The Elemental Jewels (Book 1) (8 page)

“No,” Grange replied mildly.

“That answers that,” the officer said dismissively.

“May I look inside?” Grange asked.  He was counting on gaining freedom to look around inside the building, so he asked in as inoffensive a tone as possible.

“Help yourself,” the officer dismissively said.

“If you find Arabe you can have him, and if you find the lady friend, send her out here,” another officer chimed in, releasing another round of laughs.

Grange slid between the men and entered the house, finding silence inside, as he moved away from the rambunctious officers.  The building was housing and office space, he noted as he prowled around.  He passed through to the back of the house, then found steps down to a cellar, and cautiously descended.  It was nearly pitch black, so he stood on the packed earth floor of the cellar for several minutes, until his eyes adjusted, and he saw what he wanted – a set of shelves with several of the ceramic jugs stored away.

He grabbed one, then climbed the steep, rickety stairs and retreated out the rear of the house.  He prowled down the back of several of the homes, then circled back around to the street in front.

His plan was becoming clearer now.  He headed towards the blue section, then stopped a guard just before he entered the rows of blue tents.

“I’m coming over from the yellow sector – Matey’s the man who runs everything there.  Who keeps it under control here in the blue?” he asked, still posing in his purloined guard uniform.

“I’ve heard of Matey; he’s got a reputation,” the guardsman said.  “I’d rather stay here with Griswol, who’s not so bent on revenge.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Grange answered, then passed into the blue encampment’s territory.

He began to walk along an aisle between two rows, uncertain of where to go, but walking with a brisk pace so that he would appear confident of his direction.  When he reached a crossing aisle where three men sat on stools tossing dice, he stopped to ask directions.

“Where can I find Captain Arabe?” he asked the men.

“Go down this way,” one of the men pointed.  “Then turn right, and look for the brick cabin at the end of the row.  If he’s not on duty, he’ll be there,” the man gave a knowing grin that made the others chuckle.

Grange waved his thanks, then followed the directions, and five minutes later he reached the crudely built cabin.  He approached the flimsy wooden door, then knocked firmly, before he stepped back.  A voice faintly spoke in unintelligible words, making him steps to the door again.

“Hello?” he called.  “Captain Arabe?”

A voice sounded again, and he cautiously pressed the door open, then looked inside the single room structure.

The interior was dim, with thick cloth curtains over the two windows.  There was a small stove on one side, and a bed on the other.  Clothes were scattered around the floor surrounding the bed, and in the bed lay a still-sleeping woman.

“Not yet, Ahabe,” she said drowsily.

Grange stood in the doorway, surveying the scene, then stepped in and pressed the door closed.

There were clothes on the floor – potentially the clothes that held the jeweled brooch he had come to steal.  All his planning might prove to be needless, if it proved to be as easy as it seemed.

He quietly stepped over by the bed and began picking up pieces of clothing, tossing some aside immediately, while subjecting others to a thorough search in hopes of finding the item he wanted.

“Who are you?” the woman’s voice was suddenly alert, and he looked up to see her sitting up in the bed, holding her cover in front of her torso, as she looked at him.

“I was sent to deliver this to Captain Arabe,” Grange answered.   He slowly rose from his crouch, and stepped back.  “Would you like to have some?” he held the jug out to her, offering it by removing the cork from the mouth.

“You come into my room and try to get me drunk on that untamed moonshine?  No my young seducer, you’ll need to offer something better than that.”  She looked at the window above the bed, then twisted and reached up to pull the curtain aside momentarily, judging the time, before she turned back to Grange, who was momentarily distracted by the long stretch of pale white skin that her back had shown him, a smooth, blemish-free plane that had rippled slightly with the contractions of the muscles underneath as the woman had turned so gracefully.  What was Lurinda doing, he momentarily asked himself.  Would her skin have looked like that, he wondered.

“I see that look in your eye,” the woman snapped him out of his momentary reverie.  “Arabe’ll be back here any moment now.  If you’ve got a business proposition, make it fast, and let’s get on with it,” she told him.

She reached out and took the jug from him.  “It may rot my guts out, but I’ll try a swig of your drink,” she said, then held the container high overhead and drank with gusto.

“Fleutitia!”a voice called, as Grange belatedly realized that the door had opened, and an officer was standing in the entrance, looking at the pair of them.

