Compendium (21 page)

26
The Dungeon

Lumin Cycle 10152

Mia
awoke completely disoriented.
The smell of mold assaulted her nostrils when she tried to suck in a deep breath. A sharp pain in her side further curtailed her breathing. She groaned, although she couldn’t say how she made the noise. She struggled to shift her body, but every muscle touched by movement screamed in defiant pain, so she resigned herself to lying still, even as she shivered from the chill of the stone seeping through her thin clothing. Mia had yet to open her eyes, and a fear settled into her stomach at the thought of what she would see when she did. Her head throbbed with each mangled thought that surfaced.

The scene in the Catacombs rushed back to her as she lay there, and she choked on a cry. Taryn had betrayed her. Taryn had taken the Shillelagh and left her. She couldn’t process that still. Why? Mia remembered her telling the Shillelagh to take her to Rosewater. Was that a place? Mia never had heard of it. Why would Taryn do such a thing?
I’ll never be able to ask her. She’s gone.
And the explosion!
Mia hadn’t expected such a rocketing surge of power. The force that had catapulted her off her feet and the clouds of debris dancing around her as she had lost consciousness returned as a sick lump in the pit of her stomach. She winced as a hot tear rolled down her cheek. The Crater Grove was a gorgeous spectacle of nature, and Mia had surely damaged it. That thought she could not abide. Imagining the Crater Grove in shambles, its roots dying, she slipped back into unconsciousness, this time filled with nightmares.

She woke again some time later—how much later she had no idea. This time she wasn’t alone in the dank room. She groaned and tried to roll onto her side, her head still throbbing and muscles aching. Her body still wasn’t overly cooperative, but she was able to at least prop herself up on one elbow. She finally opened her eyes. The light was incredibly dim, her vision blurred. She blinked a few times, and when her vision finally came into focus, Dominus Nikola was standing near the side of the room. She was in a cell, larger than the one in the brig. The room was stone on all six sides and had no cot. It was entirely empty except for a chamber pot and a wooden chair, which Dominus Nikola seated himself on. She gingerly pulled herself into a sitting position and leaned against the far wall.

They sat there in silence for a while. Mia had no idea what to say, and the Dominus didn’t seem in any great hurry. Finally he cleared his throat. “Ms. Jayne, do you understand where you are?”

“Am I in the dungeon?” she asked. When she spoke, the voice that emerged from her throat sounded hoarse and foreign.

“That is correct,” the Dominus replied. “Do you know why?”

“I stole the Shillelagh from the Catacombs,” she said, her voice cracking.

“That is certainly part of it,” he said. “You and Taryn Windbough conspired to steal the Shillelagh. In the process you significantly damaged the Crater Grove and allowed an artifact of the Order to be usurped.” His voice was devoid of emotion. Given the Dominus’s usual warmth, Mia found it unsettling.

“I didn’t know she was going to take it,” Mia said. “I just wanted to see Father, to confirm that he was dead. I just wanted to be free.”

She lay back down on her back, not trusting herself to speak any more at that moment.

“Ms. Jayne, I can’t help feel that these actions were extreme. Did it never occur to you to just ask us about your father?”

Mia narrowed her eyes. “You provided me with no answers when I asked. Brother Cornelius claimed not to know one way or the other, and Brother SainClair said he was dead. I didn’t feel the Order was giving me the answers to which I was entitled.”

“Entitled?” Dominus Nikola asked, leaning forward in his chair. His eyes flashed steely in the dim light. “Might I remind you that you chose to join the Order as an acolyte? That was the arrangement. This organization is responsible for the safekeeping of the artifacts of Lumin, as you are well aware. You may be able to use that artifact, Compendium, and that makes you valuable to the Order, but don’t think that such value makes you better than your peers.”

Mia scowled at the Dominus. “No one treats me as if I’m better than anyone else,” she said. “No one tells me anything.”

