Kita just smiled and shook her head, standing to go up front for her monitoring shift in the cockpit. Turned out she had an unusual knack for flying. She put her hand gently on Eli's shoulder as they passed each other, and Skippy beeped indignantly as he floated over to refill the grop dispenser.
Captain Eli smiled at Kita, and then joined the kids at the table, speaking before taking a bite of his own grop. “Jokes about the ship food notwithstanding, Mtumba’s right.” He chewed, swallowed, and then spoke again, pointing his spoon at Stella. “A picky eater's gonna be hungry most of the time down there. Trust me. I know.”
“You've been to Altonas before?” Stella asked.
“Been to lots of places,” Eli nodded, chewing more grop. “But I've gotta say, Altonas is strange, being so close to the uncharted territories.” He saw their blank expressions.
“A lotta strange things going on out there, from what I hear. Dragon cults and the like.” Rok and Mtumba's ears perked up, and Stella smiled to herself. Talking about dragons always seemed to pique boys' curiosity for some reason. She wasn't sure why, but didn't mind that they had taken an interest in the conversation, so didn't interrupt the Captain.
“Never understood why any sane person would want to live there,” Eli continued, shaking his head, “but a friend of mine a few years back had real strong opinions on it.” He laughed then shrugged and went back to eating.
“What did he tell you?” Stella prodded.
“Well...” Eli chuckled, and they all leaned in closer, hungry for the details. “He said there was some old magic creature that lived deep in the earth, and that he was going there to find it. You know, to figure out how to talk to it or something.” Eli leaned back and spread his hands. “If you believe in that sort of thing,” he snorted, smiling at them.
None of the kids were laughing though, and Eli searched their faces, trying to understand what their deal was. The teenagers exchanged glances. Rok sneezed, and then shrugged. Mtumba nodded, and spoke, his face serious.
“Did he say what the creature was called?”
Eli looked at him warily, and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, looking at Mtumba out the corner of his eye as he tried to recall the conversation. “I think he called it...the ancient. Or maybe the guardian. Some kind of...ancient...guardian...thing. Why are you so curious about it, anyway?” he asked as he resumed eating. Rok was the one who answered, his eyes bloodshot, but his voice bordering on reverent.
“Because she is who we're here to see.”
19
Blindsided
Rama looked at Fox and smiled congenially as he flew her over the mountains toward the port. “Sorry you couldn't stay longer, Eli. It was wonderful to see you, though. Anything else you'd like to do before you return to the stars?”
Fox shook her head. “No, I've got business I have to take care of. Sorry.”
Rama shrugged, but nodded and said, “Well, I'm glad you got to meet Nya, at least.”
Fox rolled her eyes to herself as she looked out the window, and turned back to Rama. “Great kid. Looks a lot like her mom.”
Rama laughed, rich and hearty. “And it's a good thing she does,” he smiled openly as they pulled into the port.
When they landed in the windryder lot, Rama offered to walk Fox to the gate. Clearly, he missed his old friend. It was somewhat sad, Fox mused, and felt a small twinge of regret, but that quickly dissipated as she lifted her hand to feel the amulet resting beneath her shirt. Once she got back on her ship and her anonymous employer verified that she'd deleted the information on it, Fox would be rich enough to buy a new ship. Maybe one with visual cloaking capabilities. She smiled at the possibilities as they got close to the edge of the parking lot.
A little airbot floated over, beeped in surprise, and then zipped back the way it had come. “Funny,” she muttered, and suddenly felt her stomach lurch as she saw someone she hadn’t expected.
In front of her was a face she recognized, flanked by four she didn't, three of them teenagers. She felt a sharp pain in her chest...She'd been far too slow. Or was he just that fast? Her pulse gun slipped from her fingers, clattering on the flexiphalt. Kark!
