Chapter Twenty

“I have to thank you once again! Thank you for saving me!” Brutus exclaimed sarcastically. “You said that you were going to save me, and I will admit, I was skeptical, but here you are, saving me … from the inside!“

Secrat smiled weakly. The shackles around his hands and the cell encumbering him made it a little difficult to see the humor in his predicament. All of the brilliant tapestries woven with intermingling colors and an array of visuals, all the fanciful decors and gaudy displays, the pristine floors and stained glass windows, none of it acted as a prelude for what to expect from the Italina prisons. The floors were carpeted with filth, and there was a suffocating aroma of dust and soot that would gag you if you let it. The lighting was abysmal with no natural light allowed to bleed into its confines. Rather, there were candles strewn about the outside of the cell walls. Interestingly, the candles seemed not to lead to the stairs on the left side, going up, but to a wooden platform, a step above the floor, where ropes hung down from the ceiling. The Gallows. It was a scare tactic, Secrat knew. It was a theatrical effort, a show meant to petrify the prisoners in place, no different than the Aeonian.

Copé took a moment and inspected his own thoughts. No, The Aeonian was more than that. The Aeonian was power like nothing he had ever witnessed before.

He looked over to Brutus, “Well, at least we will keep you from dying here all alone.”

Brutus snickered some, leaning his back against the wall of his adjacent cell, looking over to Lukas Lewis and Samuel Syi to his right. Secrat looked to his left and to his right, still trying to piece together was brought them all in their current predicament.

“Tell me again, if you would, how the Italina knights would have even known Samuel and Lukas existed?” He asked, and then, his eyes went over to Taison, whose bloodshot and teary eyes told a story of complete and utter defeat.

“After you and Brutus left, a knight arrived on horseback to where I,” Taison stopped for a second, a large sniffling snort followed, “To where I was, and then,” Taison stopped again, breathing heavily.

Copé snapped his fingers and rattled the shackles around his wrists, “Blurt it out, you idiot,” he yelled, unable and unwilling to hide his own irritation.

“Secrat, be calm,” Samuel said firmly.

Copé groaned, pacing around in his cramp, new home.

“The knight noticed the statue of Livius Reid and said it belonged to a woman. I told him I was her friend and I was holding it for her. He believed me, or at least, I think he believed me. But then, the woman must have come back through the gates, she told them about you two trying to kill her and they came back to arrest me!”

“But that doesn’t explain how they knew about Samuel,” Secrat quipped fast, realizing their one true chance, or only real hope at rescue was shackled beside him a few cells down.

Copé let out a breath. He could hear his rattling chains, his hands were shaking.

“What happened next, Taison?” He said next, his voice swaying in such a way so as to come off friendly and non-confrontational.

“The knight had a blade to my throat and I,” Taison sobbed like a small child, with hyperventilating and heavy breathing at an excessive rate, “I was terrified. They told me they would kill me if I didn’t act normal, that I needed to wait until you and Brutus came back.”

“You sold us out,” Secrat said in return. “Father Veras took you in. The Red Flux gave you a home and you sold us out. You could have called their bluff. They would have locked you up and we would have come and got you.”

“How was I to know it was a bluff!?” Taison fired back. “I am new to this. I don’t see why I had to take on the hardest job for!”

Secrat jolted forward, loudly rattling his chains, scaring Taison. He ran over to the cage bars, glaring at him intently.

“You were given the only job Samuel thought a fat piece of shit like you wouldn’t mess up and look what went and happened!”

“Maybe if someone wasn’t always ready to kill someone, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Petty thievery? We’d have been in a flimsy jail cell, but murder, that wound us up here,” a voice called out, accusative and fierce.

Secrat looked over to Lukas Lewis.

“It wasn’t me, asshole,” Secrat replied, feeling his teeth on edge, “I am the only reason Brutus didn’t slash her intestines out with a knife.”

