warders, I will order them to release you. If you cannot give me your word, I will be obliged to order them to shackle you and administer a sedative. Now—which is it to be?”

“No—more—sedatives,” he heard himself begging. Begging! How low had he fallen? He swallowed back the feeling of self-loathing that rose in his throat.

“Release him.”

The pressure on his arms and legs did not relax. “Is that wise, Director? You’ve seen how strong he is when he’s in one of his fits.”

“And I’ve also seen how drained he is when the fit passes. He’ll hardly have the strength to drag himself to his bed.”

The warders loosened their grip on him and moved away.

“Now just stay where you are a moment longer, Twenty-One. Skar—the appliance, if you please.”

A lean, sallow-skinned young man came forward and placed a crown-shaped metal device on Gavril’s head. He proceeded to adjust and tighten the device until it pressed hard into his temples. Director Baltzar bent over, peering at the contraption and checking it was secure.

“Take down the measurements, Skar.”

“What are you doing to me?” Sweat chilled Gavril’s body. He had the distinct impression that the director was planning some unpleasant medical investigation.

“Hold still, Twenty-One. I’m merely making some observations for my notes. Hmm. There.” The metal band was lifted from his head. “That will be all for now.”

Gavril sat up.

“Now, Twenty-One,” said Director Baltzar in a calm and reasoning voice, “that is the second fit you have thrown this week. Is there anything you can remember that might have provoked the seizure? Think back—if you can.”

“I have a name, not a number,” he said sullenly.

“The number is to protect your anonymity, Twenty-One, and the reputation of your family.”

“I have nothing more to tell you.” Gavril was not going to reveal anything of his innermost self to this lackey of Eugene’s, for all Director Baltzar’s kindly manner.

“I heard him cry out, ‘Daemon-spirit!’ ” put in Onion-Breath helpfully.

“No voices in your head? Voices telling you what to do?”

Gavril opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it.

“You can earn privileges if you cooperate, Twenty-One. How much exercise does Twenty-One take each day?” the director asked the warders.

“A turn around the inner yard in the mornings,” Onion-Breath said.

“That’s not enough for a young man like you, is it? I’ve seen how fit, supple bodies can decline in here without adequate exercise and fresh air. I have devised a healthy regime for our more compliant inmates that keeps the muscles toned—”

Gavril was hardly listening. One thought alone possessed him.

“Paint.”

“Paint?” Director Baltzar echoed.

“I am a painter. I want to paint. I want paper, charcoals, pastels, watercolors—”

“Privileges have to be earned,” grunted Onion-Breath. “Didn’t you hear the director? Don’t you think you should start by earning a shave? Look at you. You look like a wild animal.”

“Give me the razor and I’ll shave myself,” Gavril said, glinting a twisted smile at him.

“And I was born yesterday.”

“Good-day to you, Twenty-One.” Director Baltzar turned toward the door. “Remember what I said.”

Skar opened the cell door for his master and Gavril caught a glimpse of the landing and spiral staircase beyond. Instinctively, he rose to his feet, making a lunge for the open doorway.

Onion-Breath grabbed him in an arm lock and flung him back onto his narrow bed.

“He’s not ready for privileges, this one,” he said, shaking his head at Gavril as if he were a disobedient child. “He’s trouble.”

“Just let me paint!” Gavril cried after the director. “I want to paint!” The door clanged shut and he heard bolts shot, keys clanking as they locked him in again.

The next day Skar brought him a list of conditions. First he must agree to a shave. If he agreed to the shave, he would be allowed back into the inner exercise yard. If he completed the morning turn for a week without attacking any of the warders, he would be allowed some paper and a box of watercolors.

Gavril agreed. What had he to lose? But he wondered who had given permission for him to be allowed to paint again. The time lag meant that Director Baltzar must have consulted a higher authority. Had the permission come from the Emperor himself?

Gavril sat staring at the treasures laid out on the little wooden table before him, as a starving man stares at food. A ceramic mixing dish, several brushes of good quality sable and of different thicknesses, a lead pencil, a stick of charcoal, a jug of water, and a box of paints. He took out each little brick of compressed color, one by one, and examined it.

Madder lake, ultramarine, green earth, dark grey smalt, blue verditer, rich gamboge yellow, even—and he smiled wryly to himself—a square of brown dragon’s blood. Fanciful name, “dragon’s blood.” That, he knew all too well, was dark and purple.

