When stories involved the beautiful young maiden, or princess, or whatever confined in a dungeon, they tended to skip ahead to the inevitable rescue, and not make the reader suffer through all the bits in between. Kathlin would never rate herself as ‘beautiful’, princess or otherwise, but she had not counted on the most notable facet of prisonerhood being the sheer tedium of the whole affair as inky blackness pressed in on her from all sides. 

Given her vocation, Kathlin had initially had the idea that a few prayers might be expected, if not required from her in her current predicament. Unfortunately her attention was persistently diverted by other considerations, like exactly where that regular dripping from the roof was coming from. She was clearly somewhere below sea level if the damp was anything to go by, which made her wonder whether there was some sort of inlet somewhere and the dungeon was designed to fill up with water at high tide, similar to those death traps she had read about in some horror story once. 

On the other hand, she reckoned she had been dumped in this cell at least one tidal cycle ago and there wouldn’t be much point in hauling her off to the castle in the first place if they were planning something like that. It seemed much more likely that there was some sort of back door to this place somewhere, where they could dump her lifeless body in the sea when they were done doing their bad-guy-things. Yes, that was more practical. 

….

[i]Shut up brain.[/i]

Kathlin reached up to slap herself upside the head just as the door at the far end of the corridor creaked open to emit dazzling light into the dungeon and Severian complete with goons entered. The girl swung her legs down to sit up on the thick shelf of rock that apparently passed as a combi couch/bed in dungeonland as the former launched into his monologue. Were it not for the obvious severity of the situation, the man secretly reminded her of a particularly villainous, particularly excitable estate agent. 

"Oh, pardon my manners! I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Sevarian Hoster, Knight Commander of the White Hand. I have been looking forward to meeting you. You and I are going to have a wonderful time together!"

“Kathlin Lennox” Kathlin said cautiously. The man creeped her out no end, with the way he was eying her up and down as though she was a fresh, particularly delicious new cut of meat. It also occurred to her that this was in all likelihood precisely the reaction he wished to inspire in her, and so she stiffened her jaw slightly as she tilted her head to look up at him. “Apprentice Priestess of the Cathedral of Light. What do you want…exactly?”