Lessek's Key

BOOK IV
THE PRISON WING

Hannah woke to the sound of the underground pistons, popping and churning, popping and churning. She didn’t know if that’s what they actually were; she imagined furnaces boiling water to build steam that spun cranks, pushed pistons and blew warm air up through the palace vents, or perhaps heated air that expanded inside great balloons then exhaled through ducts servicing the keep above. All her imagined machines were gangly-limbed monsters that sputtered and farted great belches of humid air up through the palace. Were an attack ever to come on the ancient castle, all Prince Malagon had to do was loose his heating system on the enemy lines.

As she lay there on the floor, she felt the heat begin seeping into her cell until she was sweating freely; later, when the massive creature was chained back in its place, the heat would wane and she would wrap herself in the cloak and await the onset of another frigid night.

She had seen no light – except for guards passing who carried torches – since the soldiers wrestled her, kicking and scratching, into her cell. She had no real idea whether it was day or night; she charted time by the heat, or lack of it; soon after the furnace started up, the door would open just enough for one of the guards to slip a bowl of brown mush inside. She counted that as morning.

At first, she had refused to eat it, her stomach in knots as anger and fear warred for control, until Hannah’s indignant stand – I’m an American, damnit – gave way to terror and she curled up in the corner and cried herself to sleep.

After a few days, the hunger pangs grew too painful to ignore and Hannah forced herself to eat the tasteless gloop; now its arrival represented the highlight of her day. She always thanked the soldier, but so far no one had said a word to her.

She tried to mark the days, but was it fifteen now, or twenty? She couldn’t find anything sharp enough to mark the walls of her cell, giving up after tearing two fingernails to the quick. Besides, there was only ever light for the few moments it took to shove her gloop through the door, so scratching lines in the rock seemed pointless.

Instead, she named the days: her father was fanatical about baseball, and obsessed with the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds; he claimed it was the greatest baseball team ever assembled on one field. Now Hannah tallied her stay in the Malakasian prison: ‘Gullett, because you have to start with Gullett, Bench, Perez, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, Foster, Geronimo, Griffey, Senior not Junior, although the kid can get it done when he needs to; then, Plummer, Armbrister, a lucky call there in game three, Eddie; and Rawlins Jackson Eastwick, the Third. That’s just a name you have to say out loud. Okay, so what’s that, twelve days, plus a few before I started the count, so that’s – fifteen days? Right, fifteen. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the utility infielders.’

When she ran out of Cincinnati Reds, she moved on to the New York Yankee squad from the ’76 World Series, but it was hard to remember all the players. Then she tried making up song lyrics, which amused her for a day or two. It seemed important for her to occupy her mind, because otherwise she’d start thinking of her arrival in Welstar Palace…

They had been bound and gagged, and dragged from the Welstar docks, through the encampment to the palace, and Hannah had her first up-close encounter with Seron, the creatures she had seen in the distance outside the forest of ghosts. Nothing her friends had said had prepared her for these huge monsters, staring vacuously, apparently oblivious to the open sores, boils and pox marks that covered their bodies. Even now the memory of the stench made Hannah retch: the stink of death and decaying, foetid flesh… part of her hoped that she would die there, rather than having to cross that field of pestilence again. What kind of soldier stood staring without a care while his flesh rotted from his body? These people – if they were people – would be the grimmest fighting force ever assembled – what good would it do to shoot one of them with an arrow? Or even with a rifle?

Hannah blinked away the tears and started again. ‘Gullett, Bench, Perez, Morgan, what a strange swing you had, Joe; Rose, Concepcion…’

One morning Hannah missed a meal. She had waited all night for her brown gloop; when it arrived, she forgot it. The following morning a soldier picked up the untouched trencher and swapped it for a fresh serving of mush. Hannah started to shake: things were getting worse. She filled her mind with batting averages, prices of antiques stacked in her grandfather’s store, the names of all the peaks she had climbed in Colorado, the keys and key signatures of all twelve tones in the chromatic scale. She decided she must be on the threshold of madness because one night, battling the particularly insidious chill, she managed to recall a quadratic formula she had no memory of ever learning, let alone what it was supposed to do.

For water, Hannah had a trickle running down the back wall. She awakened each day apparently free of dysentery, so she drank as much as she could, reminding herself, especially during the blazingly hot days, to stay hydrated. At night, the trickle sang as it ran down the wall and dripped down between the flagstones. When she couldn’t sleep, she made up songs to the rhythm of the rill.

The key of C, C, C.

It has no sharps.

The key of C, C, C.

It’s the hairy smelly key of C.

The key of G, G, G.

It has F sharp.

The key of G, G, G.

