Chapter Twenty-Two

‘The Nine Wardens gave a portion of their power to the Wardens below. This power was attained by giving sweat, blood, and tears.’ 

Caid made his way across the rooftops of Cros homes. Most of these homes were built without windows and their chimneys, for winter warming, were very narrow, to keep too much outdoor air from pouring in.  

This made it much easier for Caid to travel across their homes without too much worry of being seen. It also allowed him a great vantage point when people started returning home from the mobs.  

Caid stopped a moment to gather his thoughts. He looked up at the sky, which was almost completely blocked by the growing coal burning smog. He saw the moon was at the midpoint in the sky and figured it about six hours before sunlight. He wondered if the testing, whatever it was, was already done. Would he even know if it had occurred? There was no one who would tell him. The people involved would most likely go to great lengths to keep things quiet.  

Caid moved toward Pryce Manor; the closer he got, the more the homes climbed up a slope around the curve of the mountain. Some amount of smog dissipated before reaching those higher up, though the mask was still required for breathing. The air was nowhere near clear enough for the homes to have windows.  

At the edge of a more severely slanted roof, Caid felt his feet slip out from under him. He turned, trying to get a grip on the loose shingles, but they slid right along with him. At the edge of the roof, he jumped with what little leverage he could muster to another roof. He caught the edge of the higher structure, pulling himself up, but below him, he heard the roof tiles crash to the ground.  

Caid felt his heart pound, and he used all his strength to pull himself up, turning to look down at the ground. A short, portly man was staring straight up at him, the shingles having hit his bald head.  

“What the hell are you doing up there?”  

Caid could see no advantage in answering. He turned to look at the distance to Pryce Manor. It was still a good five minutes away if he had no other problems. If this man set off the alarms, he would never get there without a fight with the local envoy, and Caid had no time to waste on a pointless fight. There was also the chance, small as it was, that he would lose to the envoy. There was the additional concern that if the alarm went off, whoever was conducting the testing would most likely stop and investigate the cause of the alarm.  

Caid turned back to the man, who still was awaiting his reply. Caid sighed¾he hated to hurt the man, but there was no choice.  

Caid reached up, touching the vial hanging from his neck. His daliwin wasn’t only to prove him a warden¾or rather, a former warden¾it was also to grant him some abilities that, unless needed, Caid tended to stray away from. This was one of those times he needed them. If he wanted to get inside Pryce Manor, this man would have to be silenced.  

Caid drew in a deep breath and sighed again, waving his hand across the air, muttering something quietly under his breath. The fog in front of him turned a light shade of purple before it swirled down to where the man was standing. The man crumpled to the ground as the fog reached him. Caid shook his head. The effects were not lethal, but the man would be useless as a tic for a few hours.  

Caid felt energy fade from him. The daliwin took its toll for being used. He pulled more energy to keep himself going. It would be paid for later, but right now Caid took off, doubling his pace. He needed to focus. He had come for only one thing, and he was sure it was in that house.  

*** 

The vial burst into purple flames. Creft would have shielded his eyes, if his hands hadn’t been chained behind his back. Instead, he closed his eyes tightly, but the bright flames still felt like they were singeing his retinas.  

“Call up the power the Nine Wardens have lent to the Wardens of Maralay!” Taluva talked, but not to anyone inside the chamber.  

Creft opened his eyes a crack, chancing the blinding effects of the flames. Pryce had moved closer, and the light seemed to excite him more than blind him. Taluva pulled his hood back over his face to shield his own eyes.  

Pryce moved forward, bending next to the flames. They encircled him, licking at any exposed flesh, but Pryce showed no pain from their embrace, nor did he shy away from them. He delighted in them, as if they were some kind of deep pleasure only he could feel and understand.  

Taluva continued chanting, asking for the Nine Wardens’ power to awaken what had been guarded. Creft felt his brain tingling with all the commotion. The Nine Wardens were guarding the nine layers of the afterlife, they were protecting some people and punishing others. Why would Taluva be calling on the power of those the Wardens guard? They would be just normal people who had died.  

Creft looked past the flames, back to where the hooded man sat quietly, idly, as if bored with the show. Creft wondered why the man had even bothered to show up at all.  

A loud pop filled Creft’s ears. He turned back to Taluva and Pryce, the latter sprawled on the ground as if something had knocked him back with force. What had that pop been? Had the flames burned Pryce? He wasn’t in any visible pain, nor did he seem to be moving at all.  

