The Fallen Mender

by R. J. Francis

  When Ia was finished feeding, she began to cry and wouldn’t stop. The twins knew it was time to enact their escape plan.

  Eleonora carefully got to her feet. With weak, wobbling legs, the new mother carried Ia to the darkest corner of the cell, set her down on the floor, and hid in the shadows not far away. Elaina tried to concentrate on becoming invisible—having no idea whether that would work.

  Eleonora pulled from a pocket in her nightdress another sharp fragment of poor Camron’s tibia. Her beloved husband just might get one more chance to protect her.

  And, as expected, someone came.

  A rope spun down from the opening in the ceiling, and an older man in a purple-trimmed uniform scaled down it and dropped to the floor.

  Strangely, he immediately sat down cross legged, facing the corner where Ia lay wobbling in her tight blanket sac. Ia stopped crying, and began to coo gently.

  The man held no torch. He had no means of seeing beyond the narrow shaft of weak moonlight. Elaina and Eleonora were sure this would work to their advantage, but it was odd: Why was this man just sitting there?

  And then the man spoke: “I’m sure you’ve been wondering, Your Highness, whether it’s you or your child who is to be killed.” His strong, deep voice reverberated off of the cell walls. Ia continued making cute baby noises.

  “It’s me,” Elaina said, hoarsely, pretending to be her sister. She hoped to lure the man to her so Eleonora could stab him from behind.

  “My orders are to kill both of you.”

  “I thought you’d leave one of us alive as bait,” Elaina said.

  “You and your child are no longer useful. The king has heard that Elaina is on her way. She will seek him out, and she will die.”

  How clever! Elaina thought. “Why are you telling me this?” Elaina asked. “And why do you sit? What’s your game?”

  The soldier stood, slowly. “Your Highness, it was no easy task to ensure that I was chosen to carry out your execution. My masters have no idea that your father, long ago, charged me with keeping you safe should something like this occur. And I remain loyal to the man your father was long ago. Come.” He reached his hand out in the direction of Elaina’s voice. “Let’s be off.”

  “This man tells the truth.” Elaina announced, and she willed herself visible and floated right up to the man.

  He crouched defensively on seeing the ghost, his knees knocking. “Wh…what magic is this?”

  “Please, keep Eleonora safe,” Elaina said.

  “Elaina?” he mouthed, still reeling with fright.

  Eleonora stepped through Elaina’s ghost, and into the shaft of moonlight, holding baby Ia. “Peace, my friend,” Eleonora said.

  The man tried to compose himself by focusing on his mission. “Uh…uh…let me put this on you, Your Highness…” He fitted Eleonora with a climbing harness, and a sling to hold Ia. His eyes kept coming back to Elaina’s ghost.

  “Is there anyone else up there?” Eleonora asked.

  “Nobody will be around until the morning. Unfortunately, tomorrow I can only get you as far as Wichita,” said the man. “You will need to remain there for a few days until I can return to take you farther, but there is food.”

  “Elaina can meet us in Wichita,” Eleonora said. “You don’t need to return for us.”

  “You must flee. Both you and Elaina,” the man said. “Your father has horrible plans.”

  After attaching the rope to the top of her harness, the man climbed up, and then he hoisted Eleonora and Ia up through the opening.

  Once out of the hole, Eleonora and the newest Celmarean princess inhaled deeply of the sweet desert air.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “It’s a girl. Eleonora and her new baby, Ia, are out of the cell,” Elaina explained to Jaimin and Maya. “A purple army soldier who used to work for my father is on our side, and he’s watching over them. Wait—why is it day? How long have I been away?”

  “Not long. We’ve just started our climb into the pass,” Jaimin said.

  “Well, that’s strange. Anyway, they will be safely out of the cell tonight.”

  “Friendly Frakkers?” Maya asked, biting her lip. “Mascarin said there were a few. I didn’t believe him.”

  “Won’t someone notice Eleonora’s gone?” Jaimin asked.

