by Forbes West
“I was talking,” Jaime says, annoyed, and you look at him as if he has just grown another head.
You put out a hand nervously which the Ephor pointedly ignores. “You bring Jesus Christ and his teachings here?”
You and Jaime look at each other, confused, and then Jaime panics. Jaime leaps in, “Um, no, no, Morgan Freeman on the loudspeaker told us, uh, not to bring any Bibles or Korans or the secret books, and we haven’t. You- your people-” Your eyes grow wide and Jaime makes a motion like he has this all under control. “Your people do not like converting, people being converted.”
Dwelka Storma smiles a little. “So there isn’t a group of packages marked ‘oranges’ that contain thumb-sized Bibles made in San Antonio, America, on that ship you just came in on?”
You shake your head repeatedly. “I only go to church at Christmas. I’m not a Bible, Bible smuggler, if that’s what you think.”
Storma comes forward and grabs your crucifix necklace in one armored hand, twirling the little cross piece. “Of course that’s what I think.” Storma lets go. He calls out in their Perchta language, a sort of lyrical language. It sounds to you like Japanese being spoken by someone with a Russian accent. The four Ephors back up as Storma steps to the side.
You notice that humans and Ni-Perchta in that crowded place are watching this scene play out. Your heart starts beating hard. You think something awful is about to happen, which it does. One of the Ephors expands his ancient steel staff, which extends out nearly three feet and glows a grim green.
Lightning shoots out from the Ephor’s orichalcum staff, striking you and Jaime down with one concentrated bolt. It succeeds in knocking you out for a moment. You fall on your back, your body quivering from the shock, your teeth rattling. Jaime took most of the blast and is completely out. You taste blood in your mouth. Someone in the crowd is screaming.
Tall, dark shapes that you see through your clouded vision march towards you quickly in a tight formation. You can barely move; half of your body is numb. You try to scream but only a slight squeak of air gets past your lips.
One of the Ni-Perchta Ephors comes over carrying a white rope and flips you over onto your stomach, hog-tying you as you pass out.
~~~~
YOU wake up on a straw bed in a small stone cell that’s maybe the size of Tyler and Jaime’s bathroom back on Earth. It takes you a while to come out of it, and your head hurts as bad as when you fell off your bike and knocked your head on the ground two years ago at Sandy’s. You ask Jaime to turn off the goddamn radio, but then you notice that Jaime is messing with the lock on your jail cell door with a small screwdriver and, you think, the hairpin that used to be in your hair.
There’s someone screaming in an alien language in a way that scares you. You shake with adrenaline and start to breathe heavy.
“Where are we?” you say in a raspy, dry voice. Jaime drops his screwdriver and looks around. He then shuffle-crawls away from the bars of the jail cell door. Dark shadows cross his face as he moves away from the meager torchlight that illuminates the dungeon. You sit up and take some straw out of your hair. “Where are we?”
“Temple of the Witch-Lord. We are under arrest for Bible smuggling,” Jaime says, kneeling next to you. “Crazy.” You look at him incredulously. Jaime pats your shoulder. “I asked for the Network rep, but they seemed to ignore me… Can you believe this?”
Jaime mutters something about this being exciting.
The screaming stops.
“Plenty exciting,” you respond, palms sweating and your heart increasing its pace. “What’s the penalty for Bible smuggling?” you ask. “Oh god, we stay here for a few years?”
Jaime shakes his head. “Oh no. No, it’s either being released in Gug territory to be eaten or decapitation. They don’t do trials here. I’ll just have a hand chopped off because I’m the accomplice; you’re the actual suspect. And you’ll be…” He doesn’t finish his sentence.
You swallow. Jaime rubs your shoulder. “I have a plan. I break the lock on this door, and then we sneak down the hall. The Ni-Perchta are not really on top of proper law enforcement procedures I’ve noticed, because I have this still,” he gestures to the screwdriver, “and then we get to the American Residents’ House in the Forearm Quarter and-”
You look at him like he’s lost his mind. “Are you nuts? This isn’t a video game. They could kill us for escaping, oh my god.”
