by S. Y. Lee
“How did we wind up here? How could those boxes transport us to a fantasy world that doesn’t exist?” Leo murmured to himself.
“The depictions on the box were Greek,” Themba said. He had heard Leo.
Leo looked up curiously, waiting for Themba to continue. “I’ve read a lot about history and archaeology, and mythology. As far as I can remember, there’s only one mention of any type of box. Pandora’s box.”
“Yeah, I thought about that too. Professor Baker was talking about it a couple of weeks ago when we went on a trip to the museum. But it can’t be, right? First of all, it’s a myth. Second, even if it was real, there was only one, wasn’t there? Between you, me, Eva, and Sarah, that’s three different but similar, if not identical, boxes. And finally, the box contained all the evils in the world and Pandora let all of them out.”
“All that was left was hope,” Themba said.
Leo laughed ironically. “Yes. Hope.”
“It was a test.” Themba sat up straight. The peels of the orange-like fruit were still in his hands as he finished his last slices. “Maybe this is a test?”
“That seems like a stretch. I don’t know what this is supposed to test us. And why us? According to the story, Pandora was special. The first woman. We’re… well, we’re us.”
Themba fell silent and stared at the marble floor. Leo felt a little bad about shooting down his cellmate’s hypothesis, but he just wasn’t in the mood to entertain it at the moment in their current predicament.
*
Several hours passed and the sun was now directly above the opening over them. It was around midday and sunlight enveloped much of the cell, making it almost unbearably hot and humid. So far, no one had come to explain why they were still being held prisoner. No rights had been read to them, and no phone call was afforded, not that anyone here knew what a phone call was.
“I miss my sister,” Themba said. He was still in the same corner, although he was standing now to avoid the sun.
Leo was on the opposite end of the cell, leaning against the bars and eating his fruit. It tasted exactly like an orange. “I’m sure she’s okay,” he responded, thinking about his own family. His parents probably didn’t notice he was gone until it had been time to make the trip back to Houston. He fished out the bracelet in his pocket, the one he had purchased in the square on the day of the festival for the young girl back on the farm who was supposed to be his stepsister. He held it up against the light and watched the stones glimmer. The green stones were practically transparent under direct sunlight and it gave off a faint green tinge.
“You don’t understand. She needs me,” Themba insisted. He interlocked his fingers as he brought his hands together and fidgeted nervously. It was his way of resisting the urge to bite his fingernails, a habit he had been trying to kick for years.
Leo sensed there was more to Themba’s anxiety. “What about your parents?”
“They… My father died when we were very young. My mother passed away two years ago. I’m my sister’s guardian. She’s only a few years younger than me but she’s a strong girl. We’ve only had each other since my mother’s death.”
“I’m sorry,” Leo said. He wished he hadn’t asked. He couldn’t imagine what was going through the mind of his cellmate. He had grown up to be independent, not by choice, but because his parents were too busy to pay attention to him. “Well, it sounds like she can take care of herself?”
That brought a smile to Themba’s face. “Yes, she can. Sometimes, I think she’s the older sibling and she’s my guardian. She cooks and cleans. And she makes sure that I’m on time for work at the library, even if I have to take her to school. I remember last week, I offered to help her with her science project and I had no idea what I was doing. She ended up finishing it herself and got an ‘A’ anyway.”
Leo blinked. He had been staring at the shiny stones on the bracelet while Themba talked about his sister back home. “That’s it!” Leo gasped, which drew a puzzled look from Themba.
Leo took one of the wooden cups that had been sitting on the floor and quickly drank the water in it, before turning it over and placing it in the middle of the cell, directly below the opening above them. He examined the bracelet and found a particular stone he had been staring at just now. It was a green stone that was evenly convexed on both sides and he held it over the cup in the sunlight, kneeling as he did. As he expected, the stone refracted the sunlight that entered from the top, which came out the underside and formed a concentrated dot on the bottom of the cup.
He looked up at Themba who realized what Leo was up to. “What are you doing?” Themba whispered nonetheless.
“Starting a fire.”
Chapter 35
David couldn’t sleep. He had been woken up in the middle of the night by a loud banging on his door. When he pulled himself out of bed to answer it, two men in dark plated armors carrying torches pushed past him. They searched his hut, which hardly took more than two seconds. David didn’t own much and the only furniture he had were a bed, a table, and a chair. There wasn’t even a chair for a guest if he had company. His clothes were folded neatly and stacked in a corner.
David recognized one of the men. He had stopped by the blacksmith shop yesterday to get some work done on a crooked sword. It was the same sword at his waist. From what David could gather, the men were guards of the city where he had found himself in. They weren’t prominently featured around the city, but David had asked Ernus about the man and his armor after he had left with his straightened blade.
The guard turned to David and he nodded solemnly when he recognized the blacksmith’s apprentice.
“Have you seen an elf?”
“No…?” David replied. It was a question he had never been asked before. Were elves real here? He supposed they had to be if these men were searching for one in the dark of the night. “What did he do?” David asked.
