Her left hand brushing the wall felt the indentation of a doorway, and the wood of a door. This was different. All of the doors had been open thus far, or if they were closed she hadn’t seen them. She paused, wondering if there were people hiding inside. But surely, if that were the case, some dogs would be pacing outside the door, snarling and barking at the quarry inside. They seemed so capable of sensing things . . . could anyone really be hiding from them?
She searched out the handle. The door wasn’t locked, and swung open with a creak when she pushed it. Inside the room was dark, predictably, and Liseli thought about just leaving it. She didn’t like the smell inside . . . it smelled chemically, like something was being preserved in formaldehyde. She paused before turning, listening for any sound of life, and thought, for a moment, that she heard breathing.
That’s just you, silly. She held her breath, to make sure, and was startled to still hear the breathing. It was slow and careful, as if the breather was trying not to be heard. Not doing a very good job of it.
Liseli opened her mouth to say, “Hello, who’s in here?” but then shut it right away. How silly. Whoever these people were, they’d slaughtered Alisiya. The dogs were making victims of them but who knew what one would do to her.
But, she had the sword. If anyone tried to do anything to her she’d chop his bloody head off, that’s what she’d do. Right. She took the sword in both hands again and walked into the room.
She meant to say, “Who’s in here? Speak up, I can hear you breathing like a freight train,” but instead what came out was a pathetically timid sounding, “Hello?”
Suddenly, the door slammed shut. Liseli spun around with a cry and reached out to grab the handle and yank it back open, but then she was seized from behind in a crushing bear hug that practically knocked the breath out of her. She opened her mouth to shriek but nothing came. She thrashed and tried to jab backwards with the sword, but couldn’t reach.
“Liseli,” came her captor’s voice, “it’s me. Sweetie . . . honey . . . stop trying to kill me . . . .”
Liseli stopped thrashing, a shock of relief traveling through her body from head to toe. She hadn’t given much thought to what she’d say to Russ if she found him alive, but hadn’t planned on, “I can’t breathe!”
“Sorry.” He loosened his hold, but not enough for her to twist around. “Please put the sword down.”
She dropped the sword and it fell to the floor with a clatter. From the moment he’d spoken she’d forgotten she even still had the thing. He let her go then, and she spun around. “What are you doing?” she burst, voice trembling from a wash of emotions, “You almost broke my ribs, and I almost slashed you to pieces!”
He didn’t answer, just reached out again and pulled her to his chest in another crushing hug. It didn’t feel like Russ’s hug, previously when he embraced her it had been very gently, as if she were china. Now she couldn’t breathe, and she tried to tell him this but it was too muffled for him to understand.
“I thought I was never gonna see you again,” he whispered, his voice shaking as if on the verge of tears.
I can’t breathe, oh God, after everything Russ is going to smother me to death, oh please make him stop!
Apparently, even though her voice was muffled, her struggles to pull away made the problem clear, and he let her go. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, sounding ashamed but also as if he wanted nothing more than the grab her again. Liseli took a step back, confused. This was not how she had imagined their reunion going, it was like he was a different person, one who didn’t understand that she was a lot smaller than him and not made out of steel. She’d wanted to hug him but now she was afraid to.
There was something else, too, his eyes looked as if they were reflecting light but there was no light to reflect . . . it was coming from him. In fact he seemed to be giving off a faint aura of light from his hands and face. It was white and milky, like moonlight.
A terrible fear seized her . . . was this Russ? It sounded like him. It looked like him, what she could see from the illumination, but that wasn’t Russ. Russ didn’t glow, faintly or not. Russ didn’t grab her from behind like a grizzly bear. What if it wasn’t Russ, what if it was some . . . some fake Russ? A doppelganger Russ . . . or a reanimated zombie Russ . . . no, no that was too horrible to consider.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” His voice sounded strange, ominous, and that was all it took to make Liseli utter a pathetic little whimper and turn, grabbing for the door.
