Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 51

Rachel sat in her iron box for a while, thinking, worrying, wondering what would become of her.

And then she had a thought.

Carefully, quietly, even though there was no one in the room and the door was closed, she pressed herself tight up against the door. She put one eye right up to the slit. First, she looked around, fearful that the witch woman might somehow be watching her. The witch woman sometimes came to her in the night . . . in her dreams. If Six had materialized in the center of the room, Rachel wouldn’t have been at all shocked. There were plenty of whispers among the staff of the strange things that had been happening at the castle since the woman had arrived.

But the room was empty. There was no one there, no tall figure in black robes.

Confident that she was alone, Rachel peered over at the lock. She had to stare awhile, because she wasn’t sure that what she was seeing was real.

The lock, hanging in the hasp, wasn’t locked.

Rachel remembered Violet pushing at it as Six knocked on the door, but in her haste she must not have gotten it locked. If Rachel could get the lock out of the hasp, she could open the door. She could get out.

Six had taken Violet to the cave. Violet and Six were gone.

Rachel tried to reach through the slit to pull the lock off, but it was too far. She needed a stick, or something to reach it. She cast about inside her sleeping box, but there was nothing. There was no stick just lying around. There were plenty of things outside the box that she could have used, but they were outside the box.

As long as that lock was hooked through the loop of steel sticking out through the slot in the hasp, there was no way Rachel could push open the door. The lock might as well have been locked.

She flopped back down on her blanket, dejected, her hope gone. She missed Chase. For a time her life had been a dream. She had a family, a wonderful father who watched over her and taught her so many things. Rachel idly pulled on the loose end of the coarse thread that had been used to sew the edging on the blanket. Chase would be disappointed to see her giving up so easily, to see her moping, but what was she to do? There was nothing she had in her box that she could use to get the lock off. She had on a dress, and boots. Her boots wouldn’t fit through the slit. The only other thing she had was her sleeping blanket. Violet had taken everything away from her. She had nothing.

As she pulled, more of the heavy thread unraveled. As Rachel looked down at the thread looped around the end of her finger, inspiration struck.

She started pulling at the thread, pulling out the stitches, pulling more of it free. She soon had the entire end of the blanket undone and she had a long length of thread. She doubled it over and rolled it between her palm and leg, twisting it into a heavier thread. It was long enough to make several layers, all rolled together into a sturdy string. She made a loop in the end and then went to the slit.

Carefully, she cast out the string, trying to get the loop over the lock so that she could hook it and pull it up, out of the hasp. It sounded a lot easier than it was. The string wasn’t heavy enough to throw with any accuracy. Rachel tried several different ways of doing it, but it always fell short or, if it did get over the top loop of the lock, it just slid off over the side. It just didn’t want to go down over the far side to hook the lock’s shank. The string was too light to throw well, but at the same time it was too stiff to drape over the lock those times when it did land where she wanted it.

Yet again, she managed to get the end of the string to land over the lock. The end, though, dangled out at an angle rather than lying down where she could slip it over the open shank of the lock.

She brought the string back in and wet it with spit, then tried again. The wet string was a little heavier. She was able to throw it with a little more accuracy. Her hand was getting sore and tired from trying because she had to twist it sideways to cast the string. It seemed she had been at it all morning. The string kept getting dry.

Rachel brought the string back in and wet it in her mouth, getting it good and soaked. She went to the slit and cast it. The first time it landed over the lock. The loop of the string was just below the end of the lock’s shank.

Rachel froze. This was as close as she’d ever gotten it. It was difficult to have her hand out of the slit and then to be able to see through the little space that was left over. She could see, though, that if she pulled, the string would be pulled up and not hook over the shank where she needed it to hook.

The string, as wet as it was, was adhering to the long bar that latched when it was locked. Rachel had an idea. She carefully began to roll the string between her finger and thumb. With the string stuck with her spit to the metal, it rolled, sticking, until the end flopped over. Rachel blinked as she stared. It looked like the loop was right where she needed it to be. She was afraid to move, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to lose her chance, afraid to make the wrong move because she hadn’t thought it through well enough.

Chase had always told her that she had to use her head—her judgment, he called it—and then act on that judgment.

