Break the Chains

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  Dark burgeoned, the sun little more than a red smear against the horizon, a chill breeze rolling in off the sea to wash the day’s heat away. They hurried down the path toward the open mouth of the pipe and the heaping pile of compost at the foot of it.

  Up close, Ripka could better see the hollow dug into the ground alongside the wall of the prison proper. The thick grey wall extended all the way down to at least the bottom of the pit, and no doubt deeper. There would be no digging to freedom for the inmates, even if they could find a secretive place in which to do so.

  The refuse pile mounded toward the mouth of the chute, slumping at the edge farthest from the wall. Metal ladders had been screwed into the wall on both sides of the pipe, presumably for maintenance access. A set of stairs slashed the ground on the opposite side so that the farmers could get to the refuse with ease even when the pit wasn’t full.

  But what truly made the clearest impression upon Ripka, was the stench.

  “Ugh,” she said, not having to pretend disgust.

  The air was redolent with the fecal-sweet aroma of rotting plant material, heavy with the pungent scent of decay. It was far worse up close than it had been that morning.

  “I think something might have died down there,” Enard said.

  “Could be a dead rat blocking the pipe.”

  “Or a rat king.”

  “Sweet skies,” the guard said, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth and nose. “Get this over with, will you?”

  “Go on down the stairs at the other end,” Enard said. “I’ll tell you what to do from there.”

  Ripka nodded, a little queasy, and skirted the pit to the steps. The heap wasn’t small by any stretch of the imagination, but it had yet to completely collapse at the base, making it a high, narrow pyramid wide enough to hide two widths of her body. She climbed down the steps while Enard swung up the ladder on the opposite side. He was in full view of the guard, but the heap did well to hide her.

  “Right, now,” Enard said loud enough for the guard to hear. “Take your wrench and pry open the first bolt on the clog trap – no, no, the other one.”

  Ripka hadn’t done anything, didn’t have any intention to, but Enard kept on talking and giving direction like she were throwing herself to the task. With care she hung her bag from the lowest rung of the ladder and twisted the strap around so that it would unwind itself and clank against a nearby metal flap. She then crept up the stairs on hands and knees.

  Her hands sunk into the dirt on the lower steps, the soil there slightly muddy from having been covered in midden at one point or another, and suppressed a shudder. There’d be plenty of time to wash in her cell, later. At least they didn’t need to be stingy with water on this skies-cursed island.

  When she crested the top of the steps – the time she was most vulnerable to view – Enard banged on the pipe with his wrench, swearing at it, doing everything he could to draw attention to himself. Breath held, she scurried forward into a nearby stand of scrub, concealing herself behind a thick pricklebrush.

  The thorns grabbed at her jumpsuit, raked across her cheeks, but she held firm, waiting to hear a cry of alarm. Nothing but Enard’s mutterings met her ears.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself and crept forward, away from the midden heap, angling toward the path that led out to the grain plot she’d worked. The path would be dangerous, she’d be visible from the top of the prison’s walls every second she walked there, but it was the fastest way – and time was of the essence. Enard could only keep up his antics for so long, and Ripka had to know what was amiss with that building. Its hunkering form was a lodestone lodged in the back of her mind.

  If Nouli were within it, they’d have to figure out how to get themselves sent over there as quickly as possible.

  She paused at the path’s edge to catch her breath and listened, turning her head slowly, scanning for any sign of another person nearby. She saw no one, could even make out the silhouette of a guard at the top of the wall turn toward the rec yard, his eyes on the largest congregation of prisoners. They apparently didn’t bother looking outside the walls too often on a night with no work details set.

  She waited, counting, to see how long it took him to glance toward the fields, then turn back to the courtyard. Two minutes. She’d have plenty of time.

  The second he turned away she burst onto the path, sprinting down the hard soil on silent feet, air burning in her throat as adrenaline kicked in, all the while counting down the seconds until he’d turn back toward the outdoors.

