Escape From Riddler's Pass (3 page)

“The symbol of the Rebellion,” Kayne said, though they all knew it. It was intended to make a mockery of the symbol of Amarias, the same symbol that was branded on the shoulder of every member of the Youth Guard.

“Excellent,” Rae said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Now the king
and
the Rebellion are trying to kill us.”

Kayne stared at her, squinting out of his tiny, dim eyes. “The king?”

“We'll explain later,” Silas said, tracing the grooves of the rock in his hand, almost unconsciously. “But you should all know that this stone is more than just the symbol of the Rebellion. It is the symbol of the Rebellion in District Two.”

“How so?” Kayne asked.

“Each district has its own distinct customs and way of life,” Silas said flatly. Rae, Jesse, and Kayne nodded. They all knew that. “Members of the Rebellion—though they share the common purpose of destroying the king—are slightly different in every district. So are their symbols.”

Jesse frowned. “But I know here, in District One, their symbol is the same.” Though people rarely spoke of the Rebellion, everyone seemed to know certain things about it from whispered stories or rumors.

“Not a different symbol,” Silas corrected himself. “Different materials.” He held the stone up. “Rebellion leaders in District Two use the stone of the Deep Mines, common in our range of the Suspicion Mountains. District Four uses the orange sandstone we saw in the Abaktan Desert. District One, known for its farmers and blacksmiths, uses common iron.”

“District Three, home to the greatest forests in Amarias, uses wood,” Rae finished, speaking of her own home district.

Silas nodded grimly. “So you have seen it, then?”

“Once,” Rae admitted. “When the king's storeroom was plundered and all of the deer taken, I saw the symbol carved on the door.”

“You know an awful lot about the Rebellion, boy,” Kayne said mildly, looking Silas in the eye.

Silas' fist closed around the Rebellion stone, and Jesse could see his jaw tighten. “Is that an accusation?”

“Not a bit,” Kayne said. “But you young people seem to have a habit of being more than you appear to be. Care to explain?”

The anger on Silas' face made Jesse shrink back in his chair. But they soon discovered Silas was not angry with Kayne. “I have seen this symbol before,” he said, clenching the rock in his fist. “At the place where they murdered my father.”

His father?
Suddenly, all the hateful things Silas had said about the Rebellion made sense.

“So,” Silas said, setting the rock down on the table with a thud, “we know that if Parvel is still alive, he is in the hands of the Rebellion—the Rebellion in District Two, which is far worse.”

“Why worse?” Jesse asked.

“Each district has unique tactics,” Silas replied. “I've studied them. Those in District Three, for example,” he said, nodding at Rae, “often steal from the king and his officials. They rarely resort to violence. Not so in District Two. They are ambitious, well-organized, and harsh. They will do whatever is necessary to accomplish their goals.”

“Including traveling to another district to kidnap a lone Youth Guard member?” Jesse asked, not entirely convinced.

“Or kill him,” Silas said. Seeing the look on Jesse's face, he hastily added, “But if they had done that, they wouldn't have left a stone; they would have left his body. That would make a far greater impact.”

That reasoning didn't make Jesse feel any better.
Even if Parvel is still alive, how can we find him again?

“I have heard the Rebellion has a stronghold in the ruins of the Deep Mines,” Silas said, as if hearing Jesse's unspoken question. “It's very treacherous territory, and few who enter ever return. That is where they would take Parvel.”

There was another pause. “Well,” Kayne said, standing from the table. “I'd best get you some food, then. It'll be another long trek, and you'll need your strength.”

“I take it you think we should go after him, then,” Rae said dryly.

Kayne looked at her like she had a stone for a brain. “Of course. While he was here, Parvel was like a member of the family. Reminded me of my own son.” Jesse might have imagined it, but he thought he saw the hint of a tear in Kayne's eye.

Kayne set his face in determination. “Even if you're not sure where he is, even if you're not sure he's alive, you have to try to find him.”

Jesse glanced at Rae, and she nodded. He knew what Silas' answer would be. Sure enough, Silas nodded solemnly. “We will go.” He stood up from the table and added, “Tonight.” He kept the Rebellion stone in his hand, gripping it tightly.

Kayne was already rummaging through drawers and in cabinets, finding food to give them for their journey. Jesse just hoped he wouldn't slip in any of the nasty medicinal tea he sometimes brewed.

“I'll draw water for our journey,” Silas said. “We'll travel by the river as much as possible, but anything can happen.”

