“Come on in.” Ronan gestured me inside. “Is it about my imp?”
“How did you know?”
“Well, she is why you came to Big Creek,” said Ronan. “I knew it was but a matter of time before you started haggling me for her.”
“You knew I wanted to buy her rather than borrow her?”
“Not until I saw the look on your face after you met her in the hallway.” Ronan’s chest bounced with a chuckle. “Oh, don’t worry. She won’t suspect you told me about the threats.”
“But I didn’t tell you.”
“Didn’t have to,” Ronan revealed, “she’s done it before, threatened my sister last time she visited. You see, Sophia is too predictable. She’s focused on one thing: being free. She’ll do anything for her freedom, absolutely anything.”
“Can’t say I blame her.” It felt awkward admitting it.
“You think I’m a horrible Master?”
“Oh, no,” I said, “only that if I was anyone’s slave I’d probably feel the same way.”
“This part of your bargaining scheme?” Ronan looked up with a grin.
“Not at all...I was...well—”
“Ah it’s alright, my friend,” Ronan reassured. “For you, I’ll bargain.”
I sat down, watching the doorway behind me, expecting Sophia to turn the corner at any moment. “So then what’s your price?” I asked nervously.
Ronan tended to his burning candles, poking at the wax near one wick that would have been swallowed and the flame put out had he not saved it in time. Then he lit two more with the flamed end of an incense stick, which filled the room with sweet-smelling musk. It reminded me of Sex & Opium, my favorite incense scent sold in every sleazy gas station I had ever been in. I had a collection of the tall sticks, sitting in a flower vase back at my apartment. Ah, how true that scent can bring back vivid memories. I did so miss my apartment.
“Tell you what,” Ronan began, turning around, “It would have been much easier just to let you borrow her, lie and tell her you bought her, but the truth is I no longer want the responsibility of owning her. She’s murdered eight people in Big Creek since she came here.”
“But if she has to abide by everything her Master tells her, then why can’t you just tell her not to murder anyone?”
“If it were that easy, don’t you think I’d have done that?” Ronan wobbled away from the candles and took a seat in view of me. “My orders seem only to apply when I’m present. It wasn’t like that when she first came here. But Sophia’s different, defiant. She knows how to cheat the system.”
“Cheat the system?”
Ronan pointed an index finger upward. “Precisely!” he said with conviction. “It’s like making wishes to a lamp genie. If you’re not careful what you wish for, word it in a precise and literal way, there’s no telling what you’ll get. It doesn’t matter how I give an order, she worms her way around it.
“I learned quickly though how to better word my demands,” Ronan went on, “and now only some of the time she cheats the system.”
This news worried me a great deal.
“She wants me to purchase her from you,” I began in a cautious whisper, “and after she gets me inside the fortress, set her free.”
Ronan moved his tongue across his teeth and sat silently in thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s what she wanted of my sister; well, not the fortress part.” He looked back up at me, pulling himself quickly out of his contemplations. “You absolutely cannot set an imp like her free, Norman. Besides, I’d be the first one she came back to kill.”
Damn, he’s right....
“You’ll have to let her believe you’re going to set her free.” Ronan leaned back in the chair and let his wooden legs rest out in front. “And you’ll have to be a damn good liar or else she’ll know it right away.
“She’s a smart imp,” Ronan added, “if that ain’t already obvious.”
“Is it true that she got inside the fortress once?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Ronan answered, “but I wouldn’t doubt it.”
~~~
I bought Sophia for a promise: I would not set her free after she fulfilled her end of the deal. I would have to become Sophia’s new Master, or sell her to someone else at an honest, cheap price. Truly, Ronan explained, there were no better alternatives where Sophia was concerned. Creation was better off with her dead. But I’m no killer. I would never be able to bring myself to kill anyone, especially someone in the form of a child. However, I did consider heavily that due to the evil nature of said ‘child’, I might have to kill her defending myself.
