“You’re lying.”
“No. Some months ago, Talmon’s Tarhians were in Siana, a country which, though far away, Talmon’s Master desires. A spy told them they might have a chance to capture the Sianian princess, Etana Calista Selson, heir to the Sianian throne. They succeeded and arrived with her this morning. Now if you were to free her—”
Rafen’s eyes widened.
“Rafen, if you escaped now, you would have nowhere to go,” Phil said. He started wheezing, and fought desperately to catch his breath. “If you free Etana, perhaps when she contacts her father the king, he will take both of you back to Siana with him. Of course, you would have to accompany her when you let her out of the palace. So if she does not invite you, follow her at a distance.”
“What if something goes wrong? What if we die?” Rafen was shaking despite himself. Excitement and fear battled within him.
“I will help you.” Phil placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re insane,” Rafen muttered, his heart beating quickly.
“Am I?” Phil said sharply. “Then I wish you were too, Rafen. You need spirit. Do you want another four years’ slavery? Do you want to vow allegiance to Talmon’s demon of a Master? Am I insane for teaching you to think like the free?”
Ears ringing, Rafen stared at the flags on his stone floor. He remembered his dream the night before. He had been ready to fight then. In his mind, he saw a stone wall in a clearing, and behind that wall was the feather he so desperately needed. He had waited five years! Would he never be who he was meant to be?
“I will always help you, Rafen,” Phil said softly.
Rafen raised his eyes. “I had a dream. Talmon’s Master was killing me.”
Phil’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “That was no dream.” He was breathing shallowly.
Rafen had not expected this reaction. He glanced over at his cell door in fear. Pale eyes glittered behind the bars in the door’s window.
Throwing Phil’s hand off, he leapt up.
The eyes vanished.
“Rafen? What is wrong?”
“Someone was watching us,” Rafen hissed. “Phil, if they find out you see me—”
“I have to go,” Phil said.
“Do not go.” Rafen grabbed his arm. “What if they are still in the corridor?”
“What if they’ve gone to fetch the guards?”
Rafen fell silent.
“Do you know who it was?” Phil asked.
“No. They had blue eyes.”
“Blue? That’s uncommon.” Phil checked the corridor through the barred window, opened the door, and stepped out into the dark hall. “Rafen, rest. I will be fine.”
He shut the door. Rafen heard the lock click like always, so no one else would know Phil had visited. When he was younger, Rafen had pleaded that Phil leave the door unlocked so that he could escape, but Phil had explained the Tarhian palace was well guarded everywhere, excepting the door to freedom.
And yet, he had proposed this. Rafen wanted so wildly to believe freedom could happen. But he was struggling to beat his fear.
Shaking, he lowered himself onto his moldy straw. In his mind, he could already see Talmon pointing his pistol at Phil. His blood chilled as he remembered shouting far too loudly minutes earlier.
Chapter Eight
Diversions
“Then I run out the door?” Etana questioned Curtis urgently, looking into his milky brown eyes. She signed running and pointed to the door.
Curtis nodded fervently.
Etana had been in her cell for twenty-four hours now. It was perhaps four or five o’clock in morning. After having had only two crusts of bread over the past three days, she felt lightheaded and weak. Vague memories of a bodiless existence without hunger annoyed her.
Throughout the night, Etana and Curtis had labored to understand each other. Curtis now knew some basic words of Vernacular, like ‘door’, ‘floor’, ‘food’, and ‘run’. Etana also knew a few Tarhian words: ‘towbt’ (guard), ‘yut’ (corridor), and ‘ctoect’ (king). Curtis had at last decided he would pretend to be mad (something he mimed to Etana with more vigor than she had believed him capable of) and attack her. Etana would scream, and when a guard threw open the door, Curtis would seize the rotting bench by the wall and swing it into him. Etana would slip out of the cell and run desperately to find a man named ‘Philippe’, who was a ‘towbt’. This part was mysterious. Philippe appeared to be a traitor to King Talmon who would help her.
“When shall we do it?” Etana asked Curtis. “What time? When?”
Curtis shook his head. Etana indicated him and then imitated someone leaping on someone else. Communicating this way was unbelievably taxing.
