Sarah laughed.
They continued on in silence for another half an hour when they reached the source of the river they had been following. The impressive Zylan River stretched out from west to east as far as the eye could see.
“That sucker has got to be the size of the Mississippi! Wow!!” Steve whistled in amazement. “I sure do hope we don’t have to cross that.”
The Zylan River stretched a mile and a half across at its widest point. The murky water was gently flowing east, prompting Steve to yet again wonder if he might be able to make a raft. Just as quickly as before, he dismissed the idea. A flock of light blue birds were floating on the river and another flock was circling overhead. The road, fortunately, continued east, running alongside the river as well as heading off west.
“So far, so good,” Steve mused. “We have to head east for close to a day. That should bring us to that village. Piece of cake!”
“Can we stop for a bit? My legs are tired.” Sarah sat down on the nearest rock. “Why don’t we have something to eat?”
“Good idea.” Steve set down the knapsack and started rummaging through it. He handed some dried meat to Sarah and took a piece for himself.
“I’ll say this,” Steve said, “I’m really starting to like jerky. Funny thing is, I’m pretty sure this ain’t beef jerky, but at least it ain’t green.” He gave Sarah a lopsided grin.
“Think anyone will ever believe this when we tell this story?”
Steve leaned back against the rock and looked to the east. “As long as we get to tell the story, I really don’t care.”
After a brief rest, they resumed their trek east. Steve turned to Sarah. “Did you hear that we’re in the kingdom of Lentari?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah, that’s what Nilhanu said. She also said that Lentari is ruled by a king and queen.”
“Right. Kornal said that, too. He said they are Cree Entoo and Nigh Kuhlay, or something like that. And Lentari? Where the hell is that? I may not be a geography buff, but I’ve never heard of that country. You?”
“No, I haven’t.” Sarah suddenly stopped walking. “Wait. What were the names of the king and queen again?”
“Ummm, I’m pretty sure he said ‘Cree Entoo and Nigh Kuhlay’. Maybe he said ‘Kallay’. I don’t know. Why?”
“Hon, give me the journal.”
Steve pulled the journal from his pocket and passed it to his wife. Sarah opened it to the first page and gasped.
“Sweetie! Look! Remember that inscription we couldn’t read? Look at it now!”
Steve came up behind his wife and looked over her shoulder at the journal. In an elegant hand were the following words:
Return to R’Tal whenever ye or yer friends would like to visit– Kri’Entu & Ny’Callé
“What the hell? This just magically appears in English now?”
Sarah smirked at her husband. “Magically, huh?”
Steve grunted, electing not to comment.
Sarah pointed at the names. “Look! Kree Entoo and Nigh Calay. Do you know what this means?”
“I’ll say! R’Tal! That’s where the king and queen live. Hon, I think ‘Nayan’ refers to the queen! That means that my grandparents knew the king and queen!” Steve thought a moment. “I would say this confirms our theory. Since their names are in my grandparents’ journal, and there appears to be an open invitation to return, then clearly they have come here before and obviously had a way to return home.” He grabbed Sarah’s shoulders. “Babe, this is our proof!”
Sarah was clapping her hands excitedly. “Oh, YES!! Just what I wanted to hear! Okay, so the plan is now to get to R’Tal. We need to seek an audience with the king and queen. They have got to be able to get us home.”
Encouraged, they hurried back to the enchanted road and headed east once more. As they rounded a gentle bend in the path, neither husband nor wife noticed a faint shimmering over the road.
Sarah was excited. “Hon, let me see that journal again. Yes, see? The entry makes it sound like your grandparents were either highly respected or else held positions of high status in the court. Might make sense why they were always gone. Maybe they had important work here.”
“I can buy that, I guess. But to prevent them from coming back home to spend time with us? That would suggest that the king and queen are a couple of hard-asses.”
“I’m just saying that there is obviously more going on here than we originally thought, so I think we ought to hold judgment until we get all the facts, ‘k?”
