Then they grab us and bind our arms, leaving Buff and I staring at each other in wonderment as to what just happened. Did Abe turn us in? Or did my constant rule-breaking finally catch up with me? In either case, we’re getting exactly what we wanted: imprisonment.
My only regret: I didn’t get to break Coker’s nose in the process.
~~~
The guards’ took more than a few shots at us as they dragged us along, and now my whole body feels like I slid into a tree. Buff didn’t fare much better than me. His face looks like he got mauled by a bear and he’s all hunched over as he staggers along beside me, dragging chained feet.
But we’re in, although I’m not sure what we’re going to do now. The plan only went so far as getting us inside the palace and Wes figuring out a way to break us out of the dungeons. For all we know, he’ll never make it down there and we’ll be left to rot with the mice and creepy-crawlies.
“When will the king sentence us?” I slur to the guard who’s prodding us along with some sharp instrument from behind. A raunchy joke comes to mind, but I swallow it down with a wad of spit.
“Consider yerself sentenced,” the guard says.
I guess it was too much to hope that the king would personally attend to a couple of lowly tradesmen, but I figured it was worth a shot.
Through vision obscured by swollen eyes, I observe the palace. Despite his condition, I can tell Buff’s doing the same. We’ll compare notes later.
The guard marches us through a high archway, made of a kind of white stone that seems to glitter pink under the barest hint of summer sunlight infiltrating the cloud cover. The hallway beyond is grand, adorned with all manner of white and blue tapestries, which hang proudly along the walls, threaded with delicate scenes from ice country. Here a snowy slope, dotted with soft pines. There a mountain peak, blanketed with clouds. On my right a town teeming with people. Houses burning? People fleeing? Dark men on black horses chasing them, cutting them down with sharp swords. Men from bedtime stories.
I glance to the left and find a similar scene, except this one’s not in ice country, it’s in a land I’ve only heard tales about, a land far, far away, where they say the sun’s bigger than here. A land of endless water and deserts that go all the way to the sea. In the tapestry there’s a giant wooden vessel—they call them ships in the stories—bobbing on a wide splash of water, tied to a tree that looks curved and funny on the shore. Men are rushing from the ship, brandishing swords and torches, charging into an army of dark warriors on black horses, who are galloping toward them, legions of dark clouds and flashing lightning at their backs.
We trudge on and the tapestries are behind us, leaving only a burning memory.
I glance at Buff and he glances back, raising a bruised eyebrow.
(Yah, you can bruise your eyebrow, Buff proved it.)
He saw the depictions too. The violence. He remembers the stories told around warm hearths. Of the Stormers. A bloodthirsty people who conquer lands for one reason and one reason alone: to kill. To drink the blood of those who would oppose them. To ravage the women and enslave the children.
Riding crazed horses that live for the thrill of the battle, they’ve fought the water people, the Soakers, for many years, trying to destroy them and take control of the Big Waters.
But they’re not real, right? Just stories. The king’s walls are just an artist’s depiction of the stories. Surely.
We pass under a smaller multi-colored stone archway, and into an even larger corridor, wider than ten men and taller than five. There’s a voice booming from an open doorway on the right. “The oldest bottle I said!” the voice erupts. “This is the second oldest. Go back to the cellars! NOW!”
As we step by the opening, I look inside the room. It’s like no room I’ve ever seen before. Constructed on white marble pillars, the room’s so big it could fit a hundred of my houses. Two hundred of Buff’s. A long blue carpet extends like a ribbon from the entranceway, all the way across the sparkling floor, where it reaches a seat. Nay, not a seat—a throne. With clawed paws like a bear, the granite throne looms upward, big enough to seat a family of Icers. But in it, basking in the exuberant daylight streaming through a dozen massive windows, is one man. Although I’ve never seen him before, he can be only one person: the king!
I stop, feeling the sharp prick of the guard’s sword on my back.
Why would they take a common criminal past the throne room on the way to the dungeons? I ask myself. It makes no sense.