It’s the filthy rotten key of G.

The key of D, D, D.

It has F and C sharp.

The key of D, D, D.

It’s the tired wrinkled key of -.

A loud click emanated from somewhere along the hallway outside her cell; Hannah quieted, listening intently, and heard a second click and footsteps approaching along the hall. She peered through the cracks between the wooden door, expecting to see the flicker of torchlight, but the hall remained dark. She whispered more nonsense under her breath.

The key of F sharp, F sharp, F sharp.

It has F, C, G, D, A and E sharp.

The key of F sharp, F sharp, F sharp.

It’s the crippled beggar key of F#.

The key of C sharp -

The footsteps paused, then came towards her cell.

‘Hannah?’

‘Steven?’ She was embarrassed at the hoarse rattle in her throat. ‘Steven, is that you?’

‘Where are you?’

Adrenalin flooded through her and she stood and stumbled across the chamber, shouting, ‘I’m in here, Steven. I’m in this one, right down here.’ She banged her fist against the door, hearing the echo resonate along the cavernous hallway. He had to hear her; she was making enough noise to wake the dead.

‘Hannah?’ the voice called back, ‘where are you?’

Something slimy slithered across her foot. She screamed, twisting away so violently she felt something in her back snap, a tendon or a ligament stretched too far. She ignored the throbbing pain as she huddled in her corner and screamed, ‘Steven! Can you hear me, Steven? I’m in here, Steven! Please let me out! Steven, please!’

The voice didn’t answer and Hannah strained her ears, keeping her eyes tightly closed. Her breath was too loud; she was panting in fear of whatever had slipped over her feet- She felt around for her boots and pulled them on: she needed to get a hold of herself, control her breathing if she was going to hear him. She forced herself to take several long, deep breaths.

‘Steven?’ Hannah whispered, and tiptoed back towards the door. There was no answer. She pressed hard against the wooden frame, until her skin came away marked with the grain pattern. ‘Steven?’

For a time – Hannah lost track – she stood and called into the darkness; after a while some part of her mind took charge and told her she had been hearing things; there was no way Steven Taylor could have been in the hallway outside her cell.

When the less-than-entirely sane part of her mind finally accepted that, Hannah fell apart. She trundled back to her corner, wrapped herself in her cloak and cried until she fell asleep. She didn’t wake when the guard brought her morning gloop, nor did she wake when he arrived the following day to replace that trencher with a fresh one.

Eventually, Hannah’s cell door opened and torchlight flooded in, blinding her. She buried her face in her cloak as a young soldier stepped inside. She squinted up at him: he wore the Malakasian crest emblazoned in gold across a leather vest, and his muscular arm was marked with sergeant’s stripes. His sandy-brown hair was tousled; his skin was pale, and he wore heavy boots and leather gloves, which Hannah found a curious choice given the heat.

He wasn’t carrying the disgusting mush.

‘So?’ she said, her voice hoarse, her lips cracking and bleeding as they moved. She pushed her matted hair from her eyes with bruised fingers, revealing the sores that had opened on her skin.

‘Hannah, oh gods… I’ve been looking for days.’

Confused, she tried to make a joke. ‘Oh, that’s nice. Is there a dance or something?’

‘Hannah, it’s me. Alen.’

Hannah tried to stand, but as she struggled to her feet, her vision tunnelled and she slumped back onto her knees. The soldier, whoever he was, moved to assist her.

‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘you’re weak.’

Hannah barely heard him as nausea gripped her and the tiny cell spun around her; she couldn’t make sense of what the soldier was saying.

‘-lost so much weight; look at you!’

Finally she struggled to a sitting position and swallowed hard, trying to keep her stomach calm. ‘Say what you said before,’ she croaked.

‘It’s me, Alen.’

‘No-’ She toppled over and allowed her head to rest against the stone floor.

The man squatted down beside her and took her hand. ‘Hannah, you grew up in Colorado,’ he said in English. ‘You’re American. I’m Alen; I’ve found you-’

‘How-?’ She was almost convinced. She pulled herself upright again.

‘This?’ Alen looked down at the young man’s body. ‘I broke a hundred and thirty-nine Larion Senate rules, but we’re in a bit of a spot and I needed to do something to free us.’

‘But your body, your old body, where is it?’ Her head was still spinning, but she began to hope.

‘In the cell, burned by now. I assume they think I’m dead.’

‘But where have you been all this time?’

‘I was looking for you, and this morning, I finally tracked you all down – this place is enormous. You’re the only one on this floor – well, the only one still with a mind, I should say-’

He broke off as Hannah groaned in anguish.

