by Levi Jacobs
Ella dared not follow them inside, not until the soldiers left. She crouched on the edge of the woods, shivering as her dress dried. She was ravenous suddenly, spine aching with uai hunger. How long had she gone without winterfoods? There was nothing to be done for it now, not with all the shops and vendors closed for the night.
Presently a group of soldiers left the gate. Ella drew in a breath, struck what resonance she had, and ran for the door.
Her uai failed her just past the leaving soldiers, world slurring back into motion. Ella ducked down by a tree stump, cursing.
No cry rose from the soldiers or the wall. She stayed there a long while, then walked casually as she could back to the trees, then through the forest toward Riverbottom.
Sunrise was a long time coming. Ella considered going to Tunla’s, seeing if they might be able to help her, but the risk of meeting a soldier or lawkeeper there was too great. The arbitration had connected her to the pleasure house, and Sablo could easily have sent men there on her escape.
Instead she stayed to the eastern edges of town, shivering in her damp dress, watching the colors gradually lighten in the east, reflected in the wide Genga.
It was there that she saw the first boat pull in, a narrow vessel with white-lacquered oars. They had trouble docking, with all the half-sunken ships, but once they did it was as she suspected: white-coated men piled out, meeting with the skeleton guard still left at the docks. The army, or the frontrunners at least. How long until the main force docked? A day? A few hours? She had to get Tai out before then, had to warn the rebellion.
You don’t have to, little sis. In fact, it’d probably be better for you if you didn’t.
“Get scattered,” she whispered in the gray dawn light, “I finally have something I can do to help someone other than me. I’m not running away this time.”
He had more to say but she ignored him. Shops began to open, one of every three or four shuttered fronts. Riverbottom was a sorry shell of the place she had first met Tai. Had so many fled? Or been rounded up? Ella bought a few sticks of wintermelon from a hard-looking woman in a leaning shack, then made her way back to the prison to wait.
A team of whitecoats came from the direction of Newgen sometime before midday, herding a sodden Minchu between them. Ella tensed as the door opened, waited. After what seemed an eternity, streets dead around her, the soldiers reappeared, Minchu left inside.
Ella struck hard, running along the wall leading to the prison. She would appear as a blur to anyone who focused in her direction; she just had to hope no one looked directly her way or listened for footsteps, or she would be discovered. She slipped in just as the door was closing.
The prison was dark and humid, the smell of sweat and mold and exhaled air thick around her. A desk faced her, single lantern burning in the gloom. As she’d hoped, the jailer was gone, likely dealing with the Minchu prisoner. There was a door to either side of the front room, the lefthand one open.
Ella crept down the passage beyond, short iron doors and narrow slits in the walls the only break from the Councilate’s solid stone construction. The floor was cool beneath her feet, smooth under a thin layer of grit. She turned the corner and saw a white-coated man holding a lantern and peering into one of the cells. The Minchu’s, likely. Ella slipped past him, the man seeming to stand still, and around the far corner.
She unclenched, sounds coming back in: voice of the jailer, soft snores from a cell next to her, low moan of the wind outside. And a snort.
Ella looked over. Eyes watched her from a slit in the wall. She met them, shook her head.
The snort sounded again, louder.
“Please,” she whispered. “No.” She had heard of what extended stays did to people.
“Gweani!” a voice barked. She didn’t recognize the tongue, but the voice sounded only half human, an animal threat to it.
Scatterstains. Ella risked a glance around the corner: the jailer was gazing her way. She slipped back, released, grunts and snorts sounding around her. She remembered the prison debate in her teens: efficiency or humanity. The Council had chosen efficiency.
“Gweani?” Other noises sounded in the dark, grunts and coughs and muttered syllables. The voice asked again, then with a bang against the iron door behind her let out a scream of rage. Others followed suit—the hallway had woken.
Scatstains. Ella took a breath and began counting down from five.
