Looking at them now, I could no longer see them as “creatures,” or as strangely lifelike fixtures in the black stone room. Their faces had personality now, depth and emotion. They were unquestionably magical. I couldn’t help noticing there was something oddly young about their demeanor and even their facial expressions, however.
Their actual ages ranged from a gray-haired male who might have seen more than sixty seasons, to a girl who might only have seen fourteen.
They didn’t speak aloud after that initial threat, but with exchanged looks and facial expressions, they communicated so much to one another, I couldn’t take it all in.
Letting go of the male we’d been gripping in our hands, Donal and I backed up just like they had with us, perhaps instinctively at that point.
When I glanced around the room next, I noticed doors had appeared in the black stone walls. I counted four of them now, one for every wall, and each identical to the next. Flat stone bridges formed over the canal right below where every door stood, seamless and smooth as black glass.
The man Donal and I had been holding scrambled back to be with his brethren.
Now that they were actually seeing us, versus staring off into space and sitting like zombies, I was thrown once more by the, well... life... in their faces and eyes. They’d started to sweat in the residual heat of the room, and now a few of them looked at us with curiosity, as well.
Even with the vulnerability I saw there, I could see the currents of magic flickering around their bodies and hands. It shown in their eyes like distant sparks of red fire, shining in one, then another, then another still, like dying embers, moving from body to body.
I wondered if they knew us as like them, as Donal had with me.
“Who are you?” a different voice said.
That voice was shockingly deep.
The warlock who owned it stood slightly apart from the others.
He had deep black skin, dark eyes, and reddish brown, tightly-curled hair. I looked at him, at his broad shoulders and angular face, and saw a flicker of similarity between him and Donal, despite their surface differences. Rather than answer him, I looked around at the other faces, noting the same quality in all of them, despite the myriad skin tones, hair textures, eye colors and sizes. Some were so pale they could have been albino, while others looked like me, and others like they could have come from tribes in the North.
When I looked back at their leader––for I presumed he must be so––he was looking between Donal and I. That time, I could tell he definitely recognized something in us, as well.
“You are red witches?” His dark skin paled slightly, enough that I noticed the shift in tint. “Who are you? You are not one of us... how did you get down here?”
Donal and I exchanged looks. I saw relief in his dark eyes.
Obviously, this was a better reaction than he had feared.
“What do you want with us?” the man said, louder. His full lips pressed to a hard line. “Why did you stop our fire ritual? Why would you do such a thing?”
Donal turned back towards the man with the reddish-brown hair. Seeing the wary look there, he held up his hands, a peace gesture I recognized because he had done it once to me, back when we were first together on that roof.
Before Donal could speak aloud, though, the man in front of him paled still more, shrinking back to the wall with the others.
I watched in bewilderment as all of them shrank back, one by one, looking behind us.
Before I or Donal could turn, another voice broke the quiet.
That time, it came from behind us.
“Yes. Do tell us, pray... slave Donal.” The female voice rang clear, resonant in the stone-walled room. “For I should very much like the answer to that question myself.”
I knew that voice.
I knew it without turning.
It was my mother’s.
I DID TURN, of course, as did Donal when the voice addressed us.
Once he had, he clutched at my arm, gripping me painfully enough that I couldn’t help but think he must know my mother’s face.
That, or he simply understood the import of what unfolded here.
My mother was not alone.
She stood in the open doorway directly behind us along with at least a dozen in the Regent’s Guard, including Garet, Bila and Tren. The Guard filed in to cover us from two sides, entering the black-stone room through the same doorway Donal and I used to enter ourselves.
Garet stood in front, his rifle aimed at Donal’s head.
His eyes never left me, however. I saw his throat move in a swallow when I looked at him directly, right before grief came to his expression, changing his face so I hardly recognized him. I saw anger there, too, however, especially when his eyes shifted back to Donal.
Looking over that uneven row of faces––the cold expression of my mother, the sadness and fear and anger in Garet, the disbelief and fury and near-jubilation in various others––I felt a harder certainty grow in me, a near resolve.
Coupled with that, something in me just... let go.
Maybe it was my old life entirely that I released in those few seconds.
Either way, when I spoke, the strength and anger in my voice surprised even me.
“Our intentions should be clear enough.” My eyes shifted sharply back to my mother. “We plan to take them out of here. All of them. And we intend to tell the world about them, and about what the Regents have done, past and present, in enslaving them. I intend to tell them about you as well... mother. If indeed you are my mother at all.”
Her hazel eyes narrowed.
She, alone among the others, didn’t flinch at my words, or seem affected by them at all. From the green and gold silk dress that clung to her slim figure, and the perfect curls in her normally-straight black hair, she must have come straight from the audience hall of the Regent.
I wondered fleetingly why my aunt herself was not here.
But in a way, that made sense too.
Why get her hands dirty, when I was my mother’s mess to clean up? My aunt, the great Regent of District 6, probably wanted no part of this.
