by Henry Vogel
“So, you’re not going to place me under guard or lock me away in a tower or anything like that?”
“Goodness gracious, no, Callan! Where do you come up with these ideas?”
“So why are you here?”
“I came here to ask you a question.”
“What question is that, Mother?”
“What can I do to help?”
Chapter 9
Callan
“You want to help us?” I asked.
“Yes, Callie.”
“With our plan to rescue David?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t come up here to help you with your embroidery.”
To my surprise, I laughed. I hated embroidery with every fiber of my being, something Mom knew all too well.
“Why are you so surprised, dear? David is a member of our family, now, and we always take care of family! Besides, your father and I are quite taken with the young man.” The corners of Mom’s mouth quirked up. “On top of that, you’re quite smitten with him, as well. Those grandchildren your father and I want will arrive all the sooner if you’re, shall we say, enthusiastic about spending time with your husband.”
I felt a blush climb my cheeks. Who knew my mother had such a bawdy imagination? Well, I suppose my father knew. And I stopped that line of thought before it could go any farther. There are some things a child simply shouldn’t know about her parents!
“Rescue before reunion, okay Mother?” I turned to my friends. “Martin, how can my mother help us?”
Martin didn’t beat around the bush. “It would be much easier to get our hands on the crown jewels with your mother’s help.”
“Why, pray tell, do you need our crown jewels?”
Mom’s tone of voice was curious rather than accusatory. Was it possible she would be willing to risk the crown jewels in the hopes of getting David back?
“There are a lot of people—many of them within this very palace—who have been waiting for me to revert to my raider form,” Martin said, “I thought I would live down to their expectations in a big way. I’ll use my new found status as a friend of the royal family to move freely about the palace, take callous advantage of the distraction David’s surrender has caused, and steal the crown jewels. Having completed this nefarious deed, it would surprise no one if I fled back to my old home port of Beloren. Stealing the jewels should get me back in the good graces of Beloren’s criminal class. Having the jewels should allow me to gain an audience with King Rat.”
“With an eye toward trading the crown jewels for David?” Mom said.
“Some of the crown jewels, yes. Most of them, even. But there must be some profit for me. After burning my Mordanian bridges so thoroughly, no one would believe me otherwise.”
“You’ve fought tooth and nail to show all Mordan that you’re a changed man. Would you really risk ruining your hard–won, barely–rehabilitated reputation just for the chance to rescue David?” Mom asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty, and without a second thought.”
“I rather suspected that would be your answer. David is a truly remarkable young man and, if you ask me, quite deserving of such loyalty.” She got that far away look which meant she was thinking. “Would you be willing to have a naval squadron chase you south? Just among ourselves, we will know it’s an escort for Callan. As an added bonus, with you and the crown jewels inside Beloren’s walls, the squadron will have an excellent excuse to stay nearby.”
Martin nodded. “That’s a very nice touch, Your Majesty!”
“Raiders aren’t the only people who can be devious, Martin.” Mom turned to me, “You said you were leaving Kim behind?”
“Yes, she’s going to stay in these chambers and pretend to be me. The distraught princess who has shut herself away in the bedroom, just like in the fairy tales you used to read to me,” I said. “With luck, no one will even know I’m gone until after we have David back.”
Mom nodded, “I can help Kim with that. I’ll be the doting queen trying to comfort the distraught princess, also just like in the fairy tales.”
Mom turned to Martin and Tristan. “Gentlemen, let’s discuss the details of this plan. I want to make sure we’ve done everything possible to insure my daughter’s safety and my son–in–law’s safe return!”
I groaned. Knowing how thorough my mother could be, I began to suspect it would be long past dark before we got under way.
Sometime in the afternoon, Mom sent for Daddy. He had more than a few suggestions for improving the plan. Most of those suggestions involved keeping me safely in the palace. The fifth time he made such a suggestion, I lost my temper.
“Daddy, that’s enough! I’m going on this mission, whether you like it or not. And if you suggest I stay behind one more time, I swear I won’t name my first born son after you!”
My father laughed. “That’s not much of a threat, Callie. Everyone in the kingdom knows you’re going to name your first born son after Rob.”
He was right, blast him. So I just crossed my arms and turned the full force of my princess glare on him.
Daddy heaved a dramatic sigh. “Very well, Callie, I shall limit my suggestions to the course of action you’ve already chosen.”
Finally, as the clock struck midnight, Nist piloted the Pauline to my balcony.
Climbing aboard the airship, I looked south. “Hang on, David. We’re coming!”
Chapter 10
David
As soon as I boarded the envoy’s ship, two crewmen led me below deck and locked me into a small cabin. My cabin faced the palace, but the porthole was closed and locked. I wasn’t even allowed one last look at Callan as we flew away. This pettiness was at odds with the near–pleading tone the envoy had taken when speaking privately with the royal family. It also proved indicative of my treatment while aboard the envoy’s airship.