“And you are bragging about that?” Brutus interjected. “If I would have killed her, none of this would be happening!”

Lukas’ eyes weakened their intense beam at The Thief, changing from anger to either a concerned look or a surprised one, pointed over at Brutus.

“You tried to kill her? Father Toucan Veras specifically said,” Lukas began, but was swiftly interrupted.

“I know what Toucan Veras said and I will tell you what, let us wait this out and see who he likes more, a traitor or a would-be murderer,” Brutus answered, now in a seated position, he motioned at Taison with his foot and gave a smile.

Lukas didn’t smile back at him, his face remained offended and angry.

Samuel shushed Brutus, and when Brutus got ready to make another comment, Samuel shushed him again. An Italinian knight walked down the stairs. The look on his face was firm and serious, plain and authoritative. Again, this was the mustache-twirling knight that they had seen, off and on, the entirety of their time at the Aer Festival. The Knight didn’t make contact with any of them. He simply came down the stairs and stopped at a large writing desk in the middle of the room. He skimmed through various pieces of parchment several times over, acting interested in their contents. Was it an act? What could he possibly have been reading that was so interesting? It didn’t matter, what did matter was that Copé now noticed the set of keys hanging from the belt at his side.

The knight’s silver armor had been dealt with, and he now wore an attire more resembling something close to hard brown leather. Secrat couldn’t imagine how uptight a person had to be that they thought of bulky leather as their comfort clothes to unwind a hard day with. The knight continued rifling through pages, nodding and talking to himself, until, finally, looking off over the table at his prisoners.

“Well, would you look at that, it’s feeding time!” He said, a large, holier than thou smile on him as he said it.

The man no longer wore a helmet. He had short dirty blond hair and an average build. He had no weapon on his person, which meant that if he neared close enough, then The Thief could get his hands on him and then, he could … do what? Copé stopped and considered his options for a moment. Killing him wasn’t the ideal approach, but he may not be given a choice. Lukas Lewis would be upset with him, and he would most definitely get an earful from Father Veras when they returned to The Red Flux’s campsite, but he’d eventually have to understand his side of it – surely, Brutus, and maybe even Samuel would vouch for him that it was a last resort. That was fine with him and he accepted that, but his mind was also somewhere else. His mind was on the Aeonian – of Livius Reid.

Before, the creature had been summoned the very moment he took the life of an Italina knight. Had it been a coincidence? Someone had just happened to sound the alarm and summoned the blasphemous creature at the same moment? He wasn’t for certain. However, he knew he was in no condition to try and pit himself trying to escape it again.

No matter what he did, the fact remained, Copé needed the key.

The knight stepped off to a part of the room obscured by a wall and out of view for Secrat and the rest of the thieves in their cells. His hand gesture suggested that he would return in a moment.

“Any cogs in motion in that head of yours?” Brutus asked.

Secrat looked over to him, but Ess’ eyes were not on him, but, rather, they were on Samuel. Samuel’s eyes were squinted, looking around the room with keen observation. It bothered Secrat a bit to not be the thief in command, but he supposed that Samuel was the chosen Elite member of the troupe for a reason. Nevertheless, he also felt the need to reaffirm his importance to the group.

“Have you noticed the key hanging from his belt?” Secrat whispered, his face pressed against the cell bars, looking at Samuel.

“Yes, I have,” Samuel said, a small smile. “But I need an ample opportunity to grab it. If I grab it and he notices me doing it, he will have the advantage. He will ready a weapon or alert the other guards and he will know what I was after. It needs to be done discreetly and without him knowing. I will throw each of you the key and once we are free we will dispose of him.

Samuel checked the pockets of his leggings.

“I only wish they had left my,” Samuel stopped for a minute, taking his hands from his pockets and looking at one hand; confused. There were burn marks circling around his middle finger.

“What do you mean by dispose of?” Lukas Lewis asked, quietly, almost beneath his breath.

