"What's Salmissra's interest in this matter?" Wolf asked. "It doesn't concern her."

"I'll let her explain that to you when you get to Sthiss Tor. In the meantime, there are a few things I'll require you to tell me."

"I think thou wilt have scant success in that," Mandorallen said stiffIy. "It is not our practice to discuss private matters with unwholesome strangers."

"And I think you're wrong, my dear Baron," Y'diss replied with a cold smile. "The cellars of this house are deep, and what happens there can be most unpleasant. I have servants highly skilled in applying certain exquisitely persuasive torments."

"I do not fear thy torments, Nyissan," Mandorallen said contemptuously.

"No. I don't imagine you do. Fear requires imagination, and you Arends aren't bright enough to be imaginative. The torments, however, will wear down your will - and provide entertainment for my servants. Good torturers are hard to find, and they grow sullen if they aren't allowed to practice - I'm sure you understand. Later, after you've all had the chance to visit with them a time or two, we'll try something else. Nyissa abounds with roots and leaves and curious little berries with strange properties. Oddly enough, most men prefer the rack or the wheel to my little concoctions." Y'diss laughed then, a brutal sound with no mirth in it. "We'll discuss all this further after I have the count settled in for the night. For right now, the guards will take you downstairs to the places I've prepared for you all."

Count Dravor roused himself and looked around dreamily. "Are our friends departing so soon?" he asked.

"Yes, my Lord," Y'diss told him.

"Well then," the count said with a vague smile, "farewell, dear people. I hope you'll return someday so that we can continue our delightful conversation."

The cell to which Garion was taken was dank and clammy, and it smelled of sewage and rotting food. Worst of all was the darkness. He huddled beside the iron door with the blackness pressing in on him palpably. From one corner of the cell came little scratchings and skittering sounds. He thought of rats and tried to stay as near to the door as possible. Water trickled somewhere, and his throat began to burn with thirst.

It was dark, but it was not silent. Chains clinked in a nearby cell, and someone was moaning. Further off, there was insane laughter, a meaningless cackle repeated over and over again without pause, endlessly rattling in the dark. Someone screamed, a piercing, shocking sound, and then again. Garion cringed back against the slimy stones of the wall, his imagination immediately manufacturing tortures to account for the agony in those screams.