Special Passage (The Coursodon Dimension Book 4)

by M. L. Ryan

  “He can’t do that,” I protested, trying to step forward to accept responsibility for Keem’s death. Jifga suddenly stood, and rushed toward Ulut.

  Sebastian yanked the rope that bound us together by our waists, preventing my ill-advised show of integrity. “Hold on,” he hissed softly. “Look.”

  Rather than accosting Ulut, Jifga slapped him on the shoulder and laughed. He was congratulating Ulut for offing his sibling’s offspring? This dude was even more loathsome than Ulut described. If nothing else, Keem’s utterly anti-social behavior now made some sense. It must run in the family.

  Despite Jifga’s newfound respect for Ulut, Keemacide didn’t translate into priority treatment. Summarily dismissed from the tent, the guards deposited all of us—Ulut included—in one of the few permanent buildings in the compound, a rundown adobe with thick walls and iron bars on the windows. Divided into six cramped cells, the jail was currently occupied by a single other prisoner, a young man whose face was swollen and covered with bruises. He barely moved from his cot when we trudged by, only rolling his head toward us to get a glimpse of the new inmates.

  For the first time since being seized, all our bindings were removed. Before I had a chance to revel in the freedom of movement, our jailers herded Bex, V, and me into a single cell. The men in our party were separated into two groups: Alex, T, and W in one, and Sebastian, Ulut, and Z in another. The last cell remained vacant. There was but one cot per pen, the only other furnishing a small bucket in the corner. Judging by the crusty brown residue inside, the pail must have served as a chamber pot. Not that I expected the accommodations to be luxurious, but was it too much to hope for enough beds for everyone?

  The calamity of our misfortune was driven home with the metallic snicks of the doors’ locks engaging one after another. Never in my wildest dreams—and I’d had some doozies—did I imagine being jailed. The closest I’d come to being arrested was when our highly ranked college basketball team bowed out early in the NCAA tournament and some inebriated fans, expecting to celebrate, acted out their frustration in the streets of Tucson. Fortunately, when the cops started rounding people up, without regard to their drunkenness or riotous intentions, the plastered coed next to me ripped open her already fashionably shredded T-shirt and started shouting that the university cop next to her did it. I was able to slip away in the ensuing commotion.

  “Now what?” I said morosely, leaning against the bars that spanned the front of my cell.

  From two chambers down, Alex answered, “Good question. At least we have greater freedom of movement. Perhaps that will allow better control over our magic.”

  In the adjoining cell, Sebastian praised Ulut for his spot-on assessment of Uncle Jifga. “Excellent job deflecting Jifga’s wrath about Keem’s demise. I would never guess he would react that way.”

  “I’ve worked for the bastard before,” Ulut explained, “and from experience, I was fairly certain he’d be less distressed about his nephew’s death if he knew I was responsible for it.”

  I winced. “That is so disturbing.”

  I heard Ulut’s chuckle even through the thick wall separating us. “Yes, indeed it is, but if there’s one thing you can always count on, it is Jifga’s unfailing regard for gritty spunk.

  With much greater conviction than I actually felt, I responded with a terse, “Good to know.”

  “Actually, my dear, that information is important,” Sebastian corrected. “Understanding one’s opponent gives a significant advantage. We now know that assigning normal logic to Jifga’s motivations may not be the best strategy.”

  I had no clue how comprehending Jifga’s psychoses would be helpful, and all it seemed to indicate was the unpredictability of our kidnapper. However, I suspected Sebastian was well versed in the inner workings of a maniacal brain, and not only because of his many years as a Xyzok.

  In the end, being locked up wasn’t quite as deplorable as it originally appeared. Within an hour, an attendant brought more cots, so we each had a place to lay our heads other than the floor. With canvas stretched across rigid, wooden frames, no pillows, and only a thin, musty blanket for warmth, the kips weren’t comfortable, but they didn’t bounce up and down and we could sleep flat, a definite improvement over either the wagon or the hard ground during our travels.

