They bound her wrists. They pulled her down to a dungeon. They stripped her of her armour, her clothes, her dagger – the gift from Jeno, poor idiotic child who wanted to be rescued but wasn’t ready to actually leave the safety of the mousetrap.
She was yelling it out loud, wasn’t she?
They led her down a hallway of very cold stone, dry air, dust settling through the barred window from the courtyard. How hadn’t she seen the dungeon windows before, on her walks around the keep? She couldn’t see out them to identify where she was in relation to the rest of the city. Those bastards better be ready to take care of Beeswax, that fucking horse I didn’t even want to be saddled with, oh hoo hoo pun not intended but I’ll fucking roll with it the way the captain rolled with the punch and went flying across the Lord’s desk, god damned manipulative freak, infantilizing abuser with a superiority complex and a Jesus beard, goddamned psychopath in armour, stop fucking pulling at my arm you god damned low-level ingrate so undervalued your great honour of the day is to escort Leah Talesh’s imposter into its cell.
Her throat was hurting again, she had to stop making noise.
Oh you’d better the fuck not, boy.
She kicked away the hand of the guardsman as it tried to grab her head and push her into the cell. She wasn’t used to the flexibility of her body, but she had no boundaries anymore. The whole pissy world is mine, you bastards, and I get to make it what I want, because you know what? None of it is real! None of your fake-ass countries exist! There is no Volst! There is no Cheden! Algi is the name of a sea plant you assholes! Fucking ingrates! Sheep-shit for brains! This is not real! This is not happening to me!
They were yelling at her now. She stumbled back into the corner of the cell and buried her face in the corner, where it smelled like piss and mould. You idiots haven’t even invented toilets, haven’t even invented plumbing, haven’t even invented guns for fuck’s sake, Christ you’re just a medieval stereotype of primitiveness, and then you take the crazy fucking wonder that is magic and you pervert it to uses like this, don’t you realise that you could probably cure cancer and grow diamonds and fly to Mars with powers like this? Fuck, does Mars even exist here? Hey! Hey! Are there planets up there in the night sky? Or have you robbed me of all my celestial bodies as well as my physical one?! Haaa! God damned idiots!
The noise dies down eventually. She chokes on dust, and it makes her cough, which makes her throat bleed again.
The window grows brighter, and the first light of the sun has finally hit the ledge when she starts to realise that she is in a god damned dungeon.
She didn’t say that aloud.
Oh fuck, how much of that was I actually shouting? How long did I spend just yelling at a wall? Why did I do that? What got me here?
Leah remembers the captain’s face, and rage fills her again, mainly at the fact that she has no idea who he was to her. She hadn’t been angry when she first saw him. It was just the spell. That god damned spell.
She trembles, trying to separate her thoughts from what is happening around her. The light is shining almost horizontally through the window. The sun looks like it has barely risen. Have I been in here a whole day, or is this still the same morning? Or am I just not seeing clearly? There is still a slight after-image of the glowing armour, hanging at the corner of her vision. Or her memory. She can’t quite tell.
“God, stop, get me out of here,” she whispers, rubbing her face against the thin fabric shift they had left her in. “I can’t take this, what the hell is happening?”
She slides down against the wall, then pushes away in revulsion at the powdery feeling. Her fingers come away touched with green spores from a mould. She begins to cry, making no noise, just staring at the stones and trying to sort out what had put her here.
Fabric rustles on the other side of the bars, and her head snaps around. Wellen sits on a stool, watching her as though she were a dying animal he’d come across in the wild – fascinated, horrified, and mostly sad.
“You think they didn’t rescue me in time,” Leah says with certainty. “The five.”
Wellen refuses to meet her eyes for a moment, then looks up with a stern face. “I know no magics to help you now.” It almost sounds apologetic, but also like someone who has accepted the fact that he was fooled by someone he trusted, and will not forgive. “You are not the person you used to be, and I…I was so happy to have a student that I didn’t think twice about your questions, or your knowledge.”
Leah frowns in thought, running over the past two weeks, and suddenly her jaw drops. The questions about Seffon, about magic, about laws, about war: they all make it look like Seffon has successfully ensorcelled her.