“Arabe!  Help me,” the woman instantly sounded like a little girl as she dropped the jug and pulled the cover up to her neck.

“This soldier was going to harm me,” she pointed at Grange as she looked pitifully towards the officer.

Grange knew that things had gone wrong, terribly wrong.  He made an instant decision, relying on the instincts that had let him escape from other close scrapes in the past.  He stepped up onto the bed, making the woman shriek, then dove through the window, and landed outside the cabin, hitting the ground hard with his shoulder, causing him to wince in pain.  He got up, as he heard shouting in the cabin, and started running.

He grappled with his purloined uniform jacket as he ran, trying to unbutton it.  A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that Captain Arabe was running after him, as the woman peered out of the open doorway.

Grange made a quick cut to his right, slipping between two tents.  He paused for a moment to rip his guard pants down and off, then started running down the next aisle between tents, throwing his guard uniform jacket behind him, revealing the blue uniform that he wore as his first attempt at misdirection.

“Stop that man!  Grab him!” Arabe’s voice called.

Grange saw men looking at him, and then one came flying at him from the side, making him swerve desperately to avoid capture.  He sprinted even harder, then cut, wheeled in the opposite direction and started running between tents again, looking desperately for someplace to lose the pursuit.

If he was in Fortune, he would have crawled into a sewer by this time in the flight, he told himself.

A man suddenly appeared in front of him, a look of surprise on the man’s face at the sudden appearance of the streaking Grange.  There were tents on both sides, and so he dove at the ground, trying to roll into the tent and continue his escape.   He made it beneath the heavy canvas wall, then struck his head as he rose; he was underneath a set of bunkbeds he realized, so he rolled across the floor and lifted the canvas wall on the other side, while he heard someone enter the tent.

There was shouting on all sides, but he didn’t stop as he began to worm his way out of the tent, until he felt a hand clamp onto his ankle.  Grange desperately kicked his ankle trying to break free, but then a pair of guards appeared next to him in the space between the tents, and he knew his escape was over.

He gave a sobbing breath, then relaxed and went limp, laying on the ground and looking up at the sky as a number of men circled around him, bending and grabbing him, thrusting him up and into the aisle between the tents, where a red-faced Captain Arabe came running up out of breath.

“What did you do to her?  What did you do to my Fleutita?!” the officer screamed.

“Bring him!  We’ll take him back to the scene of the crime,” he commanded the guards, and Grange was roughly manhandled back towards the brick cabin.

“He made me drink from that jug,” the girl told Arabe, when they returned to the cabin.  She was wearing some of her clothing, but not all – just a few strategically closed items that tantalized the men around.  There were a great many men, a crowd drawn by the drama and the expectation for instant justice to be meted out against Grange.

“He said we were going to do unspeakable things, after I was drunk,” she tearfully told the captain, hanging on his shoulder fearfully.

“I prayed that you would come rescue me, and you did,” she added softly.

Grange looked at her, spotting the green emerald brooch that hung from her blouse, a pattern of gold worked into a flower shape, with the emeralds forming the many petals of the blossom.  It looked gorgeous, as rays of sunlight sparkled off the facets of the stones.

“He’s looking at me!” the woman suddenly spoke again.  “Send him away – make me feel safe again.”

“Take him to the tunnel,” Arabe instructed the guards who held Grange.  “Tell the supervisor there that this one is never to see the sunlight again.  He’s permanently assigned to work in the tunnel.

“Now take him away, before I kill him myself,” he insisted.

Grange was jerked by the two guards and dragged away, the circling crowd parting to make way for him to pass through, as the guards silently moved him.

“Take me to the yellow sector,” Grange demanded, when they were several steps away from the cabin.  “I want to see Matey,” he told the guards.

“What’s Matey got to do with this?” one of the guards asked.

“I’m from the yellow sector.  He knows me,” Grange answered.  “He’ll want to see me,” he added.

The pace of the guards slowed momentarily.

“We don’t want to get on the wrong side of Matey,” one of them said in a low voice.

“It’ll only take a minute,” the other answered, and they resumed their pace, dragging Grange through the camp.  “And he’ll pay if he’s lying.”

“I’ll walk,” he insisted, shaking one arm loose so that he could turn around and be escorted in a more dignified manner.