  “Not until the morning,” Elaina said. “The soldier says he can bring Eleonora to a place called Wichita. We will have to get her from there. Maya, have you ever heard of Wichita?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve been there. Wichita’s an abandoned town they send the Frakker kids off to for war games. He’ll have to hide Her Highness and the baby pretty good, else they’ll find ‘em.”

  “How far is it?”

  “It’s pretty far east. Out of our way, for sure. Nastasha will need to wait a couple days longer for us.”

  Elaina told them more about her adventure in the cell with Eleonora, making sure to point out several times how gorgeous the baby was. Maya was most impressed with how strong Eleonora had been throughout the ordeal.

  They were approaching the mountain pass as the sun set. The coach stopped, and Captain Rosner helped Jaimin, Elaina, and Maya out onto the snow. “Temporary stop. Makias needs to fix a wheel,” Rosner explained.

  Most of the higher-level clouds had cleared, and ice dust was glittering by against a magical orange sky. Alessa had dismounted and was standing on a ridge, watching the sun dip into the ocean. Jaimin, Elaina and Maya trudged through knee-deep snow to join her.

  The sun was just an orange sliver of fire on the ocean horizon, and then it was gone. Patches of fog clung to the vast sea. “Celmarea is there, north of where the sun just set,” Alessa said, with joy in her eyes.

  “Can we see it from here?” Elaina asked, squinting.

  “No, it’s too far to see, but I can feel it in my heart.”

  Elaina stared at the horizon, imagining what it was like now on the magical island where she was born. What remnants of her culture were left, she wondered, after the Destaurians had occupied the place for so many years?

  “Maya, have you heard anything about Celmarea in your snooping?” Elaina asked.

  “Only that it’s a place all the soldiers want to be assigned to, but it’s not often they get to.” Maya said. “Apparently it’s real pretty there. Interesting nature and all.”

  “Have you heard them say anything about the palace?” Alessa asked Maya.

  “Oh, yeah, they say it’s real nice, but I can’t remember specifics. Maybe if I think hard. What was it like when you were there?”

  Alessa described the island in some detail, but soon the wheel was fixed and they had to set off again.

  At the summit of the pass they stopped for the night. The advance guard had set up a camp near several thermal pools.

  Elaina, Maya, and Alessa spotted a pool they wanted to bathe in, so they asked Captain Rosner to probe the pool’s depths with his monitor to see if it was safe. He did so, and found the conditions to be acceptable.

  “What’s the readout, captain?” Alessa asked Rosner playfully.

  Rosner consulted a green screen glowing on the head of the long monitor stick. “38 degrees at the surface, 44 at the bottom.”

  “I mean the full readout,” she said.

  “Of course, Your Highness,” he said, trying not to wonder why a princess could possibly need that information.

  “Nitrogen point two five, oxygen seven—is that what you mean?”

  “Yes, yes, go on…” Alessa said.

  “Oxygen seven, carbon dioxide seven, calcium twenty, bicarbonate five, silicon dioxide nine, argon one, chloride six, sulfates twenty.”

  “This isn’t a true thermal spring,” Alessa remarked.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s technically a cool spring, heated by the rocks below it.” Rosner left, impressed, and the ladies undressed and quickly slipped into the steaming, comfortable bath.

  “Why were you asking all that?” Elaina asked.

&n
bsp; “Because I’m going to show you how to breathe underwater.”

  “You’re serious?” Maya asked.

  “Sorry, Maya,” Alessa said, “it’s not something you are going to be able to learn, but you’re welcome to hear the lesson.”

  “S’okay.”

  “This pool,” Alessa explained, “is as saturated as it can be with oxygen given how hot it is. Here’s the technique: first, you must form a bubble that extends from your mouth. Next, the trick is to breathe in as you push the water off the molecules of dissolved gas. You should get lungs full of air. Finally, you breathe out through your nose.”

  “Wow!” Elaina said. “How do I know where the dissolved gas molecules are? I can’t see that small.”

  “You do it by feel. Focus on the water around your head with the intent on breathing its gases, and it will begin to feel ‘fizzy’ to you. Then you breathe in the fizziness, but not the water.”

