But these small details seemed to bother Derry’s escort not in the least. As soon as the little band had reined in, just within a small, dark courtyard, Derry’s bonds were cut and he was pulled roughly from the saddle. His wounded arm had gone stiff during the long, cramped ride, and he nearly passed out with the pain as his wrists were roughly bound in front of him once more. The fire of circulation returning to cramped and tortured limbs was almost more than he could bear, and he was almost glad for the support of the two guards who held his elbows to either side.

Derry tried to take notice of his surroundings, hoping that this would help him to ignore the pain. He was outside Esgair Ddu, the black-cliff fortress that protected the walled city of Cardosa. He could see the stark, barren ramparts looming above his head as he forced himself to remain standing, but he was not permitted a more leisurely inspection of the place. A pair of guards in the black and white Furstán livery came and took him from his original escort, and he was hurried down a flight of rough stone stairs. He tried to force himself to pay attention to the route they took, mentally charting each twist and turn in the dim corridor through which they dragged him. But his feet would hardly obey him, and he was too tired, and his pains too great, to pay heed the way he ought to.

When at length they came to an iron-bound door, and one man held him up while the other worked the key in the lock, it was all he could do merely to remain conscious. He was never certain how he got from the doorway to the carved armchair in which they sat him.

The men lashed his wrists to the chair arms and passed leather straps around waist and chest and ankles. Then they left him. Slowly his more immediate pains subsided, to be replaced by a dull, aching fatigue and an even more mind-numbing dread. After a few minutes, he finally opened his eyes and forced himself to take stock of the room.

The chamber appeared to be one of Esgair Ddu’s better dungeons. By the light of the single torch set in a cresset to his left, he could see that the floor, though strewn with straw, was at least not muddy, and the straw was clean. Nor were the walls dank and dripping—a feature which, in his meager experience with dungeons, he had often dreaded.

But the walls were still dungeon walls, adorned here and there with iron rings set at strategic locations, with bright, well-used chains, with other instruments whose purpose Derry preferred not to think about. Along similar lines, there was also a rather large leather-bound trunk set against the wall to Derry’s right: a squat, sinister-looking thing that seemed out of place. It bore an engraved crest below the hasp on the trunk: an ornate, vaguely alien badge etched in gold against the dark, polished leather. But the light was too dim, the trunk too far away, for Derry to be able to read the crest clearly. He had the feeling, however, that the trunk was a recent addition to the room, and that he did not want to meet its owner. He forced himself to leave the trunk and continue his inspection of the room.