Free The Storm's Own Son (Book 2) by Anthony Gillis

and the others ready behind. Firio gingerly touched the copper rod to the bronze handle. Green light flashed and raced back up toward Firio, enveloping his hand and arm. He screamed, dropped the device, and fell backwards. Talaos rushed to him.
    After a moment, Firio sat up, coughing and shaking his head, "That's got a sting," he said.
    Talaos smiled sympathetically, and answered, "Maybe I'd better do this part, and you handle the locks."
    Firio nodded.
    Talaos touched the second door on the right using Firio's device, and triggered the same flash of green. He felt a little pain, but nothing like what he'd experienced with his bare hand. Turning to his right, back to Firio, he hoped the roguish man had judged correctly.
    Firio pulled out a very fine looking set of lock picks, and set to work on the first door. There was no flash of light. He smiled, and after a moment, there was a click.
    "Should be okay," said Firio.
    "Let's find the hell out," said Kyrax, stepping forward and opening the door.
    Behind it was a bare stone cell. Chained to the back wall was a man with blank eyes and a deathly pallor in his skin. In the center of the floor was one of the sculpted bronze heads. A faint white mist emanated from its parted lips and snaked its way through the air into the nostrils of the chained man.
    Vulkas stepped past Kyrax and brought his war mattock down like a hammer on the sculpted head. It squashed almost flat, proving to in fact be hollow. The mist stopped.
    "Free that man," said Talaos.
    Firio set to work, and soon had the manacles off. The man, however, still sat there inert and helpless. Vulkas picked him up, carried him to the reed mats on the platform in the room behind, and set him gently down.
    "Now," said Talaos, "we continue."
    One by one they opened more doors. Talaos triggered the foul magic and took the pain. Firio opened the locks. First the second on the right, then two on the left. After that, they alternated their way down.
    Some cells were empty. Others had the same scene they'd encountered in the first cell. When they'd free four more seemingly mindless, void, helpless prisoners, they came to a cell where something was different. A younger, strong looking man made quiet, gasping cries as they opened the door. Firio freed him, then Talaos approached.
    "Can you understand me?" asked Talaos.
    "I... please, no more questions," the man begged piteously.
    "We're not here to ask questions, we're here to free you," replied Talaos.
    A bit of life showed in the man's distant eyes, and he smiled.
    "Talaos, I'll sit with him, if it's all right," said Larogwan.
    Talaos nodded, and they went on. There were several more empty cells, then a prisoner, a woman of middle years,  who seemed lost in dreams rather than void and blank. In the next cell, with empty eyes, was a little girl of perhaps seven years of age.
    "Those bloody fuckers!" growled Kyrax, his eyes death.
    As Firio freed her, Imvan stepped forward. He carried her away in his arms, and there were tears in his eyes.
    They went on through another stretch of empty cells. In the next to last door on the left was a thin old man who, if his hair and grooming were anything to go by, might have once been a man of status and dignity. Barely audible, he made whispering mutters. Talaos thought they had a melodic pattern to them, but the words formed no coherent sentences.
    The last pair of doors were different. They were set on the left and right of the very end of the hall, and the gap between them and the previous doors was wider than the rest. They had stronger bronze reinforcements and had copper discs, about a foot in diameter, at their exact centers. The discs were carved in low relief with raised hands, fingers outstretched and palms facing out.  In the center of each hand was a carven eye.
    Firio looked at them doubtfully, then at Talaos ,  he spoke, "You might want to..."
    There was what sounded like a muffled scream from the door to the right.
    Talaos, in