The cage appeared suddenly—easing onto the lift pad in a plume of smoke, hissing, and everyone stood at attention. There was a shuffling and clinking of weaponry. At last the hatch opened, pushing out and aside as smoke poured across the floor, and Valdus’ men fidget anxiously.
“Hold,” he said. “I command it.”
They all watched raptly as the smoke began to clear, until two figures began to resolve, one much taller than the other, with its arm upraised—
“Fire!” shouted Valdus.
And everyone did so, their bolts clinking and clanking off the bars and ricocheting off the stone wall behind. Yet the figures remained standing, the bolts passing through them as though they were ghosts, and when the smoke cleared Valdus saw that Shekalane and the ferryman were not there and that they had only pun