“It is time you learned a real lesson about The Red Flux, Lukas,” Samuel said. “We are not murderers, but we will survive, and if it comes down to us or them, it will be them.”

Lukas’ mouth hung open like he was about to speak but he was startled by the knight wheeling in a cart outside the cell. The knight continued wearing his large, ear to ear grin on his face as he did so.

“You will have to excuse our accommodations,” he started before letting out a loud laugh.

The cart he pushed was wobbly and rickety with wooden shelves that appeared rotten. Glass plates rested on each shelf.

“Our prisons may be more on the dingy side than what you have come to expect, with you having spent all your time living in that high esteemed Wilderness of yours.”

Copé felt in his leggings. The Italina knights armor had been properly plucked off of him, but as they disposed of that, The Thief did manage to smuggle in a single white phosphorous pine stick and a piece of abrasive parchment in his flask. “Keep your booze, you drunkard! You are a dead man walking,” a knight had said before they threw him in the cell. He removed the items from out of their confines, thankful that he had gotten side tracked and hadn’t completely refilled his flask at the Bells Brothers Pub as he intended. Only a single swallows’ worth of booze swam at the bottom. Secrat did his best not to swish it around and risk dampening the parchment.

“I can promise you, however,” The knight continued. “If nothing else, Italina lives to satisfy your palate. I will warn you, it might not be Ollie’s Abil, mind you, but I can tell you, with all certainty, it is better than the grub you inbred cretin get back home.”

The knight flashed a smile, removing the dome lid off from the rusted silver platter. Calling the food less than Ollie’s Abil was an understatement. Sushi, burnt on the top, a charcoal tint, and what looked like a type of pasta, devoid of the sauce and bleakly colored. The knight wheeled the cart over to the other side of the room, the side closest to the stairs and closest to Taison. Secrat saw Samuel bracing himself in his cell at the opposite end.

“You really are ridiculous people, you know that?” He said, laughing some more at their expense. “You live out in holes and your tents, but look at this wonderful paradise I have for myself!” He said, flailing his arms up in disbelief. “And there you are, living in holes. These cells might as well be a blessing for you. They are certainly an improvement.”

The knight brought the top plate off from the cart and walked over toward Taison, who seemed more than reciprocating to the knight’s offering of food.

Copé sighed. The boy was a glutton at heart, but at a second glance, he saw something else on Taison’s face. He saw scheming eyes and a lip that quivered at the knowledge that its owner was about to do something very foolish.

“You have to wonder how many diseases you have all encountered out there … how many infections.”

The knight brought the place over to Taison. The Thief reacted quickly to try and stop him from his bad decision making, but he wasn’t fast enough. Taison might have meant to be discreet, reaching for it when the knight was leaned over and about to slide the plate beneath the cell door, but he failed. The knight either heard the rattling shackles or felt his presence and reacted promptly, leaping back and out of his reach. Both Taison’s arms were fitted awkwardly between the cell bars and the knight yanked the chain between them and brought them out more before he rammed them with his hip. The first arm fell back, but the other was less than willing, breaking as it unnaturally bent itself.

Taison cried out, a scream of agony, falling helpless to his knees, supported only by his dangling limbs wedged between the bars of the cell. The shackles on his hands shook, his body convulsing like he was nearing his death. Secrat smiled momentarily, before his smile turned to a grimace, realizing their one opportunity had just been taken away by that slobbering buffoon. The knight looked at the coagulating shit pile of a man with a look of disgust, brushing himself off like it was unpleasant to have even been touched by the likes of a wanderer. Hereafter, the knight would undoubtedly be more protective over his keys which meant The Thief knew the opportunity was leaving them fast.

In one swoop, or one swallow, more accurately, Secrat drank what was left of the alcohol, tasting the backwash of prior inebriation and the contaminates of his pine stick and parchment. He jumped over toward where the knight stood and spat the alcohol into the knight’s face. His weary state created the opportunity for Secrat to snatch the keys off his belt and scrape the pine stick over the sandpaper, lighting his stick.