Taluva stopped speaking understandably. Whatever or whoever he was talking to now had to have been a foreign being. Creft had absolutely no idea what was going on, but he hoped it would end soon. For some reason, the pressure in the room became almost suffocating, making him feel as though someone squeezed his shoulders tightly in a strong hug. He also felt pressure on his neck and cheeks. That, coupled with the blinding flames and the now constant popping in his ears, was enough to make him scream.  

Or had he been screaming the entire time? Creft couldn’t remember, but he knew for certain his throat hurt and he screamed now. No one seemed to notice or care, however.  

Purple fog swirled from the flames, slowly entering the vial sitting next to Pryce’s unmoving body. Creft tried to throw himself farther away from the fog; something about it was unnatural and wrong. The chair tilted for a moment before righting itself onto all four legs. Neither Taluva nor the hooded man bothered to see what had made the loud clattering sound.  

Creft threw his body weight against the chair harder, trying to tip himself backward. Maybe he could then slide back and pull his arms up and over the chair back. Then he could attempt an escape.  

There was no way of telling what awaited him on the other side of the door, but he would chance it. It was getting harder to breathe. The fog was curling and filling the bottle, but it was almost as if Creft could taste the soot in the air.  

Creft noticed Taluva had stopped chanting, looking hunched and tired. The hooded man stood. Something about the scene had finally piqued his interest. Creft looked around for what it could have been, but there was too much to pin one certain thing down.  

Pryce’s fingers twitched; Creft thought he might regain consciousness. Creft threw his weight again, and this time, the chair’s front two legs snapped under the pressure when it fell back down. Creft flew forward, tumbling closer to the flames than he had meant to.  

Creft felt the necklace, Creaton had given him, vibrate against his chest. It moved so fast he thought it might break his chest bones. He let out another scream and Taluva noticed.  

Taluva moved quickly toward Creft, but the fog moved faster, coming at Creft as if it were the fingers of some wild beast. It wrapped around Creft’s throat, where the necklace lay. Without warning, Creft’s world went white and a loud noise exploded in his ears.  

*** 

Caid was almost to Pryce Manor. He ran with his head tucked and was no further than a few yards from the front entrance. He thought for a moment it had all been too easy. He hadn’t seen an envoy or house guard, but then something exploded, shaking the ground beneath him. Caid knocked from his feet., sprawling out on his back, his eyes toward the sky, his head dizzy. His ventilator laid some ten feet away. He felt himself gasping for air, but it didn’t seem like he had broken any bones during the fall.  

His ears were ringing so loudly, that it sounded like someone was ringing bells in them. His hand went out, trying to block the sound, but it was inside his head, not outside.  

The only question on his mind was what happened. The last thing he remembered was reaching the front hedges of the manor and then a blinding flash of white before an extreme force coming from the house threw him back.  

Had Pryce set up an alarm system? No guards had come from the house after the flash. If it had been an alarm, he would have been in the dungeons by now. There had been no other sound after the loud bang nor had there been any movement. It was like the flash and blast had come and gone just as quickly, leaving the night as calm as ever.  

Caid grasped some grass, feeling its coldness on his skin. He closed his eyes until the spinning subsided. He was breathing hard and the tainted quality of the air made his chest feel as if a weight had been put on it and he was incapable of moving it. He needed to get that ventilator back on but didn’t have the strength to get up.  

Caid lifted both his legs, feeling no sudden rush of pain. When he dropped them back down, he drove them into the dirt, heel first. He was going to get up. He needed to get into the house. He knew now, for certain, this was where the experiment was happening.  

Caid heard something beside him. He had pulled so much energy off the daliwin to get here, he wasn’t sure he dared to pull more. He closed his eyes and told himself again he needed to get up and into the house. He would find the overseer and possibly Creft and he would save the city.  

He had to fight.  

Hands grasped Caid’s shoulders, and he felt someone strong hurl him up and over. Caid felt the last of his strength wane and he passed out.  

*** 

Creft opened his eyes but saw nothing. He squeezed them shut, trying to recall what had brought him to this point. He had been in a room with Taluva, and Pryce, along with a fourth man who, while familiar, Creft couldn’t name.  

