“Dion?” Shilia whispered.

  Dion stirred, but did not shift her gaze from down the hall. The air was cold; The drops of moisture that soaked the atmo­sphere carried the odor of the jail into her skin and hair and hands.

  “Dion, I'm scared.”

  The wolf­walker fingered the cold bars wordlessly. As she touched them, the metal chill slid like needles into her skin till it pierced the little warmth she had left and ate away at her bones. Something was happening to her in this place. It was a dream—a nightmare; the only way to escape the pain was to close off her feelings. The bruises with which neBroddin had marked her were already faded and set away from her mind, just a dull and constant backdrop that pulsed with her blood until she moved. She shuddered. Only the thread of Hishn's worry and the long, lone howl of the gray wolf's hunt wormed its way through the blackened stench to give Dion strength.

  Shilia's voice trembled as she whispered, “What are we going to do?”

  Dion's nose twitched at the pervasive smell. But her eyes were unfocused, her mind ranging across the distance to the wolf. “Wait,” she said softly. “Survive.”

  “Dion—”

  “Aranur and Rhom will come for us.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “They've already tried once.”

  Shilia pressed herself against the bars, trying to see Dion around the stone. “Did the Gray One tell you that?” she de­manded urgently. “What happened? They weren't—moons help them—they weren't hurt, were they?”

  “Shh.” Dion listened, but there were no sounds from the guard's station, only the shufflings and mutterings of the pris­oners who whimpered miserably for release. “They were not hurt,” she said finally.

  “Dion—”

  “It will be all right, Shilia.” Dion cocked her head. Her nostrils flared. “Listen.”

  The girl fell silent. “What is it?” she demanded finally.

  “A breeze.” The wolf­walker thrust old air out of her lungs and breathed in, and the faint taste of the breeze cut through the stench in her mouth like a cup of clean water thrown in a stagnant pool.

  “Dion—”

  “Don't think about it, Shilia,” Dion said sharply. She paused, then spoke more gently. “Think of home. Think of being greeted by your family. Think of spring. Of your brother—or of Rhom,” she added quietly. “And pray.”

  The girl stared at Dion's hands for a long moment, then sank slowly down against the iron bars. “Oh, moons of mercy, moons of light,” Shilia whispered. “Guide me in this darkest night ...”

  Time passed. As Dion's eyes grew used to the dank night, the shadowy figures across the dim hall grew into the shapes of two women: one lying down; the other hovering, wringing her hands silently over the first. The one on the ground shivered, then her teeth rattled. The one crouched against the wall crawled forward, then back to her post, and Dion watched as if in a dream. Ovousibas. The pain of the dying woman was almost tangible to the healer. Even if Dion was jailed so far as this from the moons' clean light—even if she could still not stop the death of old age, at least she could ease its pain, she thought. She was a healer. The guard would' have to let her work.

  She was not aware that she had spoken out loud until Morain sneered from behind her. “You can't reach her, Healer. And that woman over there wouldn't let you heal her even if you could.”

  Dion looked over her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  Tehena stirred and came to stand at the bars, as well. “It's the one blessing of the moons that's left to us.” She watched the other prisoner across the hall with jealousy. “Even you, with your high and mighty ways, wouldn't be so cruel as to take that from us.”

  The healer stared blankly at the other woman. Then, as they watched, the jaws of the prisoner across the hall rattled. The sharp, acrid smell of hot urine cut across the dense air, and the other woman in the cell, gaunt like a string of bones, weakly stripped the body even as its teeth still clattered together. The dying prisoner looked at Dion expressionlessly, her eyes huge and her skin stretched back so far across her cheekbones that it was like leather across a drum, until her mouth opened spas­modically, and her teeth showed her to be barely more than a skull-.

  Dion turned her head away quickly. Tehena chuckled.

  The wolf­walker clenched her fists around the bars, and they seemed to grow bigger and the ceiling shorter and the walls closer as she stared. Oh, sweet moons, she prayed, her lips moving silently.. Get us free of this place if only long enough to see your light once more. For this I would give my life. Her knuckles grew white around the prison bars. I swear this by all the moons that ride the sky ... She pressed her forehead against the bars until their icy touch reached even through her headband. I would rather welcome death now than wait until I welcome the death of another for my sake. “By the gods, hear me,” she whispered. “Hear me ...”

  The scrabbling of the rats warned her that the rodents were crawling out of the refuse hole again, and she turned in anger to swear futilely at them to get away, and then froze. Morain and the other woman had dozed off. The two rats that crept around the sleeping figures boldly ran toward the motionless healer for the crumbs and the smell of swill that clung to the greasy stones, and she shuddered at their six-legged bodies and sightless, maggotlike eyes. They were not the rats of the an­cients, of those who had crossed the stars, but rats of this world, of the underground jails and filth of Asengar. The crea­tures stopped, turning their blind heads from side to side as they smelled her. And then a thought rose, unbidden in Dion's mind. Rat bones were brittle. The gray thread that linked her mind to the wolf sharpened at the thought. A large weapon could not be hidden in this bare place, but bone slivers could be made into darts. And darts were small. And rats had poison sacs.

