9

And then the spell broke.

Raucous laughter rang down, and grinning faces peered over the battlements. The men, and a scattering of women, wore motley, or the remains of Deraine/Sagene uniforms.

"A proper greetin' for the Dragonmaster," a shout came.

Then came a BRRAAACCCK as someone blew a typical flier's welcome through his lips.

Hal recognized the man, vaguely. He'd been one of the dragon fliers lost, feared killed, during the Aude siege.

There was another familiar face, and a third, and then fuming, sputtering Roche guards were muscling the prisoners away from the walls.

There was the rattle of chains, and then a door was unbolted.

Half a dozen Roche soldiers rushed out, surrounded Hal, and bustled him into Castle Mulde.

His escort was taken in another direction, and he lost a chance to throw a final insult at Lieutenant Anders.

A rather large, white-bearded man, wearing the carefully kept, if tattered, uniform of a Derainian general, stood there, flanking a stone-faced Roche officer.

"Take the prisoner into processing," the Roche ordered, and Hal was muscled off.

He ended up in a small cell, looked about, assuming this would be his new home.

Then a tall, cadaverous-looking man, wearing robes, came into the room. A small wormy sort, wearing Derainian uniform, came in behind him, carrying a case and a wand.

"I am Ungava," the tall man said. "I am the wizard for Castle Mulde. It is my duty to ensure you'll never be able to escape. You'll be moved from here to a proper cell as soon as I've taken care of a couple of matters."

Without looking back, he held out a hand, and the small prisoner smacked the wand into it.

Ungava bowed his head over Hal's chains, muttered a phrase, struck the manacles, and the chains fell away.

Hal felt a moment of hope.

Ungava reached inside his robes, took out an atomizer.

He sprayed Hal with its contents.

Hal held back a coughing fit. Whatever magical items the atomizer held, all of them stank.

Ungava motioned with the wand to the four points of the compass, then began chanting. Hal could make out only a few of the words:

…

Bind, bind… hold fast

Swirl about… there is no north

You cannot see…

…

…

…

…

Hal lost the last four lines completely.

Ungava did all this with an air of boredom, as if this were a spell he cast every day.

He handed the wand back over his shoulder, looked at Hal expectantly.

Hal stared at him.

Ungava smiled tightly.

"Think of north, and then face in that direction," he ordered.

Hal took a moment, closed his eyes, thought. He'd come in, then a left, then a right into this cell. So north should be over…

Sickness caught him, almost like vertigo, which, as a flier, Hal had never felt.

He stumbled, almost fell.

The prisoner caught him.

Ungava's smile grew broader.

"This is what binds you to Castle Mulde, more than any guard, any stone wall, any chain. You, and the other prisoners, are held by confusion, so that even if you were able to physically escape the castle, which you'll learn is an impossibility, you'd still never be able to find your way to your own lines.

"Now you can join the others."

He nodded abruptly, wheeled, and stamped out. The small prisoner looked back at the door, smiled sadly, and winked.

Hal didn't know what that meant, if anything beyond a slight bit of encouragement.

Waiting outside the cell was an officer in Derainian uniform who wore the dragon emblem on his chest. He limped over, saluted Hal and introduced himself as Lieutenant Sir Alt Hofei, formerly executive officer of the 66th Dragon Flight, with Second Army.

"But now," Hofei said, "I'm like all the others in here, rattling my chains and watching the world go past. Can't even escape, thanks to my damned leg. Tell me, sir," he said eagerly, "how goes the war? We get no news here… which is quite deliberate on the part of our peerless warder, Baron Patiala.

"It's like that damned spell," he said. "I saw Ungava the wand-waver go past a few moments ago, so I assume you're ensorcelled like the rest of us."

"It works as he said it does?" Hal asked.

"It does," Hofei said.

"Do we have any magicians here?"

"None," Hofei said. "And if there's any with a bit of the Talent, they're very damned quiet about it.

"You see, sir, Castle Mulde is for special cases. High-rankers, generals, noblemen… and fliers.

"There's hundred and forty-four—now a hundred and forty-five, counting you—fliers here. As for wizards, all of us were asked if we knew anything about magic when we were first told off to go to this damned place. I surely don't, but there were some who claimed they did.

"They were separated from the rest of us, and supposedly taken to a

'special camp.'

"Nobody knows for sure, but there's a cheery minority who think they were taken behind the nearest barn and had their neck stretched.

"Nice war we're having."

Hal nodded. "It is that."

"I've orders to show you to your room, sir," Hofei said.

"Room?"

"High-rankers such as yourself, Lord Kailas, rate a room, with but one or two mates." Hofei leaned close. "Although let me give you the warning, small rooms make a good place to start an escape from."

For the first time, Hal smiled.

"Escape, eh?"

"There's none of us… at least none of us who're fliers, who aren't always thinking, planning, maybe even trying something."

"Good," Hal said. "By the way. Since I'm a flier, like you said, we can eliminate the lord business."

"Yessir," Hofei said. "I assume you'll be taking over as senior officer."

"You may assume," Hal said, a bit astonished, "but I know nothing of that."

"A lord outranks a general, even if he is a sir, I'd guess," Hofei said. "So you'll most likely replace Sir Treffry, who'd like to see you as soon as it's convenient."