  I’d heard people say that when you were truly hungry, anything tasted good. I think what they really meant was, when you were famished, you’d eat anything. The meal we eventually received, miniscule chunks of mystery meat floating in some sort of watery, brown glop, could never be described as flavorful, but after two weeks of insufficient food, I gladly licked my bowl clean. Filled up I was not, but my stomach no longer growled like a she-cat in heat, a development I was sure my cellmates appreciated.

  They might not have noticed even if my gastrointestinal grumblings hadn’t been muted. After eating, we all fell asleep, lulled into somnolence by food and the luxury of lying flat. I vaguely remembered one of the guards illuminating the cell with an oil lamp at some point, but other than that, I slept until morning.

  Breakfast wasn’t much better than dinner—a hunk of stinky cheese and a corn tortilla—and came with a beverage that tasted like flat beer. Not that I expected fresh-squeezed orange juice, but alcohol before midday seemed odd, even for Jifgaville.

  “It is not at all unusual to consume fermented beverages when clean drinking water is scarce,” Sebastian explained when I voiced my suspicions we were being plied with booze to loosen our tongues.

  “How do you know that?” I wondered, cautiously sipping my ale.

  “I am almost 250 years old, my dear. I have experienced how people lived in your dimension before the practice of water sanitation.”

  This wasn’t my dimension, but I understood his reasoning. In terms of technology, Dekankara resembled the human dimension two centuries past. In other ways, however, it was closer to the middle ages.

  “Besides,” Sebastian continued, “if your theory is correct and they want us inebriated, their machinations will be for naught, for the Courso in our contingent at any rate.”

  That, too, was true. Every Courso I’d met had the ability to swill liquor to excess without getting drunk. I’d seen Alex and Sebastian consume enough alcohol to kill a human without the slightest indication of any adverse effects. But Jifga wouldn’t know that. He didn’t know we weren’t Dekankarans.

  “If that’s their intention,” I suggested, “it could give us an advantage if they think we are all wasted. You, Alex, T, W, and Z should practice acting drunk.”

  “An excellent suggestion, my dear. You must show Bex and V as well.” There wasn’t a compelling reason to fake intoxication, since no one paid us much mind. However, as Sebastian pointed out, one never knew what might be important, and we had little else to do to pass the time.

  Training my roommates proved more difficult than the male Jyryxahal. I could only use my broken Courso and hand signals to get my point across, while W, Z, and T learned from Alex and Sebastian, the masters of undercover ops. Who knew what sorts of weirdness they had portrayed in the name of the Xyzok? Alex pretended to be an insurance adjuster when I first met him. In retrospect, I should have seen through the ruse immediately—investigators of insurance claims were never that hot—but somehow, Alex played the part so well I never questioned it. He didn’t even use magical subterfuge, he just made the completely unbelievable backstory wholly convincing. I probably should be suspicious of everything he said or did given his talent for misrepresenting himself, but I knew with utter certainty that now, his behavior was genuine.

  In the back of our cell, a small, barred window opened to the outside. There was no glass, which wasn’t a problem now that the weather was still relatively mild, and the additional ventilation reduced the impact of the noxious fumes emanating from our indoor, non-flushing toilet. The pleasant breeze might not be as welcome once nighttime temperatures hovered near the freezing mark come full winter. It might be another month or
so before that would be a concern and, hopefully, by then we’d be gone.

  The window also provided a view of life in the compound. Two things became apparent almost immediately: there were no women and no one smiled. The scarcity of females made some sense this being essentially a military installation; one would expect a preponderance of men, particularly in light of the patriarchal nature of Dekankara. The overall sense of melancholy was more puzzling. Even in the worst conditions, I’d expect to see an occasional grin, or a chirp of laughter between comrades in arms sharing a smoke between pillaging runs. Here, at least in the area behind the jail, there was only leaden despair. It almost made me happy I was stuck inside, even with a semi-full chamber pot.

  After a couple of days of mediocre rations, crowded accommodations, and soul-sucking tedium, I understood why inmates snapped while incarcerated. Bex and V’s good natures never wavered, but we couldn’t converse beyond the few Courso phrases I’d memorized, and whispered exchanges between the English-speaker’s cells didn’t quite cut it. I used to fantasize about how marvelous being locked in a library might be: quiet, nothing else to do, with an abundance of reading material at an arm’s reach. This was much like my daydreams, except in this nightmare, there were no books, and if I made too much noise, the librarian smacked instead of shushed over the rule violation.

