Alexandria

by Kaden, John

  “Fine,” says Arana, growing restless, “go south.”

  Keslin nods. He pitches back the rest of his wine and braces himself to stand. “I should leave you be. Tomorrow is your big ceremony.”

  Arana glares into the fire, glassy and drunk.

  “A forest girl, Arana. I’m a little surprised.”

  “I want… new blood in the family.”

  “She won’t love you the way the others do.”

  “She won’t have to.”

  “Sweet little Mariset,” coos Lia. The little peach bundle in her arms gurgles and waves her hands clumsily in the air. “What do you want, huh? You want your mom?”

  “Oh, please. Keep her. Maybe Eriem and I can sleep.”

  “She can stay as long as she wants.” Lia peppers Mariset’s forehead with a barrage of kisses.

  “Look at you, you’re a natural.”

  Lia’s breath hitches and she hands the baby back to Jeneth and paces around. Haylen looks on from under her covers.

  “Nervous?” Jeneth asks.

  “No.”

  “Yes she is,” says Haylen, “she can’t sit still.”

  “That’s normal. I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep at all.”

  “Maybe a little nervous.”

  “You’ll do great. You were the prettiest girl out there this morning.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I brought you something. A gift from an old friend.”

  Lia scrunches her brow. “Really? What?”

  Jeneth draws the leather necklace and pendant from her blouse and hands it over. “From Jack. With good wishes.”

  “From Jack?” Haylen bursts, hopping out of bed to get a look.

  “When did you see him?” Lia asks sharply.

  “I didn’t. Eriem passed it along. Says Jack hopes you’re well.”

  “Is that all he said?”

  Haylen grabs the pendant and holds it to the light. “Maybe he put a secret message on here for you.”

  Lia turns clammy as Jeneth and Haylen ogle at the pendant under the candlelight.

  “Nothing. Pretty sun and moon, though. Did he make this?”

  “I don’t know,” says Jeneth—the thought hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Tell him…” Lia collects her words. “Tell him I said thank you very much.”

  “I’ll do that.” She looks down at Mariset’s drowsy eyelids. “I think she’s ready for bedtime. You should try to sleep, too, if you can. Come here,” Jeneth says, and stretches her free arm around Lia and gives her a tight squeeze. “You’ll be fine. Promise.”

  She shows herself out and Lia kicks off her slippers and tries to follow her advice. She climbs into bed and turns the pendant over and over in her hands, trying to suss out some meaning from it. The sun and moon. She resigns that maybe it is just a simple gesture and nothing more. The strand of hope she had clung to since their eyes met earlier dissolves and vanishes. A gift. And best wishes.

  She reclines and fumbles with it like a worry stone, rubbing the pendant and slipping the cord absently through her fingers. The sensitive pads of her fingertips glide over some rough hash marks indented into the leather. She sits forward and holds the strap up to the dim tallow candle at her bedside and sees that it is not hash marks at all, but writing, softly engraved on the thin leather cord. One simple phrase—

  kichin at midnite — jack

  Lights out in the barracks.

  Jack lies tense and fidgety, clenching and unclenching his hands, staring up at the ceiling as the rustling slows and quiet snores take over. So many things could go wrong and he scrolls through the possibilities with a deepening sense of vertigo. And what comes next, he wonders, assuming they don’t end up riddled with arrow shafts on the Temple grounds? The deep woods are dangerous, but he’s not half as scared of them as he was when he was a little boy, and he thinks he can fight his way through and maybe settle someplace far away from here. A little cabin, just the two of them. He can almost see it.

  His breath comes deep and measured. It is time.

  He sits up rigid and slow and slides his feet onto the wooden floor, and a fast glance around the barracks shows everyone to be sleeping. His boots are at the foot of the bed and he snatches them up in slow motion then reaches down for his backpack. One unfaltering step after another he creeps down the long aisle, silent as a ghost mist, and passes into the darkened, musty washroom.

