Most of my days were spent in agitated dreaming. I slept through most of it because it was only in my dreams that I could escape the horror of what I had done and the boredom of not being able to do anything.
I had no idea how long it had been; my incarceration in this tower. All I had to judge it by was the time between when my gut was full and when it was not. After killing and draining the three men and Sally–I forced myself to use her name so I would not think of her as an ‘it’, a ‘thing’ but as a living breathing human–I remained satisfied and satiated for a long time.
Long enough so that my hair and nails grew, long enough to warrant cutting. Since I had no way to do either, I chewed the nails short developing a fascination for the little curlicues of white that peeled off my fingertips. Occasionally, I quicked myself and the bead of blood I sucked tasted like the most exotic wine I had ever imbibed. Rich, smoky with undertones of the slight bitterness that I knew was the essence of silver; it added that little bit extra, like salt to the flavor of a bland meal.
The servants no longer came up to clean, if they did I did not see them and yet, my linens were changed, my clothes cleaned and varied. I had not seen Blackfin or my grandfather since the night of my Council speech and when I cast my senses out towards the Guard’s Barracks, I could feel the urgency and rapid heartbeats of anxious and excited men. Occasionally, I could catch a word or two and learned that war had been declared–against not only the Border people but the Newlanders who did not support the Emperor or the Warlord’s new campaign. Any who resisted had their holdings confiscated and were shot. That the war had been going on for weeks yet they had not breached the wall.
Obviously, the Emperor and my grandfather had not made good on their promise to return me in exchange for freedom to cross the barrier. If they thought they would be able to cheat Averon, they would find themselves in much the same predicament as I had.
I stared up at the rafters and then went through my closet to find a pair of medium weight slippers. When I tied the line to it, it weighed more than the shoe and once thrown, came right back as the weight of the braid dragged it down.
I spent the next two days braiding a thinner, lighter line that a hundred feet could coil in the palm of my hand. I’d never played ball or stick with my dad so I couldn’t claim to have a great pitch but I had used a slingshot since I was five and gotten skillful enough to take a squirrel or a turkey on the wing. So, after a few practice throws, I hit the rafters. After that, it was merely a question of trajectory and luck that made the slipper sail between the rafter beams and down the other side towards me. Then, I merely had to tie the heavier line to the thin one and pull it gently through and back.
Now, I had my noose but rather than place it on my neck, I stared up at the ceiling, the walls and the roof. Instead of ending myself, maybe I could find a way out and escape. Find Arianell and the both of us could run far enough away that we were no longer Newlanders or Borderlanders but Citizens of No Man’s land.
I wrapped my hands around the line and climbed, hand over hand. It posed no problem for me, it seemed my strength had increased tenfold and it was with some shock that I touched the broad beam of unpeeled tree trunks that formed the corbels of the roof. Above that were slates nailed to one by sixes and black tar insulation. My shoulder pushed against it, loosing nails and planks enough to show me that the sky was just lightening to dusk and the stars were coming out.
There was a soft silken breeze here, it carried the scent of the forest and fields and I saw spiders float by on wings of their own webbing.
Nighthawks circled me curiously as if they pondered what I was doing so close to their territory. I pulled my line through, made the hole larger and slipped onto the peak. The roof was four-sided, made of slate and slick. If I didn’t want to find out how it felt to fall hundreds of feet, I would have to tread lightly.
Slowly, I crawled my way around studying the layout below me, trying to decide which was the safest waited to descend.
One side led straight into the common yard where the soldiers practiced, the other connected to the main wing of the estate. The third jetted out over the stables and outbuildings and the last perched over a cliff on the edge of the estate. If I descended there, I could do so in relative darkness and out of sight of either the barracks or the house. And prayed that my rope was long enough.
I was sitting there with my feet jammed up against the edge of the gutters when I heard a breathless voice say, “admiring the view?”
I started in panic and almost fell. Only a quick grab at my rope and flattening of my back on the tiles stopped me from going over as Arianell popped up onto the roof. She was dressed in a cloak cunningly painted to look like the stones of the Tower and wore black gloves on her hands that stuck to the slates. She had on a leather harness that secured her to a thin rope.
“Were you planning a midnight excursion, my prionsa?” She teased. “You look well. Strong and healthy. I take it you found something you can eat?”
“Arianell–.” I started and could not tell her the truth. “I came up here with the intention of hanging myself,” I returned bleakly.
“No! Did you not know I would come for you? I’m sorry it took so long but I had no way to know where they held you. I thought the prison cells but the man I bribed swore you weren’t inside them.”
“No. Just in the Tower.”
“There’s no way up inside it from the bottom.”
“There is but only the wizard can open it. I haven’t seen the light of day or blue sky since I was brought to the Council Hall.”
“Tobias, that was months ago!”
“I can no longer judge time, Arianell. That is another thing they have taken from me,” I said bleakly. “Which way did you climb up from? The house or the cliff?”