"Treffry? That heavyset one with grandfather whiskers?"

"That's him, sir. But don't think he's an ass, though he seems determined to make you think so, sometimes. Poor bastard was captured right at the start of the war. Tried to escape twice, captured twice, one of the first to be purged to Castle Mulde.

"Since then, he's made four more attempts. The last made it beyond the walls, and had the beastly luck of running into a Roche cavalry patrol."

Hal was grateful for Hofei's warning.

He'd known men like Sir Sen Treffry before the war, when he was a wandering farm laborer. They were bluff, hearty sorts, seemingly more concerned for their prize bull or racing stables than anyone who worked for them, although they could show surprising interest in their workers.

Certainly Hal had never been cheated of his wages by one of them, which hadn't been true of some other country gentry.

"So I's'pose you'll be the new 'un in charge, Lord Kailas?"

"Not a chance, sir," Hal said. "You know the ins and outs better than I do."

Treffry humphed, grunted.

"I s'pose that's a compliment," he said. "Although heard good things about you, from fliers that've come in, even though none of 'em have the slightest idea of discipline.

"I do wish you'd take command, though, to be selfish."

Hal waited.

"We've got a rule here," Treffry went on. "All escape plans have got to be registered with either myself, m' adj'tant or Lieutenant Hofei, whose main detail is head of the escape group. That keeps tunnels from running into each other and such.

"That means, course, that neither of the three of us can make a runaway of our own without steppin' down for a month or so. Keeps us honest, and from sneakin' others' ideas.

"Y'sure you wouldn't like the task?"

"You just made me even more so," Hal said.

Treffry huffed through his beard.

"Since there's times the walls appear to be listenin', I'll not draw the obvious conclusions from that.

"But I s'pose you'd like a briefing on what you're into."

"I would."

There were 309 prisoners in the castle, over half Derainian. There were three generals, "includin' m'self," twenty-one noble officers, nineteen noble civilians, "poor sots who got caught tourin' the Roche lands when the war started, and now they're mewed up like so many hawks, nobody quite knowin' what to do with them," seventy-one soldiers who'd made thorough pains of themselves by repeatedly attempting to escape, "fifty poor sorts of infantrymen, none escapers, who've been detailed off as batmen who also do scut work for the Roche, under protest," and 145 dragon fliers, all of whom had tried and failed to escape.

"Y'can, if you wish," Treffry said, "think of this damnable castle as a sort of academy, and the other prisoner of war camps as primary schools.

If you escape, and make it home, you've graduated.

"Failures are sent here, where they can try and try until they go quite mad."

Hal remembered something the traitor Tregony had said about being in a camp full of fliers, asked about him.

Treffry shook his head.

"Never heard of the wight. Friend of yours?"

"No," Hal said, then chanced again: "What about a woman flier, named Saslic Dinapur? Maybe killed, maybe captured, wounded, down in Kalabas?"

Saslic had been his first great love, had fallen into a melee of Roche soldiers, was presumed killed with her dragon.

"Don't b'lieve I have," Treffry said. "Though there's other camps for fliers who're better-behaved guests of the Roche."

A last feeble hope died in Hal. If Saslic had lived, she would undoubtedly have tried escape. So she was truly dead.

Then he felt senseless guilt, thinking of Khiri.

Treffry noted his expression, turned away.

"We've all lost someone," he said heavily. "Some of us more than one someone in these stupid damned times."

Hal asked about letters.

"None in, none out," Treffry said. "That's another burden Baron Patiala works on us.

"Speakin' of whom, I'm supposed to take you to him. Then young Hofei'll show you to your chambers.

"By the way. He''s a very good man, and the current head of the Escape Committee."

Baron Patiala considered Hal icily.

He was about Hal's height, in his sixties, and wore a dress uniform with only one decoration on it. Hal decided, remembering a phrase of Farren Mariah's, that Patiala wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful.

The commandant's office was in one of the castle's towers, and overlooked an exercise yard, and beyond the walls, a small patchwork of fields.

"I have always believed that you Derainians should be considered as nothing more than criminals for starting this war in the first place."

Hal suppressed a start.

"Oh yes," Patiala said. "Were it not for your country's refusal to consider reasonable demands from Queen Norcia, we would all be at peace.

"Instead, you chose to company with the loathsome Sagene… and now you are paying the price.

"You should be aware, Kailas, that your escort brought full details of your murderous behavior in your escape attempt, and the only thing that would please me more than to turn you over to a military court would be being permitted to execute you myself for murdering that poor soldier."

Hal said nothing.

"Be advised, Castle Mulde is run firmly but fairly. We do not torment our prisoners, unlike what I have heard your warders do to our soldiery.

"You are advised to follow my rules precisely, and, even though I consider you a common criminal, you will be treated as an equal with the others.

"Break my laws, and, at the very least, you'll be moved into a solitary cell.

"Obviously, any attempt to escape will be met with harsh penalties, and if, impossibly, you make it beyond these walls, the loyal Roche in the countryside will ensure your recapture."

Baron Patiala allowed that to sink in.

"You're dismissed."

Hal nodded curtly.

"So I am, Patiala."

He omitted a salute and the man's title, but didn't wait for a reaction.

Kailas spun, and stamped out of the office, determined, more than ever, that he would escape, and do it very damned soon.