Chapter Twenty-Three
I slid down the wall and sat on the floor, gingerly pressing the side of my face, assessing the damage. I was fairly sure I’d have a black eye by tomorrow, but that was nothing compared to my wrist which was beating a dull tattoo in time with my heartbeat, the pain radiating out through the rest of my body. It was even making my teeth hurt.
The sound of slow clapping from the cell next door broke me out of my self-pity. I jumped to my feet. ‘Who’s that?’
A sigh. ‘Who do you think it is?’
‘Kallista?’
Another sigh. ‘Yesssss.’
‘Are you alright? Did they hurt you?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘What happened after they took me away?’
‘Baeroth broke my arm. I think. Then he had a good old poke around in my head, which was one of the less pleasant things that’s ever happened to me,’ I said more flippantly than I felt, and scraped lightly at the rivulet of dried blood under my ear. ‘He’s got some big evil-genius plan going on. He wants me to sign up with his team of weirdoes.’
There was a pause. ‘What did you tell him?’
Thanks for feeling like you needed to ask, I thought bitterly. ‘He had me thrown in a dungeon, Kallista. What do you think I told him?’ She fell quiet and I could almost hear her kicking herself for not spotting the obvious answer.
The blinding pain in my face began to subside and I got shakily to my feet. I was certain that there were no Acme Escape Kits littered about my cell, but I started feeling around anyway for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon or an implement.
Carefully, I edged round the dark cell, running my hands over the damp walls and floor, trying not to yelp when my hand brushed against various bits of animal life. It took all of ten minutes to go over the whole cell. It was completely empty. My pockets were still wet from falling through the lake and yielded nothing of use. I called out to Kallista. ‘Have you checked out your cell?’
‘Empty,’ she said.
‘Don’t suppose there’s a spell or something that you can do to get us out of here?’ I ventured.
A frustrated growl drifted through to my cell. ‘They’re not spells, Zero, they’re abilities. I don’t know why you keep-’ She stopped and I could hear her breathing to try to compose herself. ‘No, there’s nothing I can do. For some reason, I can’t Channel here. I guess the Psions who made this place designed it that way so no one could blast their way out. ’
I tried to keep the panicky tears out of my voice. ‘So we’re stuck here, then.’
Kallista started to say something, stopped and then started again. ‘You could attempt to use your Blessings.’
I frowned in surprise. ‘But...if you can’t do anything, then I won’t be able to either.’
There was the dull thud of someone hitting their head against a stone wall. ‘I cannot believe how much you fail to grasp about your own powers, Zero. Honestly, it’s like watching a monkey try to saddle a horse.’ She sighed again at being trapped with someone so mentally deficient. When she spoke she did so with her trademark exaggerated patience. ‘You can Influence as well as Channel, can’t you? Well, obviously there aren’t any restrictions on Influencing, otherwise Baeroth wouldn’t have been able to look inside your mind.’
‘Okay, but what can I Influence down here?’
‘Well, nothing, obviously. We’re sitting in a dungeon surrounded by rats and slugs. I’m merely pointing out that you sitting around whimpering and saying how you can’t do anything is not only pointless but wrong. Besides, you could try Channelling.’
‘But you just said you couldn’t Channel here.’
‘I can’t, but you might be able to. After all, that is why Oriel and Neve brought you here. They said you Channel in the Sanctuary all the time, and that’s supposed to be impossible.’
‘But I’ve always done it subconsciously; I’m really not sure how it happens. It just does.’
She sighed and slapped the ground in frustration. ‘Congratulations, Zero, it’s official. You are completely fucking useless.’
I glared at the wall that separated us. ‘Hey, Kallista,’ I called out. ‘Now we’re looking down the barrel of certain death, I bet you’re regretting being so mean to Neve all the time. We could really use her mad skills as a rescuer. If it wasn’t for the fact that Owen’s still here, I reckon she’d piss off straight back to the Citadel. Find herself some new mates.’
‘Zero, as per usual you have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Why are you such a cow to her, anyway?’
‘Zero, I’m warning you,’ she said in a voice that made me feel thankful for the thick stone wall between us, ‘do not pull at this thread.’
‘Is it because she’s got a crush on you?’ I asked, ignoring her. ‘God, it’s just a crush. Give her a break.’
‘It’s not just a crush.’ Sullenly.
