by McCoy, RS
What limited success she had with the wind came too late as the orange and yellow balls of flame were already closing in.
“Just put them out. Khasla! Get over here!” A rattled Khasla stood idly staring up at the sky in amazement but it was too late. The first flaming projectile struck through the wide orange sail, knocking down bits of fabric and wood that had caught fire. Khasla quickly set to work putting them out before I turned his attention to the next one.
Just as with Khea, he struggled to gain control, only succeeding in reducing the heat slightly. The second hit tore through the rails, skidding across the deck until it burned a hole and fell to the lower level.
I grabbed Khea’s arm to pull her towards the less damaged back of the ship. “Can you swim?” It wasn’t a ‘do you know how to swim’ type of question, as we both grew up in a fishing village, but rather a ‘are you in good enough shape to swim’ type, and I wasn’t entirely sure I would trust her answer.
She nodded but the blurriness in her head disagreed; the fall from the hammock had rattled her more than she realized. Looking over the rails, a second ship was closing in fast. It had managed to evade any direct hits; for a moment I thought we might be lucky enough to be picked up by a passing ship before we drowned.
Tototl appeared on deck next to us looking more frightened than I’d ever seen a man. “Chimalma,” he said more to himself than me or Khea, his thread revealing he recognized the dog on the flag of the ship.
At that moment, I knew it had all been planned. The volcano was just a ploy to get us to Chimalma and let Yaotl have us. Someone had been behind it all, and if someone was working that hard to get us there, nothing good could come from it. We had to find a way off the ship and somehow avoid the Chimalman vessel.
When I thought about everything on board that I needed to get off, it somehow seemed like an impossibly long list: Micha, Jhoma, Khasla, Obsidian, Jasper, my father’s ring. A quick pass of the hand over my pocket told me it was already there. One less thing to worry about.
Citrine completed another pass as Jhoma and Micha joined us at the back of the Turtle. Jhoma’s sleeve was burned and singed where he held his arm delicately at his side, but otherwise they seemed alright. The horses I couldn’t help. They were on the lowest deck and would never be able to swim far enough. It was a horrible decision to make, but I had to put Khea first; there was nothing I could do.
“Come on, make for that ship!” Khasla yelled as he picked himself over the rail. Tototl grabbed his arm and shook his head.
“Not that ship,” I told him.
With no other choice, we jumped into the deep purple as a ball of fire struck through the tattered core of the Turtle and pushed her into the sea. The water was warmer than I expected, but the sudden shock of the water made me race for the surface. I still held Khea’s hand as she swam towards the light, kicking as smoothly as if she was born for the water.
When we broke the surface, it was clear we’d never outrun the Chimalman ship. It was already right on top of us; we never stood a chance. Only Tototl tried to flee, desperately grabbing at the water to pull himself away. The rest of us could only wait as the ship pulled nearer and a small boat was dispatched to collect us. I knew it would be wiser to save my strength for a fight, than waste it in a pursuit I couldn’t win.
Khea sent me her agreement, but it was covered in fear. Nothing good would come of this, and we both knew it.
Moments later we were thrown roughly to the dark wood deck of the ship. Khea was immediately seized, and before I could make a move, a hard blow to the head wiped everything and replaced it with darkness.
Chimalma
I awoke to the same darkness I had been lost to, only the searing pain behind my eyes a sign I was no longer asleep.
My back leaned against a moist stone wall with a healthy layer of slippery growth, and my hands rested in my lap, shackled at the wrists and connected by a chain. A quick test proved the chain was attached to the stone wall, but the loudness of the rattle caused immediate regret. My hand reached up to reveal a large swollen bump behind my right ear. The stickiness of my drying blood told me it would be there a while.
“Lark?” Micha’s voice called out from not too far into the darkness. I suddenly remembered all that had happened: the Turtle, the volcano, the ship, Khea.
“Are you alright? Where’s Khea?”
Micha’s thread quickly confirmed my worst fear. “I don’t know. Last thing I remember was that guy with the feathers taking her below deck. They went for you first though. They waited a minute for the rest of us. Jhoma’s still out.” His memory showed a Nakben man with generous arm tattoos and a red, feathered headdress pulling Khea by the arm as she struggled against him. Just as Micha said, he had pulled her towards the access panel to the lower decks of the ship–and no doubt intended her for some ominous purpose.
I had no recollection of the feathered man, but immediately recognized the implications of being targeted. It’s like they knew I would be able to find her. Reminded, I sent out a thread. Since learning about the Affinity, I had always been able to sense her. When she denied me access, I could sense her blocking. But now there was nothing. A cold terror began to take root.
“How long have we been out?”
“Hard to know. Long enough to get the ship back to port and get us down here.”
Sure enough, Micha was right. The dark room didn’t roll and sway with the sea. We were back on land and, given the total absence of light, probably underground.
“Tototl?”
“Alive,” came the deep voice in Nakben. I sensed the crippling fear that had begun to consume him. His large size would make a great gift to Chichiton, and he was bracing himself for certain death.
