Elf Doubt

by Bryant Reil

  Lili’s eyes began welling. “They took Saul, and they’re going to kill him. All foreigners are being held but they’ll be executed after Aethelwyne’s coronation.”

  “Aethelwyne’s what?”

  “He’s in the prison behind the barracks on Saz Jal. Just a couple blocks that way. Get him right out of here. He can’t come back.”

  “Sure, I mean, you can take us right there and—”

  “They’ll kill my family if they find out I’ve helped you. Get Saul and go. Please. I don’t know what cell he’s in.” Lili looked up, her eyes catching the same glowing balls that had captured Zen’s eye. “The Breakers are closing in. Moving slowly, but they won’t stop as long as you’re in Ja’ava. You need to hurry.”

  “Breakers?”

  “Is this your magic holding everyone in place?”

  “No. It’s Herleif’s.” Kyla stuck her thumb back at the gray elf.

  Lili nodded. “Whatever you came here to do, it’s too late. Get Saul and get out.” She looked at Herleif. “Freeze me back. Never know who’s keeping an eye on me.”

  She stepped back into formation and stood as still as she could until Herleif froze her back in place.

  “Come on.” Kyla beckoned Herleif and Zen. “If anyone can help us find that stone, it’s Saul.”

  ***

  Saul let his weight drop. His wrists were raw from trying to twist out of his manacles, and the added pressure burned through his arm, so he pushed himself back up with his legs. Then his thighs burned, and he lowered himself slowly, alternating between the pain in his arms and legs

  Time was difficult to measure in here, save by counting it out, and he had long tired of that. The constant pain from the manacles kept his mind busy, he supposed, but he found himself more and more unhappy with his situation. He had been somewhat excited of the opportunity to escape a high-security prison, but now it just felt like a hassle.

  He tucked his thumb into his palm and winced as he pulled again. The knuckle at the base of his thumb overhung the edge of the manacle. The part keeping him captive. He would gnaw his thumbs off, if he could get them close enough to his face, but the chains were too short.

  His ankles felt looser, and if he could get any leverage he could pull them out. One of the many advantages of having hooves instead of feet. They should slide right through, if he could just get one hoof over to the other to press down on the iron links…

  No. Chains not long enough.

  “Hello?” he whispered. “Any air spirits around?” This was an act of desperation, he realized. It was unlikely any air spirits would be so far underground. Sure enough, there was no response. Still, the sound of his voice killed the silence of the dark. It confirmed to himself that he was alive, and real, and not caught in some ethereal nightmare.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “You can do anything. You left the clan, went to school, and got a girlfriend. You can do this. Okay. Arm won’t come out of the shackles. Will the shackles come out of the wall?”

  He shut his mouth, realizing this was exactly the type of thought he didn’t want overheard. He tilted his head back and scratched at the wall with his horn. The walls were stone, but not solid. Rocks held together with mortar. He could trace the cracks between them, and felt granules fall to his shoulder and lower arm as he scraped his horn through the grooves. With enough time - and time was all he had - he might be able to pry the stones from the wall, and with them, his shackles. Once one hand was free, the rest would be easy.

  He ground his horn into the wall more vigorously. No prison was a match for him.

  At least, not in his humble opinion.

  ***

  “They are getting closer,” Kyla noted. She took a few steps backward. Some of the glowing balls were close enough to hit with a stick. She grabbed a metal spear from a nearby guard, and prodded one of the Breakers with the butt end, which sizzled and cracked. She placed it back into the hands of the frozen guard.

  “Hurry!” Herleif shouted back. He looked angry.

  Kyla trotted back. “We need to get inside.”

  “That’s it. Where she said he’s imprisoned.” Zen pointed ahead to the only guarded door on the street.

  Kyla had no time to entertain her doubts. She dashed in through the door, which was ajar. Inside, posed as though in the middle of shouting an order, stood a uniformed demon with long spiral horns. He was accompanied by two armored guards. The three were mid-step facing a desk at which a young demoness stood at attention.