Minutes later they entered the yellow portion of the camp, and proceeded to Matey’s tent.  The two guards in the front of the tent stood at attention as the guards in the army uniforms approached with Grange.

“Our pardon for interrupting, but this boy was found trying to assault a lady in the blue section.  He’s been sentenced to serving his duty in the tunnels, permanently,” one of the escorts told Matey’s guards.  “He claims he’s from yellow, and he wants to see Matey.”

“We didn’t know, you know?” the second guard added apologetically.  “So we wanted to give Matey the chance, in case, you know,” the man indistinctly apologized.

One of Matey’s guards nodded, then stepped inside the tent.  There was a low conversation, and the guard came back out.

Just then there was a call from nearby.  “Grange?  Did you change colors?” Garrel called as he stepped out of his tent and saw his friend with the surrounding guards.

Matey stepped out before there was any answer.  He looked at Grange with an expressionless face, then looked at Garrel.

“Send him in,” he motioned towards Grange, then returned inside his tent.

One of Matey’s guards motioned as well, and held the canvas flap open, then let the material fall closed.

“What happened?” Matey asked in a flat voice.  “I gave you one simple assignment, and you screwed it up right out of the gate,”

“It was difficult,” Grange replied.  “I’m a pick pocket, not a thief.”

“Well, you’re a caught thief now,” Matey told him.  “go to the tunnel, stay alive, stay out of trouble, and I’ll get you out in a few months.”

“Months?” Grange exploded.  “Months underground?”

“You’ll miss the whole winter – it’s really a better deal for you.  Now be a man and go.  I’ll get you when it’s time, and we’ll see if you can do better next time.

“Go,” he dismissed Grange, and turned away.

Chapter 5

Stunned by Matey’s rejection of his plea for help, Grange stood still, then turned and angrily pressed the canvas doorway aside as he stepped outside.

“Grange, what’s happening?” Garrel asked as Grange stepped forward.

“I’m being sent to the tunnel,” Grange replied.

There was a small sound behind him.  “I don’t want him to be lonely; send his friend with him too,” Matey’s voice growled.

One of Matey’s guards stepped over and grabbed Garrel’s shoulder in a viselike grip, making the boy fall to his knees.

“That’s not fair!  He hasn’t done anything!” Grange protested.

“What’s happening?” Garrel repeated.

A fresh set of guards appeared from somewhere, alerted by a signal Grange hadn’t seen.  The two boys were dragged away from Matey’s tent.

“Grange, tell me what this is about!” Garrel shouted.

“I was arrested for trying to steal a piece of jewelry,” Grange answered.  “I’m sorry you got trapped in this.

“He had nothing to do with it!” Grange told the guards that were escorting them, knowing that the protest would do no good.

“Silence!” one of the guards shouted, and cuffed Grange soundly.

The two of them were quick-marched across the camp to the entrance to the tunnel.

“These have been assigned to permanent duty in the tunnel.  They are not to be exchanged or released under any conditions,” the guard told the security at the entrance to the tunnel.

“Why not just kill them?  It’d be easier for them and us,” one of the receiving guards asked.

Grange’s escort shrugged.  “It’s the orders, not my decision.”  He roughly pushed Grange forward.  “They’re yours now.

“Say good bye to the sun,” he cruelly told Grange, then turned and walked away with the other escorting guards, leaving Grange and Garrel in the hands of the surprised tunnel guards.

“Take ‘em back and put ‘em to work,” one guard told the other, and they started walking back into the tunnel.

“It’s dark in here,” Garrel complained, as they walked in a long stretch between flickering torches.

“Get used to it; this’ll seem like daylight to you in a few weeks,” the guard commented without sympathy.

“You’ve been here before?” Garrel asked the still stunned Grange.

“Yesterday,” he agreed.

“Matey told me to go steal a piece of jewelry from a woman,” he finally began to explain to Garrel what had led to their precipitous exile.  “And the woman woke up, then her officer walked in, and I couldn’t escape – I didn’t have a safe place planned, and I didn’t have a back up to distract their attention.”

“Hockis would tell you that’s sloppy planning,” Garrel admonished him.

“Matey says that he’ll get us out of here,” Grange tried to be positive.

“When?  How long?” Garrel immediately asked.

