Escape (The Prisoner and the Sun #1) Read online

  Iliff thought he heard a small catch in his friend’s voice. He reached forward until his fingers touched those clinging to the bar.

  “Come with me,” Iliff whispered.

  The hands fell and dropped inside the deep shadow of the cell.

  “Yuri?”

  “Please.” His voice sounded far away. “Don’t do this.”

  “I have to.”

  Iliff lingered a moment longer, but when his friend did not reappear or speak again, he began to move off, past the hundreds of cells and the somnolent forms inside.

  * * *

  It took Iliff a long time to reach the corridor that joined all the cellblocks in the wing. At the end of the corridor he peered down a broad staircase. A narrow cart ramp split its center. He was not sure how far away the room with the five-pointed crevice might be.

  You must but follow the staircases down until you can go down no more.

  Iliff began his descent, his footfalls echoing like the pointed thuds of a child’s heartbeats. The first staircase ended at a vast corridor, just like the one he had been on. He imagined cellblocks stretching off in each direction where hundreds more prisoners would be sleeping in their close-stacked cells. He hid his candle and listened for several moments. He reasoned that the guards would be like the ones on his own level and not patrol at this late hour. And why would they? The prisoners had no notion of anywhere other than the prison, no desires other than to carry out their duties. Even were they to have an inkling of something more, their fear of being reported by their fellows would quickly snuff it out.

  Hearing nothing, Iliff crept across the corridor and started down the next staircase.

  * * *

  The sameness of the corridors and stairs went on for many levels. But after a time the staircases began to change. They became narrower. And where they had once run straight, they now shifted in odd places. Some even twisted back on themselves. The corridors changed too. They no longer seemed to join cellblocks and were smaller, less organized.

  Iliff had never been this deep in the prison. The spaces were humid, the stone walls glossy with moisture. A metallic tang bit the stale air. Deeper and deeper he descended. The stairs became whimsical, spiraling affairs, the corridors labyrinthine. He was having a harder time finding the stairwells and several times was forced to retrace his steps. He discovered some in dark corners and others along obscure passages. One he found half-hidden behind a crumbling wall.

  At last he arrived inside a deep corridor littered with stones. He searched and searched, pushing his light into every conceivable space, but there were no more passageways, no more staircases. He had come to the bottom of the prison, it seemed, and there was nothing.

  Iliff wound throughout the corridor once more and then dropped onto the bottommost step of the last stairwell. His candle was more than half gone. He dripped some wax onto the stone near his feet and pressed the candlestick into it so it stood. As he watched the small flame hover in the vast darkness, he thought of the old man’s story. Month after restless month of his wondering and imagining and, at last, believing. Believing. It seemed impossible now that it could not be true, that there was not another world beyond the walls, that there was just the prison. The only world he had ever known.

  He remembered then what he had promised Yuri and clamped his eyelids shut. How could he go back to that cell? How could he go back to that impossible labor? Just the thought of trudging back up all those—

  He jerked around, his stomach on fire. He looked up the dark stairwell. He had been so intent on getting here, on finding the room, that he had not thought to leave anything to find his way back by. He stood and held onto the wall. The humid air felt stifling suddenly. How many levels had he come down? How many stairways? He tried to remember. There had been so many.

  Then a thought even more dreadful occurred to him. Morning call would come and he would be missing from his cell. There was already the porter’s testimony from the day before, now this would seal it. He would be called out as a conspirator. Reported. Disappeared. Never to be seen or heard from again.

  Iliff was looking desperately about when something caught his eye. He glanced down and was surprised to see a small creature ambling over the stone floor. Iliff went and crouched over it. The prison had a few small creatures—rodents mostly—but nothing like this, nothing dark and shining. He picked up the candle and followed the creature’s course. He counted six rigid legs and a large set of mandibles that held something round. Iliff stooped until his eyes were almost on level with it. The creature was carrying a damp clump of earth.

