Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 1 - The Verdent Passage (6 page)

Laughing at her plight, the guards took her by the arms and dragged her forward. The rays
of the crimson sun permeated the hide roof, lighting the interior with a ruddy glow that
made the place seem even more corrupt and sickening.

The stone floor of the hut was covered with heavy rock slabs. The guards led Sadira to the
far side of the room, then pushed one of the stone covers aside. A hushed hissing, not
unlike the whispering of a soft wind, rose from the silo below. The cell was as black as
obsidian, but Sadira could see the scene below as clearly as if it had been by a torch.
From her elven ancestors, she had inherited infravision, the ability to see ambient heat
when no other light source was present.

By the cool blue of the silo's brick walls, Sadira knew that it was a circular hole about
two-and-half feet in diameter and ten feet deep. There was just enough room to stand, but
not to sit or lie down.

The cell was filled top to bottom with the green gossamer of a silky web. Throughout this
web scurried dozens, perhaps hundreds, of pinkish reptiles that created a soft whisper by
rubbing their pliant scales against the silk, the walls, and each other. They were about
the length of Sadira's fingers, with soft tubular bodies, arrow-shaped heads, small
squarish ears, and compound eyes resembling those of an insect. She was not sure whether
to think of them as lizards or snakes, for they had tiny legs and feet in front, but none
on their hindquarters.

One of the guards grabbed Sadira beneath the armpits and dangled her over the pit. The
half-elf groaned in alarm and braced her feet against the edges of the pit. She knew that
struggling was futile, but the thought of being lowered into the squirming mass below was
repulsive.

Her captor's companion kicked the slave's feet away from the edges of the pit, and the one
holding her released his grip. Sadira plummeted through the web, bringing a shower of
slimy flesh and sticky strands down about her as she fell. When she hit the bottom, her
knees buckled and her shoulder slammed into the brick wall. Sharp bolts of pain shot
through her ankles and knees, and her left arm went numb. She found herself wedged into
the cramped silo with her buttocks resting on her heels.

Scaly ropes of flesh began to squirm over her bare legs, her shoulders, even down the back
of her neck. Sadira let out a muffled scream of disgust and pushed herself into a standing
position. The effort sent renewed streams of pain through her ankles and knees.

At the top of the silo, the two guards chuckled and slid the stone slab back into place.

Sadira stood in the cell, alone save for the repulsive creatures that rubbed their hissing
scales against her skin and flicked her with their gritty tongues. She could not decide
whether they were welcoming her to the colony or taste-testing the web's latest catch. The
sorceress consoled herself with the thought that the greatest danger posed by the reptiles
was that they would drive her mad. She doubted that Boaz would tolerate the things if they
foreshortened the torment of his victims by killing them.

The half-elf wasted little time panicking or bemoaning her fate, for she knew those were
the reactions Boaz desired. Having been born into slavery, Sadira had long ago realized
that, while her masters could use threats and violence to keep her in physical bondage,
they could not control her mind or her emotions unless she let them. As long as she
remained strong and refused to accept their right to enslave her, then she was at least
spiritually free. Of course, spiritual freedom was a poor substitute for the real kind,
but at least it kept hope alive.

The sorceress had seen too many people give up this last scrap of dignity. Sadira's own
mother, an amber-haired human named Barakah, had died apologizing to her daughter for the
“crimes” she had committed, crimes that had resulted in Sadira being born a slave. The
half-elf did not consider her mother's actions to be crimes, however.

From what the half-elf had pieced together, as a young woman her mother had supported
herself in one of the few outlawed occupations in Tyr. King Kalak had declared it illegal
to sell or buy magical components. Naturally a thriving trade in chameleon skin, gum
arabic, mica dust, adder's stomach, and other hard-to-acquire items had sprung up in the
notorious Elven Market. Barakah had made a living as a runner between the Veiled Alliance
and the untrustworthy elven smugglers. She had also made the mistake of falling in love
with an infamous elven rogue named Faenaeyon.

