The Fallen World

House Konnen - Part 1

     “No!” said Lirenna. “There’s nothing back there except a slow death by starvation. We have to give ourselves up. Let them arrest us and hope that their superiors will listen to reason.”

     They all looked at each other, and then Shaun and Matthew slowly lowered their swords. Two guards stepped forward to take them, and then the questers were searched and everything they were carrying was taken from them. They told Shaun and Matthew to take off their armour, leaving them standing in their underwear, while the others produced steel manacles.

     Seeing them Lirenna went pale and Thomas put his hands out in protest. “You won’t need those, we’ll go with you quietly…”

     The head guard went to hit him again and Thomas deflected the blow with his hand, but the guard caught his arm and twisted it behind his back.

     The others made no protest as they were manacled, but Jerry and Lirenna’s wrists were too thin for the human sized manacles, even when they were closed to their fullest extent. The head guard heard one of his men sniggering behind his back and turned crimson with fury, but then he saw the boots the demi shae was wearing. He shouted at her to take them off, then pulled the laces out and used them to tie her and Jerry's hands, jerking the thin leather cord painfully tight in his anger. "Now move!" he roared, pushing her roughly in the middle of the back and sending her stumbling.

     They were led down the wide corridor in single file while the soldiers followed, carrying their possessions. They passed several wide corridors that intersected theirs at right angles, and looking down them Thomas saw dozens of doors, some of them open, with people going in and out through them. They’re homes, he thought, seeing some fussy housewives busily scrubbing their doorsteps. That’s where these people actually live. We were right, this is the residential district.

     He looked ahead at Lirenna, who was walking bravely with her head held high despite the obvious pain in her wrists from the tight laces. One of the soldiers walking alongside them, a nasty looking creature with long, lanky hair, moved up to walk alongside her and put an arm around her shoulders to whisper something in her ear. She pulled away angrily, but he grabbed her again, leering nastily, and held her roughly by the upper arm while he slipped his other hand inside the front of her shirt.

     She gasped as he fondled her and Thomas started angrily forward, pulling at his manacled wrists, but the Captain held him back. “Lokus!" he roared. "Leave her alone!”

     The soldier looked disappointed and did as he was ordered, but not without running his fingers through her silky, dark hair as he moved away. Thomas’s anger subsided, but as it did so it was replaced by fear as he realised how helpless he was to defend her.

     The corridor ran for about a hundred yards, past crowds of people who stared curiously at them as they passed. They stared especially at Lirenna and Jerry, since none of them had ever seen either a nome or a shae woman before. The other races of humanity were just stories and legends to them, but the descriptions given in the stories were quite accurate and they all heard astonished whispers coming from the bystanders who lined their path. "Look, mummy! It's a nome!"

     "Don't be silly, dear. There's no such things as nomes."

     Lirenna took the scrutiny in her stride, the only sign that she was feeling any discomfort being the slow twisting of her wrists and the flexing and unflexing of her fingers as she tried to ease the pain of her bonds. Jerry was in real distress, though, owing to the fact that one of the soldiers had taken his conical hat to see if there was anything hidden in it. Normally the tiny nome only ever took off his hat to comb or wash his hair and Thomas remembered him saying that it was deeply shameful for any nome to be seen bareheaded in public.

     Fortunately his ordeal only lasted for a couple of minutes as they reached the end of the corridor and entered a large open space the size of a town marketplace, and despite their present predicament the six questers gazed in wonder at the spectacle it contained. In addition to the wide corridor they’d come in through, two slightly narrower corridors ran away from the chamber to left and right, and one of the chamber’s long sides had several doorways in it, the entrances to several more homes, although the size and elegance of the doorways suggested that these were the homes of the rich and influential. The upper classes. It was the other long wall that held their attention, though. The wall facing them as they entered the chamber.

     A semicircular flight of steps ran up to a pair of magnificent doors that stood open to reveal a gloriously beautiful hall beyond, decorated with marble pillars, tapestries, paintings and wall hangings. It looked like the entrance to an Emperor’s palace, which was probably pretty much what it was. More pillars stood beside the great doors and all along the wall, probably more for decoration than for support since none of the other walls of the chamber had them. Above the door was an arch within which was a carved stone bull’s head whose long horns stretched out on either side; the longhorn cattle emblem of the Agglemonian Empire.

     The rest of the wall was covered with frescoes and bas reliefs, some of which were merely abstract designs but most of which depicted male and female human figures; some fighting fearsome monsters, others reclining in opulent luxury. Thomas supposed that they represented Gods or famous heroes. One image was instantly recognisable as Conwar, the God of Courage, the standard bearer of Samnos, and the wizard felt his spirits lift considerably. If they revere Conwar, then they must be basically good people, he thought. Then he remembered that this place had been created three hundred years before, though. Fifteen human generations. A people can change a lot in that time.

     In addition to the huge double doors there were two other small doors in the magnificently decorated wall, one on either side. The door on the right was open and Thomas saw a young woman in a maid’s uniform scurrying through. That must be the servant’s entrance, he thought. Some things never change. Their captors took them to the other door, though, and as they were pushed through and into the gloomy tunnel beyond, Thomas knew instinctively where it went. The dungeons.