On one she clenched and ran out, nearly colliding with the jailer. She slipped past him, grateful the sounds at least would drown out her footfalls, hoping he hadn’t seen her in the low light. Still there was no stopping to talk to Tai with the jailer about to return. Unless…
Ella began peeking in slits, checking doors as she made her way down the hall. The insides were tiny, cubes half the length or height of a man, not big enough to stand up or lie down, one stacked on another. Efficiency: inmates couldn’t exercise and therefore required less food. The slit in the wall allowed almost no vision out, and the rooms were windowless. Efficiency: isolation made the prisoners break faster, give what information they had. Or go insane, at which time Councilate logic allowed them to be treated like animals, forced to work the fields or row the ships. Or just be put down. Either way, the prisons had few long-term inmates, meaning less cost to the Houses, greater threat to the criminals. Efficiency.
There. An open door—an empty cell. Ella ducked in, closed the door, and unclenched.
Prophet’s peace, Ella. What are you doing?
The right thing.
Sounds of the disturbance rolled back in, muted by the heavy iron door. The jailer was shouting something, banging on doors. Ella crouched in the narrow space, little other position possible. Latrine stench rose from the corner, where a small hole lead to the prison’s drainage system—and likely to their rat colony. More efficiency.
Run now. Run while you can.
The shouts quieted after some time, jailer’s steps receding. Ella forced herself to take one hundred measured breaths, then another hundred, until the prison was truly silent. Only then did she slip out, tiptoeing down to Tai’s cell.
She saw him through the narrow slit, line of torchlight tracing a bare chest, bandages wrapped around his neck and shoulder. His skin was pale, and Ella gasped to see one hand grasped in the other, bloody ends where fingernails had been. His chest hardly moved.
“Tai?”
No response, though she dare not whisper louder. “Tai!”
He snuffled, looked up. His eyes widened. “E—Ella? Is that you?”
“Shhh.”
He scrambled forward, wincing, pressing his face to the slit. “Ella?” His voice was disbelieving.
She smiled, feeling the tension drop away. “Hey there.”
He reached fingers through the slit, too narrow to fit a hand through, and she intertwined them with her own. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled. “I’m saving the rebellion. Which means saving you.“
Tai shook his head. “No. You need to run. They’ll find you here! The army—“
She nodded. “I know. I watched the first boat land this morning.”
A moan escaped his lips. “Then at least save yourself!”
She smiled. “I’m done with that. I saw how you came back for your friends, during that fight at the gate.”
He frowned. “That was a mistake. That whole attack was. All I did was kill more people for nothing.”
“Well this is not about killing people. This is about saving your life, and then we can figure out how to stop all the rest.”
He shook his head. “But why me? I’m just one person.”
“You’re too smart for that. And too charismatic. And I saw you fight in the attack. The rebellion needs you.”
He shifted in the tiny cell, wincing at his wounds. “I’m not going to survive these.”
There were still arrows in his body. Ella sucked in a breath. “They haven’t treated you?”
“Just enough to
stop the bleeding. They’re starting to green.”
“Tai,” she breathed. “I have to get you medicine, food—“
“Ella no. You are not coming back here.”
She squeezed his hand through the slat. “I’m doing better than that. I’m getting you out.”
39
It was only with the advent of the draftboat and the increase in population pressure that people began to settle the Worldsmouth delta itself, and eventually build rafthouses out into the bay.
--Telen Fostler, Empire Reconsidered
Getting out of prison proved easier than getting in—Ella just returned to the first hallway and incited a racket. When the jailer came, she slipped out, blinking against the strong light of day. A pack of Councilate soldiers was frozen down the road, and Ella stayed in slip till she was safely into the trees.
She needed a plan. Tai was locked inside, dying, she was a wanted woman on the streets with no ships coming to port, and in a few days or hours the whitecoat army would be here, spelling a quick end to the rebellion. If she could get Tai out, he could rally the rebellion, do something. Or she could take him somewhere, nurse him back to health. Let the rest of the world fall apart. For better or worse, she was not putting herself first this time.
