“Wait here,” Sen Dunsidan told the Morgawr. “Let me persuade the right men to come to you.”
“Start with one,” the Morgawr ordered, moving off into the shadows.
Sen Dunsidan hesitated, then went out through the door with the turnkey. The turnkey was a hulking, gnarled man who had served seven terms on the front, a lifetime soldier in the Federation Army. He was scarred inside and out, having witnessed and survived atrocities that would have destroyed the minds of other men. He never spoke, but he knew well enough what was going on and seemed unconcerned with it. Sen Dunsidan had used him on occasion to question recalcitrant prisoners. The man was good at inflicting pain and ignoring pleas for mercy—perhaps even better at that than keeping his mouth shut.
Oddly enough, the Minister had never learned his name. Down here, they called him Turnkey, as if the title itself were name enough for a man who did what he did.
They passed down a dozen small corridors and through a handful of doors to where the main cells were located. The larger ones held prisoners who had been taken from the Prekkendorran. Some would be ransomed or traded for Free-born prisoners. Some would die here. Sen Dunsidan indicated to the turnkey the one that housed those who had been prisoners longest.
“Unlock it.”
The turnkey unlocked the door without a word.
Sen Dunsidan took a torch from its rack on the wall. “Close the door behind me. Don’t open it until I tell you I am ready to come out,” he ordered.
Then he stepped boldly inside.
The room was large, damp, and rank with the smells of caged men. A dozen heads turned as one on his entry. An equal number lifted from the soiled pallets on the floor. Other men stirred, fitfully. Most were still asleep.
“Wake up!” he snapped.
He held up the torch to show them who he was, then stuck it in a stanchion next to the door. The men were beginning to stand now, whispers and grunts passing between them. He waited until they were all awake, a ragged bunch with dead eyes and ravaged faces. Some of them had been locked down here for almost three years. Most had given up hope of ever getting out. The small sounds of their shuffling echoed in the deep, pervasive silence, a constant reminder of how helpless they were.
“You know me,” he said to them. “Many of you I have spoken with. You have been here a long time. Too long. I am going to give all of you a chance to get out. You won’t be doing any more fighting in the war. You won’t be going home—not for a while. But you will be outside these walls and back on an airship. Are you interested?”
The man he had depended upon to speak for the others took a step forward. “What are you after?”
His name was Darish Venn. He was a Borderman who had captained one of the first Free-born airships brought into the war on the Prekkendorran. He had distinguished himself in battle many times before his ship went down and he was captured. The other men respected and trusted him. As senior officer, he had formed them into groups and given them positions, small and insignificant to those who were free men, but of crucial importance to those locked away down here.
“Captain.” Sen Dunsidan acknowledged him with a nod. “I need men to go on a voyage across the Blue Divide. A long voyage, from which some may not return. I won’t deny there is danger. I don’t have the sailors to spare for this, or the money to hire Rover mercenaries. But the Federation can spare you. Federation soldiers will accompany those who agree to accept the conditions I am offering, so there will be some protection offered and order imposed. Mostly, you will be out of here and you won’t have to come back. The voyage will take a year, maybe two. You will be your own crew, your own company, as long as you go where you are told.”
“Why would you do this now, after so long?” Darish Venn asked.