By every measure she could judge, the loop was in the right place. If she pulled, and the string stayed stuck with her spit to the shank of the lock, the loop would hook over the end of the bar. Her heart pounded in her chest. She realized that she was panting.

Holding her breath, Rachel began ever so carefully to pull the string. The flat end of the metal caught the loop. If she pulled too hard, it might just pop off.

She lowered her fingers to change the angle of the pull, to help it pull the loop over the end, rather than slip off.

The loop stretched tight and then slipped over the end of the lock’s shank. She could hardly believe it. Carefully, steadily, she pulled the string upward, sliding the lock up out of the hasp. When it was almost out of the loop of metal, the notched end of the bar on the lock caught the hasp. She tried pulling just a little harder, but with the way it was caught it only made the lock twist at an angle, rather than lift. Rachel feared to pull too hard. She was afraid that the string would break.

She had doubled the thread over several times, making the string several layers thick. She figured that it was probably pretty strong. The question she couldn’t answer was how strong it was, and if it was strong enough if she pulled harder. She released some of the tension and let the lock lower, then jerked it a little, twitching it rapidly up and down, trying to jiggle the shaft of the metal bar up through the hoop.

Suddenly, the lock jumped up out of the hasp and fell. It dangled from the string, swinging back and forth beneath Rachel’s hand sticking out of the slit.

She pushed, and the door squeaked open. With the backs of her hands, Rachel wiped the tears of relief from her cheeks. She had gotten herself free. If only Chase could have seen what she had accomplished.

Now she had to escape the castle before Violet or Six returned. Rachel didn’t know if Violet was aware that she hadn’t latched the lock. If she knew she hadn’t locked it, and she mentioned it to Six, they would be back.

Rachel immediately headed for the big door, but then she remembered something important. She turned and ran to the desk in the corner. She pulled the angled lid down into the position Violet used when she wrote notes on who was to be punished or put to death. Rachel grabbed the gold knob on the bottom, center drawer and pulled the drawer out. She set it aside, then reached her hand way into the back and felt around. Her fingers touched something metal.

She brought it out. It was the key. Violet hadn’t taken it out yet. It was still there, where she kept it for the night.

Relieved, Rachel slipped the key down into her boot and then replaced the door and shut the lid of the desk.

Remembering her sleeping box, she closed the door and put the lock through the hasp. She pushed the lock, making sure it latched closed. She tugged just to make sure that it was secure—something Violet had failed to do. If anyone came in the room they might suspect that Rachel was still safely locked in her box. If she was lucky, Six or Violet wouldn’t even look and by then Rachel would be long gone.

She ran to the big double doors and opened one just a sliver to peek out. She didn’t see anyone in the hall. She slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind her.

Checking around again, she made for the stairs, then raced up as quietly as she could. On the next floor, in a hallway of wood paneling without windows, Rachel headed for the room that would be locked. There were reflector lights still lit. They were kept lit throughout the night in case the queen ever wanted to go to her jewel room. As she hurried down the hall, she hopped on one foot as she reached down into her boot to retrieve the key.

Key in hand, Rachel looked over her shoulder as she arrived at the door she was looking for. Just then she saw a man in the distance coming down the hall. He was one of the butlers. Rachel knew him by his face, but she didn’t know his name.

“Mistress Rachel?” he said, frowning as he reached her.

Rachel nodded. “Yes, what is it?”

“Exactly.” He glanced to the door. “What is it?”

Chase had taught her to turn things around on people asking questions she didn’t want to answer. He had also taught her how to turn suspicions around to make it look like the other person was up to no good. They’d often made it into a game at camp. She knew that she had to do that now. This time, though, it was not a game. It was deadly serious.

She put on her best scowl. Chase had taught her how to do that, too. He’d said for her to just imagine that a boy wanted to kiss her.

“What does it look like it is?”

The man arched an eyebrow at her. “It looks like you’re about to go into the queen’s jewel room.”

“Do you intend to rob me of the queen’s jewels I’ve been sent to get for her? Is that why you were lurking around the corner, waiting for someone to be sent to the queen’s jewel room? So you can rob them?”