“Why should they? Have you earned this knowledge? Or special treatment?” He pointed a long finger at her. “You treat yourself as if you’re better than everyone else,” Nikola said, his face stern. “You flout the rules of our institution. You put your own needs and desires above those of the Order, of your friends, and even your father. Do you think he would be proud of his grown daughter acting like a petulant child?”

Mia’s frown deepened. She crossed her arms across her chest but didn’t speak.

“If Mr. Kannon hadn’t put two and two together”—he shook his head—“I hesitate to think on it.”

Mia’s stomach lurched sharply to the left. If she looked over, she was sure she’d see it lying outside of her body. Cedar had informed on her. He had looked her in the eye all those times, had pretended to be helping her, and actually had helped her even.
Had it been a farce all along?
She recalled his good-bye in the hallway outside the barracks, when he had whispered that he hoped she found what she needed. It had all been lies, all of it, from both him and Taryn. They both had betrayed her, one for the Order and the other for herself. Mia was apparently just a pawn in everyone’s stratagem. Her eyes welled with tears. Father was right; she shouldn’t have trusted anyone there. She was a fool to think she had found companions and friendship in a place like the Order. In the dim light she doubted Dominus Nikola could see her tears, but she would be blasted to the Core before he would hear her cry. Unable to speak without betraying her emotions, she just lay there.

“This isn’t the end of this,” Nikola said eventually, “but that can wait. I can see you’re still exhausted. The explosion rendered you unconscious for almost a week. Brother SainClair is still in the hospital.” He rose then, and another cleric retrieved the chair from the room. Nikola paused in the doorway and looked back at Mia. “Please think on what you have done,” the Dominus said simply, his voice remaining even but tinged with sadness. “We took you in and trusted you with Compendium, and you betrayed us.” With that, he left the room, the heavy door shutting behind him. The loud grind of a metal bolt sliding into a stone groove sounded on the other side of the door, and Mia was alone with her thoughts once again.

What did he mean by “trusted you”? Did Brother Cornelius tell the Dominus about Compendium?
She couldn’t think about that just yet. She needed to assess the damage. Her head and body still aching, she looked down and surveyed herself. She had been stripped of her acolyte robes and sash, with only her gauzy tropics clothing remaining. At least they had left her boots. Even with them, her feet were blocks of ice. They had confiscated her bag, her tools, Compendium, and even her mother’s locket. She gingerly touched parts of her body and face, wincing here and there, feeling bruises and cuts as her hand explored. A bandage was wrapped around her forehead. As she patted her legs, she felt something small tucked into a pocket. She carefully pulled it free and looked at it. She had expected her hands to be dirty and sticky, but they’d been cleaned at some point.

I’ve been out a week?
She recalled the wall of hot electric air hitting her in the chest and forcing her backward with great intensity. It was powerful indeed. In her palm sat the small stone Taryn had tossed at her as she had made her escape. She clenched it in her hand before dropping it to the floor of the cell with a clink.
How did that get into my pocket?

She drew her knees up to her chest, hoping that curling up would help warm her frigid extremities.
I don’t merit a bed
, she thought. Despite her anger at Taryn and Cedar, Nikola was right. She had betrayed the Order. She had been betrayed, just as surely, by those she had considered friends—her best friends—but she also had been the betrayer. Instead of airing her grievances with the Dominus, she had set upon her own solution. She cradled her head in her knees as she contemplated this mess of her own design. The image of Taryn’s apologetic expression as she tossed her the stone and called for Rosewater was etched in her mind behind her closed eyes, doomed to be repeated over and over.
Why was I such a fool? Such an obvious fool.
Mia pictured the clerics’ faces in her mind, looking at her derisively. It was as if they all had SainClair’s face. Brother Cornelius, Dominus Nikola, the other acolytes, even Sister Valencia—they all surely hated her now. They had believed she was one of them, just as surely as Mia had believed Taryn was her friend. No apologetic look could calm her rage when she thought about Taryn’s betrayal, yet she knew the others must feel the same about her.

