“NO!” Rafen screamed as Mainte shoved through the children toward the ladder. “NO! TORIUS, TORIUS!”
The children bowed over their work, trying to look busy. The image of Torius’ falling replayed itself over and over in Rafen’s mind. He stared wildly at the corpse. How could he die? He had been so strong. If Rafen shook him, he would wake from this stupor.
“Let me go!” Rafen thumped and kicked Mainte. “Wake up, Torius! Please!”
The children watched incredulously. Mainte slammed Rafen on his feet and shoved him against the ladder. Rafen whirled around and made to fly past Mainte. The general’s fist hit him on the temple. His world swinging around, Rafen fought to keep his feet. Grabbing a lantern from a nearby guard, Mainte motioned to another Tarhian, who directed his unsheathed sword at Rafen.
“Move before we gut you,” Mainte said.
Rafen numbly started to climb the ladder. Tears blurred his sight. A terrible resignation swept over him. Below, Mainte pushed him upward through the narrow confines of the cylindrical hole they climbed through.
Rafen missed a step and grabbed onto the ladder to keep from falling. The pain in his back was immense. He no longer cared. Mainte pushed Rafen’s foot onto the step above it.
“Hurry up!” he barked.
Then they were at the top, pulling themselves out of the hole and into the tunnel beyond, which took them up the Slide to Hell. Once Mainte was clear of the hole, Rafen surged toward it again and whirled around to scramble down the ladder.
“Do you want to die?” Mainte snarled, grabbing Rafen’s neck and dragging him in front of him again. Rafen choked.
“Let me go!”
Mainte kicked his calves so that he staggered forward. A clatter sounded on the rocky ground behind them. Rafen glanced over his shoulder, and Mainte swung him a stinging slap in the face for it. But Rafen had seen who it was.
Talmon had pulled himself out of the hole, his face smudged with coal. Rafen remembered with relish the strange dream he had had in which he had killed the king.
“I should have known it,” Talmon said in Tongue. “I should not have let you keep working in the mine, Rafen. Your influence is quite unnecessary. Mainte, your lamp.”
Mainte moved backward, clutching Rafen’s shoulder with an iron grip. He handed Talmon the lamp. “Your Grace, he keeps running away. Please let me kill—”
Talmon held up one finger. “I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, Mainte. I shouldn’t have to explain why it is good for Rafen to associate with slaves who know he is destined for execution at the end of the week and who thereby learn the price of walking out of their cells. I shouldn’t have to explain why I want his wounds to fester and his fear to grow. I shouldn’t have to explain that I like to give my subjects enough time to die submissive and broken to me – especially slaves.”
Talmon reached toward Rafen with his free hand, and Rafen recoiled. The king decisively ripped a fragment off his shirt sleeve. Opening the lamp shutter, Talmon thrust the material into the flame. As if he had forgotten the burning cloth in his hand, his eyes met Rafen’s.
“Remember,” he said quietly, “you are responsible for this.”
His hand moved quickly to hover above the hole. In a flash, Rafen realized what he was doing.
“NO!” He tried to break free from Mainte and snatch Talmon’s hand.
Just before the flame had run up to Talmon’s fingers, the king let go and turned to stride coolly toward the dark maw of the Slide to Hell. He still held the swinging lantern. Dreamily, the cloth drifted out of visibility. Releasing Rafen, Mainte turned and fled after the king. Shaking, Rafen leaned over the hole…
There was a moment in which he thought nothing had happened. Then an explosion of orange appeared at the bottom, rushing up to him. The frantic, tingling screams of children filled the air and reverberated in his head while the smoke and heat intoxicated him. A tremendous jolt threw Rafen onto his back. The roar was so loud he thought his head would explode. He clapped his hands over his ears, while stones fell from the unseen ceiling. Choking, he began to run toward the Slide to Hell. His foot collided with something, and he slammed into the leaping ground, grazing his hands and chin. Little rocks bounced on his head. Scrambling to his feet, he plunged onward.
Then there was silence, and the dust cleared. Rafen found himself leaning against the hard wall of the Slide to Hell, in darkness like pitch. Someone ahead spoke.
