Part 52

Another set of rags appeared, this set wielded by female hands. Clean, moist, and smelling of incense... the rags scrubbed at his body, washing the night's dirt from his skin.

The men who'd dragged him out of the chest scurried, leaving him to the women.

The voice had been wrong.

They started at his feet and began working their way up. Somewhere nearby, several new men grunted as if lifting something heavy. David couldn't see what it was at first, but the women parted as six men approached. They wore hooded robes the color of ash. Each of them had had the hoods drawn up to cover their faces.

They carried between them a metal lattice. It looked like a ladder, but it was too wide, and the rungs were... wrong. They were too thin. Too long. They weren't even straight; some of them intersected at odd angles-

The men lay the metal frame on the floor and David could see that it was some sort of pattern worked in iron.

Leather straps dangled from it. Five of them, arranged in a star.

"Yer too slow!" one of the gray-robed men snarled at the women with the washrags.

"He must be clean!" an old woman's voice snapped from behind David. Two women were washing his chest and back, while another pair scrubbed his arms. A fifth woman was scrubbing along his sides, moving upward from his waist. A sixth stood behind him and held his arms in her talon-like fingers

A spot just below David's armpit began to tingle.

"He's clean enough, and you've still got to get ready. GO!"

"Rinius just left here; he's not-"

"He's in a hurry. You've got less time than you think. Better us waitin' on him than the other way 'round, eh?"

One of the other women grunted.

David looked at their faces. He knew them. He knew every one of them, and they knew him. Why were they doing this?

"Get 'im dressed and let's do the same," said the elderly woman behind David.

For an instant, David's hands were free-

-then someone grabbed him and spun him around. Someone else threw a cloth over his head-

-a robe. David's head popped out of the top as the thin cloth clung to this moist skin.

"Good enough," said the gruff man in the gray robe.

"Lash 'im up tight, gentlemen."

More hands grabbed him. They lifted David, and as they lowered him onto the metal lattice, he almost felt like he was flying.

He almost felt like... magic.

Then rough hands were tightening the leather straps around his wrists, ankles, and neck.