Crewmen intentionally dropped my food then kicked it across the deck with filthy bare feet. They’d spit into my water or drink it all while standing before me. It was the kind of casual cruelty displayed by the powerless when they are given dominion over some small aspect of another man’s life. As a refined member of a royal family, the crewmen expected to horrify me with such behavior. They expected me to choose noble privation over accepting such tainted food and drink. I ate and drank everything I was given and relished the disappointment displayed by the crewmen at each meal. Had they seen what I had eaten during academy survival training, they’d have thrown up their hands in despair—right after throwing up their last meal.
Just as the sun was setting, the envoy’s airship rejoined the vast, motley fleet from the southern city–states. The shouts between airships, the dull roar of boiler fires, and the wail of whistles blowing off steam were my first clues we were among the fleet. This cacophony served as my constant companion for three days as the fleet crossed a thousand miles of desert. The calls of the crewmen served another purpose, as well. My implant assimilated and translated the language of the city–states by the end of the first day of the trip.
The implant imprinted the language before the sun rose on our second day of travel. By the time we reached Beloren, I understood everything the crew said and could have conversed with them, had I chosen to do so. I kept that fact to myself, pretending ignorance as crewmen laced their commands with vile insults. Language fluency was one of the two advantages I had over the tunnel rats. Boost, which I hadn’t used the first time I was in Beloren, was the other.
To pass the long, hot days, I catalogued everything I knew or could guess about King Rat. The list was short, depressingly so. Based on the Envoy’s statements in his private audience with the royal family, King Rat exerted complete control over his people. There was no sympathy to be found among the tunnel rats. Even without King Rat’s iron rule, I was an outsider entering an insular and paranoid society. Once in the tunnels, I would be on my own.
To what I had been told and what I had guessed, I added what I had seen in my brief time in the tunnels. King Rat we
nt in for over–the–top execution spectacles. No doubt, the blood and terror served multiple purposes—entertainment for tunnel rats, reinforcement for the us–versus–everyone–else sense of isolation, and a warning to any subjects who chafed under King Rat’s rule.
Gruesome as it was, the man’s love of spectacle was my primary source of hope. I had no doubt King Rat planned a brutal death for me, but my execution would be a special occasion. It had to be. When I rescued Callan and Raoul from the rat king’s tammar pit, I dealt a serious blow to his pride and weakened his grip on this people. King Rat would make an example of me, but that example would be the main event in a day filled with blood and slaughter. No doubt, he would begin with a warmup act of lesser executions. After all, a proper spectacle requires a lot of pleading, a lot of blood, and a lot of corpses. With filled prisoner cages and the tunnel rats boiling over with excitement, what else could the rat ruler do but bow to the will of his people and stage his carnival of carnage?
I had a few days to find a way to kill King Rat. And I concluded I had no choice but to kill him. Left alive and still in power, King Rat would simply intimidate the lords of the city–states again. In short order, we’d be right back where we currently were. Maybe there would be some tunnel rat tradition I could call on, some way of forcing him to fight me. Maybe I could find an ambitious underling whose yearning for power exceeded his hatred of outsiders. Maybe I could do a lot of things, but I wouldn’t know what those things were until I was underground.
At last, we docked in Beloren. The crewmen bound my hands and, led by the envoy, took me to the slave market. Silent crowds lined the streets, watching their official deliver me to the tunnel rats. It was yet another spectacle. It was yet another demonstration of King Rat’s power over the city. The envoy led me directly to the entrance to the tunnels and, without ceremony, ordered me lowered into the darkness.
Chapter 11
David
Hands rose out of the darkness and caught me. They untied the rope binding me and dragged me along the tunnel. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I recognized the tunnels through which my captors led me. They were leading me toward the tammar’s arena, to where I had almost lost Callan and where Rob, her personal bodyguard and the most courageous man I had ever known, gave his life to save hers.
Could my guesses about King Rat have been wrong? Was it possible he cared more about revenge than spectacle? Could he consider me so dangerous he would choose a quick execution over a blood–soaked lesson for his subjects?
Then my captors led me past the tunnel which went to the arena and down a different one. Perhaps my assessment of King Rat had been correct, after all. At the end of the new tunnel, two guards stood before a door. One guard threw open the door as we approached and the other stepped inside ahead of us.
“The prisoner has arrived,” the guard announced.
In my first visit, the arena was bright with massed torchlight. The throne room, if that’s what this was, was the opposite. Lanterns spread dim pools of light every twenty feet or so, hiding the size of the room and providing deep shadows to mask the identity of those who attended the court of King Rat. The crowd was large but quiet, nothing like the frenzied mob I’d seen in the arena many months before. On the far side of the room, surrounded by the only bright lanterns in the room, stood a large chair. On the throne, for that was obviously what it was intended to be, sat a man no more than a few years older than Martin.
The two of us regarded each other with interest. The man before me was lean and smoothly muscled. He looked wiry and quick. I had no doubt he’d be a wily and capable fighter. I’d expected a brute of a man, tall and broad and starting to go fat. King Rat was nothing like I expected. The feeling appeared to be mutual.
“You’re not all that impressive, now that I see you close up. And you’re shorter than I remember,” he said, speaking in accented Mordanian. “Of course, you’re standing still this time, so it’s easier to get a good look at you.”
