The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (18 page)

Myranda stood on shaky legs. She could not
get a good look at the stone around her neck, but she knew that
they had changed it before, so there must be a way to release it.
She searched with her fingers, but everywhere she touched it burned
slightly, robbing her of feeling. The footsteps were nearly upon
her now. There was no more time to waste, she would have to be
ready. Crouching behind the chair, she smashed the crystal with all
of the strength she had against the seat's hard back. It fractured.
She smashed again. A piece fell away. With a final attempt the
crystal shattered, creating an eye searing flash and cutting her
hand badly. Then there was only darkness. Instantly she felt a
strength she had not felt in weeks. A month ago she would have
counted herself as near death when she felt like this, but at this
moment it may as well have been the peak of health.

Without the crystal's glow there was total
darkness. That likely meant little to the nearmen, as they had been
patrolling without light, but to Myranda it meant that she could
not see them and they could see her. She crouched behind the chair
and thought feverishly as she heard the steps come to a stop just
beyond the bars. What would they do? They would have to secure her
and apply a new crystal. That meant they would have to open the
door. If that happened she might be able to push past them and out
of the cell, but then where would she go? The pair of guards began
an exchange in a language that was utterly foreign to Myranda.
Finally, one set of footsteps retreated into the distance.

Myranda waited a moment, but there was only
silence. One of the guards had likely gone for help or replacement
restraints, and the remaining one was clearly not going to open the
door. With more opposition on the way, the time to act was now. She
lashed out with a sleep spell. She didn't have the strength for
anything more powerful. The guard stumbled briefly, but did not
fall. The spell simply wasn't strong enough. There were only two
things she could think of that might do any good now. She charged
out from behind the chair into the darkness, quickly colliding with
the bars. She reached through and grasped the unseen guard. At the
same time she chanted the words of the sleep spell aloud, quietly
but intensely. The physical contact and incantation combined were
just barely enough. The guard collapsed to the ground.

The girl quickly turned her mind to the lock
on the cell. Almost immediately she found that the larger lock was
hopelessly more complex than the shackles had been. With nothing
else to do, she fought furiously with it for a moment before
collapsing against the bars, sobbing.

"I'm just not strong enough," she sobbed.

After a moment a voice came out of the
darkness.

"You stupid girl," taunted the voice. It was
the blind priest in a nearby cell. "You stupid, stupid girl. Open
the door!"

"I can't. I don't have the strength! I cannot
undo the lock!" she replied.

"You learn to run and forget how to walk! The
keys! I heard them jingle as the guard fell!" he fairly
commanded.

"Of course!" she replied, reaching through
the bars and feeling about until her hands came to rest on the
keys.

There were only three keys on the ring. The
second opened the cell door.

"Where are you?" Myranda called into the
darkness.

"Here. Why? Planning to put a knife in my
back? It would be the most honest thing you've done in your
wretched life," the priest hissed.

"I am going to let you out. It is pitch black
and-" she whispered.

"The door stays closed, witch," he whispered
angrily.

"I am trying to free you," she whispered
urgently, finding her way to the door. When she tried to fit the
key into the hole, a quick hand swiped it away.

"I am a priest. It is my place to forgive.
But I will
not
owe you. Now go, or I will keep the key and
you will never escape this place with your life. Free the others if
you choose, but as far as I am concerned these bars are here to
protect
me
from
you
," he warned.

"If that is what you wish," she said.

Another time she would have demanded that he
come with her, but time was short. Other captives in other cells
began to realize that Myranda had escaped and were calling for
freedom. She remembered from her trip through with Trigorah that a
torch was on either side of the stairway of each floor. Stumbling
through the dark as best she could, she found her way to one and
lit it. The mystic effort was enough to rob her of her balance. It
was the last spell that she would cast without passing out. In the
flickering light she saw dozens of sets of arms reaching pleadingly
out to her. Taking the torch in the palm of her badly bleeding
right hand, she made her way to each door, quickly unlocking them.
The prisoners ran, only freedom on their minds. Only a few had been
freed when three nearmen appeared in the stairway, blocking their
way. Myranda worked furiously at unlocking more doors. She had
stopped thinking of her own escape long ago. She simply
had
to release these people. It was her fault that they were here.