Oh God, what if he has? Is that why my memories are coming back with magic help?
“Wellen, I don’t know what happened to me in Seffon’s castle, but - ”
“As you’ve said.”
“ – but I’m not a spy, I’m not a replacement. What I said under the spell was true; I’m not from here, but I’m not an enemy agent. Wellen, please. I am not an enemy to you, or anyone in this city. God, I love them all, don’t you know that? I only just arrived in this world and already I love all of you, and all I want is to understand what happened so I can protect you all and eventually get back to…normal.”
Wellen sits in silence. “You always say it that way.”
“Say what, what way?”
“God, not Gods.” He stands and turns to walk away, but pauses long enough to say, “The only country I know of with a single God is Devad.”
Leah watches him go disbelievingly, and sinks slowly to her knees.
“I tried so hard to blend in,” she whispers at the ground, “And it’s my choice of swear that gives me away. Ah, fuck.”
She sits motionless in the centre of the cell for hours, until her stomach is grumbling and the sunlight outside is bright but no longer reaching within the cell. In the diffused light she can see that the walls are coated with grime, and the floor with woodchips and straw. She is barefoot, and can start to feel blisters and splinters on the soles of her feet.
At evening she is brought a bowl of broth with rolled oats floating it, like a thin meaty oatmeal. She forces it down. The serving boy puts a similar bowl in another cell of the dungeon, and clears both away when they are done; the other bowl appears to still be mostly full, from what Leah can see. She tries to look into the other cell, but cannot.
Other than this, her time is spent reflecting on how to argue her case, how to beg for clemency, how to prove she is not their enemy without also convincing them she is thoroughly insane. After her screaming fit while being brought down, she’s not certain they don’t already think she is.
She sits against the wall to sleep, mostly so her nose is as far away from the smell of old offal as she can get it. She feels the need herself, but refuses to go in the corner like an animal.
In the morning a pot is brought around by another servant, who seems highly unhappy to be assigned the job. He turns his back after slipping the shallow tray under the gate, through the same opening that food is delivered.
Leah simmers in anger at the state of things, but keeps quiet. The boy takes the pot away, empties it into a drain in the ground, then carries it to the next occupied cell. Leah counts his steps to try and guess how far away this other person is.
The boy leaves not long after, and the dungeon returns to silence. As the sun rises higher, footsteps echo down the stairs towards them.
Leah perks up, watching the wooden door carefully for who will come through. She is shocked to see it is Jeno, followed by her mother and three Valerid guardsmen. Jeno walks forward, holding the embroidered hem of her plum dress off the ground, and stops in front of Leah’s cell. Leah sits and stares back at her, unspeaking. Jeno’s face is a hard mask of betrayal and disdain, and Leah hurts to think that Jeno believes her guilty – and yet this just seems to reinforce that she is so terribly naive, that she can’t judge for herself, that she sees things in black and white. Idiotic child. What have you gotten yourself into?
“What did you expect to find?” the Duchess says softly, seemingly distressed by the whole area. “Is this what you were so insistent on seeing?”
“I wanted to know that it was true,” Jeno says coolly. Too coolly, Leah realises, and takes another look at her face; the mask shows no fear. “Whether she truly was an agent of the pretender.”
Leah reflects on all the times Jeno reacted with fear at the slightest mention of Seffon’s name, and how she is standing so firm now. Unless this had shaken her convictions so deeply as to remove her fear – the opposite would be likelier, Leah supposes – then what Jeno’s face and presence really mean is that she does not believe the accusations against me.
To Leah’s surprise, this is an immense relief to her.
Jeno stays only a few moments, then turns away and walks back up the way she came, sparing only a glance at the cell a short way to the right of Leah’s. She nods respectfully to the guard with the keys, who has been standing at attention by the door all through this. He locks the door behind the party as they withdraw, leaving the dungeon once again unobserved.
Leah sighs. “At least it’s privacy.”
There are a few seconds of silence. “This is the busiest I’ve seen the damn place. Hardly private at all anymore.” The voice is feminine, and light.