The king is a big man, old, maybe forty, maybe older, with a shaved bald head and a thin, neatly trimmed graying beard. He looks even bigger sitting on the raised throne.
A thin, white-clothed man scuttles down the blue carpet, away from the king and his booming voice, gone to fetch the oldest bottle of whatever drink the king desires. For a moment King Goff watches after him, almost amused, but then he looks past his servant, to where I stand. Our eyes meet and—
“Move along!” the guard barks, jabbing me harder. Unconsciously, my feet move forward, one after the other, like they have all my life, but my head is back in the throne room, facing Goff, the man who stole my sister. I’m so close.
Moments later, we descend into the dungeons. The air thickens and moistens and a nasty smell tickles my nose. Something’s died down here. Or someone. Many maybe.
The guard plucks a torch from a wall fixture and waves it near my face, burning me. I flinch away but don’t cry out. He laughs.
Sword at my back once more, he forces me forwards into an alcove. Seated on a squat wooden chair with a broken leg is a giant of a man, wearing a black mask with only mouth and eyeholes cut out. Across his lap rests a double-sided, double-edged battle axe. All four of its razor-sharp edges gleam under the firelight.
He stands, his girth filling half the small space. We’re crammed in the other half with the guard. Wafting from his armpits is an odor that smells like what I imagine death would smell like. As I try to get a hold of my rebellious stomach, I consider yelling “I surrender!” and impaling myself on his axe, but I manage to close off my nostrils enough to regain control.
“Ain’t you a couple of tasty morsels,” he bellows, laughing before he’s even finished saying it, a growling echoing chortle that spouts a stream of rotten breath, proving that this dungeon master is more than just a one-smell act.
He takes a step closer, which means his belly touches me—not his clothing, but his actual skin, because he’s not wearing a shirt. Thankfully, I am, but the barrier seems so thin and insignificant I have to choke back another pulse of vomit.
“No funny business,” he says, showing us all his teeth, which amount to half of what he would’ve started with as an adult, yellow and chipped.
“Nothing funny here,” Buff says, and I agree wholeheartedly.
“All yers, Big,” the sword-poking guard says.
As he turns to go, I say, “See you later,” but he doesn’t look back or return the sentiment. Probably because he doesn’t expect he will.
“In,” Big says, and I wonder whether he came out so large that his mother couldn’t have possibly chosen any other name, or if the nickname was given later in life, when he quickly exceeded his peers in every physical way. Probably the former, if I had to guess.
When I forget to move, Big punches me forward, his fist like a battering ram, sending shudders through my bruised body. By the way Buff grunts behind me, I can tell he got the same treatment.
Torches line the walls of the dungeon, casting shadows in all the right places. Or the wrong places, if you’re me and you can only imagine what’s reaching out from the dark spots as you pass them.
I try to get a good look in the cells we pass, but their bars are thick and the shadows are deep, and if anyone’s in them, then they’re well hidden and quieter than a baby on its mother’s teat.
“Get in,” Big says, motioning with his axe to an open cell door on my left. I limp through, turn back to watch Buff do the same. “Not you,?
?? Big says, stopping Buff with an axe blade to his throat. He seems to use the axe for a lot of things. Like if he were to shave his back, which clearly, based on the thick tufts of fur growing back there, he doesn’t, he would probably use his axe to do it.
He slams the cell door shut with a clang, twisting a big key in the lock in a practiced motion that I expect took him years to master given the sausage-like girth of his fingers, which clearly aren’t made for dexterity. Clobbering, yah. Pummeling, most definitely. Turning keys in locks, not so much.
“Later, buddy,” I say to Buff as Big pushes him forwards.
“Enjoy the food,” he returns with a dried-blood smile.
I take a moment to study my surroundings, which only takes a moment, because the cell is tinier than Buff’s house, and decorated with a miniscule assortment of gray stone walls, floor, and ceiling. A metal pail sits in one corner. I get the feeling I’ll be holding the urge to use the bathroom as long as possible in this place.
