The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [3]
"No, Craer," she said. "I'm not going to be so cruel as to leave a man bared down here, to shiver in the dark and be dead in two hand-counts of days."
"No," the wizard told her flatly, "you're only going to be cruel enough to let me starve here, forgotten, until my bones fall out of these chains one by one onto yon floor-unless, of course, this dungeon has crawling gnaw-worms or other little welcoming beasts who'll come out to feed as soon as you take the torch away."
"I've almost as little liking for this as you do," Ezendor Blackgult told him heavily, "believe me. Or not, as is your right. You'll be fed regularly, rotated upright, and we will visit you from time to time, to ask questions-and perhaps, if your manner permits it, share news with you of events in the Vale."
"You realize," the wizard asked calmly, eyes moving from face to face, "how dangerous a foe you're making, don't you?"
"Huldaerus," the Lady Silvertree replied coolly, "we know how dangerous a foe you already are. You may have forgotten your casual cruelties at Indraevyn and since-as they seem to matter so little to you-but I haven't."
Eyes that held coiling flames of fury fixed on hers, but their owner's voice was as icily calm as Embra's as he responded, "And so 'tis time for you to practice casual cruelties upon me now, is that it?"
"I can cast a spell upon you that will keep you in dreams, if you desire," the Lady of jewels replied gently. "It will seem as if no time is passing, in the times when you're not being actively roused by someone."
"No," the Master of Bats said firmly, "I would rather hang here and brood. Perhaps I can come to see my folly and even to embrace King Raulin Castlecloaks in my heart, if you leave me here long enough. Perhaps."
"You're refusing a spell of dream-sleep," Tshamarra Talasorn asked carefully. "Are you sure you want to do that, Master Wizard?"
"Quite sure, Lady," the upside-down man chained to the wheel replied politely. "I am the King's captive, arrested and brought here to my imprisonment by his loyal overdukes, my freedom taken from me to make Aglirta the safer. I want time to think on that."
"Very well. We shall depart, and leave you to it," the Baron Blackgult said, and turned away.
Craer watched the chained man carefully, and saw what he'd expected: Huldaerus open his mouth to say something-anything-to keep their company longer. Thereafter followed the next thing he'd expected to see: the wizard close his mouth again without saying a word, and smooth his face over into careful inscrutability once more.
Oh, yes, the Master of Bats was good at what he did. Conferring with a few swift, wordless glances, the Band of Four and Tshamarra reached agreement and paced to the cell door together. Hawkril and Craer drifted to the rear, hands on hilts, to watch their prisoner narrowly.
He stared right back at them, his expressionless gaze almost a challenge. As Craer started to swing the cell door closed, the torch already behind him and the darkness coming down, the procurer saw the captive wizard's mouth tighten in angry anticipation of whatever taunt Craer might leave in his wake.
Craer shook his head, and said as gently as a nursemaid, "I wish you well, Arkle Huldaerus."
The heavy cell door boomed, and the Master of Bats was alone with the chill darkness. Not a kingdom many would choose to rule.
He waited, listening intently for the scrapes of their boots on stone to the away, as the darkness grew both heavy and deep around him.
And waited, growing used to the small, faint sounds of his new home. The whisper of seeping water flowing down stone, the slight echoes his own breathing awakened. And waited.
When at last he judged that time enough had passed, and young and triumphant overdukes of the kingdom couldn't possibly have patience enough to still be lingering outside