Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy (11 page)

“
I knew ye were not empty-handed. Not very smart, hiding ‘em with the lady.” He then pulled out a bundle of rope and tied both Steve and Sarah’s hands together. Throwing their possessions back into the pack, the wily thief then made Steve hoist the pack onto his back and carry it along with them.

For several hours they marched in silence as their captor led them through thick brambles of dry, scratchy brush. They were following a trail all right, Steve noted, but this clearly wasn’t an enchanted one. They were forced to wade through several small, shallow streams until they finally came upon a clearing which had a small cottage in serious need of repairs.

The diminutive thief led them inside the foul-smelling hut, pushing them into the far recesses of the shanty to what appeared to be a trap door in the floor. Turning around, he leered evilly at his prizes.

“
It ain’t that cozy, but I guarantee ye will be safe and sound.” The thief pulled back the locking bracket and opened his cellar door. “Naught but stone walls. Ye will not be escaping from there, rest assured.” He pushed Steve and Sarah down the stairs.

Sarah had tears in her eyes. “What are you going to do with us? Why are you doing this?”

“
The two of ye will fetch a handsome price as slaves. Preparations must be made. I should not be gone for more than a couple o’ days.”

“
You can at least leave us food and water,” Steve demanded.

“
Ye can have yer pack, and that be all ye get.”

With that, the cellar door was closed with a loud bang. The locking bracket was shoved back through, and the last thing they heard was the laugh of their captor.

The root cellar stunk of moldy earth. There was several empty burlap sacks scattered throughout their prison, along with a couple of empty, wooden crates. Several rotting bales of straw were strewn against the far, northern wall. What little light there was came through several small chinks in the stones of the foundation of the house.

Sarah and Steve were standing in the center of the room. The tiny bit of light they had was beginning to fade. Dusk was settling in. Steve was glancing around, trying to take in as much as possible before all the light vanished completely. He held Sarah close as she sobbed quietly into his shoulder.

“
Hey, we’ll be all right.” Steve was speaking softly to her. “We’ll get out of this.”

“
How? There’s no one here to help us.” She sniffed loudly. “We’re lost on some unknown world where no one knows we’re here, about to be sold into slavery. How the hell are we possibly going to be alright?”

“
Sweetie, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Mr. Hospitality there specifically said he wouldn’t be back for at least two days. I sure as hell don’t plan on being here when he returns.”

With that Steve straightened up and started working feverishly on his bonds, trying to wriggle his wrists free. Sarah decided to look around for anything that might help her. While Steve struggled with his ropes Sarah started feeling around the straw strewn about the floor.

There’s got to be something here that we can use, Sarah thought. A shard of glass, a sharp piece of metal, anything!

Sadly, the only things she discovered were a decaying lump of cheese, a few scraps of rope, and some shreds of burlap.

“
So what happened?” Steve wondered. “We didn’t wander off the road. How did we end up following some fake path?”

“
He mentioned that he hasn’t seen anyone fall for his ‘path trick’ in quite some time. Does that mean he somehow tricked us to follow a fork on the road?”

Steve shook his head. “We didn’t come across any forks in the road. We would have remembered.”

“
Illusion. He had to have covered up the real path and projected an image of a different path that led away.” Sarah looked at her husband, who was now trying to chew his way through the ropes. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

Steve stopped chewing and smiled sheepishly at his wife. “Hey, we’re newbies here. How were we supposed to know that that type of thing could even be done?”

“
So now that we know he tricked us, how does that help us now?”

Steve sighed. “It doesn’t. What it means is that we have to be extremely careful here. We could walk right into the den of some monster if we’re not cautious.”

Steve continued biting and chewing at his ropes. That bastard knew how to tie a knot, that’s for certain. He wasn’t sure what these ropes were made out of, but so far, they were resisting all his efforts of escaping. Maybe he could try loosening a couple of knots with his teeth instead. Hmm, that one looks like it’s on top, maybe that one first.

Sarah, meanwhile, had found a small scrap of metal and was gently feeling its sides to see if any had a sharp enough edge to cut her ropes. Nope, doesn’t feel like it. Smooth on all sides. Dammit! There had to be another scrap somewhere. If only these ropes weren’t so tight, or else she had skinnier wrists.

Her knees were hurting after being on them for the last couple of minutes, so she started to stand, only to stumble and land back down on them. Hard.

“
Ouch!!”

“
Babe! Are you okay? What happened?” Steve hurried over to help his wife up. Sarah grabbed a hold of her husband’s outstretched hands and hoisted herself up.

“
Yeah, I think I was sitting on my foot. It fell asleep. I’m okay.” Sarah flexed her arms, restoring some circulation back into her fingers. Was it her imagination? Did the ropes feel like they were loosening up a bit?

She looked over at Steve, who had resumed picking at his bound hands with his teeth. She decided to hold off mentioning anything just yet. After struggling for another moment or two, much to her surprise, her left arm came free. The ropes slid down her right arm and plopped onto the floor.

Steve, intent on making good his claim to earn his freedom, was still focusing on getting at least one knot untied.

