Brechalon (3 page)

“
Thanks,” he said, turning and
walking out of the servant’s hall. Nobody noticed Yuah giving him
just the same sort of look that she had been receiving from young
Saba just a few minutes before.

Chapter Two: In Distance
Places

Schwarztogrube sat atop the Isle of Winds,
situated almost exactly in the center of the channel between
Brechalon and Freedonia. Its massive stone walls rising high above
jagged cliffs were not broken by a single door. The few windows
visible were all far too small for anything approaching the size of
a human being to pass through. The only entrance was through a
secret passage at the water’s edge: gated, guarded, and locked. The
towers rising up into the sky were topped with pointed minarets
allowing no entrance from the air. The waters around the tiny
island were constantly patrolled by Brech warships. Inside,
Schwarztogrube was the harshest, ugliest, and most formidable
prison in the world, yet few even knew of its existence.

Nils Chaplin had been a guard at Schwarztogrube
for almost a whole week before he saw a prisoner. That wasn’t so
surprising, considering the guards outnumbered them at least ten to
one. An entire wing was devoted to incarcerating only about two
dozen men. The prisoners carried out their lives, such as they
were, never leaving their cells, but supplied with food and a few
simple comforts such as a pillow, a blanket, or a book. None of
them looked particularly dangerous, and they weren’t. At least they
weren’t while they were here. Schwarztogrube was a magic prison. A
prison set aside for wizards and sorcerers—the only place in the
world where magic would not work.

It was his third week and Chapman was looking
forward to a week off back in Brechalon, spending his paycheck,
eating fish and chips, and enjoying life outside of massive stone
bocks, when another guard, Karl Drury, at last led him to the north
wing. Chapman didn’t like Drury. He told disgusting jokes to the
other guards; viciously beat the prisoners, and when he could get
away with it he buggered the boys working in the kitchen or at the
dock. He also stank. But as Chapman followed Drury though the
deathly cold stone walls, he wasn’t thinking about the other
guard’s shortcomings. He was wondering at the empty cells that they
passed. Finally they came to the one door that was locked
shut.

“
Here we be,” said Drury. “That
there’s the only one in the entire wing.”

“
Special, huh?”

“
Take a butchers.”

Chapman pressed his face against the small
barred window. Most of the room beyond was dark, illuminated only
by a square of light carried in from a four by four inch window
high up on the far wall. The room had no pillows or blankets as did
the rooms in the south wing. There was no bed. The only thing in
the cell approaching furniture was a piss pot. Curled up in a fetal
position against the far wall was a human being. The dirty ragged
clothing and matted hair of unknown color gave no hint to the
identity of the figure.

“
Who is he?” wondered
Chapman.

“
That’s not a he. That’s a she. And
that’s the most dangerous creature in the world, that.”

“
Really?”

“
That’s what they say. So
dangerous, we’re not even ‘sposed to be here. Ain’t that right,
eighty nine?” he called to the prisoner. She didn’t stir. “Lucky
for us the warden’s gone to the mainland, eh?” Drury pulled out a
large key and placed it in the massive lock on the door.

“
Maybe we shouldn’t ought to do
this,” said Chapman.

Drury paid no attention. He opened the door and
swaggered into the cell. The woman curled up against the wall
didn’t move. When Drury had crossed the room to her, he nudged her
with the toe of his boot.

“
Get up, eighty nine.” She remained
still.

The sadistic guard grabbed a handful of the
prisoner’s dirty, matted hair and dragged her to her feet. Chapman
could finally make out that she was a woman. She was thin. She
looked half starved, but he could still tell that she had once had
quite a figure. Drury held her up by her hair, presenting her for
view as if she were a freshly caught trout.

Suddenly the woman came to life, kicking the
guard in the shins. Drury let go of her hair and knocked her to the
ground with a back-hand slap. She looked up at him and even across
the poorly-lit cell, Chapman could see the hatred in her cold grey
eyes. She pointed her hand and spat words that might have been a
curse in some ancient, unknown language.

“
Uastium premba uuthanum tachthna
paj tortestos—duuth.”

Even here in Schwarztogrube, where no magic in
the world would work, Chapman could have sworn that he felt a
tingle in the air. Nothing else happened though. Drury kicked her
in the face, knocking her onto her back. He kicked her again and
again. And again. Finally he grabbed her once more by the hair and
lifted her to her feet. With his other hand, he began unfastening
his trousers. Chapman turned and left. He didn’t need to see
this.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Arthur McTeague paced back and
forth, from one end of the small clearing to the other. Around him
grew the dense forest full of incredibly high redwoods and huge
maples. Most of his platoon was gathering together brush to build a
barrier around the spot that had been chosen as their campsite for
the night. The remainder were laying out fuel, tinder, and kindling
for the campfires. McTeague’s fellow lieutenant, Augustus P.
Dechantagne, sat on a large rock at the edge of the
clearing.

“
I signed up for the artillery,”
said McTeague. “What about you, Augie?”

“
Artillary.”

“
Then how come we’re out here in
the middle of nowhere, not a cannon in sight?”

“
You’re lucky they let you have a
rifle,” said Augie as he pulled an envelope from his tunic
pocket.

“
What’s that then?”

“
Letter from my sister.”

“
Anything interesting at
home?”

Augie handed him the letter, and he read
through it quickly.

“
Wow. Tender.”

“
Oh, she loves me in her own
way.”

“
Anything else in the
envelope?”

“
Just my allowance.” Augie held up
a wire transfer in the amount of two thousand marks.

“
Kafira! You can have quite a week
on the town with that. All you can drink. Good food.
Women.”

