Brechalon Read Free Page A

Colbshallow,
setting down in front of Yuah a plate with a large sandwich atop a
tremendous pile of golden chips. “You’re still young and you can
find a man easily enough, if um… well, are you determined to that
he be of your faith?”
    “ Of course she is,” said
Zeah.
    “ As long as he has all his parts, I
don’t care if he worships apple trees and sacrifices chickens when
the moon is full. It’s not as if I’ve been to shrine in years
myself.”
    Zeah and Yuah belonged to the minority Zaeri
religion, a faith that had once been the dominant belief all across
Sumir, while Mrs. Colbshallow and her son, and most of the other
staff were Kafirites. Kafira Kristos who had lived and died two
thousand years before, had been a Zaeri Imam, but her followers had
broken away from the main faith upon her death and supposed
resurrection. Now millions worshipped her as the Holy Savior and
the daughter of God and those ethnic Zur who remained true to their
faith and the few converts to the Zaeri religion were the subjects
in most places of animosity, prejudice, and discrimination. At
least they were in most places outside the Dechantagne home. Miss
Dechantagne would brook none of that.
    “ Excuse me,” said a voice from the
doorway. Everyone in the room turned to see Master Terrence leaning
nonchalantly against the doorframe. None of the staff were sure
just how long he had been standing there. “Mrs. C, could I get one
of those sandwiches? I’m really not in the mood to sit through one
of Iolanthe’s luncheons.”
    Mrs. Colbshallow had the plate in his hands
almost before he finished speaking, and though he hadn’t asked for
one, she pressed a chilly bottle of beer into his other
hand.
    “ Thanks,” he said, turning and
walking out of the servant’s hall. Nobody noticed Yuah giving him
just the same sort of look that she had been receiving from young
Saba just a few minutes before.

Chapter Two: In Distance
Places
    Schwarztogrube sat atop the Isle of Winds,
situated almost exactly in the center of the channel between
Brechalon and Freedonia. Its massive stone walls rising high above
jagged cliffs were not broken by a single door. The few windows
visible were all far too small for anything approaching the size of
a human being to pass through. The only entrance was through a
secret passage at the water’s edge: gated, guarded, and locked. The
towers rising up into the sky were topped with pointed minarets
allowing no entrance from the air. The waters around the tiny
island were constantly patrolled by Brech warships. Inside,
Schwarztogrube was the harshest, ugliest, and most formidable
prison in the world, yet few even knew of its existence.
    Nils Chaplin had been a guard at Schwarztogrube
for almost a whole week before he saw a prisoner. That wasn’t so
surprising, considering the guards outnumbered them at least ten to
one. An entire wing was devoted to incarcerating only about two
dozen men. The prisoners carried out their lives, such as they
were, never leaving their cells, but supplied with food and a few
simple comforts such as a pillow, a blanket, or a book. None of
them looked particularly dangerous, and they weren’t. At least they
weren’t while they were here. Schwarztogrube was a magic prison. A
prison set aside for wizards and sorcerers—the only place in the
world where magic would not work.
    It was his third week and Chapman was looking
forward to a week off back in Brechalon, spending his paycheck,
eating fish and chips, and enjoying life outside of massive stone
bocks, when another guard, Karl Drury, at last led him to the north
wing. Chapman didn’t like Drury. He told disgusting jokes to the
other guards; viciously beat the prisoners, and when he could get
away with it he buggered the boys working in the kitchen or at the
dock. He also stank. But as Chapman followed Drury though the
deathly cold stone walls, he wasn’t thinking about the other
guard’s shortcomings. He was wondering at the