I thought about the kicked-puppy face Neve wore whenever Kallista was near. Her devastation whenever Kallista cut her down. I tried to think how Chec would look if Mal ever spoke to her the way Kallista spoke to Neve. Maybe Kallista was right. ‘She’s in love with you?’ Silence. ‘Neve told me you’d fallen out; is that what it was about?’ More silence. I tried a different tack. ‘Do you like her?’
‘No!’ Too quickly.
I wondered what the big deal was, and shook my head. These people weren’t my problem. I had a bunch of uncontrolled Blessings that were slowly killing me and I was stuck in the dungeon of a psychopath with a broken wrist and no obvious method of escape. I had bigger things to worry about.
So why was it getting so hard to keep telling myself that?
‘Well, whatever,’ I said, fear and desperation at my own situation making my words sound harsher than I intended. ‘I doubt she’s going to bother coming for someone who treats her the way you do.’
‘You-’ Kallista started and then stopped. She gave a noise that was halfway between a cry and a gasp which was followed by the sound of someone trying to sob silently.
My hand flew to my mouth. Jesus. I’d made her cry. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said quietly. ‘They’re probably trying to find us right now.’
For a moment Kallista didn’t answer and I wondered if she’d heard me, or if she was ignoring me, or if she was still crying. Then she spoke. ‘She’ll come for me,’ she said quietly, but with complete assurance. ‘Neve will come for me. She won’t leave me here.’
Time has no meaning when you’re trapped in a dark cell, but at best guess, it felt like we’d spent half a day in the dungeon so far.
The pain in my wrist had dulled to a background ache. I wondered if that meant it was healing.
My night vision had kicked in and my Blessed hearing amplified every sound. The drippings and scratchings and scuttlings on the floor were raised to the volume of a building site. My breathing felt hurricane-loud. Every few seconds my stomach would growl angrily, reminding me how long it had been since I’d eaten.
I sat on the damp floor, knees tucked up to my chin, unwilling to lean against the slimy wall despite my screaming back muscles. The balance of power had shifted back towards Baeroth. I was stuck here and he could kill me or not kill me - the choice was entirely up to him. All I could do was wait, like Schrodinger’s Cat. Schrodinger’s Psion.
Even if Baeroth decided not to kill me, the chances of me ever being able to break out of this cell were jaw-droppingly slim. I hoped Oriel and Neve would be able to find another way in to rescue Owen. I wondered if they’d seen Kallista and I fall through the surface of the lake and if they realised it was a portal.
I laid my unbruised cheek on my knees and closed my eyes. I thought about never seeing Mal or Chec or my parents again and an iron band slowly started constricting my throat, making my breaths more shallow. I hoped, when my parents were told, my death would be made to sound a bit less depressing than, ‘She died alone and frightened in a dark dungeon cell, next door to someone sh
e could barely tolerate without screaming.’
I wondered who would tell them. Maybe Oriel would use someone’s body to go and visit them.
My eyes opened with a start. I thought of never seeing Oriel again; the band around my throat tightened further and even though I mashed my lips together I still felt tears leak from the corners of my eyes.
On the basis that the only other times I had managed to use my abilities were under conditions of extreme stress or emotion, I scrabbled around in my grief trying to find the tingle in my neck that announced my Blessings.
Please - let the door dissolve. Please - let me and Kallista out of here alive.
Please - let me see Oriel again, just so that I can tell him I’d remembered him.
Please.
Nothing.
More time passed. On the plus side, we hadn’t been killed by Baeroth yet. On the minus side, we were still trapped in a dungeon together.
‘Changed your mind about trying to use your Blessings yet, Zero?’ Kallista’s crying jag had ended and she was back on form.
‘Shut up, Kallista,’ I said wearily.
‘Gotta say, Zero, the thing I’ve enjoyed most about having you here has been watching Oriel realise how utterly useless you are. Maybe now he’ll see how pointless it was to have brought you.’
‘Why do you even care?’
‘I care because I am a paladin, and for all that he is feckless and lazy, so is Oriel, and every day we risk our hides fighting demons to protect people. I care because when I’m not fighting, I’m training to become a better fighter. I use my Blessings to make a difference and I’ll be able to make an even bigger difference if my colleagues aren’t mooning about after a useless Zero. And I care because if talent was a castle, Oriel would be on the battlements and a Psion who can’t use her talents and is too afraid to even try is sub-dungeon. That’s why I care, Zero.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’
‘And, for the record, it’s totally your fault that we’re trapped here.’
