Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) (51 page)

Catelyn nodded, and Silena squeezed her arm.
“You OK?” Silena asked warmly.
Catelyn looked at Silena, and the two of them smiled at
one another.
“We’re close now,” Catelyn said. “In case things don’t...go
well, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am at how everything has
turned out.”
“Sorry? Dear girl, what on Ereas for?”
“Look at us, Silena. We’re on the run, our lives are in
danger, and you’ve had to give up everything you had.” Catelyn felt
the full weight of her shame and guilt at saying the words, and she
stopped before she broke down in front of everyone.
Silena simply looked at her, with tears shimmering in the
corners of her eyes.
“Catelyn, we’ve given up only the shell of an empty life. A
lie, designed and perpetuated by this place. We’ve gained so much
more since meeting you, and that is all because of you. The saddest
part of all of this is that I was actually once very much more like
you are now. I was outspoken, I was headstrong. And that
brashness cost me my family. Oh, Ortis may have been the one to
do the deed, but I was partially responsible, and I let that guilt
change me, and I lost who I was. And I have carried my own share
of that burden for too long.
“You’ve done nothing but remind me that life, and
freedom, are worth fighting, and yes, maybe even dying for. But
I’ve got a feeling that the Divines are watching over us, and that we
will get out of the Seat, and that it will be because of you. And
because of Ortis.”
Catelyn felt such a well spring of gratitude and warmth to
have found such a caring and devoted friend. Her elation was
marred somewhat by Silena’s invoking of Ortis’ name. Of all
people, she still didn’t understand how Silena managed to not rip
the man’s throat out for what he had done to her.
“Silena, how do you go on, knowing who he is, what he did
to you?”
Silena looked from Catelyn over to where Ortis, and now
Erich, were clearing away debris from a cylindrical ladder leading
up to the street above. When Silena spoke, it was with the warmth
and wisdom of someone who had seen and experienced much, but
had hidden away her deepest feelings, keeping them safe for
sojourns until they were safe to lay out in the open air once more.
“It was when he came to me, seeking my help to get you
out of the Citadel. I very nearly had Erich cut his throat on the
spot, showing up at my home unannounced as he did. But as he
explained his plan, and his loyalty to you became clear, I saw him
for what he was. And then, as I’ve learned more about his life, I’ve
seen something else. In all of this, whatever else he was, he was
also a victim. He was little more than a boy just growing into a
young man when he met Uriel. He became swept away by his fate,
as young men do.”
“That doesn’t excuse his actions,” Catelyn said angrily. She
couldn’t believe that Silena was justifying or rationalizing for the
man, and she wanted answers.
“No, of course it doesn’t. I’m not saying that. He’s done
monstrous things, and one day I believe he will pay for those
mistakes. But I can also pity the man, for the circumstances of his
life as well. Were his choices any more free than the choice I made
to ignore my family’s deaths, and go on to continue to serve the
Empire that was responsible for their murder? We have all been
living in the shadow of madness for sojourns.”
Silena trailed off, looking at Ortis as he worked, then
turning and looking deep into Catelyn’s eyes.
“He needs you to do it, when the time comes. And you will,
for all of us,” she said, then turned and walked back to the girls, to
get them ready to sleep for a few prayers before they moved again.
Catelyn felt a hollowness inside her, and for the first time
in a very long time, she missed the presence of her parents. Her
father’s easy charm and rational mind. Her mother’s loving
embrace and noble spirit. But as she thought of those things, she
recognized that for the past few sojourns, she had been embodying
all of those things as best she could. And she felt the pride of
knowing that those qualities lived on, in her; that those parts of
them endured.
Ortis and Erich had finished clearing away the last of the
debris, and Erich passed her with a smile and a nod, to get some
sleep with his family before what could be their last day on Ereas.
Ortis stood away from their group, looking like the pariah, and she
chose not to go to him, but simply found a corner of the pumping
station where the bedding did not look quite so rotten, and
proceeded to fold herself up and fall fast asleep.

Catelyn watched the open square in front of the Grand
Gate from high above the street, clutching the edge of the
multistory tower tightly and grinding her teeth. Her forehead
throbbed, her palms were sweaty and her mind raced, trying to
ascertain how everything had gone so wrong so quickly. She was
on her hands and knees, peering down at the square, which should
have been mostly empty at this time of night, and which instead
was crowded with hundreds of Imperial soldiers.

Catelyn’s plan had been admittedly light on alternative
strategies, relying entirely on stealth and surprise to get their small
group into the walled courtyard which, as Ortis had drawn it out to
them in the bowels of the pumping station where they had planned
this part of their goal, was only staffed with ten Imperial soldiers
during the overnight shift.

