The Kaiserine's Champion

Having extracted some measure of revenge for my ill-treatment, I turned to the doorway. All thoughts of fleeing the prison and losing myself in the alleyways and backstreets of High Sazburg dissipated abruptly as I discovered two men standing there, watching me. They wore long black cloaks, tricorn hats and scarves that covered their faces so that only their eyes were visible. Both carried flintlock pistols, cocked and pointed at my belly. They looked more like highwaymen than anything else, but I didn't need a soothsayer to tell me they were Otto Thenck's Noseys in civilian garb, come to fetch me for their master's pleasure.

I felt no great need to say fond farewell to the sergeant. Without a word spoken, the two men escorted me upstairs, along a narrow corridor and outside into a high-walled courtyard. We'd passed no one else en route. A coach drawn by matching black stallions waited in the courtyard. The highwaymen gestured with their pistols, and I reluctantly climbed inside. The door slammed shut behind me and the coach immediately set off. There were no handles on the inside of the door, and no windows, eitherthe coach was a miniature prison on wheels.

The coach slowly made its way through the winding city streets, shaking and rattling over cobblestones and brickwork. Several times during the journey, the driver opened his peep hole and looked down at me, as if satisfying himself that I wasn't up to any mischief. Like the highwaymen, he wore a scarf over his face so I could only see his eyes. I wondered at this need for disguise, but I had other things to worry about, not the least of which was Otto Thenck, the Magician, so I thought no more of the driver, trying instead to imagine what must lie ahead.

A short time later, the coach stopped. The door clicked open and I surmised that the driver possessed a mechanism which allowed him to control the door locks from above. Very clever. I climbed out and looked up at him, expecting to receive further instructions, but he said nothing. Instead he jiggled his reins and the coach moved off again, leaving me behind.

I found myself standing alone before a dark, gloomy building made of plain brick. Steps led up to the front door and the tall windows on either side were closed and shuttered. It occurred to me that my path to freedom now lay open all I had to do was run. And I might have, but at that moment a group of Wardens turned the corner at the end of the street and began walking in my direction. Their appearance made my mind up for me. I climbed the steps, rapped on the wood and waited for an answer. Distant footsteps came closer, then a spy-hole opened and a suspicious eyeball peered out at me.

"What do you want?" a muffled voice demanded.

"Otto Thenck sent me," I said, watching the Wardens, who were bound to question my appearance if not my smell. Or would they? After all, I was outside the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security and might have authorized business there, for all they knew. But I didn't dare take that chance. If any of them recognized me. . .

Heavy bolts were drawn back at last and the door swung open. A dwarf who'd had to stand on a wooden stool to reach the spy-hole scowled up at me. He wore a black uniform with silver buttons and epaulettes, high riding boots and a curved cavalry sword that trailed on the stained wood floor because of his lack of altitude. His squashed face was wrinkled and lined, and his dark curly hair had turned white around the edges.