Necropolis

It hit Conyr then, with strange and clear resonance, like the voice of a god. This man was innocent of whatever he had been charged with. He couldn't explain his certainty, except that some errant intuition urged him to accept it. The realization unnerved him.

Conyr turned his back on the spectacle, his gaze roaming the crowd for troublemakers. The prisoners shouldn't have been allowed to witness such an event, but Falas liked an audience. His perversions had been accepted--even embraced--by the other guards but he had never pressured Conyr to join him like he did the others. Conyr was different. Perhaps it was his height or frequent scowls or the battle scars which crisscrossed into haphazard patterns on his knee and arm, reminders of his years in the Cyran campaign. The others envied him for participating in that war. Fools. If they only knew what it had done to him, the dreams he suffered, the memories which would not leave his mind.

Falas laughed once, wildly, and swung his cudgel with so much force that the crunching of bone could be heard over his grunt of effort. The young man gave a strangled cry. Conyr turned back to watch the beating.

The prisoner's tunic, torn diagonally across his chest, showed his injuries clearly. Already his torso dripped with sweat. He panted in terror. Conyr's stomach lurched, and he cursed at himself. The first few times he'd witnessed this kind of thing he had been repulsed, so much so that he could hardly hold down his dinner, but soon he learned to pretend that the victims were not human, and disgust no longer overwhelmed him. But not this time.

As though Falas' first blow had freed them from their tethers, the two other guards descended on the young man like starving jackals, adding their cruel blows. Kar in heaven . . .Conyr could not watch as the young man's body bucked with the blows, dripping blood. Conyr focused his gaze on a point past the execution-- no, the murder. That was when Gilas caught his eye.

Conyr should have looked away immediately, but something in Gilas' cold, dark eyes held his attention. Gilas was a rogue ex-councilman who had somehow managed to offend Zelos Denay, a distinguished member of the Council of One Hundred, and thus ended up a prisoner on the second level. He should have been in his cell now. Conyr didn't know how he got out, he only knew it wasn't the first time. Gilas was the most powerful man in this filthy place, more powerful than the guards or the other prisoners, even the Captain himself, but he exerted his power in such quiet and shrewd ways that few were aware of his interference. Conyr was one of these.

With a slow, deliberate motion, Gilas stretched his hand out, palm up, reminding Conyr of his promise. Conyr cursed, unbelieving, shaking his head. Gilas' eyes narrowed and he inclined his head toward the prisoner, mouthing the word, "Now!"

Conyr hesitated, fearing what would happen if he did what Gilas wanted as much as what would happen if he didn't. He cursed again. A sudden inspiration struck him. He went to the door and peered out it to the darkened stairway. He stood there for a moment, sweating and fishing around in the pocket of his tunic, before drawing out the Captain's token, a small piece of parchment with the wax imprint of a winged lion. A week ago, the Captain had sent it to him as a pass into the Administrative Complex when Conyr had been called to explain the murder of two inmates by a third. He had meant to turn it in for days now, but kept forgetting; now, he blessed his faulty memory. With the token in hand, he closed the door and pivoted, shouting: "Stop!" The ferocity in his voice surprised him. The guards stared at him, their cudgels raised in mid-swing.

He strode forward and nodded Falas aside. Gesturing at the door, he said in a low voice, "The Captain's messenger was just here. He sent this, and a command: Ranem's hounds shall be fed tonight." Ranem, the kennel master, trained his dogs to devour human flesh; living flesh, whenever possible. Ranem claimed he produced the most vicious guard dogs in the four corners of the earth. Conyr believed him.

Falas cursed and wiped a runnel of perspiration from his forehead. He breathed hard with a kind of frantic madness. "Why didn't the messenger speak with me directly?"

Conyr shrugged, trying to keep his sudden cold fear from showing. He glanced at Dru. "Perhaps he had other errands, or perhaps he saw that you were . . . occupied."

Falas frowned, considering. Conyr felt Gilas' gaze on them; it seemed to burn the back of his neck like a cinder. He remembered, then, the whisperings of other prisoners who had named Gilas a master of dark sorceries. At length, Falas nodded. The prisoners groaned and one of the guards threw up his hands in disgust. "All right," Falas said. "Choose a prisoner to carry him."

Conyr scanned the crowd with seeming randomness and pointed at Gilas. Gilas came forward, a slight, balding man with small, shrewd eyes and a meticulous demeanor. The other prisoners drew back from him as though they were afraid, and one of Falas' two henchmen let him into the guard's area. Falas directed the other guard to release the prisoner, who slumped in a crumpled heap on the blood-spattered floor. Conyr opened the iron door to the stairway as Gilas pulled the injured man's arm around his shoulders. He and Conyr locked eyes for a scant moment and then they were moving out the door and up the dimly lit stairway. The curses of the prisoners followed them. They topped the stairs and flung open the door to the street, Conyr's heart hammering all the while.