Tototl’s memory of Khea being pulled away by a man with feathers matched Micha’s, but his was laced with his certainty that she was dead. He knew Yaotl loved the young, beautiful, and strong as the best gifts for the dog, and my Khea fit every category. Even without knowledge of her Spark, she was far too attractive to get out alive. There was nothing I could do to dispel his assumptions, but inside I struggled to think past the pain in my chest.
“Khasla?”
“Here.”
“Can you melt the chains and get us out of here?”
“No.”
“No?” I asked in awe. Was he really refusing to help us? A quick read showed me the real reason: his restraints were carved of stone. Someone knew.
“I can’t,” he replied, his words guilty.
“Can you make some light?” A moment later an unbelievably bright light appeared and my eyes slammed shut. It took several minutes for my eyes to adjust enough to make out Khasla’s hand hovering under the small flicker of flame.
The room holding us was made entirely of stone, not stone bricks mortared together, but rather a giant space carved from a single stone. Each of us was chained to the wall, our restraints held to the stone with eye-bolts that looked to have been there for generations. Between each of us were a series of ancient-looking metal bars that separated the room into individual cells.
“Can you use it to melt the eye-bolt in the wall?” The spark seemed to go out at first, plunging us back into the dark, but an orange glow of molten metal appeared on the wall near Khasla’s left shoulder. He pulled away as far as he could, and a moment later the chain let loose from the wall.
“Careful. It’ll be hot,” Micha warned him, prompting a disbelieving look; if anyone knew how to handle heated metal, it would be a Striker. Despite his expression, I sensed he was pleased to be able to assist our escape.
Working around the stone restraints on his hands, Khasla melted through the metal bars that separated his cell from mine, though it took several minutes to heat the thick iron bars one at a time. Each bar would glow hot orange at the site he worked and begin to drip molten iron onto the stone floor.
When he was able to make a hole large enough–and the iron had coole
d enough to let him through–he clambered into my cell to begin working on my chain and restraints. The light from his efforts was enough to illuminate the small space around us, but as soon as he was finished the room went dark again.
“Light,” I asked when my hands were free from the iron cuffs.
The flame appeared again so I could evaluate Khasla’s restraints. They were clearly not the effort of a stoneworker, showing no signs of contact with any tools. Instead they were formed by a Shaker, and a gifted one at that; they were made especially to fit him. Without a large hammer and a considerable amount of time, there was nothing I could do to free his wrists. “Help the others. We’ll find a way to get this off you when we get out of here.”
Khasla silenced his disappointment while dutifully melting the chains from the wall. Once they were cool, we slid them through the rings that held them to the wrist cuffs, freeing ourselves except for the wrist cuffs themselves. Again, Khasla proved useful as he lightly touched the hinged connection and let the cuffs drop loudly to the floor. After the first, we were careful to release them on the ground to limit alerting anyone outside to our activity.
As he worked, I combed my mind for how I might be able to find Khea–if she was even still alive. “Khasla, did you show them your Spark when we were captured? A flame? A spark or anything?”
“No. I thought if I showed it, I’d be more likely to be picked for sacrifice.” His logic was sound, but it didn’t answer how someone would have known to use stone restraints. There was only one answer: they had a Reader.
A Reader could have read me to learn that Khea was the Majestic, that she was more powerful than anyone else alive, in Nakbe or otherwise. I had been the reason she was picked immediately, and it was my fault she was gone. It was too much to live with.
Micha brought me back in time to wake Jhoma with a few rough shakes before Khasla could remove the chains and wrist cuffs. It took several minutes to explain what we knew about the cells, and about Khea, and get everyone free, aside from Khasla’s stone restraints.
I had no choice but to explain my Spark. Jhoma took the news about my Spark as well as anyone could, mumbling about knowing I couldn’t learn to read that fast on my own. Khasla didn’t seem to care one way or the other, too bothered by his stone manacles.
When at last it was done, Khasla lit up the room and located the only thing that could be a door: a large circular stone carved with ancient Nakben symbols that stood at least two feet taller than me. A look to the side confirmed it was meant to be rolled, based on the deep tracks in the soil and heavy, labored boot prints. This won’t be easy.
Before attempting to move the stone, I scanned the nearby area to see how many minds were on the other side, but I couldn’t get a read on anyone. No one wore a bracelet, no one blocked. We had been thrown down there and forgotten. A stone that can’t be moved. A room that isn’t guarded. Restraints that can’t be opened. Whoever had put us down there had no intention of coming to check on us or keeping us for a later sacrifice. We were meant to die down there.
“Alright, the other side is clear. Grab a side and roll it,” I instructed the group.
“My arm’s broken. I won’t be any good,” Jhoma admitted remorsefully, and I remembered the way it hung delicately at his side before evacuating the Ayotl.
“Use your good arm and do the best you can.”
Micha fashioned his sleeve into a sling of sorts to support Jhoma’s arm until it could heal. If only Khea were here.
She could break Khasla’s restraints in a heartbeat and move the eight-foot stone that blocked our path. If she were here, I wouldn’t feel responsible for her death; I could concentrate on the task at hand, rather than fight back the grief of not finding her Spark. My own Spark registered the loss like the Turtle weathered the volcano: smashed to bits and sinking rapidly.