Steve nodded. “That’s fair.”
Another hour passed by, finding Steve and Sarah in high spirits. That came to a screeching halt, however, when the path they had been following unexpectedly vanished, leaving them in the middle of an open glade. Without realizing it, they had wandered well away from the river. No signs of their enchanted path or the mighty river they had been following were anywhere to be found.
“Ummm, what just happened here? Where the hell did the path go?” Steve was looking around worriedly.
Having been lectured very firmly by Kornal about straying from the path, neither Steve nor Sarah had taken a step in any direction.
“The path is right where ye left it, miscreant. About three leagues back.”
The voice sounded harsh and mean, and meant business. It belonged to a small, wiry man wearing rags and brandishing a wicked-looking dagger. He pointed it at Steve.
“I must say that no one has fallen for my path trick in quite some time.”
Sarah moved closer to Steve and whispered, “What do we do?”
“Play it safe. Don’t provoke him.”
The thief was looking them over. “So what dweo I have here? Yer money pouches. Toss ‘em over. Now.”
Steve stepped forward. “I know you won’t believe this, but we don’t have any money. We are just a couple of travelers, on our way to Donlari. We don’t have anything of value.”
The brazen thief walked over to Steve, brandishing his knife. “Aye, right you are. I do not believe ye. Toss over that pack. Turn out yer pockets.”
Steve reluctantly handed the pack to the thief, who snatched it out of his hand. He upended the contents on the ground, kicking around the packages of dried meat and several small leather pouches.
“So ye are playing games with me. Ye are hiding yer money. Not smart. Hand it over now and ye just might walk away from this.”
It was then that the bandit caught sight of Sarah’s purse. “I’d be passing that over, girl. Ye don’ want to be trying anything stupid.”
Sarah was stuck. She really didn’t want to give the thief her purse, but she didn’t want Steve to attempt anything heroic, either. It wasn’t worth it. Oh, wait! The gold grif and the jorii were in her change purse! If the jorii was as powerful as Kornal said it was, it would be catastrophic to give it to someone like this! What was she going to do?
Before she could decide, however, the thief made the decision for her. Quick as a fox, he leaned forward and snatched the purse off of her shoulder. After a couple of quick fumbles with the zipper, the contents of her purse joined the contents of their pack on the ground.
The robber saw the shiny metal cylinder of her lipstick and snatched that off the ground, tucking it into an inside pocket. Her car keys, work keys, and package of Juicy Fruit were swept aside. The thief found her smaller change purse, opened it, and dumped the contents on the ground as well. Sarah held her breath. Maybe he wouldn’t find them! Wait a minute. Where were they? Sarah peered at the ground. Both the small sphere and the gold coin were nowhere to be found.
The bandit shouted with triumph as he eyed the small pile of change on the ground. He grabbed a double handful of American coins and thrust it into another pocket.
“I knew ye were not empty-handed. Not very smart, hiding ‘em with the lady.” He then pulled out a bundle of rope and tied both Steve and Sarah’s hands together. Throwing their possessions back into the pack, the wily thief then made Steve hoist the pack onto his back and
carry it along with them.
For several hours they marched in silence as their captor led them through thick brambles of dry, scratchy brush. They were following a trail all right, Steve noted, but this clearly wasn’t an enchanted one. They were forced to wade through several small, shallow streams until they finally came upon a clearing which had a small cottage in serious need of repairs.
The diminutive thief led them inside the foul-smelling hut, pushing them into the far recesses of the shanty to what appeared to be a trap door in the floor. Turning around, he leered evilly at his prizes.
“It ain’t that cozy, but I guarantee ye will be safe and sound.” The thief pulled back the locking bracket and opened his cellar door. “Naught but stone walls. Ye will not be escaping from there, rest assured.” He pushed Steve and Sarah down the stairs.
Sarah had tears in her eyes. “What are you going to do with us? Why are you doing this?”
