"Perhaps a few days in the pits will loosen your tongues!" Curzad said harshly.
Still no reply.
"As you wish." Curzad turned away indifferently. "To the deepest pits with them, Atkor," he said to the officer. "After a few suns I will see them again to learn if they feel more talkative."
Just how many downward sloping ramps they trod on the way to the pits Tharn had no way of knowing. Further and further below the earth's surface they went, their hands bound behind them, while brightly lighted subterranean corridors gave way to others only faintly illuminated. Finally even the faint light disappeared and they moved, heavily guarded, through blackness relieved only by flames from a torch carried by one of the guards. There was the clearly audible trickling of water along the stone walls and several times Tharn felt his feet sink to the ankles in cold pools that had formed in hollows of the stone flooring.
At last the wearying procession of sloping ramps ceased and they moved along a level corridor. On either side Tharn made out heavy wooden doors with apertures in their surfaces closed off by columns of stone in the form of bars. Now and then light from the torch picked out white, heavily bearded faces containing white-ringed eyes and expressions of dull hopelessness. Not once, however, did he hear sounds from the throats of those prisoners—only the mute despair of lost souls peering into nothingness.
Finally the officer ordered a halt. At his command two of the doors, almost directly across from each other, were opened. Tharn felt the cold touch of flint as a knife cut away his bonds, a strong hand thrust him roughly into the cell on the right and the door banged shut behind him.
He turned back and looked out through the bars, to see Trakor, head held proudly erect, shoved into the opposite room. Bars at the top and bottom of each door were drawn into place, a sharp order rang out and the Ammadian guards started back for the surface.
"Curzad said 'to the deepest pits!'" one of them chuckled. "There are no deeper dungeons than those!"