***
Tannis' dungeon was musty and wet, full of oaken barrels and crates. Kelden nearly tripped over a huge rat, and he was reminded of his brutal existence in the Horrat lands. He trudged along too reluctantly, and a guard shoved him against a moldy barrel and stuck his crossbow against Kelden's throat. The guard was muscular, with long, unkempt hair and beard. His eyes were fierce. "Pick up your feet, boy," he said. "Or you're going to choke on iron."
"I'll move faster," Kelden said, not wanting to bother with this annoyance when so much was on his mind.
But Theodus seized the guard's crossbow and snapped it in two. "Your neck will be next if you touch my master again!"
The guard was seething with rage. "That monster broke my bow. Who's going to pay for that? Do you know how much a fine crossbow like that costs?"
But a guard who outranked him by order of intelligence stepped in. "Let it go, Samskey. Our orders are to lock them in the Warding Chamber. It isn't your fault the bow is broken. Wessop won't take it out of your pay." He glanced at Dameon, fear in his eyes. The former seer still held his mace, and his enormous size spoke of crushing power. Only the slight limp in his gait showed any hint of mortal weakness.
Dameon's relaxed demeanor suggested he was guarding some secret, which made the guards nervous but gave Kelden and the others a sense of hope--even though none of them fully trusted Dameon's judgment.
As they took another flight of stairs downward, they could hear screams and moans coming from the shadows beyond the torchlight. Cell bars glinted here and there, with shapes lurching about behind them.
"To what strange hell have you brought us?" hissed Theodus, his bat ears twitching.
The guard named Samskey laughed. "To a hell befitting of a devil like you," he said. "You'll soon pay for breaking my bow."
The other guards, their faces pale, ordered Samskey to shut his mouth. But Samskey was having none of it. When Theodus walked deliberately slow in front of him, he shoved the Dar fiend in the back. Theodus didn't so much as move an inch. Instead, he turned his five-hundred pound, squat frame about, his yellow eyes blazing like twin lanterns. He shoved Samskey backwards into Thayan hard enough to rattle Thayan's teeth.
Samskey pushed Thayan away from him, drawing a short sword. "Don't touch me," he growled, "either of you scum. I'll cut both of you down before you can blink."
A chill seemed to settle over the tunnel. Thayan's eyes narrowed into slits. He threw his chained arms over Samskey's head and began choking him. "Die!" he whispered, as he pulled furiously on the chain.
Samskey dropped his sword and fought frantically to remove the chain from his neck. But Thayan easily overpowered him. Thayan's face was a murderous mask, partially hidden by his tangled black hair. The other guards watched in tense silence, perhaps choosing to let Samskey learn his lesson the hard way.
"Don't kill him!" said Kelden.
Dameon watched with concern in his gaze.
Finally, Thayan released Samskey and shoved him into some crates, where the guard lay clutching his throat and coughing.
"Keep moving!" the more intelligent guard ordered. He motioned them forward, his hand visibly shaking. "Just keep moving, for Tembros' sake!"
The Warding Chamber had a thick iron door and no windows except a small slot twelve feet above the floor. Covering the stone walls inside were symbols that seemed to move downward in a constant tumbling flow. It was motion sorcery, like that in the Low Room where Kelden has spoken to Master Lendrith shortly before leaving Valganleer.
The guards ordered them inside and quickly secured the door behind them. They would have been left in total darkness, except that Theodus gave off a fairly strong reddish glow from his lava-like skin.
"Now what?" said Kelden, as he paced about in the circular chamber. "Maybe we should have tried to escape. We have no food or water, no bed to lay on."
"Had we tried to escape," said Dameon, "the whole city would have been after us. We need to be patient and wait for an opportunity."
Kelden sighed. "We should never have come here. Now we're trapped beneath a mountain. This whole journey has been a disaster. I should have done what the seers commanded and gone on to Frindagan before..." Panic surged through him at the thought of being consumed by Credesar. "We need to escape from here now!"
"This is a stout prison," said Dameon, running his fingers over the moving symbols. "I can't summon my power here. When I try, it just flows away from me with the symbols on the walls, like it's being washed downward with water."
"If we can't use magic," said Kelden, "we have no way out!"
"The motion is an illusion," said Dameon. "It can be overcome."
"Maybe you can overcome it," said Kelden. "But I can't."
"In time, you might have to," said Dameon.
"I'm completely helpless," mumbled Theodus. "I can barely move. All fiends have a weakness for motion sorcery."
"I feel helpless too," said Thayan. He gazed at his feet. "Does this mean that I've lost so much of my humanity that I'm more like a fiend than a man?"
"If you lacked a conscience," said Dameon, "you would have choked that guard to death. But you let him live. That proves you're not a monster."
"You are different now, Thayan," said Theodus. "But we still respect you and judge you by your actions--not by whatever strange curse befell you."