Cedar was a separate matter altogether. Mia didn’t know what to make of his actions. He had set her up to be discovered as—and proved—a traitor. Perhaps even the warm feelings he had displayed were just a farce. That thought made her angry. She had warmed to him as well, confided in him, and shared parts of herself that she reserved entirely from others. She didn’t understand. If the Order had known all along, why did they let them take it as far as they did? Why not just imprison them when the first treacherous words had been uttered from their mouths? Why help them instigate a theft? Mia should have asked Dominus Nikola these questions. She had frozen up when he had mentioned Cedar’s betrayal, but she should have demanded some answers.

Yet Taryn had still escaped with the Shillelagh. How had the Order allowed that to come to pass? Mia recalled hearing words right as the world exploded. And Dominus Nikola had said Brother SainClair was still in the hospital, so he must have been there to stop them. Perhaps the clerics hadn’t anticipated the Shillelagh’s powerful blast, just as she and Taryn hadn’t, or they hadn’t thought one of them would betray the other. Still, they were a moment too late, and now Taryn had the Shillelagh. What she intended to do with it, Mia didn’t know. Taryn had played her for a fool. Was she even a gypsy? Was everything about her a lie? Mia recalled her cloak and the fact that she had taken only a history of the Order with her when she had left. She pursed her lips.

Taryn clearly had a genuine interest in the history of the Order, although likely not for the reasons she’d previously expressed. Mia squeezed her knees closer to her body as she recalled all the times she had pointed Taryn to an ancient text on some topic or another and smiled when the other acolyte furiously scribbled notes into her ever-present notebook. Mia had aided her in every way possible as she gathered intelligence on this place and these people. She buried her head deeper into her knees and lay there, reliving every moment of her friendships with Taryn and Cedar until she couldn’t bear to think of them anymore.

Mia
awoke again
, this time to the sound of the door bolt being thrown back. The door creaked open, and she looked over to see a robed figure, one of the clerics, though she couldn’t tell who, place a tray on the ground near the door. The figure left without saying a word, and the bolt returned to its resting place. She had fallen asleep with her knees to her chest and now tried to stretch out her legs again. The persistent pain shot through her cold-numbed flesh, and she gritted her teeth with the exertion.

The dank, moldy smell of her cell was improved by a warm, spicy odor wafting from near the door. Suddenly she was ravenously hungry, as if she hadn’t eaten for a week. And perhaps she hadn’t. Pushing her protesting muscles and joints aside, she half crawled, half scrambled to the tray. It was visible in the dim light of the single gourd fixed outside the cell door. The tray contained a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread. There was also a gourd of water. She drank a few gulps of the water first, quenching a thirst she barely recognized. In her haste, she swallowed some water into her lungs and coughed repeatedly to clear them, the exertion of the cough renewing the pain in her ribs. She wheezed, cradling her ribs for a moment until the lightheadedness passed.

She wanted to wolf down the stew in a single huge bite, but she made herself take a small bite, chew thoroughly, swallow, sit and wait, then take another bite. She probably hadn’t had solid food in at least a week, and she loathed the thought of bringing any of the precious stew back up. After a few bites, her stomach grew queasy, and she paused for even longer, desperate not to lose the nourishment. When she could stand it no longer, her stomach loudly protesting her decision to discontinue eating, she took another couple of bites, balancing the stew with small pieces of bread. She went like that, slowly, until every last speck of food was consumed and every last drop of water imbibed. Her stomach churned, but it was worth the pain. She lay back against the wall near the door, her raw bones and muscles pushing up against the stone walls, and longed for her lumpy cot in the barracks, or better yet, her soft bed in Hackberry, with Hamish warming her feet and snoring loudly. She smiled to herself. Hamish reminded her of Father.

It was easier to think of her life with Father and Hamish in the abstract. Memories made everything too real, too palpable. They brought to the surface the unconditional love that she so desperately missed. Even if Father had betrayed her, she certainly knew Hamish’s love had been real. That ridiculous mutt with his stubby limbs and lolling tongue, always ready to pounce inelegantly after some small creature he could never quite catch.