“I don’t know,” Catelyn admitted, although that wasn’t entirely true. She hadn’t had much time to process it all yet, but she figured that the return of her eyes must have had something to do with the Emperor giving her that second dose of bloodfire, even though that didn’t make sense. The bloodfire had burned just as badly as the first time she had been exposed to it, so she was at a loss to explain how it had healed the damage that had been done to her before. Until she knew more, she decided to simply emphasize her ignorance. The process was a mystery to her, so she was not entirely untruthful in saying that she didn’t know.
“What on Ereas are you doing here, Silena?” Catelyn asked.
“Rescuing you, foolish child!” she chided, but playfully. Catelyn pulled back from the embrace and looked into Silena’s eyes, and saw the courage there.
Catelyn’s heart filled up with love for this woman, this truest of friends, who was now risking her own life and future to help her get out. Of all the things that had happened to her this past sojourn, Catelyn knew with certainty that the best part of it had been meeting Silena. She had become like a second mother, and Catelyn cherished the woman for her compassion and for this selfless gesture.
“Thank you, Silena,” Catelyn said, knowing that those words couldn’t even come close to expressing the depth of her feelings.
Ortis cleared his throat and the two women turned their attention on him.
Silena looked at him with venom, and Catelyn could now see the hatred that before she had only been able to sense with her bubble. The look that she gave to the man sent shivers through Catelyn.
“Get us out of here, butcher,” she murmured quietly.
Ortis didn’t flinch at the name, or the accusation it represented. Instead he simply nodded and proceeded to lead them away from the stairs and through the Citadel stockade, into a room where it appeared that the Imperial army of old had once processed prisoners. Like the holding cells below, it hadn’t seen much use in many sojourns, but there were still a handful of Imperial soldiers on patrols through the facility, and Ortis easily helped them to circumvent those obstacles by skirting around their patrol route.
Catelyn had so many questions for them both, the first being how they had put aside their differences enough to be working together to get her out and second was how in the Void they had managed to get inside the Citadel undetected. But despite her questions, Catelyn was more distracted and delighted by the fact that she could see again, and nothing else seemed more important right at this moment than simply taking in the world, even though all she was seeing were some empty rooms and corridors and traces of the Empire she loathed.
She took in everything she could, seizing upon every detail and etching it indelibly into her mind. She held onto these new sights as though the Emperor himself were going to step out from behind one of these empty corridors and take her sight away as easily as he had seemingly returned it to her. She knew such thoughts might seem ludicrous, but so had the notion been of her ever seeing again with her own two eyes.
Ortis led them quietly through the abandoned corridors, and Catelyn wondered why there were so few Imperials guarding this area, but looking around she could tell that what Enaz had said had been correct. They really hadn’t held a public execution in some time, and the cells below had been empty save for the two of them, so it appeared that as a result, this area no longer served a purpose.
She also realized that if anyone knew about how to get through the Imperial’s security patrols, it would be Ortis. He would ostensibly know every detail, unless Uriel had decided to change them, a fact she would have to ask Ortis about the next chance that she got.
For now, she followed along in silence, watching all around her, and watching her two rescuers. They certainly made for an odd couple of allies, one a dear friend, the other a former enemy. But despite her misgivings about Ortis, she was so thankful to both of them. Her feelings toward him had become much more complicated by his present actions, but she didn’t stop to dwell on them just yet.
Ortis led them into a small room, with windows through which she could see the outside world. She rushed to the window, but Ortis pulled her back, and she glared at him. He wore an expression of amusement, which angered her, but he simply pointed to the outside.
“Catelyn, getting you out of that cell was the easy part. Now, I have to figure out how to get you past this.” And he led her slowly to the window at an oblique angle, and let her look outside.
The sky was still dark, with the barest hint of light on the horizon, and she could tell that it was just before sunrise, but Ortis hadn’t tried to show her how dark it was. When she saw what he wanted to show her, her heart sank. Outside the room they now occupied, just paces away, lay an open courtyard presumably where the Emperor’s father and grandfather had held their public executions.
There were the beginnings of a stage being built in the center of the courtyard, and everywhere she looked, Imperial soldiers and workers milled about in the pre-dawn gloom, toiling away to construct the center stage or clearing the courtyard of debris or standing at campfires cooking their breakfast. She could see tents propped up and interspersed throughout the courtyard, with other men likely sleeping inside.
It resembled nothing less than one of the work camps she remembered seeing as a young girl when the Imperials had decided to tear down one of the older buildings in her family’s block.
“So, was this your great escape plan, Ortis?” Catelyn asked, sighing heavily. “Maybe you should take me back to my cell.”
He flashed her an annoyed look, but it was Silena who responded.
“Trust me Catelyn, it was either this or walking right into the heart of the Citadel.”
Catelyn felt bad about the comment as soon as she had said it, but she also knew that she was still feeling the effects of having nearly been starved to death. She might be running on instinct right now, but she knew from experience that that wouldn’t last, and she didn’t know how much longer she would be able to stay on her feet.