Tai needed food, and he needed to get out, but most of all he needed hardenswort for his wounds. He’d told her of a healworker on the bluffs, though Ella doubted if she was still there. With any luck, the woman had read the breeze and fled, rather than been herded into the camp with the rest. Either way, she’d surely left most of her supplies behind.
Ella found the door barred, though she couldn’t find a side or rear entrance. After a moment, not wanting to be found breaking in by a patrol of whitecoats, Ella muttered an apology and pushed in through one of the oilpaper windows, stumbling in to a sparkling clean indoor kitchen, wicker cages with blue birds hanging in each corner. Ella straightened. The birds sung a peculiar low song, and the place smelled of cedarwood. “Hello? Anybody here?”
No answer. Tai had thought the supplies would be on the first floor, so Ella began rummaging, feeling like a common thief. A room on the far side of the stairs held a table and restraints, wicked instruments of surgery along the walls. The one at the back was lined with wooden boxes, each labelled in a precise script. “Of all the things we’ve done,” she muttered, beginning to scan for what she needed “I never thought robbery would be one.”
Cold metal pressed against her neck. “Then maybe you ought’ve thought twice,” a voice came from behind her.
Ella froze, then struck resonance, stepping away from the blade. A stout Achuri woman stood there, knife held to empty air, a younger girl behind her with a bow drawn and trained on the space Ella had been. Ella cursed. Even in slip, there would no way to find the herbs she needed and withdraw without at least getting wounded in the tight space. She eyed the woman again—not a soldier, not even a lighthair. Likely the healer, then.
She unclenched.
The woman snapped to where Ella’d moved, girl behind her retraining the bow. “I am sorry,” Ella began, “to intrude on your house—“
“To break in you mean,” the woman said, making no move toward her with the knife. She had likely realized it would do little against a timeslip.
“Yes. I—I just need some things, for a friend.”
The woman snorted. “Never satisfied are you? You’ve taken our elders, our mines, the very people from our streets, and now you break in to take my herbs? Ran out of ointments for soldiers wounded in the fighting, have you?”
“It’s for a rebel, actually.” Ella eyed the woman. “Are you Marrem?”
“A rebel? What’s his name?”
“Tai.”
“Tai!” the woman repeated in a different pronunciation. She let the knife drop. “Well then. Yes, I am Marrem. And who are you?”
“Ella,” she said, extending a hand, then faltering, realizing it was an Councilate gesture. “Ellumia Aygla.”
Marrem took it anyway. “What’s he gotten himself into this time?”
“Prison.”
Marrem nodded as though this was expected. “And you’ve come down here seeking herbs for him?”
“Hardenswort,” Ella said. “He has two arrow wounds that are greening. And they’ve been pulling his fingernails.”
“Right,” the healer said, suddenly all business. “You’ll need more than hardenswort to stop multiple greenings. I’ll make you a tincture of Fathersroot and Tilderberry and Elam…” She looked up. “In prison, you say?”
“Yes. I’m trying to get him out, but first need at least to keep him alive.”
The healer eyed her. “And you’re not a rebel yourself?”
“I—no, I’m not.”
She nodded. “You care for him then.”
“Yes.”
Marrem smiled, and Ella blushed, realizing what she’d said. “I mean—“
“No,” the healer smiled, “You mean what you said. Good for him. He deserves a nice one. You look decent enough.”
Ella’s jaw worked, no words coming. Her voice was shouting, demanding she take it back, but now that the words were out, she saw they were true. She hardly knew Tai, had really spent only one afternoon with him—but she cared about him. More than she had any man since—
Since me. The hurt was inescapable in Telen’s voice. Only he wasn’t Telen. Was he?
The healer spoke as she worked. “He’ll be a handful. Lord knows he always was on the street. And now he’s brought this rebellion down on us.” She clucked her tongue, looked at Ella. “It’s over, isn’t it? The rebellion.”