“Now?” she said.
Curtis nodded. “Yuss.” He rose to his feet.
Etana hadn’t expected this. Her heart started thudding. She didn’t feel strong enough. However if nobody was up, she would only have to get past the four guards at her door.
Then she remembered the size of these guards. The largest one was broad-shouldered, tattooed with spirals, and puffy-faced with warts that sprouted black hairs. She thought she would be sick.
“Uh, Curtis…” she said. Curtis was already staggering toward her, his arms stretched out, long fingernails clawing the air. He smiled broadly. “Curtis? Maybe we should WAAAIT!” she shrieked as Curtis tripped on a raised flag and fell on her, wrestling her playfully. He really stank.
“Curtis, you don’t understand!” she cried. “We have to—”
Curtis set up a terrible yowling, like a lunatic. Momentarily, Etana thought he had lost his mind.
“CURTIS!” she screamed. “THIS ISN’T THE MOMENT TO—”
Somebody scrabbled at the cell’s lock. The door was thrown back so violently that it bounced off the wall. The huge form of the wart-faced, tattooed guard filled the doorframe.
Curtis froze. Goosebumps prickled Etana’s skin. It was over.
*
“Rafen?”
Groaning, Rafen sat up and rubbed his back. The moldy straw he’d been lying on stuck to his ragged shirt. From the protests of his body, he guessed it was only four o’clock in the morning. A short figure leaned over him.
“Phil?” Rafen strained to see him. He spoke in rapid Tongue. “No one has hurt you? You are all right?”
“Of course. We must act quickly. The diversion is set. You can go now.”
Rafen’s brain jammed. “Diversion?” he managed.
“I am helping you, Rafen,” Phil said. “I got the keys for the princess’ cell door. You will take them, run to the end of this corridor and down the Main Hall until you reach Second Corridor. She will be there, behind the most heavily guarded door.”
Rafen rose numbly as Phil started coughing.
“Do not worry about the guards,” Phil gasped. “Just act.”
Rafen trembled. Phil was going to die. There was a spy somewhere in the palace that had overhead him and Rafen last night, and Phil had still decided to take things one step further. Rafen backed into the wall.
“Please, Phil. I can’t do this. Please.”
“Rafen, you will do this,” Phil said in a steely voice. “I have already begun the rescue for you, and I cannot undo what I have done. You must escape. Now go.”
“No,” Rafen said.
Smack. Phil’s hand connected with Rafen’s cheek with a burst of smarting. Rafen darted to the partially open door before he realized what had happened. He turned in the doorway, blood rushing to his face. Phil had never hit him before.
“I thought you were different,” he spat. “I was only trying to save your life.” Then he froze.
There were tears in Phil’s eyes. “Rafen, I will do whatever it takes to get you out of here. Don’t make my sacrifice a vain one.” He moved over to Rafen, opened the door fully, and shoved him out, pressing a cold bunch of keys into his hand.
His back to Phil, Rafen stared at the corridor in which he had spent most of his life. Phil
closed the cell door behind them both and started walking quickly away in the opposite direction. Once his footsteps were gone, Rafen whirled around and slammed his hand on the crude doorknob of his door, rattling it. It didn’t give. Phil had locked it before he had departed.
Rafen threw himself against the door with desperation, remembering Mary’s broken body yesterday. He and Phil would be in sacks next. He had to get back in before he was seen.
You can never go back.
Panting, he paused, Phil’s words sounding like a mockery in his head. He had less than an hour before the guards were up. Clutching the keys, he hurried down the corridor. His feet made soft slapping noises that sounded like small explosions. After an age, he reached the end of Eighth Corridor. He turned left into the Main Hall.
The Main Hall was long, wide, and stone-floored, with prisoners’ corridors and guards’ rows alternating on both sides of it. A few smoking torches still hung on the walls from last night, sending paths of light through the early morning darkness.
He counted as he passed the rows and corridors: on his left, Row Seven, on his right, Seventh Corridor, on his left, Sixth Corridor, on his right Row Six. Straining his ears for any sound from the guards’ rooms, he padded onward.
