Thomas Gown and his companions have escaped from captivity, but only by fleeing deeper into the unknown, to face new dangers. They are carrying a secret that could save the world, though, and they have a duty to take it to those who can make use of...
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Shaun almost staggered out of the debriefing room, his face pale and drawn from the hours of relentless interrogation he’d just undergone.
He closed the door behind him, glad and relieved to put solid wood between himself and the two military policemen, and leaned against the bare stone wall for a moment to give his pounding heart a chance to slow down a little. He wasn't allowed to rest for more than a moment, though, before one of the stern faced guards who'd been waiting outside barked an order at him to get moving. Shaun gave him a withering look, but he had no spirit for the witty one liner he might otherwise have treated him to. Instead he simply began walking, his eyes downcast as he thought miserably of what the future might have in store for him.
This was the end of their third day of solid, merciless questioning during which the six of them had been kept separated, unable to compare notes. Treated almost like criminals in fact. The military policemen into whose hands they'd been delivered had asked again and again why they hadn't returned to Tharia the moment they’d been able to, and Shaun knew that, if he wasn't careful, the carefully worded explanations he was giving would began to sound like desperate pleading, like excuses. Like a child who'd been caught red handed in a fenced orchard and was trying to explain why he had a half eaten apple in his hand.
They never came right out and accused him of cowardice, but it was there in their faces, and as the ruthless interrogation went on he found it harder and harder to remember Resalintas’s reaction to the Lenses of Farseeing and his reassurance that, if necessary, he would speak up in their defence. The Hangman’s noose began to loom ever larger in his imagination, but it wasn't for himself that he was most afraid. In his mind, he saw the same accusations being levelled at Diana, despite the fact that she had the protection of a powerful Goddess that no man would dare offend.
Gradually, though, the tone of the interrogation had begun to change. They began to ask about other aspects of their long mission, and how they had acquitted themselves in front of the slaver and the people of the Fellowship. They seemed determined to find them guilty of something else, something separate from their delayed return from Kronos, and Shaun grasped at it with desperate hope. If they were so determined to find them guilty of something else, did that mean that they knew that the desertion charge wouldn’t stick? It was a thin straw to grasp hold of, but he held onto it nonetheless. They were going to get through this. They would be freed. Acquitted of all charges and allowed to return to the war…
…in which they would probably die.
He smiled ruefully. There was death, though, and there was death, and being killed by a ruthless enemy while trying to defend those he loved was infinitely preferable to being killed by his own side. Stripped of honour. Remembered with shame by his loved ones who would never speak his name again. He nodded to himself. He would be content to die in the war, he decided. So long as he knew that Diana was safe.