“Sorry,” she said. “What is the plan, if you don’t mind?”
“Ortis thinks we can just walk right through them, since they’re going to be busy with their own duties,” Silena said, but Catelyn could hear the doubt in her friend’s voice, and now she could also pair that with what her eyes were telling her. She didn’t think much of this plan, and in part Silena’s own eyes had given it away when she looked at Catelyn.
She looked down at herself, at her filthy hands and feet, at her skinny frame clothed in black prisoner’s garb and knew that she couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anything but what she was: an escaped prisoner.
“I believe it will work. I’ve lived in the Citadel almost my whole life. People that live here and work here quickly grow accustomed to minding their own business, and keeping to their assigned tasks,” Ortis said, but she could hear the slight doubt within his voice as well. He was not nearly as confident as she hoped, but given his background and former position, she had to figure that Ortis had considered all the options and determined that this was their only shot.
She didn’t bother to ask whether she could trust him, because simply being here was risking his life, regardless of whether he involved himself with her or not. Part of her wondered if this wasn’t some elaborate setup on the part of the Emperor to lull her into trusting the man, only to reveal his hand later by some betrayal. But Catelyn reasoned that this was very unlikely, considering the mental state of both men.
She had heard the tone of Uriel’s voice when he had told her “You are the reason that Ortis abandoned me.” The rest of that diatribe of his had been delivered coldly and with purpose, but that one sentence had hung in the air, tinged with barely-concealed emotion. Uriel had felt truly betrayed by Ortis’ actions, and he had tried to hide it from her, but she had heard it there however brief it was.
The Emperor was human after all. Not much, but there was at least one chip in that armor.
; “I can’t go out there like this,” Catelyn said.
“We had some clothing that we brought in with us, under the guise that I was delivering laundry from outside the camp, but the outer guards have been ordered, probably by Uriel himself not to allow anything from the outside in,” Silena recounted.
“Is Uriel really that paranoid?” Catelyn asked, realizing as soon as she said it how silly a question it was.
Ortis chimed in “It’s standard Imperial practice. Each unit is expected to be completely self-sufficient. If they take help from another unit, they’re considered weak and unworthy, at least in principle. In practice, I had been hoping that those guards would look the other way for the prospect of clean clothing, which is a luxury in camps like this. It’s likely those guards are even now quietly selling the clothing we brought to their fellow soldiers.”
Catelyn shook her head at the sheer corruption that was seemingly all the Empire existed to promote.
“Those guards didn’t recognize you, did they?” she asked Ortis.
“No,” was all he said. Catelyn’s doubt must have registered on her face, because Silena spoke up.
“Catelyn, the Empire is vast, and the Imperial Army itself is at least as big. There are thousands of soldiers even within a place as contained as the Citadel,” Silena tried to explain, to put her mind at ease.
Catelyn looked over at her friend lovingly, feeling the sense of connection and warmth in that haggard face streaked with dirt, and smiled. The smile was returned, and Catelyn felt the warmth of their affection fill her up and she let it buoy her as the three of them stood in the small holding room, waiting for an opportunity that would allow them to leave without drawing attention to themselves.
More than anything, Catelyn knew, they needed a distraction.
Catelyn reached out by instinct with her bubble, and expanded it as far and wide as it could go. She initially fought the additional information coming in from her eyes, but then she weaved it in like the missing threads of a tapestry, and an entirely new way of sensing the world opened up to her. She realized in that moment that her eyesight hadn’t simply been returned, it had seemingly been improved.
Her vision was clearer and her perceptions wider than she remembered them being. It was like she was seeing, truly seeing, for the first time.
She never imagined how much she had missed it.
Catelyn scanned her eyes back and forth, taking in everything she could. The guards at the edges of the work camps, the workers just getting their day started with dried meat on sticks hung over the paltry fires spread around the camp. The dim light of the sky just creeping up over the top of the walls of the Citadel.
She found that she could see the most whisper details even in the low light, and she marveled at the quality of her vision. Over the sojourns she had led herself to believe that the exquisite senses she had mastered and refined were amplified as a result of her being blinded; it was said that the body compensated for the loss of one sense by improving the others, and she’d had no reason to doubt that logic.
But she’d now survived an encounter with bloodfire twice, and after each, she had experienced this kind of awakening with her senses. She didn’t know how it had seemingly repaired her eyes, but it was the only explanation for what had happened to her.
She would think on it more later though, she decided. Right now, she needed to help find a way to get the three of them out of the Citadel, and to do that they would need to walk straight through the courtyard full of men. She flicked her eyes back and forth a third time, and that’s when she saw it. She reached out and grabbed Ortis’ shoulder.
He turned his head and she pointed in the direction she was looking.
“There’s a canister of oil...there.”
Ortis looked, squinting his eyes in the gloom. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m absolutely positive,” she said, and turned to look into his eyes. When she did, he recoiled like he was seeing a ghost.
“What is it?” she asked, looking behind her, but only Silena was there, looking out the window as well. When Silena turned to look at her, she too reacted in shock and covered her mouth with her hand.