“Unfortunately, I cannot claim to be otherwise,” my mother returned coldly, at the end of that calculated-seeming pause. “As much as I might want to... generally whenever I remember you exist.” Her eyes slid precisely sideways to stare at Donal. “I see you managed to manipulate our slave into deviating from his orders in bringing you in.”
Looking him up and down, she sniffed with obvious contempt.
“I assumed his more... bestial appeal... might charm you into following his will,” she said, that disgust in her voice. “I guess I miscalculated in not considering yours might do the same to him. A foolish oversight on my part. After all, your kind is as predictable as the ravagers when it comes to heeding your baser impulses at the expense of all else.”
I turned, staring up at Donal, even as I felt my throat close.
I admit, the idea that he might be working for my mother never occurred to me.
But in those few seconds after she spoke, everything clicked into place.
“The white witch,” I said, my voice cold. “The one who came to you, who told you about your sister. The one your trainer, Coran, told you not to trust.”
“Maia,” he said, frowning at my expression. He motioned at my mother, his voice angry. “Listen to her! I didn’t do as they said. I should have, for my sister’s sake... but I didn’t!”
I felt my jaw harden more, until I couldn’t speak.
“They have my sister, Maia!” he burst out. “They have my damn’d sister! I took a chance, coming down here with you... to see if we could find her ourselves! To see if we could all get out together, instead of trusting this witch to give her to me if I obeyed! Listen to her words, damn it!” When I still didn’t speak, the frustration in his voice and eyes sharpened. “I knew I couldn’t trust her. I knew it. But it was all I got... my only chance. Don’t you see it? I couldn’t leave
her down here! I couldna! Nor could you, if it were your kin!”
I didn’t answer, but looked back at my mother.
I had no kin.
At the same time, I couldn’t really be angry at him either. I’d known what he was. I’d told him as much. I’d followed him anyway.
That hotter fire that had risen in me briefly smoldered in my chest. I could taste the black smoke it left behind, choking me.
“What happens now?” I said to my mother, my voice strangely calm.
It was a pointless question, I knew.
Whatever happened next, the final act would be the same.
I would disappear.
Maiwe Laiyalara Murretisolrani, chosen by blood among the maemd of the capitol city of Krungthoi, destined to be next queen Regent of District 6... would be no more.
Chapter 12
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER
THE BOAT TILTED wildly, lurching to one side. It made my stomach lurch along with it, my hands clench on the wooden sides.
Gritting my teeth, I waited until the vessel righted itself. A few seconds after that, I began to breathe once more. Nausea still churned in the depths of my belly, making too much spit for my mouth and making my eyes water.
It wasn’t a large boat. Nor was it a comfortable one. Shifting my rear on the hard wooden plants, I fought to get a better grip on the wet, wooden sides. A thick metal mesh made walls all around us, forming a cage on five sides, enclosing our half of the boat from the side occupied by the boat’s driver and the armed soldier who crouched in the boat’s stern beside him.
I guessed he must be a Defender.
The black uniform he wore looked nothing like what I’d seen on any member of the Regent’s Guard. Nor did I recognize the rifle he held, which looked considerably more deadly and older than anything I’d seen in the hands of Garet or any other palace soldier.
I’d already witnessed the black-uniformed Defender using that rifle, more than once. The first time, he’d shot a ravager in the head when we reached the widest part of the river, right before we got to the open sea. Once we were out in the open sea, he shot two more, one right after the other, as they clung to drifting logs.
Since then, it had been quiet, but his eyes never stopped scanning the horizon.
As it turned out, Donal hadn’t told me the truth in more than one area.
The red witches did live on the opposite side of the river, but apparently a good ways away from where Donal had told me, and no where close to being in swimming distance of the capitol city. Which made sense, really, given the seriousness of the secret the red witches embodied, and the fact that the secret had remained so for so many years.
The new information still managed to make me feel even more foolish than I had already, and significantly more gullible. I’d questioned so few of the relevant details of Donal’s story. Even knowing he hid something from me, I hadn’t put two and two together.
I certainly hadn’t done so in a way that was relevant.
It had already crossed my mind that if the boat tipped for real, Donal and I would drown. Given the heaviness of our chains and the metal cage around us, we’d have no way to get to the water’s surface and to air if the boat capsized, not without help.
My hands wore heavy manacles even inside the cage, as did my ankles.
Donal wore the same, along with a grim expression and cold eyes he refused to aim at me.
He’d scarcely spoken a word to me since my mother’s lackeys had taken us into custody. He’d stood there passively as they chained us, injected his and then mine neck with some drug, presumably to make us more pliant or to take our magics away. Whatever it was, it made me woozy. I didn’t notice much difference in Donal, but his eyes may have been glassier.
Either way, he followed the Regent’s Guard without struggle afterwards, too, walking alongside our escorts as they took us to the boat waiting for us at the river’s shore.
Mother didn’t accompany us beyond the black-glass room.
That shouldn’t have surprised me either, but somehow, it did.