  “I feel fizzy just thinkin’ about it,” Maya quipped.

  “Show us,” Elaina said.

  Alessa sank so that her mouth was just below the surface, and Maya and Elaina witnessed a broad bubble appear across her mouth. Next, Alessa took a breath, but the bubble didn’t deflate. Instead, tiny bubblets materialized in the water around her face and rushed to replenish the larger bubble. She breathed out through her nose, and then she took in another breath, as more fizzy froth appeared to rush into the bubble in response to her will.

  “That’s the coolest thing I ever saw,” Maya said. “I can die now.”

  Alessa rose out of the water and exhaled slowly.

  “It looks like you’re usin’ up all the gas,” Maya noted. “Don’tcha run out?”

  “Well,” Alessa said, “just like if you were a fish, either you have to keep moving, or the water has to keep moving, in order for you to have new oxygen to breathe. Try it, Elaina.”

  Elaina gave it a go, but she couldn’t get her bubble to stay put when she tried to breathe in. She kept sucking the whole thing in. She tried again and again, until she had inhaled so much water by mistake that Alessa had to stop the lesson. “You’ll get it one of these days,” Alessa said.

  Maya found Elaina’s attempts hilarious, and she tried hard to suppress her giggles. She never thought princesses could be so much fun.

  Back in the Arran castle, Nastasha had brought her close friend Sylvia with her to a hidden basement laboratory.

  “This is where Isabel made the poison?” Sylvia asked, hopping off the cork-on-a-corkscrew elevator. Nastasha had been inviting Sylvia along on errands. Sylvia, still recovering from the loss of her little sister in the war, welcomed the kind company.

  “Yes,” Nastasha replied. And this is where I killed the traitorous bitch—right up against that table.”

  There was still some dried blood in the crack where the table met the floor. “I still can’t believe you had the courage to do that, Stasie,” Sylvia said.

  “Don’t tell anyone, now. You’re the only one who knows the whole story, aside from the Celmareans, of course, and my father.”

  “Yeah, the Celmareans know everything,” Sylvia said. “Is it hard for you to be down here? I mean, after what happened here?”

  “No. Thinking about the evil that woman concocted here inspires me to use this place for good. Her Majesty has given me all of it: the classroom, both labs, all of the materials and specimens…”

  Nastasha set her lantern down on the counter beside a small iron kettle set on a slow burner. She fetched a slotted spoon from a drawer and stirred the kettle’s contents.

  “What’s that you’re making?” Sylvia asked, pulling up a stool.

  “I shall let you in on the plan if you wish, but you mustn’t tell a soul.”

  “You’ve always trusted me with your secrets, Stasie.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll try to keep them. Secrets are hard to keep, though, when there are those about who can pull them from your mind by force.”

  After thinking about this, Sylvia said nervously, “Don’t tell me, then. Don’t you for anything tell me what’s in that kettle.”

  Nastasha chuckled and lifted her spoon. A clear, oily mixture with some green leafy goo in it dribbled off of it.

  “Is it ready?” Sylvia asked. Her blue eyes sparkled, reflecting the light from the burner.

  “Not just yet.”

  Alessa and Makias stayed up long after many of the others had retired. Alessa had set up a rudimentary target—a wooden post—in front of a dirt embankment, and she was teaching Makias how to shoot a crossbow.

  Alessa loved watching Makias do anything physical, simply because she found him irresistibly handsome. Tonight he had on a long, leather coat, with a giant hood lined in fur all around, which, even though he had it off, seemed to cradle his head and his wavy brown hair. He had a bit of beard-shadow, and his face, illuminated by the camp’s torches, looked clean and perfect like it always did. His brown eyes glowed golden in the torchlight: his eyes, like those of his brother, Talos, had a curious iridescence, appearing lighter when illuminated, and dark when in shadow.

  Makias’ aim got worse and worse as he tired, and Alessa called the lesson off.

  “Why don’t I just bring the enemies down with water?” he proposed.

