by P. T. McHugh
Dresden nodded at our silence. “The only piece I was missing, of course, was the knowledge of the stones. I have caught a glimpse of their power, but you … you will release all of their secrets. With you, I will truly manipulate time. Truly become immortal.” The last words were a whisper, as though he was speaking to himself more than us.
A knock at the door interrupted him before he could continue.
“Enter!” he barked in response.
One of the heavy doors swung open and a large soldier entered, glowering around the room before coming to rest in front of Dresden. “You sent for me, my Lord.”
Dresden turned to look at me for a split second before turning his attention toward the soldier. “Yes, Sir Lancaster. I have a mission for you. Send one of your fastest messengers to Lord Stanley’s army. I believe you’ll find him just north of Bosworth by now. Tell him the deal has changed. I no longer require the Earl of Oxford brought to me in chains.” He turned once again to look right at me while he completed his order. “Tell him I wish the Earl to be killed instead. Immediately.”
My heart sank. I had signed Doc’s death warrant, just by being here. Dresden had already planned to capture Doc, but now …
The soldier saluted, then turned and left the room.
“Guards!” Dresden shouted after him. Three guards appeared at the door in short order, falling over each other to obey him.
“Take these two to the dungeons. Let the boy enjoy a few hours of peace before his interrogation begins.”
He smiled nastily at me, then turned away as the guards pulled us from the chamber.
29
The soldiers behind us pushed Tatiana and me down yet another dark, narrow staircase, toward what I assumed to be the dungeon. This part of the castle obviously didn’t see a lot of maintenance. The stone steps crumbled under our feet, the earthen walls following suit. In places, the walls had collapsed entirely, nearly blocking our path.
The guards shoved us roughly through, giving us no time to wonder at our surroundings. The comfort and confidence from the stone was a distant memory, now, as though I’d passed out of its reach. Fear, confusion, and claustrophobia had flooded in to replace the peace I’d felt, though I tried to keep a firm hold on my emotions. Now certainly wasn’t the time to lose my head. Instead, I focused on the tunnel around us, looking for anything we could use as a weapon, or areas that might foster us if we had to hide. I stared intently into the walls as well, reaching with my mind for the stone I knew was there somewhere. I’d felt its presence as soon as we entered the castle’s grounds, but hadn’t felt it since entering Dresden’s chamber. Had I imagined it all? I looked backward, wondering if I could locate it visually.
That was a mistake. An enormous man had appeared out of nowhere, wearing nothing but a pair of ratty pants and leather vest. He was massively overweight, and stood at least 7 feet tall. The worst part was his face, which was disfigured and terrifying. The face of a monster, with eyebrows so low that they nearly covered his beady, lifeless eyes. I was beginning to wonder if he was a zombie when he noticed me staring and bared his teeth in a gruesome smile. The teeth were blackened and broken, allowing a stream of saliva to trickle through. He lifted the large cudgel he carried and shook it at me, his grin widening.
Disgusted and unsettled, I turned away. If he was our jailor, we were going to need a terrific escape plan.
We continued down, the air becoming thicker with the smell of earth, mildew, and something far less pleasant, which I couldn’t quite identify. The widely spaced torches in the walls began to sputter, making me wonder whether there was enough oxygen down here for people to survive at all.
Perhaps that was Dresden’s plan, I thought suddenly. Keep us down here, in the dark, until we suffocated or went crazy. Or both. But no, I remembered, he’d already told me his plan. Torture. The thought grabbed a hold of me like a clinging monkey, clutching at my heart and refusing to let go, and I started to panic. We had to get out of here. I didn’t want to think of the tortures Dresden had in mind, much less experience them personally.
Before I could explore this rather dark thought any further, we arrived at our destination. The soldier in front of us snarled for us to stop, and turned toward an iron grate in the wall. It was as tall as I was, and opened into another narrow corridor. There was only one other door there, set far back and to the side. The behemoth slumped toward this door and yanked it open, shoving first Tatiana and then me through the opening. The door slammed shut behind us.
“I’ll be back for you two,” the jailer muttered through the bars on the door, laughing harshly. “Don’t go anywhere.”
A moment later he left, taking most of the light with him.
Tatiana and I stood staring into the darkness ahead of us, our hands clenched tightly together. For a moment neither of us spoke.
I was about to ask Tatiana if she was okay when a voice called out from the darkness.
“You don’t look very dangerous to me,” it said calmly.
My eyes shot toward the sound, struggling to see through the dark. The owner of the voice was there, in the room with us. “Who’s there?” I asked, trying to sound brave. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“If you’re not afraid, you’re a better man than I will ever be,” the voice answered in a soft, friendly tone.
I listened closely. I’d been here only a couple of days, but I’d studied history, and it didn’t take a genius to hear the large difference in speech patterns between upper and lower-class citizens. The Bishop’s speech had been far different from Katherine’s, and Dresden’s had been better still. But this man’s voice was the most cultured I’d heard so far. Smooth, friendly, and extremely well spoken, like he’d been educated at Harvard rather than the local junior college. My mind began to race.
“Who are you?” I asked again slowly. “I can hear that you’re well educated. Does that make you a lord? Royalty?”