  Iliff sprang to his feet and hurried to the wall from where the creature had come. He held the candle aloft. The flame flickered then steadied to reveal, high in the variegated stone, a five-pointed crevice.

  “Ha!” Iliff called out, his sound echoing throughout the corridor.

  He braced the end of the candle between his teeth and pulled himself up until he could peer inside. The space was large enough for a person his size and extended into darkness. Crumbs of earth littered its floor. Iliff was preparing to enter when he remembered another part of the old man’s story.

  He dropped and ran to the opposite end of what he now realized was no corridor, but an enormous oblong room. A large stone sat in one corner, one he had passed several times in his search. He leapt onto it and held his candle to look behind. Down near the floor, half-buried in rubble, was a bag.

  Heart drumming, Iliff lifted it out. He set it on the stone and brushed the dust from it. The bag was large and made of burlap with a length of rope to put one’s head and arm through. Iliff undid the twine that cinched its neck closed. Inside he found a set of prison clothes, a trowel, several candles, matches, a skin for water, and a package of dried food.

  Iliff slung the bag over his shoulder and felt it settle stiffly against his back. He imagined for a moment that he was not Iliff, but Salvatore, Seeker of the Sun. The thought made him dizzy.

  He returned to the crevice and held up the candle and counted the points again to be sure. But now the opening looked less like a crevice and more like a gaping mouth. He was considering this new, ominous image when from many levels above, there came a sound. Iliff tilted his head and held his breath. He had never heard a sound like it before: distant rumbling. He touched the wall. The trembling beneath his hand was subtle but building.

  He became alarmed. Were the walls failing in his absence? Was the prison collapsing?

  The rumbling swelled, then emerged from the stairwell in a pounding echo, coming nearer, all the time coming nearer. And now the sound was close enough for Iliff to recognize.

  Footfalls.

  Iliff leapt and grabbed the edge of the crevice. He kicked and kicked against the wall, but the toes of his shoes slipped against the slick stone and he could not raise himself. He hung for a moment before trying again, but it was no good.

  The footfalls resounded like drums.

  Iliff sobbed once, a choked, awful noise, then dropped to the floor. A large stone stood nearby, and he ran over and crouched with his back to it. He pressed with his legs until the stone ground into reluctant motion. He drove it along the wall, one trembling step after another. The pounding grew louder and more terrible. When he thought he had the stone in position, he stole a look toward the stairwell.

  Descending, flickering firelight.

  Mouth desiccated, body bristling, Iliff climbed onto the stone and almost wept to see that he had not misjudged. The crevice was right above him.

  He leapt and pulled himself inside to his waist, then shoved and wriggled until his feet were inside as well. He took the candle from his mouth and shook it out. Behind him the first footfalls poured inside the room and spread along its length. And now came the brusque sounds of guards.

  Iliff pulled himself along as quickly and quietly as he could, his heart hammering the stone beneath him. The floor of the crevice rose and fell. The guards’ voices and footfalls multiplied and converged out
side the mouth of the crevice. And then there came a simmering silence.

  Suddenly: “Iliff!”

  The guard’s voice boomed a second time. And a third.

  Iliff did not stop, did not look back. The tolling of his name propelled him forward. He pulled and kicked deeper into the crevice. And then his fingers plunged into wet earth and the crevice ended. The earthen surface sloped upward, and he felt his way forward until he encountered a stone ceiling. He felt to each side, only to discover more stone. He tore at the earth with his hands and cast it behind him. But beyond the first, loose layer, the earth was compacted and hard, almost as unyielding as the stone that surrounded it.

  “Iliff! We know you’re here!”

  Iliff writhed around and, wiping dirt and sweat from his eyes, peered down the tunnel. Far away, outside the mouth, he saw an angry dance of lights. Then a shadow leapt over everything.

  Iliff backed himself as close to the dirt wall as he could. He opened the burlap bag and felt inside for the old trowel. By the time he found it, light flickered from the mouth of the crevice.

