CHAPTER FORTY SIX: A HINT OF SOMEONE AND SOMETHING

Even knowing that the days were short, didn’t help make the time go by until the sun would set somewhere to the left of the bridge. The time ticked by and was only accentuated by Calin’s own breathing. He tried to resist looking at his watch, certain that time would seem even slower if he kept glancing at the numbers of the digital watch.

After the first five hours Calin started to think the watch was left on his arm as a method of torture. He looked again. Man! It was certain now.

A half an hour passed and he was soon left with no choice but to start to think about everything that was said since he was taken captive. That though, held barely any comfort at all.

The little that did make sense was the fact, that, Mishael, whoever that was, was going to come and use him to catch his own father. Besides that, the only other thing Calin truly understood, which was the hardest to accept, was the fact that they were going to kill him when they had sprung the trap. ‘Why’ seemed to allude him completely.

What made his insides broil, was, that he hadn’t even made peace with the fact that he had a father, much less the fact that father figure was out there somewhere.

Now all of a sudden, he was no longer a true orphan, technically, and they were going use him to get to his father.

For a single moment, only a single moment, Calin wanted them to flush his father out so he could confront the man to ask questions until he couldn’t ask anymore. But the one question that kept coming up in his mind, was, why were these men doing what they were doing?

But it was pointless. Even with his anger and frustration at his dad, it was an easy decision not to help these cruel people with anything.

Half heartedly, Calin took out and read Jerry’s note. It was a jumbled mess. The only real parts that made sense were that Mictoria had hidden something at the second hub room. The only one with a window, it said there was a drop on the other side.

Calin stopped reading.

It was useless anyway. There was no way to get out of his cell.

Escape was pushed aside, and dozens of ways he would resist his captives and this Mishael person floated around in his head.

He was so engrossed in it, that he almost missed the fact that the sun was setting outside. At last! He smiled, yet there were great big bugs fluttering in his stomach of what his friends would try and attempt tonight.

Somehow he wasn’t so enthusiastic about it anymore. His gut was wrenching with worry for Evany and the others. If anything goes wrong— he shook his head. No can’t think like that. But it was eating at him anyway.

The tension became too much and Calin got up grabbed hold of the barred window, looking out over the courtyard with the big luminous Morning tree.

Somewhere off to his side, his fellow prisoner Eli shuffled closer and said, “Is there something wrong lad?”

Calin shook his head.

“No, I just hope my friends can rescue the girl who was taken captive with me.”

The man started to say something, but Calin held up his hand.

“Shhh, look down there!”

There were two hooded figures exiting from a house relatively close to the grand bridge.

At first, it seemed like other people, but the one stumbled over a stone and dropped to his knees. The brown hood fell back and revealed Jerry. Just then the other one came and helped Jerry up, clearly reprimanding the boy about his clumsiness.

With some effort and squinting over the distance, Calin could make out the features of Tyas.

In the cell next to him there was more shuffling, it was Eli going to the window as he took in the view far below. Calin just focussed on what was going on outside.

The pair down below went scurrying across the courtyard, towards another building closer to Yerandier’s Embrace. When they knocked on the building, the door opened and allowed them in. Must be Mictoria’s quarters.

The wait was tense for them to come back out, or something.

Five minutes went by, before there was movement on the roof of the two story building.

Tyas and Jerry were busy pushing a piece of wood between their building and the next. Excitement and tribulation was bubbling up.

Without caring, his hands dug into the rough edges of the barred window. After a slight pause, the two hooded figures snuck between the rooves.

They got on the other side safely, but a set of guards came patrolling on the white wall that surrounded Yera’s Crossing. The position of the patrol threatened to reveal the two who were sneaking over the roof.

Worry flared up and Calin almost shouted at them to hide, but restrained himself at the last moment.

Luckily, Tyas turned towards the pair of oblivious guards and it was clear the man hissed at Jerry to get down. As they got low behind the meter high wall of the roof, Calin cringed. The plank was in plain sight!

Drops of sweat ran down his forehead. But then just as the guards came within thirty metres of the two buildings, one of the two scrambled out of cover and carefully dragged at the plank until it was out of sight.

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Letting out a pent up breath with a whoosh, Calin continued to watch the two. The guards passed them without incident and disappeared into the next guard tower on the wall.

Jerry and Tyas rushed from their hiding place over the roof. They got to the right side of the building and Tyas lowered himself to the window there. It looked to Calin as if the man had trouble with getting the window open. But just when worry started to set in, Tyas disappeared from view. Jerry stayed on top, hidden behind the blackened chimney.

No more than ten seconds after Tyas had disappeared into the two story building, the two heavy set doors at the bottom flew open.

Ta-Reen sat on top of his caravan and it floated silently from the stable that was built into the side of the larger two story building.

Evany was sitting upright behind the gypsy, chained up to the corner with her hands and with one of her ankles to the adjourning railing.

Calin’s insides coiled in fear suddenly. ‘No... no, come on!’ Why did you have to leave with her now!’ The first bit slipped out loud, but it was the least of his worries. His attention was fixed on the things spiralling out of control down at the building. There was nothing he could do, Tyas was in the building to find Evany, but that gypsy had taken her with him just as the other two started the rescue operation.

The gypsy’s caravan floated towards the great arches that marked the start of the bridge. The same bridge that stretched over the river between the sheer cliff and Yera’s Crossing.

As the caravan moved closer to the bridge another carriage drifted from within the mist. Rolling a bit unsteadily over it, on what looked to be a more traditional sort of carriage.