“The two of ye will fetch a handsome price as slaves. Preparations must be made. I should not be gone for more than a couple o’ days.”
“You can at least leave us food and water,” Steve demanded.
“Ye can have yer pack, and that be all ye get.”
With that, the cellar door was closed with a loud bang. The locking bracket was shoved back through, and the last thing they heard was the laugh of their captor.
Chapter 4 – Prisoners
The root cellar stunk of moldy earth. There was several empty burlap sacks scattered throughout their prison, along with a couple of empty, wooden crates. Several rotting bales of straw were strewn against the far, northern wall. What little light there was came through several small chinks in the stones of the foundation of the house.
Sarah and Steve were standing in the center of the room. The tiny bit of light they had was beginning to fade. Dusk was settling in. Steve was glancing around, trying to take in as much as possible before all the light vanished completely. He held Sarah close as she sobbed quietly into his shoulder.
“Hey, we’ll be all right.” Steve was speaking softly to her. “We’ll get out of this.”
“How? There’s no one here to help us.” She sniffed loudly. “We’re lost on some unknown world where no one knows we’re here, about to be sold into slavery. How the hell are we possibly going to be alright?”
“Sweetie, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Mr. Hospitality there specifically said he wouldn’t be back for at least two days. I sure as hell don’t plan on being here when he returns.”
With that Steve straightened up and started working feverishly on his bonds, trying to wriggle his wrists free. Sarah decided to look around for anything that might help her. While Steve struggled with his ropes Sarah started feeling around the straw strewn about the floor.
There’s got to be something here that we can use, Sarah thought. A shard of glass, a sharp piece of metal, anything!
Sadly, the only things she discovered were a decaying lump of cheese, a few scraps of rope, and some shreds of burlap.
“So what happened?” Steve wondered. “We didn’t wander off the road. How did we end up following some fake path?”
“He mentioned that he hasn’t seen anyone fall for his ‘path trick’ in quite some time. Does that mean he somehow tricked us to follow a fork on the road?”
Steve shook his head. “We didn’t come across any forks in the road. We would have remembered.”
“Illusion. He had to have covered up the real path and projected an image of a different path that led away.” Sarah looked at her husband, who was now trying to chew his way through the ropes. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”
Steve stopped chewing and smiled sheepishly at his wife. “Hey, we’re newbies here. How were we supposed to know that that type of thing could even be done?”
“So now that we know he tricked us, how does that help us now?”
Steve sighed. “It doesn’t. What it means is that we have to be extremely careful here. We could walk right into the den of some monster if we’re not cautious.”
Steve continued biting and chewing at his ropes. That bastard knew how to tie a knot, that’s for certain. He wasn’t sure what these ropes were made out of, but so far, they were resisting all his efforts of escaping. Maybe he could try loosening a couple of knots with his teeth instead. Hmm, that one looks like it’s on top, maybe that one first.
Sarah, meanwhile, had found a small scrap of metal and was gently feeling its sides to see if any had a sharp enough edge to cut her ropes. Nope, doesn’t feel like it. Smooth on all sides. Dammit! There had to be another scrap somewhere. If only these ropes weren’t so tight, or else she had skinnier wrists.
Her knees were hurting after being on them for the last couple of minutes, so she started to stand, only to stumble and land back down on them. Hard.
“Ouch!!”
“Babe! Are you okay? What happened?” Steve hurried over to help his wife up. Sarah grabbed a hold of her husband’s outstretched hands and hoisted herself up.
“Yeah, I think I was sitting on my foot. It fell asleep. I’m okay.” Sarah flexed her arms, restoring some circulation back into her fingers. Was it her imagination? Did the ropes feel like they were loosening up a bit?
She looked over at Steve, who had resumed picking at his bound hands with his teeth. She decided to hold off mentioning anything just yet. After struggling for another moment or two, much to her surprise, her left arm came free. The ropes slid down her right arm and plopped onto the floor.
