by Allan Cole
“Why, to defeat Novari,” Zalia said with some surprise. “What other purpose could there be?”
I almost snarled, “Why didn’t She tell me that?” But checked myself. The goddess had given me strict instructions that I was to say nothing of her appearance to me. But it was damned maddening to learn she’d appeared to someone else and seemed to have told them more. As a goddess, she was a definite slut.
Zalia said, “Maranonia appeared to you as well, didn’t she?”
I shook my head. “I can’t answer.”
Zalia nodded. “That tells me she did. Otherwise you could’ve simply said, no.”
I pushed past that, saying, “Tell me about the escape.”
“Then you believe me?” Zalia said.
“I don’t know if I do or not,” I answered. “For the time being I’ll lean toward belief - but with severe hesitations.”
“Thanks,” Zalia snarled.
“It’s the best I can do,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m a suspicious woman. And I always shall be.”
Zalia’s angry features cleared. She wrinkled her little nose. “I suppose I can’t blame you,” she said. “You’ve suffered much.”
“The escape,” I pressed. “I’d rather hear a plan than pity.”
“Very well,” Zalia sniffed. “If it’s facts you’d rather have then my sympathy, you shall have them. Although if it weren’t for my pity you’d be a sorry mess and that’s for certain.”
“Just tell me,” I said.
“Here’s how it is,” she said. “Before I was captured I knew Magon’s soldiers were coming for me. So I hid my ship. If we can make it out of the mines and reach her we can easily get away.”
Her tone became proud as she continued: “It’s a very fast ship. Once underway, no one can catch us. Not with me at the helm.”
“How far away is your ship?” I asked.
“Three days travel,” she said. “Perhaps four. We have to strike west across the lake to a group of low mountains. The sea is just beyond that range. Once we reach it my ship is hidden nearby.”
“That’s all very well,” I said. “But first we have to escape the mines. How do we accomplish that?”
Zalia paused, then said reluctantly, “I haven’t been able to figure that out yet.”
I’m afraid I sneered when she said that. “A lot of good the ship is going to do us,” I said.
Zalia’s face reddened. “I’ve been busy keeping both of us alive,” she said.
She started to say more - to really blister me, I suppose - then stopped. Her anger faded and she sighed.
“You are more right than you know. I’ve wracked my brains for months and haven’t come up with a single idea.”
Her head dropped and she said, “I’ve been starting to wonder if it might be impossible.”
Her confession of doubt had the odd effect of stirring hope in me.
“There has to be a way,” I said. “Anything you can get into, you can get out of... given time.”
Zalia laughed. “We have plenty of that,” she said.
“I’m not so certain I do,” I said. “Novari could send for me at any moment. She could suddenly decide this punishment isn’t enough. Or she may discover a new and interesting way to attempt to break me to her will.”
“Then you’d better get busy,” Zalia said sharply.
I mocked her. “What?” I said. “Where’s the sympathy?”
Zalia shrugged. “You’ll earn it,” she said, “the day you learn to trust me.”
“That could be never,” I shot back.
“It could, couldn’t it?” she said with a decided lack of concern.
Zalia laid back down on her bench and closed her eyes.
“From now on,” she said, “you can make your own dinner.”
She meant it as a final sarcastic dart before she slept, but soon as the words were spoken she bolted up again.
“I forgot to tell you about the food,” she said anxiously. “The gruel we’re fed is magically enhanced.
“Although it’s the foulest sort of swill which you wouldn’t feed to hogs it’s made to taste and smell delicious. So much so that it’s addictive and those who eat it want nothing else. It makes you strong - even fat.”
She indicated her own girth…
“But the food binds all prisoners to the mines. Even the thought of being without creates an uncontrollable longing that will paralyze your will.”
She raised her metal hand. “It also somehow acts on this. Making the obedience spell stronger. Unbreakable.”
“So that’s why you kept me from eating it,” I said.
Zalia nodded. “When I took you in,” she said, “you were already addicted to the stuff. I had an awful time breaking you of the habit. I think weaning you from the addiction was responsible for making you helpless for so long. And I saw that as the influence lessened, awareness slowly returned.”
“What about you?” I asked. “You eat the gruel without apparent fear.”
“The spell my queen cast to guard me,” she said, “keeps it from acting on me. It’s a good thing, too. If both of us were on diets of rat meat the guards would soon notice we weren’t eating our food or trading it away. One person is hard enough to cover for. Two might be impossible.”
