by D. H. Dunn
The pier ahead appeared to Nima to be simply several long slabs of stone that had been run out into the water. Thartark were waiting there to receive the ship, dozens of them. Their hands were in the air, shaking what looked like small umbrellas. Portable shade. They were close enough that Nima could hear their cheering.
“Maybe we’ll think of a plan,” she repeated. “I don’t know yet. There’s more to be worried about than just the Thartark.”
Val nodded, looking below at the deck of the ship. Somewhere under that wood was Tanira, and Nima had learned she could not anticipate what the knight of the Line might do, except that she was dangerous.
Chapter 19
Time in her cell in the Thartark city had started to break down, reminding Nima of long climbs she had been on.
She and Val had been separated the moment the ship had moored at the dock. Val had been taken first, led by several of the crew into a crowd of Thartark that jeered at him as he passed.
A large sack had been placed over Nima’s head before she had been untied. She felt herself being led away as the air inside the bag became hot and stale. The heat pushed against her as she was led, her shoulders and neck had felt like they were on fire. It had been a relief when her captors had finally brought her out of the sunlight.
She was cast into her cell without comment, the door slamming shut as the two tall Thartark had walked away, ignoring her shouted questions.
She had been locked into a small room in a small building, the structure itself dug roughly out of the stone surface of the island. There was a small wooden plank on the floor that she had slept on, and a crisscross mesh of sturdy wooden poles that acted as bars to the room.
The walls had cracks that pulsed when Nima stared at them, slowly growing and shrinking as if the material inside them was moving. She had tried to push her fingers inside one of the cracks, but it never opened wide enough for her to do so.
She would stare at the cracks on the walls, trying to memorize their patterns. She would sleep. At times, a guard would bring her food, the same pale-green paste every day, accompanied with a cup of water.
Staring at cracks. Sleeping. Eating. They flowed into each other, giving the impression of one long day. She had been counting the meals so she wouldn’t completely lose track. The last one was her ninth, the end of her third day here on the island.
At times, she would test the strength of the wooden bars, either she was getting weaker or the bars were getting stronger. She knew there would be a way out, these Thartark were not keeping her alive for nothing. Until she realized how to escape, or the Thartark let her go, there was little to do but worry about Val and try to keep her mind sharp.
She had begun to practice putting pressure on her leg, even though it still pulsed with pain. If the opportunity came to run, she had to know she could trust it.
She cried out the first few times she placed all her weight upon it, but with repeated efforts she grew more comfortable with it. In time, Nima found she could run small circles in her cell, about half-speed.
Every now and then she would see a shadow in the hallway, and her heart would race with hope. It might be Val, coming to free her. Or it might be Drew, as impossible as that would seem. Even her brother Pasang.
But it was always a guard, and nothing more. The shadows always brought false hope and green paste.
When a shadow formed on the hallway wall that was not a guard, it took Nima a moment to comprehend who it belonged to.
Tanira was outside the bars, kneeling down and calling to her.
Tanira. Who had lied to her, attacked her and traded her and Val to the Thartark. The woman looked at her through the dark interior of the hallway, her bright eyes a mystery. A glowing yellow object was clipped to her belt, about the size of Nima’s hand. The goal of Tanira’s mission, no doubt.
“The guard is subdued,” she said, her tone light. As if Nima should have been expecting her to come. “I am here to free you.”
Nima gritted her teeth, keeping her back firm against the wall. She stared back at Tanira, unmoving. “Why?”
“Because you do not deserve to rot in this place.”
“That is not my question, and you know it!” Nima stood, walking to the bars and staring down at Tanira’s kneeling form. “Why?”
“Do you know how many people I have had to kill just to reach this point?” Tanira asked. “My own people--not Caenolans or Thartark. Rakhum, just like myself. I had to because I am the End. Generations depend on my actions. I must complete my goal.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?” Nima asked.
Tanira pivoted on her heel, Nima thinking the woman was about to simply walk out and leave her there after all. Instead she stayed frozen. When she spoke, Tanira allowed Nima to see only her back.
“I-” Tanira stammered, “It wasn’t needed. I did not have to.”
“There was no reason not to,” Nima said. “You even had to lie to these Thartark about my value, and they agreed to your offer to get to Val, not me. These people don’t know what to do with me. So why? If you were going to lose access to the island you still only needed Val.”
“Stop,” Tanira said. “You are confusing me.” Her back was still to Nima, but Nima was certain Tanira’s hand was back at her forehead, drawing symbols on her skin.
“Even now, you’re here! Risking your mission just to free me? So brave a knight that you don’t even have the courage to look me in the eye!”
Tanira whirled, both blades suddenly in her hands.
Nima forced her feet to stay where they were, she was not backing away this time. “You say you must complete your goal for the Line, well I figure that,” Nima pointed to the golden shining object strapped to Tanira’s belt, “that thing was your goal. So, you’re done. Why waste time here? Why come save me?”
“Do you not want me to save you?” Tanira asked, her voice raised. Her eyes kept moving to Nima’s face and then running away to other corners of the room.