  Someone was inside.

  Iliff held the trowel before him. Clenching the muscles of his jaw, he aimed the blade down the tunnel. But when he imagined it stabbing into flesh, his resolve faltered. He would not be able to do it. His chest convulsed around another sob.

  But before he could come undone or give himself up, he turned and thrust the trowel into the wall. A spade-full of earth tumbled around him. He drove the trowel again, this time more forcefully. And then again. On his fourth thrust, his arm plunged forward to the shoulder. Gasping with urgency, Iliff punched out a hole and squirmed his way into an earthen tunnel beyond. When he turned to seal the way behind him, he saw that the flame had come to within several feet. A voice called out in a whisper.

  “Iliff?”

  Iliff paused. He could see tape on the person’s fingers.

  “Yuri?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Don’t come any closer.” Iliff squinted into the light.

  “I’m here to talk to you.” The light edged closer.

  “Stop, I said!”

  The candle light fluttered, then hovered in place. Yuri’s face remained beyond its yellow glow.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “I had to, Iliff.”

  “Had to what?” And then Iliff knew. His face burned. “You?”

  “Yes, but listen to me.”

  “You reported me.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Curse you.”

  “Listen to me—”

  “Curse you!”

  “Well, what about you?” Yuri cried. “You talked of the walls failing. Wished for it. You didn’t care what became of this place or the rest of us.” His tone softened. “What was I supposed to do?”

  Iliff knelt in silence before the hole in the earthen wall. “They were just thoughts,” he whispered.

  “And that was dangerous enough. But they didn’t stay thoughts.”

  Iliff tried to peer past his friend to where the distant murmurs of the guards thrummed and echoed.

  “They’re here to disappear me.”

  “Yes, but it’s not what you think,” Yuri said. “They’re going to move you to another cellblock, one more remote and better guarded.” His light drew nearer as he spoke. “I’ve arranged to be transferred with you. That was my condition for revealing your whereabouts.”

  “You trust them?”

  “The prison needs you, Iliff. You’re a troweler. You’re what holds this place together.”

  Iliff thought about this. “And if I don’t want to do it anymore?”

  “It’s what you are,” Yuri said. “What else would you do?”

  Iliff closed his eyes. His friend, his lifelong friend. How had it come to this? When he opened his eyes, he gave a startled shout. Large eyes peered at him from beneath thick, boyish brows and dark locks of hair. Iliff regarded the face as he drew back, its familiar soft angles, its cleft chin. The features suspended themselves before him as if reflected in the mirror above his washbasin.

  Iliff tried to speak but could not. Yuri parted his lips but nothing emerged. For several moments they did nothing but stare into the other’s eyes. When Yuri’s candle trembled, Iliff became aware of the glistening earth around him. It was warm and pulsing, urging him from the stone, urging him onward.

  “I—I’m sorry,” Iliff whispered at last.

  He fought tears as he pushed armfuls of earth up into the opening, sealing the hole, shutting away his friend’s image.

  Only after he had scurried away a good distance did he pull a candle from his bag and light it. The flame illuminated the earthen walls where darkness stretched ahead and behind. He listened. His choked breathing was the only sound now. He wondered how much farther he had to go.

  He began to crawl forward but the floor crumbled beneath his hand. Suddenly the whole floor was giving way. He released the candle and scrambled to grab hold of something, but there was nothing.

  In the blackness, Iliff fell a great distance.

  Chapter 5

  When Iliff awoke, he could not be sure his eyes were open, so dark was his space. It was a full moment before he realized that he was lying on his back. He inhaled rich, moist air. The earth beneath him pressed and cooled his skin. And with this he discovered that he was clad only in his prison trousers. He lifted a hand to his body. A damp square of cloth covered his abdomen, secured by a binding.

  With dull limbs, Iiff sat up. His head swam and, beneath the cloth, his stomach throbbed. As his legs dropped to the floor, he found that the mound of earth on which he had been lying was held within a frame.

