Like a tomb. That was what oubliettes were supposed to be, after all: tombs for the living instead of the dead. Trei had always known that desperate criminals, the sort that were never going to be released, were sometimes imprisoned in deep oubliettes; he had known that most towns had oubliettes close by their ordinary prisons. Not Rounn; it was too cold in the far north to keep prisoners in holes in the ground. He’d never given any thought to the condition of prisoners kept in such confinement.Now he only wondered how long it would be before a forgotten prisoner would give up all hope of release and come to wish his prison really was a tomb. Weeks, months? Years? He did not want to think about years. But already he half wished he had flown into the side of Teraica’s steam engine a little harder. Though if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to throw the egg down into the furnace.Of course, it seemed now that this failure wouldn’t have made much difference.The light shifted, always dim, but becoming both redder and more muted still.… The sun would set soon, Trei thought.
