The four keys still in Alaire's pocket did not unlock that padlock -- and Alaire was forced to rifle the two bodies, looking for more keys. The sounds of fighting came nearer.
Finally, he found the key, carelessly thrust into a pocket. He fumbled with the padlock and the blood- slick key, and finally heard the welcome click of the mechanism opening.
He freed Kai of the chains on his ankles and right wrist, but left a single chain dangling from his left. It made a good weapon, and was one that could not be knocked from his hand.
Kai snatched up the dead guards sword, and the two of them turned toward the sound of the fighting.
They exchanged a questioning glance, and Alaire finally spoke. "Whatever's bad for the Association is probably good for us," he said, and Kai nodded. They started for the entrance to the hallwa When the sounds of fighting faded, and turned to cheers.
"And whatever's good for the Association is bad for us," Kai replied. "Lets get out of here!"
"Do you know the way out?" Alaire asked. Kai nod- ded, and pointed glumly towards the hallway.
Alaire cursed, and glanced around. There was a stairway to the balcony he had leapt from, and he grabbed Kai's elbow and dragged him towards it.
"Come on!" he hissed. "I know a place to hide, at least!"
Back to Carlotta. Anything that happened would be reported directly to her -- and anyone looking for Kai would be looking in the opposite direction of Car- lotta's lair. Right now, hiding somewhere near her would probably be the safest place in the prison.
If there is any safe place here... for any of us.
Chapt Just before they reached the lair, Alaire took a moment to pull Kai toward him and whisper some cautions into his ear.
"Whatever happens, whatever you see and hear, don't move or make a sound unless I do," he said, cast- ing nervous glances up and down the hall. "We're going to hide out in a special room down here, where the real power behind the Association and Jehan lives.
She's pretty awful, but she's kind of -- a -- a cripple.
She can't move much, and even though she's a really nasty mage, she can't do anything to us unless she knows we're there. Got that?"
"I guess so," Kai whispered, his face mirroring his confusion. "Where she is, that's the last place anyone would look for us, right?"
"Right." Alaire took the lead again, half-running, his heart pounding, and expecting at any moment to encounter a guard or one of the Association mages.
But they made it to the room without incident, and as Alaire made a quieting motion to Kai, and wormed his way into the maze of boxes, it dawned on him why Carlotta had chosen to live in a storage roo Because it wasn't a storage room at all -- it was a room full of the tangible relics of her power.
Loot, in other words; valuable tilings she had probably had confiscated and brought to her. And like a dragon, she had piled up her treasures here, where she could look at them and gloat over them every day. Certainly there was no other way she could enjoy her power, except by having people brought down here to be killed. She could not move from this place, there was only so much food even a gross lump like Carlotta could eat in a day, and as for enjoying the kind of life -- and lovers -- she had enjoyed before the backlash of her attempts to break her Unmaking spell . . . Alaire doubted that there was anything in the universe that could be induced to find Carlotta's hulk tolerable, much less desirable.
Alaire found a place under a low couch where he and Kai could get a good view of the center of the lair without being seen. Kai started a little when he real- ized that the thing in the middle of the room was alive, and not some land of grotesque and obscene statue, or a pile of garbage, but he made no sound.
They had not been in place for very long, when noises from another hallway indicated that the guards were bringing in prisoners of some kind. Alaire thought he was prepared for almost anything, but his heart stopped when he realized the three battered individuals being hauled before Carlotta were Nai- tachal, Lyam and the King.
That was too much for Kai; he gasped, and started to squirm out. Alaire had to grab him and haul him back, covering his mouth with one hand, and whispering urgently that all Kai could do at the moment would be to get himself killed. Finally Kai stopped struggling, and nodded, and Alaire took his hand away. Fortunately, the noise the prisoners and their guards had made more than covered the noises Kai had produced. By the time the two of them had settled once again, the prisoners were all arranged before the obscene bulk of the former half-fairy.
"Well, your Majesty," Carlotta said, her relatively pleasant voice something of a shock, coming out of her hideous body. "How kind of you to finally pay me a visit! I have been looking forward to this for some time.
Tell me, how did you enjoy my little gifts to you?
The King shook his head, puzzled. "G-gifts?" he fal- tered. "Who are you? What gifts?"