Jaime nods rapidly. “I’m- I know, but god, I’m scared Sarah and we… Really-”
You hug each other. You feel a large and bloody gouge on Jaime’s back. “Something bit me in here. You believe that?” Jaime says. “When I was asleep.”
You nod, hugging him tight and then letting go. You feel in your back pocket that book you were given by Scratch, ages ago it seems. You take it out for a moment, and then put it back. You think about how it would be back home—the cops would take everything out of your pockets any time you were arrested. Jaime is right—law enforcement procedures are really lacking here.
“Wait, wait, you don’t need to pick this lock,” you say. “Let me look.”
It’s a simple combination job, from Earth, something you remember from high school. Kneeling down face to face with the combination lock, you notice it has forty digits, so you think. At least it’s not something strange like a Ni-Perchta lock. It’s just a rudimentary, run of the mill lock that can be cracked.
“Are you serious? They lock their jail cells with these? I had that lock in high school on my locker,” you whisper.
“Los Alamitos High did have these locks too—The Oberon is amazingly third world,” Jaime says. “So advanced yet so behind.”
Jaime continues to speak. “Forty digits means, of course, 64,000 combinations. Which leaves us S.O.L., initially.”
You lean back as Jaime holds the lock in his hand.
“Look, Jaime, I want you to follow what I have to say, okay?” you say, your voice trembling. “I’ll keep an eye on the corridor. We can hack this cheap thing. Here’s what you need to do.”
You don’t want to touch the lock yourself as your hands shake too badly.
Jaime puts his hands on the lock, looking at you with amazement. “First thing, dial the lock back to zero. Okay. Pull down on the shackle thing, Jaime. I remember that. Turn the dial to the right and find the first point where it starts to stick. Okay and it’s, uh, 23, right.” You hear boots click-clock down the stone floor of the dungeon, coming closer at first and then just fading away.
“Continue holding that latch down, turn it left as much as you can. It’s 22. So between 22 and 23, it’s 22 and a half, okay, that’s the point where it sticks. Remember that, Jaime. I’ll remember it too.”
As you have nothing to write with you just have to grab that number and keep it in your head-you think, until you get a better idea. “Okay, okay,” you say to yourself.
“Release the shackle, turn past the point where it got stuck at, one number higher. So that would be between 23 and 24.”
Sweat starts to bead up on your forehead as you remember this trick. You hear some voices, and you think for a moment that the Ephors are coming. You listen, still crouched next to Jaime, your knees hurting.
“Okay, pull down the shackle Jaime.” He does so and then starts slowly spinning the combination dial clockwise. “Find where it gets stuck twelve more times…” you whisper.
“Okay,” Jaime says, still looking at you like you’ve just lost your mind. He seems to be going through the motions now. Jaime reads the numbers back to you. You and Jaime jot down the rest of the numbers by writing in the dust of the dungeon floor.
“Okay. Ignore all the ones that are between numbers. So you should have only five left because seven of those numbers are in-betweeners. 6, 16, 26, 28, and 36. Okay. Which number is the odd one out, Jaime?”
“28, Sarah.”
“Okay. Jaime, this is the third number in the combination. What’s 28 divided by 4? 7. Any remainder, Jaime?”
You look at Jaime, who is incredulous that you are asking these questions instead of just telling him the goddamn answer. “No.”
You stand up, stretching your legs. “Next step is that you take that remainder number, which was 0, and keep adding 4 until you have gone around the entire dial.”
You think for a moment and carefully put those numbers down in the thick dust of the dungeon cell to help you remember.
“Jaime, one of those numbers is now your first number. Last step here—to find the second number—what do you have again, what’s that remainder number?”
“0, Mom,” Jaime snaps at you.
“Add 2 and that’s your answer, so add 4 to that until you are all the way around the dial. So what’s those numbers? Uh, 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, that’s it. And now you have your second combination number. Write it down in the dust if you need to, Jaime. Now, instead of 64,000 combinations, you have something more reasonable.” Panic sets into you a little bit, eating away at any remaining confidence as you think of the Ni-Perchta returning.
“Try ‘em out. Remember, your third number is 28.”