As I settle in on a spot on the floor that looks slightly less dirty than anywhere else, I hear a clang, the rattle of a key in a lock, and then the thud of heavy footsteps as Big lumbers past. “No funny business,” he hollers as he slams the dungeon door behind him.
I sigh. This is what I wanted. Right? Chill yah, I tell myself. It’s better being locked up on the inside, where Jolie might be somewhere nearby, than free on the outside, always wondering what happened to my sister, whether she’s alive, whether she’s safe.
“Buff?” I say.
“Yah.” His voice isn’t particularly close, but it’s not far either, maybe six or seven cells down the row.
“How you feeling?”
“Like a punching bag.”
“You’ll heal,” I say with a smile.
“I know,” he says.
“Buff.”
“Yah.”
“Thanks.”
“You owe me,” he says.
I’m about to respond when something scrapes the wall in the cell next to mine.
Chapter Seventeen
I sit statue still for a few seconds, listening intently. Was it my imagination? Was it the scrape of a rat’s tiny claws? Or was it something else entirely?
“Don’t try and avoid me, Dazz,” Buff says. “Just because we’re locked up doesn’t mean I won’t come collecting one day. And it’ll be something big, something mind-blowingly huge. You’ll wish you’d never asked for my help in the first place.”
But I’m not listening. Well, I’m listening, but not to Buff. I’m listening to the wall, because I hear the scrape again, only this time it’s louder, and it almost sounds…intentional, like someone’s trying to get my attention. Well, if so, it works, because I scoot across the stone floor, unconcerned about the dirt and whatever else has stained it so dark over the years. I shove my ear right up against the wall, willing Buff to shut his trap.
“You know, I might just ask for your firstborn at some point,” he goes on. “If you can ever find a woman who’ll tolerate you, that is.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I hiss.
“Or maybe you can just take my brothers and sisters off my hands for a while—or forever.”
“Shut it, Buff,” I finally say loud enough so he can hear.
“Heart of the Mountain, Dazz. No need to get testy. I was just kidding. Well, mostly.”
The wall pinches me, right on the cheek.
I pull back, expecting to feel the wetness of blood, but it’s dry. My skin stings slightly and I feel a tiny bump forming, but that’s it. I reach out to touch the wall, to see if it’ll sting me again. That’s when it jumps out at me.
A stone clatters to the floor, leaving a gap in the wall.
When I peer through, dark brown eyes stare back.
“Who in the burnin’ scorch are you?” the eyes say, as raspy as a punch to the face. “And why the scorch are you followin’ me?”
“What the chill is scorch?” I say, feeling a warm blush on my cheeks. What the chill? I’m not a blusher. I don’t blush.
“What the scorch is chill?” the icy voice says. Did I say icy? I meant raspy. Yah, just raspy.
“I’m Dazz,” I say, memories of a strong, brown-skinned girl floating through my mind. A punch to the face.
“I don’t give a burn whether yer King Goff,” the Heater girl says, which confuses me for a second, because didn’t she ask who I was? But she’s speaking so different than what I’m used to, using words that make no sense and rounding them off, almost like the curve of her hips.
“Uhh,” I say.
“Why’re you followin’ me?”
“I’m not,” I say.
“Who’re you talking to?” Buff calls.
“That Heater girl,” I reply.
“I ain’t no Heater girl,” the Heater girl says sharply. “I’m a Wild One.”
I grin. “I’m sure you are,” I say, instantly pleased with my wit.
“You are?” Buff says.
“No, you ’zard-brained baggard. Not Wild—Wilde, like with an e on the end.”
Roan’s words come back to me. The Wildes steal more and more of our women every year.
“Yah, Buff, I am. Now can you please shut your icin’ trap?” I shoot over my shoulder. I turn back to the hole in the wall and the set of mysterious brown eyes. “You’re a Wilde?” I ask stupidly, considering that’s what she just told me.