“Your Grace, what about the other guards?” Mainte sounded shaken, perhaps even angry.
“Many left even before you did,” Talmon said. “Perhaps five remained; a small loss. This rebellion must not happen again.”
“The slaves… they weren’t each important enough to get lashes and a week before death,” Mainte observed.
“Enough, Mainte.” Then, after a pause, Talmon spoke the unexpected: “We have to give Rafen’s god time to know he is beaten.”
Rafen’s chest constricted. He didn’t bother restraining his tears. In the darkness, no one could see them. He slid down the wall and onto the floor, which was now covered with loose stones. His shoulders shaking uncontrollably, he wept for Torius and all the others.
He knew it was his fault. He had fallen from the ladder. He had started it.
“Rafen must be put in his cell again,” Talmon said coldly. “He is to come out only at his execution. He is here somewhere. We must find him.”
Mainte was silent. A disturbance in the air nearby told Rafen that Talmon was groping for him. In a moment, he spoke again.
“Two-three-seven, stop your sniveling. It is distasteful.”
Rafen hadn’t realized he had been sniffing. He rose, trying to hold his breath in. Someone lumbered into him. Rafen gave a sharp yell and tried to dodge the grasping hands. Mainte got hold of his hair and jerked him to Talmon. The general’s every tug produced a shrill cry which sounded bodiless to Rafen, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. He was howling; he had completely lost control.
“Stop it,” Talmon said directly before him, and a hand struck him across the mouth.
The metallic taste of blood tingled on Rafen’s tongue. He whimpered, like a wounded animal.
“I said stop it!” Talmon shouted this time, losing his calm manner. Another blow to Rafen’s face.
Rafen continued sobbing soundlessly.
“The boy’s taken leave of his sanity,” Talmon spat in disgust. He shook Rafen, but it had no effect.
“What are we going to do, Your Grace?”
“Get out of this infernal place. I’ll dispatch some men to count who died. We will follow the paths until we find someone with a lantern to replace the one I lost. Two-three-seven is going back to his cell.”
During the next hour, Talmon led Mainte and shoved Rafen up the Slide to Hell, through the second and first levels of the mine, and finally up the unbearably steep shaft leading into the palace. On the way, Talmon snatched a lantern off a passing guard so they were not in complete darkness. He kept striking Rafen, obviously deriving satisfaction from it. Rafen hardly felt the blows. For every step he took, a vision of his flaming piece of shirt floating down the hole into the deeps of the mine flashed before his eyes. The screaming kept going in his mind. After striding through several corridors delivering messages to guards along the way, Talmon himself shoved Rafen onto the meager pile of straw in his cell, slammed the door, and locked it.
The burning in Rafen’s back had grown more intense over the past hour. His wounds were bleeding. He remembered all the time Phil had taken to bind them.
He closed his eyes. Behind them flashed vivid scenes of a crushed guard, Torius reeling with blood on his shirt, and a flare of orange surging up, up, up… Talmon must have really hated Rafen to keep him alive so long. Retching, he vomited all over the straw he lay on.
Chapter Sixteen
Phil Explains
“Rafen?”
It was Torius. He had come back. Rafen lifted his head and wiped the side of his face cl
ean with his hand.
“Use a cloth,” the voice said.
It was Phil. He was wiping Rafen’s face now. Rafen couldn’t believe he had returned, despite the mounting danger.
“Leave it,” Rafen said. “Leave me alone.”
“Rafen, I’m so sorry. I heard about today.”
Rafen pulled away from him and crawled up against the cell wall, his back burning. “Just go. Please.”
Lowering his lantern, Phil stooped and felt the sticky blood that had stiffened Rafen’s shirt. He closed his eyes briefly. “When Etana and her father come,” he began in Tongue. Rafen cut him off.
“I meant it; just go. I don’t want you here anymore.”
“Rafen, you don’t understand. I am not the one you are angry at.”
“I do understand. It’s you that doesn’t understand.”
Moving to Rafen’s left, Phil waited patiently for Rafen to elaborate. The lantern shone directly on one side of Rafen’s face now. Rafen half closed his stinging eyes, his bruises illuminated in sharp relief. Phil gazed at them with concern.
