Escape (The Prisoner and the Sun #1)
Page 16
“I said no.”
Troll stopped. Iliff continued his retreat. He raised his hand and, with trembling lips, pointed past Troll.
“Go,” he said. “Go back to the mines.”
* * *
Troll watched Iliff’s diminishing figure until a torrent of fire burst from the line and divided them. Iliff disappeared. Troll remembered the bear and stooped to lift her, as he had when he encountered her in his flight to the river. But she was no longer breathing. Gone too. Troll fell against her as the fire raged nearer. But his scalded skin began to scream. He lunged to his feet and fled downriver. Back in the direction they had come. Back toward the mines.
* * *
Iliff dropped his arm and broke into a run. But it was hopeless. The fire was too strong, closing too fast. It would push him deeper into the forest and then overtake him. His errors had compounded, one upon the other, and finally caught up with him. He had shown himself a weak, faithless creature, unworthy of Adramina’s help, unworthy of the Sun. Now all around him would fall to ruin. All would be lost: his path, his quest, his life. Everything.
He stole one final look back. He was in time to see the fire tear into their shelter. It devoured it rapidly, without sentiment, and spewed the ashes off over the turbulent winds.
END OF BOOK I
Preview of Book II
Lights and Shadows
Chapter 1
Iliff’s feet pounded the gray forest floor; his bag slammed against his back. He considered throwing the bag off, but the fire would not allow him even a moment’s pause. Nearer and louder did it rage, so close that it no longer felt like heat, but something hard and sharp. It tore his skin and ignited the hairs across his arms. Somewhere beyond the fire the river ran deep and cold. He looked for an opening but there were none.
Iliff veered and pressed deeper into the forest. He cut through a thick growth of trees. Their closeness broke up the wind and fire, but it slowed him as well. And he was tiring. The adrenaline that had propelled him those first miles was gone. His breaths tore in and out.
A little farther, he urged himself. Just a little farther.
But he did not know what he was holding out for. The situation was more hopeless than ever. He could not see the fire, but he could feel it on his back, could see smoke storming past. The wind pummeled him suddenly and trees to each side burst into flame. Fire rained down.
Iliff did not see the stream until he stumbled into it. The cold that spilled inside his boots felt delicious. He stooped to splash water over his head and arms, but he had to keep moving. The fire was already rising from both banks. He ran with the current in great marching strides. The weight of the water pulled on his legs, but it was the only element the fire could not incinerate in an instant.
The stream spilled downhill and Iliff lunged and splashed down with it. Gradually, the heat fell away. He allowed himself a moment’s hope, but when he turned to look, the fire reared and surged forth to send a stand of blazing trees crashing into the water. He retrained his focus on the falling streambed. He had to keep his footing.
No sooner had he thought this than his boot skidded on a slime-matted rock. His leg swooped from under him; the other leg followed. Iliff landed hard on his back, the impact jarring his vision, his thoughts. He covered his head with his arms.
But he was still moving. His forward momentum and the steep gradient had carried him into a rushing slide. Down the streambed he went, faster and faster. He tried to slow himself but could gain no traction; he tried to steer but had no control. He rattled down a cascade of stony shelves, in as much danger now of being battered as he had been of burning alive.
He strained to keep his head above the stones and thrashing water. Images of the forest shook in his sight. Then Iliff saw something he had not seen in a long time—the color green. But it was not the mystical green of Adramina’s eyes or the burgeoning green of the forest. This green appeared dark, almost black.
Iliff fell from another shelf and became aghast when he did not land. He had been thrown into open space. Mud sluiced around him. He looked down and saw water far below, vast and brown, but could not tell how deep it might be.
He kicked hard and swung his arms until he was upright.
Shooting beneath the water, he encountered resistance almost immediately, but it was the soft resistance of mud and decomposition. Iliff sank into it to his waist, dark peat billowing around him. He wriggled and kicked his way free, then sputtered to the surface. He swam several strokes to the nearest bank and dragged himself onto the marshy ground.
