by C. W. Trisef
Then Lionel looked Ret square in the eye and said, “But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.”
It was in that moment when Ret knew he could completely trust and confide in Lionel. Ever since he laid eyes on him, Ret was intensely intrigued by Lionel, and although he made it a habit to never surrender his loyalty to a stranger so quickly before seeing fruits worthy of such loyalty, Ret had seen and heard enough. He felt a connection with Lionel that he had never encountered with anyone else, including his five other comrades there in the prison cell with him. Ret had always dreamed of one day receiving the heavenly gift of a best friend—someone who was similar to him and could identify with what he was experiencing; someone he could turn to for counsel and advice; someone who had his best interests at heart. True, Ret had Ana, but she was a girl, and she didn’t have magic scars on her hands, neither were her hair and eyes and skin as bright as the light. But Lionel was another story. For months, he had been living in Sunken Earth and knew its people, who felt and looked more like family to Ret than strangers. Lionel knew their language and lore, ways and means, history and habits. Lionel even seemed to resemble the people he had come to love. Ret’s heart gladdened at the idea of what he could learn from Lionel, of how Lionel could help him, of what part Lionel might play in demystifying Ret’s past and unveiling his future.
“Well, nice work blowing that relationship, jailbird,” Mr. Coy jabbed at Lionel. “Instead of enjoying tea and crumpets, you’re here doing time. How long you in for? Ten? Twenty?” No one smiled at Mr. Coy’s immaturity.
“Actually, sir,” Lionel said, “I was just on my way out.” Everyone looked at Lionel like he was crazy. “My arrest sent the good people of Sunken Earth into a frenzied uproar. During these months of unjust oppression, they’ve been stockpiling weaponry and amassing great numbers to seize Lye’s regime and reestablish peace and justice. Even now, they are prepared to overthrow Lye and take back their rights and liberties. Tonight, on this eve of battle, we storm the bastille and join the ranks.”
Lionel’s listeners were petrified. As worthy as his goals all seemed, none of them had really expected to risk his or her life by fighting in some civil war. And, besides, they were still incarcerated. Instead of traditional bars of thick metal, they found themselves behind currents of electricity, shooting up from the floor. Too close together to slip between and too powerful to touch, the laser-like currents cackled and buzzed in the damp prison air.
Lionel could sense his newfound friends’ consternation. “As I said, the citizens of Sunken Earth have found multiple uses for the energy housed in the earth,” he reminded them, stepping next to their cell’s electrical door. “But it has one simple antidote.” Lionel reached in his pocket and brought out a handful of some white, granular substance. He placed a generous pinch over one of the sockets through which surged an electrical current. Ret watched as the white powder first melted from the immense heat of the current, then absorbed the current, leaving a gap in the cell’s door. After a few moments, the white grains had been transformed into silvery metal particles and a yellow-green gas, and the current resumed its blockade.
Ret gazed at Lionel with curious admiration. Holding his hand in front of him, still full of the white substance, he answered the question that was on everyone’s mind: “Salt.”
“That’s impossible!” Mr. Coy gasped. “Everyone knows solid salt does not conduct electricity.” Ana gave Mr. Coy a strange look, as if disgusted that he would include her in his generalization.
“True, true,” Lionel agreed, “but molten salt most certainly does conduct electricity.” Mr. Coy’s eyes remained glued on Lionel, awaiting an explanation. “At first, when the salt makes contact with the current, there is no reaction. However, as the salt heats up, it melts, which loosens the ionic bonds between the sodium and chlorine atoms, thus permitting electrical conduction. The positive sodium ions pick up electrons and form sodium metal, which is that soft, silvery metal substance you see there.” He pointed to the flecks of metal still surrounding the socket. “The negative chlorine ions oxidize and are given off as the pale, yellowish-green gas that emerged from the reaction.” As everyone else listened to Lionel with rapt attention, Mr. Coy crossed his arms and looked away smugly.
