Skykeep (16 page)

At no point in their dealings had his tone of
civility and gentility even wavered. In spite of herself, Nita
couldn’t help but admire the poise and professionalism with which
he conducted himself. She’d envisioned the man in charge of such a
prison to be the sadistic sort, someone who took joy in the power.
Asst. Warden Blanc fit the image. Linn was different. In a way, it
made Nita
more
uneasy. An adversary would at least have
given her something to steel herself against. It would have been a
target for the resolve that had carried her through so many other
trying circumstances. Having to butt heads with a calm, deliberate,
reasonable opponent felt… wrong.

“What
will
we be discussing?” Nita
asked.

“Your crew, their activities, and certain
details regarding Caldera.”

“Don’t expect me to be very talkative on
those matters,” Nita said.

“Naturally not. I’m a patient man, Miss
Graus. This will not be the last of our chats. Just a bit farther.
The room in which we shall be having these discussions is not my
office. As my office is in the immersed section of the facility,
and as I’ve said, we do not have the means to keep you there for
any reasonable amount of time, and conversation would be
impossible, regardless. So I’ve had to clear out a small storeroom
for this purpose.”

“If this prison was meant to house other fug
folk, why is it even at the surface?” Nita asked.

“Because while it may not be lethal to us as
the reverse is for you, removing a fug person from the fug is a
profoundly unpleasant experience. The air here is… lacking. It is
terribly uncomfortable for us, the light stings our eyes and roasts
our skin. And the inmates housed in the surface sections are those
deemed by the authorities to be responsible for acts which threaten
the very stability of our society. The discomfort is part of the
sentence.”

“What about you and the rest of the
staff?”

“We stay in the immersed sections when
possible and endure the surface when necessary. Such is the nature
of our duty in this Phylactery of ours.”

“Phylactery… that’s… something to do with
alchemy, isn’t it? Or dark magic?”

“A bit of each. It is the legendary term for
the vessel in which a lich stores his soul to attain
immortality.”

“Which would make the inmates the soul and
your society a demon,” Nita said.

“I’m aware the imagery does not paint us in a
sympathetic light, and it is why I prefer the official name of
Skykeep. But the name was not selected to evoke sympathy. It was
intended to invoke the invincibility of our society, and as such
has come to be interchangeable with the official name. Here we
are,” he said, opening a door to reveal a small room. It had only
enough space for a table with a chair on either side of it. Not
even the guards would have a place in the cramped, phlo-light-lit
room. He sidled into the room to the far chair and motioned to the
remaining one. “Please, sit.”

She did so, looking uncertainly to the guards
as they shut the door, leaving her alone with the warden. He picked
up a small packet of pages that had been set on the table and began
to leaf through them.

“I won’t be restrained?” Nita asked.

“Unlike your crewmate, I do not believe you
are inclined toward pointless violence. Nothing you can do to me in
this room will earn you your freedom, and thus you will not do
anything to me,” he said. “Now, I’ll begin by giving you the
opportunity to provide information of your own volition. Any
cooperation you show will go a long way to encouraging us to
provide you with better treatment, more privileges, and—if
circumstances permit—a reduced sentence. Tell me about the
Wind
Breaker
and her crew.”

Nita took a breath, trying to avoid coughing.
“Warden Linn, I have spent four months with the
Wind Breaker
crew. But I scarcely needed four
days
to know that you could
never hope to find a more dedicated, more capable, and more
motivated crew. What Lil said is correct. They will find this
place, they will come for us, and they will free us, or they will
die trying. And I will not utter a syllable to you that I believe
will help you strike them down.”

“Powerful words. But are you certain? They do
not know where this place is, nor do you. I very much doubt they
are even aware it exists, as your crewmate didn’t seem aware of it.
Steps were taken to delay their search until the path was
thoroughly cold. They may even have been convinced that both you
and Miss Cooper were killed. But if what you say is true, if they
do somehow locate you and come to your rescue, then your friends
will indeed die in the attempt. You are their engineer, Miss Graus.
And they are without you. Any damage will go unrepaired. And there
will be damage. Because this is my prison. It is my duty to keep
these prisoners safely inside, and I will do everything in my
considerable power to see to it that inside they shall remain.