But either Ortis had vastly miscalculated, or the Emperor
knew their plan. Catelyn’s immediate thought was that her
suspicions about Ortis were true; that he was leading them into a
trap. Days before, after Silena, Ortis and her had left his safe house
to make their way separately to the warehouse at the edge of the
Seat, he would have had plenty of time to stop and warn his former
friends in the Imperial Army. Staring down at the full courtyard,
she knew that it had to be the case, and there could be no other
explanation and yet despite the logic of this conclusion, she found
that she didn’t want to believe it.

Despite his past, she had grown to trust him. He had
risked everything to get her out of the hellhole where the Emperor
had thrown her to die. It seemed illogical for him to have done
that, to have risked so much, only to then turn around and lead her
back into their hands.

Nothing else explained this terrible development, but
Catelyn couldn’t waste time dwelling on how it had happened. She
needed to formulate a new plan, or abandon the plan altogether
and she needed to do so with haste, before Silena, Erich and the
girls came closer, for they would surely be taken and questioned.

Catelyn ran over the possible alternatives in her head,
painfully aware of just how inadequate her original plan had been,
and cursing herself, and Ortis, for not seeing just how flawed it
was.

It had seemed so simple and elegant when she had laid out
her plan underground, after Ortis had explained how the bailey
courtyard was laid out. The Grand Gate butted up against the
Walls, and was itself enclosed within a smaller walled compound,
access to which was gated by four separate entries along one side
of the compound. At night, these four entries were manned and
secured, each behind their own portcullis while other guards
patrolled within and a number of others resided in the
guardhouse.

But with the courtyard now resembling a military camp,
filled with Imperial soldiers, their plan, whereby Ortis would cause
a commotion at one gate, allowing Catelyn and the others to slip in
through one of the other gates where the portcullis was damaged
and unable to close completely, was not going to work now. They
wouldn’t get two paces from the courtyard with such a plan now, at
least not as a group. Again, the obviousness of some sort of
betrayal lay before her like a bloated corpse in the street.

She just couldn’t believe that Ortis had betrayed them,
however and she was forced to consider the idea that the Emperor
had somehow anticipated this move.

Catelyn raced over to the hatchway leading back down into
one of the towers at the corner of the walled courtyard, which she
had infiltrated earlier that night to scout the interior of the
compound. She had to get back to Ortis before he made a move for
the entryway and brought the entire Imperial Army down upon all
of their heads. She reached for the metal ring along the edge of the
wooden trap door and pulled slowly.

The hinges of the hatch squealed as she pulled it open, but
as before when she had ascended the tower, she pulsed her bubble
and sensed no one close enough to hear. She had thought it
strange before that the Imperials had not stationed any archers
along the parapets of the towers or the courtyard walls, but now
after seeing an entire Imperial squadron camped within the
courtyard walls, she found the lack of any units atop the walls to be
even more suspicious.

The more she thought about it, the more that all of this felt
like a trap closing shut around her, and she slipped down the
ladder into the tower and down the spiral stone staircase,
sweeping her bubble in front of her, sensing for any Imperial
soldiers blocking her way. Instead of exiting through the slender
lancet window on the second level where she had entered the
tower after scaling the exterior wall from below, she bounded
down the three stories of the tower and came to rest at the portal
leading out to the courtyard.

She needed to get to Ortis quickly, and it would have taken
her too long to get back down the way that she had come up, but
entering the courtyard carried its own risks.

She focused her bubble on the door and beyond, and could
barely make out the presence of a handful of guards within a few
paces of the door. They sounded otherwise engaged, as soldiers
were wont to be in the safety of their own camp, but she knew that
their training allowed them to relax while still being vigilant for
any sort of intrusion or unusual circumstance.

Her presence would not go unnoticed for long, but she
calculated that being alone, she might be able to utilize her skills to
dance her way past the guards and slip under the broken portcullis
before they had the chance to react. Their plan was now shot, so
exploiting that weakness in the Imperial’s defense would not be
giving up anything.

She steeled her nerves, took three deep breaths, and laid
her hand on the handle of the door, testing it. When she was ready,
she pushed down and shouldered the door open, slowly and with
her bubble racing back and forth sensing for any cry of alarm, any
spike in heartbeat or sharp intake of breath that would reveal her
presence having been discovered by the men nearby. She could
hear the men’s conversation, and they were casually discussing
details of prior operations and laughing at the suffering they had
each caused. There was no alarm as she exited through the portal
door, and Catelyn found herself sighing in relief.

