Gail Carson Levine - Fairest, page 13
I wondered how much time I had.
At last I felt the pin move. I yanked, and it came out in my hand.
I pushed against the cage door and it gave, spreading wide enough to allow my arm through. I could almost reach the bolt that opened the door, but not quite.
I sat on my haunches, considering. My humming was automatic now.
The cage's lower hinge was intact. The cage walls were impenetrable. There was nothing but the bolt. I strained, and felt the cloth in my armpit tear. I strained more. The metal corner pressed into me.
I touched the bolt!
I clenched my teeth and stre-e-e-tched. I felt heat. I knew I was bleeding, but I pushed the bolt and it moved. The lock
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scraped open with a whine and a creak.Izzi continued to snore.
I tottered out of the cage. At last.
I raised my arm. The cut was trifling. I picked up my gag and the rope that had tied my hands. Then I circled around Izzi to gag him and tie him up.
But why gag him? Who would hear his shouts? Perhaps I should just grab his arms and push him into a cell. I took a deep breath. My heart was pounding wildly.
He mumbled something in his sleep.
I let the breath out. Why not leave him asleep?
I grinned. If I left Izzi asleep, they wouldn't know how I'd gotten out. They might think it magic.
But would he stay asleep when I was no longer humming? I lowered my voice and readied myself.
His head lolled to the side.
I stopped humming.
Izzi slept on.
I took a lamp from its sconce. My hand trembled so, the light wavered. I pulled the door open.
A guard faced me, holding a lantern and a knife.
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^S V' e looked astonished to see me, too. He fell back a step. I surged forward. He blocked my way and put a finger to his lips. I recognized him. He was Uju, Ivi's favorite guard."Come," he whispered. "I have horses saddled." He eased the dungeon door closed.
I thought of charging past him. I didn't know why he would help me. It might be a trap, but why trap me? I was believed to be in a prison cell.
I needed help. I hadn't thought beyond the dungeon. I followed Uju through the tunnel. At the turn, instead of continuing toward the Great Hall, he veered right. After a few yards we ascended half a flight of wooden steps to a door, which opened smoothly, as though in frequent use.
We entered a storage cellar and walked down a narrow aisle lined with casks of sesame-seed oil. The casks gave way
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to crates. I smelled tarragon. I heard a chirp, then another, then a trill. Some birds had found refuge here.We passed through another doorway into a room of furniture shrouded in canvas. Uju crossed to a door. He threw it open, and we stepped into the gray world before dawn.
He stared at me, then whispered, "You're so comely."
Don't waste time!
The lists were on my right, the stables straight ahead, across an exercise yard where two horses waited. I mounted a dun-colored stallion, he a piebald mare. Instead of riding past the guardhouse and over the drawbridge, we crossed the moat, which was low and gave the horses no trouble.
I looked back at Ontio Castle. It hadn't been my home for very long.
The air was warm and moist. I refused to think, and I held sorrow and rage at bay. I smelled the grass in the field we cantered through, felt the soft wind on my face, heard the birds wake up, and admired the grace of my hands on the reins and the shapeliness of my knees through my skirts.
After an hour of hard riding, we reached the foothills of Mount Ormallo. We rode in the waters of a stream to confound pursuit. From there we entered a ravine, where Uju said we would spend the day.
He tethered the horses to a poplar. I sat, leaning against the ravine wall, where I was least likely to be seen from
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above. Uju sat near the ravine wall, too, several yards away.I rose and went to him. "Why did you come for me?"
I'd never seen him anything but quiet and stern, and he remained so. He took more than a minute to answer me. Then he shrugged. "Her Majesty commanded me to."
Ivi! I retreated to my spot against the ravine wall.
"Where are you taking me?"
He shrugged again. "Far-" A listening look came over him.
I heard hoofbeats and the baying of a hound. Our horses! They'd see the horses!
The hoofbeats receded. I began to breathe again.