She laughed. “Besides,” she said, “I don’t mind getting fatter. It’s the strong part I want. I want to be as strong as I can possible be when we finally make our escape.”
I looked at my artificial hand with its ugly bolts jutting out of my wrist. I remembered the pain it’d caused when I’d attempted a small spell. Yet Zalia was telling me that the sorcery controlling the hand and thus me - was lessened because she’d denied me the rations all the other prisoners were required to eat.
I shuddered when I realized what might have happened if she hadn’t solved the riddle of the food.
I looked at Zalia with new admiration, although still begrudged.
“Thank you,” I said.
Zalia nodded, satisfied. “That’s a good enough start,” she said. “And who knows, by the time we get out of here we might be friends.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “we will, won’t we?”
With that, she turned away and fell instantly asleep. A few moments later I followed her into that darkness.
For now it was the only hope for escape offered in the Mines of Koronos.
Tomorrow I’d see if there were another way.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE ESCAPE
When hatching an escape plot, time can be the greatest enemy or the greatest friend.
I’ve interviewed Orissan prisoners of war after the army had won their release and all swore they’d been determined to escape from the moment of capture.
They said, however, as you test and ponder and test once again to come up with the perfect plan, days can become months, months can become years. Meanwhile, they said, a peculiar lethargy sets in and with that comes confusion and lack of confidence so every idea is dismissed too quickly.
In other words, the longer you wait to escape the less likely you may have the will to accomplish the deed.
On the other hand your captor is at her most wary in the early period of your imprisonment. Escapes launched within days or weeks of capture almost never succeed. Usually death results because your captor is likely to want to use you as an example to others.
Later, however, the enemy is likely to let down her guard. To be lulled into believing you’re incapable of ever being a threat to her again.
This was the point I thought I was at when I awoke from my long stupor and found myself in the Mines of Koronos.
Although I’d been there for months my will to escape was still keen.
Time had been my ally in other, more subtle ways. The months I’d spent as a shambling, non-thinking wreck had the odd effect of shielding me from the horrors of the mines. The emotional shock of being maimed had been cushioned because I had ha
d no memory of the assaults. That cushion had also given me an unconscious period of mourning for my crew.
They were my friends and had died bravely in my service. I was deeply affected. But the wounds had partially healed during that time of dim awareness.
I also thought I’d been handed a singular advantage. By now, I thought, Novari was certain to have dropped her guard. It was only a slim advantage but I was determined to make the most of it.
Many days passed before I discovered the first glimmer of a plan. In the meantime I was nothing more than another hunk of unwilling meat to be fed into the gristmills of the mines.
We were whipped from one dangerous, mind-and-soul numbing task to the next. We staggered back to our cells each night, bowed down by exhaustion. It took tremendous effort to keep my mind on track and my goal in clear view. All I desired was to collapse into sleep. Sometimes I was so weary that self-pity would strike and tears would unaccountably well up.
I came to appreciate just how great Zalia’s will had been during those long months while she nurse-maided me. This didn’t mean I trusted her fully. Despite all she said she could still be Novari’s spy. I had to accept that I was taking a dangerous chance with her. Once I’d done so, however, there was no holding back natural emotion - and growing admiration was one of those feelings.
My main problem was keeping those emotions in check so I didn’t reveal too much to a woman who was a still a stranger to me.
Regardless, it was immediately apparent that Zalia’s will was as strong and stubborn as her squat powerful body
I saw her save a woman’s life one day when we were working in the smelting chamber. Somehow a stack of heavy gold rods toppled onto the woman, pinning and crushing her. Several burly slaves tugged at that mass to free the screaming woman, but to no avail. Zalia rushed over, swept them aside and lifted the bars off - joints popping and cracking loudly at the effort.
Unfortunately the woman was so badly injured she was no further use to our masters and the guards hauled her away some days later to be disposed of like a broken down cart animal.
When we worked as miners Zalia could crack ore-bearing rock with a single blow, exposing new veins of gold as thick as her meaty wrists. When we lugged the ore carts up steep underground inclines it was Zalia who muscled us safely to the top and then acted as an anchor to get us down again.
I lost count of the times when someone stumbled, letting go the ropes, and Zalia saved us all from following that woman into the disposal pits.
She could also be remarkably tender. Like when she bathed my wound each night, softly dabbing away any grime that got under the bandage and cleansing the eyesocket with a touch so light I barely felt it. More importantly, she gave no indication of the horrors my wounds must have presented. She went about the task as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Once I wanted to examine the extent of the wound for myself and hunted for a mirrored surface to study the injury. Few reflective objects existed in the mines - everything but the gold was scored and pitted.
