I furrowed my forehead. Jason had deliberately censored himself about something, but now was not the time to ask him about it. We needed to get right to work. The three of us in the hours before dawn stealthily built up a rough screen of brush between some bushes and two scrub trees that grew very close to the lip of the cage yard. From this hidden place we wanted to watch the general routine for a day and a night before we made any plans. As the sun rose, we saw a line of guards enter the pen escorting beings who carried what looked like stacked trays.
“Feeding time at the Bronx Zoo!” I whispered to the others in a low, angry tone.
Jason nodded in agreement.
“Zoo?” asked Arghen, puzzled.
I sighed. “Never mind. Ask me another time.”
We watched for the rest of the day, and then all that night and all the next day, trying to see what the routine of the place was while we rested up. We talked once the sun went down again.
“It seems like they are being treated well,” Arghen started off. “They were fed breakfast, and I did not note any guards being physically abusive in any way during the morning until Jason took over.”
“They were given lunch, and I didn’t see any nasty things being done. Did you, Lise?” reported Jason.
I shook my head ‘no’.
“They were also fed near sundown, and in the afternoon each was taken out of their cage and had a bucket or two of what I am guessing was water thrown over them which they then scrubbed off with a rag,” I said in turn.
Arghen perked his ears up at that. “What kinds of races did you see?”
“I don’t know,” I replied a little wretchedly. “I wish you’d been awake for that part. You’d have known better.”
“Describe to me the ones that did not look like Surface-elves, and I will see if I can figure out what they are,” he encouraged.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I saw what I think are Elves, Dwarves, and Fauns. But there were two I didn’t know. One looked like a big mountain cat except that it was standing on two legs and wearing pants.”
Arghen shook his head to indicate he didn’t know that one.
I went on, “The other looked like something I would call an angel because she looked kind of like me—well, like a human, anyway—but with large white and gold wings.”
I saw the expression change on Arghen’s face to something that I didn’t recognize as he shuddered.
“Arghen? What’s wrong?”
He was silent a moment, then replied, “Lise, I must apologize to you. Apparently, I have misinterpreted my Goddess’s directive.”
“Huh?” Jason and I said together.
“I have just been god-touched,” he replied distractedly, as if he was concentrating hard on the feeling. “You were not the right ‘unusual for the Sub-realms white and gold’, as I originally thought. When you were talking just now about your white and gold ‘angel’—which I believe may be a Wind-rider—is when I was god-touched.”
“Ooohhh! So you think the one with the wings is who Quiris actually meant?” I asked.
“I find it likely now.”
“So that’s what god-touched looks like?” interrupted Jason. “It’s a good thing you said what it was, Arghen, or I might have thought you were going to go into a seizure or something.”
I took a moment to digest the Under-elf’s words. “So, if we’re going to help you get to your objective, Arghen, would you guys say that the guards change every six hours or so? Because I remember seeing one set before I went to sleep this morning, but I saw different guards when I took over for you this afternoon. And I witnessed a guard change when dinner time came.”
Jason added, “Yeah, there was a change of the guard with the meal at noon. If the schedule stays consistent, we’ll see a change of the guard at midnight, and then dawn.”
“How do you so know much about this kind of thing?” I asked him.
Jason replied, “I always liked reading about war stuff when hanging out in the library to keep warm, and I like playing first-person shooter games at the arcades. So, do either of you have a plan?”
“Why? Do you?” I countered.
“Yeah, sort of. My suggestion is that we do whatever we’re gonna do before the midnight changing of the guard. Then we’ll have more time to get away afterwards.”
Arghen said, “I agree with your choice of time, Jason. We can take a chance that the night shift change will be a looser one. We can use the bodies of the guards to simulate sleeping prisoners, and maybe pile sticks or something under pallets for the rest. That way, if the new shift change does not investigate the cages the ruse will not be discovered until dawn. By that time the captives will be scattered to the four winds.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Bodies of the guards, Arghen? You mean, kill them? Couldn’t we just, I dunno, knock them out and tie them up?”
Arghen said gently to me, “No, we could not. These guards, these slaver guards are the enemies of those captured beings down there. Those same guards will become our enemies and will try to kill us when we start to open the cages down there to fulfill Caelestis’ quest. In order for us to succeed and free all those people, the guards have to die first. Tying them up will do us no good now and quite possibly could harm us later. If just one of the guards sees us clearly enough, someone with some form of magic capable of doing a mindsearch might be able to get a picture from his or her memory. Then that someone, perhaps the very one who created the lookout stations we have spent some of these past nights in, could scry us—that is, search for us with a magical crystal—and make it possible for us to be hunted down for vengeance. And of course those hunting us would not stop at capturing and tying us up in return when they found us. They would kill us.”
I was quiet a few minutes, remembering some of the more unpleasant parts of my fairytales.
I said unwillingly, “I guess you’re right, Arghen. We’ll have to fight them.”
“Umm, no Lise,” interjected Jason, also gently. “We’re going to need to kill them before they know we’re here.”
“Before? You mean, like assassinate them?! An ambush? That’s not right!” I almost cried out, but remembered at the last minute to modulate my words into a whisper-scream.