“You taught me this language,” Rafen whispered. “You told me about places that I will never go. You told me the name for myself, when the number above my ankle was enough. You treated me differently, and I wanted to live differently. It was all just one of the Games. You made me unhappy and—”
“And you were happy before this?” Phil asked loudly.
“I was all right!” Rafen yelled, snapping out of his sitting position and rising, his hands balled into fists. “I was all right, I was alive!”
“You call this slavery life?” Phil was actually shouting back, something he never would have dared to do normally. A fit of coughing seized him.
“YOU MADE EVERYTHING WORSE AND LED ME TO DEATH!” Rafen screamed back in Tarhian. Yelling made him feel better. He thought Torius would have been proud.
Gulping in air, Phil stepped back. In the lantern light, which shook because Phil’s hands were trembling, his eyes were wet.
“What would you have me do then?” he said hoarsely.
“Get out,” Rafen said. “I don’t want to see your face again.”
“Very well, Rafen.” Phil bowed his head.
Though the cell was tiny, it took Phil long enough to reach the door. When he did, he turned to Rafen and held the lantern higher so Rafen could see his face.
“Before I go,” he said softly, “there is something I must tell you.”
“I don’t care,” Rafen hissed.
Looking into Rafen’s flaming eyes, Phil plunged on anyway. “When you were two, I found you—”
“In a cesspit, I know,” Rafen said.
“Let me finish. I found you there, and I took you to the courtyard where the door to freedom stands. I cleaned you with the little water that the well there had in those days. Then Talmon and one of his advisors ran in, and Talmon’s advisor was going to strangle you under the king’s orders. They both treated you like a dangerous fugitive.”
Rafen lifted his eyes to Phil’s face incredulously.
“Talmon told me you would one day become a leader of Siana,” Phil continued. “I didn’t understand. Then he told me your name and its meaning… I can’t remember the exact phrase now. It meant that you were the child or beloved of the god that the Sianians worship, the Phoenix. Because of that he meant to kill you.”
Rafen looked away. His dream returned to him in a flash: a falling phoenix feather, the cavern around lit up by light.
“Someone called Talmon’s name, and he left me with his advisor for a moment. When he came back, he had decided you would be a common slave, as a taunt to the Phoenix god and the Sianians. Have you never wondered why you were imprisoned alone, Rafen? Even the Princess Etana shared a cell when she was here.”
Rafen breathed shallowly. He had always thought his solitude had been another way of tormenting him.
“Your parents – whoever they were – had noble blood and gave you a noble name, which they told Talmon before they died. Talmon and his Master believe that your parents had good reason for naming you what they did. I wanted to tell you that,” Phil said as he unlocked Rafen’s door, “because that was why Talmon’s Master had that interview with you. That was why Talmon tried to kill you in the mine – and now that you have angered him, he seeks to pain and humiliate you as he would an equal. And all this is why…” Phil stepped out of the cell and into the corridor beyond, “…I tried so hard to set you free.”
There were tears in Phil’s voice, and Rafen lurched forward and opened his mouth to say something, because suddenly he understood.
The cell door shut in his face, and the key turned in the lock.
*
“I knew someone saw it,” Alexander said to King Robert. They stood by the port railing of the ship and gazed bleakly southward. Beyond the gigantic outline of the raised quarterdeck, two Tarhian ships glided serenely along the coast, three hours away. Even though the Phoenix Wing and its companion ship the Sianian Crest were moving at their fastest speed, the Tarhian ships were gaining.
“I can’t imagine how he manned two warships so quickly.” King Robert sighed deeply.
He gazed across at Etana, at Alexander’s left. After her episode in Tarhia, Etana had spent a day in bed in one of the quarterdeck cabins. King Robert had wept when he had seen her and insisted on visiting her every half hour to make sure she was still there. Her father had returned her silver ring to her, and Etana caressed it while she thought. She had thought she would cry and cry. She hadn’t. A kind of tired happiness had made her sleep better.
When Etana was well enough, she had seen her mother Queen Arlene. It was the one moment Etana could remember when her mother had embraced her with true feeling.