Leah jolts up and goes to the bars to try and see the speaker. “Are you the one who’s in the cell a few doors down?”
“Yes indeed. You know, when it was just me, they never brought down a piss-pot in the morning. They sometimes don’t even bring supper. You must be someone rather special.”
“If they really thought I was special they’d have given me something to wipe with. God, I feel disgusting.”
“There you go again, with the ‘God’ thing. Very Devadiss of you.”
“I’m not from Devad.”
“Oh and well I know it.” She switches accent. “If jou fere, jou fould talk vike diss.” She switches back. “No glides, no liquids, all choppy and buzzy.”
“Huh. Sounds like a mix between Spanish and Russian.”
“Or, West Devad: dey ave ha more…hangry?…way hof talkang. Less buzz, more hof ha…twangue.”
Leah laughs openly. “French?!”
The voice pauses. “I don’t know any of those. Can you speak them?”
Leah laughs. “What the hell, I’ll try. All I know of Russian is da and nyet for yes and no, and kvass for a type of beer. French I’m passably fluent.” She starts reciting the anthem, for lack of a better idea. “Spanish I have a few sentences.” She recites them off, as she did for Wellen.
“Oh, interesting!” the voice says appreciatively. “That sounds a little like Wendish.”
“What’s that?”
“Spoken in the far south-east of the Nations of Bair, in the floodplains.”
“Is that were you’re from?”
“Nope.” A hand pokes out from between the bars, a cool dark brown.
Amazing. First dark-skinned black person I meet, and she’s in jail. Of all the things that could have been consistent, between my world and here… “Well, not being from this world, I don’t know what that means in terms of geography.”
“Skin like this is pretty much only seen in the central lands – coastal and northern Bair, mainly,” the voice says. “Solace, and it’s lovely to meet you.” The hand mimes a handshake.
“Leah, apparently from Algi,” Leah replies, shaking back. She can barely catch a glimpse of Solace’s face pressed up against the bars, a tangle of black curls sticking out the gaps.
“No kidding? Of the famous five?”
“So some say.”
“And why ‘apparently?’”
“Well, no shame in saying. I got kidnapped by a pretender-lord in the Contested Lands, also called Jun province or East Devad. I was unconscious for three days, and when I woke up I remembered nothing of my life here, yet I had full memories of another life in another world. No-one knows how it happened, because they’re much happier to assume I’m an enemy sleeper agent.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Solace hums and nods. “Excellent story. Lots of potential. Have you decided yet whether to make yourself a martyr or a villain?”
“I’d like the chance to still be a hero.”
“Few heroes recover from being sent to prison.”
“Well anyway, I’m not sure I care anymore. I find this world interesting, and you lot are all fascinating folk, but I miss my own life, the one I do remember. Everything else is secondary.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“From?”
“Returning to your old life?”
“Prison? Obviously?”
“But if this isn’t really your world, can’t you just – ” She snaps her fingers “ – and wake up in your own life?”
“If I could I would have.”
“Have you tried?”
“I wouldn’t know how to start! No-one knows what happened to me, so no-one knows how to solve it.”
“Well then, looks like you’ll have to care about this world a little longer. At least until you find a solution to your problem.”
Leah thinks. “Hmm. Fair enough. Where’d you learn to be such a good therapist?”
“Oh? I don’t know that word, and there are very few words I can say that about.”
“Does your job have to do with language?”
“In a way: I’m a bard.” Leah laughs, but gestures for Solace to continue. Solace does so, with zest. “My line of work deals with culture and magic, but not the spells and charms sort; songs, incantations, poems, that sort. I dabble in everything, as every good bard should, but I focus on the quirks and hang-ups of the societies I explore. I’ve been travelling the Gulf for years now, collecting stories, songs, rumours, myths, and other cultural tokens, from every land I visit. I never sit still for long.”
“You ever been through the Contested Lands?” Leah asks.
Solace hums in thought. “A few times. Pretty empty, overall. Nice flowers.”
The door opens and the guard does the rounds, looking curiously into the cells. Leah leans away from the bars. Neither prisoner talks. When he leaves they resume.
“He do that often?” Leah asks.