“Well, that settles it. I’m speakin’ to a searin’ fool. Sun goddess help us all.”
Well, I don’t know about the searin’ part, but the fool bit’s probably right, considering I’m in a dungeon on an impossible mission to rescue a sister who might not even be here. “Can we start over?” I say hopefully.
“Watcha mean?”
I take a deep breath. “I’m Dazz. I’m an Icer. I’m not following you.”
“Oh-ho,” the Wilde says.
“Okay, okay. I am, but not like you think. You see, my friend and me, his name’s Buff. Say hi, Buff.”
“Hi, Buff,” Buff says. The Yag.
The set of deep brown eyes just look at me and I can see what they’re thinking: his friend’s a searin’ fool too. Which is probably a fair thought to have at this point.
“Anywayyy,” I say, “we were trying to get information on what happened to the Heaters, because there were rumors flying around about bad shiver, all kind of bad shiver, and then I saw you and I thought you were a Heater and so I chased you, not because I wanted to hurt you or anything like that, but because I wanted to talk to you, to ask a couple of questions about the Heaters and whether everything was okay and whether…” I stop. I’m rambling like a river of melting snow in the summer.
“What kinda questions?” the girl says, the rasp of her voice tickling my eardrums.
“I guess just, do you know what happened to the Heaters?” I ask.
“I was there,” she says.
“But how? I thought the Wildes stole the Heaters’ children.”
“That’s a burnin’ lie,” she says. “Give me back my brick.” Because of my bumbling, arguably the most important conversation of my life is spiraling out of control.
“Wait, nay, I’m sorry, that was just what Roan told us.”
Silence. Her eyes blink. Once. Twice. Three times. I feel the blush I never knew I had coming back. Something about being under this woman’s scrutiny is like having my stones clamped in a vice.
(In a good way?)
“You know Roan?” she asks. There’s something hard in her voice.
“Not really. I met him once at the border. As part of my job. He told us a lot of things, but maybe it wasn’t all true. Do you know him?”
“Roan’s my father,” she says, pulling away from the hole.
~~~
I try for a few hours after that, trying to get her attention, to get her to come back to the hole, to talk to me, but she’s not having any of it.
Buff interjects every once in a while, but mostly he’s tossing jokes around, like t
he hits he took to the head have made him a little loopy.
Eventually, I get tired of speaking through the hole, so I shove the brick in, but only halfway, so I can pull it out again if I have to. I slump against the wall, force my eyes closed, try to sleep. I say one last thing before I drift off. “What’s your name?”
“Buff,” Buff says.
“Skye,” the Wilde woman says, and then she’s silent for good.
I sleep.
~~~
I’m awakened when the heavy dungeon door crashes open. For a moment I’m disoriented, scrabbling at the walls and reaching into the empty space in front of me, but then I remember where I am. In my cell, slumped against the wall, sleeping sitting up.
Big’s voice is a deep rumble of thunder. “No funny…” Well, you know the rest.
Feet scuffle on the floor. More prisoners. I wonder if this is a busy day in the dungeons or if every day is like this, prisoners in, prisoners out. Do prisoners ever go out? Or is the sentence the same regardless of the crime: life in the dungeons. I wonder if they’ll even feed us, or if we just wither away until we can’t wither no more—and then we die.
The feet trod along, at least three sets, maybe four, in addition to Big’s crashing footsteps, and I find myself shrinking into the shadows, like Skye—that’s her name, isn’t it? Or did I dream it?—musta done when we passed by her cell.
“What the scorch happened?” Skye says, her voice firm and echoing.
“Shut yer Heater pie hole!” Big roars.
“I ain’t a Heater, you great big tub o’ tug lard!” Skye retorts. I grin in the dark. She don’t take nothing from nobody, and I’ve got the black eye to prove it.
“It’s alright, Skye,” another female voice says, its tone the exact opposite of Skye’s husky timbre. Hers floats like a simple melody from a flute, calming everything and everyone that hears it.
Skye stays quiet.