“Lurking—rob you—why no, of course not. I merely want to know—”

“You want to know?” Rachel put her hands on her hips. “You want to know? Are you in charge of the jewels? Why don’t you go ask Queen Violet what you want to know? I’m sure she won’t mind a butler questioning her. Maybe she will only have you whipped and not beheaded.

“I’m on her business, getting something for her. Do I need to go get some guards to protect me and the queen’s jewels I’m to take back to her?”

“Guards? Why of course not—”

“Then what business have you with this business?” She looked one way and then another, but saw no one. “Guards!” she yelled, but not too loudly. “Guards! A thief is after the queen’s jewels!”

The man panicked, trying to get her to be quiet, but then abandoned the attempt and rushed off without another word. He never even looked back. Rachel quickly unlocked the door, checked the hall again, and then slipped inside. She didn’t think anyone had heard her, but she didn’t want to take any more time than necessary.

She didn’t give the shiny, polished wall of little wooden drawers a second look. The dozens and dozens of little drawers were filled with necklaces, bracelets, brooches, tiaras, and rings. She immediately went instead to the fancy white marble pedestal that stood by itself in the opposite corner of the jewel room. Atop it had once stood Queen Milena’s favorite object, the jeweled box she fawned over at every opportunity.

Now in its place was a box that looked like it was made of the Keeper’s blackest thoughts. It was so black that the room filled with precious jewels seemed trivial in the presence of something so monumentally sinister.

Rachel had hated touching Queen Milena’s jeweled box of Orden. She hated the thought of touching this even more.

She had to do it, though.

She knew she had to hurry if she was to have any chance of getting away. There was no telling if Violet would remember that the iron sleeping box in her room hadn’t been locked. She might tell Six—or Six might just read her thoughts. Rachel suspected that Six was capable of doing such things. If they knew Rachel wasn’t locked in that box, they would come back.

Rachel took the black box down off the white marble pedestal and stuffed it into the leather bag that was sitting against the wall. It was the same bag that Samuel had used to bring Six the box.

On the way to the door, Rachel paused before the tall, wood-framed mirror. She hated looking at herself in the mirror, hated seeing her hair, the way that Violet had chopped it all off. When she had lived at the castle before, back when she had been Princess Violet’s playmate, Rachel hadn’t been allowed to let her hair grow because she was a nobody. As soon as Violet had Rachel back, one of the first things she did was take a big pair of shears and chop off Rachel’s long, beautiful blond hair. This was the first time she had really had a chance to get a good look at it, though, an up-close look.

She wiped tears from her cheek.

Chase had told her, when she first went with him, that if she wanted to be his daughter she would have to let her hair grow. Her hair had grown long and lustrous over the last couple of years, and she felt as if she really had grown to be his daughter. She didn’t look the same in the mirror, now, as she had the last time she had stood in this room, looking at herself in the mirror when she had been helping Wizard Giller steal the jeweled box of Orden. Her features were different now. Less childlike, less . . . cute.

Now she was starting the gangly phase, as Chase called it, before she would bloom into the beauty of being a woman that he promised she would one day. That day seemed an impossibly long way off. Besides, without Chase, no one would be there to see her grow up, or care.

Now Chase was dead and her hair was chopped off again. Violet had not simply chopped it off, either, but had cut it in ragged cuts, bits and pieces, chunks and wads. It made her look like a cur dog that slept beside the midden heap. There was something else, though, that Rachel saw in that mirror. She saw the woman she would be one day, the woman Chase promised she would be.

What would Chase think if he could see her now, with her hair all chopped up?

Rachel pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind and swung the leather bag held closed with a drawstring over her shoulder. She opened the door just enough to look down the hall, then opened it a little more to look the other way. Still all clear. She hurriedly went out into the hall, and closed and locked the door.

She remembered the halls and passageways of the castle as well as she remembered the curve of Chase’s smile when she made him smile when he tried not to. She always like that best when he laughed when he was trying to scowl at her.

She took the servants’ stairs so as to avoid the most guards. They stayed mostly to the main halls and such. People were going about their duties without pause. None of them yet knew that there was a new queen. She didn’t know what people would think of such a thing. Rachel knew that people hated Violet, but they were terrified of Six.