Filthy, in shock, Iliff turned and looked beyond the pool into which he had fallen. The brown waters seeped and spread, flooding the landscape for as far as he could see. Knobby trees huddled on islands of sharp sedges and low plants. Larger trees rose and touched overhead in a sickly canopy where mosses dangled, old and beggarly. The whole place smelled of decay.
Iliff remembered the fire and raised his face to the cascade of mud and water that had deposited him here. The clouds of smoke beyond seemed to come from far away. He did not know whether the fire could reach him here, where the earth was deluged, the air still and leaden.
He moved off, pulling himself through the dense vegetation where he could, wading and swimming where the mounds and strips of soggy land sunk away. When he lifted his dripping bag to his head, he found that the gold crown remained as snug above his ears as when he had placed it there that morning. The discovery gave him odd, though fleeting, comfort.
* * *
For the rest of the day, Iliff slogged and swam through the swamp, moving in as straight a line from the fire as he could. The sky had just begun to dim when he came upon an island that rose higher than the others. A gangly tree presided over the swell of sedge and boggy shrub.
Iliff climbed the island and set his bag beside the tree. He draped his cloak over a low branch and poured the water from his boots. When he took off his clothes to wring them, he was horrified to discover his torso mottled with black worms. They burst red as he tore them away. A cloud of insects descended then, blanketing and biting his blood-smeared skin. He slapped at them while struggling to get his sopping clothes back on. He pulled the cloak on last, stuffing the hems beneath himself where he sat and drawing in the hood.
As night descended, Iliff became aware of a fiery haze. It showed through the fabric of his cloak, high and to his right, far away. He thought he could hear distant crackling, but the sounds of the swamp, sinister and swelling, soon arrested his attention. Unseen creatures glugged in the foul waters and emerged dripping onto the shore below. A shrill cry from the island’s lone tree made Iliff start up; several other cries sounded in answer, all seeming to converge overhead. At one point something large and long wend through the sharp grass. It stopped at Iliff’s bag and circled it before slithering off.
Iliff hugged his knees and breathed the damp, dark air inside his cloak. He thought of all the places he had been, both pleasant and unpleasant, and wished he could be in any one of them now. He thought of all the company he had known, both kind and corrupt, and wished he could know their company once more. He thought of Troll and his heart broke. In his mind he watched the flames roaring up violent and red. He watched them consume his path to the Sun as well as the path back to the people and places he so longed for now. He watched them swallow Troll.
Then the fire faded and he saw the brown waters as they had appeared to him from below the surface. And he knew with a horrible certainty that this place would be his home now. There was nowhere else for him.
And though Iliff’s sobs were mostly silent that night, the weight of them caused the entire island to shudder.
From the Author
Thanks for reading! The trilogy continues with Lights and Shadows. Alternately, you can purchase The Complete Trilogy and save 25% versus buying the remaining books individually.
One further note: owning the Kindle version of The Complete Trilogy enables you to obtain the audio versio
n at a 90% discount. The narrator, Steve Marvel, is marvelous (sorry, couldn’t resist), and with the Whispersync for Voice feature you can switch back and forth beween reading and listening.
To receive notifications about future books and series, sign up for my new release mailing list: bit.ly/bdmlist. (Psst… I discount all new releases for the first week.)
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Books by Brad Magnarella
Escape (The Prisoner and the Sun #1)
Lights and Shadows (The Prisoner and the Sun #2)
Final Passage (The Prisoner and the Sun #3)
The Prisoner and the Sun (The Complete Trilogy)
XGeneration 1: You Don’t Know Me
XGeneration 2: The Watchers
Acknowledgements
No man is an island, and neither is his first book. Many thanks go to my beta readers — some of them family members — who were quick to point out the parts of the story that worked and, more importantly, those that needed work. On the professional side of things, Gary Smailes of BubbleCow provided invaluable copyediting; his insights and suggestions opened fresh vistas for me at a crucial time, resulting in a more complete, more engaging story. I would also like to thank Joel Palmer for his superb job on final proofreading, and the creative, friendly staff at mPrint Design Studio for the cover art and design — they got it right.
Table of Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
From the Author
Books by Brad Magnarella
Acknowledgements