Once the door was open wide enough for her to slide out,
she did so, pressing her back against the stone wall of the tower,
hoping that her dark grey garb would sufficiently help disguise her
from casual observation.

Now that she was standing in the courtyard, just a few
paces away from the nearest of the Imperial soldiers, she felt a
wave of panic setting in. She worked to control her heart from
thumping through her chest, and her forehead and low back felt
drenched in sweat. If they caught her, she had no doubts that they
would not take her into custody again. They would simply run her
through, or worse, drag her into one of the tents first where men
by the tens, or even hundreds, would take their pleasure before
gutting her.

She wondered how her mother had found the courage to
be among such men, to allow herself to be passed around just to
stay alive, and to provide some meager income for her family. But
Catelyn stopped herself from dwelling on such thoughts now, with
the danger to herself so close.

She watched and listened to the men arguing about how
many each of them had killed or maimed, and they seemed
oblivious to her standing with her back against the wall just paces
away. She edged away from the wall slightly, and they still took no
notice.

There was no cover between where she stood and the
nearest of the archways leading out of the courtyard altogether.
The nearest archway however was not the one with the damaged
portcullis. That was the third one down from where she now stood,
which would mean she would need to cross three quarters of the
open courtyard, in plain view of any number of Imperial troops.
But maybe they would all be as wrapped up in their own situations
as the first group of soldiers were.

She had no choice but to take the risk, and so she slowly
began to walk as nonchalantly as she could towards the first
archway. She kept her bubble trained to every soldier within
twenty paces of her, scanning each of them quickly as she walked.
She fought the desire she had to run as fast as she could for the
exit, but that would certainly draw attention to her, and everything
would be ruined.

She made it to the first of the archways, and reached out to
touch the metal bars of the portcullis, scanning the men nearby
with all of her senses. She still saw no sort of alarm, so she moved
on, staying close to the wall and making her way with purpose
toward her destination. She felt an additional wave of suspicion
tickling the back of her neck as she moved.

