Downfall of the Curse

by Deborah Grace White

  Lucy nodded, satisfied. She looked around her at the waking city, realizing they had left the castle neighborhood behind some time before. “Where are you taking me, anyway?”

  Cody’s grin grew. “To see my world.” He met her eyes, his look suddenly more serious. “Your mother’s world.”

  Lucy quickened her step to match his, intrigued. “Do you mean the jungle?” She felt a thrill of excitement. The green canopy she could see over the city wall had been calling to her since she arrived. Would it feel similar to her beloved forest home?

  Cody shook his head with a smile. “Not just the jungle.” He stopped abruptly, and Lucy careened into his back before steadying herself. Cody gestured back toward the castle, still visible rising above the other buildings.

  “All of that back there—the fancy titles, the luxury, the exalted company—that’s all you’ve seen of Nohl so far. And I know that the royals are your mother’s family, but we in the resistance knew her in a way they never did. That whole world…that wasn’t her life, not really. You say you want to be like your mother, and that you have to curb your fighting instincts to achieve that. But you’ve got this picture in your head of a well-behaved noblewoman, forced by circumstances to get her hands dirty occasionally in helping a bunch of renegade slaves, but shying away from fighting whenever she could.” He shook his head again. “But that’s not the Scar I knew. That life was her mask, not her real self.” His expression became stern. “And you’re hiding yourself away almost as much as she did, but with nowhere near as good a reason.”

  Lucy was silent, unsure what to think as she followed his gaze back toward the castle, and the opulent life she had been immersed in since her arrival in Balenol.

  “Come on, Luce,” said Cody, and she could hear that the grin was back in his voice. “Let me show you the real Nohl.”

  And before she knew what he was about, he had taken off, sprinting through the grim gray streets. Lucy felt her heart lift at the release as she raced after him, trying to emulate the smooth and silent way he moved from shadow to disappearing shadow. It was easy to picture him as a young boy, slipping unseen through these same streets, nimble and catlike.

  They reached the river in no time, turning south to follow along its banks until they reached the city wall. The huge wooden gate was closed, suspended over the rushing torrent, the water beating against its lower edge. Lucy gave a low whistle as she took in the ferocious speed of the current.

  “My father really swam under that?”

  “Well, I didn’t see it myself,” said Cody cheerfully. “But so he claims.”

  As they watched, the gate began to swing wide, indicating that the city of Nohl was open for business. In a few moments, Lucy could see the jungle crowding against the road beyond the gate. No one was waiting on the other side to come in—she could only suppose people avoided traveling through the jungle at night.

  As soon as the way was clear, Cody strode forward confidently, heading for the smaller gate set into the stone wall next to the river. Clearly the path they were on continued on the other side of the wall.

  “Halt, there. Who are you?” The guard’s surprise was evident in both tone and expression as he took in Cody’s obviously Kyonan form. Lucy wondered when the man had last seen a Kyonan. Not since the slave era, probably.

  Cody raised an eyebrow. “I thought interrogation was usually for people coming into the city, not going out of it.”

  “We’re members of the Kyonan delegation here for His Majesty’s coronation,” cut in Lucy quickly. Diplomacy wasn’t Cody’s strongest area, and she had no desire to spend the morning in the dungeons waiting for rescue by someone official.

  The guard’s eyes flicked to her, widening visibly as he took in her unusual garb. She resisted the urge to tug on her tunic.

  “But you’re not Kyonan,” he said bluntly.

  Lucy sighed. “I am, actually.” She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice at the maddeningly familiar comment. “But my mother is Balenan. I’m related to the royal family.” With any luck, that would be enough to get him to leave them alone.

  The guard paused, clearly piecing together who she was. But he was still suspicious, his eyes lingering on the weapons still slung across Cody’s back.

  “What’s your business outside the city?”

  “Hunting,” said Cody impassively.