It had four wheels and a large chocolate brown horse dragging it towards Yera’s Crossing. Disgust frothed in Calin when the driver on the more traditional carriage came into view, it was Xyri. The man, or whatever he was, was still draped in the sickly colour of the blood red robes.

Just past the first towering archway the two carriages met up. Ta-Reen was motioning something with his hands as the two drivers talked, but then Xyri said something that aggravated the gypsy as his fist was levelled at the ashen man. But before the apparent argument could get out of control everything stopped and Ta-Reen seemed to relax. The gypsy jumped from his own caravan and approached the window of the more traditional wheeled carriage.

In the shadows a face emerged, but it was too dark to see, even in the more than considerable pink light the massive tree, Yerandier’s Embrace was giving off.

Ta-Reen seemed to nod at the mysterious man inside the carriage, and point to Prison’s Hold. Mishael had come for him.

A sick feeling grew inside Calin.

Out of the carriage, an armoured arm stuck out, handing a palm sized metallic looking sphere to Ta-Reen. But as much as it interested Calin, it was just too far to make out any details of the object. Ta-Reen looked extremely pleased as he hefted it.

Through it all, Calin quickly glanced to Evany, and it sent waves of shock through his body as the ashen man approached her.

Calin banged on his prison wall wanting to scream.

But just before Xyri could reach an arm to touch Evany, the armoured arm waved and Xyri jerked away from Evany. The look the ashen man had was of great disappointment before he jumped back up and steered the wheeled carriage forward. The horse trotted its way toward Prison’s Hold.

In the moments of the exchange, the armoured hand had struck a chord with him. It was bronze in colour. But what it reminded him off was just there. Calin racked his brains.

Then it clicked in place, and realization dawned on him. It made his blood chill. It was the exact same etched gauntlet and colour as the armour of the man coming after him in the vision. The vision from the same night he was struck with lightning.

A shudder ran through him as he hoped with all his heart it was just a coincidence. In a way, it didn’t make sense why it bothered him so much. But he had been observer to this man hunting him, or rather hunting the severely burnt man with the scar on his hand.

Something in Calin’s instincts marked the burnt man as his father, even if it was a crazy delusion. But somehow it made a creepy kind of sense.

He shook his head. There wasn’t time to try to figure out anything at the moment. He looked to where Ta-Reen was. The gypsy had actually cut Evany loose to his surprise.

The girl was standing on the ground waiting for the man to unlock the bindings left around her wrists.

For some reason, Calin thought about the other two. Who were in fact at the gypsys’ house.

It made him shoot his gaze to the right, almost having forgotten about Tyas and Jerry. When his eyes scanned over the building, Jerry was still hiding on the roof top. But he looked like something was wrong, Calin already knew what.

For them there was no sign of Evany. Everything was on a knives edge.

To Calin’s horror, a man holding his bloodied arm shot from the building. He locked the door behind him in a hurry, there was slamming against the door before the man with the bloodied arm raced across the courtyard. Even from that distance, the thuds banging on the door were clear.

Ta-Reen was just about to unlock Evany’s last bindings when a shout from behind stopped him. Calin’s heart sunk into the depths of his body. The wounded man shouted something and the gypsy growled before grabbing Evany, clearly enraged.

Barely more than a few seconds later, Evany was thrown into the caravan and the bloodied man accompanied her. Ta-Reen jumped back on the floating carriage and made it surge forward to the massive bridge.

Calin couldn’t stay silent any longer and he screamed from the window at the top of his lungs. “JERRY!” Somehow the boy heard him from the hundred metres away that he was. Jerry looked up in his direction. Calin desperately pointed in the direction of the gypsy surging away towards the massive bridge. “JERRY! HE’S GOT EVANY!”

By some unbelievable chance the message got over and it wasn’t a moment before the boy stormed to the other edge of the roof looking out over the Floating Caravan getting away. Calin and Jerry shared a look of complete and utter dismay at that instance.

Then from the bottom of the building the door burst open with Tyas standing there with a sword dripping with blood. Jerry didn’t waste time to shout the news from the top of the roof.

All manner of things happened then. Jerry shimmied into the window and appeared at the bottom door and Tyas was already pounding on the door next door at Mictoria’s house.

Calin wanted to watch what was going on, but as he looked down, the wheeled carriage stood empty on the side of Prison’s Hold.

Xyri and the mysterious figure was nowhere in sight. There was no more time!

Suddenly Calin’s insides filled with rage. Rage for Ta-Reen. Grief and guilt for Evany’s situation poisoned his mind. He was desperate to be of some help, any help.

Even his shoulder was acting up, that shifting feeling was starting again as he collapsed to his knees holding his face in his hands. All he could do was shake his head as the tears streamed freely from his eyes, “No! I’ll kill that bastard! Ta-Reen you liar!”

From the side there was the soothing voice of Eli in the next cell. “Lad... I don’t know what to say. Just don’t let revenge cloud what makes you, who you are. It is a corruption that consumes you. It is very hard to quench.”

With the raw anger eating at him, Calin looked away from his own hands at Eli and sneered, “I will kill him, he betrayed Mictoria, he betrayed me and worst of all he betrayed Evany. I’m getting out of here.”

He jumped up and charged at the pillar that marked the corner of the two cells. He didn’t even notice the yellow lights dancing through the column in bright flashes as he grabbed hold of it, neither did he hear Eli’s words.

He could barely see anything through all the tears and the emotions that ripped through him. His hands gripped the pillar with all his might. Something in him willed the cell open. Every hope, every fear was storming through Calin undisturbed, the lightning scar on his shoulder was pulsing with pain and heat, reflecting his heart in every way. Then something happened.

The next thing Calin knew, he stood outside the cell.

“What the...?”