The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

04

  We found number three's hidden door and the little sliding square that opened up a spy hole hidden behind a thin screen or painting within a minute. She studied the scene for half a minute and stood aside for me to have a look. I saw Tey Pot, alone, seated at a low table, brewing a pot of tey. I stepped back and nodded. She quietly lifted the latch and pushed the panel/door open. It must have been well oiled, since it didn't make a sound - and yet?

  'Ah, unexpected company,' said Tey Pot without turning around. 'I am sorry, but we'll have to share the cup since you've provided only one.'

  'I'm afraid we don't have time for tey,' I said softly, looking about the room to make sure we were alone with Tey Pot.

  He looked around and smiled. 'Why you are, indeed, unexpected company. I must confess I hadn't expected Lady TrinNatta and Wilitang to arrive through the wall.'

  'MossRose was very upset by your confinement and feared that her father would detain you until she gave in and returned, which would have been a long time - likely never. So we're here to release you, Teacher. But we've no time to spare. We had the bad luck to run into the Chancellor, and I'm afraid the guards might be called out. We must be going.'

  'Ah, that was kind of her. I suppose as young MossRose's pawn in the game, it is my duty to return with you, so here, Wilitang, sample this tey while I gather my things. It's a green leaf tey from Bisatear Province - quite good - light, sweet, lingering. Say what you care to about DrisDea, his soft prison does supply me with fine tey.

  He handed me the cup while he hurried off to gather his vests and gear.

  I had time for only a sip or two - it was quite good, but I couldn't really enjoy it as I watched the door, expecting the guard to burst through it any second. They didn't during the minute Tey Pot used to don his collection of mismatched vests and his walking stick.

  'Follow me, Teacher,' said Trin, quietly, making for the hidden door. I followed behind him, still expecting the door to burst open. I could hardly believe it when I slipped the latch back down on the hidden door without them arriving.

  Trin led us down the narrow black passage at a trotting pace. Without a pause, she turned left into the blackness. She, as I expected, had been paying attention to our course as well. Back, around, and down we went without any hesitation or pause, and within five minutes found ourselves in the dark storeroom.

  Trin turned to Tey Pot. 'MossRose, Naylea and Py are here as well. MossRose decided that bringing you out would not advance her cause, so, as long as we were here to collect you, she decided to abduct her father as well?'

  Tey Pot chuckled. 'So young MossRose is going to kidnap her father, is she? She's a daughter worthy of the master of devious strategies, DrisDae. She'll fit right in with TreyMor and his tribe.'

  'I don't think she had a choice,' said Trin. 'I, for one, will be curious to see if he values himself more than the dowry. But first we need to make our escape. We were told not to wait for them. MossRose said we could make our escape via the terraces, jumping into the lake if it looks impossible to reach the bottom. Can you swim, Teacher?'

  'Yes. You needn't worry about me - nor MossRose. So let's be on our way.'

  'Ready?' said Trin, to me, as she hung up the lantern and blew out the candle to plunge us into complete darkness.

  'Rockets away!' I said in a moment of exuberance, and regretted it the moment I said it. It didn't take long to prove my regret justified.

  Trin cautiously opened the door, and looking out to make sure the coast was clear, slipped out into the dim little cavern with Tey Pot and me behind her. Carefully closing the door, we hurried towards the slightly less dark passageway ahead? Stepping out, we were met with the sound of a dozen or more rapid footfalls to our right - the footfalls of a detachment of pike wielding guards - that had just turned into the passageway - no doubt with orders to man the terrace wall at the end of the passageway.

  They skidded to a sudden stop at the sight of us. 'Wait! Who are you? What are you doing here?' demanded their officer in the lead.

  Neither Trin nor I had any ready response, and their officer gave us no time to think one up.

  'Seize them!' he commanded. His troop surged forward, lowering their pikes - apparently to seize us on the pointed end of them.

  I had my sissy in hand, and Trin had hers out in a flash. The dark passageway flickered in blue light. The lagging guardsmen tumbled over their fallen companions, as our darts sent them tumbling. Ten seconds later the squad was a disordered heap of bodies.

  'Drag them out of sight in the side passage,' commanded Trin as soon as the last one fell.

  'They're merely unconscious, not dead,' I whispered to Tey Pot. 'The weapons are from our islands.' He nodded, but said nothing.

  It was the work of a minute to drag the nine men into the dark side passage.

  'They don't appear to be in full uniforms. They must have been very hastily turned out. That being the case, we shouldn't look too out of place with just a jacket and helmet,' Trin said inspecting them. 'Better to appear to be the hunters than the hunted,' she snapped as she crouched to pull the jacket off the officer. 'Do you want to be the officer, Captain?'

  'You're in charge. He's yours,' I said, as I started yanking off the uniform jacket of the fellow at my feet.

  'Right,' she muttered, stripping the officer of his uniform jacket.

  Two minutes later, we stepped back out into the main passageway as we finished buttoning the uniform jacket - it had an abundance of buttons! The rotund and many vested Tey Pot couldn't get his jacket to button all the way - but then, he'd never pass as a soldier, under close inspection anyway. Trin on the other hand, looked every bit the trim, eager officer in her well-fitting, elaborately embroidered white uniform jacket and faintly gleaming feathered helmet.