Why had Ivi sent Uju to me? Might Skulni have persuaded her to rescue me? It was possible. I hadn't learned what he could do or what his designs were.
More likely she'd wanted my beauty as far from her as could be.
The day wore on. At dusk Uju went to his saddlebags and produced a thick slice of bread and sausage for each of us. When the sky was dark, we left the ravine. Uju headed north and east, keeping to the Ormallo range. The Featherbed was north of the castle, too, but far to the west.
I couldn't go home. They'd look for me there. I had no home.
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The wall I'd built around my feelings crumbled. I wept as we rode. A song rang through my mind./ rode all day. l cried all night. The moon didn't glow. The stars didn't rise. A comet blazed Between my eyes. West and south, Wind and rain. Every way is Just the same. Pray give me a box To hide inside. Pray give me a spade To dig my grave.
We passed the next day in a shallow cave and rode again through the night. At dawn we entered a landscape even more strewn with rocks and boulders than Mount Ormallo. We were riding along a narrow path on the edge of a mountain when Uju swerved behind a boulder. I followed. He slid off his mount and pulled me off mine. He clamped his hand over my mouth.
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He was going to kill me!I struggled. Then I heard loud footfalls, labored breathing.
Ivi's guards!
Why were they on foot?
I heard an angry voice and an angry answer-but not in Ayorthaian. Uju's eyes were bulging in terror.
"ROOjiNN sesh."
"MyNN eMMong aiSS."
Ogres!
Uju crept to the boulder. He waved me back, but I followed. I lay flat and peered over the rim of the path.
They came around a low tree and into view about fifteen yards below us. There were four of them, bigger than I ever was. One was female, the others male.
Their path forked only a few feet ahead of them. If they took the right-hand fork, and if the wind was in our favor, perhaps they would go on their way none the wiser.
They took the right-hand fork. Uju and I grinned at each other. I'd never seen a happier face than his.
The ogres continued up the mountain, arguing and joking. Their laughter was half snort, half bray. Were they my cousins? If they'd met me in my old form, would they have eaten me or embraced me?
I saw a red ribbon in the female's matted hair. Had it
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belonged to one of her meals?Uju's mare neighed.
"UFF vahlwa!"
Uju and I scrambled back from the path. He pulled out his dagger. Run! he mouthed at me. I saw him prepare to attack.
He'd die! They'd persuade him before he could strike.
I illused a whinny, coming from the other side of the ogres, somewhere down the mountain.
Uju turned toward me.
"AflOOn vahlwan!"
I illused an answering whinny, also down the mountain.
The ogres babbled and squabbled. I wished I could see what they were doing.
I got my wish. A head rose above the ledge.
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TWENTY-EIGHTVju hurled his dagger into the creature's throat. I caught the ogre before he could fall back among his pack. Uju and I hauled him onto the path.
We peeked back out.
An ogre looked up in our direction. "InJJ? SshrEE shAA vahlwa?" The ogre took a step toward us.
I whinnied again, but he didn't turn. I had to distract them.
I whispered to Uju, "Fill your mind with song."
He nodded.
I illused a woman's voice from the direction of the whinnies. "Did you hear something, Olio?" it said. Then I filled my mind with song.
Below us the ogre stopped and grinned. I saw his mouth form the Ayorthaian word for friend.
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I illused a male voice, singing, "I heard it, too. 'Friend,' it said."Would they come after their companion or seek their prey ?
They headed down the mountain.
Uju grabbed my arm. We started picking our way upward, taking care to be quiet.
We climbed for ten minutes or more. I fought an urge to stop my silent singing and listen to hear if they were close. Too dangerous-if they were still persuading, I'd hear them.
Uju turned, a rapt smile on his face. He began to pull me back down the mountain.
He'd listened to the ogres! I fought him. I managed to jam my hands against his ears.
I saw comprehension return. We hurried up the mountain again. I hoped he had a destination in mind.
