Aernest Salvo awoke to a rapid pounding on the wooden door of his dark room. He reached out with an arm, groping for the light switch on the wall, and turned on a small, gentle amber bulb that dangled over a desk and chair in the opposite corner of the room. He sat up straight, his eyes still puffy from sleep, and whipped his legs from the bed and into his boots with a single effort and a great groan. Before trying to stand, he massaged his thick eyebrows with his fingers.
The pounding continued.
“Oblivion,” he grumbled. “If you're in a rush, leave the order there. What time is it? You’ve gotta be early.”
“Open the door Aernest!” a female voice on the other side said in a harsh whisper.
“Madreena?” Aern squinted, thinking through his morning fog. He rose quickly, shuffling to the far side of his small dim room, and opened the door.
Madreena bowled past him with her heavy frame, into the room, and spun towards Aern with her eyes open wide. She flapped her hand at the door, and Aern closed it quietly.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“The Casiq… he… Luinosa…” Madreena was breathless and tripping over her words.
“What? What happened?”
“He’s… there was a demon, some say, I don’t know though, how could that be… or a, or a human being… most like, but still…”
Aern shook his head, and reached out to hold Madreena’s hand.
“And Alto, he’s, they locked him up, and… what do we do?”
Concerned and confused, Aern sat Madreena down on his bed, and reached for a tall cylinder on the nearby bed table. Madreena took it up, looking with panicked eyes at Aern.
“Have some of this.”
Madreena paused for a moment, and then took a sip. The drink was strong, and she realized immediately that it was not water. She shot Aern a glance, but Aern shook his head and jutted his chin out.
“Just drink it.” Madreena braced herself, and slowly lifted the cylinder until she drained it of all its contents.
“Now take a breath,” Aern said with a nervous smile.
Madreena took a deep breath.
“Luinosa’s been put up in one of them rising cells, to the surface.”
“Now that sounds mad,” Aern closed his eyes tightly, and put a hand to his head. “Am I hearing you correctly?”
“It happened! The Casiq he’s hidden away in his quarters, walled off by his acolytes and many of the guardsmen. He’ll speak to no one. Some of the others, they’re in a… in a punchy mood. They’re talking about turning against Guybana.”
“What lunacy is this?” Aern stood. “Did the entire city unravel while I slept? I don’t understand. What exactly did she do? What did your niece do?”
“She brought in a girl from the outside, who walked through the bright-faces,” Madreena said, ringing her hands. “Brought her right into our apartment.”
“An Althelib?” Aern asked in confusion.
“No, a human being. Or something else I don’t know!” Madreena said, looking into the distance, elsewhere in her mind. “I mean, I saw her, with my own eyes. In Luinosa’s room. She looked just like those old illustrations of human beings, in the Glossary. What else could she be?”
“Alright, then what happened.”
“The Casiq arrested Luinosa and Alto, and said the girl was a demon, and had her tossed into the well of Anagmir.”
“What? How is this? Where’s your son, in the holds? And the other guardsmen?”
Madreena looked up at Aern in desperation.
“He’s locked away with some few of the others who spoke against the Casiq. The rest are making plans in Timot’s den.”
“Timot?” Aern said in surprise. “Timot as well?”
“Yes,” Madreena stood before Aern. “He was among the acolytes in the temple, when all of it happened. He believes the Casiq sent an angel to death. Not a dirty angel, a real one. Aern… we have to…” Madreena’s voice began to falter.
“I know. We’re going to rescue Luinosa,” he said, snatching his breathing mask from the table, nearling knocking over the empty cylinder. “Let’s go.”
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Timot’s den was alive with a quiet, kindling fury. No more than a dozen guardsmen paced near each other in the space, as if caged, or sat turning their rods in their nervous hands, bouncing their knees, and gritting their teeth. Their hoods were off, and their masks nowhere to be seen. Timot stood slouched by a shapely cell-powered lamp, placed at the center of a table in the lowered half of his main chamber. On the mantle of the lower portion of the den, a large painted image of the first Casiq glowered over the scene with troubled eyes.
The circular door to Timot’s quarters was opened by two guardsmen who kept the entryway. Madreena stepped in, followed by Aernest.
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“Captain,” Timot said, exhaling in relief, raising both his hands in welcome. The guardsmen turned themselves, nearly all at once, towards the old engineer. The ones who were not standing, stood. Those that paced, stopped where they were, and all of them raised their hands and placed the tips of their fingers onto their bare foreheads.
“Well, we’re in dire straits I see. I’m retired, you nitwits, put your hands down. Where are your masks?”
“The Guyban’s gone mad,” Timot said shakily. “I don’t… Salvo, your lady’s niece…”
Aernest shot a glance at Madreena. She raised her eyebrows innocently, and Aern coughed uncomfortably into his fist.
“Where’s the Captain?”
“He’s on the other side. He betrayed us,” one of the guardsmen spoke up, who boasted a black, swollen eye.
“Are folks up and nosing about?”
“They’ve heard raised voices, and they know something’s going on,” Timot said in a subdued tone.
“We told them to go back to bed, that the overnights have been busting their asses getting the work orders ready for the morning, and arguing about it,” said the guard with the black eye. “But we had a scene at the temple.”
