Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis) (5 page)

I sat up and rubbed my wrists after my bonds were severed. The food was strange. It tasted like fish, but it came in tough brown squares that had to be gnawed, and it was wrapped in strange paper that was shiny like silver, but thin and flexible as a leaf or a bit of fabric. The water came in tall pitcher-like bowls with lids. We hunched over as we ate, as if trying to be as small as possible.

Our captors spoke our language in a harsh, unfamiliar accent as they looked us over like cattle, discussing the size and appearance of each of us. They seemed to be looking for the strongest among us. Their faces were hard, their features strange, unfamiliar to me. Some of them had dark hair, some light. Some were tall, with gaunt cheekbones and long noses, and others were shorter and thicker-boned. They appeared to have come from a variety of villages, but they all shared an air of confidence and cruelty, and they all wore the same strange, one-piece garments that clung to their bodies like a second, dark skin.

When we were finished eating, they bound us again.

“Please,” one of the boys dared to beg as his hands were lashed together behind his back. “Let us go.”

“Shut up.” One of the men slapped the one who had spoken. The boy whimpered, drawing his legs up to protect his body. The man kicked him, striking again and again. We all sat motionless, listening in horror as the boy’s whimpers turned into groans.

“Hey,” Nol yelled, catching the attention of the captor. “Only cowards hit people who can’t hit back.”

The man tipped his head to the side. He crossed the room to Nol and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

“Only idiots involve themselves in others’ business,” he said, and lifted his fist.

Nol didn’t make a sound as the man hit him. His hands were tied, so he couldn’t even shield his face from the punches. His head snapped back, and he shut his eyes. The blows landed fast, with sickening thuds.

I tasted bile on the back of my tongue. I bit my lip holding back a scream as I watched.

“Enough,” Myo said.

The captor dropped Nol to the ground and stepped away.

Myo looked at everyone slowly. His eyes found mine, but then they passed by as if he didn’t know me at all.

Nol wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with his shoulder.

I lay down and closed my eyes.

~ ~ ~

“Aemi,” Nol said softly in my ear.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling that looked like silver. The round, flameless lights embedded in it glowed faintly, like the start of a sunrise. They were sometimes bright and sometimes soft. I had decided that they followed the sun’s path somehow. I did not understand it.

“Aemi,” Nol said again.

I rolled over and looked at him. His face was pale, and he looked fragile as a shell.

“Do you think they’re all dead?” he whispered. “The others?”

I didn’t answer. I thought of Nealla, her hands red from the heat of the fire as she made cakes. The Old One, muttering as he mended the nets. Kit, smiling at me, laughing as he told a joke.

Tears choked me, but they didn’t fall.

I looked at Nol’s face and something in me tugged. He’d lost everyone too. I moved a little closer, inexplicably drawn to comfort him. I wanted to touch him, comfort him.

“I don’t understand,” Nol continued bitterly, not noticing my movement toward him. “Why did they take you, but leave Tagatha?”

His words struck me like a slap. I froze and inched back so there was space between us again. I turned my face away without responding. I had no desire to hear him speak anymore.

Men came again, bringing us more food and water. These ones looked less cruel than the ones who had come before. When they returned to collect the water bowls, I grabbed the sleeve of one of the men with my fingers as he bent down.

“Please,” I whispered. “Where are we?”

He looked like he was about to shake me off, but something in my face must have made him change his mind, for his mouth softened, and he glanced around before responding. “We’re a mile below the surface and a day’s way from your village,” he said gruffly.

I looked around us at the windowless walls. “Below the surface?” I asked, feeling a sense of panic. I hadn’t felt the familiar rocking that came with traveling on the water. Did we move by magic?

He snorted now as if I was insane. “We’re beneath the sea, girl.”

Panic sunk its cold fingers into me. Beneath the sea? How was such a thing possible?

He pulled away and followed the rest of the men out the door before it slid shut. Nol, who had been listening to the exchange, looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Don’t do that,” he said angrily.

“Do what?”

“Lick their boots. Beg them for answers. Don’t act like a thrall.”