“Rama?” the real Captain Eli Hawk asked with confusion. He stood there, still holding his pulse-gun after having nailed Fox squarely in the chest. Fox already felt her body shutting down, and grunted as the pain was swiftly replaced with a silent darkness. The last thing she heard before losing consciousness was Rama's voice.
“Well, Eli, this is quite a surprise.”
Fox couldn't summon the will to move, and her senses felt dulled. Seeing and hearing were both only achieved with some serious effort, and even then were only marginally effective. She gasped at the exertion her observations required, and was forced to relax her grip on reality.
“Is he awake?” a female voice said.
“Not quite,” answered a voice that sounded like Rama. “I wonder who he is. Or what? Who knows what those things were that we found in his bags.”
“I'm not sure it matters. We should get rid of him, whatever the case. He's obviously dangerous, and I don't want him around Nya. He shot Wendell, Rama. Not to mention, he tried to steal my amulet.”
“Wendell's fine, dear. He was just tied up in the cellar.”
Another shock and Fox drifted back into the darkness.
When Fox eventually woke up, the first thing she noticed was that she was shackled around her wrists and ankles. They were big, heavy, and made of iron. The chains binding them gave her enough room to stand up, but not to move freely around the room. She almost didn't believe it, and laughed at the absurdity, at least until she tried to slip out of the restraints. The stone cell offered only a dull echo in response to her attempts at freeing herself.
“Seriously?” she cursed, and tried again.
Her manacles didn't budge from where they gripped her limbs, and simply dug into her skin as she moved. She pulled, pried, and yelled, but nothing worked. These manacles were fastened tight, and nothing she could do seemed to matter. She remembered her lock-hacking kit, and awkwardly searched in her pockets for it, the chains clunking noisily...but of course they'd taken everything useful from her while she'd been unconscious.
“Kark,” she muttered. This was not a good.
She was cold and alone, definitely not on the list of her favorite things. The only light in the holding room trickled in from under the wooden doorway in front of her. There was straw next to her, and two buckets. One with water, and the other one...she could guess what that was for. This was medieval, barbaric even, but she would escape once an opportunity presented itself. This time, she wouldn't set her pulse-gun to stun, Fox decided grimly.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. The light nearly blinded her, silhouetting her warden against the area beyond. She couldn't make it out. It hurt her eyes, and she had to look away for a moment. When she looked back, she saw it was Rama. He looked sad.
“Don't look at me like that,” Fox snapped at him, and he sighed, sitting down cross-legged in the threshold. He pushed a tray of food toward her. Bread, soup, seaweed salad, and a cold glass of cider. There were two sticks for her to eat with...chopsticks. How quaint. Maybe she could stab him in the eye with one of them. She considered if she could do it from here, taking stock of the length of the chains that bound her. She decided it wasn't an option right now.
Instead, Fox decided to eat, and started by drinking the soup, which was rich and comfortably warm. She glared at Rama, but he sat unmoved, merely watching her with a calm expression. She wasn't going to let him manipulate her, though.
“So, what do you want from me?” She snarled, and took a big bite of the bread, which she had to admit tasted delicious. She washed it down with some cool cider, and slammed the leather mug onto the floor. “What do you want?” she yelled, then lowered her voice. “It must be something, or I wouldn't still be alive. So what is it?”
Rama sighed, and spread his hands. “Well, since you a
sked, how about an explanation?”
“What, you want me to explain the world to you? Why things happen? How it all works?” She laughed at him, but Rama shook his head.
“How about telling me who you are,” he said gently.
She looked at him, munching on bits of the seaweed salad, picking out the almonds and dried tomatoes. She liked those, and chewed on one while she answered. “Me? I'm nobody.” She chuckled. “And everybody. Anybody. Whoever I need to be,” she gestured at herself.
Rama tilted his head. “Interesting. What if I were to ask you to be someone?”
Fox rolled her head back and let out a bark of laughter. She looked at him, smiling with cold eyes. “You couldn't afford me.”
Rama blinked. “If it's about credit, we have plenty of it. But no, I don't want to buy you.”