“The cliff. I brought you a harness, too.” She handed me the straps, showed me how to place them on me and when her hand brushed my thigh, I was instantly hard and throbbing. Ready to take her, plunge my tongue into her mouth and bite her throat until she screamed in dying ecstasy. Froze as those thoughts of lust became entangled with blood, death and need. A craving need that had nothing to do with sex.
“Oh Toby, I’ve missed you,” she sighed and pecked me on the cheek. “I’m afraid this isn’t the best or safest place to say hello.”
She showed me how to use the harness and the line to control my descent down the side of the tower. When my feet scraped the base of the wall and the beginning of the cliff, I kept going down the sheer palisade wall of granite schist until I hit the bottom of a gorge. A fast-moving, glacial fed stream chewed through it and boulders provided both concealment and traveling hazards. I unhooked, jerked the line and not soon after, Arianell joined me at the bottom. She withdrew her lines, coiled them up and removed all of the harnesses storing them in the pack she had stashed behind a boulder.
“Horses?”
“Down where the gorge widens out. Too dangerous in here for horse hooves and legs. Can you walk that far?”
“To get out of here, I can walk to Caladia,” I vowed and grabbing her hand, I strode off forgetting that I was in night robes and shoeless. The rocks didn’t bother my feet nor was I cold. She tugged me to a stop and stared at me.
“Toby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not wearing clothes. Or shoes.”
I looked at myself. “Oh.”
“Good thing I brought some. But, they’re on the horses.”
“Okay.” I started walking again. It took us only a quarter hour to reach the horses and I felt my heart lighten as I saw Beau and Diomed standing saddled and waiting patiently. She pulled the pack off Diomed’s saddle and handed me drab brown pants, green jerkin, hose and sturdy boots. A westcot of tan with many pockets that buttoned up the front and belled over my hips.
“You’ve put on some muscle, Toby,” she said.
I mounted swiftly, Diomed dancing under me and shivering as if he were afraid. Of me. He started bucking, frantically trying to get me off and it was only when I talked to him that he settled down. But he remained terrified and I knew he sensed the changes in me.
“Toby?” She questioned as she mounted. I kicked Diomed and got him running where his only thought was on maintaining his forward momentum and not me on his back.
I could see perfectly well in the darkness and steered him around obstacles that even he could not discern. We put miles between us and my grandfather’s estate, heading south towards the southern lands where there were vast tracts of sandy wastes where we could lose ourselves. The old world’s every acre was cultivated and owned by the Lords of Ehrenberg and the Southern Coalition that voted with the Emperor. There was no place free or open that would hide us. At least, not in the old lands or the West. Our only chance to escape capture and detection was to head for the South and try to make the Badlands and the bandits.
I didn’t know much about the old world, the topography or the terrain. I had only a vague idea of the distances, the major cities and towns, the vast estates of the ruling class.
I knew the Emperor’s Palace was in the cooler mountains of the Duchy called Swize and was the size of a small city housing nearly 10,000 servants and an entire phalanx of soldiers–the Imperials. At any given time, the Emperor could call about upon half a million men to do his bidding. Such was the caliber of the machine that would be put into motion after us.
I knew that although the southern lands were the safest for me it was the most dangerous for Arian. If the hunger came upon me, I wasn’t sure if I could refrain from killing her. I was equally afraid that I would drain the horses but I would drink from Beau or Diomed before I harmed her.
We trotted for a while and by the time both horses were tired, Diomed was less fractious but still spooky, spooky of me. Neither of us felt like talking, not until we left the road and delved deep into the forest. We had traveled more slowly, the trees and the dark made it harder to see the low hanging branches. When we had gone maybe 20 miles by my reckoning, she pulled up and slid off the horse to lead him towards a darker spot. Up close, I saw a cave entrance and a pile of huge boulders left behind as the last glaciers had retreated. She brought Beau inside and I followed to find a large room with a slope that descended at a rate of one in six.
The moonlight came in a hole over our heads and shown on a pool of water that reflected back. It was bright enough to see that we were in a huge cavern divided by stalactites and stalagmites. The remains of fires were evident near the shore of this underground lake.
“This is the Ffordd colli ac anghofiedig, Tobias. The Forgotten and Lost Way. We will be safe here. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Now is the time to rest and eat. What is it that you found that you can eat?”
I stared into the water as I sat on my haunches, my hands resting on my knees. I pondered how I was to tell her. Without her looking on me with horror and disgust. She stood over me and brushed my hair, stroked my face with her hands. She smelled of sweat and horse, salt and blood. I could smell her blood and found the image of her heart glowing in her chest most erotic thing I had ever seen. Called her to me with that foreign allure and felt her sway towards me as she came under my control. The smell of desire was strong and I could feel my teeth ache, the saliva in my mouth instantly accumulate.
“Tobias,” her voice was hoarse and husky.
“Kiss me,” I whispered and was standing, my head bending towards her neck. The smell of her was intoxicating in my nostrils. I leaned into the junction of her shoulders and she gasped as my teeth lightly pricked her skin. With a cry of outrage and disgust, I wrenched myself away and stumbled towards the pool of midnight blue water. Dove in and let the icy cold shock me to my senses.