The magistrate closed his ledger and shot her a deadly look. "I am finished here," he told her. "And so are you, Thazienne Uskevren."

The two guards dragged Tazi out into the cool, evening air. The distant roll of thunder echoed, and Tazi half-consciously realized that the nightly rains were about to commence. The Thayan sentries took her through to a rather large building annexed to the magistrate's offices. To Tazi, it looked like nothing so much as a grandiose stable. After the initial shock of her sentence, Tazi was numb. Now, her mind was thawing, and she began to study her surroundings very carefully.

Two other men stood guard in front of a pair of large double doors. One of her escorts approached them, and he and they exchanged a word. Tazi supposed it was a password of sorts, but she suspected that as the two easily recognized each other, the safeguard was merely a formality. The two doormen slid the long beam aside that secured the doors across the center and swung them in for Tazi and her party. She was shoved into the black maw, and the first thing that struck Tazi was the smell. It was beyond nauseating. As her hands were still bound behind her back, she couldn't block her nose, but she stopped in her tracks and turned her head aside, her face twisted in disgust. The guard who struck her earlier, obviously used to the smell of human waste and sickness, laughed as he shoved her harder.

"Sorry to offend yer sensibilities, 'milady,' " he mocked. He and his cohort exchanged a raucous laugh.

As they pushed her through the building which had been a stable for centaurs some years past, Tazi was horrified at what she saw. The whole structure was two hundred feet long and one hundred fifty feet wide. There were rows and rows of former stalls. These stalls had been converted into pens of steel and wood. The metal bars were woven so that each cluster of folk could see the other captives, and there were a few openings in each cage to allow small articles to be passed in and out by the guards and the occupants within. But the pens were placed just far enough apart so that the slaves could not reach their neighbors. Nevertheless, Tazi could see that some tried.

The first pen she passed held four men inside and one small girl. All of them were nearly naked and Tazi was shocked by how thin the girl was. Every one of her ribs was clearly visible under skin that looked like it had been stretched too tight. She was whimpering slightly, but none of the adult men raised a hand or offered a word in comfort. They were sitting about with dull, listless eyes.

In the pen adjacent to theirs, which held two women, that was not the same case. One of the prisoners, with matted hair that might have been the same color as the little girl's, strained her thin arm through the cage and called out a name. Tazi winced when she saw the festering wounds on the woman's arm. She had rubbed it raw trying to comfort what Tazi guessed must have been her daughter. One of the guards stationed intermittently along the aisle leaned across and hit the woman with a short staff.

Tazi's escorts pushed her along the poorly lit aisle. Only a few torches were blazing, scattered sporadically through the stable. Underneath the smell of vomit and waste, she could also detect the odor of damp decay. She rightly suspected that these stables were never even given the most basic maintenance, not even mucking. Anger and disgust filled her up and pushed aside any fear she might have felt, however fleeting. Now, in a red haze, Tazi was searching for any way out. If she had still possessed her lock pick, the cage itself would have been simple enough. Though a heavy length of chain and a large padlock sealed off the cage door, the locks were old and rusty. Tazi recognized the style and knew they presented no challenge, but she was empty handed. She suspected her best time to flee would be when the guards actually unlocked the pen.

However the deeper she went into the stable, the more difficult she found it to scheme. The conditions only worsened. Just like the first set of pens, obvious families were kept apart. The better to demoralize them, Tazi thought. And each prisoner was nearly nude, their emaciated bodies covered by varying degrees of sores. It was a rag-tag collection as well. Not only were there humans imprisoned, but halflings and other creatures Tazi could not easily recognize, partly because of the poor lighting and partly because of their filth. Only one or two looked up as she was marched past. Tazi was overwhelmed by their unresponsive, sunken eyes. Her jaw was beginning to ache because she had it clenched so tight. The buying and selling of living creatures was something she could never reconcile herself with, and these images were beyond haunting. As she neared the end of the aisle, her captors stopped her and spun her to face one of the pens.

"Yer new home," sneered the guard

Tazi was only able to see one other occupant. All she could make out was a small, dark shape in the far corner of the ten-foot-by-ten-foot cage. Before she could do or say anything, one of the guards spun her around again and slammed her back against the cage door. It was the one who had hit her earlier. He pushed her so hard into the door that her hands were bruised against the cage bars. His sweaty face was only a few inches from hers. And there was no mistaking the leer on it.

"Well, 'milady,'" he said, "as you may have noticed, you're a bit overdressed for your accommodations."

"Ami?"

"I've been waiting for this since we took you from the tavern," he sneered. "All right then, uniform of the day," he ordered.

With callused hands, the lecherous guard grabbed the top of Tazi's laced vest and started to tear it open. Tazi wasted no time. She grabbed a hold of the metal crossbar with her bound hands and braced herself. Then she brought up her left knee straight between his legs. The guard released his grip and staggered back, cupping himself and cursing. Still gripping the bar for support, Tazi swung her right leg around full force and caught the pain-blinded guard solidly on his chin. He fell to the floor, semi-conscious. She released her hold on the bars and started to run, but the other escort, still laughing about his friend's condition, lost no time catching Tazi from behind.

He wrapped his arms around her in a powerful bear hug. She slammed her head back into his forehead and brought her right boot down on his foot, crushing at least one of his toes in the process. He loosened his hold, and Tazi slipped free. By this time, though, some of the other guards had arrived, and Tazi, bound and unarmed, was outnumbered. As the reinforcements started to unlock her pen, the first guard had recovered enough to charge at her with a murderous gleam in his eye.

Two of the others stopped him.

"Let it go," one of them said to the enraged guard. "She'll get hers soon enough. Remember?" he finished, and Tazi wondered at the last, cryptic remark. The injured guard shrugged his way out of his comrades' restraining grip.

"All right," he muttered. He stared at Tazi once more and seemed mollified at the thought of her "getting" hers. His foul humor was almost restored by the time he helped his partner up.

"Let's get a drink," Tazi heard him tell the other, and they sauntered off.

The remaining guard swung open the cage door and pushed Tazi inside. With her hands still bound behind her, she lost her balance and fell to the dirt floor. As she struggled to turn around, she heard the ominous snap of the lock's closure.

"Damn."

Tazi squirmed around on her backside to get a better look at her cellmate. The dark figure remained in the corner of the cage and. Judging by its size, Tazi suspected it was another child. She was certain he or she must have been terrified.