“Never used to. You really are someone special. You must have them worried upstairs. What’d you do?”
“Well, like I said, they believe I was magically charmed or brainwashed into being an agent of Seffon, working against Valerin.”
“One of the famous five, a turncoat?”
“Why do you call us that? We barely even call ourselves ‘the five,’ much less ‘famous.’”
Solace recounts a few basic stories about their better-known adventures, one of which is in song form. Leah interrupts her, saying she’d be too embarrassed to hear a song about herself.
“Most heroes are. Even fallen ones, apparently.”
Leah nods at this, accepting the title. “So why are you in here?”
“Me? I collect culture. Part of that includes gaining an understanding of the religious workings of every nation I visit. I bribed an acolyte of the winter goddess to let me into the temple, and I stole one of the student booklets from the schoolroom. Turns out those are included in the list of ‘sacred texts,’ and I was accused of defiling the goddesses.”
“Oh big mood.”
Solace laughs. “What does that mean?”
“Never mind.”
“Is it an expression from where you grew up?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well then I consider it my duty to learn your culture, patchy though your memory may be. Go on, then, tell us a story about Algi.”
“I would if I could remember it.”
“Ah, right. Then what about your ‘other’ life? Any stories from there?”
“Oh sure, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to keep up with the terminology…”
“Try me.”
“Alright then. Let’s begin with religion.”
“Oh, I like you already.”
*
Supper comes again in the evening, to Solace’s delight. Once again it is basic, the leftovers of the cooking process for whatever is being served in the dining hall. Leah does not recognise the servant who brings it down, but notes that it has been a different person each time.
“Your turn,” Leah says, as she wipes her mouth on her sleeve. “What’s Bair like? What are its Nations?”
“You’ve been to Bair before.”
“Nope, Leah Talesh has.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s big, and varied, and perfectly warm. You ought to visit.”
“Hopefully I’ll be home before I get the chance.”
“Is that a…big mood?”
“Yeah! Yeah, you’re catching on how to use that.” Leah leans back against the wall. “Think they’ll bring the pot back down for us?”
“I think we’re lucky they did it at all the first time. Might only have been because the dainty young Lady-to-be wanted to come down.”
Leah grimaces and measures her options.
“Oh for goodness – don’t hold it in if you have to go.”
“I really hate this.”
“Really? Most people love it. You must be so odd, to hate having to shit in your living space, in earshot of a stranger, without anything to wipe with or any – what did you call it, plumbing? – to wash it all away somewhere.”
“I never understood how important toilet paper was until I didn’t have any. God, I hate the medieval-ness of it all.”
The guard does another pass-through, and once again they both fall silent. He stops to look into Leah’s cell, giving a passing glance to Solace’s, before turning around and leaving.
“I guess they’re worried that with two of us, we might be planning something,” Solace whispers after the door closes. “Unlikely,” she says, at full volume.
“Why not? Have you been in here long enough to know it’s inescapable? Or does it have an international reputation as a formidable prison?” Leah asks it jokingly, but secretly worries it might prove true.
“Oh, I was put in here five days ago and got out four, that’s not the problem.”
“What do you mean got out?”
The hands hanging out of the bars retract, and the dungeon falls silent again. Leah watches and listens attentively, and suddenly feels a hand tapping on her shoulder.
She yells and falls backwards into the woodchips, and looks up through the bars at a tiny black woman in ratty clothes, holding up a swirling white candle topped with a green flame.
“I maintained a steady illusion of my sleeping body in the corner, thanks to this thing. Just a simple one, so the servants and guards wouldn’t bother me,” she explains casually. “I wriggled out under the door using the slough – not pleasant, so trust me, I can relate to your hatred of filth – and since then I’ve been cooling my heels in the unused torture room, waiting for an opportunity to escape.”
Leah stares up in disbelief.
“Now with one of the famous five on my side – don’t argue, you’re at least half her – I might be able to escape, find my belongings, and be out of the city before midnight. That is, if you’re willing to help.”
Leah takes a moment, then stands quickly, pulling herself up by the bars. “Of course I’m willing. I want out of here as soon as possible. Do you have the keys?”
“No.”