  Numb and tingling he sets his things down and scoots into the corner and feels along the base for the board he loosened earlier. It pops out and he catches it, lowering it slowly onto the ground outside, and rolls through the opening. Out with his boots and pack, and the board goes squarely back into place.

  The night is balmy and clear. Jack scans across the horizon then risks a jump toward the eave to fetch the rope he stashed earlier. He thumps the roof as he grabs it and lands with a soft thud, rope in tow. He freezes, listening for any commotion and hearing none.

  Clinging to the shadows he sets out for the tree line, with his pack over one shoulder and the length of rope wound around the other.

  When he reaches the cover of the small copse he kneels and looks back toward the barracks at the night sentry standing watch. He turns and looks at the hills. All is quiet.

  He picks his way through the thin woods and trudges up a shallow incline that turns steep and rocky toward the top. At the crest he hides behind the arc of pines and looks down the sloping expanse of the desolate amphitheatre. Two sentries by the rear entrance. Jack sneaks along the ridge of the King’s Gallery and comes down the western side, crouching down below the stone wall that runs its course.

  Near the bottom he stops, panting from adrenaline, and looks around for any sentries that might be strolling the grounds. The two by the entrance are talking quietly, lulled by the many slow nights they’ve spent on the shift.

  Quick as a shot, Jack slips across the clearing and holds up sleek against the Temple’s sandstone footing, just next to the trellised archway that leads to the boys’ dormitory. He hides his pack in a dark corner then jumps up and latches onto one of the wooden crosspieces of the arch. The Temple’s first tier is double high and he hoists himself up onto the surface and flattens out prone. What if she didn’t get the message, he thinks with dread. What if she’s not even there?

  Lia lies in bed with her eyes wide open and cooks up excuses. She’s been through a hundred and none seem remotely plausible. When it feels to be about the middle of the night, she kisses the little pendant hung around her neck and sets her bare feet on the floor, feeling around for her slippers.

  The corridor is clear of roaming sentries and she walks off toward the stairs with the facsimile of casualness, though her heart pounds and there is a whooshing sound tunneling through her ears. With shaky hands she grips the banister and winds up toward the landing, running her lines over in her head one last time.

  A solitary guard stands by the wooden bridgeway and he locks on Lia as she approaches.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going to the kitchen, if I may. I forgot to tell the girls to add more stock to the kettle. The soup’ll be burned by morning and Calyn will have me locked in the pit.” She lets out a shrill laugh. That last bit was an unfortunate improvisation and Lia clenches her jaw. She was always a terrible liar and figures she probably just sealed her mortal fate.

  “Okay,” he says.

  She bows and moves past, suppressing her exhilaration, stepping nimbly across the overpass. She gets about halfway.

  “Wait,” the sentry calls, “you were in the parade this morning. I saw you.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Then why were you working?”

  “Just helping out. A favor for Calyn.”

  “She has plenty of girls to help.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t have to go now. I just… woke up and worried and…”

  “No, let’s go. Together.” He leaves his post and treads across the bridgeway and grabs her by the upper
arm. “Lead the way.”

  My death and Jack’s too, she thinks.

  She crosses the bridge and curves around toward the rear corridor. When the sentry scowls down she looks up and smiles as sweetly as she can. The service door looms ahead and beads of sweat break out on her forehead, a horrible tell, and she doesn’t think for a moment it’s gone unnoticed.

  The kitchen is dark and empty. The sentry fetches a torch and they enter. The kettle isn’t even lit. He jerks her roughly around to face him.

  “Hard to burn soup that isn’t cooking.”

  “I… they must have…”

  He squeezes her arm and a bolt of pain shoots up her shoulder. “What do you want here? Tell me or I’ll—”

  Jack leaps from the open-faced oven behind them and tears at the man’s face and they fall to the ground in a struggling heap. The torch skitters across the stone floor and Lia slides away and knocks into the counter, and in the strobing torchlight she sees Jack and the sentry with their hands at each other’s throats. Jack takes a knee to the side and loses his advantage and the powerful sentry rolls on top of him, veins bulging on both their foreheads.