Jesse did not like the sound of that.
But, really, we're traveling to the hideout of a faction of radical, ruthless kidnappers. Running out of water would be one of the easier problems to deal with.

Jesse glanced over at Kayne. He was digging in the medicine cabinet, muttering to himself and pulling out a small canister of tea. Instead of taking out a few leaves, he put the whole thing in the already bulging sack he held.
He must be emptying his entire pantry for us.

“This will be a short visit,” Jesse said, trying to laugh a little, “even for me.”

Kayne stopped and glanced up at Jesse. “Some things can't be helped,” he said crisply. “You have to go after him. If I thought you'd need an old man to slow you down, I'd go along myself.”

Jesse almost laughed, picturing Kayne stumbling along a mountain path on a dangerous mission into Rebellion territory.
Then again
, he mused,
I have very little room to laugh. I'm not much more than a cripple, and I've come this far.

Kayne set down the sack and gestured toward Jesse's walking stick. Jesse handed it to him, and Kayne held it close to his eyes, examining it. “Hmm. It's been through a lot, hasn't it, Jesse?”

Jesse nodded. “I have many stories. Maybe I can tell you if we come back.”

“When,” Kayne said, handing the walking stick back to him. “You can tell me
when
you come back, with Parvel. Now, if you want speed, you ought to….”

A loud pounding at the cabin door cut off his words. “Open up, in the name of the king!” a voice shouted. “Patrol here.”

Captain Demetri
. Jesse's eyes darted to Kayne. “A Patrol captain is searching for us,” Jesse explained as quickly as he could.

That seemed to settle the matter for Kayne. “Run,” he commanded in a low tone, shoving the sack of supplies at him. “Out the back door! I'll hold them off as long as I can.”

Rae had already stood and grabbed their other bags. Her eyes were wide, but she didn't make a sound as she followed Jesse to the small door on the other side of the cabin.

“You in there!” the muffled voice outside the door bellowed. “Open up!”

Before he turned away toward the loud voice, Kayne put a hand on Jesse's shoulder. “God be with you,” he whispered.

Jesse blinked in surprise. Kayne had never believed in God, at least, not that he knew of. “Now go!” he said, pushing him toward the door.

There was no time to think, no time to wonder. The pounding continued. Jesse took one look back. Kayne was clearing away the extra dishes, all the while moaning sleepily, “Coming! Can't an old man get his sleep? Or has the king made that illegal too?”

Before Jesse could say his last good-bye, a strong hand pulled him out the door. Jesse almost cried out, until he turned to see Silas beside him. “Into the forest,” he whispered. “It looks like we won't get any rest tonight.”

 

At least in the mountains we can't leave a trail
, Jesse thought wearily as he stumbled along the Way of Tears, the rocky road that led to District Two.
That's better than when we were running from Captain Demetri in…the place with sand in it
. He tripped over a rock in the path.
The desert. That's what it's called.

Even though his body kept going, step by step, Jesse knew his mind couldn't last much longer. They had been running, then walking, all night, with only one brief rest. Jesse had fallen asleep even in those few minutes before Silas had pulled him to his feet.

“Once they search the place and realize we're not there, they'll come after us,” Silas warned. “And if they catch us, they'll kill us.”

His blunt words had broken through the haze of exhaustion that hung over Jesse like fog in the early morning. Fear was what made Jesse keep going, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Despite Silas' words, he had not seen or heard anyone following them.
Not that my mind is very sharp right now
.

How do they do it?
he wondered, staring at Rae and Silas, who were a short distance ahead of him. If they had slowed since leaving Mir, he hadn't noticed.

The sky was getting lighter, and Jesse heard the birds begin to come out, like they did every morning.

Morning
. They had walked all night.

“Silas, wait,” he called, his words sounding stiff and lifeless even to his own ears. Silas turned around. “We need to rest. It's almost….”
What is it called when the sun comes up?
“Dawn,” he finished. “It's almost dawn.”

“He's right,” Rae agreed, and Jesse blinked in surprise.
I'm right?
“We should not be out in the open during the day. We can continue on tomorrow night.”

“But where can we go?” Jesse asked, working up the energy to move his head around. Nothing but the towering Suspicion Mountains on either side.

“Just a little farther,” Silas said, continuing on. “The sign said we passed into District Two.”

The sign. There was a sign, wasn't there?

“The Deep Mines are just ahead,” Silas informed them. “I know of a place there where no one will find us.”