Jaime starts to spin the combination dial as quietly as he can. Jaime runs through the gamut for a couple of minutes straight before you hear some footsteps get closer. He spins the dial twice but has no luck. He tries the next combo, and this time the lock pops open with a snick. You luck out big time.
“Isn’t the Internet the best?” you say, as you slowly open the cell door.
Jaime kisses you on the cheek, stunning you. “Okay, then,” Jaime says, wiping his mouth.
~~~~
YOU and Jaime almost tiptoe down the corridor. You walk deeper into the dungeon; it has a funky smell, like an over-chlorinated pool mixed with mildew. You see other humans and Ni-Perchta in their small stone cells, some looking beaten and neglected and one person with terrible burns all over. There are no guards down here; the Ephors seem not to worry at all about their prisoners.
At the ends of each corridor are long halls, softly illuminated with blue light that echoes with the sound of water. You almost scream and pee your pants when you look down one corridor hall and see what looks like a spider the size of a Volkswagen suddenly move by, its red eyes jutting out from meaty stalks that follow you with dull interest. Jaime steadies you with his hand on your arm.
At the end of one hall is an open room with a wooden table and one large wooden chair. You see a Ni-Perchta hanging on the back wall in chains, passed out or dead.
“Okay… Okay, where do we, how do we?” you ask Jaime, who is looking around to see if there’s any way to get out of here, an exit or something. You remember your book but for whatever reason it doesn’t seem to be working or active in any way—it’s “off” for lack of a better term.
You see something, a doorway; a strange one, unlike anything you have seen before. It’s a doorway made out of red and orange light that’s sunk into the stone of the dungeon. It glows incredibly brightly, but you notice that Jaime is not taking any notice of it or even looking in its general direction. You point to it. The door is shaped in the same manner as the Nemo Gate between the two worlds—it’s large and peaked at the top with elaborate sculptures of dragons, people in armor, and, oddly frightening to you, squids.
“Jaime, Jaime, you seeing this? What’s this?”
Jaime looks at what you are pointing at and then at you as if you have become mentally challenged. “Rock, Sarah.”
You ignore him, walking up to the doorway. The doorway seems to become brighter as you walk up to it. You begin to step through the door, and you hear Jaime yelp behind you.
You have stepped through the door and seemingly through the stone of the dungeon’s wall. You are now outside the dungeon and out in front of the Witch-Lord’s Temple, standing on the edge of a black band of cobblestones that rings the courtyard of the temple structure. Jaime appears a moment later, stunned at the change of location.
There is a flashing red light coming from three of the cobblestones. Each are displaying a Ni-Perchta hieroglyphic which slowly fade away into little red blurs that you can barely make out.
Despite it being daytime, torches are being lit in the courtyard of the temple by robed temple servants dressed in purple and black.
Dwelka Storma and another Ephor stand nearby, discussing something in their language. No one else is about. Storma immediately spots you. The other Ephor, a younger apprentice you guess by his youthful look, quickly covers his shock. Storma looks as if this happens all the time.
“Do not move. This will be short and to the point. I will personally execute the two of you within a minute unless you give me your contact in the Christian underground. When we took in the barbarian hordes under the order of the Witch-Lord, we did not ask for a religious takeover of the entire Four Lands. You will give me your contact or be killed,” Storma says, looking very cold and dangerous in his Ephor armor and by the look in his eyes. You start to shake and feel truly helpless, and Jaime lets out his breath. You take an involuntary step backwards. You’ve almost passed the black band of cobblestones now; you’ve been slowly creeping back since Storma began his speech.
Storma blinks quickly for a brief second but keeps up the stony facade. The other Ephor cannot stand it any longer and tries to pick you up telekinetically by snapping out his staff containing orichalcum stones in different shades of blue. Jaime quickly makes a move and falls backwards with you, knocking you to the ground and barely past the black band of cobblestones.
Storma screams out a curse in his language and then recomposes himself. “This Ephor and I offer our apologies. We have no excuse for our actions. We have improperly imprisoned you.” Storma takes out his serrated blade that’s almost as long as you are tall. He gives it to you. “We offer our lives in apology.”
