7. Escape

The next few minutes were a haze for Tien. Suddenly Saka was bending over her. He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Then he locked the cell door with the guard’s key, and loped after Fen, who sprinted silently ahead. Tien’s head bounced up and down on Saka’s shoulder, as Saka navigated the labyrinth of passageways. She could see where they were quite clearly, by the light of flaming torches bolted into the walls.

The torches reeked of kerosene, and spewed out thick choking smoke. Barred cells lined either side of the passageway. It was dark enough to be a dungeon, but Tien remembered the light that had seeped through the cracks in the ceiling. Dungeons didn’t receive any sunlight, at least not in the stories she’d grown up with.

As Saka ran, Tien could see that prisoners silently watched them, from their cells on either side. There were no startled expressions; no cries or yells for their attention. Just a blur of hopeless faces, whose vacant eyes stared dully out at them. Are they Aryks? she wondered, her heart skipping a beat. They can’t be, she told herself, though she tried to have a better look at them all the same. No, these prisoners had obviously been here a long time, for their cheeks to be so hollowed. They look like living skeletons with such grey, lifeless skin, Tien thought. The poor things.

Ooof! Saka stumbled slightly. He righted himself, repositioned Tien and then kept going. His breathing was loud and shallow as he struggled under her weight. It’s no fun for me either, mister, Tien fumed, her cheeks burning in the darkness. Being made to feel like a great sack of fruit.

After what felt like an hour of being hauled through the musty prison, she realized that the air smelt fresher; the aroma of fragrant cooking mingled with the pungent sweetness of spoiled fruit. Tien could hear the distant clamour of a busy city coming alive for the night. She lifted her head and peered around. There was a gate just ahead. It was wide open, and led into a small courtyard, lit by a flickering lamppost. From the empty baskets piled up to one side, and the compost heap fermenting ripely on the left, it appeared that this was the prison’s side entrance, where stale bread and fruit could be brought from the markets to feed the prisoners.

A second gate led into an unlit alley. Fen fumbled with the mass of keys, to find one that would open it. The key turned silently. Fen pushed the gate and it swung open with a yawning groan. The three fugitives held their breath. Nothing stirred from inside the prison. Fen released a shaky sigh of relief.

“I’ll go back now,” she whispered, holding up the keys.

Tien raised her head from Saka’s shoulder to look at Fen. Go back? she wondered, her heart sinking. What did Fen mean? Was Fen going to stay?

“Just unlock the first few cells,” Saka told Fen. “Then let them have the keys. They will have plenty of time. Vond should sleep like a baby all night and wake up with no memory of what took place.”

Fen nodded. “We’ll wait in the alley. Hurry!” Saka urged.

Hanging, helpless and ungainly, over Saka’s shoulder, Tien’s eyes widened in dismay. They cannot be serious, she thought. Feeling sorry for the prisoners, is one thing, but to free them all? Won’t someone notice an empty jail a little quicker than just three missing prisoners? Fen slunk off, disappearing back into the jail. Saka carried Tien out of the gate.

“Having all the prisoners on the loose will give us a head start,” he said, as though he’d read her mind. He snorted a soft laugh. “Well, it won’t really,“ he admitted. “It may cause half a day of confusion though, which is to our advantage. It’s our small way of saying ‘nah nah-nah-nah nah’ to the establishment. And anyhow, none of the wretches on the ground floor are there for any crime, other than showing compassion to those whom the king’s new laws exclude.”

Tien started in surprise. Saka talked as if he was against some of Phan’s ideas. But is he being honest? she wondered. Could it be a ploy to get me to feel comfortable, to let my guard down? But that is ludicrous. I have no information that is worth all that effort. She frowned. Maybe Saka and Fen were genuinely unhappy with the changes in Pendelethe.

Tien’s head ached and it hurt to think. She longed to rub her cold hands over her forehead. She wriggled her fingers. When they reached the safety of the alley’s concealing shadows, Saka set her down carefully. He placed her upright onto the cobbled road. Tien swayed precariously. Her legs were still tied together. Saka gripped her forearms and propped her against the wall of the jail. Yellow light from the courtyard’s lamppost spilled over into the alley, and Tien was able to make out his features.

Now that Tien was on her feet, she saw that Saka was not as tall as she had first thought, although he stood a good head and shoulders over her. He was obviously still growing, and a bit on the scrawny side. Saka’s face was typically Tiran, a firm jaw with a slightly prominent chin. No prince charming, but definitely not a frog either.

“Can you stand alright?” he asked, his dark puppy-eyes nearly hidden under an untidy thatch of dark fringe. He scraped it back impatiently. Tien leant heavily against the wall, and nodded at him. She still could scarcely believe that they had taken her with them. “Walk?,” Saka asked.