  Lia slides along the center island and grabs for a heavy rolling pin tucked in the shelving underneath and crashes it into the back of the man’s skull with all her strength. There is a wet crunch and he rolls off to the side, unconscious. He lies there, still and bleeding, and Lia clubs him again anyway.

  “Quick!” Jack is on his feet, dragging the limp body to the pantry door. “It’s locked…”

  “Hold on, I know where she keeps the key.”

  She douses the torch in the water trough and fetches the key from the sideboard while Jack cuts a length of his rope and binds the man, then they shove him in the pantry and lock him away.

  “Jack—”

  She opens her mouth to say something else and no words come. They gaze at each other in cockeyed bewilderment for a quick hot instant then Jack grabs her wrist and pulls her off.

  “This way.” Rope dangles from the mouth of the open chimney and he pulls her to it. “I’ll go first, then I’ll pull you up.”

  “Wait.” Lia goes back to the sideboard and unlocks a storage cabinet. An assortment of knives gleams dully. She picks one for herself and one more for Jack. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  He goes hand over hand up the chimney shaft, which is still warm from the day’s roasting, and emerges at the top like a burrowing animal and looks across the rear of the grounds. Quiet. The guard on the west bridge is inside, around the corner, and Jack climbs out of the chimney and reaches down behind him to tug Lia out.

  They crouch on the second highest tier, exhilarated and tarnished with chimney soot. He unties the rope and takes Lia’s hand, guiding her to the archway, then snakes the rope through one of the trellises.

  Shouts echo from the distance. Jack tightens up and they cling to the side of the Temple, his insides rearranging themselves as he watches a slew of warriors course along the eastern tree line, cursing and barking orders, weapons drawn. They fan out on the grounds in a broad sweep, several of them going from door to door amongst the cottages and rousting the men from sleep.

  “Lia, do you still want to—”

  “Go!”

  He pulls her close and tells her to wrap her legs around his waist, then he swings out over the tiers and rappels down, uncinching the rope as they descend. They drop to the ground and he looses out the rope, letting it fall at his feet in a noodly heap.

  They stay flat along the corner of the Temple and Jack sneaks a glance past the amphitheatre and sights them scouring the tree line.

  “Come on,” he whispers, grabbing his pack and pulling her across the way, toward the old girls’ lodge. They scurry around back and take stock of their situation. The bluffs are clear, at least for now. The sentries seem obsessed with the opposite side of the grounds and Jack figures they must be searching the woods for them. The next sight confuses him utterly. A tight cadre moves toward the Temple’s rear entrance, dragging a screaming and wide-eyed stranger along with them, all trussed up with bindings.

  “Lock everything down. Lock it down now,” they yell to the perplexed guards.

  Jack slinks over to a stray palm by the edge of the bluffs and starts to tie his rope, listening and watching over his shoulder at the commotion.

  “What going on?” the entrance guard asks, drawing his machete and scrambling to the door.

  “Spies,” they shout back. “Spies on the Temple grounds.”

  Howling and maddened, the stranger thrashes against his captors, his efforts lost as they haul him brutishly down the corridor and barricade the door. He is whisked straight to the keep and shackled to the wall, and a call is sent to wake the King and his cortege.

  They strip his clothes and parse through his things, leaving him naked, bleeding and chained. Keslin shambles in, his wiry gray hair matted with sweat, his eyes alive with panic. The prisoner screams out like something wild and even the warriors step back a pace.

  “Who is he?” Keslin asks, stepping through the pack and stopping just outside the range of the chained man’s flailing.

  “We saw him in the woods,” says Cullen. “He was watching the Temple.”

  “Watching us?”

  “There’s another that got past us. We’re looking everywhere.”

  “Fine. Good.” Keslin darts his eyes around pensively. “Where are his things?”

  “Here.”

  Keslin ransacks the pile of tattered clothing, feeling along the seams and turning the pockets out. He snatches the torn satchel and dumps its contents on the filthy keep floor—a knife, a fishing line, an assortment of perishables, writing instruments. A small parchment slips free and flutters to the ground.

