by Obert Skye
Clover exhaled. In his head he counted to thirty before moving again. He passed through the round room and into what appeared to be a dining hall. The room was filled with long tables on the floor and thick tapestries on the walls. A skeleton with rope around its body and arms hung near one of the windows.
The next hallway was wide and lit with massive candles that reached from the floor halfway up the walls. Clover walked down the middle of the hallway looking at the finish on the floor.
He stopped, and his leaflike ears wriggled as his eyes focused on the ground. From his viewpoint and under the candlelight, a small tile ten feet in front of him appeared to be suspiciously less polished than the others. Clover reached into his void and pulled out a small green marble. He tossed it carefully down the hall in the direction of the suspicious tile. The marble clicked and rolled slowly towards its target. Clover held his breath, watching closely. The marble slowed, coming to a stop on the edge of the tile.
“Well, that was—”
Clover’s complaining was cut short by the snap of granite and three spiked poles shooting up from the floor. If the marble had been a person, he or she would have ended up impaled and done for.
“Booby trap,” Clover whispered again.
The sound of footsteps running closer prompted Clover to move from the center of the hallway to the wall. He stood there shaking as two boors studied the trap that had sprung up. They grunted a few times and then retreated.
Clover wanted to run, but he was now suspicious of every surface. He tiptoed down the side of the hall, taking every step cautiously.
“It’s going to take me forever to search this place,” he said.
Clover carefully left the hallway. He stopped and took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. He looked at the floor and shivered.
Footsteps clicked and scraped from down a hall to the right of him. Clover considered going to check them out, but he was persuaded to act differently by the sound of voices coming from a completely different direction. One of the voices sounded feminine and the other sounded just the opposite of that. Despite the variances both voices were argumentative, terse, and as tight as a wire supporting the weight of all sorrow and sadness combined.
Clover crept along the wall, anxiously moving toward the fight.
When he reached a staircase, the voices were clearer and angrier. He ascended the steps with care, throwing sticks and pebbles ahead of himself to make sure things were safe to tiptoe on. His ears burned beneath the hood of his robe and his small heart beat like a rubber ball against a wooden paddle.
Two biggish boors came down the stairs, brushing right past him. One boor was fatter than the other, but neither appeared to have much going on in their heads.
At the top of the stairs the room opened up to a grand hall. The walls were lined with statues and the floor was covered with thick, tightly woven rugs and heavy wooden furniture. At the far end of the hall was a gaudy gold throne. Sitting on the tacky throne was a man, and in front of that man were a handful of boors. Two of the boors were holding the arms of a woman as she argued. The room was so long that Clover couldn’t clearly see if the woman was Eve or not.
Clover hopped up on one of the pictures hanging on the wall. He climbed it as high as it went and then jumped one picture over. He was closer now, but he still couldn’t make out the woman. He had also run out of paintings to cling to.
Clover returned to the floor and nervously wove his way through the furniture, trying hard not to make any noise or touch anything loaded. He slipped under a table near a fat chair that was covered in fur. The woman and man were arguing about death and how he felt it was all she was owed.
“I won’t beg for mercy,” the woman said.
“It wouldn’t help if you did,” the man replied. “I’m not known for my compassion.”
Clover shivered and the table he was under rattled slightly. The boors turned to look in his direction. Clover kept still, holding his breath.
“What was that?” the man on the throne asked.
Two lanky boors began to walk toward Clover. As they moved, Clover could clearly see woman and man.
“Eve . . .” he hissed, startled.
The boors walked straight toward the sound of Clover’s voice. Not wishing to run wild in a spring-loaded room, Clover hopped up onto the seat of the furry chair next to him.
He would have been wise to run off wildly.
The furry seat collapsed like a net, closing in on him and dragging him down into the chair. The chair was a decoy that sat over a large hole, and any who made the mistake of sitting on it dropped down a long chute and into the dungeon below the castle.
Clover screamed as he dropped three floors. When he shot out the end of the chute, his small body slammed against the ground. All the wind in him popped out through his mouth, creating a tremendous burp.
Clover sat up slowly, rubbing his back and head. He looked up, but all he could see was the long, dark chute he had just dropped from. The cage he was in had widely spaced bars, but the area between the bars was covered with a steel mesh, making it impossible for anything bigger than a mouse to escape.
“Uh-oh,” Clover worried. “I could be in trouble.”
It was a fairly accurate assessment.
Chapter Thirteen
Give Me a . . . Boost
Waiting can be very rewarding. Sure, most of us want everything at this exact moment, but there is something amazing about the wait. Presents are better, food tastes sweeter, and that fish you reel in is that much more rewarding after a good long wait. I’m not sure I would have appreciated the lecture a certain king gave me about impatience if it had not come right after a weeklong wait in the trunk of a car.