“Speak up then,” Aern said. “What happened?”
“They brought in this… girl. She was a human, I think.”
“An faerie,” another guardsman, standing on the periphery said, stepping forward with trembling hands. When Aern turned to him, he lowered his head, and spoke softly. “Or an angel. She was something other than I’ve ever seen, Captain.”
“Out with it,” he said to the guard with a black eye.
“The Casiq argued with her about this or that, and she said he was possessed. She said that what brought the bright-faces to us was in his ear, whispering. And that she’d take the darkness out of him if he’d ask. He blew his top, Captain. We fought a bit, tried to stop things from getting out of hand.”
“And he had the men throw her into the well,” said the guard with the shaky hands, in a shaking voice. “They killed Tomo!”
“Then they laid hands on Madreena's girl. We took to tussling again, and then a fight broke loose. The acolytes ran with the Casiq, and told the guards who kept us back not to let us follow. But we tried, and we fought through the west halls of the temple into the worshippers' side of town. They all doubled up on us - there was madness on all of them there. There was no speaking to them. No reasoning.
“We pressed on through the west undercity, bullying our way through, trying to get to the holding cages. Still trying to speak some sense; it felt all wrong. There was no finding the Casiq, and they kept saying we were bewitched. But we weren’t, Sir. It was clear as a new dawn day. You can’t condemn two girls in a night with no trial before the Lady, without choosing peers to hear sides, without bringing due cause. You can’t murder a girl, for no reason. Whoever you think she is.”
“I heard her speak to me, Captain, before she was pushed into the well.” The second to speak said, calming his trembling hands by gripping his baton with both of them. “ I heard her say…”
“Not to be afraid.” Timot said, and took two steps toward Aernest. “What do we do, Captain? Please. Tell us what we have to do.”
Aern made his way down to the table where Timot stood with heavy steps. Timot’s face was childlike, framed gently by his long, pin straight auburn hair. His ears turned toward Aern in anticipation.
Aern grumbled.
“You never wanted to be Casiq, did you?”
Timot shook his head.
“It’s a shame. You’re a good boy. First: the lot of you need to stop calling me Captain after tonight. Second, is the girl’s cage up to the surface?”
“It is, Captain,” one of the guardsmen said. “We’ve got one of the boys up top, keeping an eye on her. He’ll use the siren, if they dare open the case. Some of the others are on the watchtowers on the far side of the square.”
“Have we tried to lower it?”
“We tried to muscle our way into the hold,” a tall guard said, taking up his pacing again. “It seems that the same madness that took the Casiq found its way into those idiots. One of us was grievously hurt - had a few jolts sent into him by the men who protected the cells. He’s laying down in Timot’s bed, his breathing is shallow. We wanted to free the ones they locked up, and maybe put their heads right. Talk sense. Bring Madreena’s girl down. Now they’re threatening to open the cage up top, unless we keep out of the temple side. They locked up the big gates on the main passage that lead into the piston hall. Bastards.”
“I see you’re antsy for a fight, March. Holster that for a moment and bring it here,” Aern said, summoning all the guardsmen near with his hand. “Circle round, and listen up.”
Madreena came down the steps to the lower portion of the chamber, with the guardsmen, who quickly circled the table with Aernest.
“The first order we have here is to protect the girl. We’re not gonna let Luinosa suffer up top because Guynana’s lost his damn mind for the night. And we know we aren’t getting through the gate, or sneaking into the far borders on the other side of the undercity, overrun with bright-faces as it is. The quickest way to Luinosa is right upstairs, through the square,” Aern said, leaning on his knuckles as they pressed into one side of the round table. “We’re gonna chain the mouth of the cage shut. At least it’ll buy us some time.”
The guardsmen nearly all took a deep breath, and Madreena clasped her hands together. “Buy us time for what, Aernest?”
“To come up with something else. The cage’ll protect her, as long as it’s closed. They join at the top, and they drop down as opposed to powering down, if you understand. A thick chain is strong enough to keep it closed. All we need now is a couple of brave-”
“I’ll go,” tall March said calmly, clacking his baton on a nearby pillar, before he leaned against it. He crossed his arms, and looked at the guard who heard Tomo’s voice.
That guard smiled.
“I’m not afraid,” he said, and straightened up. “I’ll go too.”
The guard with the black eye raised his baton.
“Here.”
“Good,” Aern said. “We don’t need a battalion. It’ll be me and Sam, if his eye’s still good, running the point. If we need to make a scene with the bright-faces to draw the watcher’s eyes, or to give these two some space, we will. March, you’re strong and with a good reach; our inspired little Fazel will make his angel proud by employing all his nimbleness on the cage. You just better get your hands under control. We’re likely enough to die outside this morning.”
Fazel saluted the Captain, resolute. “Don’t worry Captain. I won’t let you down.”
“We stealth it to the cage, watch the bright-faces; two go up, chain it tight, come down, come home. Are we all understood?”
“Yes, Captain!” every guard in the room replied in unison.
“Find me a yard-long lock-chain as thick as your wrist, and somebody get me a rod,” Aern said, then turned to Madreena, with raised brows. “And a strong drink?”
Madreena’s smile broke through with a glimmer of hope.