How is it no one has noticed me?
she wondered.
And
where are the guards at each of the entry gates?
She didn’t stop to consider her good fortune, and simply
counted herself lucky that she was able to proceed uninterrupted.
She reached the second archway without incident, and was
definitely getting the feeling that this was just too easy. Catelyn
expanded her bubble by instinct, but sensed nothing out of the
ordinary. The men closest to her genuinely seemed oblivious to her
presence, even though she was standing mere paces away with no
place to hide.
She accelerated her pace, moving with more swiftness
towards the third entryway, and as she reached the gate, she could
see the portcullis wedged open, just as Ortis had described it to
them the day before. There was a gap at the bottom just big
enough for her to slide under, and she got down on her knees and
then slid all the way down onto her belly. She squeezed her arms
through first, then her head, and she felt the spiked metal
scratching against her skin now, and she carefully edged forward a
finger width at a time, feeling the familiar thrill of getting away
beginning to coalesce inside her.
Then, a voice, like a thundering storm, echoed out to her
from deep in the courtyard, and the words shook Catelyn down to
her very core.
“Leaving so soon, Catelyn?”
Catelyn froze. She frantically expanded her bubble, but
could sense no one near, and could sense no alarm from the
guards behind her, though when she listened, she could hear that
they had stopped their own conversations and were trying to
determine what had just happened, same as she was. When she
didn’t move or respond, the voice, which had sounded eerily like
that of the Emperor, continued.
“Come, come, my dear. Surely you don’t wish to leave
before saying goodbye to your friends.”
Catelyn’s worst fears were realized in an instant. The voice
was indeed that of Uriel, but it boomed and echoed off of the
courtyard walls in a way that Catelyn had never heard before. But
even more frightening than the reverberating voice of the Emperor
were the words he had said, which she somehow knew to be true,
even though she wished that they weren’t.
He had her friends. All of her choices had just been taken
away in a single instant.
She couldn’t leave. She needed to turn around and go back
for them. She edged her way back under the metal, moving faster,
which resulted in her scraping a jagged cut across her upper back,
but she ignored the pain and the blood and slipped out from under
the portcullis. As she stood in the courtyard, she now saw the fist
of Imperial soldiers standing paces away, staring at her and
smiling evilly.
And she knew in that moment that this had indeed been
part of some elaborate ploy, but she could not fathom how the
Emperor had won.
She raised her arms in surrender, knowing that it would
be futile to put up a struggle here. Not until she knew exactly what
the Emperor was talking about, and she had some time to assess
the situation fully.
“Bring her to me. And do treat her nicely. She is
unarmed,” the booming voice commanded.
The Imperial soldiers nearby surrounded her, forming a
wedge around her. They led her forward, towards the Grand Gate
itself, and the other hundreds of soldiers parted for this small
group. Catelyn felt her heart pounding, out of fear for what the
Emperor had planned for her and her friends, for what he might
do to them. Or worse, what he already might have done.
How have things turned out so horribly?
she thought.
She was led through the throng of Imperial soldiers, who
moved aside for her and the small group of guards accompanying
her. There were hundreds of soldiers in the courtyard, and all of
them were now completely focused on her as she approached the
area in front of the Grand Gate where the Emperor apparently
stood. She couldn’t see the man yet, and she realized as she
approached that she had never seen the man with her eyes. Eyes
which he himself had returned to her.
The walk through the hundreds of Imperial soldiers
encamped around the Grand Gate only took whispers, but it felt
more like prayers to Catelyn, as she considered the fate of her
group and their imminent deaths.
Finally the sea of Imperial soldiers parted and she found
herself staring at Uriel, the Third of His Name, looking directly
into the eyes of the madman himself. She had known from her
previous encounters with him, that Emperor Uriel was tall, but
now that she saw him with her own eyes, it was obvious just how
much he stood out among the men who surrounded him. His dark
eyes burrowed into her, and she felt small and meek before him.
His face was hard, but unlined by age as Silena had pointed out
when she had seen him in another courtyard, what seemed a
lifetime ago. The most startling fact of his appearance was the long
black hair which he wore, pulled back behind his head in a braid
which extended past his shoulders and down his back. He had
railed at her hair, and the stink of it, and yet here he was, with hair
so long it was obvious that it had remained untouched by shears
for sojourns. Possibly even his entire life.
Of course the Emperor would keep his own hair
, she
thought.
What better way to tell his people that he’s above his
own laws?
The Imperial soldiers to either side of her stopped her
several paces away from the man, and she stood her ground and
scanned with her bubble to try and determine where her friends
were, but she was so overwhelmed by the massive press of
humanity all around her that it was difficult, perhaps even
impossible, to distinguish specific people, one from another. She
decided to press for the direct approach.
“Where are they?” she asked bluntly.
The Emperor smiled, and Catelyn could see the madness
dancing at the corner of those eyes; that mouth. Silently, he raised
his arm and waved some of his men forward from the guard house
against the Wall. Catelyn tried to see who was there, but the men
of the Imperial Army were all taller than she was, and she wasn’t
able to see through the massive crowd.
She didn’t have to wait long however, and as the cluster of
Imperial soldiers moved aside, she felt everything she was, all of
her hope, go out of her in an instant.
The group being led forward comprised everyone she had
come into contact with in the past sojourn whom she cared about.
At the front were Silena, Erich and the two girls. Silena looked a
mess, and the girls were sobbing hysterically. Catelyn saw Erich’s
condition and knew why. He was barely standing, having been
beaten nearly to death by the Imperial soldiers. They dropped him
like a sack at the Emperor’s feet, and Silena and the two girls
rushed over to grab onto him, to shield him from further
barbarism. Catelyn felt herself wanting to rush over to them as
well, but her instincts told her to remain where she was, so she did.
Following behind was Marko, his dark skin shining with
sweat and blood. He appeared to have been made a prisoner some
time ago, as he looked malnourished and was wearing nothing but