“How fucking dare you!?” The knight yelled, his face was red with rage.

Before he could open his eyes again tom meet the perpetrator, Secrat Copé lit him ablaze.

The knight let out a shrieking howl, cupping his hands over his face like it would keep the flames from engulfing it. He twisted and spiraled, falling down onto the floor. He rolled to his back, meanwhile, the fire raged on. He no longer yelled from his anguish, but he wasn’t dead either. Instead, the knight’s focus now seemed to drift more toward his left hand, which shook like it was trying to break itself off. Copé noticed the ring on his finger, it seemed to be giving off steam of all things. Brutus Ess, who was once laughing at the dismay of the knight, laughed no longer.The steam sprayed out fast and while the knight’s hand reflected the symptoms of a person who was having a seizure, the rest of his body remained still. Soon, the fire died down.

“What the fuck is this?” Brutus blurted out in amazement of the whole spectacle.

Secrat said nothing. Confused, he looked over to Samuel Syi for confirmation of what he was seeing. Samuel stared at the display with a stone-face. The fire carried on for only a moment or two, but then went out. As it did, it became clear that the knight was unharmed. His face showed no burn marks or blisters, not even a singed mustache.

The knight sat up, his face also carried an expression of astonishment and surprise. The knight climbed back to his feet. It appeared he was every bit as surprised by the occurrence as they were.

“Well then, it would seem I have someone watching out for me!” The knight exclaimed waving his hand around in excitement.

In that moment, in that exact moment, an arrow went through the side of his skull. With his face now neither smiling nor intact, the knight slammed down to the ground Secrat Copé was able to even comprehend what had happened. Blood leaked out of his skull like yolk from a cracked egg, but Secrat’s eyes were no longer fixed on the fallen knight. Instead, his eyes looked for the man who shot the arrow. Obscured from view, the man’s boots stomping down against the steps could be heard. At last, Marc Sero came into Secrat’s view, walking beyond the cells, looking back at them. He wore a plain expression, carrying neither a smile nor a smirk. If Secrat didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have even had any real assurance he was on their side. Other than the fact there was a dead Italina knight merely a few feet away, that is.

“I will be damned,” Brutus said beneath his breath will a quiet amusement on his face.

“Marc Sero could kill you before you even knew you were.” Copé was beginning to understand that statement a little more now. “he was just that good.”

“What took you so long?” Samuel said in jest, which drew a blank stare from Sero, like he actually thought Syi was being serious.

“Sorry,” Sero said, throwing a wooden bow onto the writing desk, “I had one idea laid out, but I couldn’t find the damn suit of armor.”

“I hate when that happens,” Secrat Copé said, biting his bottom lip and not knowing quite what to do with his hands.

His hands were interesting though and they were well worth the twiddling. Lukas Lewis seemed less than amused by Marc Sero’s rescue; his eyes shifted toward the massacred head of the knight. On the bright side, they wouldn’t have to worry about a lack of sauce for the noodles anymore. There was blood aplenty! Copé laughed some at the thought but knew Lukas wouldn’t have shared his sense of humor. Although Lukas did look beaten and defeated, he still wasn’t as broken up as Taison, who continued to sob and yell, holding his misshapen arm.

“How did you make it past the guards?” Samuel asked.

“Guards?” Marc Sero responded, “What guards?” Marc Sero stopped for a moment, looking at how bad his arrow tore into the knight. “Oh, uh, they are at King Harries’ speech.” Sero tugged for a second at the arrow in the knight’s skull, evidently wanting his arrow back. When it refused to give, he relented; disappointed.

“All of them?”

“Well, … I mean, … all of them … now,” Sero said, nudging at the knight with his boot.

“Since I couldn’t find the suit, I decided I would do something to make it easier on myself. I wrote a letter proclaiming that I would assassinate the King of Italina during his commemorative speech tonight. Then, I paid a peasant off to deliver the letter with some ill gotten coin, and it all worked out pretty well, I think.”

