everywhere - I mean, Karadoc has had apprentices, and there's a larger church in Korhadan."
"I don't worship gods," said Seraph. "You'll have to take it up with the forest king next time you meet him."
Lehr thought about her answer, but it seemed to satisfy him because he changed the subject. "Uncle Bandor loves us, loved... loves Papa. He wouldn't do anything to hurt Papa."
"So I believe," agreed Seraph. "But you and I both came up with his name. He's become one of Volis's followers. I think that we need to be cautious around him until we know more."
"So what are we going to do now?"
"First we'll finish here, then I have a few questions for the priest. Can you take us by the quickest route to Redern?"
"Yes," he said. "But we won't make it before dark."
"No matter," Seraph said coldly. "I don't mind waking up a few people."
Or tearing them limb from limb if she had to. Tier had been taken, alive - because she couldn't bear it otherwise - and she intended to find out where he was. And tearing someone limb from limb sounded very, very good. Let Volis face a Raven who knew what he was when he didn't have a cadre of wizards to protect him. Oh, she would have her answers from him before she slept this night.
"What about Rinnie?" asked Lehr.
"Jes will have gotten back from taking Hennea to the village by now. Rinnie will be safe with him."
Gura barked, and Rinnie looked up from her gardening. But whoever had disturbed the dog was on the other side of the house.
Rinnie jumped to her feet and dusted off her skirt. She put her hand on Gura's collar and set off to see who had come.
Chapter 7
He opened his eyes to utter darkness and a cold stone floor under his cheek, though he didn't remember going to sleep. He took a deep, shaken breath and tried to determine how he got here, wherever here was. The last thing Tier remembered was riding Frost down the mountain on the way back home.
Undeniably, he was no longer on the mountain. The stone floor beneath his hands was level, and his fingers found the marks of a chisel. He was in a room, though he could hear water flowing nearby.
He rose cautiously to hands and knees and felt his way forward until his hands closed on grating set into the floor, the source of the sound of water. The bars were too close to let him put anything wider than his finger through and the water flowed well below that. He tried to pull up the grate, but it didn't so much as shift.
Hours later he was hungry, thirsty, and knew that he was in a room six paces wide by four paces long. An ironbound wooden door was inset flat against one of the narrow walls with the hinges on the outside.
The stonemason responsible for the walls had been very good, leaving only the smallest of fingerholds. Tier'd fallen three times, but he finally climbed the corner of the room until he touched a wooden ceiling. By his reckoning it was about twice his height to the floor. With a foot braced on adjacent walls he couldn't put any significant pressure against any of the boards, though he tried all the ones he could reach from his perch.
At last he climbed back down, convinced that the room he was in wasn't anywhere in Redern - or Leheigh either for that matter. He'd been inside the Sept's keep a time or two, and the walls in this room - which had obviously been designed as a prison cell - were better formed than the walls of the great hall in the Sept's keep.
Why had someone gone to the trouble of hauling him off the mountain and imprisoning him? It wasn't as if he, himself, would be worth money to anyone, not the kind of money that would be important to anyone who could afford a cell built like this one was.
He had a long time to think about it.
Emperor Phoran the Twenty-Seventh (Twenty-Sixth if he didn't count the Phoran who united the Empire - it was the first Phoran's son who had declared himself emperor) stretched his feet out before him and cast a practiced leer at the woman sitting on him. She was all but baring her breasts at him, the stupid cow. Did she really think that his favors were likely to be won by such