by Lawrence, J.
Coming in such a skinny line it would take a while for everyone to make it through the gate and into the courtyard. Thaniel clamped his mouth shut to keep his teeth from chattering. He was thankful for the warmth of his heavy messenger’s cloak, but couldn’t help but be a little envious of those that had already coupled up for the Festival of the Caller. Everywhere he looked people were snuggled together, waiting for the Ontar to give her speech. After what seemed like a chilled eternity, high above the courtyard, Lisella Ontar appeared on her balcony. People pointed. Children yelled and clapped hands.
Lisella Ontar looked down across the crowd, letting her gaze fall on her subjects, as if her merely looking at them was some imparted blessing. Her hair was bright blonde and tied in a crown of crimson ribbons. She was dressed in ruby red silk that, against the backdrop of the frozen over stone of Ontar Keep, reminded him of a living ice blossom. Finally, she raised her arms. The crowd hushed.
“Do you see her?” Jorel elbowed Thaniel in the ribs, nodding up ahead.
“The Ontar?” Thaniel looked up ahead to Lisella Ontar’s balcony.
“No. Everyone can see her idiot.” Jorel pointed to one of the stairs that ran up the side of the wall.
Thaniel’s breath caught. Elycia was half way up, in a perfect spot to see everything. Some of the girls were pointing at the two of them, their heads leaning in the way girls do when they’re talking about boys. She was wearing blue, her blonde curls catching in the breeze. Yet it was the red blossom fixed in one side of her hair that made Thaniel want to set a jig. She was smiling at him.
“Wow, she looks good.” Jorel said. “Maybe I will tell her I left the flower after all.”
Thaniel did what any man would do under the circumstances. He cuffed his best friend on the back of the head. Jorel good-naturedly punched him in the arm, using the knuckle that time. Thaniel winced and rubbed at his shoulder with a smile that surely made him look like a beaming idiot.
“Take it back.” Thaniel whispered through the side of his mouth.
“No.” Jorel shot Elycia a dashing grin, which was ruined when he grunted and doubled over after Thaniel punched him in the gut. Served him right. Although he wasn’t sure what hurt more, Jorel’s stomach or his hand.
“What am I going to do with you two?” Tristan, Captain of the Tower Guard whispered, shaking his head and looking around at the quieted crowd. He stood above them in full crimson regalia. Armor plate shone bright silver even in the gray light of day. He didn’t require either of the two axes at his hips. All he needed was to wave a finger to freeze both of them solid. Tristan knew them both well. As messengers, they were constantly running back and forth from the main gate. “Get up and show the Ontar the respect she deserves or I’ll let you cool your heels on the wall.”
Thaniel helped Jorel up just as Lisella Ontar began her prattle. It was all lost on Thaniel’s ears. The moment Tristan looked away he snuck a peak in Elycia’s direction. Her friends were all standing in the same spot, arms folded, and faces stern, but Elycia was gone. He motioned to her friends but all they did, after a few seconds of glaring at him, was to turn away with their noses in the air. Girls... How could a man ever understand even one of them? Every time you think you are getting somewhere… BAM… they hit you in the head with a shovel out of nowhere.
Tristan glared at him with eyes that could out-stare a statue, motioning for him to keep his head straight. Why would she move? She wouldn’t have walked away because of their little scuffle… would she? Girls could be prickly about fighting. She was a girl. It might be all it was. Yet, something didn’t feel right. That bad sense of foreboding was creeping up from his stomach and choking his breath away. Mother always said he had a vivid imagination, always dreaming up adventures and stories of monsters…
But then it had all come true hadn’t it mother? You’re dead and I’m stuck in this frozen hell as a slave.
The crowd tensed. The Ontar, thank the Creator, was finishing her speech. He wasn’t the only one that thought it was way too cold to be standing around listening to speeches.
“… to the dra’s door, and may glory return to the halls of Ontar!” Lisella lowered her arms, letting the flowing silk slide back over her milky white skin.