I rolled my eyes in the darkness. ‘Thought it might be.’
‘I mean it. We’ve not suddenly become friends just because we’ve been-’ She stopped. It was a second or two before I heard it, but there it was. Footsteps. They grew closer and the bars at the window of my cell started to glow lighter.
There was a fumble of keys and a muffled curse. I stood up from where I’d been sitting, stretching my atrophied bum muscles. I knew this wasn’t going to be a social call, and I was completely unarmed save for some unstable mental powers, but it seemed better not to be lounging around on the floor.
At last the door swung open and in the lamplight I recognised the boy from the throne room, the one who had been staring at me. The flickering light made his silver hair stand out even more against his mottled purple-grey skin. ‘Quickly,’ he hissed, beckoning me out of the door.
I stepped back. ‘Where are we going?’
He flashed me a look of astonishment. ‘Well...out of here, of course. Back to the outside world.’ He glanced back over his shoulder nervously. ‘And it would be great if you could hurry up before someone finds us.’ He shifts the keys and lamp to one hand and passes something to me. ‘Here, you left this in the throne room.’
My knife! I’d almost given up seeing it again. I grabbed it from him and stuck it in my boot. ‘But I don’t understand. Who are you? And why are you letting me go?’
‘Do you always ask this many questions?’ I folded my arms over my chest. Staying in my cell wasn’t an appealing option, but I wanted to know why one of Baeroth’s minions was risking himself to get me out. He sighed. ‘Let’s just say I’m an interested party.’
‘Interested in what?’
‘Interested in getting you out of here!’ Growing tired of my hesitancy, he grabbed my good wrist and yanked me out of the cell.
‘Wait! My friend’s in the next cell - we have to get her, too.’ Kallista had been quiet through this exchange; maybe she expected me to just take off and abandon her.
The boy groaned and glanced from me to Kallista’s cell and back again before giving in. He rattled through the large iron keys on a chain and almost dropped them in his hurry before selecting one. He undid Kallista’s door and opened it.
When she saw the boy, she groaned in frustration. ‘Zero, he’s one of them! You can’t trust any-’
‘Look,’ he interrupted, shoving a long, black-nailed finger in Kallista’s face. ‘Come with us, don’t come with us, it’s immaterial to me. My priority is her,’ he jabbed the finger in my direction, ‘not you.’
Accidentally stumbling into a jail dimension full of evil freaks was worth it just to see the look on Kallista’s face right then.
We hurried along the dungeon corridor and up the wooden stairs I’d been dragged down. I worried that my legs were going to give out after not using them for so long, but adrenalin spurred me on, erasing any aches and pains. ‘At least tell us what your name is,’ I whisper-panted to our rescuer as we reached the top of the stairs.
He looked at me carefully, slowing his pace slightly. ‘You’re nothing like I thought you’d be,’ he murmured, turning towards me as he walked and holding his lamp nearer my face. He peered at me, his head cocked slightly, as if there was something he was trying to see. He evidently couldn’t find it and pulled back, taking off again up the sloping stone passageway.
‘It’s Etienne,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘What?’
‘My name.’
Kallista trailing at our heels, we rounded a corner into another corridor, this one with doors on either side. Etienne pushed one of them open. ‘Here, this room should be big enough for you to Channel a portal back to the outside world.’ He took my wrist and stared at me intently. ‘I know you think you can’t do this, but I’m going to help you. Alright? Now, Baeroth’s not planning on bringing you back into the throne room until the morning, so we should be safe until then, but the sooner we get you get out, the better. Just remember to shut the portal down as you go through.’
‘Wait! You’re not coming with us? Why not?’
‘Again with the questions. I’m not going because my parents are here and if I leave Baeroth will kill them. And killing them would unleash a world of pain that you can’t even begin to-’
There was a sound from the end of the corridor and our heads snapped round as one. ‘What was that?’ Kallista breathed.
The sound broadened out into footsteps; the kind of footsteps people who have been trained to walk silently would use. I turned to Etienne, ready to throw him into the wall for his betrayal, but he looked as terrified as we did. ‘They’ve found us,’ he whispered.
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