  She glanced upward, and even though she saw only the black stone of the cell, she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Oh, moons of mercy, she thought, your light reaches even into this darkness. She did not move. One of the rats took a few steps and sniffed at the stones only a meter away.

  Morain and Tehena—would they betray her? Or could she keep what she did secret from both of them? She did not shift her feet, though her heels grew bruised on the hard stone. She did not breathe. The first rat was very close.

  She could hear the faint sounds of someone crying. Namina, probably. Dion could count on no help from that quarter, but perhaps Shilia ... She stopped, shocked at her callousness. That Namina was crying, Dion should at least understand. But that the wolf­walker had given up on the girl—Dion swore at herself.

  The movement by her foot caught her attention again. In her head, the echo of gray thoughts gave her a heightened timing of the rat's movements? Could the rodent hear the wolf behind Dion's breathing? Did it know that when Dion struck, it would be as the Gray One on a hare? The rat's ears, huge and cupped, twitched in short, sharp movements as the fanged mouth sniffed the stones. It licked a crumb from a crack in the floor with a long, slender tongue, and Dion shifted her weight. It froze, looked blindly up with its pasty, gray-white eyes, then licked warily again at the stones.

  And she smashed her foot down and caught it, breaking its neck with a quick snap. The other rat leapt away. From the one she had kicked, there were not even death throes, and Dion reached for the flea-ridden carcass, taking care to stay away from the poison in its claws and teeth. She tossed it against the wall, out of her way. Behind her, Morain, awake now, watched silently. But the wolf­walker became motionless again, patient as the Gray One who followed her thoughts like a ghost.

  The other rat was suspicious. But there was food in the cracks between the stones. And the human thing was silent again, as if sleeping. The rat slunk back a few lengths. Then one more. It lowered its head to the floor. And Dion stomped again, snapping the rodent's back before it could turn and then wiping her foot against the grease and stain-blackened stones as if they would clean the blood from her heel.

  Morain rolled over. “Didn't get enough supper?” she taunted.

  Dion did not answer. Instead, she examined the carcasses as if she could tell what diseases they were carrying on their fur. They were filthy enough that she was not sure she could force herself to tear the pelt open with her teeth to get at the bones.

  Tehena did not even bother to turn over as she said, “Best part's the back and the hind legs. You better eat all you can now. You won't be fast enough to catch them after you've starved a bit like us.”

  “You can have the meat,” Dion said absently, “if you'll save the fang sacs and give me the long bones when you're through.”

  That did make Tehena roll over. “You serious?” she asked suspiciously.

  Dion just tossed the two rats to her in answer. The woman caught them both. Tehena looked at Morain, who swallowed, her eyes intense and staring at the dead rats. The first woman exchanged a long look with Dion, then raised her head a frac­tion and, though her hand shook with effort, extended one of the rats to Morain. The other woman snatched it in disbelief as if the offer would be retracted any second. She did not take her eyes from Tehena, but scuttled back to the shadow where the wall protected her back. Only then did she tear its fur open with her teeth. The long greasy hairs stuck between her front inci­sors, and blood dribbled down her chin. The wolf­walker looked away. She was not that hungry yet.

  Like the other woman, Tehena stripped the fur away in a long tube, ripping the pelt away from the ends of the legs when she came to them, and the wolf­walker could hear the two women chewing slowly on the raw meat as she watched un­seeing down the stone hall. They chewed and savored each bite so slowly that Dion, never having seen such starvation before, shuddered. They did not finish for a long while.

  Hours seemed to pass before the pile of raw bones lay at Dion's feet. Pushing aside the images of the, women eating, Dion concentrated on looking the pieces over carefully.

  “You know, the new ones always try something as soon as they get here,” Tehena spoke softly to the ceiling. “That's why the guards watch them the closest at first. They'll whip at least one of you, maybe two, just to make sure you understand what not to do. Probably you or the girl next door or that boy who yelled back down the hall.”

  Dion quelled her shiver. As long as she was still alive as a hostage, it would not be Shilia or Tyrel who was whipped. Her joints ached and throbbed from being twisted and bent by Longear's captain. Though one of her ribs felt cracked, it was just a torn muscle resisting the stretch of her lungs. But there was still Longear. And if Longear had more in mind for her to bear, she would rather risk all now than wait for worse to come.

  “The guards use norshark whips, Healer.”

  The wolf­walker glanced at her sideways, but said nothing.

  “You'd better rethink what you're going to do, Healer,” Tehena said. “If your face says anything about the shape the rest of you is in, you're not strong enough to take a whipping and live.”

  “How much of a whipping would I get?”

  The other woman barked a mirthless laugh. “Ten lashes. Fifteen. Does it matter? I never saw anyone take more than eighteen and live.” She paused. “I never saw anyone take more than ten and live past five days.”

  “Infection?”

  “Oh, so calm, you-are,” Tehena snarled. “Asking this, considering that. It's easy to be brave before you've felt that broken glass cut your back open and have it left raw for the maggots to crawl in.”