“
Do you see any women?” asked
Augie, waving in the direction of the tall trees. “Do you see any
food? I’m not even sure I can cash this when we get back to
Mallontah. How likely is it that someone there will have two
thousand marks lying around? I’d have been better off if she sent
me a five pfennig piece taped to the inside of the envelope like my
Auntie Gin used to do. It’s a good thing I have two bottles of
contraband in my pack.”

“
That’s what I like about
you—always prepared.”

That night, the two bottles were produced, one
passed around among the men and the other shared by the two
lieutenants as they warmed their feet by the campfire, their heads
resting on their packs. The noises of this strange forest were far
different than back home. There were squawks and squeaks and in the
distance, roars. Not distant enough for McTeague’s
taste.

“
Don’t worry,” said Augie. “They’re
more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“
I can attest to the fact that that
is not the case.”

The next morning all of the men expressed
similar concerns as an entire herd of great beasts made their way
through the nearby forest, heedless of the humans. The monsters
were up to twelve feet tall and thirty five feet long, though there
were many smaller members of the species among them. Though their
bumpy skin and thick legs put one in mind of an elephant, they
walked on hind legs, only sometimes using quadrupedal locomotion.
Their heads were shaped something like the head of a horse, but
their long, heavy tails spoke of their reptilian
origins.

“
What are they called again?”
wondered McTeague.

“
Dinosaurs,” said Augie. “All I can
think of when I see them is the size of the brisket you could
get.”

“
I doubt it would taste
good.”

“
Our cook back home, Mrs.
Colbshallow, can make anything taste good. Let’s get the men
together and get going. If those are the sheep in this country, I
don’t want to see the wolves.”

The column of forty two soldiers dressed in
blue and khaki walked north, away from the dinosaurs. Though the
ground was thick with rhododendrons and other small brush, there
were enough game trails that overland travel was not too slow.
Along the way the men saw more and more of the strange creatures,
though Augie didn’t know if the smaller ones were rightly
dinosaurs. They had feathers and looked much more like scary birds.
They marched all morning and came to their destination just after
noon. It didn’t look any different than a hundred other forest
clearings except that this clearing contained the parties they were
sent to meet.

Three creatures stood before the soldiers. They
were all well over six feet tall and they looked far more reptilian
than the dinosaurs or scary birds did, as though alligators had
been given the power to stand up on their back legs and use their
forelegs for hands as men did. Each had a long snout filled with
peg-like teeth and a long tail which trailed behind them, remaining
just a few inches above the ground. Though they wore no clothing,
their scaly bodies were painted in bizarre designs of red, black,
and white. All three as one raised their right hands, palms
outward, to the dewlaps on their throats and spoke a hissing
language.

“
What did they say?” asked
McTeague.

“
Something about a tree?” Augie
replied.

“
Aren’t you here as the
interpreter?”

Augie shrugged, and then spat out a series of
hisses and gurgles of his own.

“
Everything’s fine—greeting,
greeting, hail, hail, promise not to kill you, etc.”

“
Alright, tell them what I say.”
McTeague produced a note from his pocket and read it. “Hail to you
and your chief. We come to you in peace and friendship from across
the sea and bring you word from your new great chief that he now
claims these lands. So that you know your new great chief means
well, he has sent us with these gifts.”

As Augie translated, McTeague gestured to one
of the men who brought forth six small bags tied at the top.
McTeague handed two to each of the reptilians, one of whom opened a
bag, spilling out a handful of copper pfennigs into his
hand.

“
The army plans to win over the
lizardmen with twelve marks worth of coins?” wondered Augie, after
he had finished the reptilian tongue.

“
Coins good,” said one of the
lizardmen. “Like coins. Not kill you.”

* * * * *

Ssissiatok was returning to the village when
she heard their strangely musical voices. They didn’t sound like
the voices of the people and they didn’t sound like any of the
animals in the forest. She made her way through the trees toward
the sounds, carefully watching ahead as she moved through the
bushes. They were easy to spot. There were many of them and they
had bright blue upper bodies. They stood erect like her people, but
they didn’t have long thick tails to balance them. They didn’t have
tails at all. Then she saw that they were not alone. Tattasserott,
Ssterrost, and Toss were with them. They were talking with the
strange creatures. She ducked down into the bushes.

Ssissiatok was young. She had only grown tame
enough to enter into a hut a few years before. Like all young ones,
she had lived life as a wild animal from the time she was hatched
until she had become large enough. Then a group from her hut had
captured and tamed her and taught her how to be civilized. Now she
lived with a group of twelve others in a large square wooden home
where Toss was the elder.

She was close enough now that she could make
out Toss’s voice. He was saying something about trading to
Ssterrost. Then he began speaking the bizarre lyrical words of the
strangers. It seemed so strange to hear those sound coming from his
long handsome snout. As she watched, it suddenly occurred to her
that the blue and earth colors on the strangers were not their hide
or feathers, but some strange material that they had clothed their
bodies in. It made sense to her. They wore it like her people wore
their paint.

Suddenly one of the strangers called out in a
warbling cry. Many of the others took it up as well. Glancing
quickly to the Toss and the others, she could tell by their posture
that they were as startled as she was. The one that had started the
warbling was showing his teeth. She saw Toss relax. She remembered
what he had told her. They showed their teeth when they were
pleased.

The elder had spent many evenings telling her
and the others about when the strangers had come before. They had
come and gone when Toss was young and now they were back. Most
people thought they would leave again just like they had before,
but Toss thought that they might stay this time. Ssissiatok
wondered what they would do if they stayed. Would they build
villages like her people? Would they trade with them? Would they
fight?