by Joseph Lallo
"Now, I don't have all of the money right here. I deal mostly in coppers, so unless you want to carry around a few thousand of those, I will have to get some exchanged with my supplier," he said.
"Of course," she said. "How long?"
"Three days. Nearest inn is Bydell," he said, pointing a shaky finger in the direction from which she came.
She'd had enough of that town, and decided on a second option.
"Is there a church nearby?" she asked.
"A churchgoer, eh? Good to hear it. These days, folks don't pay the reverence to the good word like they ought to. Particularly you young folks. To tell the truth, I haven't found the time to make it up there myself. The spirit is willing, but these old legs won't get me there. Time was I could . . ." he rambled.
The old man attempted to regale her with a painfully long tale of his athletic exploits of youth. After the third off-topic story, Myranda cut in to request directions to the church. He indicated that there was a fork in the road a half-hour south. If she took a left there, she would find the church about an hour down the road. She thanked him, and, after getting the less than generous offer in writing, headed down the road.
The sky had an unfriendly look to it. Myranda quickened her step. Snow came suddenly and severely this time of year, and to be caught in it would be very treacherous indeed. As the minutes wore on, the air became colder, and stinging pieces of ice were hurled into her face by a swiftly stiffening wind. She pulled her tattered hood forward and leaned into the wind, which blew out of the southeast. She had only just reached the fork when the wind began to carry not only snow from the ground, but also fresh flakes from the sky. She took the left turn and exposed her right cheek to the blustery assault that the left had thus far endured. The cold bothered her little, her mind locked instead on the consequences it brought with it.
A snowfall alone would slow her, so long as there was little wind. Likewise, wind alone was more an annoyance than a threat. Together, though, they were deadly. The wind and snow were growing in intensity with equal ferocity. If she did not get a roof over her head soon, all of that bargaining would have been wasted. Periodically, a gust came so strong it stopped her in her tracks. Myranda closed her mouth and breathed through her nose, longing to gasp but knowing that air this frigid could tear at her insides if she didn't warm it first.
The sun was still high in the sky, but the curtain of snow blocked its rays, making early afternoon seem like dusk. The road in front of her was a wall of white. In these conditions, she could pass within an arm's length of shelter without seeing it. Finding what her eyes told her useless, Myranda closed them to spare them the stinging wind. Now she had only the sound of her feet to guide her. Even under layers of snow, the crunch of a road had a different timbre than that of the turf of the field. Before long, she was not so much walking as wading through snow that had already drifted to knee height in some places. With each passing step and each icy flake, the hope of reaching the church seemed to fade.
A streak of ice beneath the snow caused her to slip. She stumbled forward to catch her balance, but instead caught a sharp blow to the shoulder from an unseen obstacle. Sparks swirled against the black of her closed eyes as she reeled from the impact. She opened her eyes a sliver to see what had happened, and nearly cried out in joy at the sight of the frosted over shingles of the church. Feeling along the wall with what little sensation her fingers had left, she came to the door. Eagerly she pushed the gateway to savior, but after only a few inches it stopped and would not budge.
"Hello?" Myranda said, banging desperately at the door. "I need help! Please let me in!"
Even if there had been an answer, she could not have heard it over the howling wind. She shoved the door with all of the strength she could muster. It slid open a bit more. One more valiant push allowed just enough of a gap for her to slip through. She angled herself through the opening, a task greatly complicated by the large pack and long sword she carried. When she finally tumbled inside, she heaved the door shut against the biting wind.
After spending several minutes catching her breath and brushing the caked snow from her clothes, she inspected the clearly unoccupied church. A pale white light filtered through the snow-encrusted windows, dimly illuminating what little there was to see. Aside from the odd broken chair or pew strewn about the floor, there was nothing in the way of furniture. It was clear that this place had been ransacked long ago and stripped of anything of value, leaving a large, empty room with a raised platform at one side and a fireplace.
Myranda slid to the ground with her back against the door. Even with little more than the wind and snow out of her face, she could feel her cheeks redden with warmth. She sat for a time, letting her heart slow to a more normal pace and listening to the wind rattle what few shutters remained on the windows. When she finally recovered from the onslaught, her trembling having subsided somewhat, she rose to inspect the fireplace. The flue was clear, so at least a fire would be safe. She gathered together some wood from a broken pew and carefully arranged it in the hearth.
Eventually, she was able to get a fire started. After basking in the much appreciated warmth, she pulled her provisions from her pack. The last of the purloined food would have to serve as her meal for the day. In truth, it might have been wiser to ration the precious stuff, as this blizzard had the potential to block her way for days, and there was no other food to be had. The meat was old already, though, and only getting older. She would rather have a full stomach today than an upset one tomorrow. She dropped all of the salted meat into the pot and put it over the fire.
The fire was weak and not nearly able to heat the whole of the empty church, but, huddled near it, Myranda finally began to feel like herself again. The smell from the food was not exactly appetizing, and stirred memories of her uncle's hideous attempts at cooking. It seemed that whenever he tried anything more complicated than applying heat to a pot of water, the results were sickening. Myranda's father would kid that if he churned out one more concoction, he would ship him over to the enemy.