“But I must warn you,” Lionel cautioned, “sodium metal is—”
“—violently reactive with water,” Mr. Coy finished.
Lionel smiled patiently, despite being interrupted. Then, continuing, he said, “And chlorine gas is—”
“—highly toxic,” Mr. Coy added again. Everyone glared at Mr. Coy as they would a bothersome child. He smiled broadly.
“And if Lye ever learned what something as abundant as salt can do to his power source—” Lionel paused, waiting for Mr. Coy to complete his sentence.
Mr. Coy thought for a moment and then said, “—then he’d be assaulted!”
Nobody laughed.
“Get it? A-salt-ed,” Mr. Coy said dejectedly, barely moving his lips. “It was just a joke.”
“Right,” said Lionel, “then Lye’s security forces would be a joke. Fortunately, I didn’t tell him everything about my research.”
Lionel turned to face Pauline, Ana, and Paige. “Now, the three of you will free all the other prisoners,” he said, pouring a pile of salt into each of the girls’ cupped hands, then turning to face the men, “while we take care of any guards.”
“But I—” Pauline started to say.
“Just follow close behind us,” Lionel reassured. “We’ll clear the way for you. Once the salt absorbs the current, you only have a few seconds before it burns it up and becomes unblocked, so move swiftly. We’ll lead everyone to the ground level where a group of friends will be waiting to receive us.” Pauline, recalling her decision to see this thing through, squared her shoulders and rallied with Paige and Ana.
“It’s Ivan, right?” Lionel asked, addressing the butler directly.
“Yeth, thir.”
“Can you fight?” Lionel wanted to know.
“Like a Boltheveek, thir,” Ivan answered respectfully.
Looking a bit confused by Ivan’s response, Lionel moved on to Mr. Coy and whispered, “What did he say?”
“He said he doesn’t like you,” Mr. Coy fibbed, grinning contentedly.
“Right,” Lionel said. “Well then, here we go.”
One by one, the seven of them stepped across the blockaded sockets of their cell until they were all safely on the other side. As suspenseful as it was to break out of jail, Ret was somewhat disappointed to find that it was probably the most lightly-staffed prison he had ever seen. With relative ease, they snuck up the stairwells and through the hallways, liberating dozens of inmates, whose whispered cheers and hushed applause bolstered everyone’s spirits. They rallied around Lionel in grateful appreciation and fell in ranks with Ret and the others, even though neither group really recognized nor verbally communicated with the other.
“Lionel,” Ret called out as they reached the ground level, “where are all the guards?”
“Not here,” he answered. “They’re all out searching the city today, arresting people like you and me so they can bring them here. Lye’s orders. That’s why we picked today to break out.” Ret smiled admiringly at Lionel’s brave confidence and resourceful mind.
“Looks like they’re back early,” Mr. Coy announced nonchalantly, pointing behind them to a large group of guards approaching the backdoor to the prison’s main hall, pulling after them a mother who was clutching her small baby. Still on the outside of the door, the guards spotted the large mass of escapees dashing for the front gate. From the electric coils atop their iron staffs, the guards shot bolts of electricity towards the refugees. While those that missed the doorway blew holes in the prison walls, the few strikes that successfully entered the building sent rocks and dust ricocheting in all directions, sending the people cowering for protection.
The sudden flurry of debris, however, jogged Ret’s
memory and reminded him of his unique ability to manipulate dirt and dust and other earth particles according to his will and pleasure. Just as the guards were about to cross the threshold into the jail, Ret waved his hand and sent the door crashing in on itself, completely blocking the rear entrance.
“Wow, Lye wasn’t kidding,” Lionel remarked to himself, slightly stunned at witnessing Ret’s powers for the first time. “This way!” he ordered, continuing to move to the front gate. “Follow me!”
Ret waited with Mr. Coy and Lionel at the doorway, helping to usher people safely outside the jailhouse.
