Assassin’s Fate

As soon as we moved, the three remaining Whites came to claim Cora’s body. They carried her back to her cell and composed her on the straw mattress. Prilkop joined them and they spent a few silent moments standing by her body.

When I quietly commented on it to the Fool, he sighed. ‘Our Bee is the Destroyer to them. They mourn the dead, here and above in the fire. Even more, they mourn the loss of generations of knowledge. So much destroyed. So much history gone.’

I looked over at him and thought him blind in so many ways. ‘So many weapons destroyed,’ I said quietly.

He did not reply to that. We listened to the others scraping mortar and muttering to one another. Lant pushed a poker under one end of a stone and put his weight on it. It did not move. ‘Not yet,’ he sighed and they went on with their scraping. But the next time he leaned on the lever, a stone broke free. The Fool helped me hobble closer to the work.

Lant reached into the opening, and the muscles stood out in his arms and chest as he gripped the block and pulled it toward him. It scraped, sawed and got stuck, then grated out toward us. It reached the tipping point and he jumped back as it slid out of the opening. With the Fool’s help, I hop-limped over to join them.

‘One more, and Per can slip through with a torch.’

Per nodded eagerly. He darted away and a short time later returned. He’d wrapped rags from one of the cell mattresses around a torture poker and drenched them with oil from a lamp. Lant stepped back from the opening as Per kindled it and poked it through the hole. ‘Not much to see. Ow!’ he cried as the flames licked up toward his hand, and he dropped the torch.

Bee leaned in to peer into the darkness. ‘She dragged her small body up and half into the hole. ‘What do you see?’ I asked her.

‘Steps going down. Not much else.’ She wriggled deeper into the hole and then abruptly dropped down on the other side.

‘Bee!’ I cried in alarm.

She stood up, torch in hand, and peered back at us. ‘I’m fine.’ She lifted the torch higher and I leaned into the opening. Broad steps led down into darkness. I smelled the sea, and soaked stone. I suspected standing water at the bottom of the steps. I had a glimpse of cut-stone walls and ceiling. The lower parts of the walls were speckled. ‘I’m going down the steps, to see what I can see,’ Bee announced.

‘No,’ I forbade her. I tried to seize her but could not reach her.

‘Da,’ she said, and the hollow beyond echoed her laughter strangely. Her voice was merry as she said, ‘No one can tell me “no” any more. Not even you.’ She started down the steps. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised.

My eyes met Lant’s. He looked as stricken as I felt.

‘I can fit through that hole. I’m sure of it,’ Per declared, and pushed past Lant and me to thrust his head and shoulders into the gap. He withdrew, then tried again, leading with his clasped hands this time. ‘Lift me and push!’ he commanded in a muffled voice, and Lant obeyed. I heard Per’s grunts and the scraping of fabric on stone. I dreaded that he would wedge, but after some struggle, Lant seized his kicking feet and pushed him through. I heard him tumble down a step or two. He stood and cried breathlessly, ‘Bee, Bee, wait for me!’

‘Take a sword!’ Lant commanded him, and thrust one through the gap. Per took it and hastened away from us, his body blocking most of the dancing light that was Bee and her torch. ‘Don’t go far!’

He called something back to us, and was gone.

‘They’re brave,’ Spark said, and I saw her measuring her body against the opening.

Lant caught her by the shoulder. ‘Help us free one more stone. At most two. Then I think all of us can escape, if indeed it leads to freedom.’

‘I wouldn’t go without you,’ she promised him and immediately began to dig at the next seam of mortar. After a moment, Lant knelt to pursue the seam adjacent to hers. I stood and stared into blackness. Shadows that were Per and Bee moved with the descending light. It grew smaller and then vanished. I waited, eyes straining, to see it again, but saw only darkness.

‘Their torch has failed. We have to send Spark after them.’ I hoped my voice did not shake too badly. I imagined a hundred evil things awaiting Bee.

‘One more stone, and we can,’ Lant promised me.

Time dragged and no one spoke. There was only the endless scraping of tools on mortar to mark the passing moments. Only darkness inside the hole. I wanted to pace. I could not. They worked in shifts, Lant and Spark, then two of the prisoners, then back to Lant and Spark. The ground away mortar sifted down the wall. Behind and above us, the fire muttered to itself.

‘Stop!’ Lant said suddenly. He leaned past the Whites who had been scraping away to peer into the opening. ‘I see light! They’re coming back.’