Within the confines of the palanquin, Sanae still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.
She vigilantly watched for opportunities to escape or call for help. Unfortunately, her captors were careful to avoid densely populated areas.
After two days, she was certain the palanquin bearers were not human. Not once had she seen them eat, sleep, drink, or even speak a single word.
They never seemed to tire, carrying their load at the same pace with little regard for weather or terrain.
They had not reacted when she tried speaking to them.
These things considered, they seemed unlikely to be an obstacle should she attempt to escape.
That left the shapeshifter. He was nearby almost constantly, particularly for the short periods when she was allowed out.
Their route was consistently heading west.
Currently, they were moving through a narrow pass, the last in this mountain range.
As they neared the pass’s exit, two battered wagons came into view. They had been tipped over to form a makeshift blockade. Atop them stood a man with several assorted weapons and a variety of trinkets and baubles adorning his rugged mountain attire.
The shapeshifter sighed in annoyance.
As they neared, it became obvious that there were several other men crouched on the far side of the blockade.
The man standing above hailed them:
“Oy, travelers! This is a toll road, y’know?”
The shapeshifter replied
“As a matter of fact, I don’t know anything about a toll for this pass.”
“Well, now yeh do.
Who’s majesty is that, I wonder?” The man asks, waving to the palanquin.
“They prefer to keep a low profile in foriegn parts.”
“Mmm. Then doubtless they would be wise to pay a small fee, to keep my boys here quiet ‘bout their travels, no?”
The shapeshifter sighed.
“Doubtless.”
After some brief negotiation, he handed the man a sack of coins. The man opened it and inspected the coins before nodding and motioning to his men, who dragged the barricade out of the way, just far enough for the palanquin to pass.
They edged their way past the barrier, but they had barely made it three paces before their leader gave a signal and the men raised their bows, firing them at their group. The shapeshifter reacted quickly, ducking behind the palanquin bearers.
Sanae yelped and tried to make herself as small as possible. Her alarm was needless, as the arrows bounced or shattered upon hitting the curtains as if they were a solid wall.
The bearers simply stood in place while arrows hit them. No blood escaped from the wounds.
As soon as the arrows had been fired, the shapeshifter left cover and sprinted to their attackers, a shortsword in hand. He quickly dispatched two of them before taking an arrow in the shoulder. He growled as he stabbed the man responsible.
Four of the remaining men were nocking new arrows, while the two others including the leader were drawing other weapons.
The air went cold. The palanquin pulsed with an eerie yellow light and a shockwave burst from the decorated roof. The highwaymen disintegrated when it reached them, leaving only scattered weapons on the ground.
Sanae felt nauseated. They were gone, just like that.
She subconsciously gave up on her musings of escape.
The shapeshifter winced as he pulled the arrow from his shoulder. He paused for a moment and concentrated. The bleeding stopped. He saw her watching and winked.
He cast a sideways glance at the palanquin.
“Bad choice for them, Missy. They seem to have decided there must be more where that money came from.”
He briefly changed his face to that of the fallen leader and mimicked his accent.
“Can’t trust anyone these days, eh?”
His attempt at humor only reminded her of the way he had deceived her father’s friends.
The man walked over to the bearers, and casually began pulling out the arrows. As always, they stood unresponsive.
No wound remained where he removed the arrows, the creatures ‘skin’ reknitting almost instantly.
“What are they?” She asked, motioning to the bearers.
“Tools.” He replied.
His work complete, the shapeshifter mounted his horse and they resumed their journey.
---
After a week’s travel, the group had arrived at the sea. They now headed north along a coastal road.
That evening while they were eating, the shapeshifter unexpectedly asked a question.
“Do you hate me, I wonder?”
She jumped, and almost spat out the food she was eating.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“I hate anyone who kills innocent people.”
“Define your terms. Innocent? Those guards were former soldiers. It’s quite possible, —likely, even— that they killed ‘innocent’ civilians at some point in their duty, whether by order or by collateral damage.
“They would have done their best to avoid it!”
“And I did not? I pursued several other means of capture before resorting to violence.”
Sanae seethed, but she couldn’t think of a suitable reply to his warped justifications.
Later that day, they reached a port village. They headed straight for the docks and stopped in front of a large trading ship.
Shapeshifter exchanged some words with one of the men on board, and they shouted and motioned to a man in official-looking clothes. She guessed that was the captain.
Shapeshifter spoke to the captain, and after a few seconds he nodded and motioned the palanquin over. The bearers stopped directly in front of the gangway.
Shapeshifter motioned to her: “Right this way, Missy.”
Glad to be free of the stuffy confines, Sanae only hesitated for a moment before she stepped down and boarded the ship.
Early the next morning, the ship embarked.
---
The voyage was uneventful, lasting the better part of a week. Sanae was confined to a single cramped cabin for most of the time. It did have a bit more room than the palanquin. The lack of an unnatural chilling aura was also a significant upgrade.
They docked in a town called Bridgeport. Shapeshifter purchased a wagon and they left, taking a road that wound towards the northern mountains.
Two days later, they arrived at a massive stone structure seated beside a mountain. It had no windows. The only doors that she could see were those in the front.
A figure in armor emerged, walking towards them.
Shapeshifter’s expression was clouded. “I have delivered their prisoner. This is where we part.”
“Who—”
“Again, I avoid learning any information that I don’t need. Good luck.”
He turned to leave.
“No, who are you?”
“Oh. You may call me Istan.”
WIth that, he left her to be escorted inside by the guard.
She tried asking him questions, but he only responded with uninterested grunts and pushed her forward if she went too slowly for their liking.
“At least Istan was respectful.”
The guards brought her up several flights of stairs to a room with a decorated metal door. They knocked and waited.
After several minutes they heard a woman’s voice.
“Send her in.”
The door opened, and Sanae was pushed through the threshold.
A nondescript woman in a simple brown robe sat in front of a desk. She looked like someone you might find as a shopkeeper or a farmer in a rural village.
“Now, will you lend us your power the easy way or the hard way?”
“What do you mean? What power?”
“Ahh, so you are completely untrained? Or...feigning ignorance?” Tsk tsk. She spoke as if she were a mother scolding a misbehaving child.
The woman narrowed her eyes and examined Sanae closely.
“How tragic! You hadn’t even awakened to your abilities, and now we snatch you without explanation! I’m almost tempted to let you go, poor child!”
She dropped the kindly facade; “Life is cruel. Ahh well, ‘twas not to be.”
“We’ll awaken your abilities soon enough. This place can be comfortable as long as you do as you're told. If not...nobody is irreplaceable.”
Something around her neck glowed a faint yellow color and she waved her hand in dismissal. Suddenly, Sanae’s feet began to sink into the stones underfoot. She flailed her arms, searching for something to hold on to, but quickly slipped beneath the floor. She sunk through cold layers of stone for several seconds before falling into a tiny cell.
There was no door, only a minuscule, barred window near the floor, from which shone a sliver of firelight.
---
Sanae didn’t know how many days had passed since she had been left in this barren cell.
“Didn’t that woman say something about comfort?”
“Perhaps that only applies once I give her what she wants.”
“I would, if I had any idea how. Maybe then, I’ll be free to leave and find my family.”
She doubted that was likely, but the thought kept her clinging above total despair.
She cried herself to sleep.
In her dream, A beautiful woman with stunning green eyes led her running through a maze of stone corridors. As she followed deeper into the maze, it grew progressively darker and the walls seemed to close in. Still, the woman kept leading her.
“It’s not much farther!”
Finally she stopped in front of a thin, dark tunnel that seemed to go even deeper into the earth. It was menacing and cold, and her every instinct warned her that it was dangerous.
Seeing her fear, the woman embraced her, so warm and kind.
Such contrast from the tunnel ahead.
She softly spoke:
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but that’s the way you need to go. It will be alright.
Please, trust me.”
With more than a little hesitation, Sanae entered the foreboding tunnel.
She woke to the ground shaking violently. Sharp clatters and crashes of breaking stone sounded from many different directions.
The wall with a window suddenly crumbled and fell outward, toppled by a pillar of coiled-looking stone.
Sanae ran through the opening into a long hall. She saw several dozen cell windows dotting the walls every few meters. Her cell was the only one that had been destroyed. She heard muted voices and saw light growing from around the corner behind her. She ran down the hall in the opposite direction, looking for somewhere to hide or escape.
The hall was a dead end, except for a single entryway to her left. A broad, crumbling stone stairway descended a short way into a room filled with crates and barrels. A storage room.
She looked to see if any of the large barrels might be empty, but she couldn’t get any of them open.
She heard echoed shouting.
“They must have found my empty cell...”
Frantically, she looked around the cell for something, a door? A weapon?
The crumbling stairs caught her eye. The corner of the bottom step seemed uneven. Upon closer inspection, a chunk of the stair had completely broken from the rest. It looked as though there might be open space behind it!
With adrenaline-boosted strength, she was able to move the block of stone. Sure enough, there was an uneven tunnel behind it.
She was filled with terror at the thought of another earthquake happening and the tunnel collapsing around her.
Voices echoed nearer, and she had to decide.
Sanae scrambled into the tunnel, and with effort pulled the stone back, nearly into its original place.
She remembered the dream.
“I’d rather trust the green eyed dream-lady than my captors.”
She began crawling deeper into the tunnel.
It quickly became steeper.
“Where can this possibly—”
The tunnel dropped off without warning.
She tried to cling to the walls, but her reaction was too slow, her hands too sweaty.
She fell.
“Even my dreams lie to me.”
“Cruel.”
She hit the ground with a sickening crunch.