It was night when we left Big Creek, and my deceptive plan seemed to be working well. I was Sophia’s new Master, a frightened and inexperienced one, but a Master nonetheless. My first order: “You’re not to harm any living thing under any circumstances and for any reason whatsoever.” It was the best I could come up with, and she didn’t seem to like it much, which was a good sign that it served its purpose a little better than she may have expected of me.
Tsaeb hated Sophia and Sophia hated Tsaeb, neither of them afraid to make that known. They argued and challenged each other the entire way back. They fought as we passed the talking ravens and before we made it to the bridge, Tsaeb had Sophia in a chokehold.
When we made it all the way across the bridge, I stood with my arm propped against a tree. I caught my breath and let my heartbeat slow before I went wild-eyed with shouts of condemnation and curse-filled threats.
Through the swamp, things were much quieter, but Tsaeb and Sophia turned verbal and physical threats into facial expressions and body language, which I could still hear. I couldn’t win for losing; the mosquitoes were worse than the fighting demons were, and this time they did happen to find my blood sweet enough to drink. Maybe it was because of all the delicious foods I ate while in Big Creek; I didn’t know, but I hurried quickly down the leaf-littered path and toward the rising towers of Fiedel City.
Maybe it was the sudden memory of Charla, but my itch had come back in full force.
We headed to our new room at Tiny’s Inn. Before we left for Big Creek, we had no choice but to move our belongings to an empty room across the hall. Morris had given us his, and helped hide Tsaeb’s bag of riches before we set out. I was shocked to see that nothing had been stolen. I thought surely the huge bag I was tired of lugging around would be gone when we returned. A part of me hoped it would be.
The next stop would be the fortress and if I made it inside, there was no telling how long I would be in there, if even I made it back out.
But things did not go as planned and three days later, me and Tsaeb were still spending gold coins on the room at the inn. Sophia had not tried to get us into the fortress yet; claimed that the time was not right. When questions were thrown at her she grumbled and would say, “I’m the one that knows what I’m doing, so shut the hell up and trust my judgment, will yah!”
Tsaeb really, really hated that imp.
Day-eight came and went, and then day-nine and finally ten days later and many gold coins short, Sophia came running up the stairs toward the room, the sound of her little black loafers tapping furiously behind her.
The door swung open, smashing into the wall.
“If yah wanna get in, now’s the time!”
I fell trying to get out of bed. I had been partially awake for the past hour, but my awareness had not caught up with the rest of me yet. I fumbled my slacks on and my hair was a mess.
“Where’s Tsaeb?” I asked, slipping my arms into my dress shirt. I paused, taking a big whiff of the fabric and twisted my face up in disgust.
“I could’ve told you how bad you stink days ago,” said Sophia, standing in the doorway. “You smell worse than the drunks down there.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I buttoned my shirt and attempted tucking it in, but was in too much of a hurry to get it right. I jumped into my black dress shoes and stood there, waiting. Wait, I can’t see the que
en like this!
“I need to shower first,” I said suddenly, unbuttoning the shirt. “Go find Tsaeb while I get cleaned up and then we’ll go.”
Sophia crossed her arms and tapped her shoe against the floor. “I say it’s finally the right time to get in and you want to shower first?” She spit on the floor toward my feet. “Whatever. Might as well change into something more suitable too while you’re at it. A bath won’t make the clothes smell any better.”
I needed something different to wear; clothes that might help me blend with the rest of the city and not mark me as an outsider that would only attract assassins.
Sophia came back with Tsaeb and an armful of ragged clothes.
I wore a pair of tan breeches, fabric gathered and tied at the ankles, waist held up by a drawstring. I hated these pants very much, especially the diaper-effect in the crotch. And I hated wool, which the knee-length tunic was made of. I had to wear my stinking dress shirt after all, underneath the tunic to keep the itching wool off my skin.
Sophia held out her hand and on the end of her finger dangled a pair of man sandals.