Geth understood waiting. As a lithen, and as an ardent supporter of fate, he had found himself having to wait many times in his life. He’d had to wait for Leven as a tree—it had taken years, but the reward was eventually the restoration of Foo. As a child he’d had to wait for his mother to heal as she mourned the death of his father. (It is a custom for lithens to remove themselves from society during mourning so that those they love don’t see any sign of sadness or remorse.) And years ago Geth had waited in the Swollen Forest for weeks only to eventually receive news that his brother, Zale, had been killed and that his own fate was to be cast into a seed.
Geth had survived all of those waiting periods, but now as he sat between the tall purple stalks his heart seemed jumpy and considerably less lithen-like than it used to be. He slept for a few hours, spent some time thinking about Phoebe, messed around with his new sword, ate some of the fruit off the stalks, and tried hard to patiently wait it out.
“Ezra’s messed me up,” Geth said to himself, staring out at the tall stone wall and the gatehouse. “I used to be able to sit still for days.”
The scent of flowers and honey drifted around Geth’s nose. He breathed in and pushed back his hair while looking.
“Clover?” Geth whispered. “Is that you?
There was no answer. Geth breathed in again.
“Are you wearing perfume?”
“Who are you?” a soft voice echoed back.
Geth looked though the stalks of purple, trying to see who was talking. “My name’s Geth,” he finally said.
A woman no taller than five feet stepped out from behind the growth. She wore a tiny pink dress and a short gray jacket over her shoulders. Her hair was pulled back and pinned up on her head. Her skin was pink with freckles on the spine of her nose and also on her long, willowy arms. She moved gracefully, walking on little feet that were covered in what looked to be pink bits of leather. Her eyes were brown and her lips were the color of plums. She wore no smile, but her head was tilted in a gesture of interest.
“Geth?” she asked in a hushed voice. “You are Geth?”
> Other voices whispered like rising steam throughout the field. Geth nodded and smiled in a way that he knew Phoebe would enjoy.
“Is it true?” the woman argued softly. “I don’t believe it.”
“Really?” Geth asked. “Because I was sort of brought here by someone dressed similar to you.”
“What was her name?” the woman quizzed Geth.
“Eve.”
The woman’s brown eyes grew smaller and her lips looked as if they couldn’t decide whether to frown or smile.
“Will you come with me?” she asked. “Away from the wall and the ears that may be listening from behind it.”
“Sure,” Geth said, seeing no reason why he shouldn’t wait out his time with someone besides himself.
The woman walked slowly through the stalks, not making a sound. Geth followed two steps behind her. Once they were away from the wall, she began to talk and walk at the same time.
“My name is Anna,” she said. “I am one of those who live above ground.”
“Great,” Geth said, still following. “So you know Eve?”
“Of course,” Anna replied.
“I was wondering . . .”
Anna stopped abruptly and turned around to face Geth. He had to halt quickly to avoid slamming into her.
“Forgive me,” Anna apologized.
“For what?”
“Payt is clever,” she replied. “We must make certain you are who you say you are.”
“Okay,” Geth said slowly. “But I’m not sure how I can prove it.”
“Neither are we,” Anna informed him. “Do you like the scent of flowers?”
“I suppose it depends on the flower,” Geth answered.
“Smell this,” Anna said, holding up a small red stone.
Geth took the stone and looked closely at it. It was about the size of a large pill with smooth edges and a rough top. He held it in his palm.
“Thanks?” Geth tried.
“Smell it,” Anna prompted.
Geth held the stone up to his nose and breathed in. Before he could breathe out, his body collapsed and he fell to the ground in a heap of lithen bones and skin.
Twenty minutes later Geth awoke in the middle of a small clearing completely surrounded by tall, bushy plants. The plants had been trampled down to make a space for people to gather. Geth was on the ground leaning against a woman with green eyes and a dusty white lab coat. She had Geth in her arms and appeared to be in no hurry to let go.
Standing two feet away from Geth was Anna. Behind her were scores of other women and girls. Some of the girls were wearing small pink dresses. Some were wearing worn-out uniforms and faded outfits. Two women were wearing suits and glasses and had coifed hair. All of the women were staring at Geth as if he were something they wanted to buy but weren’t sure they could afford.
“Where am I?” Geth asked, sitting up and pulling away from the woman holding him.
“Just so you know,” Anna said, “you should never smell something someone you don’t know asks you to. You were lucky it was just a swoon stone and not a death pebble.”
“Good advice,” Geth agreed.
“Have you eaten?” Anna asked.
“I tried out some of the purple stuff on the stalks,” Geth said.
“Yuck,” Anna said. “Witt is no good unless cooked properly. You should eat something else.”
A girl wearing a faded cheerleading outfit stepped up and handed Geth a yellow plate with colorful food on it.
“Thanks,” Geth said, smiling.
Half the crowd swooned.
“So, who are you?” Geth asked, taking a bite of bread and cheese covered in a thick red sauce.
“We are Those Who Hide,” Anna said dramatically, twirling.
“Wow,” Geth replied, marveling over the taste of what he was eating.