“Make for the bridge!” Lionel bellowed. “Hurry!”
The prison was situated on a small island, surrounded by a wide moat. A single, stone bridge provided the only means for crossing the treacherous moat. The liberated captives flew with all haste toward the bridge, and, once the prison had been fully vacated, Mr. Coy and Ivan, followed by Ret and Lionel, picked up the rear.
Shrieks and screams filled the air as hordes of guards spilled onto the scene from the other side of the jail and started firing on the fleeing crowd. Given the distance between them, the guards struggled to strike their moving targets, which continued to successfully cross the bridge and dive into the safety of the forest on the other side.
When Ret had finally crossed, Lionel stopped him at the fringe of the vegetation.
“Destroy the bridge, Ret,” he commanded. “Use your powers. Take it down!”
Ret came to a standstill. He knew he could easily topple the earthen bridge, but, for some strange reason, he found Lionel’s order unsettling. The more he thought about it, the more confounding it seemed.
“What are you waiting for?” Lionel urged, ducking from the guards’ assault. “Take it out before the guards cross it!”
And then Ret heard a woman scream.
He turned around in a flash and saw the source of the distress. The woman, who the guards had just recently brought, sat against the prison wall, helplessly clutching her crying child. Reading Ret’s mind, Lionel tried to talk Ret out of saving her.
“It’s too dangerous, Ret,” he reasoned. “It’s not worth the risk.”
Ret turned to face Lionel and, with a determined expression, said, “That’s not what Jaret would say.” Ret leapt from his place of safety and bolted across the bridge.
“So noble,” Lionel observed as Ret sped away. The moment Ret set foot on the island, Lionel raised his arm high in the air, held it there for a moment, and then let it fall. Like a colony of bats, hundreds of projectiles emerged from the forest, launched by Lionel’s troops who had come to aid the jailbreak. The ashen stones flew through the air before colliding with their targets, the pillars supporting the island’s only bridge. Shortly after the rocks made contact with the water, a series of explosions engulfed the bridge. Light and sparks and heat and flames shot in every direction like a fireworks show gone awry, and the bridge came tumbling down.
Mr. Coy, who was only a few steps ahead, stopped dead in his tracks and returned to the moat’s edge to see what had occurred.
“What on earth happened here?” Mr. Coy said in outrage.
“Remember how I—I mean, you—said sodium metal was violently reactive with water, Coy?” Lionel asked.
“But what about Ret?”
“I’m sure he’ll think of something,” Lionel said.
As Ret approached the guards, he let his instinct take control. The three guards on his right, he pelted with stones from the river bank; the pair on his left, he buried in earth and then conveniently borrowed one of their glass shields. A squadron was advancing toward him, but Ret turned the hillside into a landslide, which carried them all the way into the river. A single guard stood in front of the terrified woman, hurling bolts of energy in Ret’s direction. Still running at full speed and using the glass shield, Ret deflected the guard’s every round of fire and then reflected one directly back at him, knocking the guard off his feet. Ret picked up the woman and child and headed back to the bridge.
Having heard the explosion when Lionel caused the bridge to be destroyed, Ret had been thinking about how he would get back across. The guards’ assault was relentless, with their missiles of electricity flying like shooting stars. Everyone ceased fire, however, when they saw Ret reach the edge of the island and jump off. But a collective gasp could be heard when they watched Ret, still carrying the woman and child in his arms, rise up on a broken slab of the bridge. By pure mental capacity, Ret caused fragments of the bridge to emerge from the water and hover in the air, one after the other, creating an inclined series of stepping stones. Ret jumped from piece to piece, the one he had just left falling back to the water as it was no longer his concern.
The guards redoubled their attack. Their captain ordered them to abandon trying to hit their elusive human target and instead to focus on obliterating his upcoming steps. Some they fractured, forcing Ret to land on one foot. As he neared the final step, however, the concentrated enemy fire completely destroyed it. Not willing to be outdone, Ret focused all his energy on containing the last, now-ruptured slab. As he launched himself towards his final step, the fragments of the last slab were reunited, just long enough and strong enough to support Ret’s weight, before breaking apart into rubble and dust.