“I do not feel any rancor toward you. I
believe you are a reasonable person. My superiors informed me of
your motivation for the heist. You were hoping to treat your
mother, to save the life of a family member, and they denied you
out of simple greed and the desire to control. I cannot in all
honesty say that I wouldn’t have done the same if faced with the
same situation. And when confronted with opposition, you did what
was necessary to save your life and succeed in your goal. Again,
this is only natural. You did what you believed you had to do, and
I now must do the same. Because your goals and mine are mutually
exclusive, we are enemies. In another world, we might easily have
been friends.

“You say you will not endanger your friends
with your words. I would not expect you to. But please be aware
that I do not need to break you to break your crew. Simply by
keeping you here, my superiors have succeeded. So your resistance,
while admirable, in the end would achieve nothing.” He calmly set
down one page and began the next. “Now, tell me about Caldera…”

#

Nita sat quietly on the lower of two bunks in
the cell that was her new home. The cell was small enough that if
she stretched, she could reach the left and right walls at the same
time. The ceiling was normal height, or perhaps a bit higher, but
that stood to reason if the cell had been designed with the tall,
thin fug folk in mind. Likewise the cell was only as deep as the
length of the bunk, but that was still about half again as long as
she would have expected to find in a traditional prison. Each had a
stiff pillow, a stiffer mattress, and a rather rough wool blanket.
The only other things present in the cell were a small wash
basin—water would need to be requested each day—and a small fixture
for answering the call of nature, which Nita had to admit was
rather more hygienic than the plank of wood with a hole leading to
open air that served the same purpose on the
Wind Breaker
.
The cell was one of a half dozen identical cells in the current
hall, three on each side, and the only one currently occupied.

Following her chat with the warden—which
she’d been informed would be a daily occurrence from this point
forward—they had required that she change out of her work clothes
and into prison attire. This consisted of a short-sleeve shirt and
a pair of loose trousers, each with a white-and-blue checkered
pattern.

It had been a long day and a longer night
since her arrival. Two meals had been served—a supper composed of
coarse bread and thin soup, and a breakfast composed of a rather
unpleasant egg concoction and more of the same bread. Each time the
only beverage was some tepid water, which managed to taste as awful
as the fug smelled. She choked down what she could and set the rest
aside, partially because the thought of finishing it didn’t appeal
to her in the slightest but mostly because Lil had yet to return
from isolation, and Nita wasn’t certain if she had been fed. The
fate of her crewmate weighed heavily on Nita’s mind when she
finally heard the unmistakable sound of the little firebrand’s
voice echoing down the hall.

“You better take good care of them britches.
Those are my best britches!” she called out, her voice hoarse but
fierce. “And don’t you think you’re keeping that ribbon!”

Nita stood. “Lil! Are you okay?”

“Nita, that you? Where are you?” she called
back excitedly.

Two sets of footsteps, accompanied by the
scrabbling and squeaking of a third set of less willing steps,
approached and finally Lil stood in front of the barred door of
their cell. At some point her restraints had been removed, but the
guards held her in a grip tight and vicious enough to ensure she
couldn’t pull away. She looked worn, fatigued, and frazzled, but
her eyes had the same fire they’d had when she was taken away. At
the sight of Nita, those eyes flashed with a look of profound
relief.

“Oh, you got Nita in the same ridiculous
getup? Don’t you know she’s from Caldera? They like to dress up
pretty and such. It must be killing her to wear them clothes,” Lil
jabbed.

A third guard, the one stationed just out of
sight at the end of the hall and assigned to this block of cells,
stepped up to unlock the door.

“Back away, Graus,” he ordered.

She did so. The guard unlocked the door and
shoved Lil roughly through, where she collided with Nita and caught
herself on the bed. Before they could recover, the guards slammed
the door shut and locked it. The two guards who had escorted Lil
set off from whence they came, and the third returned to his
station at the end of the corridor.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Lil said. “Walk
away!”

