Haven Lost

by Josh de Lioncourt

“I won’t breathe a word,” Emily said, and she gave him a wink. He blushed again and as he turned back to the door, Emily caught a glimpse of Celine raising her hand to hide a smirk. Emily scowled at her. She thought Matthew was a sweet boy, and she felt guilty lying to him. Still, what choice did she have?

  She heard a click and a whir, and the doors slid smoothly open.

  Celine hurried up the steps, and, together, she and Emily stepped inside.

  Emily turned back to face Matthew through the open doors. “Thanks, Matthew. I owe you one.”

  He smiled at her bashfully and seemed on the verge of saying something more, but the doors closed with a whoosh of air, hiding him from sight.

  Another pang of guilt gnawed at her, and Emily made a silent vow to make it up to him if she ever had the chance.

  She turned away from the doors and faced the total darkness. Without the moonlight, it was all that remained.

  “’Ow are we goin’ to know where to go?” Celine whispered. “I can’t see a bleedin’ thing.”

  Emily didn’t reply. She’d hoped—even expected—that one of those candle-bearing phantoms would appear and light their way, but that, like the doors, would be just too damn easy.

  Still, the layout of the tower was not complicated. She thought she could find her way roughly to where the steps led down to the boy’s prison. She’d always had a keen sense of location. It was part of what made her such a good hockey player. Of course, the last time she’d had that very same thought, she’d stumbled over a bunch of funhouse mirrors and found herself in a boat in another world, and she still didn’t have much of an idea about where the hell she was, did she?

  With a wry smile, she reached out for Celine, guided the girl’s hands to her shoulders, and then began moving slowly deeper into the tower.

  With deliberate care, she stepped forward, feeling the way with her feet and her hands outstretched before her. One step…two steps…three…

  She found the wall and followed it to the arch that led into the tower’s main corridor. So far, so good.

  As she led Celine into the passage beyond, a soft rustling filled the air above their heads. It sounded like wind in the leaves of a towering tree, only they were indoors now, and there was no wind. Emily shuddered.

  She moved forward, following the twists and turns with slow, methodical movements. As they made their way deeper into the tower, pine needles crunched beneath their feet. The break in the wall with the stairs leading down had not been far from the entrance, though she had been pretty fucked up at the time. Could she trust her memory?

  The perfume of lavender, jasmine, and roses came to her then, and her stomach clenched with sudden fear.

  “Try not to breathe,” she whispered. She tried to follow her own advice, though she wasn’t sure it would do any good.

  From somewhere up ahead, they heard a low creaking sound.

  “I don’t like this, Em,” Celine almost moaned.

  “Shhh…”

  Emily’s right hand slid from the wall and out into empty space. She stopped, turned, and explored the floor ahead of her with her foot. She felt a step down. This had to be it.

  “Stairs,” she whispered over her shoulder. “Going down.”

  The cloying scents clawed at her throat, and she felt a little dizzy, though whether that was from the strange intoxication of Marianne’s powers or a result of her attempts to breathe as little as possible, she couldn’t be sure. She started down the stairs, moving slowly and silently in the dark. She stopped on each step and felt forward for the next with her foot before going on. The scent of flowers grew fainter as they traveled downward.

  When they finally reached the bottom, she paused to rest.

  “Almost there,” Emily whispered. “We just have to follow this corridor and…”

  A light blazed before them. It seemed so bright in the dark that it could have been a sun. Emily raised a hand to shield her eyes, blinking against the glare.

  It was another candle, hovering in the air not six inches from her nose. It bobbed gently as the unseen carrier bowed, and Emily let out a breath.

  “I really don’t like this,” Celine said again. “It’s too quiet. Like a graveyard, ’tis.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  Emily started forward again, following the concentric circles of the passageway. She had the irresistible feeling that they were rats burrowing deeper into the sewers of ancient Rome. The candle followed obediently alongside them, apparently unperturbed by their presence.

