Chapter 6:

That’s it, Mayah thought, fighting back tears. I don’t like it here, not one bit. It’s been nothing but terrible ever since we left the village.

She tugged feebly at the bioplastic tie chaining her wrist to Sukren’s clinic bed. He was asleep, although his face still looked awfully drawn. At least the doctor-priests had taken care of his arm. It was wrapped up and clean and they’d even stuck a needle and tube in his other arm – to help with hydration, Mayah remembered learning.

Mayah was thirsty too but nobody had offered her a drink. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat and tugged on the plastic tie again. She couldn’t even sit down on the floor because the bed rail was too high up off the ground. Were they going to leave her like this for the rest of the night? And then what? Would the soldiers come back for Sukren and take him away? She still wasn’t quite sure what Sukren had done wrong, but he seemed to have made a lot of people angry.

The thought of soldiers hurting Sukren again was what made up her mind. Making sure her hood was on, she reached out with her unchained hand and drew the privacy curtain open as far as she could. Someone walked by, a Chenta, she thought, in a long white apron-coat. “Can you help me?” Mayah called out in the pidgin. She almost used Chenmay but remembered in time that in the castles the serfs all spoke the pidgin.

The Chenta glanced at her and kept on walking. Undeterred, Mayah waited for someone else to pass by. “Can you help me?”

It took about ten tries, but finally a young-looking Eenta girl, only a little older than Mayah was, stopped when called. “What is it?”

“Feiana sent me,” Mayah said.

“Who?”

Mayah’s shoulders sagged. It had been her only idea. “Never mind,” she muttered. “Could I – could I have some water? And a chair?”

“Maybe.”

Mayah watched her go, knowing she wasn’t going to come back. Coughing a little, and feeling sorry for herself, Mayah was tempted to give up. But no, she couldn’t. She couldn’t let Sukren get hurt again.

She drew herself up. She was about to try calling out into the empty hallway to see if that would work better when the privacy curtain rustled, pulling open all the way. Behind it was a Chenta woman in black livery. She had a mop in her hand and a look of incredulity on her face.

“Did you say Feiana sent you?” she whispered.

Mayah nodded as fiercely as she could.

“Holy Sarana,” the woman whispered. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

***

“Aren’t you the one always telling me to be more careful?”

Sukren blinked. He knew that voice, although he didn’t understand how he could be hearing it now. “Vek?” he whispered hoarsely.

“The one and only. So I hear you ran into a crowd of Rajas and attacked a princess? Or that’s what the rumors are saying, anyway. Can’t be true, of course, or you wouldn’t still be alive.”

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A faint smile touched Sukren’s lips. He blinked again, then looked around. He was in a clinic. The soldiers had brought him to one after all. And there was Vek, of all people, with a pair of pliers in one hand and two shorn bioplastic wrist ties in the other.

“What – what are you doing here?” Sukren asked, bewildered. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting in the village?”

Vek shrugged. “I rested enough. Speaking of which, you have too. We have to get out of here.”

“Get out of here?” Sukren repeated. It was hard to think. They’d given him a sedative probably, that was why his thoughts were so muddled. Otherwise why else would he feel like something was off?

Then it hit him, harder than a blow from a serf prod, stronger than the butt end of a spear. He reeled up, almost falling out of the bed, his mind in a whirl.

Where was Mayah?

“Where is she?” he gasped.

He watched the smile slide off Vek’s face. “You didn’t send her away? With another agent?”

“I – I was out. She was with me. The soldiers were taking us both –”

Sukren couldn’t breathe. He was choking on a panic deeper than he’d ever experienced before; he felt frozen in the face of a mind-numbing fear. He’d never not known where Mayah was. He’d never been separated from her for longer than a day. She was his responsibility – she was his to take care of – to protect and provide for –

He felt Vek prodding him down the bed ladder. “We have to go. We have to tell someone.”

What if she had been abducted by one of Lady Ki’s patronees? What if soldiers had come and taken her away while he was unconscious? What if she was being hurt? What if she was crying out for Sukren in some dark dank box?

“This way, come on, Sukren, we have to move.”

Step by step. Down the hall. Have to get out. Have to find Lady Nari. Have to tell her. Have to get her help. Have to find Mayah.

“Okay, out the door now, go!”

Sukren stepped through the serf staircase door into a shower of wind and rain. He staggered under the force of the gale. It took him a moment to marshal the strength to take a step up. Behind him, Vek didn’t seem to be doing much better. He’s still not recovered either, Sukren realized amidst his chaotic thoughts. Neither one of us should be doing this.

Neither one of them, however, had a choice.

“Let me go in front of you,” Sukren heard Vek say. “I’ll show you the way.”

Sukren pressed himself up against the yellow limestone of the castle wall. Mayah was somewhere inside, she was somewhere deep inside, and he didn’t know, he didn’t know where she was, she could be hungry or hurt or unhappy and he wouldn’t know he wouldn’t know –

Somehow Sukren managed to follow Vek up the serf staircase. It wasn’t the long slog up several zones, thankfully, otherwise they likely wouldn’t have made it. Even so, Sukren felt himself shaking after slipping back through another entranceway. Rock-god, he needed to find Mayah, but his useless body was betraying him right when he needed it most!

“This way,” Vek whispered. The hallways on this level weren’t long and rectangular as in the clinic. Rather, they curved, like ash-paths through plastos fields. Sukren followed Vek around a series of fat, bulging columns – no, those had to be dorms, they had doors on them, and now Vek was stopping at the central-most one, the biggest one.

Vek knocked on the door. A young man opened it, an Eenta dressed in red. Sukren jerked away from him, the still burning memory of a spear in his flesh flashing through him. But Vek didn’t move. “I brought him,” he said, “but we lost her on the way.”

“Who is it?” a voice called out from behind the soldier.

“I think it’s the guardian,” the soldier replied. He stepped aside; an older woman, a Chenta, took his place. “Holy Sarana,” she whispered. “Come in, come quick.”

“This is Elanex,” Vek added. “Going to help you with, you know.”

Sukren swallowed. He stepped in through the doorway; the soldier closed it behind him and Vek. “I need to find – she was with me –”

“Sukren?”

His heart almost stopped. From behind Elanex, a shadow emerged, then solidified into Mayah. His Mayah, oh rock-god, it was his Mayah!

Trembling, Sukren held out his arms. When she rushed into them, he began to cry.