  “Keys,” Herleif barked and pointed at the young woman’s hip. A ring of keys hung from her belt. Kyla tried to grab them as she walked past, but they held, and she had to remove the demoness’ belt to retrieve the key ring.

  “Hurry!” he called again as he burst through a door on the far wall.

  “Coming!” she called back and tossed the belt aside. No time to put it back in place.

  There was a wide corridor in the back, but so dark she couldn’t see. She supposed it was safe to use her light orb indoors and pulled it from her purse and tapped it on. The dull yellow glow revealed a row of solid metal doors on each side of the corridor. Each had a ringed handle, and a sliding panel looked like the only way to peer inside.

  “Hurry and find him,” Herleif growled.

  “You’re tall,” she said to Zen. “I’ll hold the light and you peek in.”

  Zen slid the plate aside and Kyla held the light as close as she could.

  “What does your friend look like?” he asked.

  “A smarmy satyr.”

  Zen backed away from the door, clicking the plate back in place. “Nope.”

  They moved to the next door and checked again. Nothing. After the fourth door, Kyla glanced upward to see small red dots in the upper corners of the room. Small pellets of molten stone began dropping, and she had to keep looking up in case she needed to dodge one.

  “The Breakers are coming through the ceiling! Hurry!”

  Kyla and Zen rushed from peephole to peephole until Zen gave a relieved sigh.

  “Finally! This one. Looks like he’s managed to pull one of his arms from the wall. He’s working on the other. Frozen, at the moment”

  “Great! Herleif! Can you unfreeze him?”

  Herleif nodded. There was the sound of stone scraping on metal, which stopped with a goat-like squeal.

  Kyla called through the door. “Saul! It’s Kyla! We have to get you out right away, but I need to figure out the combination first.”

  No response. Kyla tried again. “Saul? We need to hurry.”

  “I was almost out!” Saul finally called back. “I mean, thanks for coming and everything, but I was halfway out! It was going to be the greatest prison break ever!”

  “Stop being an idiot. There’s a bunch of glowing orb things after us.”

  Kyla began punching keys on the pad, but as soon as she began realized she didn’t even know how many digits were going to be in the combination.

  “Top-left, middle-right, top-center, bottom-center,” Saul instructed.

  “You know the combination to your own cell?”

  “Hurry!” Herleif shouted. His eyes were red.

  She looked at him. He was staring at the Breakers, which were closing around him from above. It was going to be difficult to get Herleif out of the city before he was hit.

  Kyla followed Saul’s instructions, but nothing happened. “It doesn’t work!”

  There was a frantic sound of metal on stone again. “Try again! Top-left, middle-right, top-center, bottom-center.”

  Kyla tried again. “It still isn’t working!”

  “Do you know your left and right? Your left hand should be facing the door you came in.”

  “I know my left from my right Saul! Are you sure you know the combination?”

  “Try middle-left, middle-right, top-center, bottom-center.”

  “What? Are you just guessing?”

  “No! Just try it.”

  Kyla stabbed her fingers at th
e designated buttons. “No! If you don’t know it just say so and we’ll try to break the door down.”

  “With what? Your head?” There was a loud clank from inside the cell. “Where’s Lili? She may know where to find the code book.”

  “She’s frozen back at the big staircase.”

  “Frozen?”

  “In time! We can talk about it later. Big problems out here.”

  “Fine. I think I got it. Try middle-left, middle-right, top-center, middle center.”

  Kyla shook her head and punched the keys. She heard a satisfying click and threw her hands in the air. “We did it!”

  Zen shoved the door, which slowly opened with a grind. The light orb illuminated the interior of the cell to show Saul, chains capped with a piece of stone attached to each wrist, was wrestling a hoof from a manacle near the floor. The other leg was free, though badly bloodied. On another wall hung a malnourished-looking elf hanging heavily by his wrists, his flesh pale and eyes sunk. Kyla rushed to him to check for breath, but quickly realized he was frozen in time, so dead or alive, there would be none.

  “No time,” Zen reminded her. Indeed, threads had formed between the Breakers and formed a net around them. They only had a couple feet of space from the ground in which to maneuver.