At the base of her tower the heavy doors of the keep creaked wide, and two lines of crimson clad warriors filed out. They stepped to the side of the entrance. Like a flood, a wave of children, all eager for their redcakes, surged for the door.
“Stay out of trouble you two.” Tristan glowered at them and sent them on ahead with the crowd.
“To do that Captain, I’m gonna have to find better company to keep.” And with that Jorel punched Thaniel in his ribs. It was a vicious knuckled jab that sent a shudder through Thaniel’s entire body.
But just then Thaniel caught a glimpse of Elycia, flower still in her hair, as she swept between two battlements on the top of the wall. He froze as people milled around him toward the doors. He half expected her to stop then, and give him one of those admonishing stares girls were born with, but instead she had her head inclined, almost as if she really didn’t want to be seen. What was she up to?
Something definitely didn’t feel right.
“Elycia.” Thaniel called out her name, hoping the noise of the crowd wouldn’t drown it out.
She stopped, turned, and looked right at him, eyes more white than anything else. Then just as suddenly as Elycia appeared, she ducked away. But in that little time, he instinctively recognized what he saw in her eyes.
Seven years melted away as he remembered the last time he saw that look. The look of the hunted. He would never forget the day the slavers came for his sister and him. But it was the frantic panic that he saw in Mother’s wide white darting eyes that had been burned into his soul. Lost in desperation, she had no idea she left her fingernails in the door lintels in a vain effort to reach her children. She never had a chance against men like that. They killed without remorse or even thought. She seemed just another part of the job in their lifeless eyes, like a bug that needed squashing. In seconds that still seemed like ages, Mother was gone forever.
Before he knew it he was struggling just to catch his breath. Keeping his feet beneath his knees was a monumental task, requiring nearly every bit of concentration he could rally.
Thaniel forced himself to banish the memory back. If he let it, it would swallow his senses completely. He shook his head with purpose, willing the memory and regret back into its hole. Mother was dead. He couldn’t help her.
He had to let go of what he should have done and focus on what he could do now. He knew without a doubt that Elycia was in trouble.
He could still help her.
Chapter 5
Cistern Way
Dread washed over Thaniel like a blanket of ice. The look of terror in Elycia’s eyes was unmistakable. But what could possibly be going on? A thousand scenarios riddled trough his skull like rocks in a cup. Nothing he could come up with made any sense. Ontar Hold was a frozen miserable place, but nothing that bad really happened here. Did it?
The unbelievable answer came when a hulking figure of an Ontar guard filled the opening she had just been in. The man turned his face for an instant, peering down into the festival crowd, probably wondering who she was looking at. Thaniel averted his eyes, but not before he recognized a hunger he had only seen once before. In the savage eyes of the men that dragged his mother away. No matter how he tried he would never forget the last moment he saw his mother alive.
Everything blurred together and spun in his head as an all encompassing numbness from somewhere deep inside momentarily paralyzed him, as if someone had spiked his feet to the ground. Now, caught between a past he had tried his best to forget and a present that seemed beyond belief, he felt like he was as frozen as one of the many statues that filled Ontar Castle. Even the daylight seemed to darken as though a specter stole the sun from his eyes.
Thaniel burst into motion. The impulse to move... To do someth
ing… anything… was absolutely overpowering. Before he knew what he was doing, he ran. It was primal. He ran because if he didn’t he would die. He couldn’t let it happen… again.
“Where are you going?” Jorel called from far behind.
Thaniel didn’t answer. His heart was hammering in his chest and before he knew it he was bounding up the stairs towards where the girls were standing, taking two steps at a time. The shouts of the people he knocked aside were lost behind him as he blurred by.
Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, drowning the courtyard in murk. For a moment he saw his mother’s and Elycia’s faces merge and he shook his head trying to clear away the confusion. He focused on the next step ahead of him and ran with everything he had. There was a reason Thaniel had been pulled aside for messenger duty. He had the fastest feet in Ontar Hold.