“In the spring,” Grange glumly admitted.

“The spring?  Grange, have you got any idea what that means?  Months living in a hole in the ground?  Even the rats in the sewer back in Fortune got out more than that!”

They both fell into silence as they made the long trek back to the end of the working portion of the tunnel.

The guard turned them over to the foreman of the working shift, with directions to keep them in the tunnel, then he returned to the tunnel’s opening, leaving the two newcomers a part of the work crew.

“You get to work helping haul the rubble out in the wheelbarrows,” the foreman directed Garrel.  “You take a pick and get back there to the end of the section and get to work,” he told Grange.

Grange and Garrel looked at one another, then parted ways as directed.  Grange went back past the other workers, who were swinging their picks in a desultory manner, breaking away small chunks of stone as they reluctantly widened the canal tunnel.

He reached the black emptiness that was the end of the tunnel, and he began to swing his pick.  The first time the metal implement struck the stony wall in front of him, it released a shower of sparks, green flashes that made Grange think of the green jewels he had intended to steal on Matey’s orders.  The jewelry brooch had been a beautiful piece of work, one the likes of which Grange had rarely seen in the city – never among his own class of people.

He swung the pick again, and felt it dislodge a large cache of rubble, while causing another explosion of green sparks.  The flight of the small glowing embers was a thing of beauty it seemed – he found that in the darkness he appreciated the fraction of a second of illumination as the sparks arced gracefully up and then floated down before extinguishing.

Grange continued to tear into the wall, creating more and more rubble, and more and more sparks, until Garrel and another worker brought wheelbarrows to haul away the stones Grange had knocked loose.

“You’ve created more back here by yourself than any three of the others,” Garrel told him.  “You should slow down and take it easy.”

“Maybe we can see the sunlight sooner if I dig our way out this end,” Grange said with a grin, though his friend couldn’t see it in the darkness.

“You keep telling yourself that,” the other laborer said.  “We’re years away from seeing this tunnel completed.” 

The two men left with their loads of stones, and Grange resumed working.

Did you like the jewels?
A voice asked as he swung the pick.

“Who said that?” he asked in astonishment, looking around in the darkness.  There was no one present.

“Who’s there?” he spoke again, holding his pick in front of him, as he stood with his back turned towards the stone wall.  There were a few feeble rays of light that penetrated to his position from the nearest lantern, but the light revealed no one else present.

“I must have imagined it,” he muttered to himself, his head still swiveling as he tried to find any sign of movement, any evidence of another person’s presence, without success.

Dissatisfied, but convinced that he could see no one, Grange turned back to the wall, raised the pick, and struck the mountain’s innards once again.  More stones flew loose, then crumbled casually as he raised the pick for the next blow.  His arms were tiring from the grueling task, and he began to slow his work as the burn increased in his muscles.

Grange’s mind wandered as he remained alone in the darkness.  He thought about Lurinda, and he thought about Hockis.  He remembered the strange dark creatures he had glimpsed back in the city of Fortune, and he wondered what they were.  He let his mind circle about, until he heard Garrel’s voice hail him.

“Here’s dinner,” his fellow prisoner told him.  “We’re done for the day.”

Garrel arrived with a candle in one hand, a pair of buckets of food in the other, and a pair of blankets thrown over his shoulder.  The two friends settled down among the stones and ate their meal, as Garrel described the other prisoners he had worked with during the day.  Grange listened, and kept quiet about the voice he imagined he heard.  The candle eventually guttered out, and they curled up with their blankets in the absolute darkness and silence, and went to sleep.

They were awoken the next morning by the sound and light from other workers arriving in the tunnel, and they received loaves of bread that they ate for breakfast, before resuming their work once again.

The day was a long one, interrupted for Grange after several hours of labor, when a bright flash of green sparks reminded him once again of the ill-fated jewels he had tried to steal.  In his memory the jewels were bright and shiny and desirable – he wondered if he would have kept them, or given them to Matey, if he had happened to acquire them.

The jewels are lovely.  Would you keep them?  Would you care for them?
A voice asked.

“Who said that?  Where are you?” Grange cried out.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” he asked.

There was silence once again, and he stopped working to look around, just as Garrel and another man came with wheel barrows to haul away his progress.

“Were you two talking?” Grange asked.  “I thought I heard someone talking.”