He did. We reached it shortly, a rock-strewn ridge with a view into the valley. We could see the path we'd been on. There were our horses, still behind the boulder. There were the ogres, not far below the place we'd first seen them, trudging back up the mountain.
One veered aside and found our horses and their dead comrade. They began to climb toward us, pointing out our tracks as they came.
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Uju started kicking stones down the mountain, hefting rocks and throwing them. I became a throwing zealot. Between us we hurled a huge, half-buried rock. I heaved and tossed and pitched the heaviest rocks I could lift, never stopping to see the result.Then Uju was pulling me away. We stumbled back as half the mountain below gave way and buried the ogres and our unfortunate horses.
We scrambled down the far side of the ridge. I hoped the ground beneath us wouldn't collapse. At the bottom, Uju started climbing the adjacent slope.
"Wait!" I cried. I had to stop to catch my breath.
"Not safe. Come!"
I followed, holding my side and panting. What would we do without horses?
Finally he collapsed, halfway up. I collapsed next to him.
After he stopped panting, he said, "You saved us both."
"You saved us both."
"Queen Ivi told me to kill you."
Could she hate me so much? Could she be so wicked?
"Not in so many words, but her meaning was clear enough." Fright had loosened his tongue. "She said you were half ogre. She said we'd all be safer without you. I was going to kill you, but you'd grown so beautiful, I stopped believing her."
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Beauty had saved me."But if I had killed you, the ogres would have killed me." He smiled ruefully. "If I was dead, she wouldn't be able to knight me."
She'd promised to elevate him, just as she'd elevated me.
"I'll tell everyone I found you dead, but I'll tell her I killed you. I want a scrap of your gown to prove you're dead. She'll knight me yet."
"Of course." I tore a bit from the hem. My beautiful new gown was creased and filthy.
"I'll bloody it up somehow."
Faugh! "Are you going to leave me here?" If he was, he might as well kill me. I'd be dead soon enough, with no food and no idea where water might be.
"No, Milady. I won't abandon you." He shrugged. "We'll be there before we die of hunger or thirst."
"Be where?"
"Gnome Caverns. The gnomes may take you in. If they do, you'll be safe-if you can stay down there."
zhamM's prediction was coming true.
Uju found a cave for us to rest in. I was exhausted, but I couldn't sleep. The sun was still high and hot when he said we should leave.
"Anyone can see us." I had never felt more visible, not even when I was ugly and twenty people were staring at me.
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He shrugged. "Nonetheless." He had returned to taciturnity.I trudged after him. The heel came off my right slipper. "Uju?"
He shrugged, so I knew he was listening.
"When you reach home, would you tell Prince Ijori that one of my cousins ate me?"
He nodded. Good.
Rock walls rose around us, forming serpentine pathways. It was a landscape to be lost in forever. But Uju never hesitated, choosing each new chasm as if he was following a rope.
The day wore on. My tongue felt gritty and dusty. Visions of iced ostumo, mead, raspberry juice, took over my imagination. I was parched enough to long even for apple juice.
Uju turned a corner. I followed and then stopped short. He had opened a rock door into the cliff.
The doorway was lower than my height and wider than my girth. Uju ducked and entered. I hung back, thinking of the castle dungeon.
But the air that wafted out of the tunnel was cool and fresh. The floor was carpeted. The pattern was of pink pails and pink hammers and pink chisels on a light-green background.
How could I fear? I hunched over and entered.
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The light dimmed. Uju had closed the door, soundlessly. I turned. The door was indistinguishable from the surrounding rock. When would I see the sun again?The tunnel was brighter than torchlight. The wall on my right seemed to be crisscrossed by sparkling veins and arteries. I guessed this was the glow iron zhamM had mentioned. It was magical-gnomish magic.
The tunnel wound steeply down. We heard gurgling but saw not a drop of water. I was certain we were nearing the center of the world.
Below us, the tunnel ended in a small circular room where a gnome sat, reading a book.
