by Eric Guindon
“Because you helped me,” Kyria protested.
“No. I helped you help yourself. I gave you the means, but you were the one who did the work, who faced the dangers and stood your ground,” Haylem insisted.
“But I failed. When I had the chance, I broke my vow, Haylem. I let the bandit who hurt my family go.”
“You showed mercy and wisdom. Those are more important qualities than any vow of vengeance you made while grieving, Kyria. When it came down to it, you did what was right.” The girl was shaking her head as Haylem spoke.
“How did you put it before? Let’s agree to disagree,” Kyria said. “I promise you, I won’t fail again. The leader is going to pay when I find him, that’s for certain.”
The two stopped talking then, each leaving the other to their own thoughts.
Kyria made sure all her things were packed, ate lunch in the common room, and prepared herself for the violence she would be facing in the coming hours.
Two hours before sundown, she opened her door, ready to leave the inn and make herself scarce in plenty of time before Mikken arrived. But when she opened the door, waiting outside in the hall, patiently sitting on the floor across from her room, was the young man himself, all dressed up in fitted chain mail and bearing arms.
Kyria stopped dead when she saw him. She was certain she looked a guilty fool.
“You weren’t going to leave without me, were you?” The guardsman asked as he stood up, smiling broadly at the girl, his eyes twinkling.
“N-n-no.” Kyria sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. “I was just going to, um, wait for sundown in the common room.”
“Well then, I’ll get to enjoy your company for two hours more than I expected, I will.” Mikken grinned.
“Right,” Kyria sighed. “I’m sorry.”
From under her cloak, she shot him. Mikken’s face contorted, first in surprise, then in unflattering spastic twitching as the bolt’s energy coursed through him. Finally, the man collapsed.
Kyria ran quickly into her room, retrieved the letter she had intended to leave there for Mikken to find, and hastily put it into one of his pouches. This accomplished, she screamed for help.
When the man from the front counter came up the stairs to investigate, Kyria explained that the guardsman had simply collapsed in front of her. Soon, Mikken was being carried out of the Swan to a physician’s for help.
I hope he’s all right.
The bolt should do him no lasting harm, Haylem reassured Kyria.
The girl left the Swan. She knew she had a long evening ahead of her. She needed to clear her head of the distractions Mikken’s presence seemed to bring. Walking through the city, getting an idea of its layout, was a perfect way for her to focus on the work ahead.
She knew that Groandel was divided into quarters, with each area housing different classes of inhabitants and types of businesses. The riverside quarter had fish markets, shipping, trading and warehouses, as well as its share of the poor. The central quarter had the city’s main marketplace and housed much of the craftsman class and their shops. Beyond that, the quarters of the lower city were not so clear to Kyria. There were at least three different areas serving as slums of sorts, each housing a different downtrodden, disenfranchised populace.
The upper city, as the area erected on the acropolis was called, housed the rich, the prominent, and the noble. The Hill, as it was sometimes nicknamed, was really just a mount, not so much high as wide. At the centre of the acropolis sat the prince’s palace, the residence of the head of the city-state.
During her walk through Groandel, Kyria kept an eye on her compass’ needle. It was soon clear that her mother was being held somewhere in the upper city. Unfortunately, as a common peasant with no business on the Hill, the upper city’s gates were closed to her.
“I could just come in from above, I guess,” mused the girl.
“Are you sure that would be wise?” Haylem asked.
“Why? I could do it after sunset, which should be soon. No one would see me then,” she replied.
“But if you get caught, you might wind up having to fight the guardsmen. Is that something you want?”
“Well, no. But, if that’s where my mother is, that’s where I have to go, isn’t it?”
“It seems strange to me that your mother would be held there, Kyria. She was kidnapped by a gang of thugs, after all.”
Kyria considered this for a moment, then, holding the compass, she turned it onto its side, making sure to keep contact with its runes. The needle wavered for a moment then pointed downward somewhat.
“She’s below ground!” Kyria declared.
“It would seem so,” Haylem agreed.
“Under the upper city . . . the sewers, maybe?” The girl suggested. Haylem concurred and Kyria started looking for a means to enter the sewers. It seemed the city did not have easy street access to them.
“In my time there would be access hatches every few hundred metres,” Haylem commented.
In the end, the easiest way they found to enter the sewers was to go in where they exited: at the riverside.
Soon after the two had this idea, Kyria was walking on air in tunnels below the city, trying very hard not to breathe through her nose.
“Hate this,” she gagged. The next second, the stench disappeared. It was so sudden, Kyria almost stumbled in surprise.
“I’m sending you a neutral odour, overriding the actual smells you’re breathing in,” Haylem told the girl.
“That’s great!” The girl was overjoyed. It had seemed a grim prospect, navigating the sewers while trying not to vomit. “Now, if only I had brought light.”
“The runes on the compass glow, if only faintly,” Haylem pointed out. But it was not enough and, with the runes located on the bottom of the device, the girl could not see the needle by the light of their glow. She had to feel for it with her hand in order to know which direction to take whenever she came to cross-tunnels. The rune-light did provide enough illumination for the girl not to run into any walls or miss any side-tunnels.