  The man narrowed his eyes for a moment, but didn’t seem able to think of a reason to actually detain them. He waved them through, his eyes following them as they walked quickly down the path. Lucy barely noticed his scrutiny, she was so intrigued by the thick jungle rising up right alongside them. It was a still day, and no breeze stirred the palm fronds dangling over the path. She felt as though her hand should be able to slice through the air, it was so thick. The hum of insects, and the throaty trill of unfamiliar birdsong reached out from the trees, as though drawing her in.

  “That’s what we get for taking the gate like honest citizens,” grumbled Cody, clearly still disgruntled about the guard’s interference. “We should’ve gone under the wall.” His tone turned musing. “I wonder if the tunnel is still intact?”

  “The tunnel?” repeated Lucy, distracted from her contemplation of the foliage. “There’s a tunnel?”

  “Of course there’s a tunnel.” Cody flashed her a grin. “Do you think we could just stroll through the gate like that in our resistance days? We had all the trappings of a secret rebel band.” He chuckled. “We couldn’t all get away with swimming under the barrier like reckless idiots.”

  Lucy grinned back, not offended by this comment on her father. He would be the first to acknowledge his tendency toward recklessness.

  “Well, if you had all the trappings, I hope that means you’re taking me to a secret rebel lair deep in the jungle.”

  “Not that deep,” said Cody cheerfully. “Scar had to be able to get back and forth easily within a night, so that her dear old father wouldn’t find out she’d been gone. We should get there within half an hour, if you don’t slow me down too much.”

  Lucy gasped. “Really? You’re going to take me to—”

  But Cody didn’t wait to hear the rest of her question. A glance behind had revealed that they were now out of sight of the city wall, thanks to a bend in the road, and he dove off the path without preamble.

  “Only if you can keep up!” he called back over his shoulder.

  Lucy plunged after him, her eyes glinting with excitement at the prospect of visiting an abandoned rebel base. But first, she intended to make Cody eat his words about her slowing him down. She had grown up in a forest, after all, and she wasn’t hampered by skirts right now. How hard could it be to keep pace with him?

  She soon discovered her error. This jungle was nothing like her well-known Forest of Rune. She hadn’t thought it possible, but the air was even hotter and thicker under the canopy, and sweat was soon trickling down her face. The strange cries and endless buzzing sounds were unnerving, coming at her from all sides.

  But none of this was what made it so hard to keep up with Cody. The undergrowth in the jungle made the forest brush back home seem like a few harmless twigs. Lucy could barely see the ground here—ground which was squelchy and thick, despite the couple of days since the last rain—and the undergrowth was often as high as her hips. It was more like wading through a swamp than running through a forest. She tried not to think about the critters that might be concealed in the foliage, and was glad her legs were fully covered in her leggings, rather than exposed under skirts.

  She soon realized that Cody was playing with her, going just slowly enough that she could generally keep him in sight, but never allowing her to fully catch her breath. The challenge was invigorating though—she pushed herself harder, relishing the freedom of not wearing skirts, of not being under scrutiny.

  She had just forced her way through a particularly stubborn patch of undergrowth when she realized that she hadn’t seen Cody in a minute or so. She looked up,
scanning the area suspiciously.

  “Cody?” she called.

  There was no answer. She moved more warily, sacrificing speed for finesse as she picked her way forward. So he wanted to play that game, did he? After another careful look around her, she bent low, trying to apply the tracking skills she had learned in her own forest to the quagmire that was this jungle.

  Just as she thought she’d found his tracks, she leaped back in alarm at a whizzing sound near her ear. Her blade was already in her hand as she heard the inevitable thud. She stared for a moment at the arrow buried in a mossy tree trunk less than a foot from her. Recreating the whizzing sound in her mind, she sent her gaze along what she thought the arrow’s trajectory must have been. Sure enough, Cody was sitting comfortably halfway up a nearby tree, making no effort at concealment as he watched her.