Uju called out, ".fwthchor evtoogh drzzay eerth ymmad-boech evtoogh drzzaY"
The gnome, a female, looked up. She marked her place in her book, pushed back her chair, and exited through the rock where she was standing. Through the rock! She seemed to melt into it and was gone. More gnomish magic.
"IghufzO" Uju cried. He raced to where she'd been and pounded on the rock wall.
I joined him and stared at the spot where she had vanished. It looked no different from the rest of the rock wall- smooth, glistening, coral colored. Uju kicked it.
"What did you say to her?"
He slumped into her chair. "It was a greeting."
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I wasn't worried. I had zhamM's prediction to rely on. I was to see him in Gnome Caverns."We can go back," I said, "and find another entrance." I'd heard there were many. But it would be a long climb, especially without food or water.
He didn't stand up.
"Why can't we?"
"It was an entrance."
Yes?
Then I understood. It was an entrance only, not an exit. We wouldn't be able to find the door. We were stuck here.
I still wasn't concerned. "We'll get in. A gnome once predicted I'd see him in Gnome Caverns."
Uju laughed bitterly. "A gnome predicted I'd be given a centaur before my thirty-second birthday. That birthday passed eleven years ago."
Oh. I sank to the floor. It might end here, then. We'd die of thirst with water gurgling somewhere nearby. Idly I opened the gnome's book. Naturally the words were Gnomic, punctuated and capitalized backward as the gnomes did.
If only I could get to that gurgling water! I wondered how it could sound so close with solid rock between us and it. The rock must capture the sound somehow. The rock was solid. Uju had pounded on it and kicked it.
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But she'd passed through it. Perhaps . .."Uju, stand up!"
He stood slowly.
"Step aside!"
He did.
I went to the wall and touched it lightly. It felt soft as gossamer. My finger went into it, as if it were fog. I smacked the wall. Solid rock. I approached it gently again, and my hand went right in.
I turned to him. "We can go through."
"What if it seizes up around us?"
Then we'd die in the rock rather than outside it. "The secret seems to be to move smoothly."
A dozen gnomish warriors might be waiting on the other side, pointing their swords at us.
"I'm going to try it," I said. I thought, Glide, and stepped into the wall.
It felt like stepping through feathers. Then I was out.
A moment later Uju came through. "You saved me again."
We were in the same tunnel. The wall we'd gone through was filmy from this side. I could see the glow iron sparkling on the far wall.
I looked for the source of the gurgling. There it was. Just past the edge of the carpeting was a trough through which water streamed.
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No one was in sight. Uju and I threw ourselves down. I cupped my hands and drank. I heard Uju slurping next to me.The water tasted pure and sweet. I thought I'd never get enough.
"Maid Aza? Maid azacH? You came through our curtain!"
The voice was mild and breathy. I scrambled up and curtsied. "Master zhamM!"
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TWENTY-NINE~S v ext to me, Uju bowed.
The green gentleman, in a yellow paisley tunic with emerald buttons, bowed in return. "Maid azacH," he said, straightening, "you are changed, just as you'd hoped. You are smaller, and there is almost no htun in your hair. I've regretted your absence from the Featherbed." He sang,
"I'm not a Sir, I'm a serf, And my enemy's worse Than a tonight ever cursed."
He remembered my words! And the tune, more or less.
"I've missed your voice. I'm glad it's here." He smiled. "And you've come with it, to be exact."
I recalled his sense of humor. If he'd missed me, perhaps he'd let me stay.
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"Thank you, Sir," he told Uju, "for bringing Maid azacH."I introduced them, and they both bowed again.
Uju sang, "I'm not a Sir, I'm a guard."
zhamM and I both smiled at the joke, the first I'd heard Uju make.
zhamM explained that the woman who'd fled from us had done so because Uju had misspoken the gnomes' traditional greeting, "Digging is good for the wealth and for the health." Instead, he'd said that filling was good for both.