Ret collapsed on the other side of the protective vegetation.
“Well done, Ret!” Mr. Coy congratulated. Well done, indeed!”
“You’re a brave man,” Lionel said, ruffling Ret’s bright, yellow hair. “I’m sure Princess Alana will reward you handsomely.”
CHAPTER 14
BATTLEFRONTS
Ret had little idea where he was going. As the rescue party continued to wend its course further and further away from the prison, it was obvious from the chosen route that they were bent on traveling as inconspicuously as possible. Replete with sudden twists and unexpected turns, they passed through secret passageways and plunged into underground tunnels. Though their path hardly seemed the most direct, it certainly was the most unseen.
“This reminds me of your place,” Ret remarked to Mr. Coy, who was having considerable difficulty blazing his own trail so as not to be so dependent on Lionel as their guide.
At length, they arrived at another swath of Sunken Earth’s endless slums. While a pervasive uneasiness had gripped the escapees all along the way at the prospect of being caught, the tension seemed to vanish upon setting foot in the ghetto, whose very repugnance served as an ample deterrent to the snooping of Lye’s uppity guards. The last to arrive, Ret watched in silent joy as those who had once been unjustly incarcerated rejoined their friends and embraced their loved ones. With particular interest, Ret visually followed the woman and child who he had risked his life to save as they found in the crowd their husband and father, who bore several wounds, likely born from his attempt to defend his family.
“There you are!” a worried voice called out to Ret from the group of people. No sooner had he heard the familiar voice than he was nearly knocked over when Paige collided with him in a relieved hug. Slightly taken aback, Ret stood motionless for a moment, then slowly reciprocated Paige’s embrace. When her mind had finally caught up to her heart, Paige quickly pulled away, embarrassed by her uncharacteristically rash action.
“So you’re not dead after all, eh?” Ana asked, squeezing free of the crowd not long after Paige. “We saw you turn back, then heard crash-boom-bang and figured you were a goner.” Her nonchalant tone was not very befitting of her words.
“Still here,” Ret replied cheerfully. Still blushing, Paige smiled.
“And we’re all very glad you are,” Lionel said loudly. The jubilant crowd hushed and then parted, revealing Lionel’s whereabouts. He was walking towards Ret, holding the hand of a fair young woman, and together they slowly approached Ret. Stopping immediately in front of Ret, Lionel grabbed Ret’s hand and placed it in the young lady’s. “Ret,” he said, “meet Princess Alana.”
Ret didn’t seem to notice that he
was the center of attention, for his entire focus was on Alana. She was not afraid to meet Ret and look him in the eye, which confidence only increased his intrigue in her. Although she was neither taller nor thinner than most young women, she was strikingly beautiful, as most princesses are thought to be. Her penetrating, clear-blue eyes blinked above her small nose and red lips, which rested on her fair-skinned face, draped on either side with long, brown hair. Rather than ornate robes and fancy slippers, she wore comely cloth and dusty footwear; instead of a tiara and jewels, there was but a simple flower tucked behind her ear; in place of polish, her fingers bore signs of honest toil. And yet, masked behind the commonness, true royalty, in all its beauty, shined through as plain as day. In a word, Princess Alana was gorgeous.
Joining her other hand to the handshake, the princess shook Ret’s hand tenderly. Coming to his senses, Ret blinked several times and took a deep breath. Alana smiled. “It is well for us to meet,” she said a bit awkwardly in her broken English.
Noticing Ret’s surprise at hearing his native tongue, Lionel stepped in to clarify. “In exchange for the knowledge they’ve imparted to me,” he said, “I’ve shared a few things of my own with them.” Ret was silently overjoyed.