Hoof beats rattled through the flagged stone floor beneath him. A wild whinny sounded above, and hoofs pounded near his head. Rafen threw himself against the left wall. The horse landed on all fours and charged past him down the Main Hall. Breathing hard, Rafen watched.
He had thought the stables were on the other side of the palace.
Gingerly, Rafen continued down the Main Hall. More neighing echoed further away. To his horror, Tarhian curses rang out in response. He quickened his pace, longing to run, yet scared to make any more noise.
A door slammed in one of the rows behind him, and the din was building. Guards clamored in one of the rows or corridors ahead. A young girl screamed.
Rafen reached Second Corridor and turned into it. Scattered about an open cell door on the right wall, four guards cursed while a petite eleven-year-old girl with blazing blue eyes ran frenziedly toward Rafen, her knotted, dark red hair streaming behind her. The guards swooped down on her, their navy-sleeved arms cutting the air. A wart-faced guard seized her hair and jerked her backwards. She screamed again, piercingly.
An emaciated man lying on the floor rose to a standing position, howling insanely as he threw himself on the wart-faced guard. The other three men lunged at the new attacker.
Dropping the now hot keys from his hand, Rafen stood there in full view.
“STOP!” he bellowed in Tarhian.
And for a moment, everyone did.
Chapter Nine
The
Door to Freedom
The three other guards froze, blank-faced, their brown eyes fixed on Rafen. The wart-faced guard paused, still holding the princess’ hair and the emaciated man’s throat. The emaciated man turned his head fractionally to see Rafen. The girl ceased writhing. An inexplicable thrill shot through Rafen when he met her eyes; he had seen her before somewhere.
“What is he doing here?” one of the three said in Tarhian.
“Two-three-seven,” the wart-faced guard growled. “Two-three-seven is out of his cell.”
Rafen remembered this man supervising him at the mine once. He had felt one of those hammy hands on his face.
“Get him,” the wart-faced guard growled.
The other two surged forward, arms outstretched.
Rafen spun around to run. Then he froze, Etana’s eyes imprinted on his mind. The guards were almost on him. Another Tarhian was trying to manage a horse in the Main Hall. With a crazed scream, it cantered away and galloped past Rafen, narrowly missing his skull with one of its hoofs. Rafen whirled around as the two guards were knocked down with screams of agony beneath the horse’s headlong charge. The wart-faced guard bellowed and threw the emaciated man into the horse’s path before dragging the princess into the empty cell with him. The emaciated man rolled out of the way in a heartbeat. The final guard turned and fled the opposite way down the corridor, the horse flying after him. Another bellow, and the princess burst out of the cell and flung herself toward Rafen, her face perfectly white as the wart-faced guard took up the chase, a handful of red hair in his fist.
Rafen grabbed Etana’s soft, pale arm and darted with her into the Main Hall. The wart-faced guard pounded after them, and the other Tarhian who had been handling the horse joined in the pursuit.
“Please, I have to find a man called Philippe,” Etana gasped in clear Tongue.
Rafen’s stomach jolted. “Shut up,” he spat, mid run. “You will get him—”
“You know him?”
“He sent me,” Rafen hissed.
The thumping footfalls of their pursuers continued to pump fresh adrenaline into them as they reached the end of the Main Hall. They clattered up the flight of ten stairs and swerved into another hall to their right. Rafen threw Etana and himself behind a dingy gray tapestry hanging on the left wall. Blaspheming, the two guards tramped past. An explosive neigh in the next hall drowned them out.
Apparently, Etana knew about Phil through someone else, which told Rafen he was not the only person whom Phil had helped. However, Rafen sincerely doubted Phil had ever troubled himself to release the army horses from their stables and lead them across the palace for any other prisoner. His throat felt tight when he recalled shouting at Phil and drawing unwanted attention, even refusing to leave his cell that morning. Phil was right. He would have merely been wasting a profound sacrifice by not moving.
“These guards are not very smart,” Etana murmured in Rafen’s ear.
Rafen opened his mouth to reply. Hearing voices, he bit his tongue.
“Roger, he is a child, and he is weak like the rest of them. He would not do it.”
Rafen turned to see the person speaking, and realized with horror that they stood before an open door.