  'This way,' she commanded briskly, pointing towards the bright end of the passage with her captured sword. She had effortlessly assumed the role of the fire-eating lieutenant - or perhaps that of a fire-eating Cimmadarian sub-captain in battle - and she welcomed the role. We, her motley command, followed her at a trot for the doorway. The ever-rumpled Tey Pot, in his half-buttoned uniform over his collection of vests, a clanking sword at this side, crossbow bounding on his back, and wide brimmed brass helmet at the back of his head, waved his iron-vine walking stick as a sword like a child at play. I, in my scarlet uniform jacket, sword, crossbow and iron helmet, grimly clutched my captured pike, hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

  I blinked in the bright light as we hurried out onto the top of one of the wide terrace walls. It was deserted. We trotted out to the outer edge to survey our position. We seemed to be about two thirds the way up the palace-rock. To our right, the old city spread out under the haze of a thousand dinner fires. Beyond them, the new, greener peacetime city of residences stretched into the surrounding countryside. Directly below us was a grassy terrace and beyond it, the moat-like lily-pad covered - and reputed deep - lake, and to our left, the extensive park that surrounded the palace on the far side of the lake. The ring of step-terraces and dividing walls wrapped around the rock and disappeared out of sight above and below us. The wall we stood on was some five meters above the terrace on the upper side, and fifteen meters above the lower terrace. We could just see the hospital below us, but we'd have to follow the giant spiral staircase of terraces around the palace rock to reach it. As MossRose predicted, the dividing walls in sight were not guarded and though there were people moving about, they were the last of the clerks making their way to their quarters, in the honeycomb of caves set in the palace-rock. Even without our uniforms, we'd not be out of place making our way down.

  'Right, let's get as far as we can, as fast as we can, while we can,' said Trin after a quick survey of our position and turning, started for the small blockhouse that enclosed the steep ramp down into the interior of the wall.

  We trotted down the ramp into the dim lit gallery, down another ramp and then through the open doorway to the lower terrace. We hurried ac
ross the terrace at a trot. The terraces were mostly green lawns of grass, gardens, and small trees with several levels of cave residences opening on them from the palace-rock. We hurried from one dividing wall to the next with an open doorway to its dim interior and a steep ramp down that led out again onto to the brightness of the next terrace. As hurrying guards, we attracted some attention from the residents in the terraces, but seemingly, not the suspicion we'd have attracted if we weren't in uniform. And in such manner, we made our way down and around the palace, racing through 10 wall and terrace sets and into the 11th wall before we ran into our first detachment of the palace guards. They were in the process of closing the wall's lower door as we trotted down the dimly-lit ramp to the lower doorway. No doubt orders had been given to seal the palace.

  'Stand aside!' bellowed Trin in a low, gruff voice, heavily laced with the arrogance of command.

  They stopped, looked up, and stood aside - never mind that they'd never set eyes on this officer before - such was the power of an elaborately embroidered uniform and the effortless assumption that the order will be obeyed. And the dim light. We slipped through the door, with a cheerful, 'Thanks mates,' from Tey Pot.

  I was getting the rather unnerving impression that Tey Pot was enjoying this a whole lot more than I was.

  The heavy iron-faced door banged shut behind us. We found ourselves on a shaded walkway under a trellis thickly covered by flowering vines that followed the curve of the terrace's outer parapet. The terrace was a narrow one, with benches set under arching ornamental trees planted along the vine laced walls of the palace-rock. I could see no doors into the palace - it appeared to be a private garden of sorts. Looking ahead, down the green-lit, leaf filtered trellised walkway, we could see that the door of the next wall was already closed.

  Our luck had run out. We weren't exactly trapped - the vines on the turret walls would make scaling the five meter tall wall easy, but unlike the terraces and walls we'd just passed, there seemed to be a great deal of activity on the top of the wall ahead of us. Peering out from under the trellis, we could see dozens of pikes moving about above its parapet, and hear shouted commands as their officers attempted to put them into some sort of order.

  We stepped back under the trellis before we were seen and without a word, edged over to the parapet and looked down, panting to catch our breath. The moat-lake was perhaps 40 meters below. In the light gravity, the jump was doable. My concern was getting entangled in the lily-pads - while under a rain of crossbow bolts.

  'Can you swim, Trin?' I asked softly.

  'It can't be too hard and wouldn't be all that far, if you jump out far enough.'

  'I take that as a no.'

  'Just tell me what I need to do.'

  'Just hold your breath, and use your arms like this - setting down my pike I demonstrated the move. You can kick your legs if you want. Just get to the surface. Tey Pot and I will pull you to shore.'

  She considered that for a second. 'Do you think we can take the guards on the wall ahead of us. We'd have an element of surprise - and lots of darts.'

  'By my count we still have three terraces to cross to reach the bottom,' I replied. We're near the barracks now, so they're all likely well manned now.'

  She shrugged. 'If this was the last one, we'd chance it. But it looks like we'll have to jump. You and Tey jump and get to safety. Mission accomplished. I'll hold back and create a diversion if needed. The rest of our party might end up coming this way as well, with all the guards about. Naylea has a darter, doesn't she?'

  I nodded. 'But you can't swim, so if they don't, you'd be trapped.'

  'You just showed me how. The important thing is to complete our assignment, which is to get Tey Pot Wanderer free.'

  'No hurry, TrinNatta. We're safe enough here for the time being. We can't be seen and no one is likely to come this way for a while with the door bolted.' said Tey Pot. 'We can all wait for your friends.'

  'If only to catch our breaths,' I added.

  'I believe you put me in charge,' replied Trin, who may not have been being sarcastic. 'Jump, and that's an order.'

  'Sorry, but I'm not going anywhere just yet,' said Tey Pot. 'We've time. Turning out the soldiers is one thing. Getting them organized to do anything useful takes a lot more time. If sister Naylea has a weapon such as yours, I'm sure our friends will be along shortly - the route we took is the fastest and surest way out, with the palace crawling with guards. We can all escape together.'

  Trin looked at us, in our makeshift uniforms and decided not to bother to argue further. She turned back and stared up through a small opening in the vines at the walls above us as they disappeared behind each other and around the rock. I rather suspected the fate of Teacher LinPy was weighing too heavily on her mind to bother arguing any further.