  She leapt sideways, hit the ground between rows of grain at full speed and tucked, rolling across the dirt. She’d be filthy by the time she got back to the midden heap, but she suspected the guard wouldn’t find anything amiss in that. He probably wouldn’t bother getting close enough to see if she smelled as foul as she looked.

  Hidden by the bowing rows of grain, she ran to the end of the plot and peered at the building. No one was about. Not even a warm light dotted the cracks around the shuttered windows. Smoke curled from the narrow mouth of a chimney, smearing the sky with a grey haze. The ground between her and the building was rocky, uneven. Pocked with twisted brush and gnarled trees. Not good ground for running on, not in the growing dark.

  Moving as fast as she dared across the uneven terrain, she slipped up close to the building, pressed her back against the wall perpendicular to any line of sight from the prison’s walls, and crept toward one of the shuttered windows. Heart hammering in her ears, she reached up, ran a finger along the underside of one of the shutters, searching for a latch. Maybe it was her nerves, or the light playing tricks in the gathering dusk, but she could have sworn she felt a slight tingle, saw a faint shimmer halo her fingertip. Then it was gone.

  “You.” The voice was so close beside her that Ripka jumped, dropped into a defensive crouch and reached for a weapon she didn’t have.

  Misol, the guard who had appeared from behind the tree, stood a bare two paces away, her dark face expressing more amusement than anger. Her bald pate gleamed in the fading light, but not as bright as the steel-tipped spear she cradled in one arm. Ripka straightened, slowly, brushing dust from her jumpsuit but finding she only ground the grime in deeper.

  “Aren’t you interesting,” Misol said, pursing her plush lips in thought. “Most the time, I find someone creeping around the island after work hours, they’re looking for a way out – a way off the island. But not you. You’re looking for a way in, aren’t you?”

  “What is this place?” Ripka asked, forcing her voice to calm. Misol had shattered her concentration. She’d lost her count of the guard’s rotation, and that bothered her. More than likely, she wouldn’t need it now, but the way this woman unsettled her... It was off. Wrong. Not even the most depraved of souls she’d thrown behind bars or led to the axemen had disturbed her in this fashion. Her skin crawled to be close to Misol, a familiar sensation she couldn’t quite pin down.

  “What I don’t understand, is, why do you want to know, hmm? Most sparrows, they come in wanting to do their time, keep their heads down, and get off this rock if they can. But you – you’re poking around like the Remnant’s a puzzle to be solved. You’re looking for someone, aren’t you? You a songbird who can’t find her nest-mate?”

  Her jaw clenched. “I’m no songbird. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Thing is, lil’ sparrow, I don’t have to. Pity you won’t share your reasons with me. Makes you my own puzzle then, doesn’t it? But, if you won’t share, then I gotta do my job.”

  Misol paused, giving Ripka a chance to reveal her intentions. The very idea rankled. Maybe Misol could be of some help – certainly she held the key to the secret of the yellowstone building – but Ripka could not be certain. And the more Misol danced around telling her the truth, the more Ripka suspected it must be holding the very thing she sought. Nouli may have been disgraced, but he was still a genius. They wouldn’t leave him to rot without protection in the Remnant.


  Possibly they were even slaving him to tasks they needed done.

  “I guess you gotta, then,” Ripka said.

  Misol sighed her disappointment. “Have it your way–” she squinted at Ripka’s dyed name, “–Enkel. Keep your hands where I can see ’em, now. We’re going to go visit the warden, and see what he wants to do about you, little wanderer.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Within a heartbeat of meeting him, Ripka knew that Radu Baset was everything she hated in a watch-captain, let alone a prison’s warden.

  Misol had led her back to Enard, where she’d ordered the baffled guard who’d escorted them out to the midden heap to bind their wrists. A sour party they made, tromping through the labyrinthine tunnels of the Remnant’s hallways. Ripka’d occupied herself by trying to keep track of the twists and turns.

  It hadn’t helped. A nervousness grew within her stomach, a gaping black maw of regret. She should have waited. Should have played things a little tighter, a little closer. She’d been too anxious to find Nouli, too used to her old authority. Her life as a watch-captain had made her too proud, too sure-footed, and she’d gone and gotten Enard tangled up in her iron-headed determination.