The other Ephor gives his blade to Jaime, who takes it in both hands, looking over it, amazed at actually touching one.
“Thank you, but, but no,” you say simply, happy to be alive. You drop the sword onto the temple’s courtyard with a clang, and Jaime places his sword on the ground as well. “May we leave?” you ask, wiping your sweaty brow.
Storma looks incensed, crazed even. “Of course. You will be escorted to the mono station,” Storma spits out, and you back away slowly. Jaime grabs your shoulder, and you walk quickly out of the courtyard. Other Ephors start to walk towards you both.
Storma picks up his blade from the ground, you notice as you walk away, and then chops off the head of his companion in one fell swoop, sending up a geyser of blood out of the other Ephor’s bloody stump of a neck. You scream, and Jaime yelps and jumps back.
Storma walks away, leaving you speechless.
Chapter Five: To Mission Friendship
You wait in the steam monorail station. It has a wooden platform like something out of the Old West. It is located on the utmost end of the statue’s palm. You and Jaime only have one bag with you. You have been led here by some Ephors who haven’t spoken a word or made a gesture, except to pat your arm or drag you to the side so you can hop the mono to where your job is—Mission Friendship. They say nothing except muttering a few words of Perchta to Jaime, who chatters something back.
“Next monorail is 12:00pm.” Jaime points to a very large and oddly-made clock standing in the middle of the platform. Hundreds of people, and a few Ni-Perchta helpers, are scattered around the clock with luggage and supplies (like little pickaxes and home-made dynamite). Each numeral on the clock has a picture from The Oberon—a single prospector for a 1, two pictures of the steam mono to represent a 2, and so on. The two hands of the clock are almost on the 12, which is a picture of twelve Baleen dragons in mid-flight.
The steam mono pulls up, a strange barrel-shaped train covered in glass on all sides except for the almost-bottom of the train, which looks like stainless steel riding along a series of iron wheels. A miniature choo-choo engine pulls along the entire contraption, and a car marked with a red 5 is yours to take all the
way to the end of the line, Mission Friendship/Funeral Breaks.
Jaime bows to the Ephors and helps you on-board the train, saying, “What a neat monorail! Better than Disney.”
You both have big cushioned seats that can recline. You’re seated behind a hairy and slightly chubby Englishman with a red beard who is speaking a thousand words a minute to his tiny girlfriend. They both wear protective clothing and are sporting crossbows, knives, and (you have to check twice) grenades on their belts. These two are laughing and pinching each other, looking as happy as a pair of clams and sharing what you hope is a cigarette.
You sit down next to a very pale Jaime who quietly says, “Well, that, that was interesting back there.”
“Yep,” is the only thing you can say at the moment. You feel the slightly cracked leather under your bottom and stare at the peeling pieces of red leather, afraid to look out the window for some odd reason, believing somehow that if you do, you will attract more attention to yourself and lead the Ephors back to you.
The train car reeks of a million cigarettes, and the leather seat has abrasive cracks that dig into your back. “What, why did they let us go? Christ, what was it?”
Jaime speaks in a very serious, very scholarly tone. “We made it past the black band that rings around the Witch-Lord Temple. To the Ephors, who never allow escapes, it means that the three gods of the Witch Lands guided you to freedom. Your escape proves that the gods favor you and is a presumption of innocence. All of your crimes are forgiven. Mine too, I guess.”
Jaime smiles and pats your knee and says, “Holy cow, that was interesting. Did you see those cobblestones light up? I think that’s a combination to get in and out… Thank God we got out of that.”
You stare forward, still shell-shocked. “There is no god,” you mutter. You notice your crucifix is gone.
Jaime breathes a sigh of relief and puts his hand on your shoulder, but only for a moment. “Good move finding that hidden door and screwing with that lock. When we got past the black band, they had…”
You take a deep breath, still shaking a little, repeating back what Jaime had said. “They had to let us go. The Ephors allow no one to escape, but if you do, it’s the will of the gods and all is forgiven. That’s incredible. That’s really incredible.”