by Jane M. R.
The stairway brings me into another chamber. To the left, a small, curling stair case ascends into a room near the low ceiling. At the very end of the chamber is a stone altar. Is this a parish? I can imagine wooden pews spread out before it and a priest beyond. That small room above could be where the priest used to live. Broken pottery are scattered about the altar. Maybe offerings… or urns?
The Star is pulling me directly toward the altar, almost powerful enough to drag me forward on its own. The room echoes with the sound of my steps, warning that I am deep in the mountain range in a strange castle… in the lower levels, no less, by myself. Though that thought makes me panic, this parish is still more comforting than the one back home I attend every week.
The Star takes me forward, straight to a stone podium in front of the altar. The top of the podium has a star-shaped cut-out in the exact size and shape of the Star I’m holding. Deeper impressions at the tip of each cut-out would fit the rubies.
The Star is throbbing now, like the pulse of a heart, making me queasy holding it.
This is what I came here for. Whatever happens when I insert the star, will be what Durain died for.
I’m not ready.
I sit on the floor, gnawing on my peppered jerky and drink too much water. Taking several minutes to convince myself that the only way is forward, I stand again. And insert the Star into the podium. Is that my heart beating or some noise coming off the walls?
Hard-knocking clicks begin deep below my feet. Accompanying the clicking comes a grating noise, the sound moving upward toward the very stone I’m standing on, like giant metallic cogs revolving under the floor.
I scramble backward to the stairs before the floor might fall away. The clicking and grating continue with a vibration that increase as the sound rises, louder and louder.
And then it all stops.
My heart shakes my rib cage like a prisoner wanting out of his cell. Nothing has changed in the chamber. I step carefully back on the floor, slowly, toward the altar again, hesitant to trust the stability of the stone even though it seems just as solid as before.
I’ve only taken three steps when I hear another sound. I stop. A thumping. Coming from beneath the floor so quiet I only hear it because I’m holding my breath. The thumping rises higher, and then ceases. The lid on the altar shifts.
Fear prickles through my body but I can’t convince myself to run. Transfixed, I stare, even aware that whatever it is might do me harm. I draw Durain’s bone handled knife, planting my feet, determined to know what it is I came here for, what purpose stealing the two pieces of the keys had, whether Durain’s death was worth it, and whether I’ve just released the monster Corden warned me about.
Stone grinds on stone as the lid of the altar continues to slide. I grit my teeth at the sound, hoisting the knife higher. My reflexes on fire, I’m tensed and ready to spring, ready to run, ready to fight. The lid continues to shift until it falls completely off with a crash to the floor.
And a human arm reaches out.
PART II
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ZADICAYN
I hook my elbows over the edge of the altar and haul my head up. Light forks into my eyes. I gasp and look away despite I am so hungry to know what I am seeing. I look back, shielding my eyes and blinking rapidly, hoping I am not going blind.
As far as I can tell, it looks like a girl holding a torch.
I don’t care who it is. I’d rejoice even if twas the devil.
“Who art thou?” I ask just to be sure, because last I knew I still had enemies. Is that girl still breathing? I can’t tell with this damned light blinding me.
“Who…” she croaks. It sounds like she’s not used to speaking. I don’t blame her. I must be a weird sight right now coming out of even weirder circumstance. “Who am I?”
She speaks strangely. “Yea. What tis thy name?”
A disjointed silence stretches between us. I see her body jolt as she inhales sharply, as if just remembering she needed to breathe.
“I’m…” Her voice is tight. I wish she would put away that torch. My eyes are still adjusting. “I’m Brine Fr – Fron – Frondaren.”
“Art thou here to rescue meself?” I hope she doesn’t catch the silent scream of desperation fighting in the back of my throat.
She’s adjusted the torch more behind her. She must have realized twas hurting my eyes. “Yes,” she says, though it appears she doesn’t know how to answer the question. “Who… who are you?”
Is she asking who I am? She’s using a word I don’t recognize. But we can get to who I am later. I’m going to get out of this vault. Right. Now. “I be fleeing my long prison upon this moment. Wilt though cover thine eyes? Me clothing hath rotted away some yore.”
“Oh… oh… of course.” Slowly, she looks away from me. I see a dagger in her hand.
I haul my body out of my hole, making the mistake of looking down on myself. I almost throw up. My body is covered in odd patches of black hair, like a dog someone tried to shave with a knife. Of course I knew twas there. It is altogether different actually seeing it now. My beard is so long that I trod on it as I step on the next ladder rung, yanking my face down.
I fist my beard in my hand and haul it out of the altar, next my leg. My freakish body hair does not cover my nakedness well but she is still facing away from me. I run for the stairs leading up to the priest’s chamber, my head hair dragging on the floor behind me. It is really heavy. I thought for a terrified moment that I wouldn’t be able to climb out of the vault because of its weight.
I scamper up the stairs. A small leak of sunlight fights through a threadbare curtain drooping across the window in the small room but the light is not nearly as sharp as the girl’s torch. I throw open the wardrobe and grab the first piece of clothing I see and throw it on. It is a festival tent of a robe; too big for me, yellow, and dusty.