  “We’ll be in the desert soon,” Alessa said. “If you want water, you’ll have to draw it from the bodies of your foes.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “We’ll practice every night until you’re able to defend me with steel and with water.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sedating a newborn baby to stop it from crying would be unthinkable under any other circumstances, but Eleonora and Aldo, her rescuer, needed to make sure Ia stayed quiet under the floorboards of the wagon. A dozen seven-year-old killers-in-training sat directly above them. One of them would occasionally shift his boot, sending dust down through a crack straight into Aldo’s eyes.

  When Aldo had said he would bring Eleonora to Wichita, she had no idea that meant traveling there as stowaways in the cargo space of a purple army transport.

  Eleonora found she had to hold the drug-soaked cloth to Ia’s face, because if the infant wasn’t constantly breathing the sedative, her little body’s natural immunity would quickly overcome the medication and she would wake up.

  Eleonora wished she could be knocked out too. She was still brutally sore from childbirth and plagued by itches in places she couldn’t reach. Her filthy nightdress stank. She held her daughter’s little hand and prayed that they would arrive in Wichita soon.

  “Who smells something?” came a muffled voice from above in a strong accent.

  “Smells like crap,” a lower voice said.

  Eleonora’s heart drummed loudly.

  “Of course it smells like crap. We’re behind four horses with crap all over their bums,” said a new voice.

  “And they’ve been farting all morning too,” came yet another voice: this one female.

  “Doesn’t smell like horse crap,” said the lower voice. “Smells like human crap.”

  “Ah, so you crapped your pants?”

  There was a round of giggles.

  Fortunately, the kids dropped the topic, because the crap in question was, in fact, human, and it belonged to Ia.

  The children went on to discuss an incident that had taken place the previous day. Eleonora wasn’t familiar with the terminology they were using, but she got some of what they were saying, and it chilled her. Apparently one of the “third levels” had been given the privilege of slaughtering a “greebie girl” whom the “masters” had deemed unworthy of the mission. Eleonora missed a fair bit of the exchange that followed because the terrain made the ride particularly noisy, but it sounded like the hapless girl had been eaten.

  All doubts about what the kids were talking about vanished when Eleonora heard a girl up top say, “I don’t like the taste of humans.”

  “How can you say that?” There was a shuffling of bodies above.
/>   “Get off me! I just mean I don’t like the taste. Tastes like burnt grass.”

  “You better watch what you say.”

  Eleonora learned quite a bit about her purple foes during that journey. She was pleased that they seemed to be normal children, not mindless slaves. But it was clear they had been made to do repulsive things.

  When the wagons arrived in Wichita, the young troops were offloaded by their superiors and led off to begin their training. Aldo snuck the fugitive princesses to a barn, where, after they dealt with the mess in Ia’s diaper, they spent most of the day sleeping in a huge wooden crate.

  Late in the afternoon, the Frakkers would leave, and there were no more exercises planned in Wichita for a week.

  The air gradually lost its frigid bite as Elaina’s group descended Arra’s dry eastern slopes via the southeastern trading road. Elaina’s nose was glued to the window—she had never been on this side of the mountains, and she found the sights otherworldly. Off to the east, the wilderness flattened out completely and disappeared into a soupy haze on the horizon. To the north, massive columns of steam billowed and blew eastward from gashes in the land. Jaimin explained that these were volcanic vents and hot springs. Beneath the steam plumes, Arrans had plotted irregular-shaped farms to take advantage of the mineral-rich soil and the constant moisture.

  Fat water pipes running alongside the road fed smaller pipes that stretched toward the horizon like strands of a spider web.

  “See that scar that goes parallel to the pipes right there?” Jaimin pointed.

  “What’s that? A quake fault?” Elaina asked.

  “No. It was supposed to be an aqueduct,” Jaimin told her. “The Arrans’ first attempt at bringing water down from the highland lakes, for a more reliable and cleaner source of irrigation. Well, you can’t build a concrete aqueduct and expect it to hold water when the ground is constantly shifting from quakes. These metal pipes do the same thing, but they’re flexible and easily repaired.”

  Maya, who was seated beside Elaina, had ventured into this remote part of Arra once. She’d wondered about the scar in the ground, too.