The tapestry they had hidden behind covered the entry to a room – the room in which Rafen had had an interview with Talmon’s Master when he was seven. Rafen’s stomach bubbled away coldly. Clutching Etana’s arm, he tiptoed sideways, groping for the tapestry at his back. Through the partially open door, the king’s and general’s shadowed forms were visible. Talmon stood behind the crude table covered with half-rolled parchments. Roger kneeled opposite him near the rickety chair. Clustered at Talmon’s heels, the king’s five dogs slavered and snarled. Behind Talmon, the gray outlines of some double doors were visible.
Talmon’s chin-length, dust brown hair was tousled. His black eyebrows stuck out as if he had just rolled out of bed.
“You have disturbed me for no reason,” he said sharply in Tongue, adjusting his brocaded dressing gown.
“Your Grace, I heard them scheming,” the general answered fluently back. “A guard – forgive me, I did not identify him – and Rafen.”
Rafen froze, intrigued that Roger had not used his number to identify him.
The king met Roger’s icy blue eyes. Nervously, Roger fingered his thin moustache. The dim lighting which crept through the open door shone on his dull brown hair.
“Truly, Roger? No guard has informed me that Etana has escaped.”
A guard burst into the dark room through the double doors behind the table. Talmon turned. The dogs leapt up, barking madly.
“Dogs.” Talmon held up a single finger, and they froze, inches from the guard, their ugly faces turned to their master. The guard recoiled. “What do you want?” Talmon snapped in Tarhian.
“Your Grace,” the guard dipped his head hurriedly, his eyes fixed on the dogs, “the Sianian girl is at loose in the palace.”
Talmon blinked. He strode around the table to where the general kneeled, placed two fingers under Roger’s chin, and forced him to look into his cold brown eyes.
“Well, General?” he said in Tongue. “Find her – now.”
Rafen slipped out from behind the tapestry and rushed down the hall
, gripping Etana.
“Wait! Is your name Rafen?” Etana tugged at his arm. Rafen ground to a halt, tripping.
She stared at him with vivid blue eyes, and their depth caught him unawares. They reminded him of something – kings, phoenix feathers… his dream.
“I am Rafen,” he said, somewhat dazed.
Something clattered behind them. A horse veered into the hall, a group of guards chasing it. Rafen and Etana rushed left around the corner into another hall lined with portraits. Double doors stood to the left ahead.
Panting, Rafen glanced over his shoulder while running. The horse was hurtling around the corner. As Rafen and Etana raced past the double doors, they flew open. Roger and the guard tore out of the room Rafen had seen them in moments before. Behind them, a crowd of clamoring guards tumbled in from the previous hall, trying to stop the rearing army horse, which was now kicking down portraits.
Roger wailed loudly in Tongue, “Your Grace, it’s them!”
Talmon shot out of the double doors and sighted Rafen. He blanched. Rafen felt sick.
“Etana, faster!” he shouted
Pistols cracked, and bullets whizzed over Rafen’s head. Talmon’s dogs charged toward Rafen’s and Etana’s heels, barking savagely.
“Rafen, help me!” Etana shrieked. “I can’t go faster!”
“Don’t shoot near my dogs, you boneheads!” Talmon yelled to the group of guards as Rafen and Etana spun around another corner.
A bored-looking servant with a bucket of soapy water disappeared through a door to their right. Following him, Rafen found himself and Etana in a long rectangular kitchen, servants bustling past. A fat woman with a chopping knife in one hand and a dead pheasant in the other noticed Rafen and Etana.
“Hoi! Out of here, toads!” she bellowed, lunging toward them.
Etana screamed. The dogs were scratching at the door behind.
The servant with the bucket backed out of the kitchen through a tapestry to the right. Rafen grabbed Etana, plunged through it, and burst into the banquet hall, knocking the servant over and sending soapy water everywhere.
Blinding white filled his vision. His sight clearing, he made out gray blue walls painted with crude, native Tarhian letters. The smooth polished floor was a great slab of glittering granite. A score of servants kneeled scrubbing it, two long wooden tables cutting lines between them. At the far end of the hall, a plain black door stood. Phil had told Rafen about that door once.
Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1) Page 5
