Lady Carliss and the Waters of Moorue by Chuck Black

Author:Chuck Black [Black, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-60142-258-3
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2010-06-29T22:00:00+00:00

THE SECRET OF LORD MALCO AND MOORUE

Malco nodded, and the two guards opened the doors to the mysterious great chamber. As Carliss and Malco entered, the piercing squeals of a large hog filled the room. Carliss looked on in wonder as a barred cage holding the animal was slowly lowered by a winch through a wide opening in the floor of the chamber. A supervisor stood on a platform just at the edge of the opening and gave orders to the two men who were working the winch. White-clothed servants stood near a platform waiting for something. Around the opening in the floor were hundreds of tightly spaced barbed projections pointing to the center where the cage was, and just above them were two dozen brightly burning lamps. Carliss could just see the top portion of a wide circular staircase winding its way down into the darkness. A locked trapdoor apparently gave access to the staircase.

At first Carliss thought the opening in the center of the chamber encircled some darkened dungeon below. But then she realized there was no dungeon below at all. The chamber opened directly onto the swamp of Moorue—the abode of the esca lizards. The darkness must mean that dusk had already fallen.

Squealing echoed through the chamber once again as the hog began to charge the bars of the cage in panic. The sound unnerved Carliss.

“What’s happening?” she asked Malco.

Malco had been smiling ever since they entered the chamber, and Carliss couldn’t suppress the shudder that convulsed her back and neck muscles at his evident glee.

“We are milking the esca lizards,” he said. “Watch.”

The lower portion of the cage entered the shadow of darkness where the light of the lamps could not reach, and the rope that held the cage began to sway from the poor hog’s failed escape attempts. Soon the rope was all that Carliss could see, and the squeals of the hog were mixed with an eerie and familiar sound. Carliss backed away at the sound, but Malco grabbed her arm and pulled her forward.

“There’s nothing to fear, Lady Carliss. The lizards live in the shadows and do not come into the light. You are safe,” he said, seeming to enjoy her discomfort.

The men on the winch continued to lower the cage until the taut rope became limp, indicating that the cage had reached the ground below. The hissing sounds of a hundred esca lizards filled the chamber, and the panicked squeals of the hog transformed into bellows of pain. After a few moments, the hog became silent, but the hissing lizards did not.

The supervisor ordered the winch to be raised, and the men on the winch worked much faster to raise the cage than they had to lower it. Each clank of the winch brought apprehension to Carliss. She could hardly bear to see the final state of the poor creature, yet she could not look away.

As the top of the cage pierced the light, she caught a glimpse of movement in the murky darkness below.

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