“Pretty well!?” Taison yelled out, his face drooling with snot, tears and spit, “Is this what you call pretty well!?”

The bone of his arm bulged out against his skin like a parasite trying to cut its way to freedom. Marc Sero looked down at him, in more ways than one, seeming less than sympathetic.

“Let’s find a way to get you guys out of those cells.”

“I think I have that covered,” Copé said, a small victory, if nothing else, “I took it from the knight.”

Samuel Syi nodded his head approvingly. Marc Sero walked over to the writing desk and began inspecting the various pieces scrolls strewn about. The Thief held the key in hands and went over to the cell. It took some maneuvering to fit his hands in between the bars with the shackles but he was eventually able to reach the keyhole. He smiled as he did it, for some reason, he found himself wanting to have the admiration of Marc Sero. Still, part of Secrat hated Marc for stealing his thunder. He had it. The knight may not have been killed, but he had the keys! The Thief imagined the scenario in his head, playing out with him being the hero that saved the troupe. As he pushed the key into the keyhole, he soon realized that the key didn’t fit. He tried a second key and then a third, only to realize that not a single one of them fit to the cell door. Marc Sero realized it at the same moment as Secrat. Marc Sero shook his head disapprovingly.

Then, Marc Sero leaned over behind the desk for a second. The second after, a ring of keys came flying from his hand into Secrat Copé’s cell.

“It was as if to say that, just because you are in a prison cell, the world doesn’t bend at your will, making every key be the one that leads to freedom,” Sero said. “One of these keys should do the trick though.”

It was difficult to distinguish for certain whether Marc Sero was actually annoyed or being playful. His voice stayed dry and without any hint toward his mind set. The Thief shook it off, however, choosing not to dwell. He reached for the keys and a sharp jolt of pain surged through his broken hand. After wincing, he grabbed them with the opposite hand and freed himself from his shackles. The cuffs left thick impressions on his wrists and he felt immediately relief when he parted with the restraints. He opened the cell door using another one of the keys, then, tossed them off to Samuel after doing so.

It felt nice to be free, although, he knew too well that actual freedom wouldn’t come until after they were beyond the walls of Italina. Secrat walked toward Marc Sero and the writing desk. These were the sheets of parchment that had the knight so interested, it seemed. They alluded to various different things – they were wanted posters mostly, composite drawings of Brutus and Secrat. Evidently, they hadn’t had the chance to draw up illustrations of Taison, Samuel, or Lukas yet. A moment later, Secrat shredded the sheets in half, scrunched them up into balls of paper, and threw them on the ground. They weren’t the best likenesses anyways, his nose was all wrong.

Samuel Syi’s cell opened. Syi, hurried, and shackle free, ran over to the knight. Copé watched him in intrigue. Samuel grabbed the knight’s hand like he was taken the hand of a fallen lover, but it wasn’t his hand Samuel was after. After he inspected the ring on his hand for a moment, he twisted it off promptly. There was a burn mark left on the knight’s hand, not unlike a burn mark that was around Samuel’s ring finger.

“Seems that is a special ring,” Secrat remarked, his eyes looking over while Lukas Lewis left his cell.

Special ring was an understatement. Apparently, it was a ring that made a person mostly impervious to fire.

Samuel looked up at him and smiled.

“A very special ring indeed.”

“Does it come with a story?” Secrat asked.

“Indeed, it does,” Samuel said, turning to look while Lukas joined his side.

“You will have to tell me it some day,” Copé said, watching Brutus fumble with the keys, now in his cell.

“I am afraid that story is one I will take to my grave.”

Secrat opted not to question him any further. The ring and its power was what he truly pondered on, but Samuel was allowed to have his secrets.

Brutus opened his cell door, the swelling on his bruised face having since gone down considerably, but his movements remained peculiar.

