by Nick Webb
She should have paid more attention to Bird. He had been free once, perhaps. Maybe he had flown the world and seen what was out there. Maybe he knew he was better off in his gilded cage. Regret burned like acid in her chest.
“Is this your entire tribe?” Zelle asked. Her training was kicking in. Add up the numbers, assess the threat. Plans for a diversion and escape required knowledge of many details to be successful.
“This is everyone.” Arno once again gestured to the men. “We gathered here to welcome you. Once you get settled in, you can greet each man individually and decide which one or ones you want to bed with.”
Disillusionment was replaced with fear. “Bed with?”
His smile was tight. “Yes. You will have the companion or companions of your choosing. Your life will be very different here than it was in the tower. In the tower, the High Council chose companions for you. Here, you will choose for yourself.”
She wanted to ask the one most obvious question: What if I don’t want to choose anyone? But she already knew the answer. The men were not drooling, but they were definitely looking at her with hunger in their eyes. She wondered how long Arno and his father would be able to hold off the more determined individuals. When she snuck a glance up at the large man, she saw hunger there, too. Surely he would expect to have his chance at being her companion. She suspected he would not take her answer of No very kindly.
She nodded. Her only hope was to play along and then escape. Where she would go, she had no idea. This entire land was alien to her as were these people. All of them were savages as far as she could tell. But the alternative was unthinkable. She would not lay with any of them.
Her mind buzzed with next steps and possible outcomes. If this was what she could expect from people living outside the tower, her only hope was to find a place where she could be alone. The human race could go on without her and die off if that was what it would take to gain her freedom. She ignored the guilt, telling herself she was no hero and that a human race that enslaved women didn’t deserve to carry on. She knew how to protect herself and she could survive in the wilderness. She wasn’t helpless, even though she was attempting to appear that way to these men.
For one crazy moment, she wondered if the High Council had envisioned this particular scenario playing out in her life. Why else would they have taught her all those things—combat, cooking, survival medicine, growing things—and made them a part of her formal education? If she were expected to remain within the tower for her entire life, she would never have needed any of those skills.
But no … it couldn’t be that they meant for this to happen. The High Council would never have wanted this for her. These men, the Hinter people, were not worthy of carrying on the human race, or so the High Council would say. And she couldn’t disagree.
Zelle knew she was no one to judge, but she also knew that Arno had disappointed her as deeply as any other man had, and his people were no better than the other men who had tried to control her life. The men of New Earth were all the same; they fashioned stories for her ears in a way that would cause her to go along with their ideas, but in their hearts they carried a different truth, one of enslavement and denial.
Arno had betrayed her. She would not let him know that she was aware of this, nor would she let him get away with it. She would be the meek little ghost she had been in the tower and bide her time until her moment came. He would be left to deal with the disappointment of his savage family on his own, and she would not feel any regret for that.
She nodded at Arno’s explanation. “I accept. I would now like to go to sleep. I am very tired. As you know, I’ve had a very long day.” She looked at the ground and folded her hands in front of her, hoping to give the impression of a frightened young girl needing protection.
“Come with me.” Arno took her by the arm and led her through the crowd. She kept her eyes cast downward, fearing visual contact with any of the hungry men. It would not take much to encourage them.
Soon they were past the hot, stinking bodies and out into the darker woods. He led her to a shelter that looked as if it had been pieced together with cast-off garbage from the tower. “There’s a bed in there. You should be able to sleep until light. I will come get you for breakfast. Don’t leave with anyone else as your escort. I cannot vouch that they will do the right thing.”
She warred within herself, wanting to tell him what she thought about his plans, about how disappointed she was that he had betrayed her, but also knowing that revealing her true feelings would place him on alert and cause him to be more vigilant. Her greatest strength now was her false ignorance and subservience. He must believe that she was too cowed to do anything but accept his determination for her.
“Okay. Thank you.” She turned away from him and faced the cot that would be her bed.
His footsteps brought him to the door but paused before exiting. “I’m sorry this is not as luxurious as the tower. But I never got the impression that those luxuries were very important to you.”
“You are correct. They were not.” She was not lying when she said this. Had there been a group of warm, welcoming people there not threatening to force her into repopulating the earth against her will, she wouldn’t have minded the hardness of the cot, the cold stickiness of the air, the lack of insulation in the walls or the roof. She would have simply welcomed the freedom these things represented. But this was not her reality; she had merely exchanged one prison for another, one captor for another. Her former instructor had been correct: Zelle’s failure to plan had become her plan to fail.
She thought Arno was going to leave, but he hesitated in the doorway.
“Was there something else?” she asked, not facing him.
“Zelle … “ His voice had a hitch in it. It was raspy, a tone she’d never heard issuing from his mouth. “Rapunzelle, let down your hair.”