Washwomen carrying bundles turned as they gossiped, watching Rachel run past. Men carrying supplies didn’t pay her any attention. Rachel didn’t meet the eyes of any of them lest they ask her something.

She reached the door out into a side hall that had a way out of the castle. She went around a corner and came face-to-face with two guards. They wore the red tunics over their chain mail and carried pikes with gleaming points. Swords hung from their belts.

Rachel could clearly see that they had no intention of letting her pass without finding out what she was doing there and where she was going.

“You must get away!” Rachel cried out at them. “Hurry!” She turned and pointed behind her. “The Imperial Order troops are entering the castle—back that way!”

One of the men gripped his pike with both hands and rested his weight on it. “We have nothing to fear from those men. They’re our allies.”

“They intend to behead all the queen’s guards! I heard the commander giving them their orders! Behead them all, he said! More for us, he said. The soldiers all drew their big battle-axes. They were told they could keep anything on the men they behead. Hurry! They’re coming! Save yourselves!”

Both men’s mouths fell open.

“That way!” Rachel shouted, pointing toward the servants’ stairs. “They won’t think to look there. Hurry! I’ll warn the others!”

The men nodded their thanks and headed for the door to the servants’ stairs. When they had vanished, Rachel started out once more, quickly making the door out of the castle. She took to the pathway that the servants used when going to town to get things they needed for the running of the castle. There were big soldiers, fearsome-looking men, who were patrolling everywhere, but they didn’t seem to be bothering the servants, so Rachel fell in with some carpenters and walked along beside the tall wheel of their handcart. She hid her face behind the load of boards.

The soldiers paid only casual interest to the servants going about their work, mostly watching the prettier women. Rachel kept her head down and kept walking. With her hair all chopped off she looked like a nobody, and none of the soldiers stopped her.

Once beyond the big stone wall, she kept walking along with the servants until they went through a patch of woods that was right up close to the path. She glanced back over her shoulder and didn’t see any soldiers looking her way.

Quick as a cat, Rachel slipped into the trees. As soon as she was in among the thick balsams and pines, she started running. She took deer paths through the bramble, following any she could find that went west or north. Once she was running, panic came out of nowhere and took control of her legs. All she could think about was getting away. This was her chance. She had to run.

If the Imperial Order soldiers caught her out here, she knew that she would be in trouble. She wasn’t sure what they would do to her, but she had a pretty good general idea. Chase had given her those lessons one dark night by the campfire. He told her something of what men like that would do to her.

He told her not to let herself get caught by men like that. He told her that if she was facing such men, and capture, she had to fight them with everything she had. Chase said that he hadn’t meant to scare her, but hoped to keep her safe. Still, it made her cry and she only felt better when he sheltered her under his big arm.

She realized that she had nothing with which to fight. Her knives had all been taken away. She wished she had been smarter and before she left the castle had taken a quick look in Violet’s room to see if she could find any of her knives. She was so eager to get away that she never thought of it. She should have at least gone through the kitchens when she’d been down in the service areas and gotten a knife. She was so busy congratulating herself over a piece of string, and that she had gotten away, that she had never thought about getting a weapon. Chase was probably angry enough to come back to life and scold her for being so thoughtless. Her face burned with shame.

She stopped when she saw a stout branch lying on the ground. She picked it up and tested its strength. It seemed sound. She whacked it against a fir tree and it made a solid sound. It was a little heavier than she would have wanted to carry, but at least she had something.

She slowed to a trot and kept moving, trying to put as much distance between her and the castle as she could. She didn’t know when they would discover her missing, and she didn’t know if Six could track as well as she could do everything else. Rachel wondered if Six might be able to gaze into a bowl of water and see where Rachel was. That made her run faster again.

By early afternoon she came across a trail. It looked like it headed roughly north. She knew that Aydindril was somewhere to the north. She didn’t know if she could find something that far away, but she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. If she could get back to the Keep, back to Zedd, he would help her.

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t even see the man until she almost ran into him. She looked up and realized that it was an Imperial Order soldier.

“Well, well, what have we here?”

