The Forests Of Gleor

Chapter 9

King Furzun kept his promise. When Blade awoke, he was hanging head down, in a public place.

Four thick strands of stolof ribbon were tied to a heavy wooden beam that jutted out from a tower on the wall around the royal palace. Two strands were looped around each of Blade's ankles, so that he swung gently back and forth in the breeze like a hanging lantern. His head was throbbing painfully, but as far as he could tell he was otherwise unhurt. That wouldn't last long, of course. The people of Trawn were far too fond of tormenting helpless victims to pass up this opportunity.

Much less happened than Blade expected. People stopped to look at him, and hurled curses and clods of mud and manure up at him. But he hung too high-nearly fifty feet above the ground-to be easily hit, and no one ever seemed to stay around long enough to aim accurately.

Being fifty feet up also gave Blade a good view of the royal palace and the area around it. His throbbing head, dripping sweat, and stinging insects all blurred his vision, but what he saw he remembered.

The palace sprawled over about five acres in the southern end of Trawnom-Driba, only a few hundred yards from the city wall and ditch. On three sides lay a tangle of huts, sheds, and warehouses. On the fourth side was the broadest street Blade had seen in the city, lined with large buildings built of stone or gaudily painted wood.

At the foot of the wide street, just outside the palace wall, stood a massive square of smoke-blackened stone, forty feet on a side and ten feet high. It looked like nothing so much as a gigantic barbecue pit. The interior was half-filled with ashes and charcoal, sloping down to a dark hole in the exact center.

Blade paid no further attention to the stone square until afternoon. Then four guards led a dozen naked slaves up the steps on one side. The slaves carried large wooden scoops and wooden buckets. Half of them scrambled down into the pit and began shoveling the ashes and charcoal into the buckets. The other half began emptying the buckets into the hole in the center. Gray clouds of ashes swirled up, until the slaves were coughing so loudly that Blade could hear them from where he hung. The pit looked as if it were erupting like a small volcano.

Finally two slaves tied long heavy ropes around their waists. Three of their comrades took hold of each rope, the two slaves each picked up a scoop, and they were lowered down into the central hole and out of sight. They were down there for nearly an hour, and more clouds of ashes rose from the hole as they worked away.

During that hour Blade's mind went to work, arranging what he saw into a pattern. The pattern was extremely interesting.

The square of blackened stone was obviously for ceremonial fires. It was not far outside one wall of the palace. The unmistakable square bulk of the prison loomed not far inside that same stretch of wall.

Blade did a mental calculation of distance. If a straight line were drawn from the prison to the fire pit, it might cover about the same distance as the tunnel, from the grating to where the light came down from above. If, the hole in the center of the pit was the hole at the far end of the tunnel, that could account for the orange glow he and Neena had seen. When the pit was heaped with blazing wood, light and heat would be pouring down the hole in the center, into the tunnel.

The tunnel might lead out to the hole in the center of the pit. The hole itself was large enough to let a man pass. That meant- No, there was still a maddening lot of unanswered questions. Unanswerable, too-at least for the moment. But that could change in time. Blade deliberately put any further thoughts of escape through the tunnel out of his mind, and let himself drift off into a half-doze. That was as close to sleep as he could manage while hanging head down like a bat in a cave.

The glow of sunset in his eyes and the clattering of wood on wood awoke Blade. The whole western horizon was a sheet of color, with a few clouds glimmering high above in the pale evening sky. A score of slaves were unloading logs from three carts and piling them up in the stone pit. Guards watched the slaves, and several noble warriors watched the guards. Blade recognized Lord Desgo among the nobles.

The logs were piled several layers thick. Then two more slaves poured a bucket of something thick and black into the pit. Lord Desgo climbed the steps, stood on the rim, then struck a light with flint and tinder. A quick flick of his arm, and the little flame arched down into the pit. Flames roared up thirty feet high. Lord Desgo scrambled down the steps and stood watching the flames as they settled down to a steady blaze.

Blade was sure of one thing, now. The tunnel from the prison did lead under the fire pit. The flames crackling and flaring up from the wood had the same orange color he and Neena had seen the week before. It was unmistakable.