Fox felt something inside of her snap a little. Buy her? Is that how he saw her? A slave? How insulting! How dare he insinuate that he could buy her? She was breathing heavily, her nostrils flaring, her mouth clamped shut. Rama leaned forward, and spoke in what sounded like a genuine tone of sympathy.
“I wonder...could I ask you to be who you truly are? Not who someone else told you to be?”
Rama sat there looking at her, and she felt like something was breaking deep inside her. She didn't understand why she hated this man so much, but he was infuriating! It was all she could do to keep herself from leaping at him in a feral rage. Fox gripped the chopsticks tightly in her fists as she stared at him, and grunted.
Rama let out another sigh, and slowly stood up, slightly bowlegged, leaning on the doorframe for support. He looked at Fox and spoke softly, “I've spoken with Raya, and she doesn't trust you...but I see something good and holy inside you that wants to be understood...even though it struggles beneath an ocean of bitterness. I’m certain you have good reasons for feeling the way you do, but you should know that your inner light will always be present. Perhaps it would be wise to pay attention and see what it has to say.”
“Seriously, monkey boy?” Fox spat. “Tell it to someone who cares!” She threw the chopsticks at him, and then kicked the food and cider across the floor. “I'm fine in here by myself!”
“As you wish,” Rama said. Then, in silence, he cleaned up the mess and left, gently shutting the door behind him.
As she watched the door shut, Fox let out one final shouted curse of rage, hitting her shackles against the floor. She sat there in silence for a moment, and then, for the first time since she'd been a little girl, Fox was crying, and couldn't say why.
20
Prisoner's Gambit
“I feel so much better,” Rok said as he took a deep breath. He smiled across the table at Stella and Mtumba. It was a big place, this monastery, but not as huge as the citadel had been, of course. He still didn't know how they'd made something that big. So many things to learn. So many surprises all around him. Sometimes he looked at people and wondered if what he saw was even real. Sometimes he wondered if they would all of a sudden turn into smoke, or change into something else. If maybe, all his conversations were imagined, somehow. That scared him.
“Hey, Rok,” Stella whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Don't you think,” she smiled, “it would be crazy fun to sneak down and take a peek at the prisoner?” She raised her eyebrows, and Rok couldn't decide how to respond. He blinked.
“Yeah,” he ventured slowly.
“Well, don't do it,” she said, and gave him a disapproving look. “It's dangerous.”
Rok was confused. “But I thought...”
“I changed my mind,” She said, silencing him with a raised finger. “Woman's prerogative.”
“Pre-what?” Mtumba said. He'd been eavesdropping, and Stella grinned at him.
“It means I can change my mind,” she stated simply. “See, already doing it again...” she laughed, and jumped up from her chair to dart through the doorway. Rok and Mtumba looked at each other, not sure what had just happened. Then Stella peeked through the door and whispered. “Are you two coming, or are you gonna let a girl beat you down there?” Then she was gone again.
Rok and Mtumba looked at each other, and then both scrambled from their seats to race after their friend. She was fast though, and able to turn quick as a cat. Or so it seemed to the boys.
Stella kept ahead of them, always just around the corner, leading them through the halls toward the basement. They bumped into a monk Rok didn't recognize. She was carrying a bag of cider apples, and it almost tumbled from her arms before she caught her balance. The boys apologized before hurrying on their way, desperately trying to catch up to Stella. The monk sighed and shook his head, but continued on his way.
Stella led them through the main dining hall where the evening meal was being prepared, and through the kitchen, then down the stone spiral staircase to the cider cellar door. There she stood, looking up at it with an intense expression of mixed emotions. She turned to Rok and Mtumba.
“I heard someone say he's locked up in one of the storage rooms,” she whispered dramatically. “They said he's got chains around his wrists and ankles.”
