S. Turney - Interregnum

Moments later he was on the uppermost roof of the palace, forty feet above the highest patrolled walk. Carefully making his way to the low wall at the edge, he leaned over and recoiled at the precipitous drop to the gardens below. Heights had always sent a shiver up his spine and he was now at the very highest spot in the city.

Reaching down to his belt again, he unhooked the lantern he’d brought and placed it on the wide surface of the wall. Carefully, he judged how far back the lantern would need to be to become invisible from the palace gardens below and, satisfied with his calculation, he lit the wick within. There was no way he could take ship for Isera without drawing far too much suspicion, so he must be subtle and find other ways. Well, playing the court games against so many good opponents in his time at Velutio, he’d become quite adept at subterfuge himself and, though he always hated having to be underhand at anything, there were times when it was required for the good of all concerned. He dredged his memory to recall the standard signalling codes and then flicked the shutter open and closed a number of times.

A tense wait for five minutes and he repeated the gesture. Someone must be there.

After almost an hour of signalling with no reply, he was tiring and wondering whether anyone bothered to use the lamps on the island since he’d discovered them when suddenly a flashing light on the island brought him to his senses once more. Cursing himself for his lack of alertness in realising too late to translate the message, he flicked the shutter again asking them to repeat.

The signal came once more. He raised an eyebrow. ‘My prince?’ What prince? He clucked in irritation. Why did everything that involved these islanders create more and more mysteries?

Working away madly at translating into the code, he sent ‘No. Commander Sabian. I don’t care who you are. Find Darius and bring him to the lamp.’

He leaned back and exhaled deeply. This was it. He’d crossed the bridge and then burned it down.

Tythias slammed his fist on the table.

“There must be something we can do?”

The leader of the Pelasian spies in the city shook his head. “We have no access to the palace proper. We don’t know for sure where they’re being held, but it seems likely to be the Dalertine prison. If that’s the case there is absolutely no way out. We might be able to do something when they’re brought out for execution, but we don’t even know when that’ll be. It’s likely not to be publicised and it’ll probably be carried out in the palace grounds with no access to outsiders. I really don’t see what we can do. If we had more information from inside we might have other options.”

Sathina’s voice was lost in the general tumult as the eleven men in the room erupted into argument once more. She sat and sighed. All the way from Danis the big sergeant, Athas, had told her the whole story and despite her grogginess from the after-effects of Mercurias’ medication, she’d absorbed every detail and her fear for the so important people at the centre of this was muted only by her sheer excitement at being involved in such earth-shaking events. They’d told her that they couldn’t let her go until the whole thing was over and for obvious reasons, but she’d been insistent on staying by then anyway. To be here with such great men working toward the future of the world she knew, or to be in a dirty tavern in Danis, serving drinks while even dirtier travellers tried to reach up her skirts? Ridiculous!

She tried to be heard over the voices again, but these men were so loud, especially the two they’d met up with this morning, Brendan and Marco. Those two were determined to make themselves heard.

“We need ta get inside then! Gotta do somethin’”

Amid the fresh eruption of voices, Tythias stood and held his hands out. Taking a deep breath, he shouted “Shut up!”

The room fell silent instantly as everyone turned to look at the scarred captain. Sathina smiled as the man gestured to her. He and his associate Jorun had been the biggest surprise of the journey. For such hairy, dirty and scarred men, they’d looked after her during their whole journey and Tythias particularly had proved to be a surprisingly polite and educated man. In her presence anyway. She smiled and stood.

“It seems to me that the only way you gentlemen are ever going to do anything other than argue about what can’t be done is for me to go work at the palace. I can do any servant’s job they give me and I’ll be able to find out a lot more than you can by watching the place.”

Athas shook his head. “Too dangerous. If you got caught, Velutio wouldn’t be kind. And then you’d also put the rest of us in danger.”

Tythias nodded vigorously, but next to him Prince Ashar shook his finger, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“I’m not sure about that” the elegant easterner argued. “We’re in a dire position now. Quintillian could be executed at any time now and if we don’t have any more information, we’ll still be arguing when it happens. I think this young girl may be our only hope.”

Tythias and the others made disagreeing grumbling noises around the table, but in the end Athas sighed and leaned back. “He’s right. We need to know what’s going on and sure as hell none of us are going to get inside and look. If you’re willing to do it girl, we’d be grateful.”

Across from him Jorun nodded and made a questioning gesture at the prince.

Yes Jorun, I’ll help her as best I can.” He turned back to the rest of the crowd. “Shahar is my second here. I’ll take the young lady away and we’ll work on getting her safely into the palace. Shahar can help you make any other arrangements.”

One of the Pelasian spies, a man with a neat pointed beard, nodded. “We must to plan next stage anyway; what we do when we manage get them out of palace.”

As Ashar and Sathina made their way out of the room, Mercurias leaned forward. “Isera.” The rest turned to look at him. “It’s what Quintillian was saying before. The place they’re least likely to look for an escaped prisoner is in prison.”

Tythias nodded. “Makes sense to me. If they’ve got a small garrison on the island we can either avoid them or overwhelm them. Either way I like the idea.”

Mercurias nodded. “Ok Shahar. Until we can learn more from the young lady, we need to work something out about the island. What do you know about Isera at the moment?”

The Pelasian shook his head. “Very little. We resume communications there recently, but three nights I get one last cryptic message telling us communications being monitored and would have close down. I not know what do about it.”

Mercurias sighed. “So we’re back to waiting for more information then.”

Sergeant Iasus stomped down the steps to the Dalertine prison, his face contorted with disgust. Holding the oil lamp high, he approached the bars of the cell and saw the four inmates huddled on the wooden pallets.

“General Caerdin?”

Kiva stood slowly with some stiffness and made his way toward the bars.

“Sergeant?” he replied. “Is there a problem?”

The young martinet nodded. Placing the oil lamp on the shelf, he straightened. “Lord Velutio has made his decree I’m afraid.”

The other three now stirred in the rear of the cell. Kiva nodded solemnly.

“Not good news then” he noted.

“No.” The sergeant sighed. “His lordship has ordered that you be taken to the gardens in an hour’s time and that you’re all crucified. I’m personally not happy with this, but it’s my duty to follow the orders.”

Kiva nodded. “I’m surprised that Commander Sabian didn’t come down to give us the tidings personally.”