Arghen said, “No, it is not fair to the guards. But it is fair to the greater number of prisoners that we be successful. This is the way it has to be.”
He turned to Jason. “I do not doubt your bravery, but are you sure you will able to handle this part?”
Jason took a deep breath and gave a single sharp nod of his head.
“Lise?”
I was silent; not wanting to say what was in my heart because intellectually I understood what Arghen was saying. I’d read hundreds of examples like he’d just described in the past in my books. But it didn’t mean I had to like it.
Jason suggested, “Perhaps if you tried to view yourself in a video game of some kind, Lise? If you sort of, I dunno, removed yourself from the violence then maybe it won’t affect you as much?”
I swallowed. “Maybe. I’ll try.”
Arghen put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Lise, we will need your participation. You need to be ready if Jason and I need help. If we are not successful in eliminating the guards, then it will end up a fight since all the guards of the keep would likely come down on us.”
Jason added, “In fact, it might be best to you to stay back so you can come to help either Arghen or me if fighting breaks out. A sweet and simple strategy is always best, or so I’ve read in war history books. It seems that plans almost never last through the first encounter anyway, so the less complicated it is in the beginning, the better.”
Arghen looked at Jason in open approval.
Jason cleared his throat. “So, here’s what I think we should do ….”
CHAPTER 21
I watched as my two companions tied off a pair of ropes and slipped over the edge of the cage yard. They landed in between the pools of lights spilled on
the ground from the guard stations. I thought the plan we all finally agreed on—to kill each guard and prop them up so they looked like they were still on duty to guards further down the wall—was madness. And to complicate matters more, the two males were going to try and time their strikes from either side of the yard to cut down on as many sentry eyes on them at any given time as they could. Arghen was to do the five on the left, and Jason the five on the right. My job was to slide down the rope after the first two guards were ‘taken care of’ to lend a hand in the fighting, should it come to that, and to find the keys that opened the cages. I was to search the bodies of the guards until I found some.
My companions’ reliance on the guards being night-blinded because they were under torches was also madness. As soon as either Arghen or Jason entered the circle of light from a guard station he would be seen by the one they were about to attack. Or maybe spotted by the neighboring guard. Relying on the short sidewalls of the guard shacks to hide them from their targets was irrational. I quietly agonized about whether I wanted the plan to be successful or not, trying to weigh the lives we were going to save against the lives that were going to be lost. Killing—no, assassinating—an intelligent being by stealth seemed terribly wrong to me. Not that I was going to stop Arghen and Jason in any way from doing it.
Which, really, made me just as complicit in the assassinations.
I went to the edge and focused on Arghen as he made his way to the first guard station. I glanced over to Jason’s side and saw that he was at about the same distance away from his target as Arghen was from his. They’d agreed to keep a continuous beat in their heads to try and keep themselves timed with each other while apart. I looked back to where Arghen should be slinking along and hugging the wall. I saw him just entering the radius of light surrounding the first guard station. If either one was seen now it would be ten guards against three; with reinforcements probably coming from the Keep. I bit my lip.
Incredibly Arghen’s guard seemed to be dozing, or at least not paying attention inside his little shack. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t actually witness the strike, but then called myself a coward and opened them again. I was too late though. While I’d dithered, the Under-elf had killed the guard. I watched him prop the body up in the little guard emplacement and move on.
I quickly looked at Jason’s first target, but Jason was already slipping out of the lighted area. I saw a form slumped up against the wall in that station, and knew that was my cue. I went over to one of the ropes and climbed down it.
I absently noted a stir in the nearer cages’ occupants but didn’t pay much attention to it because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss any sign that I was needed. I tried to decide which body to go to first for my part of the plan when my choice was made for me. The guard Arghen had killed started to slide down the wall. Knowing that the plan depended on all bodies looking like they were still alive at least until Arghen and Jason were done, I moved as quickly as I could towards it while imitating how I’d seen Arghen hug the wall. I entered the pool of light and reached the guard, thankfully a little Goblin. Firmly putting my squeamishness aside I picked up the creature and did my best to make it lean against the wall. It obstinately slid down to a sitting position, and I was afraid to stay too long in the light. I quickly patted it down but had no luck finding even a single key. I slipped forward to the next area of darkness to check the next body in Arghen’s wake but didn’t catch a break.
The third one, however, came up aces. I found a whole mess of keys on a thick bronze ring. I snagged them and returned to the back wall to wait for Arghen and Jason. When they came slipping in and out of the pools of light and dark, I knew that despite the odds, we had succeeded. My emotions were still mixed about the whole thing, so I settled for a nod to each when they reached me and showed them the keys I’d found.
“I am presuming those are for the cages. Let us hope so,” Arghen said quietly.
A grin split Jason’s bronze face. “That’s okay, I brought my own.”
He pulled out two of the long fangs he’d taken as souvenirs from the Field Catamount, and Arghen raised his white eyebrows.
So that was why he wanted to take those fangs from the beast, I thought.
“You truly are a person of many talents, Jason,” he said in an approving murmur.