Looking back, there was no plan. No thought. Just frantic instinct spurring legs that were already conditioned by years of running up and down the mountainside hold.
He reached the bulwark where he saw her last. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The only trace of her was the bright red ice blossom. On the gray stone floor it stood out like a bloodstain. Thaniel snatched it up just before someone stepped on it. He ignored the blaring insults and nameless angry face as he tore off in the direction he’d seen her go.
The top of the wall was nearly twenty feet wide. It spanned from tower to tower, finally ending on either side of the keep the Ontars lived in. Far below, the line of children still filed through the main entrance. Thaniel ignored the panoramic view of the village and the mountain valley beyond. Ahead a flash of blue cloth and flying blonde hair caught his attention like a slap to the cheek. A moment later the huge Ontar soldier opened the door she had ducked into. The soldier was covered in fine crimson weave and gleaming armor plate. His big square head swiveling first, the man turned around. Thaniel’s first instinct was to look away again, but it was too late for that. Their eyes locked as Thaniel was still in full run against the tide of people heading the other way. Like an icy dagger, the coldness in the man’s eyes slid its way into Thaniel’s gut. Guiltily, he realized that he involuntarily had stopped running.
The man hadn’t done any more than look at him. He laughed as he slammed the heavy oak door shut behind him.
Thaniel’s mind raced. Breath came in ragged gasps.
The door they had entered led through a short hallway and dumped into a spiral stairwell, which connected into a number of different rooms up high, most of which were armories and so therefore locked. Up would be a dead end. He hoped she hadn’t headed that way. Down was a different story. If she went down there were a hundred options. Halls connected off the stairs at landings leading into the servants' section, most of which would be empty already. Everyone would be in the courtyard. Under the servant’s section, would be the seamstress hall, among others, and eventually the spiraling staircase would dump into a labyrinth of more halls, thinner and less well lit. In that area a number of crooked stairs broke off the skinny halls, leading to various defensive openings in the wall, where a soldier could dump rocks or pitch on an enemy. At the bottom of the stairs was a huge cistern fed from a natural spring that was reachable by just about any part of the hold via a small corridor most never used. If she made it to the cistern she could go anywhere.
It was where he would go.
Thaniel slipped into the tower adjacent to him and with one hand on the banister darted down the stairs three at a time. Weak flickering light from tallow candle sconces barely lit the treacherous steps that he took more by memory than by sight. Luckily, most had elected to head off the wall via the external stairs and he only had to dodge around a few people. Five levels or so down, he almost ran into a couple in the midst of their festival kiss. Thaniel’s eyes nearly popped out of his head and he nearly stumbled to his death. By the quick look of things he got, they were well past just a festival kiss.
Finally he reached the bottom.
Thaniel hesitated. The cistern way opening stared at him like the jaws of a monster. It was never lit. Jorel and he used the way often as a quick way to avoid the normal traffic of the hold. Each of them carried covered candles in their messenger’s cloak. But not today… Today was the Festival of the Caller. He hadn’t dreamed he would be down here.
A scream echoed out from the cistern way. Something elemental shifted inside his very soul. He dove into the darkness at full speed. Thaniel couldn’t see anything in the stygian black of the cistern way. The blood pounding in his ears kept him from hearing anything either. He was moving so fast that he hit the rough stone walls a couple times. Just brushes that he would probably feel later, but right then the only thing he felt was a rising panic inside him. What would he do when he reached them? The soldier that was after Elycia wore fine crimson weave and highly polished decorated armor plate. The garb marked him as one of the First. An elite guard assigned directly to the Ontar house. The finest of an army of axe wielding killers that held the pass the hold protected. Amongst the other children of the hold Thaniel was scrappy at best. But he was no more dangerous than a puppy in a box to a man like that.
Ahead, wavering light from weak guttering torches reflected off the waters of the cistern. Thaniel hoped Elycia made it this far. If the man had caught up to her in a room somewhere far above him... Blood pounded in his ears. As part of his daily duties Thaniel ran every day, yet it still took quite an effort to get his breathing under control.
