tongue, trapped and striving to be free and yet refusing to come out. Unable to emerge from his beak, it spread back into the rest of his body, filling him with its energy. Strange mutterings and whisperings sounded in his ears, and vague visions flitted before his eyes. He thought he could see the shape of a human standing there, and a griffin as well, and a pale mist. His eyes ached, and still the feeling stayed with him. It was like the hunger in his stomach, but he knew food would not make it go away. It infused his fur and feathers, and the skin and muscle beneath, not painful and yet so powerful that it made his vision waver.
He started to tremble. The feeling turned and gnashed in his throat until he felt as if he was suffocating, and he opened his beak wide, trying desperately to rid himself of it. But it would not leave him and he kept his neck arched, head held out rigidly, beak wide open, until saliva slowly started to drip from its tip.
But still the feeling would not leave. It grew and grew until he began to feel nauseated and then, quite suddenly, he started to bash his head against the wall of his cage. Stars exploded in his eyes, but he kept on doing it, harder and harder, until his beak cracked and he slumped back, panting. The feeling slowly faded away, and he sighed a deep, exhausted sigh and slipped into a fitful sleep.
Arough hand shook Arren awake.
“What?”
“C’mon, get up,” said a voice. “Time to go.”
Arren sat up. He was stiff and sore, shivering in the cold wind. He didn’t even remember having fallen asleep, but he found himself lying in the middle of the cage floor with a pair of guards standing by and watching him impatiently.
He got up, supporting the collar with his hand. “What—what’s going on?”
“It’s nearly noon,” said a guard. “They’re expecting you.”
“Who are?”
“The people at the Arena, idiot. Want something to eat before you go?”
Arren’s insides started churning. “No—can I have some water?”
The guard picked up a jar of water that was sitting by the door and gave it to him, saying, “Hurry up.”
Arren drank deeply, not caring when the water spilt out over his face and soaked into his beard. It made the wound on his face sting a little, but he didn’t bother to dry it off. He gave the jar back to the guard, who tossed it aside and produced a pair of manacles. “Hold out your arms.”
Arren obeyed, and his wrists were chained together once more. “I’m not going to try and run away,” he said.
The guard ignored him. He and his colleague took him by the shoulders and shoved him out of the cage and onto the platform, and he walked stiffly between them toward the guard post. Bran was not there any more—his shift must have ended—and Arren was taken through the stone entrance and into a small cave. It was fairly dry inside and well lit by torches. Arren had expected there to be a staircase in there, but there wasn’t. Instead there was a wooden platform, like a miniature version of the lifters all over the city. The guards walked him onto it and then one of them pulled a hanging length of rope. A bell rang from somewhere in the darkness above them, and a few moments later the platform jerked once and began to rise.
Arren, seeking desperately for something else to occupy his mind, decided that this system must have been devised to make it harder for prisoners to escape. The cages were utterly exposed, with no secret crannies where things could be concealed and no way of hiding from the guards. And even if a prisoner managed to get out, he would be trapped on the platform with no way up or down except for this small lifter, which, when Arren and his escort reached it, turned out to be very well guarded at the top. There was a room carved into the rock, manned by several attentive guards and sealed off by not one but two metal gratings, both of which were locked from the outside.
A guard was waiting for them, and once he had examined them briefly he unlocked the grate and let Arren and his two comrades come through into the chamber. The grate was locked behind them, and one of Arren’s guards showed a piece of paper to those in