by D. E. Morris
Bemused, Jaryn looked at Misuzu. “What?”
“The old man said that the stars must be in the right alignment in order for the map to reveal its true self, and that it supposedly holds the secrets of all twelve Elementals. He really didn't know much about it other than that.”
Disbelief flitted across Cailin's face as she returned to her seat. “I don't see how an old map could hold the secrets of twelve prehistoric beasts.”
“I have to say, I'm not that convinced, either.” Jaryn sat back down with a shrug. “It's beautiful, none the less.”
Misuzu looked at the map, her excitement over her find deflating from the reactions of her friends. “He said I can keep it. I'm going to take it outside tonight and see if anything happens. Maybe we happen to be in the right place at the right time.”
Jaryn pressed his lips together. “That would certainly be a change.”
All three of them fell silent, each of them mulling over the multitude of possibilities that eventually led to convoluted ends; there were too many questions and not enough answers. As they drank their beer, Jaryn stroked his beard. His head was beginning to throb with a dull ache, and suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep. With a great final swig from his mug, he sat back in his chair and slapped his hands on his thighs.
“Why don't we find our rooms and turn in for the night? I know none of us got much sleep last night and we've been running around all day. Maybe we'll be able to think better in the morning with clearer heads.”
“I like that idea,” Misuzu concurred. “I'll go out once the moon is high and check the map. If I find anything, I'll let you both know.”
“I'll have them send up some food,” offered Cailin as she rose. “Just don't expect much here after what we've heard.” Jaryn and Mizusu shared a grimace before heading to the stairs that would take them to the second floor, following the directions Cailin had given them to their appointed rooms. Each one was fairly small and barren, with a single bed, a very small table and chair, and a lantern. Pulling back threadbare blankets on the beds showed lumpy straw mattresses. It hadn't been so long ago that this would have been more than sufficient for Jaryn, traveling here and there on whatever few coins he was able to carry, but now the sight of it all was depressing. Dinner was meager as well, though he'd been ready for that, at least. Watery soup of old potatoes, carrots, and gristle was accompanied by a chunk of hard bread and thin wine. They each ate their meals separately, then tried to get some sleep.
It wasn't quite midnight when there was a distinct sound of several pairs of heavy feet coming up the stairs. With Jaryn's room the closest, he heard it before the others and threw his covers back, scrambling to find his sword in the dark. Before he could, however, his door was thrown open and light spilled in from the hallway as men with swords and torches thundered into his room. “Who are you?” he demanded, fighting off armored hands that grabbed for him in his disillusioned state. His arms were pulled roughly behind his back and bound in cold shackles. “Let go of me!”
“How dare you?!” came Cailin's shriek from the room next to his.
He could hear the fight she put up and continued in his own struggle. A crash sounded on the other side of the wall, making Jaryn panic. “Cailin!” Mercilessly, he was shoved out into the hall. The banister was there to catch him, but only barely. Had he been going a little faster or even been a few inches taller, he would have gone right over the edge and landed on a table in the bar below. Cailin was pulled from her room now as well, kicking and fighting with all her might against the men who had her, her hands bound behind her back as Jaryn's had been.
Misuzu was led out into the hallway, her hands behind her back but no fight in her. Though her eyes were wide in obvious fear, she appeared more in control of herself than either of the other two.
“Cailin Ó Ceallaigh,” growled one of the men, “you are under arrest.”
“Under arrest for what?” she demanded, twisting in the arms of the man holding her to get a better look at his face. “Marcus? Is that you? We served the king together!”
“I served the king with a woman of quality,” he spat, “not a deserter.”
Jaryn was yanked from the banister and forced down the stairs between two men he now realized where soldiers from the castle, one between each of the trio to keep them from coming into contact with one another. Down below, the bar maid waited with her arms crossed, but as soon as the first armored man reached the ground level, she hurried forward.
“I want my money.”
“You!” hissed Cailin, brows shooting up. “You turned us in!”
“Give me my money!” the woman demanded, but the soldier only laughed at her.
“Be grateful you get to keep your hovel.” He nodded to his men. “Let's go.”
“There's a reward for that one!” she shouted, watching the line of people leave the bar. “I'll take my issue to High King Connor! You hear me?! I'll do it!” The only reply she received was the retreating laughter of the soldiers.
“You have no idea what you've done,” Cailin complained as they walked. “I serve the high queen of Siness now, and once she finds out how you've treated me...”
“Be still,” Misuzu said as loudly as she dared.
“If any of the possessions we have been forced to leave behind in that rat hole of a bar...”
“Be still!”
Misuzu's command made Cailin glance sharply over her shoulder. Something unspoken passed between the two women, and with a quiet grumble, Cailin fell silent. They were all led through the streets of Lerranyth, silent now but for the occasional night owl still roaming. Once they turned up the road that would take them to the gate of the castle and the bustling city it held within its outer wall, the formation changed so that the three of them could walk together, two soldiers leading them while the rest followed behind. There was hardly a pause at the gate before the heavy iron portcullis was raised and the trio were ushered underneath.