“I am a thrall,” I said, angry now too. “And now you are too.”

He turned away and curled into a ball.

I shut my eyes and slept. It was the only thing to do anymore.

I LOST TRACK of the days. Time was an endless corridor with nothing but the monotonous gray walls as scenery and no one but my listless male fellow prisoners as companions. I missed the slap of seawater against the rocks outside my bedroom window. I missed Nealla’s gruff words. I missed Kit’s jokes and smiles. I even missed the Old One’s rambling. I wondered endlessly what had become of them all.

Kit’s absence carved a hole in my chest that ached like an open wound whenever I thought of him. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw him leaping to safety, and I saw the man with the weapon lifting his arm and firing.

I stopped thinking about it, because it hurt too much.

Eventually, they stopped binding our arms and legs, because we were no threat. Some of the boys paced the room, but most of us sat with our backs to the walls, or lay flat on the floor, staring at nothing.

There were no bathing facilities, and only a small toilet that we used with the accompaniment of a guard. The first time I walked the length of hall to reach it, I stared around me in astonishment. Brilliant lights shone from the entire length of ceiling. Twisted metal in shining gold and copper colors coiled up and down the walls and made a grid across the floor like woven palm fronds. My feet thumped loudly as I walked, and I smelled the faint scent of the sea, but it was mingled with something else, another odor that I did not recognize.

I asked the guard about Myo. This one seemed eager to talk, although he mocked my questions. He was young, not much older than me by the looks of him, with curling black hair and eyes as brown as driftwood.

“He was doing reconnaissance for the Republic,” the young guard said. “We retrieved him when we surfaced.”

“Republic?”

“You people don’t know about anything,” he said. “The Republic of Itlantis.”

Itlantis.

The Sea People.

I was silent once more.

~ ~ ~

I was lying on my back, counting the number of lines across the ceiling, when they came and took everyone away.

The guards entered, this time wielding long metal weapons that looked like three-headed spears. They used them as prods to get the boys up and moving.

I struggled to a sitting position as men herded the boys out. I spotted Nol’s bright yellow hair through the doorway as the boys were pushed forward in a knot of bodies, but I told myself I didn’t care if they dumped him in the sea.

I waited for them to take me too, but they didn’t.

The guards left with the last of the boys, and I was alone. I wrapped my arms around my knees and lay down again. The floor was cold against my cheek, and the silence was too loud.

I shut my eyes.

Hours later, the door opened again, but only Nol returned. He stumbled when the guard pushed him, and he fell on his elbows beside me. Blood streamed from a cut above his eye and streaked down the side of his face.

“What happened?” I asked. I felt angry with him for leaving, angrier still at him for returning.

Nol pushed himself up from where he’d fallen, oddly triumphant despite his bleeding head. “I tried to kick the one guard, and I bit another. They beat me and brought me back after that.”

“What were they doing with you?”

“The others were given uniforms,” he said. “Garments like the ones the guards wear.”

“Forcing them into service?”

Nol shrugged. “Making them slaves, making them soldiers. I don’t know.” He turned his face to the opposite wall and refused to say anything else.

~ ~ ~

I needed to relieve myself. When the guards came to bring food, I told them, and one took me down the hall to the toilets. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, and I barely knew the girl with dark shadows under her eyes that looked back. My whole body felt broken down, empty, and listless.

When I exited the washroom, I caught sight of a retinue of men marching through the gleaming corridors. At their head was a man with curly black hair, a straight nose, and piercing eyes. He was handsome, but in a predatory way. I stared at him, transfixed.

Something about him seemed familiar.

He turned and caught me staring. His face creased with anger.

“Who is she?”

“She was taken at the surface,” the guard said, paling under the man’s wrath.

“Take her away immediately,” he ordered, and I was hustled back to my cell.

Only moments after I’d been shoved inside, another guard came and ordered both Nol and me onto our feet. They bound our hands, and then we were marched through the corridors to a new cell, this one smaller and darker than the other one. My stomach clenched with fear. My fingers trembled, and I squeezed them into fists so tight that my knuckles ached. The wal¬ls were too close. The ceiling was too low.