The air was cooler down here away from the fires in the meeting and feasting halls, and looking down the hallway revealed that they were alone. No monks anywhere nearby, it seemed. Suddenly, Rok felt the chill, and crossed his arms. “He looked just like Captain Eli.” Rok said. “How's that possible?”
Stella raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Maybe he's a ghost. Or maybe he's a monster, here to kill us all in our sleep.”
“That's ridiculous,” Mtumba said, but looked nervously behind him down the empty hallway when they heard something. “What was that?” he asked.
“Don't be so afraid,” Stella said. She pushed the iron latch on the door and it swung open smoothly into the dimly lit room. The only light came from oil lanterns, and the light they cast made the whole room seem alive with strange spirits. Rok and Mtumba found it eerie, but Stella smiled and walked in with confidence, looking to her right and left for signs of life. Something that would indicate there was a prisoner being held here.
Rok and Mtumba ventured in and helped Stella search the room. Careful not to bump into any errant casks of the strong cider, they made their way through the cellar and into a far corner that opened into a short, dead-end hallway. In the strange hallway were small doors set back into the wall, shadowed dark and foreboding.
Stella suspected that this cellar was just the kind of dark, foreboding place where a monster would be perfectly happy to settle down and build itself a nice, little nest. It gave her a shiver just being down here. Maybe they should've stayed upstairs where it was safe, Stella considered as her eyes scoured the dim, decrepit space. One of the doors looked like it had been disturbed recently, and a closer inspection revealed that so had the dust on the floor in front of it.
“Psst,” she said, and the boys came to join her in front of the small doorway. Under her breath, Stella whispered, “I think this is it.”
They looked at it, and Mtumba shoved Rok. “Well, open it, hero,” he said.
Rok threw him a sharp glance before responding. “I was going to.”
Mtumba gave him a wide-eyed stare, and Stella watched expectantly. “If you don't do it,” she said, “then I will.” She stepped forward, but Rok held up his hand.
Stella and Mtumba stepped back, giving Rok some space, and he put his hand on the iron latch, cold and unyielding. It clearly chilled him a little, but he pressed down, and they were rewarded with a creak and a click as the latch unclasped from the doorjamb.
Rok pushed, and the little door swung into the room beyond. There was a slight waft of warm air, accompanied by the foul smell of waste.
“Ugh,” Stella groaned, and held her nose until the shock passed from her nostrils. She saw only darkness inside, but heard the rustle of the prisoner's chains, and a familiar man's voice made distant with anger.
“What do you want?” it croaked at them, and the teenage
rs were struck speechless. “Well?” it asked after a pause. “What is it? Information?”
“What kind of information?” Rok asked nervously.
The voice cackled with laughter, and then coughed. “Boy, I know secrets that would make your head spin.”
Stella was intrigued now, and swallowed. In spite of her better judgment, she said, “Secrets?”
There was laughter, and the voice continued. “Absolutely. I know things about this place that even Raya Silverbane doesn't. What's it worth to you?”
“We don't have anything to give you,” Rok said, and the voice barked in harsh laughter.
“Well, then, we don't have anything to talk about,” it smirked.
“Wait!” Stella said, and then turned to Rok and Mtumba, her face half hidden by dancing shadow. “What if we got him something to eat or drink?”
“Not interested,” the voice responded, then continued, “Unless, of course...”
“Unless what?” Rok asked.
“Unless you have some way to set me free,” it said. “For just a little while. These chains are chafing the skin from my bones.”
“Are you guys crazy? We can't do that!” Mtumba retorted, and then looked at Rok and Stella. “Well, we can't! He's dangerous! And besides, even if he didn't kill us when we let him out, Rama's wife probably would!”
He made a good point, Stella conceded, but shook it off. “Maybe we should see what he knows, first,” she suggested. “Then we can decide what to do.”
Mtumba grumbled about it, but Stella and Rok were in agreement. Rok nodded, and Stella spoke into the darkness, “What do you know that's such an amazing secret?”
Phoenix Rising (Dragon Legacy) Page 13