“No need to be sarcastic,” Anna said, bothered. “I’m aware that it’s not as cool a name as Stone Holders. But we don’t see the need to waste time arguing over what we should be called.”
“I wasn’t arguing,” one of the coifed women said. “‘Above Ground Gals’ was just a suggestion.”
Anna held up her hand to silence Coifed Hair. The woman smiled like a diplomat and stepped back.
“Eve was one of us,” Anna admitted. “She was foolish to go looking for you. But there isn’t a single person here who could have stopped her. After she was sold the directions to get out, she left without saying a word to any of us.”
“Sold the directions?” Geth asked, dipping a piece of fruit into some caramel-looking goo on his plate.
“There are some beings who live in the squalid ponds by the border,” Anna answered. “It is believed that they know how to exit Zendor. Of course, no one in her right mind would leave Zendor for Foo. The few who have tried have perished within days. We are not meant to live elsewhere.”
“So you live here?” Geth asked, looking around and chewing. “In these fields?”
“There are thousands of us,” Anna reported. “We have learned to hide in the crops and away from the boors. They are too stupid to search for us, so if they don’t see us we are safe. We refuse to live our days underground like the Stone Holders. At night we do carry stones, but in the day we hide in the crops and live in the light.”
“So you were all once dreams?” Geth asked.
“Yes,” the woman in the lab coat said. “I know of no life before Zendor.”
“None of us do,” Anna explained. “We were the strongly focused dreams of some in Reality. Their persistent dreaming brought us into existence. There are a few among us who were human and snatched here. But humans are usually the first to get tired of our situation and put up a fight. Once they step from the fields in the daylight, they are snared by the boors and taken to Payt. His words steal their wills, and in a couple of days the very people we once sheltered are hiding behind trees waiting to capture us.”
“It’s horrible,” a tall, dark-haired girl standing next to Anna said. “Very sad.”
“So what do we do now?” Geth asked.
“What do you mean?” Anna replied.
“We need to save Eve,” Geth told them.
“That’s not going to happen,” Anna insisted. “No way. Eve was taken into Finis early this morning.”
“So she’s in there now?” Geth asked.
Anna nodded. “They brought her in shortly before they took that friend of yours.”
“Kevin,” Geth said. “What will they do to him?”
“He’ll be taken to Payt,” Anna informed him. “Payt will force him to tell him all about you, and then your friend will most likely be turned into a boor. Eve, on the other hand, will be killed.”
“And you’re not going to do anything?” Geth asked, baffled.
All of the women looked at each other and shrugged.
“What’s there to do?” a woman in a tracksuit asked. “Didn’t you hear what Anna said? If we walk out of the fields we’ll be captured, no matter how fast we run.”
“This is no way to exist,” Geth said urgently. “Someone needs to fight back.”
“That’s what Eve always said,” Anna whispered sadly. “Look what it got her.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Geth asked, his inner Ezra boiling. “You see defeat. Why? I see hope.”
“Where?” the woman in the dusty lab coat asked. “She was supposed to be harvesting in the far field today.”
“He doesn’t mean Hope,” Anna said, disgusted. “He’s talking about believing like Eve did—wishing on the made-up prophecy of the return of the lithens. Well, you know what I believe? I believe that if it were not for the strong dreams of a girl named Anna in Reality, I wouldn’t even be alive. It might not be perfect here, but I a
m living and that is enough.”
“Listen,” Geth said calmly after taking a drink of some sour juice, “I don’t want to argue with you about what living really is, but this isn’t it.”
“You sound just like the father none of us are sure we’ve ever had,” Anna observed. “Look, we’re doing just fine.”
“Okay,” Geth consented. “But I’m going after Eve. It appears she was the only one with her head on correctly.”
“Is my head not on correctly?” a girl in brown stirrup pants and a white shirt asked.
“Your head’s fine,” Anna said, her cheeks turning red with embarrassment over her fellow group members.
“Thanks for the food,” Geth said, setting his plate aside. “But how do I get back to the wall?”
“Do you even know what’s behind that wall?” Anna asked.
“A city,” Geth answered.
“Yes,” Anna nodded. “The empty city of Finis, and in the middle of it sits the castle Payt had constructed for his glory.”
“Good to know,” Geth said. “So there’s an empty city and then the castle. I guess the boors still freeze in the dark.”
“Of course,” Anna answered. “But there is something that lives in Finis that still moves in the darkness.”
“Really?” Geth said intrigued. “What is it?”
“No one has ever returned to report,” Anna said sadly. “But there have been witnesses to the noise and destruction it causes, and it is loyal to Payt. They call it the Tangle.”
“Is it an animal?” Geth asked.
“Maybe,” Anna shrugged. “I intend to never know.”
“I’d better go,” Geth said urgently.
“You can’t win,” Anna insisted. “You can go back to the wall, but you will be caught, and in the future we will be hiding from you.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Geth said confidently. “I’m not planning to get caught, and if by some chance I do, it’s going to be while I’m causing so much trouble for Payt that he’ll have to get rid of me for good.”