That had been one of the last times she'd seen her father. Myranda tried to push the unwelcome memories away, but a tear came to her eye when she pictured the two of them together. It was foolish, but something inside her refused to believe that her father was gone. Somehow, after all of these years, she would still ask after him in each new town, even though every answer thus far had been one of ignorance or doubt.
A draft from one of the several broken windows whisked through the largest hole in Myranda's worn cloak, reminding her once again that it needed to be replaced. Of course, she could never do that. Links to what little past she had were too precious to give up simply because they had lost their usefulness, and this cloak was the last thing she owned that had belonged to her Uncle Edward. She pulled the blanket from her sword and wrapped it around her. As she recalled the history of the cloak, she vaguely remembered relating it to that Leo fellow she had met. Quietly, she wished he were here to keep her company again.
The light of the fire danced on the mirror-like finish of the blade. She stared at the pristine edge. It had likely been used in battle, certainly left to the elements, and yet the edge looked to be as keen as the day it was forged. Her eyes drifted to the grip. The jewels there were like none she had seen before, though, in truth, she had seen very few. Gazing into the deep blue gem at the hilt's center, she swore that she could see on forever, like looking into an endless dark tunnel.
Myranda reached for the magnificent weapon, but stopped. She turned her palm up, the very same one she had risked to touch it with the first time. It had healed quickly. Now all that remained was a thin pink scar running across her palm, with a single red mark just below her middle finger. The longer scar, centered on her palm, was a long, curving line that twisted back and forth on itself. It resembled a pair of smooth waves with a trough between. The red mark was centered above this trough. It was the very same mark that adorned the blade. The blade, not the handle.
Carefully, she touched the scabbard and flipped the sword to its other side. There was no mark anywhere near where her hand had touched the sword. How could such a scar have been formed?
"Magic," she decided aloud. The owner had some sort of spell cast on the sword to brand the would-be thief with the mark of the rightful owner. For such a fine blade as this, a security measure of that type would hardly be out of place.
Satisfied with her own explanation, she looked back to the fire. Using the corner of her blanket to shield herself from another burn, Myranda pulled her pot from the flames. The heat had done little to improve the flavor of the food, but the ration was nonetheless filling. With the meal gone, she realized that so long as the storm raged, she would have nowhere to go. Her weary muscles made it quite clear how they felt she should spend the spare time. She sought out perhaps the only unbroken chair in the church and sat upon it. Sitting on the cold floor was one thing, but sleeping on it was quite another. Once properly situated, she wrapped herself all the more securely in her blanket and drifted quickly off to sleep, regardless of the fact that there were still hours of sun left.
The single night in a proper bed had spoiled her, it would seem. The clattering shutters and sudden drafts pulled her from slumber a handful of times through the afternoon and night. At first, she would jerk awake and look around, but soon she tried simply to ignore them and get back to sleep. In a way, the light sleep was a blessing. It spared her the terrible dreams that she had been suffering. Not once in her life had she had a recurring dream, though she had often hoped for one. Such dreams were said to carry great meaning. The dark and frightening images of her nightly torment did not bode well for the future.
#
After she'd had her fill of fitful slumber, Myranda opened her eyes. The yellow light of the fire flickered on the walls of the otherwise darkened church. This struck her as odd. She had not fed the flames for hours. She tried to turn to the mysteriously lively fire, but something stopped her from shifting. Still groggy, she struggled to gain a glimpse of the tightness about her chest, straining until she could just barely see the cause. There were coils of rope wrapped tightly around her, securing her to the chair. Panic gripped her as tightly as the ropes as she struggled. Both rope and blanket trapped her hands. Despite the maddening effort to free them, there was little progress and even less hope of escape. In her struggle, all she managed to do was to knock her chair to the floor. With much effort, she was able to slide the chair along the floor to where she had left the sword, only to find it had been taken.
Myranda regained her wits. This struggling was getting her nowhere. She had to think. Who would do this? Who could do this? All that she had of value was the sword. Why would someone who had the skill to bind her without awakening her even do so when they could have merely taken the sword? She tried to struggle again, hearing the jingle of silver in her pocket. They had not even robbed her.
"It doesn't make any sense! Steal the sword, tie me up, and feed the fire!?" she cried in frustration. "Why would you feed the fire? Unless . . ."
Unless whoever did this was still here. She held perfectly still and strained her ears, fearful to even breathe. All that could be heard was the tap of shutters and the crackle of flames. Myranda's rattled mind shaped each of them into a half heard footstep. Finally she gave up listening. What could she do, even if she heard her captor? Nothing while she was tied up. She glanced about in her limited view from the floor for something, anything to free her. The fire! She could burn the ropes! A second thought brought the realization that her blanket and clothes would likely burn to ashes before the binding even lit, let alone what would happen to her skin. There had to be another way.
Irregularly scattered about the room were pieces of broken wood. If she could make her way to one of the piles, free her hand, get a shard, and work its jagged edge at the ropes that held her, she just might be able to free herself. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was at least more than she was doing now.