  He stood with effort and groped his way along the woven frame to a wall. Before long, his hands made out a small alcove. There was a vessel of water on its sill and, beside it, what felt like smooth stones. Iliff lifted the vessel to his parched lips and drank. The cool water dispelled some of the fever from his thoughts, but he still could not remember where he was or how he had come to be here.

  Farther along the wall he came to a mat on the floor, and upon the mat was a bag. He felt a folded shirt beside it. He opened the bag and searched through it with his hand. He had just encountered some candles when something made him stop and turn. The space was opaque but there was something breathing. Something moving. The darkness swelled and shimmered.

  Iliff crouched closer to the wall.

  “Do not be afraid,” came a voice.

  A soft light emerged, as if from beneath deep water, illuminating the entrance of the pod-shaped room. At the light’s center stood a figure. She was slight with chestnut hair tied crown-like at her brow. The rest of her hair fell in gentle tresses over a mist-covered gown. Her face was fair, her skin luminous. She held a small kettle and cloth. She looked on him with green eyes, her expression betraying nothing, except perhaps the mildest curiosity.

  Iliff became sensitive to his bare chest and gray trousers. He lowered his gaze. “I’m a prisoner,” he mumbled. “Not worthy of your attention.”

  As she approached him, the light swelled around her. It pushed into the delicate earthen walls where it settled and brightened the small room. “Come,” she said. “Let me change your poultice.”

  He submitted to her voice and her gentle glow. He lay back on the bed and watched her work, watched her eyes move over him. She was a woman. He had heard of them, of course, but never seen one. He marveled at her form, her poise. He breathed her soft aroma. He could not tell her age. At times she appeared youthful, at others more mature. She lifted off the old poultice with agile fingers. He could see the gouge in his stomach, but it looked to be healing. He wondered how long he had been here.

  “You fell a long way,” she said, as if hearing his thoughts. “You landed in my dwelling. That was nine days ago.” She crushed some roots with a mortar and pestle on the alcove’s sill and poured steaming water from the kettle. She added a handful of red earth.


  Iliff felt panic rising up in him, felt it perforating their strange seclusion.

  “I—I’m sorry—I must go now,” he stammered. “I must return to my cell. I was never supposed to leave and now I’ve been away for nine days.” He could think only of the struggle for the stone walls being waged somewhere above them, of the crevices proliferating in his absence. In his mind’s eye he saw the severe face of the mixer. “I’m surely ruined,” he groaned.

  “You are not yet healed. And you are far from your cell.”

  She scraped the ginger-colored mixture into the center of the cloth and folded the rest of the cloth around it. She placed the fresh poultice on the wound and then, helping him sit up, bound it to him with a thin roll of fabric. Whether from her touch or the incipient action of the poultice, which smoldered pleasantly inside his wound, Iliff began to feel calm. His preoccupation with the prison faded. And now he began to recall his escape, his flight down the earthen tunnel, the horrible, helpless sensation of falling.

  “Who are you?” he asked, struggling to keep his eyes open.

  “I am called Adramina.” She looked at the vessel on the sill. “I will bring you more water.”

  “I will wait.”

  But no sooner than she had left the room, he was sleeping again, like a small child.

  * * *

  Adramina came each morning to tend to Iliff. She changed his poultice, filled the clay vessel on his sill with clean, cool water, and brought him food on a wood tray: tender shoots, white roots and mushrooms. In the evenings she set up a large basin of water for bathing.

  One evening, after she had set the water beside his bed and was turning to leave, he called to her. As her large luminous eyes trained on him, he felt at once wonderful and weak.

  “Why do you tend to me?” he asked her.

  “I care for all those just emerged.”

  “Emerged?”

  “Yes, those going from their former world to the one beyond.”

  Iliff thought for a moment. “Salvatore. Did you ever care for a man named Salvatore?”