  Worse, I was edgy from no zip line flight or any real exercise, for that matter. Someone checked to make certain we hadn’t escaped every couple of hours, reprimanded us if we made too much noise, and brought food, but it didn’t appear our handlers cared about our mental or physical faculties in the slightest. If anything, they seemed more interested in doing their duties as fast as possible rather than trying to keep close tabs.

  Therefore, when Jifga requested our presence in his tent, the invitation wasn’t entirely unwelcome. The Jyryxahal weren’t included on the guest list, an unfortunate development as their exclusion undoubtedly signaled an early release wasn’t scheduled. They didn’t shackle us, and as our minders paraded us through the compound, I noticed a group of teenagers—perhaps thirty or more—surrounded by sword-wielding sentries. None of the girls appeared more than fifteen years old, and they huddled together, tears streaming down many of their terrified faces.

  “What the hell is that all about?” I wondered.

  Ulut’s disgust was clear even though he whispered his answer. “Jifga has a habit of kidnapping girls from neighboring communities. It serves to make their families more compliant to his demands.”

  “Why only girls?”

  He didn’t need to respond; the disconsolate look in his eyes confirmed my fears. These children were to be used a sex slaves. “That’s… that’s…monstrous,” I sputtered. The term was utterly inadequate to describe what was in store for them, but I was so appalled that I couldn’t come up with anything else. I wasn’t even sure a word existed that conveyed this abominable level of depravity.

  Simmering with outrage, I had trouble keeping up with the group, and one of our guards wacked me behind my knees with the flat of his sword. I stumbled and braced my fall with my hands, but I managed to skid across the rough dirt anyway. In response to my rough treatment, Alex growled, the deep, rumbling sound unlike any he’d ever made before. Lifting my head, I assured him I was fine. Physically, it was the truth; I suffered only a few scrapes. Mentally, however, the humiliation only added to my growing wrath.

  Sebastian recognized my tenuous emotional state and reached down to help me up. Immediately, a sense of calm flowed from the point where his fingers met my skin into my shoulder and spread like an intravenous shot of tequila throughout the rest of my body. His defensive magic might be off, but the arcane Valium he laid on me was perfect. I wasn’t completely mellowed out by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn’t feel like I was about to lose it, either. Based on Alex’s uncharacteristic reaction to my being tripped, I hoped Sebastian used some of the same on him. Whether by magical pharmacology, or sheer force of will, Alex’s features returned to calm and inscrutable.

  The entire incident took only a few seconds, and our custodians seemed not at all put out by the disturbance. Wailing on captives to force them to keep pace was probably an everyday occurrence to these bastards. The thought rekindled the semi-doused flames of my furor as I imagined what those same SOBs might be doing later to the innocent teens.

  When we entered Jifga’s tent, we found him playing with what at first I thought was a sparkly version of a paddleball. As I moved closer, I realized there was no toy involved; he batted a magically rendered, glowing orb out from his palm a few feet, let it hang in mid-air, and then forced it to return to his hand.

  The innocuous game, I was certain, was more for our benefit than his amusement. Jifga wanted to make certain we knew he had magic. I would have given anything at that moment to send a little of my own right up his cocky ass, but that would have to wait. The immediate priority was extricating ourselves from his clutches.

  There was no sign of TBD or his thugs. Probably out rounding up more schoolgirls, I fumed. Even without our original captors, the tent was filled with soldiers, many more than were present for our first audience. Alex and Sebastian eyed them, but they showed no obvious worry about the increased manpower.

  Finished with flexing his aptitude, Jifga dematerialized his arcane plaything and motioned Ulut forward. They spoke briefly, and Ulut turned to us.

  “Jifga hopes we have enjoyed his accommodations and asks again who he might contact for ransom.”