Catelyn touched her face, wondering if maybe some other flakes of skin were peeling from her, but Silena told her “Catelyn, your eyes...they’re...they’re glowing.”
Catelyn instinctively blinked and wished that she had a mirror to see them for herself. Instead, she asked Silena to describe to her what she saw.
“They look like, well back in my youth, before all the Walls were completed there used to be these big birds that came down from the woods to the north. They were called owls, and their eyes shone in the dark like that too,” Silena said.
Catelyn felt her face, but she felt completely normal. Whatever had been done to her, she seemed to have been given something miraculous. She didn’t much like the source of that gift, but she would be a fool to reject something that was only going to help her life in the long run. She would never thank the Emperor for it, but she would acknowledge her fortune at having been changed so much. She was eager to be away from the cells, and so she refocused her thoughts on their predicament.
“OK, well, trust me. I can see the oil canister as plain as day. It’s right there near the fourth tent over. If we could upend that on one of the fires, it would spread quickly, and everyone in the camp would have to pitch in to keep the fire from spreading,” Catelyn suggested, directing her words toward Ortis.
He looked at her appraisingly, thinking her plan over briefly, then nodded.
“Both of you wait here,” he muttered, then slipped out the door, turning his back to the nearest guards and making his way toward the tent Catelyn had pointed out. She watched him walk cautiously, and she reluctantly had to admit that the man moved rather gracefully for someone of his age and size. She had to admit as well that she was glad that he wasn’t on the opposing side of her.
Catelyn was relieved to see that Silena had been right earlier. None of the soldiers or workers paid any attention to the man, and he looked like he fit right in. Catelyn turned to Silena.
“How is it that you two ended up working together?” Catelyn realized that the question might seem a bit imprudent, and she quickly added “I’m grateful, I just...it’s unexpected. You seemed quite clear with how you felt about...him.”
Silena bowed her head slightly, and spoke in a soft whisper.
“I prayed to the Divines. I asked them to help you, to keep you safe,” she said.
Catelyn didn’t want to offend Silena with delicate questions about her beliefs, so instead she asked “But Ortis? Seems like the last person to answer a prayer with.”
Silena cracked a small smile, and looked up at her. “The Divines have their ways. As I was waiting for an answer, or a sign, there he was, stepping out of the crowd as bold as life. He told me he could get you out, but he wouldn’t be able to do it alone.”
She paused, an uncomfortable look on her face and Catelyn could read her shame and embarrassment.
“Go on, Silena,” she encouraged the older woman. “Say whatever it is. It won’t come between us, I promise.”
“I tried to turn him away. I yelled at him to get away from me. I told him I could never work with him. That I could never forgive what he had done.”
Catelyn took a long breath, not entirely surprised, but still feeling the weight of her friend’s words. “So what made you change your mind?” Catelyn wanted to know.
“Erich and the girls of all things. I saw their faces, after I went home that night, and I imagined them taken away by that evil man, Uriel. In my mind, I saw them tortured, and killed, and I knew. I knew I could never let that happen again to my family. Not to any of them, and I vowed that I would work with the Demon himself to save them.”
Silena reached out and touched Catelyn’s cheek with her hand, and Catelyn held it to her face with both hands. Tears flowed down both women’s cheeks, and they smiled at the recognition of the
ir deep bond of friendship. No, of their familial bond, as Silena had indicated. No more words needed to be said by either of them.
Catelyn squeezed Silena’s hand, then turned to the window to check on Ortis’ progress, but she could no longer see him. She felt a jolt of panic as she wondered where he had gone or if he had been recognized and taken, but the men outside were still relaxed, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. She scanned as much as she could from the window, but even with her enhanced vision, he was not in her field of view.
She considered walking over to peek her head outside the door, but thought that would be a mistake. There were at least six or seven men, both workers and soldiers, with a clear eye line to the door of the building they were in. They were already taking a risk just by being near the window, but she knew that with the light from the fires outside reflecting off the thick leaded glass of the windows, they would not be seen standing in the dark inside. At least, not easily.
Her head poking out of a doorway, on the other hand, would surely have the potential to send alarms throughout the camp.
Catelyn resolved to be patient a little longer, and she reached out to grab Silena’s hand in hers. Silena took her hand and squeezed, and Catelyn felt better for having her there with her.
Then everything turned to chaos. A massive explosion of fire and smoke rocked through the work camp, and sent men scattering in all directions. Many men ducked to the ground, while some responded with professional calm, dropping what they were doing to respond to the source of the calamity. Catelyn felt her temples begin to sweat.
Ortis, what on Ereas have you done?
As the conflagration grew somewhere to the south of the work camp, and additional, smaller explosions could be heard, more and more men gathered their courage and made their way in that direction. Soldiers and foremen ordered the rest to head in that direction, and soon the courtyard was empty of all save two or three stragglers, men who had avoided any call to action whatsoever. Within whispers, Ortis appeared at the door of the building, and ushered them out into the courtyard.
Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) Page 36