Blade felt a shiver in the beam from which he was hanging. He twisted his head around to look toward the tower. Two of the blue-clad royal guards were turning a crank, slowly swinging the beam in toward the tower. As Blade came within their reach, the two guards grabbed Blade by the arms. Two more reached up and grabbed him around the knees, while a fifth drew his sword and slashed through the stolof ribbons. With a mighty heave all five hauled Blade up over the railing. The rough wood scraped and bruised his skin, and he fell with a painful crash on the floor of the tower room.

The guards promptly hobbled his ankles and bound his hands behind his back. As they dragged him to his feet, footsteps sounded on the stairs of the tower. The guards turned Blade around, to face Lord Desgo.

Seen close up, the warrior noble was almost a comic sight. Neena had worked him over very thoroughly. He sported two beautiful black eyes and spectacular blue and purple bruising on almost every visible inch of skin.

Desgo looked Blade up and down, apparently hoping for some signs of pain or weakness. An unmistakable look of disappointment crossed his battered face when he couldn't find anything. His puffed lips twisted in a grimace.

«Well, slave,» Desgo said. «Shall we have better behavior from you in the future, or shall you have more punishment from us?»

«It shall be as you wish,» said Blade, keeping his head bowed.

«Good. That is the answer of a slave with some common sense about his lot.» Desgo jerked a thumb over the railing toward the fire pit and its blazing logs. «You see that?»

«I do.»

«I do, Master,» said Desgo sharply. His hand dropped to a heavy club that he wore slung from his belt.

«I do, Master.»

«That is the Hearth of Tiga, the Earth Mistress. It is a service to Tiga to provide slaves to cleanse her hearth and return the ashes to her. Do you understand?»

«Not altogether, Master.»

«You are a stupid slave. But even stupid slaves can learn. I have suggested to King Furzun that you shall be among the slaves that tend the Hearth of Tiga. I promise you that you shall work the hardest among all of them.»

«I am grateful, Master.» Blade certainly was! Desgo was sending him to the very place he needed to explore, the place that might offer him and Neena an escape route. But would they leave him and Neena together?

«Perhaps you are,» said Desgo. «But I do not think your gratitude will last very long after you begin work.» He turned sharply and stamped away down the stairs.

Four more royal guards clattered up the stairs, seized Blade, and half led, half dragged him away. They went down the stairs so fast that Blade, his legs still shaky from his day's hanging, stumbled several times. Each time he went down with bruising crashes, each time he was dragged to his feet by the laughing guards.

He began to feel better when he saw that he was being led back toward the prison. They led him on briskly, past three massive brick buildings with barred windows. From those windows the acrid smells and high-pitched chitterings of stolofs drifted out into the evening air.

They left the stolof pens behind them, passed four torchlit buildings that seemed to be barracks, then turned into the street that led to the prison. The guards at the great door thrust it open as Blade approached. Then the same routine as before-two quick sword slashes to free Blade's hands and feet, and a quicker heave to send him flying forward into the darkness.

This time Blade was prepared for it. He landed rolling, stopped, and sat up. The door above slammed shut. He heard a faint stirring in the dimness.

«Neena?» Even if they'd thrown him back into the prison chamber, they might have already taken her out, to be prepared for King Furzun.

«Blade?» The voice, thank God, was unmistakable. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Blade saw Neena's slim form gracefully uncoil itself from a corner and come toward him.

She sat down beside him and ran her hands over his face and chest and arms, feeling him for wounds or perhaps just assuring herself that he was really back again. «Blade?» she said again.

«Yes.» Blade was still feeling groggy, but the pain and dizziness and disorientation were all gone now. He felt only a healthy exhaustion, and he knew that the wisest thing to do would be to give in to it. What he might have discovered could wait until tomorrow.

«Lord Desgo decided I ought to serve-in the Hearth of Tiga. That's their-earth goddess. The hearth is where the fire-the fire was.» His lips felt stiff and hard to move, as if they'd been bruised like Lord Desgo's.

Blade managed to lower himself backward onto the floor. He lay there, staring up at the slowly fading lights in the ceiling. As they faded out, he felt the warm, smooth firmness of Neena curling up against him, one arm across his chest and her hair flowing over his throat.