  “Please,” the man gasps, “I’m just going through, I wasn’t doing anything.”

  Keslin lifts the parchment between thumb and forefinger and carefully pries open its folds. Drawn in ink is a compact diagram of the Temple and its provinces. He turns it forward, displaying it for the prisoner.

  “What is this?”

  “Please…”

  “Watching us,” Keslin says again, almost stupefied.

  “That’s right,” says Cullen.

  “Have you called out the barracks?”

  “We have. They’re out now, searching the woods.”

  They had sent the call as soon as the shadowed form of the prisoner’s accomplice slipped their grasp, and in the wild confusion, as the groggy men set about arming themselves and mounting the search, they had not noticed that one bunk in the barracks was already empty and void of body heat.

  Jack slips over the edge first, loose dirt and gravel cascading down and clicking off the rocks far below, and he tightens his grip and slides down slow and steady with Lia not far behind. Their descent takes them to a rocky landing, still some ways above the crashing shoreline. He steps off to the side and helps her down, then looks forward to the jagged terrain. No one in sight—just a rugged and near vertical distance to cross until they can cut inland.

  They cling to roots and jutting rocks and gradually pick their way to a narrow shelf that runs along the cliff face and their progress quickens. Above the din of crashing waves they hear the outcries of searchers above, parsing the grounds and ruins in rapid pursuit. They scale around an outcropping and stop cold. A lone figure barrels toward them, and as he draws near the gray moonlight shows his face dimly.

  “Jack,” calls Braylon, “I thought I saw him come this—” He spots Lia cowering behind and reels back in confusion. “What is this? What is she doing here?”

  “We’re leaving,” says Jack.

  “No. No, you’re not. Are you crazy? Look, go back the way you came and I’ll try to cover for you.”

  “We’re not going back there. Come with us if you want, but we’re leaving.”

  “I can’t let you do that, you know that. What’s wrong with you, Jack? You’re putting a lot of people in danger here.”

&
nbsp; “What? Listen to yourself, Braylon.”

  Whether it is a conscious action or not is unclear, but Braylon has reached to his side and drawn his blade.

  Jack grabs Lia’s hand and advances. “Let us go.”

  Braylon shoots a hand out and wrenches Jack by the scruff of his shirt. He slaps the hand away and Lia squeals and shirks back.

  “Here! Down here,” shouts Braylon. “I’m sorry, Jack, this is for your own good.”

  Jack shoves him and tries to scramble past. Braylon raises up his blade and fixes to strike with the hilt, and as his arm arcs down Jack locks onto it and they counter each other, heaving and shoving. He draws back again and lunges forward in a rush, and without thinking Jack swings his arm up and lodges his knife in Braylon’s solar plexus. All motion stops suddenly and a warm stickiness trickles down Jack’s hand and forearm. Braylon’s mouth gawps wide open and closed like a landlocked fish and the horror of realization floods across his face a moment too late, a twisted grimace of regret and sorrow. He clutches Jack’s shoulder, his life slipping quickly away.

  “Braylon—” Jack pulls him close and holds him as he dies. “I’m so sorry. Oh, no…”

  “Jack…” he says, “… run…”

  They are his last words.

  Jack lays him down and whispers soft apologies as he tugs the boots off his feet and takes his bow and satchel and slips them over his shoulder. Lia’s fist is balled up against her mouth and she blinks tears out of her eyes.

  The wolfmongrels are barking and raving just above them—Braylon’s call has drawn the pack’s attention their way.

  “Come on,” says Jack, “keep quiet and stay back.”

  They skulk along the thin ledge and an aura of firelight glows on the trail ahead, cast down from the torches above. The searchers are moving to the forward end so they can double back as Braylon had done.

  “Oh, Jack, they’re coming.”

  Jack considers jumping and making a swim for it, but the rocky shoal extends too far out and they would surely land in a broken heap. He feels his way along to a small alcove and they push through a veil of foliage, looking for a place to hide out and figure their next move. Right away Lia shrieks and jumps on Jack.