Tiuri Escapes Dangria’s Town Hall turns confinement into a test of judgment: unable to get out through the high window or reach the rope left downstairs, Tiuri chooses the guarded door and then relies on concealment, threats, and an unexpected act of assistance. He makes it into the streets, but his escape is incomplete in the larger sense: Piak is in the dungeon, and Tiuri has emerged alone into a city where enemies are searching for him.

The decision to risk the door

The danger becomes pressing as Tiuri watches two guards pass in the alley. The window is too high above the ground to offer a practical exit, and the rope he might have used is in Piak’s bag downstairs. Tiuri recognizes that waiting will not improve his position. His only chance, he decides, is to leave through the door and cross the town hall itself, despite the apparent recklessness of that route. The choice is not a confident plan with its risks resolved; it is a deliberate turn from passive concealment to action because he expects that remaining where he is will end in capture.

He listens at the door and hears silence. That silence offers a narrow opening: the guards may not expect him to attempt a direct escape. Tiuri eases the bolt aside, first fearing that the door may also be locked from the other side. It opens. Looking around the edge, he sees a single guard standing partly turned away. Tiuri opens the door farther and orders him to turn around and say nothing. The guard reacts with a start and reaches for his sword, making clear that getting through the first doorway has not made Tiuri safe. The episode’s central risk is therefore physical and immediate: every passage through the building may bring him within reach of someone who can raise the alarm or seize him.

Concealment and the clerk’s room

Tiuri’s escape proceeds by brief openings rather than a clear route. He finds an unlocked cupboard, crawls inside, and shuts the door while people come through the room. They do not look inside it. After waiting, he emerges and continues through the large building, reaching the first floor without being noticed. Then he hears noise both above and below. The sounds suggest that the search is spreading around him and that he may be caught between the people looking for him.

He slips into a small room he has not seen before, partly hoping to hide again and partly looking for a possible way out through a window. Its furnishings—a table with writing materials and maps hanging on the walls—identify it as a working room rather than a prepared refuge. An open doorway connects it to another room, and the mayor’s clerk comes through that opening. Tiuri raises his bow and threatens to shoot if the clerk speaks. Outside, someone calls for a search of that floor. Tiuri orders the clerk to go to the door, conceal him from view, and tell the searchers he is not there. He keeps the clerk under threat, specifying that he must not leave or let the pursuers search the room.

The clerk carries out the deception. He opens the door and sends the searchers toward the hall below, claiming that Tiuri has gone down the stairs. Tiuri hears them move away. The diversion buys him time, but it does not resolve the danger: the clerk points out that the pursuers will be waiting downstairs and that Tiuri cannot simply use the stairs to leave. When Tiuri warns him not to come closer, the clerk stays where he is, folds his arms, and calmly observes that delay is reducing Tiuri’s chances. He even suggests alternatives, including climbing out of the window, and says he will keep silent until Tiuri has disappeared. His response is strikingly composed in a scene governed by threats, though the episode does not explain his reasons.

A window, a warning, and a choice

Before Tiuri leaves, the clerk offers to check whether anyone is watching outside. He leans out of the window and then tells Tiuri that guards pass from time to time, but that a quick escape is possible. Dusk is already beginning. The clerk’s warning combines practical help with a reminder that this opening may not last; he also wishes Tiuri better luck than his friend. Tiuri immediately understands that this refers to Piak and asks whether he has been captured. The clerk confirms that Piak is being held in the dungeon below.

The news changes the meaning of the escape. Tiuri does not treat his own freedom as an end in itself: he whispers that he must help Piak. The clerk urges him not to wait, arguing that Tiuri can help his friend only if he remains free and that being captured as well would not help Piak. Tiuri must therefore choose between an immediate attempt to reach his companion and preserving the possibility of doing so later. He follows the clerk’s advice for the moment. The escape is not presented as indifference to Piak; the captured boy becomes the reason Tiuri intends to act, while the need to avoid sharing his captivity determines the next move.

Outside the town hall

The clerk directs Tiuri to the back of the town hall and tells him to hurry. Tiuri thanks him quietly, then reaches the street and moves as fast as he can. Guards come around the corner of the building, and he darts into a side street. Hearing them call out, he cannot tell whether they have seen him. He runs through several streets and only slows when he notices people staring at him in surprise. Even beyond the town hall, escape requires him to manage his appearance and movement among ordinary passersby as well as to evade the search.

He soon reaches the market square and stops in a dark doorway to decide where to go. Dangria is an unfamiliar city, and his pursuers are still looking for him. The scene ends not with safety or reunion but with a sudden offer of direction: someone appears before him and quietly invites him to come along. The unknown speaker’s arrival opens the next stage of Tiuri’s flight without yet establishing where he will go. The town hall escape has changed his immediate position—from trapped inside the search to moving freely in the streets—but it has not freed Piak, removed the danger, or given Tiuri a secure destination.