  By the time they reached the warden’s office, she was ready to hate someone. She’d thought it’d be herself, but Warden Radu Baset had gone ahead and claimed that honor for himself.

  He was a big man, a full head taller than her, with more meat on him than a Valathean black bear. She wondered if he had the fur to match under his uniform. Pale hair spattered his wide head, clinging to the forward slope of his scalp, and his nose had the scorpion-red bloom of alcoholism.

  Didn’t need his countenance to prove his addiction, his breath did enough to give that vice away. It smelled like he’d licked a tavern floor. Ripka couldn’t even see the wood of his desk under haphazard piles of paper and splotches of spilt ink. Three wide, red velvet couches filled the office, and every last one had a warden-shaped dent in it. No wonder his staff was so poorly trained. The man spent more time sleeping and drinking than most of the gutter-fillers of Aransa.

  Radu looked up at Misol from his slouched seat behind his desk, one eye squinted.

  “Wha’s all this then?” he stammered. Though he looked strong enough to wrestle half the Remnant’s populace to the ground single-handed he had a high, rasping voice. The product of a throat worn raw from too much drink.

  “Caught these two sparrows trying to get kicked out of their nest. Trouble is,” Misol half-turned, her strange eyes focusing hard on Ripka. “They haven’t learned how to fly yet.”

  “What?” Radu repeated, making a halfhearted attempt to straighten his collar.

  “It’s my fault, warden.” Their escort guard stepped forward, wringing his hands together. “The midden chute was clogged, you see, and–”

  Radu seemed to see Ripka for the first time. His dark gaze narrowed, the pouches beneath them scrunching up so high they swallowed his eyes. He cleared his throat and, when he spoke again, he’d ground away most of the drunken slur. Ripka repressed a sigh. So he’d had a lot of practice being drunk on the job. No surprise there.

  “Of course it’s your fault. I’m amazed every morning when you manage to put your coat on the right way. Misol, I assume it was you who caught these two?”

  She inclined her head. “The woman was the one wandering, the man was a distraction. I caught her down by the yellowhouse, trying to peek in a window.”

  The knot of Radu’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. He reached for a bottle half-buried by papers on his desk, thought better of it, and went to ladle himself a cup of water from a bucket and mug left on the windowsill to absorb the night chill.

  “I see,” he said once he’d drunk his fill. He tipped his head to the guard. “Get out.”

  “But I–”

  “You’re not in trouble, rat. Now scurry.”

  The guard obeyed. It was the most disciplined thing Ripka had yet seen on the island. When the heavy, iron-bound door thunked shut behind the guard, Radu leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head, and squinted at Misol.

  “How nosy was our little sparrow, then?”

  Misol shifted her weight and rested her spear against her shoulder with intent. An implicit threat? Why would a simple guard hold sway over the warden?

  “The sparrow saw only the fine craftsmanship of our window shutters. I will tell her as much, when I report this incident.”

  A sour purse came to Radu’s lips. Ripka couldn’t tell if it were annoyance or indigestion. “Good enough.” He sucked his teeth and leaned forward, looming over his desk as if he could threaten his paperwork into organizing itself. “Go file your report, then.”

  Misol’s back went stiff and her chin shot up. “Are you dismissing me?”

  “I am.”

  Ripka shared a look with Enard, curiosity pushing all fear of punishment from her mind. What power dynamic was at play, here? Was the yellowhouse, as Misol had called it, beyond the control of the warden, and if so, why? If Nouli were indeed behind those sunny walls, then Ripka would have to win herself over to Misol’s side. Maybe, she thought regretfully, she should have given up a smidgen of information to Misol when she had the chance, told her the barebones of what she was seeking. Now... Now it may be too late.

  She tried to catch the woman’s eye, tried to pass some understanding between them, but Misol was intent upon Radu, her eyes bright with something akin to anger. Ripka wished she could place the sentiment – Misol was too difficult for her to read.

