Blazing Centaurs, page 21
“You good?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, I’m going back down.”
“Great. Maybe drag the mats over here just in case.”
“On it.”
Revka examined the roof. There were thinner timbers up here, just enough to support the sheets of tin that had been nailed into place. She reached up and braced her arms against the rafter directly above her. Having secured herself, she walked her feet up until each one was braced against a metal sheet, straddling the rafter between them. She tested each one in turn, feeling to see if either gave under pressure. Both metal sheets were nailed in pretty firmly, but it did seem to her that the one on the right had a little more give to it.
Might as well start with that one, then.
Bracing her left leg, she brought her right one back and kicked the metal sheet as hard as she dared. The resounding clang was impressive, but the sheet flexed only a little. That seemed to be about it. She shifted her weight and repositioned her foot, to aim closer to the point where the metal was secured to the wood. She began to kick at it again, pounding it as hard as she could. The metal roof shook and echoed with every kick, but she held on tight and kept going.
She clenched her hands around the rafter. It was a bit of a reach, and her arms were starting to ache. She steadied herself and redoubled her efforts. Again and again, she brought her foot against the sheet, pounding it in heel-first right at the join. It may have been a trick of the dark, but it seemed like it was starting to come loose, a little, where her blows were concentrated. She gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts. “Come! On! You! Stupid! Thing! Come! Loose! Stupid! Dumb! Nails! Ugh!”
“Uhm, Revka?”
“Not now, not now! Get! Loose! Dammit! Get! Loose!”
“Revka!”
“Oh, for…what?”
“The door!”
“What about it?”
Down below, the door swung open. Silhouetted against the moonlight stood two of Mr. Fleet’s men. They were both carrying crossbows.
Revka sagged. She smiled weakly at the two men. “Uhm, hi. Just…trying to get some fresh air. Haha.” Oh, Krep.
* * * * *
“In retrospect,” said Iyarra, “I suppose we should have realized they might have left guards behind. Really, we should have seen that coming.”
Revka didn’t answer. She just lay sprawled on one of the sleeping mats, bound hand and foot. The trip down off the roof beam had not been pleasant, and the reception she got upon landing only made things worse. Even if they hadn’t bound her hand and foot, the roughing up she received at the hands of the two goons pretty much put an end to any clever plans, for the time being.
Iyarra hobbled over to Revka’s side and knelt beside her. At least she could move about a bit, though thanks to her ropes, only at a slow and wobbly shuffle. She looked down at her partner with concern. “Revka?”
“Hm? Oh. Sorry. Just thinking.” The woman rolled around to face the centauress. “This has been a heck of a trip, hasn’t it?”
Iyarra grinned. “Well, we’ve had better, that’s for sure.” She leaned in closer. “Are you too badly hurt?”
Revka managed to shrug. “Not too bad. Bruises, mostly. Nothing that won’t heal in a week or so.”
Iyarra winced. The guards had seemed to feel that picking a fight with a large, muscular centauress was not a recipe for success, but they had no problem with giving Revka “a lesson,” once the two were safely tied up. The centauress shuddered at the memory. If the other one hadn’t had his crossbow aimed right at her head…
“You know what the worst part is?” said Revka quietly.
“Is it getting beat up before you could escape?”
“Well no, that was pretty bad too.”
“The fact that we built this place ourselves?”
“OK, that sucks too, but no.”
“Oo! Is it the fact that we might be about to get fed to some ancient monster by a bunch of cult loonies as some sort of twisted urban renewal program?”
“Okay, fine. That’s definitely worse, but what I mean is that I thought we could trust Mr. Fleet. You know what I mean? He was always so nice, and gave us work, and even spoke up for us. All the time he was just…fattening us up. Just burns me, you know?”
“Oh, that. Yeah.” Iyarra nodded. “That’s bad too.”
“I mean, I didn’t even see it coming, you know? I like to think I can read people pretty well, but… Well, this guy, he just blindsided me. Did you pick up on anything?”