But it was a good selection, full of possibilities. It must have been sent all the way from Tielborg or some other Tielen city where there were artists and shops to supply their needs.

And there was paper too. Sheets of fine quality paper with just the right texture to absorb a little of the paint, but also let it flow smoothly in a wash. He picked up the stick of charcoal and snapped it in half, a better length for sketching. He held the half poised above a clean sheet of paper, then glanced toward the door and the little round spyhole. Were the warders watching him, waiting to see what he would draw? Were they hoping for some clue to his secret, most private thoughts that would help them to break his will and make him compliant?

But the urge to draw became too strong. Let them watch. They would never understand. He wasn’t even sure he understood this compulsion himself. It was just something he had to do. Something that confirmed he was still Gavril Nagarian and not just a number.

The weak afternoon sunlight was fading and it was almost too dim to see. At Arnskammar, the setting of the sun meant another day was already over for the inmates of the asylum. Nighttime and the hours of darkness were for sleeping. Candles were a rare privilege to be earned only after months of untarnished behavior.

Gavril laid down his charcoal stick and looked at what he had drawn.

A great stone archway, carved out of twisted serpentine bodies, filled the first page. Winged serpents with cruel hooked claws protruded into the center of the arch, as though to rip to shreds anyone rash enough to venture underneath.

Once he had started to draw, it had seemed as if another will was guiding his hand. Only the skill, the bold style, the little details, were his own, giving substance to half-remembered snatches of dreams.

The second sketch detailed the top of the arch: a terrifying serpent-head, fanged jaws gaping wide, and a single eye staring malevolently. He had put one daub of color onto the drawing. A blob of vivid red, carmine and madder lake mingled, that made the single eye glow like a living jewel.

How can I have drawn it in such detail when I’ve only glimpsed it in dreams?

His suppertime bowl of soup had gone cold; little globules of fat glistened unappetizingly on top of the pale brown liquid. He had hardly noticed when the warder had brought it in.

Is it somewhere I visited as a child?

Or was it just his own fevered imagining, conjured from those words underlined by his grandfather in the ancient book in the Kalika Tower library?

Another legend relates how the priests of the winged Serpent God, Nagar, built a great temple, at the heart of which was a gateway to the Realm of Shadows. From this gateway they conjured powerful spirit-daemons to do their bidding. . . .

In the twilight, he lay down on his bed and stared at the barred window as the sky deepened from cloudy grey, streaked with little veins of sunset fire, to a rain-swept black.

A gateway to the Realm of Shadows . . .

Eyes stare into his, hungry for power and dominion. This cruel creature that holds him bound in chains of fire wants to bend him to his will. To make him his.

He cannot breathe the thin, barren air of this alien world. He feels his consciousness waning.

“You are mine, daemon. I conjured you from beyond the Serpent Gate. Now you will serve me.”

I will never be your slave.

“Give me your powers, daemon. Obey me—or die.” As his captor leans closer, he catches the alien odors of his strange body of flesh, bone, and blood. Strong, delicious odors of salt and metals, water and carbon. The promise of life, strength, continuance—

“Its light is fading,” cries another voice. “It’s too late.”

“Not yet!” insists his captor. “Listen to me, daemon. I am severing your bonds, the bonds of fire by which I have bound you. Now you will do my bidding.”

His captor stands so close now he can see the warm life-liquids pulsing through his veins, can smell their nourishing warmth.

I will never be your slave. But you will be mine.

His captor raises his hands in the air. At his command, the winged serpents’ tongues uncurl their fiery hold from his tortured limbs.

“Free!” Released, he springs forward to embrace his captor. To unite aethyrial spirit with alien flesh.

For one nauseating moment, he feels his captor’s flesh and bone rejecting him, shuddering uncontrollably at this obscene assault. Suddenly everything slows as he lets himself flow into his host, slowly merging until he is completely absorbed into this strange new body. Together they topple forward onto the ground. The host twitches and jerks in the sand and dust, trying to reject him, to vomit him out.

And now it is he who shouts aloud in terror, “Help me!”

The inner exercise yard was a small courtyard surrounded by high brownstone tower walls, blind except for narrow arrow slits.