  “I will make my report, then.” Misol snapped the warden an overly formal salute and stalked toward the door. Ripka could not capture her eye, could not even see her face, before the door clicked shut behind her.

  “Captain,” Radu said, bringing her head around with a start. Cold dread filtered through her, freezing her in place like a rabbit in a hawk’s shadow. He could not have learned her nickname so quickly. He was a lout, a drunkard, incapable of disciplining his staff into any meaningful force. He was not so aware of his new intakes that he already knew the made-up nickname of a woman who’d been in his care less than two full turns of the sun.

  She looked him in the eye, tried to keep her expression calm and mildly confused despite the runaway pounding of her heart. The confusion she didn’t need to fake, it was only the fear she had to mask. “Miss Enkel suits me fine,” she ventured. “I’m no kind of captain.”

  “No, no.” He sneered as he leaned forward, yellowed teeth looking even more tarnished in the ruddy light of the oil lamps scattered around the room. “Fine woman like yourself is deserving of the title. You earned it fair, even if it was stripped from you under dubious circumstances. “

  Pits below, but she wanted to bolt. To tip any one of those merrily burning lanterns into his rat’s nest of a desk and flee while the flames made a meal of his neglect. She willed herself to be calm, to stand with her shoulders slouched and her hips cocked to one side – not rigid and petrified, as she actually was. What would the woman she was pretending to be do, if accused of being a disgraced watch-captain?

  She forced a smirk and puffed hair from her eyes. “Lovely that you think so highly of me, warden, but the only blues I’ve been near have been hauling me off in chains.”

  He chuckled. “Nice try. Been practicing that, have you? Might have worked on another man. Trouble for you is, you don’t remember me, but I remember you. I know you, captain. I traveled with Faud out of the Brown Wash same as you, though he didn’t end up elevating me to such a lofty position.”

  Radu snorted, hawked, and spat. Right on the floor. Ripka felt a little faint. Squinting at him, she might see how his face could be familiar. If it were younger, maybe. More hair and less jowl. But she couldn’t remember a stitch about him. There’d been a whole handful of mercenaries protecting Faud’s vanguard as he crossed the Scorched to settle in Aransa. Most of them had moved on to whatever job was willing to pay as soon as they’d spent the grains Faud had give
n them in the city. She’d been the only one to stick around, and Faud had rewarded her loyalty by recommending her to the watch.

  “I…” she began, but he held up a hand to cut her off. It was well enough, she’d had no idea what she was going to say next.

  “I don’t begrudge you the post you were given. Truth be told, you were the only member of our band of miscreant do-gooders who actually gave a shit about doing the job right. Now. Why are you here?”

  “Theft of classified imperial information,” she said automatically, her lips numb from shock.

  “Hah. You? The sun would fly down from the sky and kiss the empress’s ass before that happened. There’s not a body on the Scorched straighter than yours – morals and hips.” He smirked, but she swallowed a sharp retort. Years dealing with the bootscrapings of Aransa had left her hard to such harassment.

  Enard, however, hadn’t experienced the case-hardening she had.

  He took a quick step forward, faster than Ripka could follow, his body moving with all the sinuous grace of a snake as he scooped up a lantern. He held it above the mountain range of paperwork upon Radu’s desk, tipped precariously.

  “Insult the captain once more, and I will see to it that certain parts of your anatomy never stand straight again. Sir.”

  The calmness with which Enard spoke chilled her. She was tempted to intervene, but she knew that to do so would reveal fear of reprisal. And so she waited, jaw clenched, struggling not to grind her teeth.

  Genuine fear flickered across Radu’s face, but it was only in passing. He held up his other hand, revealing a small bell cradled in his palm, chained to a ring on one thick finger. He ran his thumb over its shiny brass edge, caressing.

  “Everyone plays nice, or I call my friends waiting outside, understand? I ring this, they come and cut you down without a second thought. You willing to start that fire?”

  Enard’s smile was wistful. “Sometimes, I wish I would.”