I look over my shoulder and the girl is watching me from the doorway, as if trying to make sense of me. The rest of her body is protected behind the wall. Either she’s scared of me or she is trying not to step on my head hair which still trails outside the room. She had put away her torch so I’m able to see her face better.
Her hair is a mess and a smudge of dirt decorates her cheek. Her tunic and britches hang off her as if they were meant for someone more muscular and they are striped with mud. She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.
Or maybe my emotions are just severally messed up right now.
But I’m still staring at her, and she visibly flinches with a small gasp and I realize I let my green eyes slip into a flash of brief gold. I blink and I feel them go back to normal. Oops. Well done to further scare and confuse her, you breedbate!
The room is small and has a bed along the wall. Bookshelves throughout support books with dust pressed between the faded covers. I sit on the bed, upsetting the dust so it bursts out in a glittering cloud. I don’t mind. I scratch my chin.
“Prithee, mayest I useth thy dagger?”
She stares at me with some danger in her eyes. I sigh. Lifting my heavy beard, I make a sawing action on it with my finger.
She steps into the room, keeping her eyes on me. I wish she would stop staring. I’m already remarkably self-conscious about how I must look to her. At least she’s not pestering me for answers right this moment. I’m not totally convinced this is not yet another dream of freedom. I’m waiting for that startling moment that will either wake me or slap realization into me that I’m free. My emotions currently lie dead in my chest. I have no idea what’s going to happen when they wake up.
She hands me her dagger, blade first. It has a bone handle. I accept the blade and she takes several steps back. If only I could communicate how deeply, deeply my intentions go to not harm her. Certainly, she’s not my sister. I can’t even hope that she’s my sister’s child because of how long my hair has grown since I was thrown in the vault. Granddaughter? I muse another moment, but I can’t see any resemblance to my
sister in her sharp eyes and larger nose.
I begin hacking at my beard as close to the chin as I can. It might as well be steel wool with how stiff and wiry it is. It falls free in chunks as if I had just cut a field of wheat with a scythe. I do the same for my head hair. Black hair covers the tops of my hands too, but there is no help for that right now.
I hand the knife back to her, pummel first. I see the shame bloom in her high cheek bones as she takes the knife, I think understanding in that moment that I’m not going to hurt her.
“Overmany blessings upon thee.” I scratch my chin again. Damn it itches. Maybe I’ve picked up flees? A shame I didn’t have flees before. They would have at least been company. “Me hair bore such a weight. Couldst one thinketh something as fine as hair couldst weigh overmany?”
She’s staring at me really funny. Is it the way I talk? She spoke differently herself – certainly with a different accent – but we can’t speak all that different from each other. All languages fluctuate little by little every year. I wasn’t in the vault that long.
How long was I in the vault? I durst to ask.
She’s still staring at me. I don’t blame her. Though I wish she would stop. Clearly, she is waiting on me to speak again. To explain why a hairy troll just climbed out of a locked and sealed room beneath the chapel altar.
I indicate the only chair in the room. “I prithee, sit.”
She does, keeping her brown eyes locked on my hairy face. I wish I had a mirror. Then I change my mind.
Her boots, baggy trousers, and long sleeved blouse flatter her figure and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen a female for a while. I find I’m strangely attracted to her fingernails, which is where my gaze goes. My emotions are so broken right now. I’m pathetic.
I need to say something. What does one say to a human being? I forgot. I only still have a voice because of my endless recitals of the Canterbury Tales out loud to myself. I feel my cheeks warm and I drum bony fingers against my knees and I still don’t know what to say.
“Who are you?” she asks.
“Forgive me. I understandeth nary the last word.”
“What?”
She looks incredulous. Unease prickles across my skin; the first emotion inside me rolling to life again. I hope it takes its time waking up. She doesn’t understand what I just asked. How can that be? Maybe English is not her native language. German? French? She looks neither. “I asked you what your name is.”
Oh. My name. I can’t tell her. Because telling her will only confirm that the person whose amulet was stolen and who was then imprisoned beneath the chapel for several years, was me.
There is actually a question I need to ask. Not that I need to know, but I do understand several years have passed and, just as a formality, I should be in the know.
“What day shines upon us?”
She looks away from me, pressing the back of her delicate white hand to her lips. “I’m sorry. What?”
I try again. “What… what year mighten this be?”
“What?” She leans back in her seat, but her question doesn’t strike me that she is confused. Just… astounded. “What year? Did you just ask me what bloody year this is?”
I barely understand what she is saying. Sweat – something I have not felt for so long in the chilled crypt – pops out of my skin with an odd sensation I don’t like. No. I can’t have been in the vault for that long.
“Yea.”
She looks at me for quite some time before she responds. “It’s eighteen… eighteen forty-two.”
My stomach turns into a stone along with lungs that refuse to expand and contract to feed my fevered brain with oxygen.
I heard wrong.
“I beseech thee, canst thou sayest again?”
I can’t read her expression anymore. “It’s the year eighteen forty-two. Queen Victoria is our monarch. How long have you been down there?”
A fire starts in my belly; a swarming of snakes as each emotion rises its head to look around for the first time in… three hundred twenty-four years.