  “Okay, let’s go!” she ordered. “There’s room if we crawl.”

  She dropped to her knees. Zen and Saul did likewise.

  “Zen, help him out. Herleif, we need to go.”

  “They’re after me,” he said. “My magic must have tripped some kind of defense system. You go ahead. I’ll keep everyone frozen as long as I can, but I doubt you have more than a couple minutes. Get outside and find a place to hide.”

  “Oh, crab-apples. I can’t leave you behind.”

  Herleif shrugged, overly casual, but his eyes belied his fear. “Made it farther than I expected. Knew they might have some kind of protection.”

  “Hurry, please!”

  “Go. My job was to get you here. Knew I might not get out. Find Nether and take care of her. Sophrosyne will know where to find her.”

  Saul coughed. “What on earth happened to you?”

  Kyla turned to see Saul, who was looking at her side. “What?”

  “You’ve got a massive burn!”

  “Shot by lightning.” Kyla caressed the bandage. Her wound stung at her touch. “Not the time to talk about it, Saul.”

  Kyla crawled forward, small glowing red orbs passing overhead toward Herleif. Her hands dragged, and her mind screamed at itself, one half wanting to turn around and help and the other telling her it was useless and that she had to keep moving. She could still save Zen and Saul, though she supposed, were they not here, she might choose to hang back to die with Herleif.

  Save Saul. She had promised Lili. She crawled forward, under the legs of the guards and the uniformed officer in the first room, out the half-open door, and onto the street. A channel of magma flowed from a tunnel a half-block from the prison. She waved for Zen and Saul to follow as she crept inside. The ceiling was low, so she had to crouch. There was about six inches of lip on either side of the magma. A bit tight, but she could manage it.

  “Come on!” she whispered, afraid the frozen guards might hear. “Turns the corner just ahead. Look, the ledge widens out a bit.”

  It was difficult to inch along the edge with her light orb in hand, but the magma provided enough of a glow, so she turned her orb off and placed it in her bag. She scuttled along, back pressed tightly against the wall. Her toes overhung the ledge, and she could feel the heat against her bare feet.

  There was a horrific scream, muffled by the thick stone. Kyla’s stomach twisted in knots as her mind flashed images of hot red balls burning through Herleif’s body.

  Zen had his hair drawn over his face, but she thought she heard him crying.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Playing with Fire

  After a brief respite, noise resumed outside the tunnel with an urgency that pushed Kyla to lead the others farther in. She couldn’t imagine anyone wandering in here, but she wanted to get out of earshot of the street. As she rounded a corner to the right, the platform on which she scuttled widened again, so that she could walk normally. Ahead was an even larger platform on which they could all rest. There were the slick sounds of a slow burble nearby. She turned to tell Saul and Zen, only to see that the two were still struggling down the previous corridor.

  “Hurry up!” she hissed.

  “I could move faster if you’d hold on until I could get these chains off,” Saul complained. True enough, his arms were weighed down not only by chains, but each chain was bolted to a stone from his prison wall.

  “The ledge gets wider up here. I hear a … a magmafall, I guess. We can stop there.”

  Kyla pressed forward, supposing she could scout ahead as her slower companions made their way. As she passed the next turn, she saw the fall of magma to her left. It wasn’t very high - only a few feet taller than herself - but had a stairway that led to another walkway.

  And what was all this flaming refuse plummeting over the falls into the roiling magma at the base?

  Piles of trash, igniting from the heat. Charred bones and a scorched helmet floating upside-down like a boat. And in the corner nearest her, twirling in a small eddy, what appeared to be large fairy wings, the edges burnt away, and holes seared through in spots. The one on top had identifiable markings: blue, with black spots and trimming. It floated atop another wing, which in turn rested on the magma, and was completely charred.

  There was a glint to her right. She crawled over to it. It was a marble. It was black, and translucent, with waves of undulating purple clouds inside. She could feel it drawing on her mind, pulling her into an endless expanse. Only it wasn’t frightening. It felt expanding. There was magic in it, certainly. She would have to ask Hajar to look at it when she next saw her.