“Well then we’d need to wait for the guard to pass through again.”
Solace grimaces and points to the stone slough.
Leah eyeballs it. “Not a chance in hell I’d fit through that.”
Solace shrugs.
Leah turns her gaze to the bars, then to her own body. I was able to carry Jeno with no problem, that one time. I barely even felt her.
“What are you thinking of doing? Oh, you can’t be serious. Oh, really now. Come on. You won’t be able to, I’ve tried that in at least four different prisons and it’s never worked…” Solace’s protests quieten as Leah fixes her shoulder against one bar, grabs the one two away from it, and pushes.
Slowly, and with a lot of creaking metal, the bars bend
“Oh,” Solace breathes out. “That’s a big mood.”
“Thanks,” Leah says, grunting a bit as she wriggles sideways through the gap, “Now, where are our things?”
“In the guard’s room. We have to pass through there anyway, to get out, so I figure you go first, barrel him down, and we grab what we can and run.”
Leah smirks. “You said you hid in a torture room?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go there first.”
Rummaging through the torture room reveals only old blood, a leaky ceiling, thumb screws, and a series of chains and ropes. Leah grabs the sturdiest of the chains and goes to the guard door, gesturing Solace along silently. Solace seems excited at the action about to go down, and stays a safe distance back.
Leah swings the chain a few times, then slams the manacled end against the door, producing a resounding boom. She waits, and after a few seconds of alarmed fumbling the guard quickly opens the door, short sword drawn, looking within cautiously.
Giving him no time to prepare, she pushes into him, slamming him back against the wall and wrapping his sword arm in chains. While he struggles to free himself, she takes the sturdy manacle in her right hand like a clumsy set of brass knuckles and clocks him across the jaw. His struggling comes to a very sudden end, and for a second Leah’s heart freezes, wondering if she maybe miscalculated her strength. The guard slides to the ground with a rustle of leather and no other noise, but his chest continues to rise and fall. Leah’s hands shake as she coils the chain back up and sets it on the guard’s desk.
“I didn’t expect this,” Solace says, sounding impressed. “Is that your usual tactic?”
“My usual tactic is pretending I have pepper spray in my bag, and then running to the nearest public place,” Leah says coolly, face rigid, patting his body down for anything – coins, keys, weapons. She passes the sword to Solace. “Know how to use this?”
“Oh, a bit,” she says, pulling off the man’s belt to take the sheath. “Think he’ll wake up soon?”
“I have literally no idea. This is my first rodeo.”
“Your first what?”
“However, I think he’ll be out long enough for us to find our belongings and get ready to leave at our leisure. If he wakes up…” Leah nudges the manacles on the desk.
Solace considers briefly, then goes along with it. They rummage through the cubbies on the far wall, and find their belongings folded up and sorted. Leah looks to find somewhere to dress, and notices that Solace is just stripping and dressing in the middle of the room. Leah looks away, and starts putting on her armour. I’m very lucky I was dressed to go training when I was taken; none of my other belongings seem to be here. The only weapon she has is the dagger.
She turns back to see Solace dressed in a set of guard’s clothing, carrying hers under her arm. “I’ll only be putting this on once I’ve had a chance to wash,” she says, and Leah admits to the wisdom of this choice.
“The baths will be empty at this hour, we could go clean up now.”
“Can’t say I’m not tempted, but we’d be wiser to wash up in a river outside of the city. First, let’s think of how to get out unseen.”
“Do you know any invisibility spells?” Leah asks, and Solace seems to find the question humorous. “Okay, then what about an illusion?”
Solace considers, looking Leah up and down, then mumbles something and snaps her fingers.
“There. That should do.”
Leah looks down at herself, and sees that she has been illusioned to look like Jeno – a bit too tall, but otherwise identical.
“If anyone questions us, I’m your new private guard after the filthy traitor was locked away,” Solace says proudly, despite looking more like a circus tumbler than an estate guard.
“Think we have the time to make a detour to my rooms? For my weapons and such,” Leah asks as they open the doors. She pauses, hearing her voice. “Oh. I still sound like me.”
