Captive Audience

Jevon and Ant are captives of Hobnail, while Muld is taken prisoner by the Archdruid of Albyia.

11.

Captive Audience

 

 

*Jevon, can you hear me?   I can sense that you are waking up, but stay quiet for a moment and listen to me.    We’re prisoners of pirates.   I think they may be some of Hobnail’s bunch from the brief scans of their minds.    They know who you are and that we both are Bitter Dregs.    They are after you, but just as bait to get Muld.   Don’t answer me verbally, but do you understand what I’ve told you?*

*Yes*  Jevon thought, knowing Ant would hear his thought.

*Good.   We have to convince them that we both are valuable enough to keep alive.    They think I’m just a Faesidhe or Losasidhe Elf and I can’t tell you the terrible ideas some of them have concerning me.   I’m going to pose as one of the Losasidhe royals - a niece of Syndi, since these pirates have no idea who is who amongst the Losasidhe.    I’ll still use the name Syl Botanus, but I’ll be the oldest daughter of Syndi’s second oldest brother.*

*They may question you on your father’s name.*

*None of them will likely know, but I know his name is Symorden.   He and his wife Jeevy just had a baby.   Hopefully none of the pirates know that.*

*It’s risky, Ant.*

*That’s part of the dangers of the profession, Jevon.   Just stay calm and play along.   Go ahead and officially ‘wake up’ now.   I’ll act as if your voice and movement caused me to also come to.*

*Okay*  Jevon thought and then groaned slightly and moved his legs, which he was not surprised to find were tightly bound.

His movement caused some guards to jump to their feet and yell out to someone, “Hey, Captain, they’re coming around!”

Jevon opened his eyes to find that they were still blurry from being struck on the head.     A few moments of blinking brought them into focus.   

“Hey…”  He said sluggishly, as if he was still dazed and unsure where he was, “Hey… what is going on… where am I?”

Ant began shuffling her legs and moaned slightly, feigning to also regain consciousness.

His arms were tied tightly behind his back and he could see Ant’s were as well, for she had been placed next to him.    They apparently were in the cargo hold of an airship - perhaps the Silver Pegasus. 

Then there was suddenly a group of men around them, holding the tips of swords near their faces.

“What is this?   Who are you?”  Jevon asked.

“We’re your captors, magician, and you’d best think twice about yelling or raising a fuss, because we are miles away from the city and high up in the air.”

“But… why?”   He heard Ant groan again and make a very convincing gasp as if she was terrified of what she awoke to see.

One of the pirates poked her cheek with the tip of his sword.   It was not enough to draw blood, but Ant flinched with the expected expression of a scared Losasidhe member of the royal family.

“You just sit tight too, little missy, and you’ll live to tell your grandchildren about this someday.   Keep your wits, girl and behave, savvy?”

Ant nodded, her lips quivering like a terrified child.     Jevon was impressed at her acting ability.

“What do you want with us?”   He asked the pirates, trying to sound intimidated by them.

“Just you wait; the boss will explain it to you and I can hear him coming right now.”

The distinct sound of heavy boots with hobnails on the soles could be heard quickly approaching.

*Hobnail, no doubt - it isn’t the first one, but one of his brothers, trying to create a supernatural air of invincibility to the name.   Act as if you are greatly intimidated by him.   He’s not as all powerful as he claims, though.    But let him think that he has you scared.*

Jevon looked around wildly, trying his best to give off the impression of a man struggling with a feeling of helplessness and terror.

The men stepped aside and suddenly there stood before them a squat, redheaded dwarf with a long braided beard and a shaved head.    He grinned savagely as he stood there looking at them, clearly pleased with the panicked expression on both of their faces.

“I be Captain Hobnail, and ye are my prisoners.”

Ant moaned pitifully which caused the dwarf to laugh.

“Ye might have heard I was dead, but it takes a lot to kill Hobnail.    Your damned master tried, magician, and I intend to skin him and make sails from his hide!     Ye are my bait, lad, but I want to know why ye are workin’ as a Bitter Dreg?    And this pointy-eared lass - is she a Dreg too?”

“Yes sir, we’re Dregs, but we were just heading to Losahome to do some Practical Magic work for the King.”

“Ye think I’m a fool, boy?   This lass is a Losasidhe Elf!”

“Yes, sir; she was sent to us with the King’s order.”

Jevon felt the dwarf’s meaty hands pull him up closer to him by the collar of his shirt until he was only an inch away from the wild-eyed pirate leader, “Don’t ye lie to me, boy!”