He and Rae said other things, but Jesse stopped listening. All he knew was that he was not allowed to sleep yet. He groaned and followed the other two, feeling angry with them, but not remembering why. He kept Silas' words in his mind.
Just a little farther
.

Most of the “little farther” was blurred in Jesse's memory. Once, he must have fallen asleep, because his bleary eyes woke to Rae pouring cold water over his face. She helped him to his feet and dragged him along. He let her, because it would have been too much work to pull away.

From then on, he just focused on the bottom of his walking stick, placing it down on the ground, then picking it up again. He found a steady rhythm after a while, until Silas tore his attention away from the all-important task.

“Here,” Silas said, pointing at a grove of trees at one end of a canyon. “Welcome to Urad.”

What's Urad? Does Urad mean sleep?

Jesse followed Silas toward the trees, then through them. Finally, they stopped in front of a patch of thick brambles and thorns. Silas stooped to crawl, but Jesse decided not to follow.
I can sleep here just as well as…wherever Silas is going.

From behind him, Rae muttered some kind of threat, which Jesse's tired mind didn't understand. Then she shoved him into the brambles, which Jesse did understand. The shock of pain roused him enough to make him crawl after Silas.

The ground was hard, and his lame leg throbbed with the pressure. The briars seemed to go on forever. Then, Silas stopped and pulled aside a thick curtain of moss to reveal a dark hole in the side of the mountain.

But that's not possible…is it? Maybe I'm already dreaming
.

“We're here,” Silas said, crawling into the cave.

Jesse would have smiled—he would have jumped up and down with joy—but that would have taken far too much energy. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jesse remembered he didn't like small, dark caves that looked threatening, but he was too tired to care.

The cave was dark and cool inside. The rocks were hard, but that didn't bother Jesse. He laid his pack down for a pillow and collapsed on the ground by the entrance. Rae and Silas were talking again.
They can tell me in the morning
was his last thought before he fell asleep.

When he next opened his eyes, the cave was glowing with golden light. He sat up and brushed away the moss from the cave entrance, looking outside. A few brave flecks of sunlight made their way through the thicket of thorns surrounding the cave.
Early afternoon,
Jesse guessed.

“A nice place to rest, isn't it?” Silas asked. Jesse turned around to face him. He was leaning against the wall, a bit deeper into the cave where the light was dimmer and the shadows longer.

“Any place would have been a good place to rest,” Jesse said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

A slight smile twitched at the corner of Silas' mouth. “Yes, I was afraid we were going to have to carry you the rest of the way.”

We
. “Where's Rae?”

“She insisted on going on a scouting foray,” Silas said. “I think she just wanted to get out of the cave. Like I told her, it's hardly necessary. Even if Captain Demetri did manage to follow us, he is from District Four. This cave is secure, and, more importantly, obscure. Urad is little known outside of District Two.”

“This place has a name?”

Silas nodded. “There used to be a city here in these caverns that marked the start of the Deep Mines. But these far eastern mines were abandoned long ago.”

“A city underground?” That seemed strange to Jesse.

“Not underground,” Silas said. “Just inside the mountain. The Roarics felt safer here, surrounded by rock.”

The Roarics
. Jesse had heard of them before, but he couldn't remember where.

Jesse tried to stand and nearly hit his head on the ceiling of the cave. He settled for stooping, walking a little farther into the cave. Although the light was dim, the only things Jesse could see beside dirt and rocks were two large wooden pillars supporting the roof of the cavern. “I don't see any evidence of a city.”

“It was deeper in. We would need to go through many tunnels and caverns to reach it, I'd wager. But even then, you wouldn't find much to look at. Urad was destroyed.”

“Who destroyed it?”

“Patrol members.” Silas yawned loudly. He was clearly already bored with the subject. “Or, actually, more like a small army of Patrol, I'd guess.”

That wasn't answer enough for Jesse. “But why? What happened?”

Silas shrugged. “Some kind of treason, I suppose. It happened years before I was born. Why does it matter?”

“I don't know. It's part of a story.”

“So?”

Jesse tried to think of a way to explain himself without sounding foolish.
How do you tell someone who only thinks in terms of facts and strategies why it's important to hear stories?
Eventually, he gave up. “I just wanted to know.”

There was silence in the cave for a minute. “Who were the Roarics?” Jesse asked, almost timidly.

“A race of dwarves. Hardy and strong. They worked in this section of the mine years ago, before they were wiped out.” As always, Silas answered patiently, even though it was clear he didn't care.

An entire race wiped out, a city destroyed, and he doesn't even know why?
Jesse could hardly understand. It was frustrating, the lack of value those in District Two put on stories.