The man ignored the question and departed with his fellow guard. They left the door ajar and David stepped out into the dark alley barefooted for some fresh air. The nights here were cold, something that David was accustomed to growing in London. Or was it the other way around, he wondered. Maybe this was his reality and London a figment of his imagination. A dream perhaps.
No. David slapped his face with both hands. There was too much about home that he could remember and the memories were too vivid. He loved playing a game called soccer. And he could picture his sister’s face. There was always a hint of concern when she looked at him, even when she was smiling. While they were the same age, she always looked out for him and cared for him like an older sister. He couldn’t tell what was real anymore.
As the guards who were just in his hut moved on to the next house down the dark alley, David could see the glow of more torches around the city. The sound of fists pounding on doors came from every direction, almost like they were echoes of each other. Whoever or whatever the guards were searching for, it was urgent.
Inhaling deeply as the cool night air filled his lungs, David looked up at the sky. His mind started to drift as he stared at the luminescent orb high above. After a long while, David blinked and closed the door behind him as he made his way back to bed, but he found himself unable to sleep again that night, troubled by the confusing memories in his head.
Chapter 36
His hands trembled from the strain of keeping them rigid for so long. Leo estimated that it had at least been a couple of hours since he started. Every once in a while, he had to adjust the angle subtly to match the movement of the sun. Luckily, no guards had come to check in on them, so Leo was unimpeded in his attempt to start a fire. In his mind, he had some inklings of a plan once he had his flame, but he needed to focus right then on keeping his hands steady.
The only times he spoke were to give Sarah a quick reply whenever she called out to them. He didn’t want to seem rude, but he couldn’t afford to lose his concentration or alert anyone outside the cell to his efforts to escape.
&nbs
p; Themba had hardly moved from his corner, though he was now sitting again and hugging his knees close to his body as he watched Leo like an egg about to hatch.
The spot on the cup where the sunlight had been concentrated on through the green stone of the bracelet was slightly darkened but that was it. Leo was starting to have doubts whether his plan would work, but Karine still had yet to resurface and he didn’t like to wait around to be rescued. He closed his eyes briefly to let a bead of sweat drip down his left eye and then he saw something. It was almost unnoticeable at first, then the faint smoke rising out of the spot on the cup started to grow thicker.
Themba saw it too and he let go of his knees and leaned forward into the sun. Sure, it was a simple science experiment that every child had tried with at some point with a magnifying glass, but he was still amazed that it worked.
“What are you going to—” Themba stopped himself when a small flame suddenly materialized on the bottom side of the wooden cup.
Leo pulled back in surprise at the burst of flames, before he started to look around frantically. Tucking away the bracelet into his pants, Leo quickly removed his shirt and held it over the flame until it caught on fire. “Give me your shirt, quick!” Leo whispered loudly to Themba who was confused. It took Leo gesturing furiously with his free hand, for Themba to stand up and hand his shirt over. Leo set that shirt on fire too, and beckoned for his cellmate to follow him to the bars keeping them in.
Leo handed Themba his shirt back to hold on to, while he held his own burning shirt outside the cell through the spacing of the bars. He waved it around a bit, careful not to extinguish the flames and waited a few seconds to see if anyone would come to investigate. If there were any guards nearby, surely they would respond to a fire in the holding cells.
When he was sure that nobody else was around, Leo proceeded to gingerly wrap his burning shirt tightly around the middle of one of the bars. He drew his hand back in pain a couple of times as the flames seared his fingertips, but it wasn’t enough to deter him. After he was done, he snatched the other burning garment from Themba and proceeded to do the same thing with the adjacent bar and soon both shirts were burning side by side.
“Leo? What’s going on over there?” Sarah asked. She must have been able to see some of the light emanating from the flames.
Leo ignored her and looked around the cell again. The cup was still burning but it served no purpose anymore.
“Sit down,” Leo said to Themba.
“What? What are you doing?” Themba whispered. He had no idea what Leo had planned and he wasn’t sure if he should go along. If the guards were to happen by right now, they would be in serious trouble. Nonetheless, Themba sat down and Leo knelt at his feet and tugged at the end of his pants.
Yanking in opposite directions as hard as he could, Leo ripped off a loop of cloth from the bottom of Themba’s pants, exposing the lower half of his skinny calves. Leo wrapped the strips of linen around his palms like a fighter would before stepping into a boxing ring, and he stood up in front of the bars.
The flames were dying out as the shirts were nearly completely burnt. Fanning away the remaining flames, Leo grabbed both bars in the middle where the shirts had been and pulled hard in opposite directions.
Themba was back on his feet and now realized Leo’s brilliant plan. The heat from the burning shirts would have hopefully softened the metal bars holding them in and now be susceptible to bending. Of course, it seemed like a sound plan in theory, but if it didn’t work, they were still stuck in the prison cell. And without their shirts. When the sun set, the inside of their prison cell would be freezing.
Seeing the bars begin to move in both directions slowly, Themba put his hands around Leo’s right arm and pulled with all the strength he could muster. If he could just help a little bit, it might be enough.
And it was. The bars started to bend more visibly and Leo winced as the cloths weren’t able to completely insulate his palms from the heat. However, he knew he couldn’t let go no matter how unbearable it was. If they missed this opportunity and the metal cooled, there was no backup plan.