I felt like I was dressed up for a costume party, without the comfort of modern alterations and substitutes.
“And just who’d you kill to get those?” said Tsaeb.
“No one,” Sophia growled, “I didn’t kill no one!”
“Liar.”
“I’m no liar.”
“Liar. Murderer.”
“Shut up,” I shouted, “both of you just shut up already!”
I wriggled my arms inside my trench coat, trying to keep the sleeves of the tunic from bunching up past my elbows. “I feel like a friggin’ babysitter,” I grumbled, reaching inside the sleeve of my right arm and catching the fabric of the tunic in my fingertips. I tugged until the tunic sleeve straightened underneath the coat. “Seriously,” I went on, “I can’t deal with this. Why the Devil stuck me with kids, I’ll never know.”
“Hey, you chose me,” said Tsaeb, “remember?”
Sophia snarled and crossed her arms. “And you were the one that came lookin’ for me in Big Creek, remember?”
“Alright, alright!”
I turned to the broken mirror set in a swiveling wooden frame and gazed upon myself. My dress was sloppy and unnatural. I wasn’t too convincing. Maybe it was the modern-day trench coat, the salon haircut, or even the watch. But there had been other people in the streets of Fiedel City that looked much like I did at this moment, like a homeless man that wore whatever he found in the dumpsters, no matter how dirty, tattered or tacky it was with the rest of him.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.
We wasted no more time.
The day was bright and the sun unforgiving. Even in the shade of the trees that surround the base of the fortress, there was little relief. We made our way through the sweltering city streets, taking the ‘back way’ once we passed a series of shops that sat at the top of a winding hill. Sophia led Tsaeb and me into the woods and away from all three roads at the fork. The forest smelled like pine; pine needles blanketed the ground heavily making each step softer and quieter. Birds chirped happily in the trees. The closer we drew to the fortress, the more out of place it, and the surrounding area became. A pair of deer grazed at the edge of a brook. Water trickled and danced gently over the rocks. Butterflies fluttered in a patch of wild flowers. The air was cleaner than in the city, scented lightly with everything nice and nothing foul, not even in the heat.
Strange. Surreal. Peaceful, yet eerie.
Not even the looming black mountain could distract me from the beautiful scenery. It was like stumbling across a wonderland in the heart of a nightmare, but in the back of my mind, the wonderland was what I did not trust.
We slipped quietly past an old iron gate partially covered by great meandering vines. A broken rock stair sat on the other side of the gate, worn by time. It seemed as though an old stone building had once been here in its company. And just past the stair, a stone arch perched on a rock platform that was also part of some ancient building. Sophia lead us past the ruins and deeper into the forest, past the north end of the brook that began to swell into a larger creek out ahead.
I stopped suddenly, realizing that the fortress was a tree. It was the largest and tallest tree that I had ever seen, real or imagined. Extraordinary. A tree the size of a fortress whose upper most floor and tower I could not see from the clouds that concealed it. Birds perched high in the carved-out windows, some on protruding limbs that were significant in their own right, but looked like twigs against the great backdrop of the fortress itself.
There were no figures moving past the enormous windows, or voices spilling out into the forest below. No movement, no sound, except for the birds, and even squirrels jumping from branch to branch, ruffling the leaves in their wake.
Sophia stopped.
More ruins surrounded us. An ancient wall, once a barrier for the buildings that stood here, stretched through the forest and toward the fortress. Time, weather and maybe even war had ravaged the wall in many places, but it was still impressive, as were what was left of the buildings around it with their crumbling roofs and sad, missing walls. Miles of vines covered the ruins and twisted beautifully through every crack and hole, gripping tight with strong serpentine fingers.
“This way,” Sophia whispered and waved her hand.
We crept around the stone wall of one ruin and headed inside, though with so many missing stones, ‘inside’ was almost the same as being outside. The roof had been destroyed long ago and the sun beamed through the trees and cast pools of light on the ground of what was once a room.