Jesse sat down by the entrance. Although the cave seemed safe enough, he preferred the sunlight to the dark shadows. This was not what he had planned on back in the woods outside of Mir.
Well, we made it home, for a few moments at least
.

To be honest, Jesse was tired of traveling, tired of running from the king's men, tired of saying good-bye to the people he loved, not sure if they would ever meet again.

Jesse thought of Kayne's strange parting words, “God be with you.” Not strange, for some in Amarias, perhaps, although few cared much about religion these days. But Jesse and his family had always been self-sufficient, and Kayne even more so.

Kayne had always looked after Jesse, especially after his parents disappeared. He had been the only one in Mir who hadn't believed they abandoned him. Though gruff and hardened by life, Kayne was a good man. “That's my religion,” he said. “Doing the right thing without a god to make me do it.”

So why would Kayne refer to a God he didn't believe in?
It had to be because of Parvel
. Parvel was a firm believer in God, one of those who called themselves Christians, and had stayed with Kayne for nearly two weeks. Naturally, Kayne would pick up some of his phrases.

But he can't actually believe in that nonsense, can he?
Jesse just couldn't understand the idea of worshiping an invisible God.
Maybe some divine figure created the world, but a personal, invisible God who protects humans? That's too much for me.

Jesse heard the sound of someone crashing through the brambles outside the cave, interrupting his thoughts.

“It's probably Rae,” Silas whispered, backing deeper into the cave. “But, just in case….”

Jesse followed, and they both crouched behind a boulder in the darker part of the cave. “Silas!” Rae's voice called. The tone of her voice gave Jesse a sick feeling.
There must be trouble
.

They peered out from behind the rock to see Rae tumble into the cave, out of breath. “Silas, Jesse, where are you?”

“Here,” Silas called, stepping from behind the rock. He hit his head on the roof of the cavern, and Jesse had to stop himself from laughing.

Rae's words took all thoughts of laughter away. “They're here,” Rae said, panting. “They're here, and they know about the cave. I was above them, on the cliffs, and I heard them talking….” She paused to catch her breath. “Somehow, they found our trail. I don't understand it. But they will find us here.”

Silas nodded, and Jesse could practically see his mind moving behind his gray eyes. “How far away are they?”

“Only a few minutes behind. I ran here as fast as I could.”

“We can't keep running from them,” Silas said grimly. “They must have a tracking expert with them. And if they know about the cave….”

“You said there are tunnels here,” Jesse interrupted. “In the dark, they would have a hard time following us.”

“That's true,” Silas said, nodding.

Jesse almost wished Silas hadn't agreed. He had never liked the dark.
Especially if there's anything else living in these tunnels.
He had heard stories of cave creatures with white, blind eyes that would attack based on scent alone.

Silas dropped to his knees and ripped open his supply pack. “We'll have to proceed slowly so we don't fall into any pits.” He held up the flint triumphantly. “This will help.”

“And what do you suggest we light?” Jesse pointed out. He noticed Silas' eyes on his staff, and he jerked it back, clutching it protectively. “I'd let you set my head on fire first!”

“Let's have it, then.”

Jesse wasn't entirely sure Silas was joking. Thankfully, Rae provided an alternative. She hurried into the darkness, feeling along the cave wall. “Here!”

Rejoining them, she presented Silas with a stick of wood fitted into an iron holder. “Your torch, sir,” she said, giving him a mock bow.

“How did you find this?” Jesse asked. He fingered the metal holder. Its surface was tarnished from years of disuse, but he could still see the rough design of a boar's head formed by the iron.

“I woke up early and explored the cave while you and Silas were still sleeping,” Rae said, shrugging.

Of course she did
. Jesse was sure Rae never ran out of energy. He was surprised she slept at all.

Silas lit the torch, and the resulting glow made Jesse feel slightly safer. “Come on,” Silas said, holding the torch in front of him as he made his way into the shadows of the cave.

Rae bit her lip, for once not following immediately behind him. “And you're sure the ghosts of the Roarics are just a local superstition?”

“What?” Jesse blurted.

Rae glanced at Jesse. “Silas didn't tell you?”

“No,” Jesse said, glaring at Silas in the dark. “He failed to mention ghosts.”

Silas shrugged. “I've heard that people from District One are superstitious, and I didn't want to worry you.”

“Oh, because I'm far less worried now that we're running from a Patrol of armed guards into a dark pit haunted by ghosts,” Jesse shot back.