“I want you to know I won’t forget what you did,” Nima shouted. Tanira looked down at Nima’s leg, Val’s bandage still wrapped around it. “Not the leg! I won’t forget that you didn’t trust me, like I trusted you! You lied to me and used me and Val. You turned on us. Who knows what has happened to him? You think this Line makes you right, but the Line didn’t send you to me here, you did. That’s not the Line, Tanira--that’s you. I don’t blame the Line, I blame you. You’re just here because you don’t want to feel guilty!”
With a rage-filled shout, Tanira suddenly charged forward, hacking at the bars with her blades, reducing them to splinters. With a yelp, Nima jumped back to avoid the flying debris, the landing sending throbs of pain from her thigh.
Tanira’s voice came from the hallway as she walked away, her tone now cold and impassive. “There is a beach just to the south of here. I will be waiting in a boat until sunrise. The object I have taken was my mission. Its removal will make this island unstable as the first light of the sun hits it. I would not linger here.”
Nima struggled to her feet, wincing against the pain in her leg. Confusion struggled against her anger.
Why was Tanira helping her?
Nima hobbled into the hallway, just seeing a glimpse of Tanira ducking into the shadows and up the stairs to the right.
Nima ran as best she could toward the poorly lit stairs, winding up from their lower level. The stone was damp with moisture, but her footfalls were steady. Even injured, she was used to scrambling on wet rock.
At the top of the stairs, the room opened into the entryway of the building, a small barren room with only a knocked-over chair for furniture. Outside of the open doorway she could see the moonlit street of the Thartark city.
She looked around, but there was no sign of Tanira. A single hole had been carved as a doorway into the village, no other entrance or exit was present. The floor was littered with several Thartark bodies, Tanira’s handiwork.
As she had done before, Tanira had lef
t death behind her.
Nima tried not to look at the Thartark bodies in the street as she passed them. They might have been the creatures who had guarded her, or they might have simply been innocent Thartark who got in Tanira’s way.
She saw more victims. The Thartark had been deceived by Tanira just as she had been. Despite their long history of crimes against Val’s people, they didn’t deserve this.
Nima ran for the door, suspecting the consequences, should she be discovered, would be dire. The Thartark would assume she killed these guards and made her escape, and there would be no talking her way out of that. Rushing out into the dark street, she felt torn.
The street was a carved, open-air passage, lined with closed doorways to many other structures. Above her the stars winked back, looking hazy as if she were viewing them through waves of heat.
Below her feet she could dimly see the same cracks she had seen in her cell, the ground underneath her shifting slightly as the cracks moved. She squinted through the dark shadows up and down the corridor. Near as Nima could tell for the moment she was alone.
The desire to go after Tanira was strongest, her need to get answers and find some way to express her anger. It was the strongest desire, but she chose not to listen to it. Just as on Everest, listening to her pounding heart was a good way to get killed. She needed to think.
Looking at the sky again, it was dark to the horizon. The moon was low toward the ocean, the night sky clear of clouds. It took Nima a moment to realize what was missing.
The Pillar was gone.
The night sky looked darker and smaller without it. She realized the chill she had felt on the air after exiting the building was due to the absence of the golden column of light in the sky. What did this mean for the Thartark?
Whatever the gold item she had seen in Tanira’s satchel, it must have been related to the Pillar. Was extinguishing the Pillar Tanira’s quest? She was from another world, and didn’t even seem to know of the Thartark until Val had mentioned them.
Val!
There was still time to save him, and perhaps the Scrye as well. They could still return the item back to Caenola and restore hope to Val’s people. If Tanira truly was waiting for her in a ship at sunrise, she would have an opportunity to question her then. Those answers would have to wait.
Nima was quite certain where Val was being held. A prisoner of such importance would be kept in the most secure location, one where the prisoner would have little chance of escape or being rescued. She headed to the only place she had seen in the village that fit that description, the only building in all of the Thartark city that had actually been constructed.
Even more fitting, in all of her grandfather’s best stories the villains kept their prize prisoners in a tower.
Looking toward the sea, she ran through the moon’s shadows in the darkened streets, headed for the tall, stone spire she had seen from the ship.
She began to run down the dirt streets of the Thartark city, following the breeze that brought a faint scent of the sea to her senses.
Around her, the huts and darkened dug-in holes passed by, holding inside the sleeping residents of the city she supposed. She had seen no Thartark since the guard building she had been housed in, and she thanked Chomolungma for her luck.
The street she was on angled down towards the docks, the sounds of the ocean now faintly audible along with the cooler winds from the waters, the air landing cool on her sweating skin.
Next to the docks, she could see the tower, pointing like a stone finger into the night. She kept one eye to the darkened alleys as she ran through the streets, avoiding moving shadows whenever she saw them.
Tanira could be in those shadows too, but she didn’t have time to worry about her now. Avoiding the Thartark wherever they might be present, she made her way stealthily through the city until she found herself arriving at her target.
From the safety of an alley, she looked up at the circular tower, judging it to be about ten meters high. Thanking Chomolungma for her luck, she was relieved to see there was only one guard outside the tower, a lone Thartark that seemed unaware of her as she watched him.