As he started to reach down for her, Rachel swung the club with all her strength, whacking him across the knee. The man cried out and fell to the ground, clutching his knee, shouting curses at her.

Rachel tore off running. She took to the deer paths again because she was smaller and it was easier for her to negotiate them than it would be for big men. It sounded like there were suddenly a dozen men after her, crashing through the brush. She could hear the man she had clubbed far back, still cursing up a storm, yelling at his fellows to get her.

As she burst into a clearing, winded and nearly out of strength, she saw that there were men blocking the path ahead. They all started for her.

Rachel ducked to the side and ran. It seemed like there were soldiers all around. She was in a panic, not knowing how to get away from them.

She heard one man fall. She didn’t look back, but kept running. She heard another fall, crying out briefly, then going silent. She wondered if, when running at breakneck speed, they were catching their feet in holes, or twisting ankles on low vines.

Another man let out a grunt. This time Rachel stopped and turned just long enough for a quick look. It had not been a fall, or a twisted ankle. It had been a sound released in death. Rachel’s eyes were wide as she stared. Another man shrieked like he was being skinned alive.

Rachel wondered what kind of woods she was in, and what monsters were loose in them.

She turned and ran. She had no chance if the men got her. She didn’t know what else was about, but she first had to keep from getting caught or they were liable to slit her throat for giving them a difficult time.

Suddenly, three men charged out of the brush, roaring in rage. A little cry squeaked out as Rachel ran with all her strength and fear. The men, though, had longer legs and were catching her.

One of them stopped suddenly. Rachel glanced back over a shoulder and saw the man arching his back, as if in pain. She saw, then, a foot of steel jutting from his chest. The other two turned to the unexpected attack from behind.

As the man who had been run through with a sword started to fall, Rachel’s jaw fell open at what she saw behind him.

It was Chase, big as life.

She couldn’t make sense of it.

The two men charged him. Chase fought them with swift, powerful strikes, taking them both down as if doing no more than brushing aside pests, but at the same time more men poured out of the woods around them. She saw at least a half dozen of the big Imperial Order soldiers to one side alone charging the even bigger boundary warden.

Rachel ran back as Chase fought all the men at once. When he killed a man to his side, a man to the other side used the opening to go for him. Rachel whacked the backs of his knees. His legs folded under him. Chase swung around and ran the man though, then met the fierce charge of yet more men, all of them grunting with the effort of trying to take down this one big man. They gritted their teeth as they growled and tried to grapple Chase’s arms so other men could stab him. Rachel waled away at them with all her strength, but to no avail.

When one of the men fell dead, Rachel snatched the knife in a sheath at his belt and immediately stabbed the legs of a man going for Chase’s back. He cried out and turned. Chase took him in an instant.

All of a sudden it was quiet, except for Rachel and Chase’s labored breathing. All the men lay dead.

Rachel stood staring up at Chase. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, couldn’t believe her eyes. She feared that he might vanish, like a phantom.

He looked down at her, and that wonderful grin of his came over his face.

“Chase, what are you doing here?”

“I came to see if you were all right.”

“All right? I was held captive in the castle. I thought you were dead. I had to rescue myself. What took you so long?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have wanted to spoil your accomplishment. Isn’t it better that you did it on your own?”

“Well,” she said, a bit perplexed, “I could have used some help.”

“Is that so?” He appeared unmoved by her complaint. “You look to have managed.”

“But you don’t know. It was terrible. They locked me up in the box again, and they locked my tongue so that I couldn’t talk.”

Chase eyed her askance. “I don’t suppose you brought that tongue lock with you, did you? It sounds like a useful device.”

Rachel grinned and hugged him around his waist. When she had first met him she had to hug his leg because that was all she could reach. She basked in the comfort of his big hand on her back. It felt like everything in the world was right again.

“I thought you were dead,” she said as she started to cry.

He ruffled her chopped-off hair. “I wouldn’t do that to you, little one. I promised to take care of you, and I meant it.”

“I guess that I’m stuck with being your daughter.”

“Guess so. Your hair is ugly, though. You’ll have to grow it back if you want to stay with me. You can’t keep chopping it off like that if you want to be my daughter. I told you that before.”

Rachel grinned through her tears.

Chase was alive.