I drop my head in my hands. Breathe in through my nose. Out through my mouth. Again.
I was in the vault for three hundred twenty-four years.
I thumb both of my ears, rubbing the skin there. The snakes are moving, slithering along my limbs though I will and pray and beg them not to. Breathe in through the nose. Out through the mouth. Stay calm. This is okay. Breathe again.
Three hundred twenty-four years.
Something is clinching my throat, and it takes a great heave of my chest and wetness blurring my vision for me to understand my body is fighting a sob.
Breathe in. Out. In.
I’m breathing too fast. I’m losing the fight.
In. Out. In. Out.
My sister is dead. Has been… for a long time.
In out in out in out in out in –
The snakes of each of my emotions flood my limbs and my head and my heart and bit me from the inside. They are even screaming. Nevermind. That is me.
I lose the fight.
A wail sprays out of my limbs. Every memory, every emotion firing back to life inside me where they had been muted for so long. And it is all happening. At the same time.
I’ve been freed from the vault just to go insane.
“Are you okay?” The girl rises to her feet. I slump forward and crash on the floor in a sprawl of limbs and ugly yellow robe. “Hey!”
She’s saying other things but I don’t hear her anymore. My body is moving without my authorization, writhing in time and power with each emotional snake fighting each other to dominate me. Where I had only seen blackness for so long, colors now flash in my vision.
Rage flares red hot in my limbs. Sorrow a startling cold at the core of my heart. Disappointment spreads yellow across my chest. White joy spins spirals in my stomach. Hate. Love. Envy. Lust. Pity. Envy. Ecstasy. All meeting center of my soul where my snakes are clashing heads, battering me from the inside out. Blackness is swallowing my mind. I hear screaming.
I’m going to die, after all.
I’m slipping. Madness is taking me. I had placed the spell on myself to mute all of my emotions, all of my physical needs and wants… I sort of made myself a rag doll with a heartbeat. But I made that spell so it would break upon my liberation, having no idea what might happen.
Now I know.
My mind is spiraling; I’m lost in a void of black hunger, reaching for direction, grabbing at anything to anchor me but my fingers pass through air.
A touch of fire burns the back of my neck. I focus on that spot of heat, latching onto that one thing that is not floating aimlessly about with me. I anchor my hands onto it. I hear a voice across the mere which has become my mind. I focus on that, too.
“You can do this. You are strong. Listen to my voice. Keep breathing.”
Who is this angel? I turn my gaze toward the voice. Keep talking!
“Hold on. You can fight. You will be alright. Keep breathing. Can you hear me?”
Yes! More pockets of fire erupt across my shoulders – I have shoulders! – and a deep, warm pressure against my face. I feel my body again.
“That’s right. Keep breathing. You can fight this. Keep trying.”
The angel speaking is Brine. Funny I remember her name before mine.
“Keep touching meself.” I realize too late I said it out loud. I can’t feel ashamed about it. Her touch is what is bringing me out of my dance with madness. “Speaketh more.” My voice is ravaging for water.
She does both. My head has ended up on her lap and she presses my face into her stomach. Sweat and dirt overwhelm my awakening senses and I pick up a hint of rose.
Touch. Of flesh and bone. I throw both arms around her waist and press my face deeper into her body, sobbing and I can’t stop. I’m touching life again where I only had cold stone to touch before.
I’m crushing her in this embrace. I can feel it in the way her ribcage against my face
is jumping for air. But I can’t let go. Because if I let go then I’m going to wake up back in the vault and I will die.
My snakes stop fighting, finally figuring out a roughly balanced flow to share in my body. My body slackens, and because twas clinched so tightly during my struggle, my limbs quiver. I realize I am desperately thirsty. I’m actually so thirsty that I can’t move.
“Water,” I manage. My eyes are shut tight because if I open them then I am going to wake up in the vault. If I move, if I breath, if I swallow I’m going to wake up in the vault.
A cold wetness is flooding across my lips and I choke, sputtering it back out. I forgot how to swallow. The cold wetness comes again. I gag but I’m able to understand quickly how my throat works again and I’m able to drink and drink, the freeze of the foreign liquid chilling all the way into my stomach. The water stops coming. I am still so thirsty. It’s as if I hadn’t drunk at all. And now I’m starving.
I’m dimly aware that my baggy yellow robe has fallen off my shoulders. I hope to kings I’m not totally nude. But then, my last thread of dignity I was trying to maintain in front of my rescuer crumbled the moment I asked to borrow her dagger to cut off my hair and beard. Even my eyebrow hairs are tickling the corners of my lips.
I’m still embracing Brine. But if I can keep it my way, I’m never going to let go of her. She keeps patting my hairy back and I love that touch immensely.
I’m sweating profusely. The water continues to slosh in my stomach and I’m surprised I don’t hear it echo like water in a cave because it’s been empty for so long. And now I think I’m going to throw up. I am going to throw up.
This becomes the sole reason I let go of Brine. Despite her first impression of me broken beyond repair, I still have enough dignity to not throw up on her. I barely remember to haul my robe up from around my waist before I dash out of the room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN