With both of them tied up, there really wasn’t much either of them could do to each other. Still, So-ree had no idea what to do about the panic rising through her body and threatened to choke her. It seemed like heedless terror would be a constant companion if she made it out of here.
“Would you rather talk to ghosts than the person you are sharing a cell with?”, the other prisoner said after silence filled the room between them. “I can live with that. I am not one for companionship anyway.”
So-ree decided to give up on wrapping her head around Fenner’s wrapping instructions, the power having dispersed as she lost her concentration anyway, and flopped around until she had brought her elbow under herself. In this position she wiggled towards the other prisoner until she was closer to make out more than a shape. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the limited light but then she saw the woman chained to the wall. She was naked and her features were still shrouded by the darkness, but the outline of her body and the fact that she hung a good hand width off the floor, her arms tied together above her head. So-ree couldn’t make out her skin color but if Fenner was right about this being another immortal, she might have darker skin as well. She had only two other immortals to draw from but considering the difference to the general population in both enclaves she had been to, that might be a common feature.
“Having a good look?”, the woman asked, seemingly unbothered by being stared at while she hung naked from a wall. “Don’t mind if I do as well. Is that spirit I spy tied like a shawl around your neck? Is that who you’ve been talking to? How strange. But you’re not of Tiernen stock, so that might be a clue. Odhar must not be the only one who likes to experiment.”
The chained immortal seemed to like to ramble despite her previous claims to loneliness. Or maybe that was the reason why she liked to ramble. People didn’t enjoy silence and she knew of more than one miner who lost their mind after they took a wrong turn into an unknown tunnel and spent some time alone stumbling in the dark until they found their way back. It was no wonder the crews in her old enclave liked to spend their time singing. Everything to chase away the creeping quiet. The same might be true for immortals, maybe even more so.
“Now you’ve got me curious”, the woman continued, unbothered by the lack of response from her audience. “Odhar explained that we still need something to attach to but I can’t see anything from your old body on you. There are some wishes that can get around that of course, but I would see it if it was inside of you.”
That finally shocked So-ree into giving a response.
“Old body? What do you mean with ‘from your old body’?”, she said. Her thoughts immediately jumped to the bag around her neck that was still hidden under the wrapping of power. Both the spirit and Aionwe had told her to never open it, but now she wondered what was in there. Was it a dried up piece of a finger or an ear?
Do not engage her, Fenner’s voice drifted through her mind. In fact, you should attack her, she is defenseless. We can take her to pieces before we leave. Focus on your bindings.
“Oh, they did not like that, I saw them furiously wiggle around”, the woman continued. “It is as you think. We spirits are tied to the bodies we are born from which is why we have to take care of them. Odhar found out that it doesn’t take the whole of the body to house a spirit however.”
With a sudden lurch and more strength than So-ree thought possible, the woman pushed herself up on the wall, using that leverage to lean forward. Her face, hidden in shadow until now, became visible and with shock, So-ree discovered that she was missing her left eye. Only a red hole gaped at her where the ball should have been. There was no blood and despite having an open wound in her face, the woman did not seem to be in pain.
“That is how I helped them find you. In exchange for letting me out of here for a bit so I can enjoy the open sky and not starve, one of Odhar’s human carried me out of here and I lent them my wish. My eye is on the table next to the entrance”, she explained. “I assume that is how you carry a spirit around with you. I just don’t understand how they survive. I could barely gather enough energy into my eye to survive a day and your spirit’s body is nowhere to be found. Tell me, what is your spirit’s wish, little girl? There is not much that stays hidden from my sight, I would have found the body by now.”
“There is no body”, So-ree answered. She started to pull her legs underneath her body and get into a more comfortable position.
Stop engaging her! Nothing good can come from you listening to her words, Fenner said. So-ree could almost imagine the forcefulness in the disembodied voice, but she had already decided to ignore the spirit. She wanted to find out more about immortals and spirits and this woman was as good a source as any.
“No body? You have to tell me what your spirit’s wish is then, my curiosity is killing me.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. What wish?”, So-ree said. “And I think you should answer some of my questions first. After all, you are the one chained to the wall. I only got ropes.”
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She lifted up her bound hands to prove her point.
“Maybe I will tell you more if you enlighten me.”
The woman leaned back against the wall and a giggle which didn’t match her current situation at all escaped from her lips.
“Why not? Where do you want me to start, my girl, at Tiernen?”, she said after settling down.
“I don’t know what Tiernen is. Maybe we’ll get to that, but first, tell me what you meant with ‘my spirit’s wish’. And how come you are tied up here anyway? How does an immortal end up in another enclave, don’t you have your own place to watch over?”, So-ree answered, ignoring the objections of the spirit in her head.
“Oh, I don’t know what myths you’ve been told. The Grand Protectors, the Immortals of Tiernen, the Wardens of Winter, many of my brethren like to embellish their stories. Not all of us have the desire or the strength to take control of some human settlement. I was a wanderer, a nomad traveling the continent in search of understanding. I wondered what I meant by wish. We spirits are wishes, wishes brought to life and tied to the bodies that thought us up. My body was called Tawen and her wish had been ‘to see the world’. After we left the ruins of Tiernen, some spirits took over the remnants of humanity that gathered in safe havens in this wasteland and I decided to see what this seeing-the-world business was about that my body had craved so much. The wish also means that I can grant my body powers that make it easier to realize the wish. I see all. Your spirit must grant you abilities in a similar vein, I am sure. That’s why I cannot quite figure you out. To be fair, I learned the hard way that my knowledge was severely lacking when I came to this place and Odhar took the first opportunity to lock me up down here.”
“Odhar is this enclave’s immortal, right?”, So-ree asked.
“Yes, you’ve met. I don’t know what they are planning, but considering they are locking up other spirits, it must be something big. I wish I could help you escape, but alas, I am even more tied up than you are”, Tawen answered.
Enough of this, Fenner interjected again. This talk won’t help and you need to focus. Aionwe would not have wasted all this time.
“Oh, be quiet”, So-ree said. “I need to know more and not like you ever tell me anything. You could have taught me this trick about ‘reversing it’ before but you didn’t. We had plenty of time on the trek here. Besides, I’ve already found out plenty about this place. She’s being very helpful.”
“Talking to your spirit again?”, Tawen asked. “Doesn’t seem to be a very forthcoming one.”
“Really not, everything is like pulling crystals from a wall. I don’t even know the wish, I bet if I knew, I could figure it out more.”
You do not need to figure it out, I know my powers and I will teach as appropriate. Like now. So stop the chatting and focus on the matter at hand. You are still bound and helpless because you let yourself get caught.
That stung. Even though So-ree thought it was unfair to blame her for not anticipating the powers of two immortals, she’d still thought better of her abilities to stay hidden. Even if she got out of here, if Tawen could find her that easily the first time, it would be no different the second time. As soon as she had to sleep somewhere without a wrapping of power to hide her, they would come and drag her out. Maybe Fenner was right and she’d have to kill the spirit here. Or maybe there was another way. She looked back towards the entrance where she saw a small bundle on a table. An idea was forming in her head.
“You should come with me when I get out of here. That way you can help me kill this Odhar and we can let you out”, she said.
“And how are you planning to get out of here? I am not agreeing, that seems far too dangerous, I am just wondering.”
“ I just have to figure this out, inside out is what he said.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about”, Tawen said, shaking her head in the dark.
“You’ll see.”
So-ree hunkered down and turned her focus inside. The wrapping around her hand was still there, inactive without any intent behind it and slowly unraveling. What did Fenner mean with ‘reversing it’. Asking the spirit hadn’t helped she would just have to figure it out. When she did her normal wrapping, the idea was for anyone around her not to notice it and that was the idea she wove into it, letting it radiate out once the wrapping was in place. More attention was the opposite, but that was not what she wanted. But what if she let the power radiate inward instead? Let the rope forget about itself? That still made no sense to her, but with no other alternative and the danger of someone coming to check up on her at any moment, she decided to give it a go. Instead of letting the power out, she bundled it and willed it to focus inward, towards the rope. Nothing seemed to happen, but there was a second part of the instruction. Tighten it. With another thought, she pulled it closed.
The rope tying her hands disintegrated. For a moment, So-ree stared at her unbound hands in disbelief. Then she got to work on the rope around her legs.
That was not so hard. Once you have learned the basics, applying other concepts is easy. That’s why it was unnecessary to teach you earlier, Fenner commented - somehow gloating despite having no inflection to their voice.
So-ree refrained from responding and got on her feet instead once she had unmade the rope around her legs as well. Before she could do anything else however, she heard steps coming down the corridor. In a hurry she got a wrapping in place around herself.
“Fascinating”, Tawen commented and then her eyes slipped away and there was a moment of confusion on her face. So-ree hurried to the cell door and repeated her new trick around the lock. Just like the rope, the metal disappeared and she pushed her way outside. Just in time. A procession of six people came inside, one of them a woman in red furs, flanked by two people carrying torches. Once they saw that the door was open, some of the people in the back shouted and rushed forward. So-ree dodged to the side, keeping out of their way. She swiped the bag with Tawen’s eye off the table and hurried down the corridor. Hopefully that would at least slow them down and the trapped immortal would be less willing to help, if they took her other eye. Now she had to figure out how to kill this Odhar.