Taluva had thrown down the vial and something had come forth from it; something that felt alive but looked like nothing more than fog. Whatever that something was touched Creft. He remembered it burning as it entered his lungs. Then, without warning, there had been a flash of light and a bang so loud that he had lost consciousness.  

That was all he could remember before opening his eyes and it being pitch black dark again. For now, Creft closed his eyes, letting his hand reach out to test his surroundings. Testing this way had become second nature over his imprisonment under Pryce Manor.  

Creft felt the cold floor beneath him and chilly walls behind him¾he was back in the cell under Pryce Manor. He leaned his head back against the wall.  

The burning he had felt in his lungs before he passed out was gone and the ringing he’d expected in his ears after that loud bang was nonexistent. Creft felt better than he had in a very long time, which made no sense. He had not eaten for some time, yet he didn’t feel hungry. The last thing he had eaten was stale bread, but the thought of food didn’t bring about hunger pangs like before. He also noticed he wasn’t thirsty, and his mouth wasn’t as gummy as before.  

Creft sat for a moment more in the utter silence of his hell, knowing he would once again be reduced to fighting the mice for scraps of bread and pools of water.  

Creft took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the stale air of the cell, then slowly let it out while opening his closed eyes. As he did, the room was no longer dark. Rather, it was tinged a light shade of purple. Now he could see the mouse holes and the outline of the door. Creft stood, his legs were fully functional again. He let out a laugh from the depths of his belly. Something was strange within him, but it was a strangeness he hoped never faded.  

*** 

Caid opened his eyes to the blurry landscape of Cros. The sun was coming up over the tops of what looked to be a coal storage unit, the glare further impeding his already bleary vision. He blinked a few times, trying to make the swirling black dots disappear, but they were persistent, snaking across his vision like tracers.  

Caid was relieved he could see anything at all. He remembered passing out with the envoy on his trail when something exploded. He moved his arms and legs; they were in working order and had no restraints.  

“It is about time that you woke up to join us,” said a voice above him. 

Caid blinked again, redirecting his attention from the buildings to the speaker. The black dots still swam across the man’s face, but Caid could tell it was Creaton and not the envoy he had feared it would be.  

“What happened?” Caid asked, his voice sounding hollow in his head. The explosion had dulled his hearing, making words sound like echoes.  

“Seems to me that something was going on in Pryce Manor and it backfired on them. Or maybe that big explosion was supposed to happen with the experiment? I am not too certain, actually,” Creaton shrugged.  

Caid noticed Alis was beside them, quietly staring out toward the mines.  

“How did you know where to find me?” Caid tried sitting up; it was a slow process, but he was able to keep himself steady.  

“We didn’t know where to find you. We didn’t know what to expect to find at all. Alis, who is a genius, fixed the radio, and we heard Rawn and Maddog talking about an experiment at Pryce Manor.” Creaton swallowed, peering down to Caid’s chest. “They said that they had kept Galmont’s daliwin.”  

Caid blinked again in confusion. “What do you mean they kept Galmont’s daliwin?” 

Creaton shook his head. “That’s all I know, Caid. They kept it, but for what purpose, I don’t know. I am sure it had something to do with that explosion though.”  

Caid touched his own daliwin, still hanging around his neck, trying to think of what any warden could want with the daliwin of another. The daliwin, as far as Caid knew, only worked for the one who gave the ingredients.  

“Creaton, you left after you made your daliwin, do you know the significance of it?” Caid asked.  

Creaton shrugged. “Powers, but I was never the best at that kind of thing, Caid, you know that.”  

Caid fingered his necklace, feeling the complete weight of it around his neck and shoulders.  

“Can we get into the house?”  

“Not likely. Once we found you, the envoy rushed to the doors. We just barely were out of view before they arrived,” Creaton said.  

Caid tried to get on his feet.  

“Do you need any help?” Creaton asked.  

Caid shrugged off the offered hand and got to his feet alone. He was still not sure he was ready to forgive Creaton fully.  

“Alis,” Caid called. She turned toward them. “Let us get back to the tunnels. I am now fairly certain you are right something is going on in the mines, and we need to figure it out and fix it.”  

Alis nodded but showed no excitement at the possibility of finding the solution. She would have a lot on her mind, more than any girl that young ever should have. Caid put his hand on her shoulder and walked back to the closest entrance to the underground.  

“Whatever happens, we will stop them,” he said.