Sarabande: River of Falcons Book 4

40. The Torture Chamber

Onuma was skilled at the art of concealment and she had faith in her spells, so she walked straight up to the front door of Sorcerer's Keep, where she stood quietly, waiting for it to open. When a half-dozen guards rushed out, spears in hand, she slipped in. The door clanged behind her. She found herself in a long stone-paved corridor lit with flaming torches in iron brackets lining the walls. The air was sooty and sulfurous. Covering her nose with a bandana she took from a pocket, she hurried off down the corridor.

Doors opened onto large rooms at intervals. The rooms were mostly dark, and it seemed the building was nearly deserted. That made sense, Onuma thought, since so many of Vultan and Nautilus's people were out on the road, guarding the trunk. It was a good opportunity to get Arnica out of there.

She passed a darkened doorway, then came back to examine it. It led to a set of stone stairs that wound down into what must be the basement. She tiptoed down the stairs, wrinkling her nose again as she caught the foul smells of musty dampness and something else. Human blood, she thought. And the smell of burnt skin. She quickened her pace.

At the bottom of the stairs, a long corridor led away in both directions. She heard a clanging noise, followed by a low moan. She turned toward it and hurried forward. The sounds were coming from behind a rusted iron door. She had to stand on tiptoes to look into the small grated window in the door. She gasped when she saw what was inside.

There, in the middle of a large stone-walled room, on a rusty iron table, lay Arnica. Her wrists and ankles had been chained tightly to the table. Standing over here were two apprentices in black cloaks. They had set their staffs to one side and were holding long iron rods, the ends of which were glowing bright orange. There was a fireplace on the far side of the room with hot orange embers in it, and more rods were sticking into the embers. Arnica was moaning in pain.

Onuma thought for a moment, holding her breath. She wanted to be clear on the sequence of spells she would use.

First, she allowed the concealment spell to fade. She would need her energy for other spells. Then she murmured an incantation. A crack appeared in the stone beneath the door. A green tendril wound up out of the crack and lengthened rapidly. Ivy leaves sprang out along it as it climbed the rusty iron. More vines appeared and wound up the door, some of them concentrating on the hinges, others on the latch. The door lifted up and off its hinges and fell into the room with a tremendous clanging sound. Onuma reactivated her concealment spell and slipped inside as the apprentices dropped their iron rods and reached for their staffs.

"Who goes there!" one of them demanded, aiming his staff at the open doorway.

Onuma tiptoed toward them, circling so as to approach them from the side. She whispered a spell. They cursed as their staffs fell to the floor, green shoots bursting out of them and leaves opening from the shoots.

"Fena magic!" one apprentice shouted. "I'll go for help." He sprinted toward the door, but Onuma, her concealment spell flickering off, pointed at his legs. He fell down, writhing in pain.

She turned toward the other apprentice. "Release her," she said.

"Um, sorry. I can't do that," he said nervously, backing away.

She pointed at his legs and he said, "Ouch! What are you doing?"

"Rickets. Tetanus. Gout. There are so many diseases. If you know how to cure them, you can also spread them. Your friend may never walk again. Do you wish to join him?"

"No! Wait! I'll unlock the chains." He hurried forward, waving a large iron key on a loop. Soon he had undone the four iron locks that held Arnica's chains. "There," he said breathlessly, glancing over at the other apprentice, who had stopped moving. "I'll just be going now, okay? You're, um, a healer, which means you don't like to hurt people, right?"

Onuma scowled at him. "I don't usually hurt people," she said. "For torturers, I'm willing to make an exception!"

He fell to the ground, shouting "No! Help! Ouch! Owwww." He writhed in pain beside his companion's limp body, then quivered in a violent spasm. In a moment, he too was still.

Onuma stepped over the two bodies and hurried to the torture table, where she took Arnica's hand and chanted a reviving verse. She felt for Arnica's pulse, then chanted again. Arnica moaned and shifted slightly, but did not open her eyes.

"Please wake up," Onuma whispered. "Please, my dear. Don't let me be too late!"

"What have we here?" a gruff voice said.

Onuma spun around to face the doorway, realizing that she should not have had her back to it. A sorcerer she did not recognize was standing there, his black beard neatly trimmed, his grey eyes examining the scene with confident curiosity. His staff was pointing at Onuma's chest.

"So!" he said. "You disabled two apprentices, as well as unlocking the door and removing the prisoner's chains? Very impressive. And how did you sneak inside? A concealment spell, I presume? You appear to have considerable talent. Too bad it has to go to waste." He stepped back, and the iron door leapt into place with a clang.

Onuma ran over to it and shouted "Apurtus!" but the door would not open. She reached down and held one of the ivy vines, examining it in surprise. It was bone-dry and brittle.

The sorcerer's face appeared through the grate. "I'm sorry to spoil your little party," he said. "But you see, I'm in charge of these dungeons, and I can't have anyone escaping on my watch, can I? I trust you'll enjoy our hospitality. When Magus returns, I'll let him know we have another guest." His face disappeared from sight. Heavy boots thudded down the stone corridor as he strode away.

Onuma rushed back to Arnica where she lay on the table. "Don't give up," she said. "I'm going to heal you, my dear, even if it's the last thing I do." Then she bent back over Arnica, chanting urgently.