  “What was that for?” she asked, exasperated.

  Cody ignored the question. “I saw your mother do that once,” he said calmly. “Except she hit her mark. Took the soldier right through the chest. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.”

  The casual declaration was met by a prolonged silence. Lucy had no idea what to say as she struggled to picture it.

  “He was guarding a group of slaves from the logging camp, who were supposed to be foraging in the jungle. We attempted to liberate them cleanly, but it went wrong. We got two of the three, but one was left behind with the soldier. We knew perfectly well that their orders were to kill the slaves before allowing them to be liberated, so at that point it was the soldier or the slave. Scar didn’t hesitate. She lured them—the slave and the soldier—into a boggy area. The moment the man pulled his weapon on his captive, she took him out.”

  Lucy looked again at the arrow still embedded in the tree trunk. She had seen her mother spar, lots of times, but it had always been for training. It had seemed like a game, somehow. Even in the attack on Raldon several months before, she had fought only defensively, inflicting nothing more than minor injuries. It was hard to picture her actually killing someone.

  “That sounds…” she trailed off, her thoughts in a jumble.

  “Ruthless?” Cody finished for her.

  She nodded.

  “She was ruthless,” he said calmly. “She had to be. We were in a war, and she was one of our main commanders. You think she just led information-gathering patrols, or handed out blankets to rescued slaves? You should know her better than to think she’d hesitate to risk her own safety, or that she’d hide behind others when the task was unpleasant. Whatever the resistance was doing, you could be sure she’d be in the thick of it.”

  His eyes took on a reminiscent gleam as he gazed unseeingly into the forest canopy. “Poor Raldo lived in a constant state of stress as a result. He didn’t say it, but we all knew he was terrified she’d get herself killed.”

  Lucy remained silent. She had heard many stories of Raldo, the well-respected resistance leader who had been executed after sacrificing himself to save both of her parents. She had an affection for him, even, as the namesake of her beloved forest settlement. But like her mother’s rebel past, he had always seemed more legend than fact. Somehow, here in the jungle where the whole story had unfolded, quite a lot of things were feeling much more real than they ever had before.

  “Come on,” said Cody, swinging himself down from the tree to land with a soft thump. “If you want me to take you to the base tree, you have to lift your game. No way I’m leading you there with you leaving tracks like that behind you.” He gestured back the way they’d come, indicating the clearly visible trail left by Lucy’s blundering progress through the undergrowth.

  Lucy looked at Cody in some amusement. “No one’s following us, Cody. There are no enemies trying to find the base, not anymore.”

  Cody met her eyes, his own expression serious. “You don’t know that for certain. I didn’t survive by taking risks based on assumptions. Whenever you don’t have all the information—which is always—the best approach is caution.”

  Lucy thought of the two near-fatal incidents that had befallen King Giles in the lead up to his coronation, and she realized Cody was right. She couldn’t be certain there was no enemy at work in Nohl.

  She lowered her gaze, chastised. “I don’t know how to move stealthily in this terrain,” she admitted with unusual humility.

  “I know,” said Cody, his voice more gentle. “I’ll teach you.”

  She nodded, determined to be a good student. They began to move again, much more slowly this time, Cody making no attempt to outdistance her. Cody was as patient a teacher as he had always been, and Lucy paid close attention to everything he told her.

  It was well over the estimated half an hour that she followed Cody carefully through the jungle. But at last he pulled up in front of her, his little intake of breath betraying that even her usually stoic mentor was overcome by the significance of the moment.

  “What is it?” Lucy asked eagerly, looking up. All she could see in front of her was a massive tree, one of many, but noticeably larger than its immediate neighbors. Its branches formed a canopy above them, and a tangled mess of vines covered its trunk. It was an impressive specimen, now she looked at it, but she wouldn’t have marked it as anything unusual if Cody hadn’t stopped right in front of it.

