Prince of Lies - James Lowder [9]
The keep reached high into the red sky. Its lowest floors were wrought of skulls that looked out sightlessly on the courtyard. Higher up, other bones found their way into the architecture, forming fantastically spiraling frames around windows, sturdy braces for balconies. Winged denizens used these balconies to enter the palace or launch themselves into the mist swirling around the upper stories. Higher still, the tower's jagged peak disappeared into a thick miasma of smoke and fog.
"Awright," Af barked. "Time to go."
The keep's front door had opened, and the denizens were scrambling around the bailey, roughly rousing the shades. Gwydion was still on his feet, so he was the first to be ushered forward.
"Please," the sell-sword said miserably. "I think there's been a mistake." His jaw clicked painfully with each syllable, and his teeth felt loose, but at least he could talk again.
"See," Af chimed. "I told you his jaw would heal before we got in to see the prince."
Scowling, Perdix grabbed the chain between Gwydion's manacles and yanked him toward the keep. "What kind of mistake? You think you don't belong here, slug?"
"I don't even know where here is!" Gwydion shouted.
"Ho ho! One of the Faithless, eh?" Af rubbed his spider legs together gleefully as he slithered alongside Gwydion. "Then it's into the wall for you."
"He isn't one of the Faithless," Perdix scoffed. "He cried out for the Fool outside the gates. That's why you busted him in the jaw, remember?" The denizen turned his lone blue eye on Gwydion. "You believe in the gods?"
"Of – of course," he stammered. "Someone cast an illusion that caused my death. I was a warrior of-"
"Don't you learn?" Perdix snapped. "Isn't one crack in the jaw enough? You can't say any of the gods' names down here – excepting Lord Cyric's, of course." He pulled Gwydion to the threshold ofBoneCastle. "You're in Hades, in the City ofStrife. Since you couldn't pray to any of the other powers out on the Fugue Plain, you get sent here, to be judged by the Lord of the Dead himself. If you're smart, you'll keep quiet. Sometimes Cyric goes easy on the first soul of a new lot, but only if he isn't a whiner."
"You're getting soft," Af snorted. "I say we crack his spine so he ain't got no choice but to whine at the prince." Perdix shrugged. "Be my guest, but don't forget who has to see the slug's punishment is carried out. If he gets off easy, we dump him in the boroughs and be done with him."
Gwydion opened his mouth to speak, but Af silenced him with a vicious snarl. "I guess you're right," the denizen grumbled through wolfish teeth. "But it sure woulda been nice to see this slug take a bit of the old man's wrath."
Af and Perdix hustled their charge past the massive slab of carved onyx serving as the main door, into an entry hall built upon a floor of seamless crystal. Colored glass fibers spun by the drow of Menzoberranzan had been woven into beautiful tapestries that covered the bone walls. The hangings depicted the atrocities the dark elves regularly visited on the peace-loving people of the North. Yet those scenes were but a child's dark fancy compared to the things Gwydion glimpsed through the floor.
"In here, slug," Perdix said, his rasping voice lowered to a respectful whisper.
The room beyond the ghastly entry hall was large, but sparsely furnished. A podium stood in the center, a wide ribbon of parchment hanging from its top and curling down its single leg. To its right sat a bulky chair. The ancient throne had been weirdly beautiful long ago, with scrollwork carved in hypnotic patterns over much of the night-black wood. In recent years, some vandal had chipped away at the arms and legs with a blade. Rubies had once formed a circle on