  When they came to the cell, sealed by its net of thorned vines, the boy was waiting for them. He stood just inside, watching patiently through the vines as though he’d known they were coming.

  Emily stopped a few feet away, examining him in the gloom. He was more or less as she’d left him. There were scabs on his arms and face now, perhaps the result of getting too close to the vines that held him captive. Wetness glistened beneath his eyes, making the dark circles there gleam in the candlelight. He offered her a small, sad smile.

  Beside her, Celine took in the boy’s sorry countenance, then turned her face to Emily.

  “Yeh’re right, Em. He shouldn’t be ’ere. I’m sorry I doubted yeh.”

  Emily took another step closer. “I came for you,” she said to the boy. “Like I said I would.” The boy only stared at her. It was impossible to tell if he understood.

  “Step back, okay?” she said, drawing her sword. She wasn’t sure if it was her words or the sight of the gleaming blade that did the trick, but in either case, he took a few stumbling steps backward and leaned against the far wall of his cell, never taking his eyes from hers.

  She wanted to be quick. She had no idea if this world had some kind of mystical equivalent of closed-circuit cameras or security alarms, but she wanted to get out of here as fast as possible, just in case.

  “Be ready to run,” she told Celine, who nodded.

  She planted her feet and swung the sword. Its blade flashed in the flickering candlelight.

  The vines came to life and surged toward her with the swiftness of vipers. They lashed out, their thorns twitching, and she raised one gauntleted arm to shield her face as she hacked on. Some of the thorns caught in the fine links that comprised her armor, and she twisted her body and snapped them from the tendrils. The air was filled with the sounds of rustling flora and her harsh gasps.

  She manage to thrust her sword arm through the hole she’d made. Vines whipped around her, clawing blindly at bare flesh and armor. A set of thorns raked the side of her face, and she felt thin rivulets of warm blood trickle down her neck. She reversed her swing and severed a swath of the hellacious greenery from where it sprouted from the wall.

  More vines sliced through the air, wrapping around her legs. She twisted, trying to free herself, but their strength was unbelievable. Tendrils encircled her ankles…her calves…sharp thorns finding weak places in the chain mail and punching through the leather beneath. Blood flowed.

  She twisted again, slicing more vines away from the wall, and as they fell, she saw them turn brown and brittle where they parted from the stones. That was the weak point. She swung again and again, but more of the hateful things were wrapping themselves around her, creeping up her thighs and encasing her waist in fiery agony.

  She was turning again in another futile effort to free herself, when she saw Celine spring forward.

  “No!” Emily shouted, but Celine ignored her.

  With a look of fierce determination across her diminutive features, Celine snatched the candle from where it continued to float sedately in the air and hurtled toward Emily. She knelt and touched the flame to the brown and brittle portions of the vines that Emily had severed from the wall, and they went up like dry kindling.

  All at once, the vines released her. A chorus of shrill and piercing bat-like cries filled the air, driving spikes of pain into her ears. The sound was horrifying.

  The flames spread rapidly through the vines as
Celine set more of the dying greenery ablaze. The chorus of screeches grew louder, reverberating deafeningly down the corridor.

  So much for stealth.

  Emily grabbed the back of Celine’s tunic and yanked her away from the conflagration. The corridor was now as bright as day, and the entrance to the cell was a wall of flames. Gone was even the merest trace of the cloying perfume of flowers, replaced with the acrid tang of burning brush.

  How was it that the knowing chose its moments? Emily didn’t know, but when the old familiar sensations began to fill her body, she embraced them. The feeling swept through her, filling every extremity with hot, liquid pleasure, and she gave in to its demands with fearsome joy.

  She dropped her sword and dove through the flames.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She hit the floor of the cell hard and rolled toward the boy. The contents of her backpack dug into her spine as the ceiling of the cell came into view, only to be replaced an instant later by the dirty stone floor again. She scrambled to her feet before the boy and glanced back over her shoulder, peering through the sudden gloom.