“I’m not, sir!   She was sent from Losahome with an order for-“

“Liar!    The Losasidhe King is in Westmark!”   Hobnail yelled in his face.

“The Crown Prince sent me, sir!”  Ant blurted out, sounding scared out of her wits, “Prince Elothmends, sir!   He sent me with the order!”

Hobnail released his hold on Jevon and he plopped back down to the wooden floor of the hold.   The dwarf now grabbed Ant by the collar and yelled in her face, “And who do ye be?”

“I-I-m S-S- Syl Botanus, sir!    Prince Elothmends is my uncle!”

“Your uncle?!”   Hobnail shook her as if he was unconvinced.

“Prince Symorden and Princess Jeevy are my parents, sir!”

“You are a member of the royal family?”

“Y-Y-Yes sir!”

“We’ll see about that, girly, soon enough!    And if your story doesn’t check out, I will let my men have their way with you before I throw you overboard!   That’s what we do to lying Dreg b*****s!”

“P-P-Please, sir, I-I-I’m telling the truth!”

“I hope so for your sake, lass, for ye see; soon we’ll meet up with someone who would know you for sure, if you are who ye say you are.”

“What are you going to do with us?”  Jevon asked.

“You, I’m keeping for an exchange with your guild’s master.    The pointy-eared girl may be ransomed if she is a princess.   If not; I have no use for her.   But for now ye both are safe.    You’ll be bound until we rendezvous with the Red Buzzard tomorrow.    So ye just lay there and keep your wits about you.   Remember, I have no qualms about gutting either one of you.   Ye be good and tell the truth to me and ye just might live to tell of your meetin’ Hobnail.”

He released his hold on Ant and walked away, speaking as he went, “Post a guard on top of the hold trapdoor.    Then lock it.    They’d have to climb the ladder and push the door open to escape, unless they push the cargo bay door open, and then they’d have to be able to fly!”

The men laughed and followed their captain.    Nearby was a ladder leading out of the cargo hold through a trap door about twenty feet above them.     The pirates ascended the ladder, and then they slammed the door shut and they heard a padlock click in place.

“Great, it looks like we’re in for a very uncomfortable ride,”  Jevon said after the pirates’ voices faded away on the deck above them.

“I’ll be free of these ropes in a few minutes.”

“How?”

“I’m a Changeling; I can slightly alter my shape, enough at least to slip the ropes off my wrists and then I’ll free you.   But we need to stay here and slip the ropes back on when they return.”

“Why?   They’ll kill us - or at least you- when they learn that you lied to them!”

“But that’s why we need to see who they bring to identify us - that should be the Losasidhe spy!”

“What good will that knowledge do us when they kill us directly afterwards?”

“We’ll have to figure something out.     I scanned Hobnail’s brain for the identity of the man.   All I could pick up is that he is a member of the Losasidhe royal court and has been working with the pirates for years.”

“Why?”

“For a share of their plunder.     Elves can be just as greedy as humans.     Perhaps he is a disgruntled noble, seeking revenge on the Losasidhe royals.”

“Well, whatever his reason, he will see through your cover!”

“Yes, I imagine that he will.   So we have to come up with a plan before then.”

“I don’t suppose you have a way to fly?   We could drop through the cargo bay doors if you did.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.   I don’t even have an Autocaster ring.”

“Then we’re in serious trouble.”

“Only if we don’t think of a plan.  Give me time to think, Jevon.”

“Okay, but think quickly - we’re living on borrowed time.”

“You should be okay; it’s me that is in danger.”

“All the more reason to come up with a plan quickly.”

“Then shut up for a while and let me think.”  

 

Jevon complied and just closed his eyes, trying to relax his cramped arm and leg muscles while attempting to come up with his own escape plan, but with no success.

 

***

 

His head throbbed and there was the babbling of a man speaking an unknown language, but suddenly his head stopped hurting.   Muld opened his eyes in time to see the last of the spell’s glow fade.     He was face to face with the wild haired elven man with the piercing blue eyes.    Muld couldn’t move his arms or legs and he knew without looking that his bonds were some of the tangled brambles all around them.     The man was clearly a Druid, for he had manipulated the thicket on the side of a hill to restrain him.

The man began chanting a spell in a low, deep voice and when he finished, he spoke something to Muld, then, a moment later, his voice magically repeated it, but in the common language. 

“Who are you?”   He asked.

“I am Muld Mozzil,” He replied, and a second later, his words were translated into the Druid’s native language.