Nol and I sat in opposite corners, not speaking.

I closed my eyes and thought of Perilous. If I stared at the lights in the ceiling through my eyelids, I could almost pretend that they were the golden lights my mother had described. But I was not in Perilous, and I was not free.

“We have to jump, Kit.”

We were almost to the edge.

The bright lights swept over us, catching us, and then the men were upon us. They dragged us apart, shoving Kit back. He stumbled, and his grip on my hand slipped.

“Kit!” I screamed. “Jump, Kit! They’re taking me!”

He reached the edge and whirled, his eyes searching mine.

“Find Perilous and I’ll find you,” I shouted.

I opened my eyes and sat up as the memory washed over me.

I would find Perilous if it was the last thing I ever did.

MYO FOUND US several hours later. He slipped into the cell and untied our bonds. As soon as his hands were free, Nol hit him across the face, knocking him down. As Myo rolled on the ground, Nol scrambled for the door.

Myo was up faster than I could even suck in a breath. He grabbed Nol’s arm and threw him against the wall. Nol slammed into the hard surface and slid to the floor. Myo stalked to his side and jerked his head up by his hair.

“Listen to me, surfacer,” he hissed. “You need to learn to cooperate if you want to survive.” He looked at me. “There’s been an order for your execution. I’m trying to help you. You’re going to do exactly as I say, understand?”

Execution
. My blood felt like ice; the world froze. I sucked in a sharp breath.

Nol glared at him through slitted eyes. “Execution?”

“Her, not you. But you won’t die,” he said to me. “Not if you listen to me and do exactly as I say.”

“Why am I going to be executed?”

“The commander of this mission ordered it,” Myo said. “Apparently he ran into you in the halls. You saw his face, and he doesn’t want to be remembered.”

“I don’t know who he is,” I whispered. “I couldn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Myo said. “He wants you dead, so if we don’t act now, you will be.”

I looked at Nol. “What about him?”

Myo shrugged. “Who knows? With his attitude, he’ll probably be thrown overboard in another day. I’ll be back in an hour with clothing. You’ll put it on and come with me, understand?”

He moved to leave, and I grabbed his arm.

I didn’t want to be alone.

“Take him too,” I whispered, for Myo’s ears only. “Please.”

I had no idea what possessed me to ask it, but once the words were spoken I couldn’t unspeak them.

Myo looked at me and then at Nol. He sighed, nodded once, and left.

~ ~ ~

Myo returned and brought us clothing, the same strange type of garment that he wore. The fabric stretched with the slightest tug. It was thin and soft and had a faint shimmer like the inside of a shell.

There wasn’t anywhere to change but in that dim little cell. I looked at Nol sharply, and he muttered something under his breath and looked away. Myo politely turned his back as I stripped off my old things and pulled on the new garment. Beside me, Nol did the same. I caught a glimpse of his tanned back and lanky muscles out of my peripheral vision before I turned my head away.

“Now follow me,” Myo said, as soon as we’d finished dressing, and he glared at us both as if daring either of us to try anything. He slipped through the door first, leading us down the hall we’d traveled earlier.

“This way,” he said in a whisper, indicating left with his hand when we reached a fork in the passage. We descended a ramp and stopped before a door. It opened like a mouth, revealing a ladder of shining metal.

“Climb down the ladder and wait in the room below.”

The rungs were cold beneath my fingers as I descended first. Nol came behind me. When we’d reached the bottom, we found the interior of what appeared to be a small ship. The walls still curved, but the ceiling was closer, and unlit. Lights glowed near our feet, set in recesses in the wall and floor.

Myo joined us, and the door above the ladder closed again.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll show you to your bunks.”

The ship was small, with one common room, two sleeping rooms, and a place for steering that Myo called the cockpit. Our sleeping room had three beds stacked one on top of the other. Nol took the bottom one, leaving me with the middle. The top remained empty, as Myo would be sleeping in the other room.