She was frozen in place, not sure how to react. “My hair?”
“Let down your long hair. I want to see it.”
Goosebumps of fear covered her skin. This was an Arno she had never met before and didn’t wish to meet now. Maybe she had dreamed on occasion of a forbidden romance with her tutor, but those thoughts could not be further from her mind now.
She slowly lifted her cap from her head, allowing her braid to fall to her waist.
“Undo it. Let it free of the band that holds it tight.”
She shook her head. This felt wrong, like another violation of her free will and an invitation for trouble. And the fact that it was Arno committing this sin made her angry. She feared that she would attack him and ruin her chances at escape. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, begging him with her eyes to stop.
“Arno! What’re you doing in there?” someone shouted from beyond.
Arno’s gaze hardened, but he stepped backward, walking out the door in reverse. “Another time,” he said, closing the door behind him.
* * *
Zelle stood in the center of the room, looking at the small cutout that served as a window. There was no glass there or other covering, and wind whistled through the opening, keeping the room chilled. She would sleep with all of her clothing on if she slept at all.
She lay down on the cot to bide her time. Her escape must be tonight. Tomorrow, after the men had spent this evening imagining what they would do with her, gaining freedom would be impossible; they would all be watching and waiting for their opportunity to have her.
A group of men who were hungry for sex with one of the last four women in the world would need a very strong leader to keep them in line, and neither Arno nor his father seemed to have the strength of character to manage that. Tomorrow or the next day or a week after, it would become a free-for-all and she would be their victim.
Her plan-making kicked into high gear. They had weapons. She had her hands and feet, which were no match for bullets, but they were a match for anything else. She would wait until most of them were asleep, and then she would leave. No
one would take the risk of injuring her seriously. They would try to take her by brute strength. And if anyone tried to stop her, she would use the maneuvers she had been taught to get away. If she hurt someone badly in the process, she would not feel sorry for them; they would have brought the pain upon themselves. Arno had promised her self-determination and she was going to get it.
A sound at her window caused her to sit up in a hurry. She thought she imagined it, and yet there was another sound just after the first, like a pecking that pierced the quiet of the night. Something was gently touching the edge of the windowsill. She stood to look out, and had to blink a few times to understand what she was seeing: the silhouette of a small creature.
Chirp. The creature made a sound.
Zelle moved closer. The light of a distant moon brought some color to the creature’s feathers.
“Bird!” she exclaimed in a very small whisper. “What are you doing here?”
He flapped his wings once and then turned around and faced outward.
Zelle walked closer and reached her hand out, expecting Bird to fly away, but he didn’t move. She stroked his feathers, relief flowing through her. He was just a bird, but he was here. Her only friend in this wild place. “You left the tower, too.” Her heart felt like it was swelling in her chest, in danger of bursting. Bird had followed her from the tower. She wasn’t alone.
How had Bird known she would be in that vehicle? Did he know she was in trouble? Did he know she was in a terrible place? Maybe all he knew was that men were savages, beasts who put creatures like him and Zelle in cages. But that seemed to be enough.
Looking out the window, Zelle saw bodies sleeping in groups. It appeared she was the only one offered an actual shelter. The scent inside it led her to believe it had been Arno’s or his father’s before it had been given to her. This was her new ivory tower. She almost laughed at how awful it was.
“It’s time for me to go, Bird. Will you come with me?” Zelle turned around and walked over to the door. She tried to push it open, but found it locked. She wanted to scream in frustration, but knew that would be contrary to her goals.
Back at the window, she stepped up on the cot, putting herself closer to the room’s only opening. It was small, but she was smaller. She took the borrowed jacket off and draped it over the sill, waiting a few moments to see if it would cause anyone to investigate. When no one came, she put her head and shoulders out of the opening and looked around.
There were two men sleeping on the ground not far from where she was, but they were definitely not awake, their snores blending together in a low hum. Bird took flight, but Zelle did not see where he went. There was no time to worry about her new partner, though. This might be her only chance to escape.
She slowly pulled herself up to and through the opening, delicately balancing on its sill at her belly as she grabbed the window’s edge at her hips. With her head pointed at the ground, she allowed her legs to fall in an arch toward the ground below, using her back and abdominal muscles to control their rate of descent.
Her spine slowly bent backward as her legs continued their downward path. Only when she couldn’t stand the stretching or the pain any longer did she release her hold on the window and throw herself the remaining distance to her feet, straightening as she went. She waited a moment for the leaves around her to stop rustling before continuing.
The air chilled her enough that she took the time to lift the coat from the sill and put it over her head and shoulders, hoping to make herself less visible as she walked slowly around the back of the shed. There was no one there, and this seemed like the direction she should go. Her eyes adjusted to the dark quickly, allowing her to make out her basic surroundings. There was no trail, but the ground was hard. She began to walk.