  Sebastian stared, expressionless, at the warlord. “Ulut, tell the bastard our answer is the same as it was when he first posed it. Our people are far away; if he wants his wretched money, the barbarian will have to send boats to apprise them of our predicament. Blah, blah, blah,” he concluded with a dismissive flick of his hand. “You know the story.”

  Ulut nodded and translated—presumably without the insults.

  Leaning forward, a cruel smile curved upon Jifga’s thin lips. Glaring back at Sebastian, he rattled off some Dekankaran. I felt Alex tense beside me; whatever Jifga said wasn’t good. And, while Sebastian likely understood the words as well, he retained his poker face, waiting for Ulut to enlighten him.

  Ulut took a deep breath before speaking. “He believes you are lying. To compel the truth, he will take one of our party and…”

  Before Ulut could finish, a commotion arose near the tent opening. I turned toward the noise and was horrified to see men dragging V inside. She wasn’t exactly fighting, but she also wasn’t making the delivery easy.

  “And what?” Alex hissed, beseeching Ulut to continue.

  A mixture of disgust and sorrow played across Ulut’s face. Softly, as if he couldn’t stand speaking the words, he said, “He will give V to his men.”

  As one, Alex, Sebastian, and I surged forward, quickly thwarted by the phalanx of sentries. Though prevented from aiding V, the containment did nothing to quell our fury. Jifga sneered as we reacted, inclining his head to indicate one of the men should bring V before him.

  With her hands bound behind her and her jailer’s fist now wrapped in her hair, she stopped struggling, but stared defiantly at the warlord. Jifga nodded, and the creep forced V to her knees. Feigning innocence, Jifga peeked over her shoulder and announced, through Ulut, her fate was in our hands.

  V shouted, “Thiv ota x projin,”—Don’t do what he wants—and was punished for her outburst with a firm yank on her hair.

  Even in her predicament, she pleaded with us not to give into the warlord’s demands, even though I wasn’t entirely sure she understood what those were. My admiration for her courage grew exponentially, as did my hatred of Jifga and his men, particularly the jerkoff jerking her by her tresses.

  Ulut tried to reason with Jifga, reiterating that we had no money close by with which to pay and imploring him not to harm V. Sebastian and Alex stood stiffly, and I knew the situation was one in which they had little experience; neither was used to begging for anything, much
less forced to stand by while people they cared about were threatened. They’d always relied on magic to extract themselves from untenable situations, but their power, unpredictable as it was in this dimension, was as good as useless to them now.

  Jifga wasn’t listening. He said something to Jerkoff, which caused the man to leer at V in such a way I knew Jifga had told him he’d get first dibs. My suspicions were confirmed when Ulut began to plead with the scumbag warlord.

  A jumble of sensations overwhelmed me. Fury, hunger, fear, and sleep deprivation swirled into an intractable maelstrom. Desperately, I tried to rein myself in. If Sebastian and Alex couldn’t control their magic here, there was no way in hell I’d be able to. If I let myself go, I might incinerate everyone and everything—including me—in the process. Alternatively, my Dekankaran blowout might amount to nothing at all. Still, I needed to dial it down a few hundred notches.

  Reverting to my tried-and-true method of distracting myself in these situations, I attempted to focus on something gross. Generally, this was a particularly nasty parasitic disease, or the rotting flesh of weeks-old road kill. Unfortunately, I could imagine nothing more distasteful than sweet, happy V defiled by the guard now practically drooling in anticipation. Once the image took hold, I remembered the group of frightened hostage girls, awaiting the same repugnant fate.

  My instincts took over, and no longer capable of self-control, I erupted.

  23

  I realized almost immediately that I hadn’t blasted anything. Instead, I had transformed. There was no time to ponder the ramifications of becoming a hawk in Dekankara as my focus was on V and the guy dragging her off to have his way with her. They made it outside the flap, and I followed, vaguely aware of canvas pulling against my wings as I exited. Jerkoff looked up, flung V between him and me, and ran away, shrieking. Either he’d never seen anyone transform before—a possibility in this dimension—or he was a complete wuss. Whatever his motivation, using V as a shield against a mid-sized bird of prey ratcheted up my ire. A major accomplishment, since I would never have lost it to the point of form-bending unless I was already incensed beyond reason.