Zarel stirred uneasily.

“And don’t you think they fear you for it? They remember what you did to the House of Oor-tael in service to your Master. Now they see that you are doing it to them as well, slowly bleeding the Houses in the Festival. Yet you bribe the House Masters each year and they close their eyes, but only for the moment. It is all coming unraveled, the rage of the Masters, the rage of the mob, and soon the Walker will know.”

“Is that what you desire, then?” Zarel asked. “To reach the Walker and tell him?”

Garth laughed.

“Perhaps.”

Zarel looked around the room and chuckled.

“Do you know how many have tried to cast me down? All of them, all of them finish up here.” He pointed to the chains on the wall, more than one of them holding rotting corpses and skeletons.

Garth smiled.

“I said before they feared you, but you don’t see what that fear will produce. You think it will keep your enemies under control. But it can also drive them to acts of desperation. Soon there won’t be enough chains in all the world to hold them. In the end either the mob or the Houses will tear you apart with their bare hands.” Garth laughed, his rasping voice a chilling cackle.

“Who are you?”

Garth spit in his face.

Zarel, with a scream of rage, slapped him again and yet again, and all the time Garth continued to laugh. In his heart he silently prayed that he could provoke him into ending it now, to deliver the deathblow so that he could go into the shadows and at least leave Zarel tormented by the mystery.

The rain of blows stopped and he looked back up, the Grand Master standing over him, heaving for breath, his cloak splattered with blood.

“No. You’ll not escape. You’ll not escape.”

Zarel turned away and started for the door and opened it. He paused and looked back.

“Do you know what the thousand cuts are?”

Garth felt a cold chill.

“Contemplate that, for in an hour it will be started on you. My man has skills, though, and by the time you are dragged before the Walker you will be but a remnant, blind, without fingers or toes, and without your manhood. I shall enjoy watching it.

“Drug him!”

And he stormed away, cursing.

Seconds later two of the torturers were at his side, grinning, one of them forcing his mouth open, the other pouring a draught down his throat so that he drifted into a fevered dream, unable to control his thoughts and thus will his heart to stop.

Swooning, Garth lay back, the two torturers laughing as they tightened his chains to stretch him back out on the table of pain.

Caught in his fear, the Grand Master walked down the dank corridor, ignoring the moans and cries of his other visitors in the basement of his palace. The hallway stank of them and of the open sewer drains set in the middle of the hallway, which served as a convenient place for the dropping of bodies and parts of bodies.

“Uriah!”

The dwarf turned, his features white with fear.

“What are you doing here?”

“You sent for me, Master.”

He looked closely at the deformed fighter, wondering if the man had been eavesdropping on the conversation.

Zarel paused for a moment, struggling to control the turmoil within. One-eye had to be of Turquoise. But how? How could he have survived? He was too young, most likely barely a boy, and the Grand Master roamed through his thoughts, for there was a half-formed memory, one which he could not clearly recall, and that was even more troubling.

Uriah coughed nervously, bringing him back.

“Has his servant been found?”

“Not yet, Master.”

“And Varnel, has he surrendered the satchel?”

“He says he can’t.”

“Damn!”

Zarel slapped Uriah with such force that the dwarf slammed against the wall and looked up at him, stunned and terrified.

“Tell Varnel I want that satchel and the hell with the price. He took three thousand just to bar the door; let him know that if he doesn’t release the satchel, word of his betrayal might slip out.

“Offer him ten thousand if need be. I want that servant as well. He must know something and he doesn’t have the mind of a fighter. He can’t resist the way One-eye can.”

Uriah held his cheek, which was red and swelling.

Zarel looked down at Uriah.

“Is there something else?” he asked, his voice suddenly gone cold.

Uriah shook his head, tears of pain and fear in his eyes.

“Damn you, get out of my sight.”

Uriah scurried away and, cursing, Zarel continued on, suppressing a gag as the cloying stench of the dungeon wafted around him.

There was a momentary sensing that something wasn’t quite right and he paused, senses alert, waiting. He heard the snuffling sobs of Uriah and the moaning diverted him. Angrily, he stalked out of the dungeon.

“DAMN!”

The sound of the blow startled him and Hammen cringed against the side of the sewer, afraid to breathe. He looked over at Norreen, who stood calmly, blade out of its scabbard, staring toward the flickering circle of light straight ahead in the darkness.

He could hear Uriah whimpering.

“Tell Varnel I want that satchel and the hell with the price.”

Hammen looked over at Varena, who smiled at the sound of Zarel’s ravings.

“He took three thousand just to bar the door; let him know that if he doesn’t release the satchel, word of his betrayal might slip out.”

Varena stirred angrily, her features suddenly tight with rage.

“Offer him ten thousand if need be. I want that servant as well. He must know something and he doesn’t have the mind of a fighter. He can’t resist the way One-eye can.”

Hammen wanted to snap out a curse, half-amused at the thought of a subterranean voice wafting up from the sewer telling Zarel to burn in torment.

“Is there something else?” Zarel shouted.

There was a pause.

“Damn you, get out of my sight.”

Hammen waited and then, finally, started to slip forward. Varena’s hand shot out, holding him, shaking her head in warning.

She seemed to be holding her breath, and Hammen could sense the ripple of power, as if she was struggling to block something out. The minutes passed and then, finally, she sighed, lowering her head as if exhausted. She looked over at Norreen and nodded. The Benalish woman slipped forward, moving with a catlike ease, not making a sound as she moved through the thigh-high sludge and filth. Hammen and Varena followed, stopping just short of the overhead grate.

She reached up and felt the side of the grate, then looked back at Hammen, nodding. He came forward and she hoisted him up, hissing a warning as he attempted to run his hands up the side of her body. He slipped a lockpick out of his sleeve and started to reach up.

“That’ll keep the scum,” said a voice overhead, and there was a hoarse laugh.

Hammen froze, Norreen remaining motionless.

A foot stepped straight on the grate, and Hammen closed his eyes, waiting.

“Where do you think the cutter will start?”

“Where else?” another voice replied, and there was a crude laugh.

“Nah. He saves that for later. Five coppers it’s the hands first.”

“Which one?”

There was a momentary pause.

“The right.”

“Five coppers then.” And again there was the hoarse laugh.

Seconds later Hammen felt something warm splashing on his face and he fought the temptation to take his dagger and drive it straight up through the grate.

“Ah, that’s better, too much beer.”

The two continued on.

Hammen reached up and slipped the pick into the lock that held the grate.