Themba hopped over to the other side and helped Leo with the other bar and after a few more seconds of exertions by both men, the bars had bent open enough for Leo to stick his entire head through quickly. There was no sign of any guards in either direction and he withdrew his head and gave the bars one final stretch before finally letting go. This time, Leo shifted to his side and put his right foot out first and squeezed through the bars. He grimaced as the heated bars pressed against the skin on his back and chest, but the gap was just enough to allow him to stumble out of the cell and he smiled in excitement at Themba, motioning for him to follow suit and be quiet. The skinner man was able to escape the cell easily.
“Leo?” Sarah called out again and Leo ran forward past two empty cells before he found the Englishwoman standing in a cell by herself.
“Oh my god! How did you get out? Let me out!” Sarah grabbed his hand through the bars as he looked around for a way to free her as well. There was a table at the end of the corridor of cells.
“I’ll be right back,” Leo said, and he ran towards the table. He passed four other cells. All were empty. As expected, there were no guards around. His sword and their belongings were on the table, but there were no keys. Grabbing the cloth sacks and Sparrow, Leo ran back to Sarah’s cell where Themba was now waiting outside. He pulled out a spare shirt from his sack and tossed the other two sacks at Themba.
“Leo! Get me out of here!” Sarah begged as he strapped the sword around his waist and unfurled the cloths around his hands. He paused for a second and thought about swinging his blade at the bars, but he knew it wouldn’t work. It wasn’t as sharp as Karine’s moonblades.
“Wait here,” he said. Then, he ran off down the corridor and disappeared to the left, leaving Themba and Sarah standing there on either side of the prison cell.
*
Following the hallway, Leo soon came upon a door. He paused and gripped his sword, trying to decide if he should draw it and be ready for a fight. The scenario he now faced was different from the attack on Silverbrick. Then, he had fought off and slain corrupted beings who were trying to kill him. They were evil and monsters who attacked indiscriminately and hurt women and children. In the days since, he hadn’t lost a moment of sleep due to his actions.
The Marble Keep was different. Rylance’s intentions towards them were ambiguous, and any guards Leo encountered would only be following orders. At the same time, Leo had a clear conscience. He knew they had been wrongfully imprisoned.
As he was still struggling with his moral conundrum, he heard footsteps approaching and Leo ducked behind the door as it opened towards him. One of the guards walked in and slammed the door behind him without looking back. He started down the hallway towards the holding cells where Leo knew that he would soon see Themba standing outside the cells. The South African man wouldn’t stand a chance.
There wasn’t much time for Leo to act before it was too late to stop the guard. Taking a few big strides towards the guard, Leo drew his sword in reverse with the blade pointed down and swung the base of his sword at the back of the guard’s head. Sparrow connected squarely with the guard’s skull and sent him falling to the ground. His armor clanked loudly against the marble floor as he dropped the spear in his hand. Dazed and reeling from the blow, the guard held a hand to the spot where Leo had hit him. There was some blood from a gash that resulted for Leo’s ambush and the guard looked angrily at his ambusher. Leo had been unsuccessful in knocking out the guard and he knew he needed to do something fast before other guards were alerted.
“How did you—” the guard was saying as he tried to help himself off the ground. Instinct kicked in and just like in the arena at the festival, Leo swiftly closed the gap between himself and the guard and swung the handle of his sword upwards, like a boxer’s right hook, catching the guard in the bottom of his chin.
The second blow was
much stronger. Leo had the advantage of height over the stumbled guard and he felt less trepidation about taking him on in a frontal assault. Leo saw the guard’s jaws crash together as blood and teeth sprang out of his mouth. The guard fell back and hit his head against the wall, before tumbling unconsciously to his left side.
Leo’s ambush hadn’t gone as smoothly as he had hoped. He now knew it was much tougher to knock someone out from behind than he had expected. All those action movies he watched made it seem so easy. He looked at the door and listened hard, waiting to see if the confrontation had drawn any attention. He heaved a sigh of relief after a few tense seconds. Nobody else approached. Bending over the guard who was still breathing, Leo searched him for a key to the cells, but he couldn’t find one.
Slapping the guard’s face a couple of times to make sure he was out cold, Leo pondered his next step. It had been difficult enough to subdue one guard. He tried to remember how many men had marched into the main hall yesterday to capture them. There were about twenty, and he was sure there were more. It seemed an almost impossible task to get past all of them, and that was if he was by himself. Unlike him, Themba and Sarah hadn’t woken up in this world with the latent ability to fight.
Leo stood and as he stepped away from the guard, nearly tripped over the spear on the ground. Upon closer inspection, Leo realized that the long shaft of the weapon was made from the same metal as the bars of the cell instead of wood. That’s when he had another idea. Picking up the spear, which was surprisingly heavy, Leo ran back to the cells. He struggled to hold it upright and leaned it over his shoulder for support. He couldn’t imagine how the guards managed to carry one around all day in their cumbersome armors.
His companions were surprised to see him return so quickly.
“Where did you get that?” Themba asked. He had put on another shirt, though his pants were still torn.
“Did you find a key?” Sarah asked. She was still clinging to the bars.