Iyarra shook her head. “Search me. He always smelled fine to me.”
“Oh.” Revka fell silent, staring into the darkness.
“So, what happens now?”
“Well, first of all, I’m going to need your help with something.”
“Of course. What is it?”
Revka nodded her head to the far corner. “I gotta use the bucket. Tied up like this, it’s going to be a real logistical nightmare. Then, I think we need to talk about our future.”
* * * * *
“Well, top of the morning!” The morning sunlight burst in through the opening doors and ushered in Mr. Fleet. “How’s everybody doing?”
Revka glared up at him and didn’t deign to reply. Iyarra, who had been lightly snoozing, stirred awake and blinked uncomfortably at the sudden incursion.
“That good, eh?” Mr. Fleet chuckled. “Well, now. Sounds like we—” He stopped, a puzzled look coming over his face. He pointed. “Uhm, what happened over there?”
“There was an accident with the bucket,” said Revka. “Kind of hard to use it while all tied up.”
“Oh. Right. Well, never mind. We’ll get that taken care of, but first, I understand we had a little bit of an incident last night, didn’t we?”
“Oh, hell.” Revka sighed. “Look, it’s not as if we even got anywhere. We—”
“Oh now, don’t you worry about it.” Mr. Fleet waved a careless hand. “Listen, I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t tried something. That’s the whole reason I had Jed & Clem here stay overnight. I told them if anyone could find a weakness in this place, it would be you two. Well, we’ll just have to reinforce the roof a little bit, maybe put some spikes on the joists, but we can talk about that later.”
Mr. Fleet knelt down on the concrete floor and leaned his arms on one foreleg so he was level with the two prisoners. “Now then, you’ve had a night to think about it, and you tried your hand. And bless you, I don’t blame you a bit for trying, but now, it’s what you might call the moment of truth.
“See, I like you girls. I do. You work hard, you’re resourceful and smart—just not too smart.” He grinned. “So my offer stands. Come work with me. Any of my boys’ll tell you, I take good care of my people. And who wouldn’t love to be on the winning team? But let me tell you, this is a limited-time offer. So, you’d better speak now, hear me?”
Revka and Iyarra exchanged glances. There was a nod from the centauress, and Revka returned it. “All right.” She turned back to Mr. Fleet. “Yeah, we talked it over last night, and well, I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?”
Mr. Fleet beamed. “See?” he called over his shoulder to the others. “I told you they were smart.” He stood up, dusting off his forelegs. “Right. Get these two untied, and we’ll head to the other camp. Get you cleaned up and fed, the world will look a lot different.”
A few minutes later, the group set out. The girls were unbound but still flanked by Mr. Fleet’s men. Fleet himself moseyed along at the back, along with Harry, the foreman.
“I don’t know about this sir,” said Harry. “I mean, for myself, I’d just cut ’em and forget ’em.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” said Mr. Fleet. “They’re smart, I told you. Whether they mean it or not, they know the only way forward is to play ball with us. And that’s just what we need.”
“Yeah, but can we trust them?”
Mr. Fleet lit a cigar. “Just long enough, Harry,” he said. “Just long enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“CAMP” TURNED OUT TO be a small group of tents and a few sacks of supplies just outside the entrance to The Gap. Mr. Fleet pointed the girls over to one of the tents. “Y’all can get cleaned up in there. Cookie should have vittles ready by the time you’re done. We all eat over there.” He pointed to a larger canopy spread out next to a chuck wagon.
In the tent were a bucket of water, some soap, a couple of flannels, and even a brush. Much to the girls’ surprise, the items they’d surrendered at the sheriff’s office were neatly stacked in a corner.
“Wow,” said Iyarra. “I guess he really is connected.”
“Tell me about it.” Revka grabbed a rag and began to scrub. “You get past the whole summoning-an-evil-monster-to-do-your-bidding part, and he’s a pretty decent boss. I mean, we’ve worked for worse.”
“Dear lord, have we?”
As they emerged from the tent, several minutes later, the smell of cooking wafted over and hit them right in the appetite. Two stomachs rumbled in unison.