“What are you doing?” He was too fast for her, and grabbed her again before she could open the door. She yelled and thrashed, pounding his arms with her fists. “Liseli! What has gotten into you?!”
“Let me go!”
“Not if you’re gonna open the door!”
“I want to go!”
“Why the hell for? Don’t you know what’s out there?”
“Of course I do, I just came from there you idiot!”
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” He lifted her, still struggling, off her feet and took a few steps back away from the door.
She gave words to her fears and screeched, “What are you? What have you done with Russ?”
“What?” He let go suddenly, and she spun around to face him defensively as soon as her feet hit the floor. But he started laughing before she gave him an answer. It was a tired, incredulous laugh, and once he started he couldn’t seem to stop. She gave him a distrustful glare, and crouched slowly to pick up the sword, not taking her eyes off of him. He fell back into a chair, and gave her that look, that “you are so adorable when you’re angry” look that had always made her spitting mad. Now it made her doubt herself again. Could a doppelganger or even a zombie really replicate such an unmistakably Russish expression?
“Whaddya want me to do to prove that I’m me?” he asked. “And what the fuck do you think I am, anyway?”
“This isn’t funny, Russell,” Liseli forced herself to speak in a level tone. “I’ve been worried out of my mind about you, and now I find you in some freaky building full of dead people, in a pitch black room that smells like f-f-formaldehyde—” she was about to lose it and cry, she knew it, “—and you’re glowing and you keep trying to suffocate me and . . . and what am I supposed to think? You’re not yourself!”
He stared at her for a moment, and she stared to cry. It was all too much. Just too much. If she’d fought all this way just to be stuck in a room with something that looked like Russ but wasn’t Russ, she would go insane and it wouldn’t matter what happened after that. So she just stood there and cried, and shook, and didn’t move away when he stood up and took a step toward her.
He took the sword out of her hand and tossed it to the floor, then pulled her close, gently this time. “I’m sorry,” he said, stroking her hair. “I didn’t mean to crush you, I just forgot to be careful.” He paused, as if waiting for an answer, but all she could do was hiccup. “And I can explain about the glowing thing.”
Another long pause; he continued to stroke her head and back, like some frightened animal, and she continued to cry wordlessly. She felt as if her mind was gone, or melted into a mush. “I didn’t notice the formaldehyde smell,” he said. “But there’s some stuff in jars on the shelves and the lids blew off so that’s probably it.”
She laughed without thinking about it, a strained hiccup of a laugh through her tears.
“Are you alright?” Only Russ could ask such a stupid question.
“No I’m n-not alr-right,” she replied, finally able to speak again.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Then he hoisted her up and sat back down in the chair, cradling her in his lap like she was some kind of baby. She didn’t complain; she felt like a big, blubbering nervous wreck of a baby. “My poor Liseli,” Russ kissed her forehead. “All this because you were worried about me?”
Not exactly . . . Liseli knew. He was a part of it . . . a big part of it . . . but that was
n’t everything. She nodded, though. Just nodded and sighed. Russ was still and silent, and after a moment Liseli lifted her head from his chest to look at him again. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, instead staring ahead blankly, as if what he was really looking at was in his mind’s eye. He was still giving off that eerie, whitish glow.
“What happened?” she asked in a whisper.
A lopsided smile dispelled the faraway look. “A lot.”
“What were you doing in this room?”
“Hiding.” He shook his head. “Ricalli told me to stay here while he went out and looked around . . . but I wasn’t gonna stay, I was gonna escape as soon as he left. Then I heard the dogs . . . and thought I’d better stay here after all.”
“Ricalli?”
Russ sighed, and shut his eyes. “It’s a lot to explain . . . a lot. I’ll . . . ” his voice trailed off and he opened his eyes again, “We should get out of here. He’ll be coming back.”
“Who?”
“Ricalli. And I don’t plan to be around. Are you gonna be okay?”
