Oberon's Dreams - By Aaron Pogue Page 0,42

one arm against his pommel and asked icily, “Do you need aid, Yeoman Kellen?”

“No, sir,” the fallen soldier said. His eyes snapped open, and Kellen winced once, then began the laborious process of climbing to his feet. “No, Lord Ephitel. I am able.”

“Hardly,” the prince said. “What happened here?”

“Riot, sir. There might have been a thousand angry citizens—”

“Rebels,” Ephitel growled.

Kellen swallowed hard, then shrugged. “As you say. Torches and stones.”

“What was their intent?”

Kellen swallowed hard again, and this time he looked away. “I couldn’t make it out.”

“Ha!” Ephitel leaned back and shook his head. “You’ve never had a spine, Yeoman Kellen. I feel your time among my men is at an end.”

The yeoman hung his head in shame and gave no answer.

“And what of my other brave jailers?” Ephitel cried, apparently hoping to stir more of them. “So much disturbance, and still they sleep, though I see no mark upon them. One might even think these others suffered the effects of druids.”

Ephitel’s lieutenant called out, “Sir!” from where he knelt beside one of the fallen men. “Even so. These are the druids’ poisoned darts.” He brandished one of the shiny projectiles Corin had seen before.

“Aha,” Ephitel said, “proof at last of their treachery.”

“No,” Corin cried, inventing wildly. “That’s my doing, too.”

“Impossible.”

“Not at all. I…the druids took me in. As you well know. And…while I was in their care, I stole these trinkets.”

“Is that so?” Ephitel asked, a strange, hungry look in his eyes. “You are quite the resourceful one. Yeoman Kellen! Tie him up.”

“Tie him, sir? There are chains in the carriage—”

“Chains he has already defeated once, you will find. As I said, he is a resourceful one. Tie him with an elven knot.” He turned aside for a moment, running his eyes over his other prisoners. “We should have a knot for Lord Avery, too. Chains will suffice for Lady Maurelle.”

“No!” Avery cried. “Let her go!”

Ephitel spurred his horse two quick steps closer to Avery, then answered the angry thief with an armor-plated kick to his unprotected stomach. Avery folded double, then collapsed in a whimpering pile. Ephitel spat down at him. “Watch your tongue when you speak to the lord protector.” He turned dispassionate eyes back to Kellen. “Well? Tie them!”

The soldier sprang into action. He uncoiled a cord from around his upper arm, something fine and gilded that Corin had taken for decorative braiding. But as Kellen unrolled the cord and drew out a measured length of it, Corin recognized the hair-fine thread. In his time it was an artifact, a relic of the ages when elves walked with men. But he was in those ages now, and Yeoman Kellen approached to bind his hands with a delicate thread that could have held an anchor through any gale. Now two loops went over each hand, and Kellen pulled the knot tight with a simple gesture, but Corin found no slack, no loose edges, no angle to escape the bindings.

“There’s a handy trick,” Corin said. “Why use manacles at all?”

Ephitel moved closer, eyes narrowed. “It is strange the things that you don’t know. And, then again, the ones you do.”

It took only a moment before Corin understood. The dwarven powder. Maurelle had told him Ephitel craved the stuff. Corin shook his head, “I am just a manling vagabond—”

“Rich in mystery and richer in defiance,” Ephitel said. “We have a place set aside for such as you.” He jerked his head toward the coach. “Take them to the palace dungeons. And you! Take thirty men and hunt down the traitor druids.”

Halfway to the carriage, Corin wrenched against his captors’ grip to shout back, “No! The druids had no part in this!”

“You are a wretched liar,” Ephitel answered. He told his lieutenant, “Go. Now.” Then he turned back to the jailers’ carriage as two of his soldiers forced Corin into its confines. “Two insignificant children from the House of Violets, and one mysterious manling from out of time,” Ephitel mused, almost to himself. “What can you have in common?”

Corin suppressed his angry response. He said, “Innocence?”

“Hardly.” The prince stepped back half a pace so Yeoman Kellen could heave the groaning Avery up into the cab with Corin and Maurelle. Ephitel considered them all for a moment, then nodded slowly. “This shall be interesting. I must speak with Oberon.”

“I would speak with him, too,” Corin said. “Shall we go together?”

Ephitel’s brows crashed together. “You shall go to the darkest prison I can find for you.”

“I demand an audience with the king.”

“It