“I think so. It’s really my arms and the back of my head that hurt.” Tien instantly wished she had not admitted this. She did not want to reveal any weakness that could see her left behind. “I’ll be fine,” she added quickly.

Saka flashed a smile that transformed his face. His four front teeth were a little gappy and very white. “I am sure you will,” he said, producing a wicked-looking blade from his pocket. “Though I think that you will go better without these.”

Tien flinched and her eyes widened as he reached behind her back. Then she relaxed sheepishly. He was only trying to cut the cords that bound her hands and feet. Two deft upward slices, and they fell to the ground.

“So kind of Vond to loan us his knife,” Saka said, pocketing it again. Tien wriggled her toes in their sandals, and gently rubbed her tender wrists. Free! she thought, a smile spreading over her face. Then she remembered why she was in Tira. Somewhere, my family and all the Aryks are locked up. Are the Raseen hurting them? Have they been taken as slaves?

Images of the awful things her family could be enduring at this very moment, seeped into Tien’s mind like a black cloud. She couldn’t bear it. She screwed her eyes closed, rubbing at her eyeballs until she only saw blackness. The blood had begun to pulse freely through her limbs again. Pain replaced the pins and needles, distracting her tormented thoughts. It hurt. Tien gritted her teeth and sucked in a breath. She shook out her arms and legs, trotting on the spot to hurry the process along. Her cheeks flushed as she noticed Saka staring, but it was working. The pain was beginning to subside. Tien felt a tightness around her chest. She reached around and touched something bulky. It was attached to her back and covered by the cloak.

She twisted around and struggled to pull it off. Then she held it up for a better look. My backpack! Tien grinned. How did it get from the cart onto my back? She had a sudden terrible thought. Fanzine’s letter. Had it been discovered? Tien fumbled with the tie, and her trembling fingers probed the letter’s hiding place. Oh, thank goodness! It was there! Next she felt for the slight thickness, where she had sewn the precious pages from Miss Roovil into the lining of her pack. They rustled slightly under her fingertips. A wave of warm relief washed over Tien’s body. She felt like dancing and shouting with joy at this small triumph, but she was too weak. In any case it wouldn’t be wise to draw attention to the pack’s importance, she remembered. It was too soon to tell if Saka or Fen could be trusted.

Tien glanced at Saka, as she hugged the pack to her chest. “How did you get chloroform into the prison? Didn’t the guards search you thoroughly?,” she asked, with a burst of confidence.

Saka blinked, and then grinned. “Ha!“ he chortled. “That was no chloroform!” He leaned forward in a confidential manner. “Fen knows all about herbs and remedies. She remembered learning that the juice of a crushed roach, when mixed with an acid, becomes a sedative. It is powerful enough to put an elephant to sleep for half a day!”

His eyebrows lifted. “As you can imagine, there was no shortage of the live ingredient in our cell.” He chuckled at Tien’s grimace. “And then each day without fail that dreadful soup was served up. Guess what the green stuff floating in it is?” Tien shook her head, her aches forgotten for the moment. “Lime tree leaves!” Saka crowed. “And although they were wilted and cooked, they still managed to bring out the potency of the roach fluids. As poor Vond found out.”

Saka laughed unsympathetically. He seemed to mistake the incredulous look on Tien’s face as one of concern for the guard’s welfare. “Hey,” he said, with a shrug. “I was the guinea pig for Fen’s recipe before we used it on Vond, so I know first hand that he’ll suffer no long-term ill effects. Well, at least none that he doesn’t already have.” He stooped low, his arms and legs splayed, and skulked around her; a fair imitation, of both the roaches and Vond.

“Ugh!“ Tien smiled. Tiran roaches grew to be the size of a man’s hand. Being flat, they could slide under most doors. The roaches had invaded Aryk in plague-like proportions several seasons ago. Tien would never forget the night when she had woken to something scratching and pulling on her nightshirt. She’d looked down to see five or more glossy black roaches scrabbling over her. They had scattered harmlessly into the shadows, but long after the roach plague ended, Tien still wrapped her face in a scarf before sleeping.

She thought back to what the guard, Vond, had said about the bangles that Fen had shown him. Maybe Saka and Fen were thieves, caught stealing from the Phan himself. Had she escaped the jail, only to become trapped into something even worse? They both looked kind and seemed nice, but like Fanzine said in her letter, looks could be deceiving.

“What about those bangles? Were they really from the palace?” she asked Saka.