  Dion looked up and shook her head slowly. “Of all things that I feel in this place, the least of them is bravery.”

  “Judging by what you're doing, you must be feeling stu­pidity more than anything else.”

  The wolf­walker stared for a long moment before a smile twitched on her split and swollen lips. “Perhaps. If so, it's hardly contagious.” She glanced down the hall.

  “That's right, make sure they aren't coming yet,” Tehena mocked. “Or better yet, look again and anticipate what you'll get.”

  “How do you know how many days anyone lasts in this darkness? Do the guards come and spell out the time for you?” Dion retorted.

  Morain, looking up from where she crouched like an animal, chuckled humorlessly. “One day, one meal. Unless the cook feels grouchy and we go without. Or unless they decide to see how your flesh feels in their beds first. You can get a good meal out of that, if you know what you're doing.”

  Dion gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

  The woman chuckled again. “You just don't get it, do you? Don't worry, Healer. Right now, your face would scare any man out of bed, not into it. But then, the new guards won't know what you look like in the dark.”

  Dion licked her cut lip. Shilia and Namina ... She glanced toward the girls' cells.

  “They like to catch the new ones before they get too bony,” Morain continued. “The guard will change soon. Then you'll find out. Hells, you might be one of the lucky ones,” she said sarcastically. “You might not survive that either.”

  Dion suddenly felt sick. She looked down the hall, then back at the tiny bones she held in her hands. “How many guards are in hearing distance?”

  “How much noise are you going to make?” Morain replied mockingly.

  “Shut up, Morain.” Tehena turned and addressed the healer, her voice curiously intent. “One guard on this floor and each of the others, three guards and one gofer up the steps in the guardroom.”

  Dion nodded silently. She. started resolutely to clean the bones, scraping them against the cracks and roughened edges of stone as Tehena watched carefully. She had separated the bones and started to sharpen the splinters she had selected when she heard footsteps in the hall. Morain hissed and scrambled toward her. Tehena lifted up the mattress she was sitting on, and Morain and Dion quickly swept the bones un­der it.

  Light from the lantern fell through the bars, starkly illuminating the filth on floor and mattress, as the guard stopped a few meters down and leered into Shilia's cell.

  Oh, moons, Dion begged silently, keep them safe for just a little while longer. She shifted the tiny fang sacs between the mattress and the wall so their precious contents would not spill.

  “Come on, honey,” the guard cajoled Shilia.. “I won't hurt you. Much.” He laughed and picked out a key from the ring at his belt.

  Morain gave Dion a surprising look of pity, then flung her­self at the healer. “You bitch of a rat!” she screamed. “This is my mattress, my straw, my cell. I'll kill you—”

  They scuffled, rolling across the floor against the bars, Tehena joining in with her own shrieking accusations. The guard, diverted, moved swiftly.

  “Get off her, you bitch,” he yelled, kicking at Morain through the bars. Dion grabbed his foot and twisted quickly, startling him so that he fell heavily against the stones. Morain shrieked in triumph and grabbed at his ankle to bite him. Dion yanked. She struck his knee hard with her fist, pulling his leg between the bars. The keys were at his belt—

  But before she could strike again he thrust hard against the bars with his other leg, breaking her hold and rolling away. He stood up and looked down at the two grimly. The prison was suddenly deathly silent. You moon wormed fool, Dion cursed herself. You idiot. You blew the only chance the moons gave you by reaching for those keys before you took him out.

  Morain and Tehena backed away, slinking into the far cor­ners of the cell, but Dion got to her feet. She could not deny what she had just done, and if the moons graced her with another chance to get out of the cell, even if it was for another beating, she was going to take that chance with both hands.

  When the guard turned away, surprising her, she let her breath out. But he went only a few steps to retrieve his lantern, returning to hang it from a hook in the ceiling outside the cell. The light made her squint, her eyes watering instantly. If ever she had seen a grim look in a man's eyes, it was then.

  “Hey, big and ugly,” Tyrel yelled angrily from down the hall. “You always pick on girls? Why don't you try a man sometime?”

  The guard did not even look toward Tyrel's cell. “Bad timing, Healer.”

  “It's all right, Tyrel,” Dion called back, trying to laugh. “You never know. I may get a chance to bite back.” The words were brave, but their echo in the prison was empty and small.

  “Shut up,” Tehena whispered. “The more you say, the worse it'll be.”

  Dion sobered quickly at the guard's expression as he took the ring of heavy keys from his belt. “She's right, Healer. I got orders, and I follow them. You may know some tricks, but if you want your friends to live, you won't use them. And if you use them anyway, you'll answer to Longear, not to me.” He unlocked the spring-clip manacles set into the stone between Shilia's and Dion's cells. Then he unlocked Shilia's cell and grabbed the girl, backing her up against the bars. His knife was against her throat.

  “Step out slowly. No tricks.” He unlocked Dion's cell with his other hand and clipped the ring back on his belt immedi­ately. Shilia looked at the healer with frightened eyes as a small spot of red formed under the tip of the knife and dribbled down her neck, too bright against her pale throat.

 

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