"Strange curse," Thayan mused. Then he shook his head, his eyes wild. "How did it come to this? I should have died on the West Gate. Even death by a worm bite would have been preferable to being turned into a devil." Tears sprang from his eyes. "I no longer know what I am."
Dameon seized his shoulders. "Calm yourself!"
"I wanted to kill that guard," said Thayan. "I was consumed with power. I could smell his fear, his very blood. I was going to tear him apart."
"But you restrained yourself magnificently," said Dameon. "You're too hard on yourself, Thayan. You say you're a coward, but you're one of the bravest men I know. A coward would give in to his terror, and I don't see that in you."
"Maybe not," said Thayan. "But you said you wouldn't train me anymore. You saw some flaw in my character."
"It's the flaw I am seeing now," said Dameon. "You're ravaged with dark emotions, too determined to punish yourself. Such an attitude is dangerous. You must learn to forgive yourself for your flaws and recognize your strengths."
"You're a good man, Thayan," Kelden mumbled, walking over to the iron door. He was tired of hearing Thayan whine. Kelden felt bad for him, but Thayan seemed far better off than Kelden, whose own curse was so terrifying he could hardly breathe when thinking of it. A strong possibility existed that Kelden could transform into another being (or two) and never be human again. Yet he felt like he was handling it better than Thayan, whom Kelden secretly viewed as weak and annoying. Thayan was always crying about his flaws and problems, but he wasn't the one with a spear pointed at his back and two demons ready to claim his body.
"We need to get out of here!" Kelden said, his hands shaking as he pushed against the iron door. "I can't be held prisoner like this. I need to do something, get to Frindagan somehow."
Dameon frowned. "Then do something. Walk out of here. You're the true power amongst us, Kelden."
"I don't have any power," said Kelden. "Not here."
"You have all the power you could ever need," said Dameon. "You could tear that door away like nothing. You could bring this whole city to its knees!"
"Maybe Credesar could," said Kelden. "But not me."
"You are Credesar," said Dameon. "You're Kelden Delure, Credesar, and the Arnwolf all in one. If only your mind was free and enlightened, you could drain so much power from the demons inside you. Instead, you whine and complain. So you managed to crush a stone. It's a start, but nothing compared to what you could unlock. You waste your precious gifts like a fool."
"Gifts?!" Kelden said in disbelief. "Sorry, but I don't feel all that gifted right now. I'm not some power-crazed seer. I don't want an
y of this. You said it's dangerous, that I could be destroyed. You said the Arnwolf was summoned too early."
"And I stand by that," said Dameon. "If you can't manage to think and act like a master sorcerer, you can never control the Arnwolf--let alone a power like Credesar. You'll be devoured, like a tiny bit of sand swallowed by the sea."
"Then it's over," Kelden said. "I don't have time. It takes decades of the finest training to make a seer."
"It's over," said Dameon, "if you believe it is. That much is certain."
Kelden said nothing, not knowing where to begin. How could he meditate and train under these circumstances?
His thoughts were interrupted when the iron door sprang open and Renstad tumbled into the cell. Standing in the doorway was Wessop, grinning insanely. Several armed men stood behind him--elite guards with crossbows and stern faces.
"Let's see..." Wessop said, sighing. "I'm supposed to sniff out a magical bracelet. So much filthy Green World magic in here..."
"You mean the bracelet Kelden was wearing?" said Dameon.
"That would be the one," said Wessop. "My master wants it back. So hand it over."
"I'll give it back," said Dameon. "But only if you tell me what its purpose is."
"It's a tracking device," said Wessop. "It allowed my master to know your location at all times and listen in on your conversations."
"But the seers made me wear that!" said Kelden, in shock.
"You sure of that?" said Wessop, smiling. "Did they actually hand it over to you and tell you to wear it?"
"Theodus gave it to me," said Kelden, looking puzzled.
"I don't remember," Theodus said.
Dameon's face reddened with humiliation. "Of course, a tracking and listening device. But could such a creation exist? It seems impossible even for someone like Jarvin to create. How could sorcery be manipulated like that?"
"I don't know," said Wessop. "And moreover, I don't care. I'm just here to collect it."
"I knew that bracelet was trouble," Dameon said. "I should have smashed it with my mace the moment I discovered it."
"Don't make me come and get it," said Wessop. "Thanks to Jarvin, I'm no ordinary man. None of you are a match for me, and I'd love to prove it by snapping a neck or two."
Dameon tossed a metal box to Wessop. "Now be gone from here, pawn of Jarvin. Wretched traitor to your own city!"
"Soon you'll all be dead," said Wessop. "Goodbye." He slammed the door shut and locked it.
Dameon knelt and checked Renstad's pulse. "He took a nasty blow to the head, but he's alive."
"We need to get out of here!" Kelden said again, pacing about.
Dameon nodded, his face grim. He was sweating. "Forget what I said about showing patience. There has been a change of plans. We need to act, because I'm fairly certain they intend to kill us immediately!"