  The boys rounded the corner.

  “Thanks for waiting,” Saul groaned. Kyla couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm because she hadn’t gone back to help, or sincere that she had stopped here on the platform.

  Kyla tucked the marble into a side-pocket of the purse. “Should be safe enough to rest here a bit. We can get those chains off your arms. Zen, you keep an eye around the corner for guards.”

  Zen pulled out his lockpicks. “Maybe I should help get him out.”

  Saul grimaced as he sat on the floor. “No locks. These babies are permanent. But I can get them off.”

  Zen shrugged. “Sure. Let me know if you need any help.”

  Kyla watched with interest as Saul twisted and contorted his limbs. She asked him more than once if he needed help, but he would just look at her, red-faced, cheeks puffed out and teeth grinding, and insist that he was fine.

  It became painful to watch, so Kyla turned her attention to the magma. Occasionally a pile of trash would wash over it, and she would try to spot anything interesting in the burning refuse.

  Zen peered around the corner. “Guards.” His voice was a harsh whisper.

  Kyla nodded. Well, if there was refuse pouring over the falls, there had to be some place ahead where people were dumping their garbage. Perhaps a way out. Kyla stood and waved for Saul and Zen to follow.

  Saul, somehow freed and caressing his skinless wrists, grinned and followed with Zen right behind. They followed the ledge to the narrow stairs. Bits of burnt food waste littered the walkway. The stairs led to another wide walkway, which extended farther than Kyla could see; however, about thirty paces ahead, she could see three holes over the magma. A few pieces of debris fell through one of them.

  “Garbage chutes,” she pointed. “We need to find a way up.”

  Saul, as usual, was quick with a stupid idea. “Zen and I will boost you inside. You’re a good climber, right? You get to the top and lower a rope.”

  “What? I have no idea how high it goes. And what if I fall? Also, I don’t have a rope.”

  Saul looked at the magma. “Don’t f
all. And find one. Bed sheets will do.”

  “Better do something quick,” Zen warned. “Rather risk the chute than the guards. I’ll go if you don’t want to.”

  Kyla, though nervous, found this another opportunity to show off her courage. “No, I’ll do it.”

  Zen nodded and clasped his fingers together. “Just step in my hands.”

  Saul knelt on one knee next to the channel of magma and grabbed Kyla by the hand. “Put one foot here,” he pointed at the bend in his leg.

  Zen nodded and stood next to Saul, clasping his hands together and holding them about a foot away from Saul’s knee, providing a second step. Kyla got ready to launch herself up into the nearest hole but felt the glider on her back and supposed it was going to be terribly awkward to climb. She pulled it off, repositioned her purse, and prepared to make the leap.

  “Your purse?” Zen asked. “I can take it.”

  “I might need the light,” she said, though her greater worry was leaving him with Calam’s stone. She couldn’t trust Zen entirely, after all.

  With a heave Zen lifted her into the hole. The chute was carved straight through the rock, and so didn’t have much for hand-holds, but it sloped a bit at the bottom and was narrow enough that Kyla could press her arms, legs, and back against the sides for support. It was sticky as well. The smell reminded her of an old musty cellar.

  “You got it?” Zen called. She could no longer see him or Saul - only the glow of magma beneath her.

  “Yeah,” she grunted. She had to hurry, she knew, because it wouldn’t take the guards long to catch up to Zen and Saul.

  The chute went straight up but was narrow enough that Kyla could place a hand and foot on each side and climb with relative ease. The darkness was a problem, so she tapped on her light orb and set it in the air over her head. It stayed in place when she released it. She gripped the purse-strap in her mouth as she climbed, and as she ascended to the light, grabbed the orb again and placed it over her head.

  There was laughter far above, and a grating sound. Kyla closed her eyes and mouth and looked down. Cold, slimy something smacked her on the head and shoulders. She shook it off as best she could. She could now see branches sloping from the main chute. She climbed for the nearest. It was a short tunnel leading to a metal hatch. She lunged for it, her hand hitting metal, but the slope was slick, and she began to slide back.