Liseli didn’t want to get up just yet, she was only starting to feel safe and calm, sure that this was really Russ, her Russ. She could hear his heart beating when she put her ear to his chest, and it was comforting and real. Ricalli was probably dead by now, whoever he was. “What about the dogs?”
“We can’t be here when Ricalli comes back, I especially don’t want him to get you.” Russ ignored her question.
“He’s probably dead, Leeton told the dogs to kill everyone.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I—”
“Trust me, Liseli, you don’t want to meet this guy. He made me go blind before, just by looking into my eyes. And he threw Alisiya off the roof, after . . . well it wasn’t pretty. He’s capable of anything and he doesn’t want me getting away. We have to leave. He’s gonna be coming back, the dogs can’t stop him.”
There was an urgency in Russ’s voice that made Liseli sit up and realize, reluctantly, that even though she’d found him the world wasn’t going to stand still while she recovered from everything she’d been through. The dogs hadn’t killed her out there, and they hadn’t clawed down the door after Russ, they were probably no danger compared to this Ricalli guy. He’d killed Alisiya, after all.
“Okay,” she got up, and took a resolute breath. “I’ll be okay now. I’m sorry I called you a . . . a fake.”
Russ stood up, then bent down and kissed her, holding his mouth against hers for a long moment before drawing back and saying, “I love you.”
“I love you,” she answered back, smiling even though it felt like the last kiss, the reassuring exchange of declarations right before the doomed lovers slit their wrists or ran out into the hail of bullets or jumped off a bridge. Or something like that. She wanted to think of the room as a secret place where no one and no dog could find them, but it just wasn’t so. They’d have to take the plunge. “I really do love you,” she said as he bent to pick up the sword. “I’m not just saying that because we’re about to go out and get killed or anything like that.”
“I know.”
“When this is all over and we’re perfectly safe and sound and bored I’m still going to love you.” And we will be safe and sound and bored again.
He smiled a little crooked smile as he looked at the sword, then at her. “C’mon. We’ll get out of here, one way or another.”
Chapter 32 ~ Tender Loving Care
“Why is it so dark? Aren’t there any lights here?”
“Ricalli knocked them out. He thought it would give the Ricallyn an advantage.” Russ paused to nudge a mangled body with his foot. “I guess it didn’t work,” he observed. Liseli wondered how he could be so nonchalant. She shivered just thinking of what lay in the corridor around them.
“C’mon.” He tugged her along. “Follow me, I can see okay.”
They picked their way down the hallway, Russ holding the sword up in one hand and leading Liseli along through the dark with the other. He paused again in a few moments and made a little noise of discovery. Liseli heard the sound of steel dragging against steel, and saw the glint of metal as Russ moved something with the tip of the sword.
“This one was a guard,” he said, letting go of her hand. He reached down and grabbed the dead man’s sword, then pushed it into Liseli’s hand.
“Russ,” she said as he took her other hand again and started walking, “if . . . you said the dogs couldn’t hurt Ricalli, what exactly are we going to do with these swords if we meet him?”
Russ shrugged. “I dunno.”
“What?”
“The idea is to not meet him. But wouldn’t you rather have the swords?”
“Well, yeah.” It made her feel a little better to have a long, sharp blade to wave at the shadows than not, but only a little. If the dogs could still get them, and Ricalli could still get them, they might as well be holding potato peelers for all the good it would do. But even potato peelers were better than nothing.
Suddenly, lights flickered on around them. Liseli winced in the brightness and lifted a wrist in front of her eyes.
“Hmm . . . .” Russ squinted as well, but peered up at the narrow band of light running along the wall as if trying to decide whether it was a good sign or not.
Liseli didn’t like feeling so exposed, and wished suddenly for the darkness which had seemed so ominous to her before. The light also revealed the mangled corpses of the Ricallyn in sharp detail, and she averted her gaze, looking up even though the band of light on the wall was painful to her squinting eyes. “Russ,” she whispered nervously, as if the light might amplify her voice, “we should keep going.”