The Druid said something in the unknown tongue, there was a moment’s pause, and then the spell translated it, “Why are you on this island, Muld Mozzil?   You are not an Albyian elf!   Clearly you are from the human lands, for you reek of the stench of humanity!    You shall tell me why you are here!   Did you come with the human soldiers?”

The Druid was glaring at him and seemed to be growing more annoyed each moment.    He had no choice but to just tell him what he could, and hope Yesh would protect him.     Muld wondered where Syndi and the Lizard-woman were.    Hopefully they had reached the pool.

“Tell me!”   The Druid hissed, still using the spell to converse with him.

“We were teleported here - to the pool.   We don’t know why or how.”

“You said ‘we’!    You mean you and the girl with the fiery hair?”

“Yes; we felt as if we were growing weak and we lost consciousness and then we awoke in the pool, with our memories jumbled up for a while.”

“You and the girl - are you Soul-joined?”

“Soul-joined?    Do you mean Aleiryid?”

“Yes, yes!   That is it!    You are Soul-joined but have not united with her physically, have you?”

Muld blushed upon hearing the man’s words, but he nodded, hoping a passive attitude would calm the man’s mood.

The Druid sighed as if Muld’s answer was an inconvenience to him, but did not speak for a long time.   Muld remained still, allowing the man to think.

“So… you were not with the humans?”

“No, we’re just trying to find a way home.”

“This place is not for you - it is a holy place; for elves.”

“I am an Elf,”  Muld protested.

“You are tainted…the pool is not for the tainted ones.    But both of you were brought here and the pool did not consume you…”

“Who are you, sir?”   Muld finally asked.

The man sat up straight, his chest thrust out in pride, “I am Calarom, the Arch Druid, guardian of the holy pool of Lord Mórálach.”

“Can you tell me how we got here, and how do we get home?”

Calarom let the spell translate Muld’s words and then the Druid shrugged, “That is not my concern.   Since you and the girl were brought here by the power of Lord Mórálach’s magic, you are pure enough to live.   I have no course but to abide by the will of the pool.    You shall not be harmed.”

Calarom clapped his hands twice, and then spread his arms wide, and immediately the thicket brambles and twigs unwound from around Muld’s limbs.

He sat up, rubbing his stiff wrists and glanced around.

 

The Imperial Camp was not to be found; they were on top of a small hill that was covered with a tangled mess of thorny small trees.    The two of them were in a six foot wide section of that hill that was relatively free of the trees and bushes.

Although he couldn’t see them, Muld could sense that there were hidden people watching all around them.    He suspected that they were some of Calarom’s people, probably guarding their leader from various hiding places.  

The spell that the Druid had cast for them to understand each other’s language ended and Muld thought he’d recast it so they could continue to talk, but instead Calarom stood up, gave a shrill whistle and immediately ten rather primitively dressed elves surrounded Muld with short bows drawn back and arrows notched.

“Am I a prisoner?”   He asked Calarom, but since the Druid didn’t understand him, he just ignored him and spoke briefly to the elves.  One of the ten archers lowered his bow, came forward and took Muld’s arm and pushed him forward.    He went passively, knowing there was no chance that he could escape them.

Calarom led the group into the thickets, and the brambles all moved aside as he neared.     This created a path that they all walked through which closed behind them, completely obscuring the way.

Muld felt his heart sink, for no-one would ever find him.   

 

***

 

The Lizard-woman had long reptilian legs somewhat like a chicken, and in spite of her advanced pregnancy, she had easily outrun Syndi and dove gracefully into the pool, disappearing under the waters before Syndi had even reached the bottom of the hill.

The Losasidhe princess had stopped at the edge of the pool, looking back for Muld after hearing him fall.    She had no idea what had happened to him, but she wasn’t about to leave him behind.

For a long moment she waited, praying that he’d appear, but then, with a glance back to the pool to verify that the Lizard-woman was truly gone, she raced up the hill as quietly as she could.

Muld was gone - the hill was empty of people, except for the dead bodies of a handful of Imperial soldiers.

Syndi paused, unsure what she should do.    But that decision was taken away from her when seemingly out of nowhere, a pair of elven men grabbed her.

She fought wildly, but they had her hands and feet bound in a flash and though she screamed and shouted, no-one came to her aid.

Then her mouth was gagged and the two men picked her up and carried her off into the foliage on the side of the path.

In a moment they had disappeared.

In the pool a reptilian head silently broke the surface of the pool and a pair of brown eyes stared for a long time up the hill in the darkness.

