Ehren passed him a bottle of wine. Tavi swallowed a gulp or two, splashed more of it onto his armor and cloak, and passed the bottle to Araris, who did the same. They pulled up the hoods and turned to Ehren. "Well?" Tavi asked.
Ehren studied them critically and nodded. "Pretty good."
"Let's go," Tavi said.
They followed the route Cams and Gert would have used to return to the Tower, shadowed by Ehren. The little Cursor dogged their footsteps until they came within sight of the Tower, at which point he disappeared.
"Relax your knees a little," Tavi murmured to Araris. "You don't look drunk enough."
"Not everyone's had Cursor training," Araris replied. But he did as Tavi said, and they approached the gate.
"Who's that?" called the on-duty guard in sleepy challenge.
Tavi recognized the voice of Tiberus, another of the Guardsmen he knew, and he did his best to imitate Carus's voice. "Come on, Tib," he slurred. "You know who it is."
"About time," Tiberus replied, yawning. "Hold on." He appeared behind the gates, holding a ring of keys. He shambled up sleepily and unlocked the gates.
The instant they were unlocked, Tavi slammed the gate open, hard. It struck Tiberus on the forehead, and he staggered back. Tavi closed on him before the expression of shocked surprise faded, and struck him once, then twice across the jaw with his closed fists. Tiberus rocked back and forth under the pair of blows, then seemed simply to deflate. He sank slowly to the ground.
Tavi winced, shaking his right hand, while Araris seized Tiberus and hauled him into the guardhouse and out of sight. Tavi closed the gate and locked it, then took the heavy ring of keys. He turned and started walking toward the entrance of the tower proper, and Araris fell into step beside him.
They crossed the lawn and walked through the front door of the Grey Tower. Most of the Grey Guard would be asleep now, Tavi knew. A handful of men were on duty, stationed at each floor currently occupied by a prisoner, but not on the stairs themselves. Tavi and Araris went swiftly up the staircase. There were candle-sized furylamps alight at each landing, and they moved as quietly as they could through the dim light until they reached the floor with Varg's cell.
A single guard was on duty in the alcove in the hall adjoining the stairs, an earnest-looking young man Tavi didn't recognize. He sat at a table, writing what looked like a letter. "Is it two already?" the man asked absently. "I thought the midnight bell just-"
The young Guardsman looked up. His eyes flicked between Tavi and Araris, and suddenly widened. He pushed his chair back and began to rise, his mouth opening.
Araris closed the distance before the young guard could stand, his blade appearing in his hand. He lashed out with the pommel, and that Guardsman, too, went down in a heap, his armor clattering.
Tavi stepped over to the stairs, listening for any outcry, but the sound evi-dently had not traveled down the stone stairway. He let out his breath slowly and nodded to Araris.
"All right," he said. "I'll go get him. Then we'll-"
Somewhere in the building, a bell began to ring in a rapid toll of alarm.
Tavi's heart leapt into his throat. "What happened?" he demanded. "What the crows happened? What did we miss?"
Voices cried out somewhere on the staircase below them. A series of rumbling clanks rippled through the building as the newly installed steel portcullises began to slam down all throughout the building, sealing it off from the outside world.
There was a rumble above him, and Tavi barely managed to throw himself forward, into the hallway leading to the prison cells, before several hundred pounds of steel grating plunged down from overhead and slammed to the floor. He turned and stared at the gate now separating him from Araris and the stairway.
"It doesn't matter what we missed," Araris said. He flicked his sword in a little circle, as if loosening his wrist, picked up the sword of the unconscious Guardsman, and stepped out onto the stairway. "Go get the Cane. I'll hold the stairs."
Tavi nodded, turned, and rushed down the hall toward Varg's cell, while the cries of the Grey Guard grew louder, the alarm kept ringing, and the sound of many booted feet striking stone rose up the stairway.
Chapter 34
Varg's cell was a spacious chamber that could fairly be called a suite. The ceilings were high enough even for the ten-foot Cane to stand erect, if he wished, and the cell was divided into a living area, a bedroom, and small dining area. As Tavi approached, the rust-and-musk scent of the Cane bombarded his senses, bringing back the memories of his regular visits with Varg, as well as the memories of the Canim Ambassador's actions during the initial assault of the Vord queen.
Tavi approached the darkened cell, but he couldn't see Varg. Shadows hid most of the suite, but even so, it was difficult to believe that the enormous Cane could have hidden himself. The bed, Tavi thought, was unoccupied, but he couldn't be certain.
He certainly had no intention of opening the door until after he'd spoken to Varg. He might have been on fairly good terms with the Cane, for an Aleran, but Tavi had no illusions. Varg was not his friend. If he thought that the situation might present him an opportunity to escape, and that he could do so by killing Tavi, the Cane would do it. He might regret the necessity, in retrospect, but that wouldn't slow the Cane's claws or fangs for an instant.
Tavi stopped at the door, and called, "Varg! It's Tavi of Calderon. I would speak with you."
In the shadows near the suite's hearth, two flickering gleams of scarlet appeared. A breath later, the shadows stirred, and the enormous shape of the Cane stepped forward into what little light came in from the hall.
Varg looked like something out of a nightmare. Huge, even by the standards of the Canim, he stood nearly ten feet tall. He had fur of darkest black, but it was crisscrossed with so many fine streaks of white, where the fur had grown up through the Cane's battle scars, that in the right light his fur looked almost grey. One of his ears was notched, and a glistening red jewel carved into the shape of a human skull dangled from a gold ring in it. His eyes, black irises against fields of blood-red, studied Tavi with an amused intelligence and, despite his size, he moved as nimbly as a cat as he prowled across the suite to face Tavi.
Tavi leaned his head slightly to one side, exposing the side of his throat. It was a bit of Canim body language similar to a human nod, and Varg returned the gesture, though he did not tilt his head so far as Tavi had.
"You have grown," Varg growled. The Cane's voice was a snarling basso, and his words were mangled by his fangs on the way out of his throat, but his Aleran was perfectly intelligible. "This alarm is your doing, I take it."