Suddenly, one of the nearmen was upon her.
The other two, scarcely visible at the edge of the torch's light,
waved swords to keep back the men and women already free. The fiend
before Myranda chose its gauntleted hands, likely on orders from
Epidime not to kill her. She waved the torch at the guard, causing
it to step back. The silent, faceless brute raised a hand to strike
her. Myranda stumbled away from the bars, barely dodging the blow.
The attacker turned to face her and raised both fists for a hammer
blow. A pair of powerful hands leapt from the darkness between the
bars, seizing the guard by the face mask. A swift pull bashed the
armored nearman's head into the bars, then again, and again.
Finally the hands released him and the guard crumbled to the
ground. The light of the torch revealed Myranda's rescuer. It had
been months since she had seen him, but even without his decrepit
armor she recognized the mountain of a man.

"Tus!" she cried, unlocking the cell as
another of the guards rushed over.

Tus, a significant member of a rebellious
group called the Undermine who had helped Myranda in the past,
whipped the door open with all of his might. It smashed the
charging nearman and dropped him to the ground. He snatched up the
sword that the first nearman had refused to use and ran to the
remaining guard. With a trio of clumsy, overly powerful strikes,
the nearman fell. There was a dull surge of light and the nearman
seemed to collapse into a wisp of dust, leaving only a pile of
caved in armor. A swift plunge of his sword into the chest of the
other two nearmen brought about the same effect. Whatever these
things were, they were not natural.

"This way. Caya is here. We will find her.
You will free her," he said, more a statement of fact than a
request or an order.

"I have to free everyone," Myranda said,
opening another door. Tus grabbed the old man who ran from inside
by the shirt.

"You will take the keys from the dead guard
and unlock all of these cells or I will cut your arms off,"
remarked Tus.

The terrified old man nodded vigorously and
turned quickly to the task. Tus turned to a woman who had witnessed
the threat, fetched the keys from another downed guard and tossed
them to her.

"You will follow us. You will open all of the
cells we pass," he added.

Fearing that what had happened to the guards
would happen to her, the woman agreed. Myranda, though far from
pleased with the method, accepted the result and agreed to follow
Tus. Each floor brought another pair of guards. With a crowd of
escaped prisoners to distract them, Tus seldom had much difficultly
in dispatching them, leaving behind piles of ruined armor and motes
of dust. Each defeated guard provided another set of keys and
another terrified escapee was pressed into duty. Torches were lit,
floors were emptied. Total chaos reigned. It was not until they
reached the second to last floor, freeing all in their path, that
the cell containing Caya was found.

The strong young woman within the cell had
been the leader of the Undermine, and even after what must have
been ages of imprisonment, the keen edge of defiance had not left
her eyes.

"Myranda! I knew when I saw you that things
would soon change! You are a godsend!" Caya declared, snatching a
sword from Tus' latest conquest and looking dejectedly for a foe
that would not come.

"You aren't angry? You are here because of
me," Myranda said, confused that no apology had been demanded of
her.

"I would have eventually found my own way to
a place like this. But thanks to you dozens of others did!" she
said excitedly.

"I don't understand," Myranda said.

"No one believes what the army is capable of.
What this war has turned us into! These people will be angry, hurt,
disillusioned, and they will have nowhere to turn. That is the
recipe for an Undermine Soldier. Our ranks will be doubled! And I
have you to thank," Caya said.

"But weren't you tortured?" Myranda
asked.

"Not for more than a few minutes, if you call
that interview in the chair torture. In fact, once you were brought
in, that fellow with the halberd ordered these beastly guards to
feed us better. He said he wanted us healthy and full of life," she
said.