As he stood silently, listening to the spring trickle into the cistern, a sniffle from somewhere caught his attention. He started to creep forward, one little step at a time, careful not to make a sound.
“Don’t run little one. I won’t hurt you.” Thaniel froze as he heard the grating voice cut through the wavering gloom. Menace bled through every word. Was he too late? At first he thought the man was still a ways off but the sound in the stone corridors could be very deceptive. Sometimes things that were far sounded close and at times things very close seemed far away.
He heard a shuffle just ahead in the cistern room. He crept ahead and peaked into the dimly lit area. Blonde hair shone in the firelight like a beacon. She was hiding with her back to the cistern wall.
“Where are you little one?” The soldier’s voice echoed from a hallway to Thaniel’s right. It made sense. It was the only hall coming from the tower they entered that led into the cistern. The soldier would find her in seconds.
The cistern room was a circular chamber with five different halls leading in different directions. On the opposite side of the room was the hall that led deeper into the keep. After a few hundred feet and up a couple crooked steps, the way would join one of the halls that the processional of children would take on their way to the dra. Even down here the smell of those redcakes wafted sweetly. Thaniel stepped into the room, moving fast.
He reached Elycia and took her by the arm. She screamed and slapped at him, catching him full in the jaw. Thaniel tasted blood.
“There you are.” Came the exultant voice.
Her blue eyes widened in terror. Thaniel didn’t know what to do as she struck at him repeatedly. Desperately he fended off her blows.
“Elycia, it’s me, Thaniel.” He blurted out and held out the blossom.
Heavy boots were coming fast now from down the hall.
Her eyes darted to the sound and back to Thaniel. Then she bolted up and snatched the blossom. He motioned for the hall leading back to where people were and couldn’t help but smile like an idiot as he took hold of her forearm and they tore into darkness.
“You can’t escape!” The voice came from the cistern room. Before long the boots were thudding behind them. Thaniel hoped the man would have spent more time trying to figure out which hallway they were in.
“Keep moving.” Thaniel whispered. “Stay close and trust me.” He guided her as the hall took three sharp turns. Thaniel was expecting it and had slowed just at the right moment.
“My foot!” Thaniel scr
eamed like a girl behind him. He had all he could do to keep from laughing as he heard the man double his speed.
“Now we run.” He whispered and pulled her behind him in the straightway.
“What have we been doing?” She spat, choking back a sob.
They picked up speed with every step and didn’t have to wait long before they heard plate mail slamming into the stone. The big soldier hit the curve with a grunt. Then an angry scream of frustration thundered down the corridor as he hit the second. Elycia still sobbed uncontrollably. But to her credit she kept moving. They were half way up the crooked steps when he smashed into the third curve.
The line of festival goers all heading toward that wretched dra carving never quite appealed to him before as it had at that moment.
If he had two minutes of foresight he might have dived back into the blackness of the cistern way and faced the soldier instead.
Chapter 6
Cold Stone
Thaniel and Elycia blended into the line of couples on their way to the dra carving, where they would both touch the beastly head and kiss before supposedly heading off to enjoy the festival. How he had looked forward to this moment only minutes before. Now it would be nothing more than an awkward prelude to a hasty escape. Directly ahead of them a drunken soldier with drooping eyebrows and a crooked nose cuddled close to a scullion that made the man look good. She was grinning from ear to ear. Behind was the smiling face of Han, the mason, his giant hands clenched around Heralin’s tiny waist. They were married long before Thaniel was born. The man was as massive as Heralin was small and Thaniel was thankful for the man’s bulk when he heard the heavy oak door slam shut far behind them.
Thaniel gave Elycia his best smile, but he was sure his fear was as plain as hers. She tried to smile too but couldn’t stop sniffling. He was glad to have one of her hands to hold because his other shook uncontrollably at his side. Her touch radiated warmth that spread quickly into the rest of his body. They were standing so close together that strands of blonde curls brushed his face every time she glanced back over her shoulder.