Tipping over had slid her painfully to the side of the chair. By alternately working her right shoulder and right foot, she was able to inch along the floor. Each tiny slide the chair made produced an earsplitting grinding noise. If the captor was still near, he would most certainly hear it, but that didn't matter. Her best chance was to try to escape. After what seemed like an eternity of awkward sliding, she managed to reach a handful of the wood shards on the church floor.
With her hands tied firmly beneath a blanket, there was no obvious way to get at the shredded wood. An option came to mind. It was foolish, it was desperate, and it likely wouldn't work. It was also her only choice. Taking a deep breath and tensing, she heaved her shoulder down upon the woodpile with all of the force she could muster. The cruelly sharp edge of one of the pieces burst through the blanket and bit into the flesh in her shoulder. Agonizing and damaging as this was, it was the result she had been hoping for. She cried out at the savage pain of it and slowly wriggled her left hand beneath the blanket to the site of the throbbing new injury. The rope permitted nearly no movement, but through sheer effort she managed to bring her fingers to the now-blood-soaked wood. She grasped weakly the shard and worked at pulling it from its new home.
As painful as its appearance had been, the shard's removal was doubly so. With the utmost of care, she pulled the piece of wood through the tear in the blanket, out of her shoulder, and to a point just above the topmost of her bindings. A knife would have freed her with a few slices, but the jagged splinter tore only a few fibers of the rope at a time. After an eternity of patient scraping, the rope held by a tiny strand. Myranda strained at the weakened rope and it snapped. The other coils loosened and she was finally free of the chair.
The injured arm was the first to reach the floor, and she had to roll quickly off of it. All of that time bound in the same position made standing a difficult task. When she was on her feet, she looked around her and strained her ears. She was alone. Whoever had tied her up had left and all of the noise had failed to prompt a return. A sharp throbbing in her arm drew her attention. It was bleeding fairly heavily. Convinced that she was safe from her captor, at least for the moment, she decided to care for the wound. The blanket was ruined; it might as well serve one last purpose. She tore it into strips and used it to bandage the afflicted limb. The blood from the gash had seeped through her shirt and the blanket, pooling on the floor. Looking at it intensified the dizziness that its loss had caused.
With the most pressing of her concerns attended to, Myranda set her mind to the task of escaping. She assessed the situation. Of course, her pack was gone. A pull on the door revealed it to be solidly secured from the outside. The windows were all small and near to the high ceiling. There would be no escape through any of those. The sole window large enough to allow her to escape was the shattered stained glass window behind the pulpit, but it was even further out of her reach. She had to try the door again.
She grasped the heavy wooden handle and tugged it with all of her strength. Slowly a tiny crack opened, one that closed the moment she relented. It wasn't much, but it was hope. Myranda scoured the assorted piles of wood until she found a reasonably sturdy plank. Placing its edge between the doors, she used it as a lever. Even with the added leverage, the doors would only open an inch or two. After carefully wedging the lever in the opening so that all of her hard work would not slip away, she put her eye to the narrow portal to the outside.
It was night, and the perpetual cloud cover kept even the slightest hint of moonlight from reaching the snowy field. In the pitch blackness, she was barely able to make out a few coils of the same rope that had bound her securing the door. There was no way she could sever it in the same way she'd cut her own, and the harder she pulled at the door, the tighter the rope held.
"Of course!" she said, immediately clasping a hand over her mouth.
The rope! She could use it to escape. Hurrying to the severed bonds, she tied the ends, producing a strong rope of considerab
le length. Choosing a heavy piece of wood, she tied it to the rope. The resourceful young lady ran to the broken stained glass window and hurled the weighted end of the rope. A twinge of pain in her shoulder robbed the throw of some of its strength and the rope fell short. Shifting the rope to her left hand, she tried again, reaching the window but failing to hook onto it. A third throw held.
After testing the strength of the rope, she tried to climb. The injured shoulder again slowed her, but she refused to let it stop her. With supreme effort, she managed to pull her feet from the ground, only to come crashing down again a moment later, preceded by the subdued but unmistakable sound of metal biting into wood. She looked up from the ground to see a single throwing blade protruding from the wall. Myranda traced the path of flight back to its source, a dark form crouched on the rooftop outside one of the smaller windows.
A scraping sound drew her gaze back to the window. With nothing securing it the wooden grapple fell to the ground outside, dragging the precious rope along with it. All that was left behind was a useless length of rope no longer than her arm. By the time she looked back to find person who had thwarted her escape, the window was empty.
"Who are you!? What have I done!? Why are you holding me here!?" Myranda cried out to her captor. Silence was her answer.
Beaten, Myranda stood the fallen chair upright and sat down, no more free now than when the ropes had bound her, and with a rapidly stiffening right arm to remind her of her defeat. She surveyed her prison once more. Tiny windows topped the sloping roof on either side, they themselves topped by a smaller roof. Above the entrance was a small room that once held the church bell. The hole that had been made for the bell pull to hang through now showed a few dry, rotted strands. A plank with some stray rungs dangling from it was all that remained of a maintenance ladder.
