The Mage turned from the window and stared at Egil. "And you would have the wealth of my ship?" Again Egil said nothing.

"Fool," hissed the Mage.

Egil had been wrenched from the cell and shoved roughly up and across the courtyard and into the tower. Up a spiral stairwell round the walls he had been driven, two Drokha and a swart man taking turns ramming a prod into his back, sniggering as they did so. They had driven him up the twisting stairs and into the room at the top, the room where awaited the Mage. Tall he was and gaunt and pale, with no hair whatsoever on his head-neither locks nor eyebrows nor lashes nor moustache nor beard. His nose was long and straight, and his eyes dark, obsidian, his lips thin and bloodless, and his fingers long and grasping and black nailed. He wore a blood-red robe.

This was the Mage whose ship Egil had boarded.

This was the Mage who had caused his defeat.

And now they stood in a room high atop the tower in the strongholt of the Mage, in the fortress where Egil and his crew had been dragged in fetters.

The Drokha and the swart man had chained Egil to a ring in the floor and then had left him alone with his captor, and now Egil and the Mage faced one another- one silent, the other sneering.

"I am Ordrune, Captain. And your name…?"

Egil said nought.

"Your silence is of no moment," said Ordrune. "I will have your name shortly. You will be eager to speak." The Mage turned aside and made his way across the room.

The chamber itself was completely circular, perhaps thirty feet in diameter, and here and there stood tables laden with arcane devices: astrolabes and geared bronze wheels and alembics and clay vessels, mortars and pestles, clear glass jars filled with yellow and red and blue and green granules, braziers glowing red… with tools inserted among the ruddy coals. Small ingots of metal lay scattered here and there: red copper, yellow brass, white tin, gleaming gold, argent silver, and more. And 'round the walls there were casks and trunks and cabinets of drawers and a great, ironbound, triple-locked chest, and desks with pigeon holes above, jammed with scrolls and parchments and papers. And four tall windows equipped with drapes were set in the stone at the cardinal points.

Elsewhere, tomes rested on stands; books resided on shelves. Here and there were chairs, equipped with writing flats, with pens and inks and vellum sheets alongside.

This was Ordrune's laboratory, his alchemistry, his arcane athenaeum. This was his lair. This was his den. This was the heart of the Wizardholt.

And here in the very core stood Egil, shackled to the floor, his own heart beating as Ordrune slipped a dark glove on a long-fingered hand and from among the fiery coals of a brazier he extracted a searing pair of tongs shimmering yellow with heat.

Ordrune turned and faced Egil. "Your name…?"

Egil paled, but said nought.

A smile played about the corners of Ordrune's bloodless lips. "Fool." With his free hand he took up an ampoule and released a drop of liquid onto the blazing pincers, then stepped toward the young man, the tongs sizzling, sputtering, tendrils of smoke rising up.

"What better lesson can you learn than the one I teach you today?"

Egil braced himself, ready to fight, for even though he was shackled to the floor he had the freedom of movement to the end of his chain.

And then the smoke from the sizzling tongs reached him, and his will to fight vanished.

Ordrune stepped before him, raising the burning pincers to Egil's face. But suddenly Ordrune's lashless eyes widened in delight, and a smile creased his hairless face. He lowered the tongs. "What better lesson? Oh, my. I do have a better one, indeed."

Guards marched Egil down and out from the tower and across the courtyard to the main building, where he was allowed to bathe and groom himself and given clean clothes. Then, shackled once more, he was escorted down and through a labyrinth of passageways to a chamber. Circular it was, similar in dimension to the room atop Ordrune's turret, and so he deemed he was in an underground hold directly below the tower. There he was again manacled to the floor, yet this time he was set at a table piled with sumptuous foods and breads, with wines and pure water to drink.

Although round like the laboratory atop the spire, this room was no alchemistry, but a chamber of horror instead, for it held manacled tables and hanging, man-sized iron cages and fetters dangling down on chains and chairs equipped with leather straps, and tables aclutter with pincers and knives and mauls and screws and nails. There were slender, round wooden poles embedded in the floor, their upright sharp points and shafts stained rust red, as of dried blood. Braziers of burning coals, metal boots, wheeled racks, iron slabs like massive leaves of a book, and other such hideous instruments set 'round the walls. A large vat filled with a drifting liquid stood off to one side, and across the room, from behind an iron door barred with three massive iron beams there came the sound of slow monstrous breathing and the stench of carrion.

All this did Egil take in as he drank water and ate great chunks of bread and meat. "When at war, my boy," had said his father, "eat your fill every chance you get, for you never know when the opportunity will come 'round again." And so in spite of the putrid malodor, Egil, clean-bathed and -clothed, stuffed food down his gullet as he waited alone in silence.

Ordrune came first and then they dragged in filthy, disheveled Klaen, and the young man's eyes widened at the sight of his well-groomed captain sitting at feast. They shackled the Fjordland raider to a dark, thick slant-board, and Ordrune turned to Egil. "Where shall we start first, Captain? The hands? Oh yes, let's do."

Ordrune sauntered to a table and took up a massive hammer, then stepped to Klaen's side and held the spike-faced maul up before the young man's gaze. "I use this… tool to make meat tender for my"-he glanced at the barred door-"pet." Klaen's eyes filled with terror and a moan escaped his lips, and he struggled against his bonds, to no avail.

Egil leapt to his feet and called out, "Egil! My name is Egil."

Ordrune looked back at Egil and shook his head and smiled. "Too late, I'm afraid, Captain Egil." Then he turned and smashed the hammer down on Klaen's shackled hand, the iron maul splintering bones as blood flew wide. "No!" shouted Egil, but his cry was lost under Klaen's shrieks of agony, the screams slapping and echoing 'round the chamber. And from behind the iron door came a snarling wail, and the door thudded, the beams rattling, as something monstrous slammed against it from within.

Laughing, Ordrune moved to the other side of Klaen, and once more showed the heavy hammer to the shrieking man, the maul now stained with blood, bits of flesh clinging to the dull spikes. Klaen's screams rang out hoarsely and again he struggled, and Egil shouted "No!" but Ordrune merely smiled and shattered the other hand. As the iron door thudded and rattled, Klaen's shrieks climbed in pitch, and then stopped altogether. He had fainted, and only moans leaked from his lips.

"Fear not, Captain Egil," said Ordrune as he moved toward a table, "for this"-he took up an ampoule-"will revive him, and then we, you and I, shall start on his feet."

Egil wept and pled and lost all the food he had eaten, as Ordrune slowly destroyed Klaen, breaking bones with the iron meat-hammer, working inward from the extremities, the young man shrieking in agony, Ordrune's vials keeping him awake and aware. And all the while something behind the iron door roared and smashed at it from within, as if some enormous caged monster were being driven mad with blood lust.