Page 87 of The Dungeon Book

“Bait, listen to me.” She lowered her voice. “This is important. More important than you can understand, perhaps—”

“I understand. I just don’t care.”

“They will make you care, and you won’t like that. The needs of the kingdom outweigh all of us – but I swear on my life, once this is done, you’ll be free to go. Please – at least talk to her. She needs you.”

First, Bait insisted on seeing the Denizens who’d been captured.

The castle was more crowded than ever before. Bait did not know that the entire royal court had decamped here, fleeing the baronial rebellion, and Dunshelm could not contain them all. Like an overstuffed treasure chest, it had burst, spilling brightly coloured tents and pavilions like jewels across the green. Every room was occupied. Great lords and ladies stacked in bunks in the barracks, courtiers slept in the kennels. Even Bait’s old nook in the kitchen was now home to a minister of state.

Added to this hosted host were the captured Denizens. The inner courtyard had become the strangest zoo that has ever existed. Only-Sister in a cage, a dovecote full of stirges, baskets writhing with hagworms, pots and pans as prisons for nixies, trolls chained to a pole, mimics so sun-baked that whatever disguise they adopted was marred by cracks, a duckpond’s worth of Gloop (the indigestible bones of errant ducks floating upon it), and for those brave enough to descend into the castle’s modest dungeon, cells crammed with an assortment of goblins and kobolds. Gaolers watched over this assembly of monsters, so fearful of their charges that they kept a spears-length between them and the prisoners at all times – but they need not have been so fearful. A horrible lethargy hung over the courtyard. Exposed to the cruel sun, pinned in place, the Denizens seemed a sorry lot: starved, bedraggled, mangy, more pathetic than fearsome. The surface world leached them of enchantment.

Before Bait was allowed down to visit the inmates, she was obliged to wear a disguise. She was the very image of the princess – or, rather, the princess was the very image of her. The Princess Aldebara was known to be very ill, and could not be seen walking around the keep. Nala dressed Bait in the robes of an initiate, and drew a hood over her face. Thus concealed, she was allowed make a brief tour of the courtyard. Nala followed close behind, as did armed guards like shadows.

One by one, she visited the Denizens. Each time, she stopped and asked for permission to enter their patch of courtyard, as if she stood outside their lairs. Each time, she asked after their wounds, the conditions of their cages, and brought such little comfort as she could – but she was a prisoner here, too. In one respect only did she differ from the other Denizens: all the rest of them were diminished under the light of the sun, but not Bait.

Orphir and I watched her progress from a high window. Some instinct told her to look up, and she glared at us with a wrath she learned from the dragon.

I told myself it was directed at Orphir, not me. I told myself she could not know me.

I had a heart again, and so had to guard it against breaking.

When I was young, I had a sister. Or, to be precise, I thought I had a sister. My childhood on the streets of Crowhaven is another tale entirely; the absences of my drunkard father, how I met Orphir, the son of a crumbling house, how we gulled our way into the confidences of Master Pentsable – all dust on the wind now. Not all tales need to be told – and, indeed, the story of the girl I thought was my sister goes unrecorded in any grimoire or ledger, save the record of births and deaths in the parish church. I never told it to Bait; why I’m telling it to you will become clear in a moment.

Her name was Mira; she was a delight to me and a torment to my mother. She was five when the plague took her. After the funeral, various aunts and uncles came back to our little house to talk and drink and remember and forget. I was six, maybe seven, not old enough to be part of the company – and I was a sneaky wretch even then. I thought that maybe if I eavesdropped on the talk of the adults I might learn why my sister had perished and I had lived. There must be some reason for it, surely.

What I gleaned was something altogether different. Mira was not my sister at all, or at best she was my half-sister. Her mother was not my mother, and it was a matter of bawdy speculation as to who had sired her – my own father, or some other man. It seemed that my father, who I knew chiefly as a heavy tread on the stairs, a shouted argument, a slammed door – had bedded another woman. Mira had been born of that union, the other woman vanished (died or fled, I know not) leaving my father with another child. He had somehow convinced my mother to raise Mira as her own, until plague cut short her little story.

My point is that I knew none of it, and, more, had no reason to suspect anything was amiss, even though there were any number of clues. The way my mother favoured her other children over Mira, the colour of Mira’s eyes, certain comments the neighbours made. I was a clever child, I delighted in secrets and intrigues; had I paid the slightest attention, I would not have overlooked those hints. But children have no reason to question the first circumstances in which they find themselves; it seems to them the natural shape of the world. Afterwards, though – I looked back, and was amazed that I did not know. What had seemed a straight and unbending road was now revealed as but one possible path through a labyrinth of possibilities.

But what of you?

When did you first suspect what you were? Did you wonder why you were not permitted to accompany your father into the crypt beneath the grand cathedral where your mother’s ashes were interred? Did you question the strange potions prescribed by your physician? Did you dream of dark places, deep under the earth?

The Princess Aldebara had been forewarned—

You had been forewarned, that is – but for the benefit of our audience, you’ll forgive me if I continue in my own manner, and give them a glimpse into the intrigues of the keep that they could not have perceived from the courtyard.

So, the Princess Aldebara had been forewarned of Bait’s capture. As manners dictated, then, Aldebara rose from her sickbed. This represented a great effort for her; a day out of bed meant three lying there aching and recuperating. Servants washed and combed her long and untangled hair, and dressed her for the day. She thanked them, very sweetly, even as she hated to rely on them. The days when she could care for herself were like a fading dream. She breakfasted on the same fare as the rest of the castle, although she ate with knife and fork of carved bone, not iron; the touch of iron sickened her. Despite these precautions, she ate little. She kept the shutters closed, and ate by candlelight, for sunlight hurt her eyes. Only at the last minute, when she heard the guards’ footsteps on the stair, did Aldebara order the shutters be thrown back and the room flooded with daylight.

When Bait entered, her counterpart had a halo so bright she swore in the Dungeon Tongue.

“Such language is inappropriate,” said Aldebara; then the shadow of a frown crossed her face. She had never heard the Dungeon Tongue before in her life, but it was instantly familiar to her. She rolled this discovery around in her mind, let it rest on her lips. Under her breath she tried a few words – the hiss of a hagworm, the yowl of a troll, the rumbling hiss of a dragon. Eggs, bacon, toast.

The Dungeon Tongue was a changeling’s inheritance.

Nala pushed Bait over the threshold. “It’s polite to curtsey before the princess, Bait.”

“No.”

“She is a wild creature,” said Aldebara. “We should not expect more from her. Leave us.”

Nala bowed and withdrew. The guards stayed.

“You may go also.”

“The Chancellor commanded we keep watch on this creature. It is dangerous in any shape.”

“Even mine? I can barely stand.”