The building had a single entrance, in front of which the Thartark stood. Nima watched him for a few minutes, warily noticing the first hints of color leaking into the sky from the horizon.
Sunrise was coming. She was running out of time.
Satisfied the guard never moved, Nima began to examine the tower itself. It was circular and built of carved stones. The moonlight was not bright enough for Nima to see how the mortar was laid between the stones, but she could see that the building was in some state of disrepair. She regarded this as good news. Crumbling bricks might mean more hand holds and footholds, even if it also meant a higher chance of a brick simply coming loose in her grasp.
She would test, she would be careful. She had climbed plenty of walls and rock faces back in Nepal, even in low light such as this. Back then, she had climbed with her brother and Drew, all with the help of ropes, but she had never fallen. The ropes only made her feel safer. In the end she had never needed them. The key was to go slow and be patient.
If only the rising sun would allow that.
Angling out of the lone guard’s view, she scrambled forward and approached the tower. Looking up its narrow face, it looked much taller when viewed from up close. She reached down, filling her hands with dirt and rubbing it onto her fingertips. She also scooped up some additional dirt and filled her jacket pocket with it. Grabbing the first brick that was slightly out of skew, she pulled herself up until she could hook her foot on another spot. She was off the ground and on her way.
From that point forward, she resolved to only look up. It wouldn’t matter if the guard saw her now, and it didn’t matter how close the sunrise was. She was committed. All that mattered was that next handhold, that next foothold.
Tight grip, don’t slip, Pasang used to say.
Tight grip, don’t slip.
Up she climbed, always keeping herself on the far side of the tower, away from the door. Above her, the window at the top of the tower was getting closer and closer. If the stories her grandfather had told her were true, then Val would be locked in that tower. That’s where the hero always went to rescue the person they were saving.
Sure enough, as she peered up the side of the tower, she could now see a stone sill jutting out from the building’s rounded surface, the underside of a window.
A reflection of pink on the gray stone of the tower caught her attention for a moment. She wondered if the sun was rising as she grasped the next brick. The soft surface tore loose and her hand slipped off, small fragments of stone tumbling down. For a hair of a second, Nima was free standing on the side of the tower, neither hand in connection with anything.
Her heart nearly hammered out of her chest as she arced her body forward, both hands finding grips to hug the stone wall.
It had been just a second, but that lapse of concentration had nearly killed her.
Tight grip, don’t slip.
She gave her chest a moment to stop pounding, then reached up for the next handhold.
Her right leg was starting to tire, just as she saw the stone sill marking the bottom of the window she needed to climb through. She pushed the pulsing pain in her thigh to the back of her mind and worked her way over to the window. It was almost over, she told herself. She could rest her leg when they had escaped.
She peeked over the window, pulling herself up by her fingers. There was a single figure in the room, but it was not the one she had been hoping to see. Rather than Val, perhaps bound or looking forlornly from a cell, there was a Thartark across the room, by the door. The guard was sitting on a frail looking chair, and seemed to be asleep.
The only other object in the room was a small, wooden construction in the middle of the circular space, appearing to be an open, ornate box placed on a stone table.
Her disappointment rose. Could she have been wrong about where the Tha
rtark would keep Val? Perhaps he was just in a lower floor, she thought, though she still thought they would keep their most valuable prize on the top floor.
Entering the room silently, she saw many stones of various shapes and sizes, cluttered underneath the window. She supposed they might be here to throw down at someone climbing up.
Picking up the largest one she could carry with one hand, she crept behind the Thartark and brought it down on the back of its head as hard as she could.
The figure collapsed onto the floor and lay still. Nima was relieved she could see no fluids leaking from its head, and his chest continued to rise and fall. She’d do what she had to, but she wasn’t going to kill unless there were no other options.
She was about to head out the door and down the stairs, her last hope of finding Val, when she heard a sound. It came from the small wooden altar in the center of the room, a small sound. A tiny cough.
Creeping to the altar she peered into the wooden box, her mouth opening in surprise and shock.
A Caenolan female infant, the tiniest, pure-white crystal gleaming on its forehead, lay in a bed of sticks and straw. The child slept with a peaceful expression, the slight hint of a smile on its face. The gem on her forehead grew brighter just as Nima noticed the first rays of sunlight leaking through the window.
Nima scooped the child into her arms just as the building began to tremble and shake. Nima felt a chill around her heart as she heard the cracking of mortar, dust falling into her eyes from the ceiling.
Tanira’s prophecy was coming true.
Nima ran down the stairs as fast as she could, holding one hand against the wall to steady herself from the trembling of the building. Her other arm was firmly wrapped around the infant Caenolan, though she felt it likely she was not holding it correctly. The child continued to sleep, even thrown over her shoulder like a sack of grain.
What is a child doing here? How did the Thartark find her?
More dust and grit fell into her eyes as a larger tremble shook the foundation. The circular stairs emptied into another room, this one unoccupied except for the lone figure tied to a chair in the room’s center, head down.