Her gaze shared time between the ground, looking for roots and other things bound to cause her to lose her footing, and the branches above, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bird. She felt tied to him now, their destinies entwined. He gave her hope that she could make it out, a feeling that she wasn’t completely and totally alone in the world. It was her concentration on what was above her that caused her to miss what had appeared right in front of her in her path.
“Where are you goin’?” the man asked.
Zelle didn’t recognize his face, but his clothing labeled him a possible member of the Hinter people.
“For a walk?” she said as he approached.
She waited until he was an arm’s length away before unleashing her training on him. She could not afford to wait for him to sound an alarm and spoil her escape.
Her first blow was to his Adam’s apple, the second to his larynx, and the third to his diaphragm. He would not be breathing easily or talking clearly for a long time.
The man bent at the waist and his legs began to buckle.
Zelle could not risk him going for his friends or coming after her, so she solved the problem with a swift kick to his knee and a blow to his temple. He fell to his side and his eyes closed as his breathing slowed to that of a person experiencing the deep sleep of the unconscious.
Straightening her clothing, Zelle walked on.
* * *
Zelle checked her timepiece frequently in an attempt to gauge how far she had gone. When the sun began to breach the horizon several hours into her trek, she broke into a run.
The ivory tower had automatic lifts to go from one level to another, but she had often taken the stairs, both as part of her training and because she liked the exercise. When she was running up the many flights of stairs, she would sometimes forget where she was and her mind would wander. It brought her to far-off places that she’d read about in Arno’s texts.
She couldn’t afford to indulge in daydreams during this run, but it didn’t matter; she had the stamina to go as far she needed. When the sun came up more fully, firing the landscape before her, she paused to take a look at her surroundings.
She saw where she had come from, a dark forested area that looked as if it had been burned to ash some years before. The landscape was just starting to grow back, shoots of green intermingling with black, sooty stumps and specters of once grand pines. Ahead of her was a denser forest, untouched by fire, and hills that led to mountains. The city and her tower lay in a valley below, the lights in windows tiny pinpricks that were slowly blinking out as the population greeted the sun’s rays.
Zelle needed to put a lot more distance between herself and the Hinter people; they had looked very determined and were smart and connected enough to sneak her out of the tower without any interference. Surely there would be other bands or tribes ahead as well. Her future did not look entirely bright, but Zelle was free, and it was her decision where she went.
A sound behind Zelle caused her to duck behind a tree trunk. Something had fallen on the path. Movement above caught her eye. It was Bird, and he was behind her, moving along the game trail she had been following. She stood and walked out from behind the tree.
“You’re following me.”
Bird stopped one tree over and took up residence on a low-hanging branch. He turned to face her and begin to clean his feathers.
“I’m leaving here, Bird. I don’t know where I’m going, and it could be dangerous, but if you want to come with me, you are welcome. I don’t mind having company.”
Bird took flight and landed on a closer branch. Zelle took it as his agreement. She looked out again at the valley below and at the dark, scorched area from which she’d come. A smile settled across her face as she realized that this was the first time in her life she’d taken a step in a direction that she wanted to go, and she wasn’t following directives handed down by someone else.
Self-determination. She would fight to keep it. And once she knew the ways of this world and how to hide and protect herself, she would seek out the others, the other girls the High Council had named princesses, trapped in their ivory towers, and forced to await a life they did not choose for themselves. It didn’t seem fair that she was th
e only one who had been given this privilege, so if they wanted it, she was going to see that they had it too. And then they would decide for themselves when and with whom they would populate New Earth.
She jogged on, leaving the path and heading for the hills and the mountains beyond.
Q&A with Elle Casey
I love the way this story starts out looking very conventional--even fairytale-like--and then turns darker. How does it compare to other things you’ve written?
I would say that The Ivory Tower is on par with my Apocalypsis series which is also post-apocalyptic fiction. I think anything in that genre is going to have a touch of darkness to it. The difference between my other series and this short story is that this new story takes place in a science fiction space realm rather than on Earth. Both feature strong female leads and a good versus evil kind of vibe.
What do you like best about writing SF, and space opera in particular?
I love writing stories about a possible future that perhaps my children might see. Space… the final frontier… I can really let my mind run wild up there.
You’re incredibly prolific. What are you writing now?
I’m finishing up a ten-book Urban Fantasy series I started in 2012 called War of the Fae. It’s probably my most popular series of all my books and a ton of fun to write. After that I’ll be adding to my space opera series Drifters’ Alliance.
Please tell readers how and where to find you...
The best place to find me is at www.ElleCasey.com. Links to my social media channels, newsletter, and so on are right there!