“What, these?” Saka grasped part of the thin belt tied around his waist, the belt that had so annoyed him. He held it up. It was bright yellow and fashioned from thin cords that were braided together. He undid some of the braiding, and then looped three or four sections. He laid them out in his palm, with the excess bits hidden, so she got the full effect. Tien saw how, in the dark, the yellow braiding look a little like gold bracelets. Ingenious, she thought, looking at him in admiration.

Fen skidded up to them. “Let’s go,” she panted, “before the entrance becomes congested.“ Tien looked down the alley. To the left, it ran along the length of the jail, disappearing into the darkness. The distant hum of music and laughter seemed to be coming from the opposite direction, where the lights of Tira glowed over shadowy rooftops.

“We’ll need to head towards an open, crowded place,” said Saka, pointing in the direction of the city. “The first areas the guards will look, will be the shadowy parts of town.”

Tien glanced uncertainly at him. The thought of walking freely through Tira scared her. Surely people would notice them, all grimy and crumpled from sleeping on a jail floor. Tien preferred the idea of keeping to the dark corners, where she at least felt safe. A metallic sound echoed hollowly through the hallway behind them. The clang of rusty metal doors sliding open. Tien jumped.

Fen placed a cool hand on her arm. “It’s alright,” she whispered. “The prisoners are freeing each other.”

“Oh,” said Tien, feeling foolish. Stop being so jumpy, she told herself, or they may strand you here. Saka had started to walk towards the well- lit part of Tira. He motioned for the others to follow. Tien forced her stiff legs to move. She glanced around, her heart thumping. She half expected a gang of Raseen to jump out at any second. Did Saka really know what he was doing?

“What about the other guards?,” Tien whispered. “Won’t they be looking for us soon?”

“No, no one will know we’re gone for hours,” Saka said airily. He sounded so relaxed! “We’ve only been in the jail ten days ourselves,” Fen explained, as they turned into a wider and brighter lane. “But the prisoner in the cell next to us has been there for nearly a year and was most informative. He had been going crazy with boredom, so he began to memorize the wardens’ names and their shift patterns. He discovered that, for ten hours every Friday night, there is only one warden on duty.”

“Oh,” said Tien, to show Fen that she was listening. They turned right, then immediately right again, heading towards the light ahead, like moths to a flame.]

“And at any rate,” said Saka. ”Vond, the guard on duty, will be held responsible when our escape is discovered, and he will not dare to let them know he was outwitted by two girls and a boy.” He gave a scornful laugh. “Nope, he‘ll come up with some story of a revolt, and of being overpowered by half of the prisoners in the jail, blah, blah, blah….“ He looked out at the brighter lights ahead, and stopped. “OK, we are almost there. Let’s make ourselves presentable.”

Saka and Fen took off the cloaks they wore and put them into their packs. Tien watched them and then did the same. Why are these cloaks significant?, she wondered. A Watcher’s cloak, is that what they called the one I’m wearing? What can a Watcher be? She reached a hand to her hair. The tie for her braid hung perilously from a tangle. She rescued it, and then combed her fingers through her hair, doing her best to reconstruct the braid, without the aid of a comb. Her hair felt coarse and filthy from the dirt floor.

Tien pulled a corner of the cloak from of her pack, and moistened it with a couple of drops from her flask. She gingerly sponged her face and neck. The others had obviously prepared earlier for mingling, and didn’t take long. After Tien hoisted her pack back over her shoulder and straightened, the three of them checked each other for missed spots, before moving on.

“Act as though you are enjoying the evening’s entertainments; we want to blend in,” Saka said under his breath.

Fen pulled up abruptly. “Tien,” she said. “Your head. We’d better cover it up, or you’ll be spotted as a Aryk.”

Tien ran a hand over her head, feeling the bristle of her fuzz. “My scarf must have come off in the prison,” she stammered.

Fen rifled through her pack, and brought out a piece of dark fabric. “Shall I do it for you?” Tien nodded and bent her head forward, wincing as the bone at the nape of her neck throbbed in protest. Fen deftly wrapped Tien’s braid in the scarf, which smelled faintly of sandalwood, and tucked in any escaping strands. She finished by draping the ties in such a way, that they covered the mark on her neck. “There, now we both look like peasant girls,” she said, her mouth lifting into a crooked smile.

“Thankyou,” Tien said, smiling. “ I’d forgotten about my hair.” I’m starting to like Fen, she thought. I really hope I can trust her. Saka stood by, clicking his fingers. “Ready?” he asked. The girls nodded. “Well, here goes nothing.”

They began a leisurely stroll. They’d been following the swelling music and laughter, and now the lane opened out onto what appeared to be the town square. Tall lampposts around its perimeter cast a soft, festive glow over the evening’s entertainment.

© 2006 by Shelly Taylor