“I should have thought to make you a light,” Haylem said apologetically.
“Not your fault, I could have thought of it too,” Kyria said.
The girl concentrated on navigating her way through the maze of sewer tunnels, trying to make progress in the direction her compass’ needle indicated. She was frustrated over and over as promising ways turned in the wrong direction after less than a dozen metres. The girl was beginning to despair of ever finding where her mother was held, when she turned a corner to see light in the distance, shining from above into the tunnel ahead.
Her compass needle pointed directly in that direction. Kyria’s breathing sped up. She hurried forward, trying to see the source of the light. As she got closer, Kyria saw a ladder. A grate above it, let light into the tunnel.
Over-eager to exit the sewers, Kyria hurriedly stepped up to the grate and peered through it at what lay above. Not seeing or hearing anyone, the girl pushed up the grate, happily leaving the sewers behind. Kyria found herself in a bright, lamp-lit stone corridor.
What is this place? She wondered.
The underground lair of the Hex and Star? Haylem supplied.
A little elaborate, the girl thought.
Yes. Very.
Kyria snuck through the underground corridors, still trying to follow the direction indicated by the compass. Careful to keep to shadows as much as she could, the girl walked on air to be as quiet as possible. She passed store rooms as she went, many filled with foodstuffs or common items, but in others she glimpsed runic metal pieces like the ones the salvage gang had been gathering at Argantel.
This has to be the right place, Kyria concluded.
It certainly seems like it, Haylem agreed.
But where are all the people? She wondered.
After a few more minutes of stalking empty corridors, Kyria caught sight of someone at last: peering around a corner, the girl saw a woman carrying a buck
et of water, walking away from her. It was not the girl’s mother. She followed her at a distance, hiding in side corridors whenever she could.
This place certainly has a lot of corridors and store rooms, Kyria noted as she went. The Hex and Star must be doing well for itself!
The woman entered a large room at the end of the main hallway. Light and heat poured into the corridor.
What’s in there? Kyria wondered as she approached the area slowly, hugging the wall. The room ahead was immense, she soon saw, and filled with workers.
Across the room, looking toward Kyria, but without any recognition, stood her mother, giving a drink to a worker from a ladle. She was holding a bucket of water, much like the woman Kyria had followed.
Mother!
Chapter Twelve:
I Will Free Her
She doesn’t see me. Why doesn’t she see me? Kyria wondered.
I-I don’t know, Haylem said, as puzzled as the girl.
Creeping back out of sight, Kyria still managed to get a good look at the room before hiding.
The chamber was immense: large enough to contain a full smelter assembly and attendant furnaces. Workers were engaged in a multitude of tasks related to the smelter, with some feeding linen-shrouded metal pieces into the crucible, and others taking away moulds filled with freshly-poured metal. Many were keeping the furnaces fed. The few women in the room were occupied carrying water to the workers.
In a corner of the room, the girl had seen two men sitting at a table, armed and armoured. These, she surmised, must be the overseers. If so, they were doing a poor job, engaged in conversation as they were. Near them stood a stairway leading up, out of the chamber.
In another corner, Kyria spotted a lift. It looked designed for bringing heavy loads up and down from above.
How can this operation possibly be working here in secret? The girl’s mind boggled.
It mustn’t, replied Haylem. That lift has to lead somewhere on the surface — in the upper city, I presume. And the furnaces, the smelter, they all have chimneys. Those have to come out above. Someone in the upper city must be in cahoots with the Hex and Star.
Sneaking glances into the room, Kyria could tell the workers went about their work without complaint, without even speaking to each other at all.
They were behaving quite oddly.
Are they drugged? The girl wondered. This would explain her mother failing to recognize her.
It seems that the women periodically fetch water from some source in these hallways, Haylem observed. If we wait and hide, you could rescue one and see what we can find out from her.
We could wait for mother!
We needn’t wait specifically for her, but it would be fortuitous if we could so easily free her, Haylem said.
Kyria backtracked to the point where she had first spotted the woman carrying a bucket and searched that area until she found the water pump room.
Probably drawing from the river, Haylem concluded.
Hopefully upstream from where the sewers empty! The girl made a face at the thought. Haylem agreed.
Kyria lay in wait, crouching in mid-air above the door, ready to come down behind anyone entering.
The next woman to come for water was not Kyria’s mother, but another, unfamiliar, woman. The girl let herself fall to the ground behind her, making a small but perceptible noise, but the woman did not react in any way.
Control collars! Exclaimed Haylem in the girl’s head.
What? She asked as she watched the woman, who never looked behind her at the sound Kyria had made, fill her bucket from the pump.
I couldn’t see them before, but I’ll wager they all wear them. Look at her neck, the metal collar she wears, it has compulsion runes on the inside of it, I am sure!
When the woman turned around, she registered no surprise at Kyria’s presence, simply moving to side-step the girl-shaped obstacle in her way. Kyria looked at her neck and spotted the collar; it was a series of hexagon-shaped pieces of metal strung together as a sort of choker. There were no runes on the exterior, but this made perfect sense: the runes would be on the inside, touching the woman’s skin so that her vitality could power the device. It seemed fiendish to Kyria that the collars fed off the vitality of the victims wearing them.