The voice snorted in amusement. “I only wish I could identify your accent as quickly, stranger. Still, I have been here on my own for months. I’m not going to turn my nose up at company.”
The voice moved, and a man came into the sliver of faint light. He was tall for this time period, at about my height, and shockingly thin. He looked to be in his mid- to late thirties, but then again, everyone looked older in this day and age. He could have been twenty-one for all I knew.
He was also filthy and obviously very hungry, but held himself with pride and confidence. I’d been right about his heritage, then, I thought.
“May I ask your names?” he asked, looking from me to Tatiana.
“Jason,” I replied. “And this is–”
“Tatiana,” she interrupted, casting me a quick look of warning. I nodded slightly – she was right to be nervous. We had no idea who this man was, or whether he was a friend. He might have been some part of a trap from Dresden. Regardless, we didn’t have time to sit around talking.
“Jason and Tatiana … unusual names, but I like them. My name is Sir William. However, since the three of us are locked in this cesspool together, let us dispense with the formalities. You may call me Will or William. I promise I won’t take offense.”
“Why are you here? Did you kill someone?” I asked suspiciously.
The man barked with laughter. “Now I know you are strangers! No, killing someone would not have led me here, and certainly would not concern Dresden.” At the name, his voice turned ugly and sneering. Obviously no love lost there, I thought. Then the man continued. “No, I am here because I had the misfortune of being born second.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
William paused, and I got the feeling he was sizing us up before he replied. “May I inquire as to why you two are here?” he asked suddenly, redirecting the question toward us.
I pressed my lips together, thinking, and Tatiana answered for me. Evidently she’d given up on the idea of caution, because she gave William a straight answer. “Jason’s grandfather is the Earl
of Oxford. Lord Dresden is holding us hostage.” This wasn’t necessarily true, but the reason for our detention was semantics at that point.
William coughed at that – a deep, racking cough, that shook his entire body. He took a moment to recover, breathing heavily, then apologized. “I have been here for some time, and this air is hardly good for breathing.” He paused again, then continued. “The Earl of Oxford, eh? I have met the man once or twice. The last time I saw the sky, he was allying himself with the Tudor boy to fight against King Richard. I was not aware he had an heir.”
I sucked the thick air in through my teeth, already frustrated with the slow, measured speech and this conversation, which was getting us nowhere. “Yeah, well, I’m his heir and we’re here to help him fight Dresden. But first we need to get out of here. Doc – I mean the Earl – is in terrible danger, and if he dies Dresden wins, and then we’re all in a lot of trouble. You’re here, so I expect you like him even less than we do. Who are you, man, and how the heck do we get out of here?”
I began to move around the room, searching for weak spots in the wall and feeling for the stone. If I could just find it again…
William chuckled again as I searched. “You are right, I do know Dresden, though it has not been a … pleasant experience.” He went on to tell us his story, between fits of heavy coughing. He was the second son of one of the oldest families in Great Britain–powerful and wealthy due to his name, but subject to his brother’s orders due to his birth.
“I am my brother’s second-in-command, since we are close, but it falls to me to do the less rewarding jobs,” he told us. He’d been sent north to gather archers for the coming battle, and had been discovered and arrested by none other than Lord Dresden.
“So you see,” he finished, “I am in the same position as the two of you. Held as a hostage until someone sees fit to pay for my ransom.”
By the time he was finished talking, I had completed my circuit around the room. I hadn’t found a stone out of place, or even a window or slit to shout through. If we were going to get out, it would have to be through the door.
Listening to William’s story, though, I’d started to build a plan to do just that.
An hour later, food–if that’s what you wanted to call it–arrived at the grate in our door. It was little more than gruel, and I had no intention of eating it, but it came with a guard and a torch, and that was what I needed right now.
In the last half hour I’d discovered who William was–Lord William Stanley–and explained to him what I knew about his brother. When he’d heard about the demands Dresden had placed upon his brother, and the fact that they would come at the price of Doc’s life, he’d jumped at the opportunity to join us.
“We must get out and warn them!” he’d muttered, pacing aimlessly. “Warn them both, and stop Dresden before it’s too late!”
“Welcome to my personal mission,” I answered. “And you only know half of it. The question is, how do we get out?”
The appearance of the solider with the food had interrupted us then, and given me a chance to look around. When he first arrived, of course, I drew back, thinking that he was there to take Tatiana or me for the aforementioned torture. He slid the food through the grate, though, and turned to leave without a word, forgetting his torch in his rush.
I dove toward the door after he left and peered out the grate, anxiously studying the hallway outside our cell. There was nothing there to help us: cold, weeping walls, an uneven dirt floor, and the gate that led out to the main hall. As I pressed my forehead to the door, though, wondering how long we had, I felt warmth begin to trickle through my veins. Behind that came the tickle in my throat, and the glowing feeling behind my eyes. I smiled quietly. The stone had found me again. Thank God.
And it had information. We had one hour before the guard came back for me. When he did, his instructions were to make sure that I gave up whatever information I had. Regardless of the cost.