Ella nodded, glad for a change of topic. “I think so. They attacked Newgen yesterday, and failed, then Tai tried to kidnap the High Arbiter—“ the healer barked a laugh at this “—but it didn’t work, and now the army’s coming.”
The woman nodded. “Are they?”
“I saw the first boat land this morning.”
“And most of our people herded up into the woods. What do they intend with them, I wonder?”
“I don’t know. I—“ Ella recalled Tai’s account, and the indignation of the rooster-faced woman saying they should all be put down. “But I am sure it’s not good.”
“Aye,” the healer said, twisting a cork cap into a small clay bottle. “I expect you’re right.” She handed the bottle to Ella. “What do you plan to do, if you get him out?”
“I don’t know,” Ella said honestly. “Run away, I guess. Get him somewhere he can heal.”
The healer nodded, lips pursed. “That’s about all there is for it, now. Run or be caught up in the Councilate.”
Ella nodded, surprised to find herself caring for the older woman. “Yes. Thank you. I should go. You should too.”
“We’ll take care of ourselves.” She glanced at the window. “Knock next time, girl.”
Ella slipped into the prison behind a pair of guards carrying an inert form. To her consternation, the men stopped in the entryway to speak with the jailer, door leading further in locked. The door behind her had narrowed too much to slip out. There was no hiding in the narrow space, and no leaving without being seen now. So she dropped resonance.
“Titan’s tits!” the jailer barked, starting from his chair. “Where did you come from?”
“From the Society for the Preservation of the Savage,” she said, straightening her back. “I am told you have a Minchu here.”
“We got all kinds of things here,” the jailer said, recovering from his initial shock. “What’s it to you?”
“The Minchu are neither Councilate citizens nor subjects, and I demand on behalf of the Society that I be allowed to see the man.”
“They ain’t men, lady,” one of the whitecoats said, a pepper-haired Yershman. “They’re beasts. You don’t want to talk ‘em.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll be the judge of that. It would be very unfortunate if word spread in the Worldsmouth broadsheets of undue abuse under the guise of
quelling the local rebellion. Jobs could be at stake.”
The jailer cocked his head, likely not following all the words, but understanding the last few. “Right. Minchu. Middle of a rebellion. Of course. You want to see him?”
“I do.”
The jailer stood up, waving a hand at the soldiers. “Later, boys.” He hooked a key from his belt and lumbered for the lefthand door. “Don’t know what you’ll get out of him anyway. Damn savages.”
“We believe the savages are actually morally superior,” Ella said, more to keep her nerves at bay than anything else. It helped that the Society was an actual movement in Worldsmouth, if an uninformed and politically neutered one. The jailer obviously didn’t keep up with his broadsheets.
The inside was as before, dark and damp and tight, as though every slit in the wall contained watching eyes. Whoever or whatever the inmates had become had learned to be silent, at least, in the presence of the jailer.
The man banged on a door, iron ringing. “Here. This is the one.” It was a second-level cell, the viewing slit above her line of sight.
“Thank you,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. The man didn’t leave.
“Hello?” a voice rumbled from the cell.
“Ah, hi.” She turned to the jailer. This wouldn’t work if he stayed. “See? The savages are perfectly capable of speech. Now if you’ll leave us to it, I’ll call you when finished.”
The jailer folded his spindly arms. “Oh no. You want to talk about losing my job, it’d be leaving a lady like you in here with a pack of wolves like this.” He planted his feet.
“Hello?” the rumble came again.
Meckstains. She couldn’t get to Tai if the jailer stayed the whole time. “Ah, hello, and greetings. From the Society for the Preservation of the Savage.”
Silence. Then, “Hello. You have come to release me?”
“Ah, yes, if possible. I… wanted first, to inquire if there’s anything you need.”
“Ha. In this time, I only want to see the outside again.”