Part 26 (1/2)

FIFTEEN - Desperation

Jaht a torch in the antechanized it as the sa on a pallet of stale straw The air was fouler than he reht, he hadn't been inside the cell

He sat up and his whole body ached His head still rang fro he had taken and he doubted he had more than a few square inches of skin that weren't bruised

James took a deep breath and looked around No food or water, and he doubted his captors had given a second's thought to his coeneral thesis was that he wouldn't be around long enough for comfort to be an issue

The fact that he was alive led his was about to happen Either he would be questioned, to determine how many people knew of this hideout and how soon eneuest of honor at the next deht stall for ti had befuddled his senses and that he needed some rest before it would all coht for Arutha and his arain, trying to force himself into alertness He stood up slowly, quietly, and wobbled to the opening in the door

Looking through the tiny , he saw they had placed guards in the roo loose within the fortress Jauard notice he ake If they are going to question in, the better the chances of the Prince getting here

He sat down quietly and tried to rest The stones were not cold, but this deep below the surface they were hardly warm The straas as much an irritant as a comfort, yet he dozed off after a few minutes

Some ti Without a word, two guards strode through the door and grabbed hi-h the fortress

They took hiround labyrinth he had failed to explore, which he assumed was the quarters of the leaders, the priests of the demon worshi+pers He was soon to discover, with no satisfaction at all, that his surmise was correct

Cast to the stone floor at the feet of a man in black robes, he waited

”Stand up, so Iabove hied parchment

Ja down at him Slowly, on unsteady feet, James rose until he looked into the old erous power The face looked impossibly old, barely more than blotched and discolored skin stretched taut across a skull What little hair re like white spider-silk The old man looked closely at James, and suddenly Ja, save when he needed to speak Hair rose up on the back of Ja into the eyes of a dead man, somehow still ani no benefit froht lie, James said, ”My nadom?”

James said, ”More or less”

”Those with you, they are but the tip of the wedge, yes?”

”I believeshortly, yes”

”It does notcrooked yellow teeth, the creature took another breath and said, ”We here serve to the death and beyond We fear not the lances of your Kingdoiven to us by our ht is our final conjuration, and our doazed into Ja nearby, ”Take him to the chamber The hour is nearly upon us”

James was speechless He had expected a dozen questions, possibly a beating or two, and the opportunity to delay and equivocate Instead he was being dragged off to have his throat cut at a demonic rite

They took hihly stripped his tunic, boots and trousers frorabbed him firmly by his arms and held him motionless

Another black-robed priest entered the room and started an incantation He carried a small bowl fashi+oned from a human skull, from which he pulled a bone covered in a dark, viscous liquid He waved the bone in the air and Jarew cold bumps appeared on his arms and the hair on the back of his neck rose When he touched James on the forehead, his skin felt burned

A third priest appeared, with another bowl holding a viscous white fluid He held the bowl up to James's face and said, ”Drink”

James cla offered to him, but he suspected it was to make him more tractable

A black-clad assassin caripped Ja to pry theh to draw blood, and received a staggering blow for his troubles

”Very well,” said the old priest ”Let him feel every exquisite moment of pain as his life runs frohtly, lest he disrupt the ceremony Our master does not suffer error”

He turned and led the ith the other priests following James was taken then by the twobehind

Every fiber of his body hurt, and the likelihood of his survival seemed close to non-existent, but Jaining his own demise

He knew, abstractly, that so eventually succumbed at the end of their days, but at no time had James dwelled on that simple fact As his old friend Aets out of life alive”

But despite the high probability of it, James could not accept the reality of his own death Part of hislike a baby, pleading for his life

Then he realized that, to the core of his being, he kneas not his tioing to get out of this mess it was not his tioing to get out of this mess

They moved into the armory, where James could see the ceremony was already underway The hundred-odd assassins knelt as the old priest entered They were chanting and already the place felt fey with dark ic

Torches flickered around the room, and James used every skill of observation he possessed to notice details he had missed the last time he had witnessed the sacrifice The ancient bellows over the forge was still intact, though they had not been used in over a hundred years; the chains used to lift and move the cauldrons once used to pourarmor and weapons were rusty, but looked serviceable His mind's eyes e stone repair tables, and the forges, and how close to those tables the chains hung Jah this throng, so every other possible means of escape had to be evaluated, and quickly

The assassins faced the dais upon which he was to be killed, gazing upon the visage of the demon painted upon the wall The tho flanked James continued to hold him, while the tho had followed joined the others on the floor of the makeshi+ft temple

As he was marched up the steps to the base of the stone over which he would be stretched, Jan chalked upon the floor, a five-pointed star with a large wax candle burning at each point He observed that the priests took great care to avoid those points or stepping over the lines of the pentagra about the ly familiar

As they moved him toward the stone altar, James felt his pulse increase He still felt no fear, but instead a strange sense of urgency Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it in the next few moments and he still didn't have any idea what it was

Suddenly, he went lih priest turned for a brief instant to see what the co for his life was nothing new, and he went back to the spell casting

One priest opened a large book and held it aloft before the high priest so he could read from it The old e harsh and alien to Ja was absorbing the torchlight, and a vague shape forram

James knew that as soon as blood was spilled, the creature would solidify and enter this real him the last few steps to the stone

James took a deep breath, for he knew this must be the moment If he was bent back over that stone, held hand and foot, he would die