Turning, I strode quickly toward Tatiana, who was looking at the gruel on her plate as though it was a toad with three heads. I kicked it away, knelt down in front of her, and pulled out Doc’s old watch to glance at the time. My heart twinged at the now-familiar feeling of the engraving on the back, but I pushed the emotion away.
“Tatiana, we have a small problem,” I started. “I can’t tell you how or why I know, because you’ll never believe me, but we have an hour–one hour–before that guard comes back to take me away. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back from that trip. That means we have to move fast.”
Tatiana nodded, her face calmly intense. “I believe you, Jason. I assume you have a plan.”
I smiled, grateful for her confidence, and nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do. But it’s going to be a bit … tricky.”
She paused for a moment, thinking, then shot me a quick grin. “I’m game. What do you have in mind?”
“To start with, do you have a full charge on your iPhone?” She’d come equipped with something I’d never seen before–an iPhone charger that worked off solar power. I’d laughed at it before, as something only rich people could afford. Now I hoped she’d been using it, as my own phone had died the night before.
She gave me an odd look in answer. “Yeah, it’s been charging whenever we’ve been in the sun. Why, do you need to make a phone call?”
I ignored her question and answered with one of my own. “Would you mind if I recorded you screaming?”
She nodded again, frowning. “Not a problem. Would you mind letting me in on what you’re up to?”
I outlined my plan quickly, going through the main points and what I hoped would happen. “After that,” I finished, “we run. And hope to God we can find the tunnels I know are down here somewhere.”
Her face broke into a clear smile. “Brilliant,” she answered. “I’m in.”
Suddenly William appeared next to us, glancing from me to Tatiana. “As am I,” he added. “I presume the two of you are planning our daring escape. What do I need to know?”
“Either I’m about to get us out of here, or I’m about to get us killed,” I replied.
“At this point, either choice is acceptable. What can I do to help?” he asked, frowning.
I took a deep breath. “I’m going to do a little bit of magic, but I swear to you that it’s only a trick, and I’m not a sorcerer or a wizard or anything like that.”
William laughed. “You are an odd duck, my friend. But I do not believe in witchcraft, and you have my trust. Magic us away.”
I nodded, went quickly through the plan in my head again, and then glanced at Doc’s watch and did some mental calculations. Finally I looked at Tatiana.
“Okay, we have forty-five minutes. Get ready to scream for me. William, get ready to act terrified and run.”
The jailer and soldier were sitting together on the crumbling staircase when they heard the girl scream. Seconds later, her scream was joined by another.
Both screams cut out as quickly as they’d started, leaving utter silence behind.
The men jumped to their feet and ran toward the back cell, swords and cudgel at the ready. What they saw when they arrived stopped them in their tracks.
“Look upon me, foolish mortals, and witness the depth of my power!” I shouted, my voice as deep as I could make it. I hit ‘play’ on the iPhone and held it up next to my face so that they could see the screen.
The men in front of me slid to a stop, their faces masks of fear and disbelief.
“Witness the woman who wronged me as she lies in the palm of my hand!” I opined loudly, turning the phone in the jailer’s direction to reveal Tatiana’s fifteen-second recording. It was nothing more than her screaming at the top of her lungs, but I knew it was more than these men had ever seen. I was counting on that to be enough. The jailer and the soldier who stood beside him watched, terrified, as Tatiana’s image screamed in anguish and begged for her life.
Suddenly William broke in, playing his part with a ragged, fri
ghtened voice. “Listen to him and do as he says! I saw him place the girl in that box with my own eyes! He is the bastard son of Merlin, the devil himself! Do as he says if you value your life!” He emerged from the shadows with a look of horror and pressed his face against the iron bars, pleading to be let out.
His timing was perfect, and I pushed him roughly to the side. “Open this door, mortal, or I will shrink you down and place you inside my box for all eternity!” I commanded. I turned my flashlight on and projected the thin beam of light through the bars and onto the soldier’s chest.
He didn’t move, though he looked down at the light on his chest and started blubbering in fear.
“Do as I say, or join the girl in the depths of hell!” I screamed. “Open this door, lay your dagger on the ground, and release me!”
The man tore his eyes away from the beam of light on his chest and moved quickly toward the door, reaching out to unlock it. I tumbled out as the door swung open, and both men retreated, doing everything they could to avoid touching me. The flashlight drove them toward the back of the hall, giving William and Tatiana time to get out of the cell and through the door to the stairway. Once my friends were out of the cell, I gestured for both the soldier and jailer to take their place. They obeyed without question.
“You will stay here and allow me to leave,” I muttered, shining the flashlight on one and then the other. “Do not follow me, and I shall allow you to live.”
Both men nodded their assent, their eyes trained on the floor. I paused a moment, wondering if that was really all it was going to take, then turned, retrieved the soldier’s dagger, slammed the cell door shut behind me, and darted out the main door, slamming that shut as well.
I found Tatiana and William waiting on the other side of the main door. Tatiana was beaming, and threw her arms around me, planting a kiss right on my cheek.
“That was terrific!” she blurted out, laughing.
William nodded, smiling like a maniac as well. “I do not know what you did, friend, but I am glad to count you as an ally.”