She couldn’t even be bothered to see me off after my fate had finally been decided.
The Guard used yet another door of the underground crypt to get us out of there instead, one that led outside the palace walls altogether and to the very edge of the river’s banks. There, where the water came closest to the castle’s tall outer walls, a covered dock stood surrounded by razor wire, with gun turrets squatting on either side.
Thus, Donal and I were stolen out of the palace in the dead of night with no witnesses apart from my mother’s servants and my mother herself.
Well, and a handful of red witches––witches who only a few knew existed at all.
It was as if my personhood had been snuffed out entirely.
Garet wouldn’t look at me either as he led the procession to the river’s shore. I didn’t know what to say to him, any more than I knew what to say to Donal. In the end, like the two of them, I remained silent for the whole of the exchange, not so much as looking back when the soldiers left us at the dock and returned silently to the tunnel leading back inside the palace walls.
I wondered again what story would be given to those living there.
Perhaps I had died of unknown causes in my sleep that night.
Perhaps I had been murdered while walking through the Markets, and some poor commoner would be punished for a crime he did not commit.
I shoved those thoughts from my mind, as well.
My sickness worsened as time went on. It grew bad enough, I retched into the bottom of the boat, unable to lean over the side because of the metal cage.
Donal didn’t so much as look over at me, even then, although I knew the smell must be as terrible for him as it was for me. Still, there was little I could do about it.
Eventually, the sun rose behind us, making me squint against the bright light whenever I glanced toward the stern of the boat, where the engine, driver and Defender sat.
The expanse of water grew brighter with the daylight, too, giving us a view of the jungles and beaches to our right, the wider expanse of ocean to our left.
I saw the Defender with his rifle relax somewhat, leaning back on the bench near the boat’s stern and joking around with the boat’s driver as the driver accelerated. From a pouch produced from the Defender’s coat pocket, they shared what looked like some kind of jerked meat, washed down with water from a leather skein sitting in the bottom of the boat.
Needless to say, they did not offer any to us.
I felt my stomach rumble, watching them chew, although the smell in our part of the boat cut my own appetite considerably.
I looked forward for most of the time after that, away from the driver and the Defender and towards the approaching horizon. I watched shores blur by, occasionally gazing out over the deeper waters as our narrow boat skidded and bumped over waves, making its own wind. We followed the coastline nearly due west and then south, for what felt like hours.
Eventually, when the sun was at a midpoint in the sky, the boat began to slow.
I watched as we approached a long pier.
Guard towers stood on either end of that pier, twice as tall as what I’d seen at the palace. Razor-wire covered the beaches on either side in several long rows, standing taller than the tallest man. The white-sand beach itself was broken with blackened holes and bright red signs, signifying what had to be a mine field, one that had been breached on at least one occasion, but likely more than several.
Behind the pier, a long black wall stood, so tall it must block most of the morning and evening sun from whatever stood behind it. It appeared to be made of the same material as the temple Donal and I had found below the palace.
I felt my stomach drop as that wall loomed higher.
It was sheer, featureless, like a shadow falling over the boat. I felt it as a cold darkness, even with the sun high in the air.
I also understood now why Donal had lied to me about where th
e red witches were kept.
There could be no way out of this place.
No one could walk out, much less swim all the way back to the river. There’s no way Donal on his own could have reached the Water Market that day, not without a boat, a rifle and likely at least one soldier’s help. The idea was absurd, given the location of the red magic stronghold. It was even more absurd given the reality of this pitch black fortress monstrosity, encircled by rows of razor wire and land mines, guarded by armed soldiers and Heaven’s Sky, and the goddess knew what other magics.
That meant Donal’s and my first meeting at the pier under the Markets had been staged.
All of it had been staged.
The old woman must have been in on the lie, too.
I looked at him as I thought it, and for the first time saw him looking at me, too. He seemed to guess some of what I was thinking at least, because he frowned, studying my face as if gauging how far my mind had come in assessing everything he’d told me. Then his eyes flickered away, looking behind me, right before they widened.
Before I could turn, he grabbed hold of me bodily, yanking him toward him and the inside of the boat. I fought him even as I fell halfway across his lap, then turned to follow his stare, just in time to see the eyeless, egg-shaped head of a ravager as it lunged against the metal cage, fangs extended.
I shrieked, unable to help myself.
Its claws hooked the metal, tearing it, the bulging muscles of its arms straining as it fought to rip open the wire cage, trying to get at us.
The crack of a rifle overhead silenced it, even as it blew the thing’s head apart, sending foul-smelling black blood and brain matter in a splatter across Donal and I where we crouched together in the bottom of the boat. My anger at him forgotten, I remained in his lap, staring over my shoulder as the thing sank. Its claws remained hooked into the wire cage until Donal reached over me, unhooking them deftly one by one, so that the thing fell with a heavy splash.
I leaned out from him slightly, watching it float in the water.
Red Magic: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 6 (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 13