“I didn’t notice you at all, last time,” I replied, also in Mordanian. “I was rather busy and, truth to tell, not interested in sight–seeing. Not that your little kingdom would be a tourist high point, anyway.”
“Ha!” He slapped his knee. “And you’re not scared of me!”
I affected a puzzled look. “I must admit that you’ve lost me. As a member of one of the most powerful royal families on Aashla, why should I be scared of you?”
“I sent for you and here you are.” King Rat leaned back in his throne, a satisfied look on his face. “That is power, little princeling.”
“It’s prince consort, not prince and certainly not princeling.”
“Do not banter semantics with me, boy. You have been given to me and are now mine to do with as I wish!”
“You are sorely deluded if you think I was given to you,” I said. “You live and breathe because I convinced my father–in–law your ragtag fleet, this half–destroyed city, and this pathetic sewer kingdom of yours were not worth destroying. I came here of my own volition, not because a rat pretending to be a king sent for me!”
“Is that so?” sneered King Rat. “Pray tell, why are you here?”
“I have come to challenge you, before these witnesses, to a duel to the death for that ratty throne you’re sitting on,” I said.
“You are a well–spoken young man. I’ll give you that,” King Rat said. “You must have been working on that challenge for hours.”
“Yes, I’m a traditionalist to the core. Mentioning that, I notice you haven’t answered my challenge. Do you accept?”
“Of course not.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you too afraid to face me, Vraal?”
“No, boy, I’m too smart to face you without need.” Vraal turned to the men who’d brought me into the throne room. “Throw him in the cell with the other one.”
Vraal’s men dragged me from his presence. I’d had no expectation the man would accept my challenge. There had been the slim hope I could make him lose his temper, though. I hadn’t managed that, but I had not come away from our discussion empty handed, either. A blind man could see the rat king thought highly of himself. He rightly believed he wielded power beyond his tunnels, but he was sadly mistaken just how far his power extended on the surface world. Well, when you rule in an echo chamber, it’s easy to fall prey to your own propaganda.
The guards led me through dozens of twists and turns and then walked me up and down hundreds of stairs. Disorientation was the intention behind the twists and turns, the climbing and descending. Without my implant, the plan would have succeeded admirably. Instead, I had my implant start recording a map of the rat kingdom’s tunnels. Nearly thirty minutes later, we stopped next to a heavy door. A guard fished keys from a pocket and unlocked the door. The lantern–bearing guard shined just enough light through the door for my captors to chain me to the wall. The door clanged shut and absolute darkness cloaked the room.
“Hello?” called a voice from the darkness. “Who’s there?”
“Well, my sins really are coming back to haunt me!” I said. “What are you doing down here, Raoul!”
Chapter 12
David
“Rice?” Raoul asked, his voice rising in the darkness. “Is it really you?”
“Of course not. King Rat held a David Rice sound–alike contest and I won,” I said in a monotone. “The prize was a stay in this cell with you.”
“Oh,” Raoul replied, his voice dropping. His voice was so filled with dejection, I could imagine his head hanging and his shoulders drooping.
“For God’s sake, you moron, of course it’s me!” I snapped. “What’s the matter with you?”
Raoul gave a shuddering sigh, “I’ve been down here for a long time and had given up hope that anyone would come to rescue me, much less someone such as you.”
“Rescue you? Are you out of your mind?” I wouldn’t cross the street to rescue Raoul. There was no way I’d cross a desert to do it!
“Have you forgotten the time you tried to get an airship captain and his crew to kill me? Or how about when you abandoned Callan, my friends, and me to the tender mercies of the trogs? Or kidnapped Callan’s parents and–”
“Forget I said anything, Rice,” Raoul snarled. He did sound much more like his usual self, at least.
“I’d love to forget you, Raoul, but you keep horning in on my life!” I said. I took a deep breath, reining in my temper. “But that doesn’t matter right now. I’m as much a guest here as you.”
“So you got captured, too?” Raoul asked. “I’m sure Callan is worried sick for her missing lover.”
“Husband, as you well know,” I corrected.
“I had held out hope that King Edwar would regain his senses after taking the time to think through the prospect of a commoner for an in–law. I have no doubt my father and brother would have given all due consideration to renewing Rupor and Callan’s betrothal if approached diplomatically.”
“What a brilliant idea, Raoul! After all, only half of the Tartegian royal house conspired to kidnap Mordan’s princess and heir to the throne. After you add in an unknown number of your mother’s accomplices concealed within the Tartegian court, you have quite a strong argument in favor of Callan marrying into your family. It’s all so clear to me now! I cannot imagine why you were the only one to see it with such clarity!”
Raoul lapsed into silence. My ridicule had, no doubt, hurt his prickly little feelings. I most assuredly hoped that was the case. Raoul’s steadfast refusal to recognize just how thoroughly he and his mother had screwed up Rupor’s betrothal never ceased to amaze me. But Raoul was the least of my worries.
Freed at last from listening to Raoul’s nonsensical blather, I turned my attention to more pressing concerns. I pondered my options for escape, fantasized about what I’d do to King Rat if given the chance, and waited for something to happen.