Shortly after Sadira had been conceived, the templars had raided the dingy shop where
Faenaeyon lived and did business. He had escaped and fled into the desert, but the
pregnant Barakah had been caught and sold into slavery. Faenaeyon had simply abandoned his
lover and her unborn child, making no effort to buy their freedom or help them escape. A
few months later, Sadira had been born in Tithian's gladiatorial pits, and that was where
she had been raised.

It was not where she intended to die. Sadira allowed the guards a few minutes to leave,
then set about trying to escape. The gag was fairly easy to remove. The half-elf simply
leaned her head to one side and rubbed her chin against her shoulder several times. The
strip around her mouth rolled off her chin and down around her neck, then she spat the wad
out of her mouth.

Next, she attempted to free her hands. Had they not been bound behind her, it would have
been a simple matter to gnaw at the rope until she bit through it. Before she could do
that, she had to work her hands around to her front. She tried to run her bound hands down
her back and around her legs, but her arms were too short. She only strained her already
throbbing shoulder.

Realizing that the tight quarters would never allow her to accomplish this first maneuver,
she began to working her wrists back and forth behind her. With time, and she suspected
she had plenty of that, she might be able to loosen the knot or stretch the hide enough to
slip a hand free.

The repetitive action attracted the lizards. Within moments, the slimy reptiles tickled
every inch of Sadira's skin from the elbows down. They writhed over her arms with
increasing agitation, their scales whispering as loudly as a strong breeze. The half-elf
ignored them and continued to work her hands back and forth.

There was a sharp twinge inside Sadira's elbow. When she felt a warm trickle running down
her arm, she realized one of the creatures had bitten her. Dozens of raspy little tongues
lapped at the blood, then she felt another twinge on the outside of her forearm. Both
wounds bled more freely than they should have, and the lizards' excitement mounted,
filling the silo with a soft, steady drone. The half-elf began to fear that her efforts to
liberate herself were driving the reptiles into a feeding frenzy.

Fighting to ignore her growing revulsion, Sadira continued to work at the hide. She
considered using the lizards to her advantage by trying to get them to chew off her
bindings. Unfortunately they seemed more interested in licking blood than gnawing hide.

Soon her wrists began to sting where the thongs were cutting into them, and still more
warm blood ran down over her hands. The little reptiles swarmed to the fresh food. A few
even crawled into the tight crevice between her bound hands. Repulsed, she groaned and
pressed her palms together, successfully crushing a pair of the gruesome things. Their
bodies burst with a mushy pop, covering her palms with cool slime.

Noting how slick this scum was, Sadira realized that would be useful in freeing her hands.
Over the next few minutes, she continued to work her burning wrists back and forth. As
they bled, she allowed many more lizards to crawl between her hands, and crushed them each
in turn Periodically, she tried to pull a hand free and found the thongs were still too
tight. The reptiles continued to nip at her arms and lick the wounds around her bindings.
She squashed several against the wall with a forearm. Soon, her hands and arms were soaked
with a mixture of her own warm blood and cool lizard entrails.

Sadira tried again to free a hand. This time, her left hand slipped its loop. Her brief
cry of joy echoed off the brick walls of the silo, but she doubted it could be heard
outside. The half-elf immediately brought her hands around to her front and brushed the
lizards off her bloody arms. Lacking anything better, she cleaned her hands as best as she
could against her smock. Next she plucked the lizards from her hair. She didn't bother
with the creatures swarming over her legs, for they were too numerous and none seemed to
be biting.

At last Sadira prepared to cast the first spell of her escape. Instead of pointing her
palm downward to summon the force she needed, the sorceress directed it at the wall. Since
she was already underground, there was no need to draw the energy from below before
calling it toward her.

After she felt the surge of power enter her body, Sadira took a small ball of web from the
wall and placed it under her tongue, then uttered an incantation. When the ball of web
disappeared from her mouth, she knew her spell had worked and she would be able to climb
the walls as easily as the lizards. The half-elf placed the pads of her fingers on the
wall and pulled upward. Her body rose off the ground as though it were as light as a
strand of silk.