“There they are!” Mr. Fleet waved to the girls from beneath the canopy. “Come on an’ join us!” He gestured as they joined the group. “We got beans, griddle cakes, and coffee. Grab a plate and dig in.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, thanks.” The two loaded up their plates, and the next few minutes were filled with the silence of people who had better things to do with their mouths than talk.
“So,” said Revka, once the initial nosh was out of the way, “what are we doing out here?”
“Well,” said Mr. Fleet, “we’re going to be doing some of the incantations and things here. When they put that thing away, they wanted to make sure he didn’t just, y’know, slip out. So they locked him up real good. He pointed to the entrance to The Gap. “This place is the key. Now, from what I hear, you found the passage to the old temple, right? Following one of the four trails?”
“Right, yeah. The one that goes…what would that be…northwest? From the center?”
Mr. Fleet grinned. “Actually,” he said, “as I understand it, any one of the four trails would have taken you there. I mean if you followed the routes exactly of course.”
“Yeah,” said Iyarra, “Come to think of it, why does that make a difference? I mean, if you go to the place shouldn’t it work no matter how you got there?”
Mr. Fleet shook his head. “No, no, there was…oh, let me think. My pappy told me about it once, a long time ago. It’s like, the way you traverse the path, it’s like weaving a spell, from how he described it. There’s certain points you have to hit in the right order, as I recall. I guess it’s like saying the magic words the right way for a spell. Anyhow, that’s just a small part of what we’re going to be doing.
“See, that’s not the true purpose of the maze. I mean, it will do it, if you get the paths right, but that’s what you might call secondary. The real trick is to invoke the opening.”
“Now, tomorrow night the moon is gonna be…” He stopped, snapping his fingers. “Dangit. Clem, what’s that called when the moon is halfway between full and new? Like right down the middle?”
Clem furrowed his brow. “Uhm. Is that gibbous?”
“No, no. That’s when it’s all fat, I think. Pretty sure. Well, never mind. Doesn’t matter. Point is, it’s going to be that way tomorrow night. Now, people go on about full-moon this and full-moon that, for doing magic, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. The half-moon—is that what it’s called? I’m gonna call it that—the half-moon is where the real magic’s at. That’s the moon of doorways, of thresholds between one world and the next. Holler out to the dead on a half-moon, they just might hear ya. And when you holler out to a god…well.
“Anyway, we’re gonna do a little magic then, see what we can work up, but first, we’ve got some preparation to do. That’s gonna be today and tomorrow, for the most part. Y’all are gonna need to help us clear out the maze. A lot of it’s been neglected over the centuries and all. So, everybody eat up, and we’ll get on to work.”
The rest of the day was spent hauling brambles and tumbleweeds out of the maze. They cut down some shrubs which had grown up in some of the long-abandoned corridors. The long, hot work kept them occupied till nearly sundown. Mr. Fleet had put one of his men with them to, as he put it, “help with the cutting and hauling.” No doubt, he was also keeping an eye on them. Understandable, but it did rather curb any attempts at conversation between her and Iyarra.
Lunch was much the same as breakfast. Dinner came with sourdough biscuits and a gravy that looked and tasted like library paste. Revka couldn’t help but remember what the others had said about never asking a centaur what went into glue. Still, no one seemed to complain too much. It was amazing what a day of work in the hot sun did for one’s appetite.
That night, the group lit a campfire and sat under the stars. Mr. Fleet was full of tales, talking about the history of the valley and his plans for the future. “We’re gonna be the queen of cities, you mark my words,” he said. “With the help of our divine friend, the barren ground shall become lush with food, and water will spring forth from the desert. Why, I foresee a day when our modest little town will take up the entirety of the valley. We’ll have to move the thungas out into the prairie.