Sarah walked over to her husband. “Can I give you a hand with that?” And without waiting for an answer, dove into the many knots holding Steve’s hands tightly together.

“
What the…” Steve blinked. “How did you get free? You were tied up just a couple of minutes ago.”

“
It must have been when I fell down. My ropes felt loose and I was able to pull an arm out.”

“
Way to go!!” Steve remained motionless while Sarah worked on the ropes. Her small, delicate fingers made short work of the hastily tied knots.

In just a matter of minutes, both former prisoners were rubbing their wrists, looking around in the fading light.

“
Now, let me take a look at that door.” Steve strode over to the ladder leading up. “There must be some way to get that thing open.”

The rickety wooden ladder groaned under his weight as he ran his hands over the heavy wooden door fastened to the ceiling. The bolt to open the door, however, was on the other side.

Steve pondered for a moment. Well, maybe the hinges? No, that’s not gonna work. I don’t even see any hinges. Maybe I can move it.

He pressed his right shoulder against the trapdoor, braced his feet on the ladder, and heaved.

C-r-a-c-k!!

The wooden rung he was standing on gave way, dropping him unceremoniously down to the next rung, which didn’t like having two hundred fifty pounds suddenly appearing on it either, so it broke as well, plummeting him down to the next rung and so on.

“
Steve! Are you alright?” Sarah hurried over to where he was sprawled out on the floor. She tried fanning the air to get the dust out of her face. “What happened?”

Steve coughed and stood up. He brushed off his clothes and made an attempt at reclaiming some dignity. He scowled at the remains of the ladder.

“
Piece of crap ladder. Damn thing is made out of twigs. No wonder it wouldn’t hold.”

“
So now we can’t reach the door.” Sarah threw up her hands in frustration. “This is great. Just great! This just keeps getting better and better!!”

Steve knew he had to calm his wife down. Somehow. One can’t project a sense of calm if one didn’t feel calm himself. He took a deep breath.

“
Okay, honey, look at it this way. The lock for that door is on the top-side. There isn’t any way to get that thing open from down here. So we’ll just have to find another way out.”

Sarah bristled with anger. How can he remain so calm? Didn’t he realize they were in a serious predicament?

“
Another way out? How?? There are no more doors and in case you hadn’t noticed, there are no windows, either.”

Steve sat down on one of the wooden crates and motioned Sarah to join him. Reluctantly, she sat. She looked at her husband, her eyes filling.

“
What are we gonna do, sweetie? We’re trapped in here!”

“
First things first, let’s calm down. That
asshole
said he wouldn’t be back for at least two days. So that gives us some time to think.”

“
Time to think? About what? About not panicking?”

Steve took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, right now we need to start brainstorming. How can we get out of here? Can we use that jorii thingamajig?”

Sarah sadly shook her head. “It’s not there. I put it, the crystal, and that gold coin in my change purse. When he took my purse, he upended everything on the ground. I didn’t see it. And you’ve seen that change purse. It’s small. They’re gone.”

“
Where’s your purse now? Maybe it just fell down into the bottom. That sort of thing happens all the time to you.”

Sarah was losing patience. It was her favorite purse. She knew it a lot better than he did, and she knew
exactly
where the missing items were placed: the small change purse. Besides, she had watched as the contents were dumped to the ground. They were missing. Period.

Steve frowned as she scowled at him. If they weren’t there, then what did that mean? They were robbed? Was that why Kornal and Nilhanu offered to give them what money they had? Did they figure that they could sell the jorii? No, wait. That couldn’t be it. He had watched Sarah put the items from the safe back into her purse. Not only that, he didn’t even remember any of their hosts so much as touching their marble. So if the robber didn’t find it, then it must be somewhere in that purse.

“
Honey, now please don’t get mad, but would you mind if I looked?”

Sarah’s glare could have initiated the next Ice Age.

“
I’m NOT a moron. This is my purse. I know damn well it’s not in there. Fine. Here. Don’t believe me??”

Sarah pulled the pack over to her, yanked out her purse, and marched over to Steve. Without moving her eyes from his, she emptied the contents of her purse onto the crate. With a scowl, she reached down to pick up the small change purse.

Even in the diminishing light, Steve could tell that the jorii or the gold grif were not among the contents of the purse. He watched as Sarah started to unzip the small purse when she hefted the purse in her hand, squeezed lightly, and with a small scream, dropped it.

“
What’s the matter?” Anger aside, Steve was beside her in a flash. “Did something hurt you?”

“
No! It’s there!! I felt it in the purse!” Sarah bent down and retrieved the small pouch. “See? See the bulge? It’s in there!”

She unzipped the purse and held it upside-down over her hand. Sure enough the grif, crystal disc, and the jorii all landed softly in her hand.

“
What the hell? There’s no way that guy could have missed that. I watched him go through it, too.”

Sarah was poking and prodding at her change purse. It just wasn’t big enough to hide something that size. Was there a flap or something that might have snagged it and prevented it from falling the first time? She poked several fingers in and felt around. Nope, the coin purse was of a simple design. No inside pockets, just the main zipper to prevent anything from escaping.