Even here there were signs of change. Cailin knew many vendors left their carts set up over night, only needing to lock them up so that none of their wares were stolen. While there were still one or two carts parked on the edges of the path they took, there was nothing close to the number Cailin knew there should be.
The gallows still stood proudly in the square, rope enough for four people swinging lazily in the occasional breeze. At least some things never changed.
Though she was used to walking right through the tall, ornate front doors, Cailin knew exactly where they were headed as they were brought around the eastern side of the castle. It wasn't a route she'd taken often herself, but it was one she was familiar enough with. This would take them straight down to the dungeons, the worst place in the castle to be in the winter, or even the tail end of winter as they were now. It was cold and everything would be frozen as very little light seeped its way down there during the day. For prisoners, it could be torture.
“Is this really necessary?” she asked as they approached the grated door in the side of the castle. No one said anything to her. The door was opened and each of them had their arms taken, led to separate cells all together in a line. Once they were inside, their shackles were removed and their doors slammed shut, held fast by heavy iron locks. Cailin hurried to the door and tried to wrestle it open once the guards were gone despite knowing it wouldn't budge. With a defeated sigh, she wrapped her fingers around the bars on her door and pressed her forehead to them.”I can't believe this.”
“Are you both all right?” asked Jaryn. With the stone walls between them, he couldn't see either of the women. “Did they hurt you?”
“Just my pride,” Cailin admitted weakly.
“I'm fine,” Misuzu added. “I wish I had my robes, though...and the map. I never did get to check it.”
“Well...” Jaryn took a deep breath in, letting it go slowly. “We needed to get into the castle, didn't we?”
Cailin frowned to herself. “Not exactly what I was picturing.” She looked
down at her nightgown. “This is so humiliating.”
“I've suffered worse,” Jaryn offered, a hint of humor in his voice. There was surely a story behind his statement, but no one really wanted to hear it at the moment. When he realized as much, he asked, “What now?”
“I don't know.” It was a hard admission for Cailin. She looked at the wall to her left as though she could see Misuzu through it. “Why did you tell me to be still?”
“Because I have a plan. As soon as those men showed up and I realized what was happening, I got an idea. Really, this is the best place for us.”
Jaryn snorted. “In the cold dungeon with no weapons and nothing but our night clothes?”
“I never said the situation was ideal, but the location is. How long before one of the guards return, do you think?”
Cailin lifted her shoulders as she thought. “Not until daybreak at the earliest.”
“Even if we make a lot of noise?” asked Jaryn.
“They know better than to come because of that. It used to be that one or two men would come down to check on the prisoners first thing in the morning, see if any of them had died during the night so that the kitchen didn't hand over more food than necessary.”
“Charming,” drawled Jaryn.
“In the morning,” Misuzu said, “I will get us out of here, but not before I do a little exploring to see what I can overhear.”
Cailin's forehead wrinkled. “How do you plan on doing that?”
“I'm a shape shifter. If we can knock out whomever comes down here to check on us, be it one or two of them as you said, I will simply slip from my cell in another form, take on the identity of one of them and use their keys to stash their bodies in my cell, then take advantage of my freedom. I would do it now, but it's likely most everyone is asleep.”
Jaryn nodded, impressed. “That's actually quite brilliant, Misuzu.”
“Thank you.”
“Well,” sighed Cailin, “I suppose we settle in for another night without much sleep.”
It was nearly impossible to tell the time of day or night in the dungeons, but the three captives did their best to find comfortable positions to rest in. Jaryn ended up laying flat on his back on the cold stone ground feeling his bones might rattle apart for how chilled he was. Cailin and Misuzu only managed a little better. Taking on the form of a bird, Misuzu left her cell and flew into Cailin's, then shifted into a bear. She curled up to keep herself warm, but also offered Cailin more warmth after Cailin got over her initial discomfort.
When the sound of the dungeon door opening woke them all, Misuzu changed her shape back to the bird and hurried back to her cell, returning to her natural form just as the female guard reached the bottom of the stairs. All three of them stood at their doors, expectant, but the woman had nothing to offer besides a cold stare.
“I demand to see Connor,” Cailin stated boldly as she met the woman's gaze.
“The High King does not bow to the commands of traitor scraplings the likes of you.”
“Let me out and I'll show you what a scrapling I really am.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, her lips curling back into a sneer. “Don't think I don't know who you are. You're the poor little maid from a kingdom in Caedia that no one ever cared about or respected, the whelp whose parents were killed right in front of her because they refused to give their precious little girl over. You were lucky that elf saved you during the Ibayish raids or you never would have ended up at Oceana with those royal Sinessian brats.”
Jaryn looked sharply at the woman, trying to determine how truthful her words were.
“I heard Oceana was destroyed before winter settled. You have no home here, no home there, and now word in the street is that someone finally took the initiative to attack Siness. Will you move on to Alybaen next, or maybe Cieria? Doesn't matter, because wherever you go, trouble finds you.”
“Excuse me.”