“I can’t change your voice; just don’t talk and you’ll be fine.” Solace pats her arm reassuringly. “They’d likely have emptied your rooms by now. If anywhere, they’d be in the training grounds near the stables.”
“Perfect.” Leah straightens her spine and begins walking, looking for familiar landmarks to place herself within the estate. “I don’t think we can both ride on one saddle, but we could ride bareback.”
“Ride?”
“My horse, Beeswax.”
“Ah, of course.” Solace follows quietly. “You wouldn’t mind telling me, maybe, why she’s called that?” she asks.
“I would if I knew.”
“Oh, right.”
Leah finally finds a window, and looks out into the deep night to get her bearings; they are on the south-western end of the estate, and the stables are to the east. “Cutting through the courtyard would be fastest,” Leah muses aloud. “I know a path from garden to garden where we can be hidden.”
The two make their way to the nearest doors, and Leah takes a moment to plot their course before darting forward, the duo hopping from rosebush to lilac to forsythia.
She hesitates, seeing the empty wine bottle and remembering how Kimry said she’d go back to collect it some time when its presence wouldn’t be remarked by the washing crew. Solace silently urges her on, but Leah stops, and takes off her embroidered headband – distinctive, and visible even through dark glass – and stuffs it inside the bottle. She prays Kimry finds it, and understands at least part of what it means.
Solace looks at her oddly, but does not comment.
They pull open the doors to the storeroom, and rifle through it looking for the short-spear and shield. Solace finally holds them up triumphantly, and Leah reaches over to take them, noticing that Solace has added a second short sword and a sling to her belt.
“Just being prepared,” she says with a shrug.
“Smart move,” Leah says, and they move on.
In the stables, Leah throws a blanket over Beeswax’s back and straps it securely down. She puts the bridle on slowly, so the horse doesn’t whicker or stomp, lest the stable-hands waken at the noise. Although, given that Kimry listed the hayloft as one of the places for our amorous encounters, it’s possible that noises in the stables are largely ignored by the hands.
Leah packs a few saddlebags full of grain and slings them over Beeswax’s back, and after a moment’s thought takes some of the jelly-like soap used for the horses’ tack. At Solace’s look, she says, “Just being prepared.”
The two have mounted up, Solace sitting behind and Leah holding on to the reins, when the door opens and Leah hears clopping hooves.
“Lady Auzzo?”
Ohhhhh fuck. Leah recognises Iris’s voice, as she backs Beeswax carefully out of the stall. Iris watches in confusion, gaze jumping to the petite guard in too-large Valerid armour.
“And who are you?” Her tone becomes accusing. “I haven’t seen you about the estate before, and I know you’re not part of the guard.”
Solace mumbles a few words and raises her hand in a strange pose.
“Don’t!” Leah hisses out, and Iris’s eyes narrow at the voice, then widen at the tinge of green magic accumulating around the poised fingers. Solace looks to Leah for direction, but does not back down. “Drop the illusion.”
Solace snaps her fingers. Leah sees her clothing shift back to her usual armour, and sees in the shock on Iris’s face that the illusion is gone.
“You know I’m not ensorcelled,” Leah says, putting as much conviction behind the words as she can. “I may not be well, I may not remember, but I know who my friends are right now.”
Iris backs Maelstrom away, the horse much less accustomed to the movement than Beeswax, or perhaps just picking up on her rider’s tension.
“I can make her forget…” Solace whispers, hand still poised.
“No!” Leah repeats, seeing Iris shrink in fear at the insinuation. The two stare each other down. “Did you come back with more silver than you left with?”
Iris’s expression cracks, and she smiles very sadly. “I always do.”
“And what’s the gossip at the docks?”
Iris dismounts, and leads Maelstrom forward towards her stall. “I don’t know. I didn’t go out tonight. I was in my room from after supper all the way ‘til sunrise.” She opens the stall door with force. “And that’s all I will give you.”
Leah breathes out and rides past her. “That’s twice you’ve saved my neck now.”
Iris avoids eye-contact, removing the bridle. “Never mention it.”
Gut churning with grief and relief, Leah rides out of the city, at first slowly and then, once over the long bridge, beginning to ride hard.