I asked, “What …?”
Jason gave me a one-shoulder shrug. “I can improvise lock picks with these. My training with my gang, remember?”
I did, but I made no reply as we moved to the closest occupied cage and saw a fiery-haired Surface-elf inside waiting for us. In fact, we were the center of attention for all the cages. Word apparently had been spread while Arghen and Jason had done their thing. The Under-elf took the keys from me and started trying them one-by-one in the lock.
“Creepy,” whispered Jason to me, looking at all the eyes pinned on us with no accompanying sound.
I agreed as he moved past Arghen and me to the next occupied cage, fangs in hand, and started working on its lock with them. Arghen was finally successful with the one he was working on, and left the key in the lock so it wouldn’t be tried again.
“Take a weapon and head to the back wall of this area where you will find two ropes. Climb up one and wait for us at the top. Try to remain unseen if you can,” he directed the red-haired female inside.
She shivered briefly as she emerged. I was curious at that, and lagged behind just a little to stick my hand inside the cage she had left. I was surprised to feel a distinct temperature difference—inside the cage was much warmer than outside. Magic, of course. I would have thought that pretty cool if not for the use it had been put to. We worked our way among the cages as fast as we could and freed a variety of beings. One thing I noted about the captives: no two looked the same, like they had been set aside on purpose. I was all too aware that I myself could fit in that ‘unusual’ category here had I been as unlucky as they. As Arghen worked on the lock of a Dwarf’s cage, I looked along the row and saw white wings further down. I caught at Arghen’s elbow just as he unlocked the door and pointed. He looked briefly annoyed, glanced where I indicated, and nodded in understanding. But he didn’t change his pattern and continued with Jason to free the occupied cages down the line.
Two captives in the cages closest to the white wings were a muscular, brown-haired and brown eyed male Surface-elf, and a delicate-looking, green-eyed female Gnome with sandy blond hair. They both thanked us quietly as Arghen and Jason opened their cages, though the Surface-elf gave Arghen a hard, disbelieving look as he did. These two prisoners did not do as instructed like the others had done, but shared a meaningful look between themselves and stayed with us.
I said to them in muted annoyance, “Look, we don’t want you either getting in the way or getting hurt if things go bad. So could you please cooperate with your rescue?”
They shook their heads ‘no’ without really looking at me, and moved along with Arghen to the next cage holding the winged female. I gritted my teeth but couldn’t find it in my heart to insist that they comply, so I tried to ignore them by concentrating on the drop-dead gorgeous being in the cage Arghen was about to set free. With her very close to human-looking fair-skinned face, golden hair, grey eyes, and white and gold wings, she reminded me in particular of one of the angels in the stained glass window of the church near my family’s apartment building in New York. The major difference was in how she dressed—she wore knee-high boots and what reminded me of a high-necked, sleeveless, one piece swimsuit with tight leggings and pockets all over the place instead of a flowing white robe and a halo.
She was on her feet inside the cage and almost vibrating in place, she was so eager to be let out. I saw the look that meant ‘god-touched’ cross Arghen’s face again, and he fumbled the keys as his hands shook more violently than he’d had up in the blind. I noted vaguely that the Surface-elf and the Gnome moved to the other side of the angel’s—no, Wind-rider’s, I corrected myself—cage door just as Arghen fou
nd the right key. She burst out almost as soon as she heard the lock click open, barely waiting for Arghen to finish opening the door. I was astonished to see the Surface-elf and the Gnome rush to seize the Wind-rider’s arms and hold her prisoner again!
Instantly regretting I’d not forced them to follow the rescue plan, I yanked one of them off of her while Jason grabbed the other, outraged on the Wind-rider’s behalf. She did not move as they were pulled off her.
“Sorry,” said the Gnome who’d ended up in Jason’s hands as she looked at the motionless Wind-rider. “I thought you were just going to take straight off and accidentally alert other guards elsewhere in the keep.”
The Surface-elf in my hands looked first at Jason and then craned his neck to look at me with surprise. It flashed through my mind that maybe he thought we were a sub-species of Wind-rider who had no wings, and I wondered if I should make mention of it or not.
He said defensively, “She has done it before, and we did not want it happening again!”
The Wind-rider, though her grey eyes looked in longing up at the sky, simply stretched her arms and body up as far as she could while she slowly opened her wings to their fullest extension. White and gold patterned feathers caught the light of the faint moon above and the torches of the guard stations, making them visible even in the shadowy darkness of the yard. Feathers fluffed a little as the wings seemed to unfold on and on. My jaw dropped open at their final reach—they were probably a good twenty feet or so from tip to tip, and at least five feet tall from the top curve of the wing to the bottommost flight feather.
Jason gave out a low, impressed whistle. I, despite my own awe, saw the expression on Arghen’s face and interpreted it as his having confirmation of being god-touched. The Gnome and Surface-elf, seemingly reassured that the Wind-rider was not going to fly away and that Arghen meant no harm, finally complied with the rescue instructions and disappeared towards the back wall. She folded her wings, and I was amazed to see how much could be compressed into so relatively small of a space on her back.
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