The guard turned around to find Misuzu standing directly behind her. She was so shocked that it took a moment for her to react, but Misuzu was too quick for her. She hit the woman in the face with her palm, aiming for the spot under the nose and above the lips where the nerves were more sensitive. The woman's head flew back, exposing the most vulnerable place on her neck. Misuzu drove two fingers into the spot above where the guard's collar bones met, right into her windpipe, effectively cutting off her air supply and knocking her out. She caught the woman before she could hit the floor and make a racket with her armor.
Cailin and Jaryn stood in their cells, wide-eyed.
Right there on the floor, Misuzu carefully lowered the woman to the ground and made fast work of stripping off her armor. In a matter of minutes, the woman was left in nothing but her under garments and dragged into Misuzu's cell where the door was firmly locked. “Help me?” Misuzu asked. She fastened what she could of the armor around herself, then backed up to stand between Jaryn and Cailin's cells so they could fasten what she couldn't reach.
“That was incredible,” Cailin finally admitted, finding her voice as she tied on a shoulder guard. “And here all this time I thought you and your people were passive.”
“Not as passive as you assume.”
It was harder to finish attaching Misuzu's armor with the bars between them, but it was slowly getting done. “You didn't kill her, did you?” asked Jaryn.
“No. She was still breathing when I moved her. She'll be out for awhile, though.”
Jaryn shook his head, then took a step back from the cell door, his work done. “You're full of surprises, Misuzu.” Watching Cailin's fingers work over a strap on Misuzu's bracers, he put his hands on his hips. “I didn't know you were brought to Oceana with Ashlynn and Kenayde. I wonder why no one ever told me.”
“Because no one knew but King Wessely. Not even his wife knew.” Cailin finished as well and drew her hands back into the cell. “To this day I don't know why I was saved, only that I was.”
“The elf was Tasarin, wasn't it?”
She was silent for a moment, then she mumbled, “I don't know. I don't want to talk about it anymore.”
“Cailin...”
“I don't want to talk about it, Jaryn.”
Misuzu looked back and forth between them, her face now the face of the guard locked in her own cell. “I'm going to leave you two to talk. Be back as soon as I can!” With everything looking just as it should be, Misuzu climbed the stairs that would take her out of the cold dungeon and up to a higher level of the castle. Another guard stood waiting for a report, asking if anything was amiss. Misuzu only shook her head and the man, satisfied, said he was going to do his rounds. Misuzu headed in the opposite direction, following the lead of others around her, matching the way they walked and carried themselves. When two or more guards were in conversation she would find something to do or some reason to stop within earshot to try to listen to what was being said.
All the morning's chatter was about the three prisoners in the bowels of the castle. No one could believe Cailin had come back after what she'd done, leaving with Ashlynn and Tasarin last year to stay in Siness. It sounded as though many of the female guards had looked up to her, some of the males as well, and had been left angry at her departure.
During her wanderings, she came upon a door that was open just a bit, voices drifting out. Though she wanted to look inside, there were two guards stationed there, blocking her way. Thinking quickly, Misuzu ducked into an unoccupied hallway and shifted once more, this time into the form of her more comfortable and natural black and white cat. As with the Gaels, her clothing became part of her, but the thick metal armor remained, clattering to the floor in a cacophony of noise. Naturally, the two men were curious and came hastening down the hallway, all but ignoring the cat that rushed by them. She trotted around the corner, then slipped into the room undetected.
A tall man stood at the far end of the room, a place that looked like it could have once been lavishly decorated for the sun-faded stone around pictures and empty spa
ces. He wore a long black robe and had a thick, pointed nose that stuck out in a way that was almost in perfect symmetry to the thin gray ponytail at the back of his head. With cold brown eyes, he looked at his pupil and sniffed indignantly. “Incorrect. Try again.”
Seated at a carved, dark wood desk was a boy dressed in the garments of royalty. His doublet was woven silk of green and gold, his trousers and boots black beneath. Fine red hair surrounded his head like a cloud. Bent over whatever it was he worked on, his face colored at the words of his tutor, freckles splattered across his face as numerous as a sky full of stars. So this was the high king everyone feared; he was little more than a boy.
Curious, Misuzu wandered farther into the room to try to get a better look around. It was easy to assume that the finer woven tapestries and portraits had been sold off, leaving this room looking the way it did. This was obviously a private room so there was no need to keep it looking well furnished and decorated, but what would the throne room show? She was about to go see for herself when Connor looked up from his lesson and spotted her.
“Hello there, kitty.”
Realizing she'd been seen, Misuzu sat and wrapped her tail about her feet to blink lazily at him. With a boyish grin, Connor bent over in his seat and rubbed his fingers together, making a kissing noise to lure her closer. If she had felt safe where she was she would have laughed. Deciding to indulge him in hopes of getting a taste of his personality, she rose to all fours and walked across the room to him. She was rewarded with a tender pat on the head and a scratch behind her ears. Despite herself, a purr built in Misuzu's throat at the attention.
“You're a sweet one, aren't you?” Abandoning his work, he rose from his chair and scooped her up, holding her on her back to him like a baby. He reached under her chin and gently scratched there before running his hand over her fuzzy white belly. Unaccustomed to having anyone touch her like that, Misuzu coiled in on his hand and gave him a warning bite, only succeeding in making Connor laugh. “All right, all right. I won't do that if you don't want me to.”