  “We’re here,” said Cody, sounding almost emotional. “This is it. The base tree.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Lucy gazed with renewed interest at the enormous tree. Another legend becoming reality in front of her. She turned to Cody, and he smiled at the excitement in her eyes.

  “Come on. Let’s see what’s left.”

  She followed him eagerly as he started toward the tree. She couldn’t see an opening, but Cody seemed sure of his direction. Lucy watched in fascination as he pulled out a blade, quickly hacking his way through a section of vine growing up the tree’s trunk.

  But once the vine was gone, Lucy still found herself staring in confusion at the bark of the tree underneath. She opened her mouth to ask if Cody was sure it was the right tree, when he pressed right up to the trunk and stepped sideways. Lucy gasped in spite of herself as he disappeared into a fissure that had not been visible from her angle, even without the clinging vines.

  She hurried after him, pausing only for a moment before sliding herself into the long vertical slit in his wake. She shuddered as she felt spiderwebs brushing against her face, but it didn’t slow her down. Within moments she emerged into what felt like a large, open space. It was too dim inside for her to make anything out clearly, but she could hear Cody moving around nearby.

  She stood still near the opening, waiting patiently for her eyes to adjust to the lower light. Sunlight filtered through the way they had come, and from other slits elsewhere in the space. Before long, she was able to make out the proportions of the tree’s hollowed-out interior. It was a large space, but not as large as she had expected. It was certainly cunningly hidden by nature, but Lucy could think of several problems sure to arise from any attempt to hide a significant number of people inside for any length of time.

  As her vision improved, she could see Cody several feet ahead of her, kneeling on the packed earth, and sweeping his hand through the carpet of rotting leaves and detritus that covered the space. Lucy moved toward him cautiously, swiping her hand in front of her face as she went, pushing aside the spiderwebs that seemed to crisscross the whole area.

  “Here we go,” said Cody cheerfully, his voice strangely muffled in the enclosed space.

  Kneeling beside him, Lucy realized that he had uncovered a square wooden trapdoor. There was no handle that she could see.

  “How did you lift it up?” she asked curiously.

  “We did it from inside,” Cody explained, using a small blade to dig around the edges of the door as he spoke. “It was designed to be difficult to find, and difficult to open from outside even if you did find it.” Having cleared the cracks around the door, he started wedging the blade in firmly, to use it as a lever
. “The resistance used this base, but it was here before we existed. It was a hideout of the jungle nomads. Survivors from the first resistance, a couple hundred years ago.”

  Lucy nodded, well familiar with the story. “The one led by Alben the Liberator. The one that died out when they all tried to escape back across the sea and the ships all sank. That was when they found out about the curse keeping slaves from returning to Kyona.”

  “That’s right,” said Cody, grunting as he wiggled the blade back and forth. “Alben’s resistance might have died out, but the people didn’t all die out. There were a bunch of survivors, and some of them ended up escaping into the jungle and somehow surviving out here. That’s who Raldo was descended from, actually.”

  “Yes,” said Lucy absently, her eyes on Cody’s progress. The trapdoor was starting to budge. “I remember Mother telling me that he was never actually a slave. Just his ancestors were.”

  “Got it!” Cody cried triumphantly as the wooden square lifted. His little bounce of excitement made him seem more like a boy than a grown man, and Lucy restrained a smile.

  Cody flung the door wide, but his enthusiasm took a sudden check as he looked down into the blackness of the hole beneath.

  “What is it?” Lucy asked anxiously, drawing slightly back from the edge. If something was making Cody nervous, she wanted to be far away from it.

  “Nothing,” said Cody, an unreadable look on his face. “It’s just so strange. I’ve never seen it dark like this before. There was always light—there were always people. We used to tap out a rhythm on the door, and whoever was on duty would open it. And Raldo would be in there, or Scar, or Stan…someone ready to receive a report, or give us a mission. There was always food—nothing to write home about, of course, but still. There was always a welcome.”