“It has to weigh at least five thousand pounds. There’s no way we move this thing,” Khasla said, though his thread showed he was worried he wouldn’t be able to help with the stone lock between his hands.
Regardless of the challenge, we all stood around the stone and pushed against it like ants would have pushed against a boot. It didn’t even come close to moving, and several seconds of exertion offered no progress.
“Damn that’s a big rock,” Micha spouted through his heavy breaths. No wonder there’s no one guarding us.
“I move the rock.” Tototl said in Nakben and I realized he hadn’t been with us on the first attempt. Of course he didn’t understand my instruction in Madurian. He had stood back and watched us, not knowing we would fail miserably.
The second attempt to move the stone was much more successful with Tototl’s help. Actually he seemed to be doing most of it himself, but we were there to give him a little extra. When our muscles gave out, we could see a three inch gap to the dark corridor on the other side.
“Again,” Tototl said, and I translated for the others. Nine inches, then another push, then fifteen inches. It was enough that we all would have been able to squeeze out, except for Tototl. One final push gave us a large enough space to all slide through. Khasla already had a small flame in one of his bound hands to illuminate the space around us.
With no idea where we were or how we might get out, our only hope was to keep moving, stay together, and try to make our way to the surface. The corridor was a labyrinth of narrow, stone walls and twisted wooden stairs; we chose to ascend each one. Thick boards braced the walls and low-hanging ceiling, as if the builders thought the earth would eventually collapse.
We didn’t meet a single other person before we entered a sunlit room that opened directly onto the streets of Chimalma. It was late afternoon judging by the sun that steadily approached the horizon. Each of us blocked the sun’s rays with a lifted hand and waited for our eyes to adjust after the dimness of the subterranean maze.
“Where is everyone?” Micha asked, though none of us had the answer. A look around confirmed we were the only people on the streets, not even a child in view.
The thoroughfares were as deserted as the underground building. A quick turnaround revealed it was little more than a house; a house that has an underground labyrinth and holding cells at least six floors down. What was the purpose of such a place?
I tried to reach a thread out to Khea, but again nothing.
“Lark!”
“What?”
“Did you hear me? Head north to the coast. We can find a ship and get out of here.”
“But–” Khea.
“We have no way to find her. What do you want us to do?”
It was an easy decision to make. The lives of four other men or the confirmation that Khea was gone. I knew what the right choice was, but my Spark prevented my acceptance. If it hadn’t been for Micha’s hand pulling my shoulder and his anguish at the thought of losing me, I would have burst into every house in Chimalma until I found her–even if there was nothing to find. Micha kept my feet moving north, toward the docks.
The city we had feared so much had a decidedly creepy sense of calm as the sun continued to set; the streets between the dried-mud houses with straw-thatched roofs were empty. All the houses had symbols molded into the mud, similar to those on the stone door in the labyrinth. Quauhtil had said there was no written system for Nakben, but that didn’t explain the birds, fish, and strange people depicted on the buildings.
The sounds of cheers and music began to get louder as we approached some sort of gathering in the center of the city. Not interested in anything being celebrated in Chimalma, we did our best to quickly move on without being seen. I hoped the Chimalmans were too distracted to notice us. Perhaps we’ll get out of here alive after all.
I knew it was too good to be true. A group of four men approached us from behind, each wearing a strong bracelet. I was able to learn from one that they had been sent for us, their instructions to take us to Yaotl. We must have been targeted as suitable gifts to the dog already. But how had the
y known how to find us?
Each of the four men carried a feathered spear and a foot-long blade tucked into a sheath in their calf-high sandals. Aside from a black swath of cloth around their waists, none of them wore any clothing. They ran with spears extended in front, but I ran out to meet them.
“Stay here!” I shouted back, not interested in the injured Jhoma or restrained Khasla attempting to participate in combat. And I wasn’t willing to risk Micha.
One of the Nakben attackers was considerably faster than the other three and, fortunately, had only a two inch span of his arm covered in the tattoos. He ran to meet me alone before the others could catch up. Predictably, his spear shot out towards my gut as soon as he got close enough, so it was easy to grab the shaft and pull it free from his hands.
With the spear under my control, the Nakben man glanced at me in surprise, an opening to plunge the spear quickly between his ribs. I had just enough time to use the shaft to block the next spear that flew towards me, and thankfully it left the second attacker with no more than the hand knife from his calf. The length of the spear I still held allowed me to make my jabs without being anywhere close to the range of his blade.
He was quick and his bracelet blocked me almost completely, but when he saw an opening and made the decision to go for it, it was strong enough for me to sense. I blocked immediately and lunged the spear into the meat of his arm before drawing a deep line diagonally across his chest. As he collapsed to the ground, I pulled the knife from his blood-filled hand and slid it into the rear waist of my pants.
By the time I dealt with the second man, the other two attackers had caught up and still held their spears. They were both completely unreadable and had tattoos well past their elbows. I had never fought two men at once before or attempted combat with anything but a knife, but I was determined. If those men had anything to do with Khea’s death or intended my friends for the same fate, then they were in for a major disappointment.