“Alright.”
They went on, ready to jump at any noise. For a short while they seemed truly and desolately alone, unable to hear any sounds of life even distantly. Unwillingly, Liseli was reminded of her dream that first night in Elharan, when she had walked along a gray road strewn with body parts, climbed the hill that became one with the bodies, and found a familiar face among the dead. She shivered despite herself as she glanced at the floor.
Russ felt the shiver, and squeezed her hand. “We’ll be out of here in a moment.”
She smiled faintly — as with that night, when she’d woken from the dream and found that Russ was alive and well, he was here to comfort her.
The next hallway they traversed finally brought them to the main entrance hall, and they weren’t alone. It was still eerily quiet, but there were dogs there, pacing, their giant shoulders swaying back and forth and their hairless tails switching restlessly. Russ stiffened beside Liseli, and she whispered in what she hoped was a reassuring tone, “I don’t think they’ll hurt us, they didn’t attack me when they were on the rampage.”
The dogs turned to eye them both, sniffing the air and sticking their tongues out as if they could taste Russ’s fear. He knew rationally that these were not the same dogs who had been given orders to hunt him down, but it was hard to convince his instincts of that.
Leeton was in the hall, and had been the whole time; their preoccupation with watching the dogs had caused them not to notice at first. He came walking toward them, carrying Alisiya’s limp body in his arms. The front doors hung wide open, letting a bright, amber afternoon light shine in, illuminating him from behind. He paused, and turned pale, lifeless eyes on the disheveled couple.
Liseli opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, because she had no idea what to say.
Leeton said nothing, either, and turned away from them. They watched him walk slowly into the chamber at the far end of the room.
“What is he doing?” Liseli wondered. “Shouldn’t we leave?”
Russ looked toward the entrance, frowning. “There’s more Ricallyn out there,” he said, slowly. “And they’ve got to know what happened here; they’ll be out for blood. The Gate is a long ways away.”
Liseli felt sick when she realized what he was saying. They’d probably never make it through
the city. They were vastly outnumbered in this alien world — the dogs may have marched through the city and destroyed the temple, taking it by surprise, but there were thousands, maybe millions more Adayzjians out there and a relatively pitiful few of them. Surprise was gone, now, and who knew what kind of weapons the Adayzjians possessed. Liseli felt tired beyond imagination just at the very idea of their isolation. There was no one outside these walls to help them, and so many who would be coming after them.
“We have to stay here?” she sighed, half questioning, half stating a fact.
Russ nodded. “If Leeton’s going to stay here, I don’t think we have a choice. The only hope we have of getting across the city is his dogs.”
“We’d better shut the doors.”
Russ nodded again in agreement, and together they dragged the doors closed. They saw in dismay that the beams that barred the doors were splintered and shattered into uselessness. They slid their swords in place, but the heavy doors strained and bent the steel, and it wouldn’t take much effort to snap them. “We’ll have to look around for something else,” Russ said, wiggling the doors to confirm the feebleness of their hold.
“I guess,” nodded Liseli, even though she was privately thinking that it was pointless. The Adayzjians would get in eventually . . . or they would be stuck here, besieged, until they starved or surrendered. If only the Gate was not so far away.
Instead of starting their search, though, Russ paused and turned Liseli toward him so he could look her full in the face. “Leeton did that,” he said, referring to the shattered beams. There was a touch of awe in his voice, and his hazel eyes shone with a wonder that made him seem more happy than Liseli had ever seen him, despite the carnage around them. She didn’t know what to say. Several conflicting feelings washed over her in that moment, but she was left with dismay. That dismay heightened as he went on, “And not just these doors . . . all the doors, everywhere in the building. And more than that; cabinets, drawers . . . lids . . . ” he waved an arm to elaborate, “everything. Everything that could open, he opened. Can you imagine being able to do that?”
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