Tsaeb made a sarcastic clicking sound with his lips. “Thought you were good at getting past the guards?” he said. “Like you were some kind of ninja or something.”
“Don’t start, Tsaeb,” I demanded.
“I never said that,” Sophia snapped back, “not my fault you listen to rumors.”
“How are we getting in then?”
“Shhh!” I said angrily. I looked over my shoulder at the half-window and then toward the crumbling wall where we had entered.
Sophia growled and walked across the ground toward a dark corner. She knelt and began brushing a thick and heavy mound of leaves and pine needles away, clearing an area beneath them. “We?” Sophia laughed, looking up. “There ain’t no we to it. You have to stay behind.” She moved the last of the leaves away to reveal a small round hatch made of iron.
“What? I’m not staying behind.”
Sophia wiped her hands on her already stained yellow dress.
“Oh yes you are,” Sophia smirked. “You’ll need to cover the hatch back the way it was.”
She bent over and placed her fingers around the hatch handle.
“And after you cover it up, go back to the tavern and wait there,” she added.
I moved Sophia to the side, assuming she was too small to lift such a heavy piece of iron, and lifted it for her. The hatch creaked and groaned so loud it left all three of us wincing. The hatch came up and I let it rest against the stone wall. It was pitch black inside the hole and there was no ladder waiting to lead us down.
“Why did we wait so long to come here?” I said, looking down into the hole. I could hear my voice echoing faintly.
“I’m not staying here and that’s all there is to it,” said Tsaeb.
“The guards shift posts every other night,” Sophia answered. “I just wanted to watch their habits and stuff. This leads underground and into the fortress cellar and I have connections inside that’ll help us get the rest of the way.”
“This doesn’t feel right.” I stepped away from the hole.
“All the more reason not to leave me here, Norman. The imp can’t be trusted.”
Sophia was good at ignoring Tsaeb, and judging by the look on his face, that angered him more than anything did.
“I’m not lying. This is the way I led the assassins too, and they got in just fine.”
>
It was as if she just admitted to killing a queen herself. Tsaeb and I looked at one another in shock.
“Oh don’t start with that how-could-you crap!” Sophia sneered. “I ain’t on either side. That bitch Lilith sold the imps into slavery and the rest of you agreed to it—good, evil, dark, light; whatever, I don’t care, I work for myself.”
“I knew it, Norman! I told you!”
“I trust her,” I said. I turned to look at Sophia. “She’s in it for her freedom. The assassins offered her freedom too, but I get the feeling they lied. She wouldn’t be here helping us if any of them had kept their word. Right, Sophia?”
Sophia clenched her fists at her sides and her cheeks reddened.
“Ha!” Tsaeb laughed. “Can’t say I blame them. Something like her can’t be set free. She’s a lunatic! You’re smart to use her like they did. She needs to be locked up in a zoo!”
Sophia stood stiffly, her eyes boring into Tsaeb as her ears hung onto every one of his revealing words. I couldn’t look at her out of shame.
“What?” Tsaeb said, clueless. “What did I say?”
“So, you’re just like the rest.” Sophia stepped up closer to me, her eyes slanted in realization, her mouth wrinkled with displeasure. “That’s why Old Ronan was quick to sell me. I thought you would be different, but you’re a liar just like the rest of them.”
“No,” I said, “I’m good for my word.”
Tsaeb finally realized what he had done. He stood back quietly, knowing he had done enough damage.
“Good for your word, eh?” She stopped just inches from me, looking up. “And what word did you give Old Ronan, huh? Tell me that won’t yah?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, and then the other one.
“I gave him my word that I wouldn’t set you free.”
“I see....”
Sophia walked away and stood near the half-window, arms crossed, springy blond curls resting against her back and shoulders.
“That I would remain your Master,” I continued, “or sell you to someone else that won’t set you free, either.”
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