The two looked at one another in the darkness.

“We weren’t talking,” Garrel replied.  “There was probably just an echo from somewhere in the tunnel.  I’ve heard some strange echoes back where we transfer the rubble.”

“It seemed like the voice was talking to me,” Grange began to explain, then decided not to pursue the topic.

He heard no more that day, and he listened quietly as Garrel spoke while they ate dinner that night.  “No one is really trying to build this tunnel.  You work harder than anyone else I’ve seen,” Garrel told him.

“The other prisoners say that the officers and the guards are making so much money here that they aren’t in a hurry to move the canal project along.  And the top dog prisoners like Matey are doing well, so they keep the rest of us in line,” Garrel explained.  “The officers are mostly noblemen, who just make a lot of money by keeping extra pay from the Tyrant’s government, and then they go home after a year or two, and more noblemen come in.”

Grange shook his head at the preposterous notion that anyone would want to prolong the existence of the labor camp, and the two companions soon went to sleep.

For the next several days, the work in the tunnel remained the same.  Garrel hauled stones, while Grange worked in solitude, and every day he heard an imaginary voice question him about the jewels that continued to weigh on his mind.

“Who are you?  Am I going crazy?” he asked questions every time the voice spoke, but never received an answer.

“The weather is getting colder outside,” Garrel told him one day.  “People say it’s starting to show signs of winter up in the mountains.  Maybe we’re doing okay to be here inside,” he tried to make the best of the situation.

“I’d like to feel warm, really warm,” Grange replied.  The air in the tunnel might not reach the extreme chill of the outside air, but it never felt warm.  Even when he exerted himself, with the pick, the sweat on his back quickly evaporated away, leaving him cool once again.

After a fortnight in the tunnel, as Grange questioned his own sanity, there came a day when the questions arose once again, as they seemed to every day. 
Do you admire the jewels
? the unknown voice asked.

“Yes, I admire them.  They’re beautiful to look at,” Grange snapped a reply, the first time he had actually answered the unseen questioner, instead of asking questions of his own.

Would you treasure them and keep them safe?
The voice asked.

“I’m a prisoner in a labor camp,” he answered cynically.  “I can’t keep them safe from being stolen.”

If you went free, would you value and protect your gems?
The voice pressed the issue.

“If they were as beautiful as those green jewels, I would protect them as well as possible,” Grange agreed.

And you would admire them, always?
the next question sounded in the tunnel air.

“I always thought that we should love people, not things,” Grange answered.  “But I’ve never seen jewels up close before.  Yes, I would admire them – they’re beautiful, just pure beauty.  They aren’t tainted with evil or jealousy or pride; they’re just pretty for the sake of being pretty.”

Ah
, the voice said
. You truly are the one – she chose well
, it asked no more questions.

Grange didn’t tell Garrel about the strange conversation when they had dinner that night.  It was evidence that he was going crazy, suffering from being isolated in the darkness, he realized.  He simply listened to Garrel talk about the other prisoners and the gossip that came from the camp outside the tunnel.

The next day, he was working alone once again.  His arms were no longer sore from wielding the pick; he’d grown inured to the strain, as his muscles strengthened.

Are you ready?
The voice in the tunnel asked.

“Ready for what?” Grange asked.

You’re about to reach the jewels.  You’ll set them free, and claim them for the time being,
the voice replied. 
You will be allies with them
.

“What jewels are you talking about?” Grange asked, perplexed. 

Keep digging, and you’ll find out,
the voice assured him.

It was a terrible thing to go crazy in the dark, Grange told himself.  He lifted his pick and struck the wall again, and as he did there was a peculiar sound, a hollowness to the mountain, and a sudden glowing light that emanated outward from fine cracks that he could see in the wall.

You’ve done it!  You’ve awoken them,
the voice said triumphantly, and as he looked at the light, Grange realized that he perhaps was not going insane.

Go gently now, with your hands
, the voice ordered.

Grange dropped the pick in astonishment.  He knelt by the light, and pulled with all his strength at one of the rugged outcroppings in the vicinity of the light, where a pair of fine lines intersected.  The stone came free with an unexpected release, and he flew backwards, landing on his seat on the floor of the tunnel, a large chunk of stone in his hand.  As he looked, the light that shone from the new opening began to fade.