Etana had been glad to hear Annette hadn’t abandoned her the day she’d been captured. King Robert had explained how a Tarhian had distracted her. Only one thing troubled Etana now. She had told her father King Talmon’s words concerning his Master. At the mention of the plan to murder him, King Robert’s brow had furrowed. It seemed only too obvious who Talmon’s Master was.
And now there was something else to worry over: the two ships Argus had sighted that morning. At the discovery, King Robert’s face had collapsed into various creases with worry. They hadn’t moved away from the Tarhian coast completely yet, because Argus wanted to get into Fritz’s Current, a fast moving trough in the sea that would make their journey to Siana rapid and safe from various storms and marauders. Unfortunately, this had meant they risked Talmon’s pursuit.
Etana moved from Alexander to her father’s side. King Robert wrapped a short, thick arm around her. She abruptly felt the Lashki didn’t stand a chance against her father, ruler of Siana, the most wonderful man in the world. The funny folds in her father’s face said that he was thinking deeply; he was sure to come up with something.
“Perhaps he keeps the ships manned at that other harbor of his, half a day from here.” Alexander hunched huge shoulders. His tanned face, covered with gray-black stubble, was thoughtful. “What was it called?”
“Barlesst,” King Robert said, tugging on his chin-length red hair.
“Barlesst,” Alexander repeated. “Maybe a commoner saw us finding Little Highness on the coast, and reported unusual behavior to the Barlesst authorities, who contacted King Talmon. He would have sent a messenger to them with instructions. That, along with their journey here, would have taken two and a half days, which brings us to the present. Therefore, Sire, it’s altogether possible for Talmon to have warships pursuing us so closely.”
“I realize,” King Robert said, his arm around Etana tightening, “that it’s altogether possible for Talmon to have two warships pursuing us. Because, Alexander—” King Robert’s voice dropped, becoming conspiratorial, “—that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Two heads taller than the stout king, Alexander glanced down at him and managed a weak smile. “Yes, Sire.”
“What I don’t understan
d,” King Robert said, and Etana drank in the wonderful sonorous, rumbling quality of his tone, “is why Talmon is doing this. When Annette told me it was likely Talmon who was behind Etana’s disappearance, I was incredulous. The evidence turned my opinion.”
Etana realized he was going to ramble for a while, like he usually did when he was passionate about a topic. A patient, bored expression crept across Alexander’s face and Etana bit back a smile.
“Now,” King Robert said momentously, “Siana and Tarhia are both provinces of Sarient, as you know, Alexander, and they’ve been on friendly terms, trading and all that. One year after Etana’s birth, I made that treaty with Talmon when the philosophers were arguing about the prices of kesmalic items, and the Tarhians refusing to sell to us, and we smoothed it all over. Why is Talmon picking a fight with me?”
King Robert looked bewildered at his own question.
“Father, will this mean war?” Etana asked.
“Most probably, my dear,” King Robert said heavily. “When Sarient hears that Talmon abducted the Secra, things will turn nasty. But we must prove Talmon did such a thing, because the whole idea is ridiculous. The only problem is we don’t have any witnesses who will say that you were definitely taken by Tarhians and definitely in Tarhia.”
“If we cannot prove Talmon was behind this,” Alexander said, his eyes fixed on the two Tarhian ships on the horizon, “he may say we are accusing him falsely and refuse to trade with us anymore. Or, supposing we got into open conflict with the Tarhians without proving Talmon started it, Sarient may take drastic measures.”
Etana screwed up her little nose. “What sort of measures?”
“Removing me from the throne and severely punishing all my supporters.” King Robert’s watery eyes moved to Etana’s face.
King Robert didn’t believe in hiding matters from his daughter. Queen Arlene would have violently objected to his telling Etana this – if she had not been in her private cabin because she didn’t enjoy her husband’s company much. Queen Arlene had come on the voyage quite against King Robert’s will, because she claimed he mismanaged things. Her coming had forced King Robert to place Siana in the hands of his steward, whom he said was incompetent, and whom Queen Arlene said was wonderful.
Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1) Page 9