 

***

 

With a mournful groan, the first of their prisoners regained consciousness, only to find himself firmly bound, in a warehouse of the Practical Magician’s Guild.

He struggled in wide-eyed terror for a few moments, while Rick, Shel, Mutt and Tadd just sat nearby and watched him like a caged bird.

“He’s not too happy to see us,”   Tadd said to his companions.

“Well I’m happy to see that he’s awake now,”   Rick answered, rising from the chair with a dagger drawn.    The others watched him in silence; clearly knowing what he planned to do.

The prisoner’s eyes bulged, but his gag was too secure to let him shout or scream.

Rick walked up to him, pulled back his greasy hair and made a shallow cut in the man’s cheek.

“Feel that, buddy?    That is a really sharp dagger that I’ve cut you with.   That cut was very minor and we’ll heal you up if you cooperate.    Really, you have no choice.    If I cut your gag and you scream out, we’ll just let the Evening Watch come and we’ll tell them all about you and your partner.”

“So unless you want to end up in the royal dungeon or want me to stab you to death, leave you in an alley and tell the Night Guard that you died trying to mug me; you’ll think long and hard about what you do and say when I cut your gag.    If you think of lying about anything I ask you; be very sure that we will verify everything you say with magic, and we won’t appreciate any lies.   Do you understand?”

The man nodded vigorously.

“Good… do you have any questions to ask me?”

The man shook his head with equal passion.

“Alright then; we have the lie detection spells cast on you already, so now we’ll simply ask you some questions.”

Rick cut the man’s gag and the man immediately burst into conversation, confessing everything and giving names, places and motives.

 

His tale was of his life working for Hobnail - or more accurately, ‘the Hobnails’ for they were a group of four Dwarven brothers who had decided to take up piracy during the time of the Northmarch civil war, some time ago.

The brothers’ original plan was to hijack a series of airships and scatter all around Northmarch and the neighboring lands, attacking caravans and even towns.      All of them would claim to be Hobnail, and as a result, he would seem to be everywhere.

But Northmarch’s civil war led to the creation of Marksylvania and the quick stabilization of the new kingdom thwarted their original plans.

Instead, they decided to just let one of them pose as Hobnail, until that  brother died, then another one would take up the role.

It took a long time for them to acquire a fleet of pirate ships and at the same time, the dwarves began secretly recruiting pirates to their cause by posing as Dwarven merchants.    They’d locate disillusioned never-do-wells in bars and taverns and soon had a motley crew of robbers and thieves.

Their greatest success in recruitment was winning a bitter Faesidhe nobleman’s son - a powerful wizard named Gelden- to work with them.   

But Gelden had other schemes and after working with them for a few years, he disappeared with some of his Faesidhe followers.

At about that same time, Hobnail I (as the captive pirate called the first of the brothers to assume the role) decided to get some of the wonderful new practical magic that he’d heard was being created in Westmark.

He hadn’t counted on Muld and Syndi’s resistance to him and it had finally cost him his life and the loss of many of his pirate ships.

 

Gelden’s kidnapping of the Losasidhe royals had surprised the other Dwarven brothers and the loss of Windhaven as their base while they were away plotting other schemes made them greatly loathe Muld and the Practical Magician’s Guild.

Now, Hobnail II had a scheme to get Muld and Syndi.    They had abducted Jevon and planned to hold him for an exchange for Muld and Syndi when (and if) they return.

“I heard you talking about a spy working for Hobnail in Losahome,”   Shel said to their captive pirate (who gave his name as Forrnick), “Who is the spy?”

Forrnick shifted uncomfortably, “If I tell you, Hobnail will be after my head as well.”

“Tell us or tell the King’s officials.   They have more powerful magic than we do.,”  Rick said.

The pirate sighed and nodded, “Alright; but can you protect me from them?”

“We can arrange that,”   Mutt responded, “Just tell us who the Losasidhe spy is, so we can better help Jevon.”

“Well… actually, there are two spies.  A girl, who you know.”

“A woman?”    Rick jumped up, “Her name is Jain, isn’t it?”

The pirate looked down at his feet and nodded, anticipating Rick’s reaction.

“She used me!   Probably trying to find information on Muld, I’ll bet!   What about Jevon’s girl… Braellia?”

“No…not that I am aware of.”

“Okay, that’s one of the two.   Who’s the other one?”  Shel pressed, giving Rick a sympathetic look as he paced around the room in frustration.

“A Losasidhe nobleman and close friend of the royal family.    His name is Lord Deryck Memphellic, Captain of the Losasidhe King’s Guard.”