The sorceress quickly climbed to the top of the silo, causing a distinct hiss each time
she moved. Though her knees and shoulders ached terribly from the drop into the cell, her
body seemed so light that its weight caused them no undo strain.

At the top of the cramped cell, Sadira paused to pick a few lizards off her legs, then
brushed the rest away. Dangling from the wall as easily as if she were standing on a
ladder, she summoned the energy for another spell, then took a deep breath and began to
jostle the stone slab covering the silo. She was not trying to move it aside. Rather the
sorceress merely hoped to attract the guards' attention and lure them into investigating
the sound.

She did not have long to wait. Within a few moments, the slab began to slide open and a
sliver of scarlet light appeared over her head. She retreated down the wall a short way,
then waited for the door to open completely.

The first thing to appear in the widening crescent of light was the tip of an obsidian
spear. Though the light hurt her eyes, she forced herself not to look away. When the dim
silhouette of a guard took form at the other end of the spear, Sadira raised the lizards
she had plucked off her legs toward him, then uttered her incantation.

She finished with a comment directed at her victim. “Think about this the next time you
drop a nice girl down here.”

As she released the spell, the squirming lizards in her hand were transformed into
writhing tentacles, each ten feet long and as black as the silo from which they came. They
shot from Sadira's hand like bolts of ebon-colored lightning straight for the guard's
face. He dropped his spear and yelled in surprise, but the black ribbons cut his scream
short as they wrapped themselves around his face and neck. He stumbled away, gasping for
air and madly tearing at the stalks constricting his neck.

If her Alliance mentor, a cantankerous old man named Ktandeo, had seen her use the spell,
he would certainly have disapproved. He had forbidden her to learn or use magic of such
potency. That kind of spell required the drawing of energy from a wide radius; if the
radius was too small, the foliage tapped by the spell would die. Ktandeo thought the
half-elf had not yet mastered her art enough to attempt such feats. Sadira thought
differently, so she had secretly copied the spell and several others from his spellbook
during her last clandestine visit. At the moment, she was glad she had.

The sorceress scrambled to the top of the wall. A second guard looked over the edge of the
silo, a drawn dagger clutched in his hand. There was no time to cast another spell, so
Sadira reached up and grabbed him by the collar.

“Come here,” she said, jerking as hard as she could on his shirt. “There's something down
here you should see.”

The surprised guard pitched forward, raising his knife to slash at Sadira's arm. The
half-elf quickly released him and pulled her arm out of harm's way, but the man's
counterstrike did not save him. He was already leaning so far forward that he could not
recover his balance. He cried out in alarm, and his dagger clattered to the floor. The
guard himself followed a moment later, slipping headfirst into the darkness, his hands
seizing wildly at the bricks in a futile effort to catch himself. An instant later, he hit
bottom. The sharp pop and series of quick snaps that sounded from the base of the silo
told Sadira that she need not worry about that particular jailer again.

She climbed out of the silo and picked up the first guard's spear. He was still struggling
with the magical tentacles that were wrapped around his face. Though he was hardly in a
position to stop her from leaving she stepped to his side and touched the spear to his
ribs.

“This is for all the slaves who didn't climb out,” she said, pressing harder on the point.

The guard stopped struggling and turned his tentacle-covered head in her direction. “No.
Please!” he gasped barely making himself understood through his constricted throat. “I...
have . . . childrenÑ”

“So did my mother,” Sadira answered.

She pressed all her weight against the shaft and drove the point deep into the man's
heart. A short cry of pain escaped his lips and his body trembled. An instant later he
fell motionless. Blood began to ooze from the wound.

After removing the guard's dagger and belt, Sadira dragged his body to the silo. She
dumped him on top of his partner without bothering to remove the spear from his heart or
the tentacles from his head. As she pushed the stone slab over the pit, her thoughts were
already turning to the next phase of her escape.