‘Hannah, listen, I’m getting you out now, so just hang on in. The day after I took the guard – well, I got posted to the docks; it took me eight days to get back and assigned to the prison wing yesterday.’

‘How many days?’ Hannah asked.

‘Too many, my dear; I had to make a good show of it until I located you all; like this I’m able to move freely about the palace – well, at least until they discover I’m gone. You need proper food, and querlis.’ He looked about the tiny cell. ‘Let’s get you some air first. I’ve found a place where you’ll be safe.’ He stood up and pulled her to her feet, then put one of her arms over his shoulder, his arm around her waist.

Hannah concentrated on walking, trying not to look at the thick oak doors that lined the hallway. She shuddered at the idea that such a prison had been constructed before Nerak destroyed the Larion Senate – what could they have needed with such a facility?

‘Where are we going?’ she whispered.

‘To the servants’ quarters, there’s an empty hall, maybe housing for seasonal workers, but it’s all locked up and ignored; it’s the perfect place for you to recover. I’ll settle you in, then go find Hoyt and Churn.’

‘You’ve been out all this time?’

‘I’ve been doing some research while searching for you all; I’ve learned a great deal.’

‘Is Nerak here?’ She shuddered at the thought.

Alen shook his head. ‘No. People believe he was lost in an explosion in Orindale, or that he went down with his ship, the Prince Marek. I felt the magicians – well, most of them – give up their search for me; I suppose that was the night he disappeared.’

‘Most of them?’

At least one has continued looking for me, probably at Nerak’s insistence.’

How do you know that?’

‘Branag’s dog,’ Alen held the torch out in front of them, illuminating a section of uneven flagstones. ‘Careful here. Nerak must have detected you coming through the portal, but Steven and Mark were already here and I think he knew they had Lessek’s key, so he concentrated on finding them. But he wasn’t going to just leave you to wander about, so he had one of his slaves watching you. When Nerak disappeared, this one hunter must have kept working, tracking you with Branag’s wolfhound. He must have soiled himself when you arrived in Middle Fork and found me.’

A two-for-one special,’ she murmured.

‘Just that. They’ve been trying to find me for a thousand Twinmoons, the bastards,’ Alen said. ‘Whoever this is, he ran that poor dog into the ground – that was a mercy killing on my part.’

‘But you spoke with the magician before killing the dog.’

‘I know.’ Alen frowned. ‘Rutting stupid of me – but as long as he thinks I’m dead down here, I’ll have surprise on my side when I finally locate him.’

‘You haven’t yet?’ Hannah asked.

‘Not yet. I’ve scoured those levels of the palace I can get into without raising suspicion, but Malagon and Bellan’s apartments are on the top three floors, and no one but Malagon’s personal guard can get up there. I’m not – this man – wasn’t cleared for it.’

‘Maybe the magician is up there too.’

‘That’s my guess.’ They reached the end of the corridor; Alen said, ‘No talking now. If we run into anyone out there, start coughing; I’ll convince them the prince wants you alive and that I’m taking you to a palace healer.’

Hannah nodded. ‘That shouldn’t be difficult to fake.’

She fell onto the mattress, little more than a canvas covering over a thick pad of hay, but to Hannah, it was bliss. Her breath was rasping in her chest and she hoped it was just a cold, not anything more worrying, like pneumonia. Dust motes danced in the sunlight that flooded the room and Hannah watched them as they settled back to the floor; before the last one fell she was asleep.

She woke to the sound of the door creaking open and watched as the young man claiming to be Alen entered, followed by Hoyt and Churn. Hoyt staggered over to her; his clothes, like hers, were torn and dirty, and he had open sores on his face and blood drying on his lips. His hands were stained with blood, and most of the nails on his fingers had been torn away. He stank, but Hannah didn’t mind – she probably looked and smelled much the same.

‘Move over,’ Hoyt whispered, obviously barely able to stand by himself.

‘What, no hello?’ She tried to make a joke.

‘Later,’ he said and collapsed onto the bed beside her.

Hannah tried to make as much room as possible; even in her dazed state she was amused at the thought that sharing a bed with someone for the first time was never easy, even when both were suffering from malnutrition and crippling fatigue. She tried to think of something witty to say, but Hoyt was already asleep.

Hannah looked at Churn, about to offer him her place on the mattress as she had slept a while, although she didn’t know for how long. It was still daylight, but the angle of the sun had changed; night would be upon them soon. ‘Churn,’ she whispered, ‘do you want-?’

But it was too late: the big man had walked to the nearest patch of sun and collapsed. Now, lying on the floor with the light on his face, he slept, a fallen Goliath. Hannah watched him for a moment, making certain his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm, then she drifted off again herself.