Before the woman could leave the room, Kyria reached up and grasped her collar. This stopped her, but the collar did not come apart when Kyria pulled at it. It was eerie that the woman just stood there. She simply tried to move toward the door every few seconds, as though unsure why she was unable to move forward, but never investigating the problem.
Looking at the collar more closely, Kyria found its clasp and released the woman. The change in her was immediate. She looked around in confusion, a frown on her face.
“Where am I?” She asked hesitantly. “And who are you?”
“You need to stay calm, okay?” Kyria said. “There might be trouble if you make too much noise or attract attention. What I have to tell you might be quite shocking, I know that, but you need to stay here and stay quiet, okay?”
The woman looked around her once more, still frowning, before returning her scrutiny to the girl in front of her. She gave her a slow nod of assent.
“Do you know a gang called the Hex and Star?” Kyria asked her.
“I’ve heard the name before,” the woman answered. “They’re a criminal cartel in town. What does that have to do with me?”
“I was hoping you might have a connection to them to explain your being here.”
“Where is here?” The woman motioned to indicate the room they stood in. “Are we underground?”
“Yes. You were taken by the Hex and Star. They used this to control you.” Kyria showed her the control collar.
“Rune magic?” The woman recoiled from the device.
“Yes. It controlled you.”
“That’s horrible!” The woman’s voice was rising along with her mounting terror.
“Remember: stay calm,” Kyria counselled her. The woman took a deep breath and then another.
“How long have I been here, like this?” She asked.
“I don’t know. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“My husband . . . I’d found a strange coin in his things,” the woman spoke slowly, struggling to remember.
Kyria retrieved one of the special Hex and Star pieces from her belt. “A coin like this?”
“Yes. Just like that.”
“Your husband must have worked for the Hex and Star,” Kyria told the woman.
“What? No. He’s only a labourer at the docks,” she protested.
“Maybe. But he’s also Hex and Star. You found out and he got you put down here.”
“He wouldn’t do that!” She was growing frantic again. Kyria put her hands on the woman’s shoulders and shushed her.
“Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. That doesn’t matter right now. Listen, I want to free the others. There are more who are collared like you were. I need you to just wait here and stay calm, okay?”
“I don’t even know your name,” the woman said.
“Kyria. Kyria Yardley.”
“I’m Gleari Baker. My Horm, his father was in that line of work, but they lost the bakery ages ago,” The woman would have continued her explanations on how her husband’s family had lost their livelihood, but Kyria shook her head at her and headed toward the door.
“Stay here, Gleari. I’ll get everyone out of here safe and sound, okay?”
“But, you’re just a little girl,” Gleari protested.
Kyria glared at the woman and left, closing the pump room door behind her.
Haylem, am I right to think that the people wearing the control collars, the prisoners, won’t notice me if they see me? Kyria asked the rune-mind.
That’s correct, Haylem confirmed.
So all I have to do to free my mother and the others is to take out the two bandits watching over them?
I think so. Although, we haven’t confirmed
that all the workers wear the collars. Some of them might be volunteers, I guess, Haylem cautioned.
Okay, but that’s not likely.
No. Not likely.
By the way, Haylem: compulsion runes? That was a part of the Golden Age? Kyria asked.
The Golden Age was not perfect, Kyria. We had wars, crime. The compulsion runes were illegal in most places, but some governments used them. Kyria felt Haylem’s reluctance to discuss this subject. I don’t know how the Hex and Star got access to these, but it is abominable what they are doing here with them.
Kyria agreed. She imagined what it would be like to lose your life, becoming an automaton for others to use as they pleased. The very thought made a shiver run up her spine.
When she reached the smelter chamber, Kyria first verified the two overseers were still busy talking to one another, then made sure no one else was alert and aware. Everywhere she looked, she saw workers behaving like collared slaves. Satisfied, the girl took aim with her two runic weapons and fired. Each of the overseers was hit by one of her bolts, knocking out the only opposition in the room.
Looking around, Kyria confirmed that no one had noticed anything amiss. The girl then sought out her mother, almost knocking her over with a fierce hug. She was happy for a second then, even though her mother was not hugging her back.
“Mom,” she whispered into the woman’s shoulder.
She cried, letting out all that she had kept bottled deep within her during her search. For a moment Kyria did not need to be strong.
“Hug me,” she told her mother and, complying to orders, her mother hugged her. “I missed you more than I can say.”
Kyria unleashed it all, let it all out. “I’ve had to do so much. I’ve had to fight and hurt people,” she told her mother. “It’s been horrible, Mom.”
The girl let herself have no more than five minutes, then pulled away from her mother and wiped her eyes, composing herself. Again she put away her fears, doubts, and worries, and put on her brave face. Only once she felt confident she would not break down while her mother was actually watching did the girl undo the clasp on her mother’s control collar.
“Kyria?” Her mother asked as her eyes gained focus and her face assumed its natural expression. “How can you be here?” She looked around the smelter chamber, frowning.