filth-stained pants.
Another duo of Imperial soldiers brought forward a young
man covered in bruises and blood, and Catelyn struggled to
identify him at first, and then she caught the scent of him
underneath the strong smell of blood and death and her heart
sank. Duncan. She looked at his face to try and see if he looked as
she had imagined him in her mind, but his face was swollen and
covered in welts, and blood ran from his scalp in several places. He
looked disoriented, as though he was not even aware of where he
was or what he was doing there.
Finally, the Imperials shoved their last prisoner forward.
Ortis, untouched, but bound hand and foot in heavy iron
manacles. He wore an expression of utter defeat. This, more than
anything, signified the end to Catelyn. He had been their plan,
their hope of escape. He had been prepared to cut through the
Imperial army itself, to give his life in service to this goal to see
them outside the Grand Gate and beyond the reach of the Empire.
All of that was just a senseless dream now. A flight of fancy
never to be realized.
The grim truth was apparent now. They would all die, in
the most horrible way possible. There was nothing left to be done.
No more words to say. Everything was over.
She felt like dying, seeing the suffering of her friends
before her, and realizing that none of it would be happening if it
wasn’t for her. She considered the possibility of throwing herself at
the Emperor’s feet, begging for mercy and offering her life for
theirs, but immediately she knew that it would be a futile gesture.
She looked at Silena, who was on her knees and holding Erich to
her, tears streaming down her face as she wailed, and she replayed
a part of their earlier conversation over in her head.
“Catelyn, we’ve given up only the shell of an empty life. A
lie, designed and perpetuated by this place. We’ve gained so
much more, and that is all because of you. The saddest part is
that I was actually very much more like you are now. I was
outspoken, I was headstrong. And that brashness cost me my
family. Oh, Ortis may have been the one to do the deed, but I was
partially responsible, and I let that guilt change me, and I lost
who I was. And I have carried my own share of that burden for
too long.
“You’ve done nothing but remind me that life, and
freedom, are worth fighting, and yes, maybe even dying for.”
Silena had inspired her with those words; had convinced
her that risking this attempt at escape would be worth it. But
standing here, looking at the bloody and beaten men before her,
she questioned the price of fighting for such a life.
The Emperor had allowed her to take in this tableau he
had created for her, but he was growing impatient, for he cleared
his throat and began to speak.
“Catelyn, do you see now, the futility in opposing me? Do
you see the power which I now possess? In truth I have you to
thank for this, which is why I haven’t yet killed any of
these...beings.”
Catelyn looked up into his eyes and glared at him with all
of the hatred she felt in her heart.
“Well, that is...unsettling,” he said. He showed Catelyn his
hands, which had been folded behind his back, and she saw now
that he was holding both artifacts; the sickle in one hand, and the
rod in the other.
“You probably have many questions. Many questions
indeed, but we do not have time to answer them all. I will allow
you to ask me three questions, and I will answer each honestly.
And then, I will give you my final gift. I will allow you to choose
one of these...people. Whoever you choose will live...the rest will
die. You will die as well. So, think of the most important questions
you wish to have answered before the end.”
Catelyn’s heart raced, and she felt overwhelmed with fear,
and she wished to throw herself at this terrible man, and damn the
consequences.
Three questions?
she raged.
The man is clearly insane if
this is what he thinks of, in the midst of his own victory!
But she realized that if she played his game, it could buy
them more time. Maybe only whispers, and she could not see yet
how that extra time would benefit her or any of her beaten friends,
but it was something. Maybe Ortis or her could find an
opportunity in those whispers. And so she thought.
From the moment she had lost her parents to the terrors
of this place, she had wanted desperately to know why. Why men
like the Emperor had encouraged and fostered an environment
that seemed designed to grind people down into their most
horrible aspects. She considered asking this question of the
Emperor, but she believed she already knew his answer. Control.
Power. It was easier to rule a people who were so consumed with
their own despair that they would set aside their freedoms just to
survive.
But ultimately, Catelyn believed that the human spirit
would not allow this forever. Eventually, people would rise up
against such brutality, as Silena had done, as she had done, as her
parents had silently done by smuggling books to her, defying the
Emperor’s Will to have an educated population. What she had
never understood though, was how the Emperor had ruled for so
long without a concerted resistance effort.
It wasn’t just about the citizens being cowed by fear of the
Imperial Army. She knew of the few pockets of resistance, each
one put down with excess force, but in Catelyn’s mind, she was
surprised that those responses from the Emperor had not in fact
created more opposition. What had prevented all of the citizens
from organizing, from rising up en masse to take back their
freedom?
There had to be more to it than simply fear. And Catelyn
remembered what Ortis had told her of the artifact, and of Uriel’s
Will. This led to her asking the first of her questions.
“How is it that you’ve been able to keep your people from
rising up as one united force against you?” As she asked the
question, Catelyn expanded her bubble and took in her immediate
surroundings. At the center of her world was the Emperor, and the
people in her life arrayed on the ground at his feet, with the
exception of Ortis who stood with legs spread as wide as his
constraints would allow, and holding his hands before him, pulling
the chains binding his wrists tight. When she looked at his face,
she saw his intense glare meet hers, then his eyes shifted to look
down towards his manacled wrists.
She felt a flush of guilt and shame and wondered if that
look was some kind of an accusation from him. She was
interrupted by the Emperor however, who began to answer and
she looked over at him. The Emperor was sweating, which Catelyn
thought unusual, but gave no more thought to it.
“You are...a surprising subject. In truth I do not know
what I expected you to ask, but that was not one of the questions.
But I am honor bound to answer.”
The Emperor held up his hand, the one with the crook,
and turned it over in his hand, examining it.
“This symbol of my family’s power is more than simply an
affectation. It is a conduit through which I can extend my Will to
my subjects, but I suspect that you already know this.”