Myranda shuddered. Epidime had wanted them to
be healthy when he killed them. He wanted their deaths to cause all
the more pain to Myranda when he finally won.

"Let us go. If Tus left anyone for me to
kill, I will see to it that you are not touched until we have made
good our escape," Caya declared.

"No! I can't go with you," Myranda said.

"But you must!" Caya said.

"No. They may not want you as a captive
anymore, but Epidime has a personal vendetta against me," Myranda
said. "We are both better off if I am alone."

"Fine then, but we will meet again," Caya
said.

"You will be my wife," Tus stated.

For a moment the trio was silent.

"You already have a wife, Tus. Henna,
remember?" Caya reminded him.

"You will be my new wife," Tus amended.

"Move, Tus. We've got recruiting to do," Caya
said.

Tus agreed and the pair hurried back up the
stairs. The fort had maintained a full complement of nearmen. They
were vicious soldiers to be sure, but a frenzied mob that
outnumbered them ten to one was more than they could handle. In
minutes the heavy doors were forced open and prisoners had run off
in every direction. No more than ten guards survived the chaos.
These survivors took up arms and searched the fort thoroughly. The
other prisoners were nothing, but Myranda would have to be found.
When every cell and the whole of the courtyard had been scoured,
the nearmen took to the surrounding fields. All that had been found
was a trail of blood drops leading to a discarded torch near the
doors. Hundreds of trails would have to be followed to their end.
Myranda would be found. The soldiers marched into the setting sun
on foot, the horses taken by the first of the prisoners.

For several minutes there was no sound but
the wind, and no motion at all. Finally, there was a stir in a dark
corner. In the stable, little more than a simple shed beside the
stronghold, Myranda struggled to push aside a feed tray filled with
oats and crawled from her hiding place. She made her way to the
water trough, broke the layer of ice on top and scooped greedily at
the water. When her thirst was slaked she turned reluctantly to the
oats. She needed some sort of food. Raw oats would have to do.
Reaching into the tray, suddenly she felt a cold, sharp, familiar
sensation against her neck. A blade.

"Don't try to look. Where is the girl?" a
harsh whisper demanded.

Myranda hadn't the energy to be afraid.

"You've found her," she answered, defeated
and too tired to panic.

"Myranda?!" came a voice she recognized.

"Desmeres?" she said, turning weakly when the
blade was removed.

"
You
caused all of this? What sort of
a damsel in distress manages to escape on her own?" he said with a
laugh of disbelief.

Desmeres was dressed in a white hooded robe
with a white bag slung across his back. In one hand was a knife,
the other held a much bulkier sack. The contents of the sack seemed
to be churning violently.

"Desmeres, you can't turn me in again, I need
to warn . . . " Myranda began, her voice wavering.

"I am not here to put you back in, I am here
to get you out," he said, helping her to her feet and leading her
to a window. "Did you lose weight? You feel lighter than . . . oh
my heavens . . . Myranda, if I didn't know it had only been a few
weeks since you left us, I would swear it had been five hard
years."

In the light he could see the results of the
captivity. She was visibly thinner, pale, and ragged. Her clothes,
hands, and face were smudged with dirt. Her right hand was clenched
in a white knuckled grip around a wad of her tunic surrounded by a
growing red stain. Every word was slurred, and she seemed on the
verge of unconsciousness.

"Is Lain here?" she asked, worried.

"He ought to be. I . . . " he answered.

"And Myn?" she interrupted.

"Tied up in the sack. We were . . . " he
attempted.

"Why?" she thwarted.

"She couldn't go with Lain, she won't listen
to me, and I didn't want to leave her alone," he blurted before she
could interrupt again.

"Why are you helping me to escape?" she
asked.

"They didn't come through with the full
price. Just a bit more than half," Desmeres said dismissively.
"Myranda, what did they do to you in there?"

"Why would they . . . They know! Desmeres,
tell me, where is Lain?" she demanded, suddenly with an urgency
that cut through her weariness.