  Behind her, the flames had entirely winked out of existence. Only a few flecks of ash drifted lazily down to the floor in the light of the candle that Celine still clutched in her hand. The vines were gone. Whatever spell had created them seemed to have been broken once Emily had crossed the threshold, and without fuel to burn, the flames had died. The horrible screeching had ceased as well, and the last reverberations of its shrill cry faded away to nothing. How much time did they have before someone came to investigate? Not long, she guessed.

  She turned back to the boy and approached him slowly. He watched her with a wary sort of fascination.

  “We need to go,” she told him, speaking softly. “We need to hurry. Can you understand me?”

  He only stared at her, and Emily’s heart sank. She’d hoped that his plea for help had meant she’d be able to communicate with him, even if only in simple terms.

  The boy nodded.

  Relieved, she reached out and took his hand. It felt warm and rough. It was the hand of a man accustomed to hard work and seemed incongruous beside his childlike demeanor. She pulled him toward the door.

  Celine moved quickly aside as they emerged from the cell. Emily knelt and scooped up her sword, sheathing it as they went, and the three of them headed back along the narrow passageway.

  With every bend in the corridor, Emily urged the boy to move faster, and he staggered and stumbled along. Celine held the candle aloft, lighting their way as best she could. Their shadows, grotesquely elongated in the light of the feeble flame, twitched and leapt along the wall like the silhouettes of ghoulish, misshapen fiends.

  She wondered how long the boy had been locked up down there. How long had it been since he’d had any significant exercise or even human contact? Why had he been locked up at all? So many questions; would she ever know the answers? For now, her greatest concern was whether or not he’d be able to keep up with them as they fled Seven Skies. With the racket they’d made, there could be no doubt that an alarm would soon be raised. They would have to be quick.

  They reached the stairs and climbed them at a run. What sounded like the same bell that had tolled to announce the execution earlier that day now rang out somewhere in the distance. An alarm? Maybe. They had to get the hell out of here.

  The sickly sweet aroma of flowers and flora began to reassert itself as they climbed. Emily’s heart hammered against her ribs. She could not afford to let it overwhelm her again, but she wasn’t sure there was anything she could do to prevent it.

  As she and the boy reached the top of the stairs, she heard a cry from behind them. She turned just in time to see Celine getting back to her feet. She’d stumbled on the uneven steps, and as she began to climb again, the candle slipped from her fingers. The holder hit the stones with a clatter that echoed with deafening clarity from the walls. The candle slid from the tarnished silver holder and rolled down the steps. Celine snatched at it, but when it bounced on the second step below her, the flame went out, plunging them all into utter darkness once more.

  “Shit!” Celine cried, no longer bothering to keep her voice down.

  “Get up here!” Emily said. She reached out into the darkness. The sounds of Celine’s boots on the stones seemed to fill the whole tower. She groped in the empty air before her, and her fingers closed at last on Celine’s arm. Celine gasped.

  “It’s just me. Just me,” Emily said. “Take his other hand and I’ll try to get us out of here.”

  They could hear shouts now from outside, and the bell was ringing more stridently than ever.

  “We’re not gonna be able to go out the way we got in, Em,” Celine said. “Courtyard’ll be full of the guard by now.”

  Damn.

  Emily turned to her right, reaching out in the darkness with her free hand and dragging the boy and Celine deeper into Marianne’s tower. If only they had some light.

  She felt the wall end to her left, and she took them down this new passage. She was relatively certain that, if nothing else, this one wouldn’t lead them directly to Marianne’s rooms.

  She tripped and fell over something soft and springy, pulling the others down with her. Beneath her knees, she felt a carpet of pine needles and flower petals. Brush grew everywhere, sprouting from the hard stones as though they were made of rich soil. Something creaked overhead, and Emily’s throat closed as her lungs filled once again with a fresh surge of jasmine, apple blossoms, and roses. Dizziness swept over her, and she shook her head violently. She needed to keep her thoughts clear. She needed to stay in control.