The very moment the footsteps stopped and Lil
no longer had anyone to stand in defiance of, she suddenly seemed
to lose the strength to stand at all. She slumped, her knees giving
out, and would have hit the floor had Nita not been there to catch
her.

“Lil, are you okay?” Nita asked again,
helping her crewmate to the cot beside her. She took Lil’s hand. It
was shaking within her grasp. “Lil! You’re chilled to the
bone!”

Nita stood and tore the blanket from the top
bunk, throwing it around Lil. She wrapped her arms around her
shivering friend from behind to help steady and warm her.

“What did they do to you?” Nita asked.

“It wasn’t so bad,” she said, smiling weakly.
“Just… cold… and dark. Did they feed you?”

“Yes.”

“Not me… Every now and then they’d drop the
crate down and throw a tarp over it, then heave a bucket of water
in there with me and take out the old one.”

“Here. I’ve got some breakfast left,” Nita
said, making ready to fetch the tray.

“Not just yet. Let me quit shaking first,”
Lil said, pulling her blanket tighter and putting some more of her
weight on Nita. “How long was I in there?”

“About a day.”

“No… You sure it wasn’t a week? Those walls
are some kind of screen. A bunch of layers. Couldn’t see any light
at all, but the wind sure cut through… Didn’t know if it was day or
night. And… there was this… clicking noise. Sometimes I heard stuff
scrabbling around… Might have just been in my head… Any sign of the
cap’n yet?”

“Not yet.”

“He better hurry up,” she muttered, her
shivers slowly subsiding. When she was finally steady, she took
another breath. “Let’s see what passes for food in this place.”

Nita fetched the dish and spoon, handing them
to Lil. Her crewmate completely skipped the utensil, grabbing the
eggs with her bare hands and shoveling them into her mouth, then
grabbing the remaining bread and dropping the empty metal dish to
the ground.

“Since when,” she mumbled, her mouth stuffed
full, “do they feed prisoners in their cells? Shouldn’t we be in
some big prisoner’s mess with the rest of them?”

“I think it has something to do with the fact
we can’t be down in the fug. Fug folk don’t like to leave it, and
most of the prisoners here are fug folk. So I’d imagine the
cafeteria is down there. Either that or they are afraid to mix us
with the general population.”

“They better be,” Lil said, swallowing enough
of the food to be more understandable. “If the folks they let roam
around free are any indication, I don’t think we’re going to get
along very well with the ones they lock up.” She swallowed hard.
“Well, that was really awful… Is there any more?”

“I’m afraid not. And perhaps it’s just as
well. If breathing the fug is lethal, I can’t imagine eating food
prepared down there is doing us any good.”

“Nah, fug food won’t do you no harm. At
least, not any more than regular food will. We used to sell these
fancy candies they make down there. And booze. Their booze kicks
like a mule. I could do with a belt of it right now. Them eggs left
a taste that’s going to linger.”

“I’ll get you some water, but I should warn
you, it won’t help much,” Nita said. “Jailer! May we have some
water please?”

The guard thumped over the bars to take the
cups Nita passed through them. Lil gave the man a dirty look before
he left. The water must have been just at the end of the hall,
because they could distantly hear the mugs being filled.

“What’re you saying ‘please’ for? You don’t
have to be nice to these folks. They’re keeping us prisoner.”

“It won’t do us much good to be rude. The
guards have the ability to make our time here much better or much
worse. I’d like to encourage them to do the former.”

“Yeah, well if the rest of the crew was here,
I know what
I’d
encourage these fuggers to do…”

The guard returned a moment later,
half-filled mugs in hand. Nita accepted them graciously and handed
one to Lil.

“Well… it don’t look like he spit in it,” she
said, eyeing up the water as the guard returned to his post.

She took a sip and made a sour face, then
resumed looking into the cup. Try as she might, she couldn’t hold
it steady, the lingering shivers from her long night of hanging
like bait from a hook causing the water to ripple. Finally she
clutched the mug with both hands to stop the shaking.