“Oh, I wish you could see what I see.” Mr. Fleet’s voice took on a wistful note. “Vast tracts of homes, all alike, with perfectly manicured lawns. Gated communities with easy access to schools and grazing land. And shops! Grand stretches of shops all under one roof where you can buy anything you want: clothes, household goods, books, you name it. And happy centaurs and people walking around munching on soft pretzels and chocolate-chip cookies big as your head. Restaurants will have every kind of food you can imagine, and they’ll even sing to you and bring you a free piece of cake if it’s your birthday. There will be organic hay and small-batch, artisanal braw, locally made of course. It’ll be a never-ending place of wonders, a veritable paradise on earth.” In the firelight, his eyes gleamed. “It’ll be glorious.”
“And run on slaves and blood sacrifice.”
Mr. Fleet smiled at Revka. “Well, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, as they say, but yeah, we’ll need some…unofficial help in the early stages. Once things are fully established, we can probably go easy on them. I mean, once the secret’s out and all. That’s the important thing, keeping everything secret at first. We gotta keep everything hush-hush until the deal is sealed, you know what I mean? Don’t want any goody-goodies throwing a wrench into the proceedings. Not when we’re so close.”
“But you’re really going to go ahead with sacrifices?” Iyarra asked.
Mr. Fleet shrugged. “Well, that kinda depends. We’ll see what the god wants. If we can get away with thungas, that’s all the better. If not…well, there’s always crimes, and there’s always punishment.”
That remark had what could charitably be called a sobering effect on the evening’s conversation. The group broke up shortly afterward, and everyone not on watch duty went off to bed.
* * * * *
The next morning dawned clear and cold. Revka and Iyarra emerged from their tent to the familiar smell of the chuckwagon.
“Morning, people.” Mr. Fleet emerged from his tent just as the girls were sitting down with their plates. Revka raised an eyebrow. Pretty much every time she’d seen Mr. Fleet, he’d been dressed up sharp in a white button-up, black waistcoat, and bolo tie. The rolled-up sleeves of his simple denim shirt drew mild surprise. He caught her expression and grinned. “Got a lot of work today,” he said. “Don’t wanna dirty up my good clothes before tonight, you know what I mean?”
“So, what are we doing today, boss?” asked Harry.
“Well, we have a few more preparations for tonight. A lot of that’s gonna be on me and the others, when they show up. That should be sometime in the afternoon. Mostly, your jobs will be to assist us in the ceremony and keep a watch out, in case anybody figures on interfering. I’m gonna want you all pin-sharp tonight, you hear me?”
There was a chorus of yesses around the campfire.
“Fine, that’s fine. Now, everyone eat up, then meet in the center of the maze. All right?”
“Yessir.”
“Understood.”
“Mm-mmph.”
“Dangit Clem, don’t talk with your mouth full.”
* * * * *
When the group filed into the center of the maze, Mr. Fleet was already there. The cleanup crew had removed a lot of dirt and brush, and now the map of the maze was clearly visible all the way around.
“All right, ladies,” Mr. Fleet said. “Got a little job for you. Each of these four pathways will go to a different corner of the maze. Of course, you have to follow the exact path, but there’s a couple of these that haven’t been used in Krep-knows how long.” He pointed with his hoof at the line that marked the northwest path. “This one we’ve been using pretty much all the time, but we gotta make sure we have all of these correct. Now, if you look here.” He pointed to the southwest path. “You can see there’s gaps in the maze. It goes all the way along to here, then the trail kinda fades out for a bit, then it picks up over here.”
Mr. Fleet knelt by the maze, tracing along the paths with his finger as he talked. “Now, it seems to me that there are about three different ways to get from one point to the other. If you look at the map here, you can see there’s this straight shot here, and this other little path with a dogleg, or possibly even this bit where it winds around some. So, what we’re gonna do is this.
“I’ve worked up a map of this section. I want y’all to work out which is the right route. Just go to this spot here.” He took out a crumpled piece of paper and showed it to Revka and Iyarra. “Then try one of the paths. If it’s the right one, it should zap you straight to the temple. You should be able to come right back using the disc they got in there. If it’s not the right one, you’ll need to come back here and start again from the beginning. Got that?”