“I don’t know about all of you, but I have done ’bout had enough of Italina for one lifetime.”

His voice was less loud and raspy. Brutus, like the rest of them, was truly exhausted by the days occurrences.

“The guards won’t be gone for too much longer, and for all I know, there could still be one or two of them roaming about the castle upstairs,” Sero said, lifting his bow off from the table and advising them to leave.

“Do you have a means of transportation? We will need to get far from the castle and fast.” Lukas said, the first words he had said in a while.

What a pity, Copé’s had secretly wished the trauma of the day’s events had caused him to become mute.

“Yes, yes, I stole one of their big ugly carriages,” Marc answered.

“Where is it?” Lukas followed up.

“Oh, well, as fate would have it, it is in my back pocket. I didn’t want it to look obvious, after all,” Sero answered, then added: “It is outside, where else would it be, you idiot!?”

“The knights won’t let us through the gates, so this carriage will be of no use to use after a point,” Secrat interjected.

“I will smuggle you all, cover you with sheets and blankets.”

“They will recognize their own carriage.”

“Then we will string them up by their necks then!” Marc exclaimed. “You will have to forgive me for not thinking of everything.”

Once more, Copé found himself unsure on if Marc was annoyed with him or being playful.

“Can somebody help me?” The loud whimpering voice of Taison called out from behind them.

Secrat had almost forgotten he had existed. What a pleasant time that had been.

“I don’t know, are you going to try and be a hero again?” Copé asked, throwing a small smirk to Brutus, who seemed to be equally amused by Taison’s suffering.

“You didn’t exactly do a lot of good with your heroics either,” Lukas said back, in Taison’s defense.

“I saw our opportunity was slipping away and I reacted. How was I supposed to know he was fireproof?” Copé asked, as he started walking toward Taison’s cell.

Frightened, Taison reached for Copé’s hand.

“Not quite,” quipped The Thief, bowing his head at where Lukas Lewis threw the keys in Taison’s cell.

Taison reciprocated the nod, now knowing, and with his good hand, gave Secrat the key ring. Copé resisted the urge to walk away and leave him as a joke. He must have been as tired as Brutus, to where even being mean didn’t bring him the satisfaction it once did. Instead, he unlocked the cell door and walked inside the cell in front of Taison. The round thief held his good hand up for Secrat, who obliged and exerted himself to assist Taison. He had a half idea to lift him up by his neck, twist him and ring out all the idiot from him like dirty water from a rag, and that half desire was all but enough to hatch an idea. Secrat freed his hand from Taison, causing him to fall backward to the floor and let out a shriek of dismay.

Lukas glared at him, but Copé didn’t care in the least.

“String ’em by their necks, string ’em by their necks,” he kept hearing Marc Sero say repeatedly in his head.

He didn’t know why. He didn’t know why the words were important, why they meant anything. Until, at last, he looked up to the end of the room and remembered the gallows – nooses hanging from the ceiling over a wooden platform. Copé twirled his useless keys in his hand and thought. Marc caught Secrat looking at the gallows.

“And they call us the bad ones,” Marc Sero said dryly.

Really, Marc Sero was such a stoic, subdued individual, Secrat wasn’t certain if he could enunciate his thoughts in a way that wasn’t dry. With what he said, however, Secrat had hatched an idea.

“We can ascend the walls, same as I did to escape the first time,” Secrat announced.

He drew eyes from about everyone except for Lukas, who was still busy tending to Taison.

“That is thirty feet, slugger,” Brutus fired back. “Even if I hadn’t been shot with an arrow, I still wouldn’t be able to climb that damn thing, in case you forgot.”

“We will pull you up by a rope,” Secrat said, pointing at the nooses.

“I start one little bar fight and suddenly you are ready to kill me off?” Brutus feigned being offended.

Secrat ignored him; he looked over to Samuel Syi and Marc Sero instead.

Marc shrugged his shoulders, “It sounds about as good as anything I can think of.”