Dounia, breath held, her hand on the key, turned it in the lock.
The centre circle of the brass table turned clockwise a half-turn. There was a clanking in the ceiling as the key was drawn down into the table. The clanking stopped.
The iron doors in the four cells tilted forward with cables attached to the top corners like little drawbridges. Zahra's door wobbled down as it went and nearly fell off its bottom fitting. Beyond each door was a secondary door that opened automatically outward into halls. A few feet into the hall there was a short set of steps that led out of the bog and about sixty feet down each hall there was clearly a room.
Like it'd been prepared, the creature lumbered into the room. It was slower that most creatures but it didn't seem hampered by the swampy floor. With two fists together, the monster smashed down on the glass between Dounia and her old cell. A great spiderweb crack formed in it at his shoulder height.
Cairee stared at the door. All was quiet. Her heart raced. How long would it take?
Suddenly the door tilted forward and lowered to the floor! Dounia and Tymythy had done it! She wanted to cheer, but her throat was tight and dry. All that came out was a cross between a sigh and a squeak.
A secondary door opened and she could see some steps, a hall, another room. Still clutching her pendent and her chalk, Cairee made her way forward. They weren't out of trouble yet. There could be more surprised. She looked for discolourations in the floor or walls, anything to suggest something was tampered with to create a trap.
Cairee saw nothing to indicate danger or surprise.
Dounia let out her breath as the doors opened. Then the creature lumbered into the room at practically a run. It had been slow-going for her in there, but it was not so hampered. She scrambled backwards into Tymythy as it attacked her window, cracking it!
"GO, GO, GO!" she cried. She grabbed his hand and ran for the door, grateful that he'd somehow managed to drain his room of the bog. She sprinted for the stairs and the room at the end of the hall, not taking the time to check for traps. If that thing got through the window easier than Tymythy did, they could be in real trouble.
Dounia could see colours that weren't there. Her hand had three images of hands moving about it. A redish phantom image of herself ran forward to the door out. She was in her body but she was also in the image.
The 'her' in the image felt solid and looked back at a phantom of herself, a blueish phantom.
The forward self ran into the hall, up the steps, and was halfway to the room without a problem.
Behind the 'forward' her, Thothmagur was in a wild rage, stupid with invincibility. The creature smashed against the glass and it shattered like it was meant to hold wine instead of monsters.
The backward Dounia looked back and the glass was still there!
Hearing yhe titanic crash as the prisoner took out its frustration on the barrier between it and the pair of Ravens, Tymythy didn't need any additional encouragement. With the usriev in one hand, and Dounia pulling at the other, he rushed with the rogue into the unknown.