Gold itself is a poor surface. It absorbs all images and gives only shadows back. That ought to be warning enough for all seekers of gold and what they dream it offers. It is only the luster that beguiles them, not the substance.
One day I found a large shiny spoon and tried to peer at myself in its bowl, sweeping off the bandage as I looked. But Zalia intervened, gently plucking the spoon from my hand and tucking the bandage back into place.
“You don’t want to do that now,” she said.
“Am I so ugly?” I asked.
My voice trembled, which surprised me.
“I’m the only ugly woman in this cell, Rali,” she said. “Just wait a little longer. Until you’ve healed more.”
She put the spoon in our hiding place behind the loose stone.
“We’ll get it out later,” she promised, “when the proper time comes.”
I was comforted... and relieved. I’d wanted to look at my ravaged face but a fearful child lurked beneath that desire. I was too frightened to look. And equally as frightened not to.
Zalia wrested that decision from me and put it away for another time when I might be braver.
That day came soon enough.
She finished bathing my wounds one night and said, “This is coming along nicely, Rali. You should see. You really should.”
My heart lurched when she said that. But before I could stutter a response she threw the rag bandage away.
She went to our hiding place and pulled out the spoon along with a tiny bundle. She returned, unwrapping the bundle and holding out its contents for me to see.
It was a golden eyepatch hanging from a golden thong.
She draped it over my head and adjusted the patch until it was comfortable. It felt light and soft as the finest silk and it seemed to form itself naturally over the socket. Soon as it was in place the throbbing and empty feeling vanished and I felt oddly whole again.
Zalia polished the spoon with her tunic sleeve and held it up so I could look into it.
I broke out in a cold sweat. My heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings.
But I looked.
My face was unfamiliar at first.
I was thinner than I remembered, much more care- worn and my hair was a ragged mop like Zalia’s.
Then I recognized the long features and fair skin and the single blue eye staring back at me. It had the intent stare that marks all Anteros.
I shifted my gaze and saw the golden patch covering the place where the other eye had been. Just beneath the patch was a small crooked scar where the surgeon’s knife must’ve slipped.
“You look kind of piratical,” Zalia said, voice light.
I gave her a nervous smile then looked again.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined.
“Very dashing. And romantic,” Zalia said, still trying to bolster me.
Actually, I thought as I peered for a last time into the bowl of the spoon, she was right. With the hair swept so on one side, tight breeches, loose floppy shirt and a wide sash I could cut quite a dashing figure.
I was too timid to admit it right off. “I don’t know,” I said. And then I tried to make a joke of it. “I look scary enough to send half the maids in Orissa screaming hysterically into the streets.”
Zalia laughed. “And the other half,” she said, “and the most interesting half at that, will want to linger for awhile. To see if your bed is as thrilling as your looks.”
“Sure they will,” I said. “And if you believe that I have a mine I want to sell you in Koronos.”
Secretly I was relieved. I even went so far as to embrace her and thank her for the gift. It was an awkward moment for both of us and we broke the embrace quickly.
I touched the eyepatch, marveling at its effect on me.
“Where ever did you find this?” I asked.
“I made it,” she said. “During the time you were bumping into walls. I was only waiting for your... face to heal... before I gave it to you.”
“Made it?” I said.
I fingered the material.
“How? And what’s it made of? It looks like gold. It feels like silk, but of a quality I’ve never seen before. My family has been trading in silk for years. So I’ve seen every kind there is.”
“It’s made from the gold we’re mining,” Zalia said.
I was astounded. “Gold? This doesn’t feel like gold!”
“But that’s what it is,” Zalia said. “You told me you saw King Magon’s golden ship before you were captured, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I wondered at the time how it could bear up under its own weight. I also wondered mightily about his golden sails.”
Zalia pointed at the eyepatch. “That’s exactly the same material,” she said. “One of these days you’ll see for yourself how they make it.”
She shuddered. “It’s the worst detail in the mines,” she said. “Our turn will come soon enough.”
Then she said, “From what I’ve been able to gather the process used to make the material dates back to the age of the original Ice Bear King.
“It was lost when his kingdom was destroyed.”
“Just sitting there all those centuries,” I murmured, “for Novari to come along and rediscover it.”
Zalia nodded. “She found it when King Magon reopened the mines to mount his campaigns and to pay allies and mercenary armies to fly his banner.