Steve, intent on making good his claim to earn his freedom, was still focusing on getting at least one knot untied.
Sarah walked over to her husband. “Can I give you a hand with that?” And without waiting for an answer, dove into the many knots holding Steve’s hands tightly together.
“What the…” Steve blinked. “How did you get free? You were tied up just a couple of minutes ago.”
“It must have been when I fell down. My ropes felt loose and I was able to pull an arm out.”
“Way to go!!” Steve remained motionless while Sarah worked on the ropes. Her small, delicate fingers made short work of the hastily tied knots.
In just a matter of minutes, both former prisoners were rubbing their wrists, looking around in the fading light.
“Now, let me take a look at that door.” Steve strode over to the ladder leading up. “There must be some way to get that thing open.”
The rickety wooden ladder groaned under his weight as he ran his hands over the heavy wooden door fastened to the ceiling. The bolt to open the door, however, was on the other side.
Steve pondered for a moment. Well, maybe the hinges? No, that’s not gonna work. I don’t even see any hinges. Maybe I can move it.
He pressed his right shoulder against the trapdoor, braced his feet on the ladder, and heaved.
C-r-a-c-k!!
The wooden rung he was standing on gave way, dropping him unceremoniously down to the next rung, which didn’t like having two hundred fifty pounds suddenly appearing on it either, so it broke as well, plummeting him down to the next rung and so on.
“Steve! Are you alright?” Sarah hurried over to where he was sprawled out on the floor. She tried fanning the air to get the dust out of her face. “What happened?”
Steve coughed and stood up. He brushed off his clothes and made an attempt at reclaiming some dignity. He scowled at the remains of the ladder.
“Piece of crap ladder. Damn thing is made out of twigs. No wonder it wouldn’t hold.”
“So now we can’t reach the door.” Sarah threw up her hands in frustration. “This is great. Just great! This just keeps getting better and better!!”
Steve knew he had to calm his wife down. Somehow. One can’t project a sense of calm if one didn’t feel calm himself. He took a deep breath.
“Okay, honey, look at it this way. The lock for that door is on the top-side. There isn’t any way to get that thing open from down here. So we’ll just have to find anoth
er way out.”
Sarah bristled with anger. How can he remain so calm? Didn’t he realize they were in a serious predicament?
“Another way out? How?? There are no more doors and in case you hadn’t noticed, there are no windows, either.”
Steve sat down on one of the wooden crates and motioned Sarah to join him. Reluctantly, she sat. She looked at her husband, her eyes filling.
“What are we gonna do, sweetie? We’re trapped in here!”
“First things first, let’s calm down. That asshole said he wouldn’t be back for at least two days. So that gives us some time to think.”
“Time to think? About what? About not panicking?”
Steve took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, right now we need to start brainstorming. How can we get out of here? Can we use that jorii thingamajig?”
Sarah sadly shook her head. “It’s not there. I put it, the crystal, and that gold coin in my change purse. When he took my purse, he upended everything on the ground. I didn’t see it. And you’ve seen that change purse. It’s small. They’re gone.”
“Where’s your purse now? Maybe it just fell down into the bottom. That sort of thing happens all the time to you.”
Sarah was losing patience. It was her favorite purse. She knew it a lot better than he did, and she knew exactly where the missing items were placed: the small change purse. Besides, she had watched as the contents were dumped to the ground. They were missing. Period.
Steve frowned as she scowled at him. If they weren’t there, then what did that mean? They were robbed? Was that why Kornal and Nilhanu offered to give them what money they had? Did they figure that they could sell the jorii? No, wait. That couldn’t be it. He had watched Sarah put the items from the safe back into her purse. Not only that, he didn’t even remember any of their hosts so much as touching their marble. So if the robber didn’t find it, then it must be somewhere in that purse.
“Honey, now please don’t get mad, but would you mind if I looked?”
Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy Page 7