  The voices were getting louder. Were they in the tower yet? It was impossible to tell.

  She stood, pulling the others up with her. It felt like she was standing at the center of a carousel. Everything felt like it was spinning. She swayed and shook her head again.

  No, no, no, she thought fiercely.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m a’right.” Celine’s voice sounded strained.

  “Hang on to him. And try not to breathe.”

  “’Ow the ’ell am I supposed to run and not breathe?”

  Emily ignored the question. She started forward again, dragging the others along. They crashed through the brush, and the branches that reached from the walls on all sides whipped at their faces as they passed.

  She almost fell again as she stumbled over another set of stairs leading upward. Behind them, the sounds of voices echoed through the tower. The guards were inside now, searching for them. There was nowhere else to go.

  “Stairs,” Emily said and started climbing. The sweet perfume in the air clawed at the inside of her chest, making her cough. Her stomach rolled beneath her ribs, and the world began to acquire the same unreal quality that it had the first time she’d come to this tower. She fought it and prayed Celine would do the same. Beside her, the boy began to wheeze.

  At the top, they came to a heavy wooden door. At the same instant, a voice echoed up the stairs, and the light of a torch blazed out of the darkness below.

  “They’re here!” someone shouted.

  No time. There was just no time. What was the point in trying to get away?

  That sweet sense of disconnected apathy crept over her, and she welcomed it. They couldn’t get away. Why not just go quietly?

  Remember your friends.

  It had only been a small cluster of simple words, handwritten on a computer printout, but now she heard it ring inside her head in Coach Anders’s gruff and distracted voice. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus.

  The three of them huddled together on the tiny landing, and Emily explored the expanse of smooth wood with her fingertips. Was there a handle? A knob? Anything? How the hell did you open this goddamn door?

  The sound of climbing footsteps echoed up to them, and the torchlight grew closer, casting strange shadows on the walls as it shone through the branches that filled the stairwell.
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br />   At last, her head made sense of what her fingers were feeling. The door was barred with a heavy wooden beam across it, cradled in metal brackets affixed to the walls.

  She tried to lift the crossbar, but it was incredibly heavy. Absurdly heavy.

  “Help me,” she cried at Celine, and the other girl stepped forward with painful slowness, as though she were a sleepwalker. She reached out, and the two of them managed to lift the bar a few more inches. Still, it wouldn’t clear its brackets.

  Shit!

  The boy reached out and grasped the beam between them. He heaved as well, and the bar tipped forward. Emily and Celine scrambled backward as it clattered with a clang to the floor at their feet. Not wood—metal made to look and feel like wood. No wonder it was so heavy.

  The sound of boots on the stairs grew faster. The guards were only a few steps below them now.

  The boy knelt and dragged the bar away from the door and toward the steps. Emily pulled the door open and pushed Celine roughly through it. As she did, the boy managed to tip the bar over the edge. It clattered and clanged down the stairs with the sound of a demolition derby. She heard a guard’s cry of pain as it hit him, and, with a hiss, he dropped the torch onto the carpet of needles at his feet. The plentiful greenery around him erupted into flames as Emily grabbed the boy by the back of his tunic and shoved him through the door ahead of her and into the darkness outside.

  She slammed the door shut behind them and leaned against it, breathing hard. The cool night air filled her lungs, and her head began to clear.

  She found herself atop the narrow wall that connected the towers of Seven Skies. To her right was a sheer drop down to the cobblestoned streets of the city and the wicked pikes that topped the front gates of the fortress. To her left was only the courtyard far below. Nothing protected them from a fall in either direction, and the wall was rough, uneven, and no more than three feet across at most.

  Ahead, it connected Marianne’s tower to the first of the three guard towers. They couldn’t retreat, and they couldn’t get down. All they could do was go on.