PIERCING COLD WATER cascaded over Shikoba’s body, plunging her into a shivering bath that brought her eyes open as wide as an owl’s. She gasped, pushing herself upright as a second bucket of water was upended over her head.
“Stop!” she screamed, struggling to breathe. The cold water took her breath away. She pushed her sodden ebony hair back from her face, swiping the rivulets of water from her forehead. Or she tried to. A large iron shackle attached each wrist to a heavy iron chain, the loops of which dragged down her wrists with their weight. She let her hands drop into her lap and attempted to make sense of the scene in front of her.
The stone room was long and narrow with small windows high up in the wall set with iron bars. At one end were two bowls and a mat made of woven rushes. One bowl contained water, and the other was empty. But none of these things interested Shikoba. It was the black boots standing in front of her that drew her gaze. Slowly her eyes rose past tan trousers and a tunic of heavy leather, stamped with dragons and runes, past a cinched belt with a heavy brass buckle and up to strong forearms covered in tattoos. The right hand held another bucket of water at the ready.
Heaving air into her lungs that had fled with first frigid bucketful of water, she gasped, “Stop, please!”
Reluctantly, she looked up the rest of the way to peer at a dearly familiar face. Casper had grown, aged. Gone was the fleshy, lazy boy of their youth. In his place had grown a middle-aged man in his prime: tall, muscular, and lethal. Bronze hair curled to his shoulders, accentuating a straight nose and heavy brows. A square chin held compressed lips, thinned into a frown.
“Get up, Shikoba. Your presence is commanded. You stink like a horse’s ass.”
“Casper! You…have changed.” The words trailed away as he lifted a mocking eyebrow.
His gaze swept over her, noting the fleeting changes and dismissing them. “Whereas, you are still the same bony wretch you were when we were kids. If there was ever any doubt that your allegiance is to the witches, it is gone now. Only a witch can slow their aging.”
“What has happened to you?” Shikoba pleaded. “We were best friends. Don’t you remember?” Shikoba shivered and tried to wrap her arms around herself, only to come up short. The chains were fastened to a pair of leg shackles that she hadn’t noticed before.
“Friends?” he snorted. “Is that what you call it? You abandoned your people, Shikoba. You abandoned your friends, your family, your tribe. You left them behind to suffer at the hands of strangers, invaders from other provinces. You abandoned us all.” His eyes raked over her, anger igniting the light of revenge in their dark depths. “You abandoned me.”
“I did not abandon you! I honoured my calling. It’s your calling, too! Or have you forgotten? You are a heart bearer. You were to be trained as I was trained. We were chosen.”
“I received my training from the emperor, Shikoba. He showed me the error of the witches’ teachings, of how they twist the truth and horde magic to themselves. My training has been so much more thorough than yours. You are still a child. I have had decades to hone my skills with magic. I know things you can’t begin to dream of. And now you will be taught to serve the emperor.”
“I will not serve him. I have come to stop him!”
Casper threw back his head and barked a laugh at the ceiling of the cell. “Really, Shikoba, you are amusing.” He set the bucket down and tossed a bundle to the ground beside her. It fell in a puddle soaking up the water. “Emperor Madrid demands your presence. You will not go to him stinking like a pig. The water is warm, or it was. You will bathe and dress, then I will take you to him.”
“How am I supposed to bathe and dress with shackles on?”
“Easy.” He pulled a long knife from his belt and grabbed the collar of her tunic. With a long ripping tear, he cut it from top to bottom. The sides flapped open. Shikoba shrieked and fell back away from him, which exposed even more flesh. Casper took his time admiring Shikoba’s form. She flopped over, turning her back to him to cover herself. Casper took it as an invitation to cut the rest of her clothing apart, and they fell as rags to the floor. “Now bathe and get dressed. If you are not finished in one minute, I will bathe you myself.” He leered at the curve of her back, following its course to her bottom.
“Get out and I will! Get out!” she yelled.
She heard Casper’s low snicker, then footsteps and the opening and closing of the door. She hazarded a glance over her shoulder. She was alone. Gingerly, she got to her feet and shook off the rest of her tattered robes, then knelt in front of the bucket. It was reasonably warm, certainly a lot warmer than the cold buckets that she had been emptied over her earlier. She dunked her head into the bucket and quickly splashed the cooling water over her body to wash the sweat and filth of her travels and capture away, then shivering, dressed quickly in the raiment provided by her captors. The garment slipped over her head and tied on the inside, wrapping around front and back. She fumbled with the cords, the chains getting in the way as she tried to pull strings.
The door opened and closed. Shikoba spun around, ready to fling a new tirade at Casper, but it wasn’t him. Instead, a girl stood in front of her. She was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t remember her name.
“Hey, I know you.”
The girl stepped further into the room, her features lit by a shaft of sunlight that blocked the floor. “Yes! You remember me! Deshi said you wouldn’t, but I told him that you would remember. I’m Tesha! Tesha of Saami.”
“Tesha? The girl we met at the prayer tower?” At her earnest nod, Shikoba said, “What are you doing here? You must get away! This is not a safe place.”
Tesha’s face fell. “We know. We are prisoners here, too.”
“I’m sorry, Tesha. What are you doing here?”
“I was sent to help you finish dressing. Casper is waiting outside. He said if we don’t hurry, he will come in and finish the job.” Tesha ran over to Shikoba and began pulling the ties through holes and wrapping them around her waist and arms. “Your boots are against the wall there.” She pointed to the windowless feature. “Hurry, put them on. The emperor punishes those who are late.”
Shikoba slipped her cold feet into her comfortable moccasins. They immediately brought to mind her gifted set and her staff, both of which were missing. Her mind tried to wander to questions of where her companions were, but she forced her thoughts to focus on the situation at hand.
Tesha was tugging her along toward the door. When she reached it she knocked and said, “We are ready.”
The door swung open. A contingent of four guards waited for her. They entered the cell and unlocked the padlock that kept her chained to the wall, then each one clipped a chain onto her wrists, two on either side. They clipped the other end to a loop on a broad belt at their waists. Casper gestured to the long hallway. “Take her to the audience chamber. The emperor waits for her.”
The guards saluted and then walked away down the hall. Shikoba had no choice but to follow. Her head turned to Tesha, but the girl had her hands on her knees, bowing to the wizard. Casper’s back was to Shikoba, and he gave Tesha instructions in a low voice. She straightened, catching Shikoba’s eyes for a minute, then walked away down the corridor in the opposite direction.
Shikoba stumbled in the dark hallway.
“Watch where you are going, wretch!” The lead guard on her right tugged at the chain, bringing her focus to him. He scowled, then picked up the pace.
Shikoba still had no idea where she was, although she suspected. She doubted she would get an answer from her guard if she were to ask. Fine white lines ran through the stone, illuminated by the flickering torches alternating down the hallway. In spots the white lines widened into crystalized chunks embedded in the stone.
I bet that is salt, she thought, and these are the coastal mines.
At the end of the corridor, the floor sloped upward, climbing at a gentle grade. Wide steps appeared which they climbed as a unit. As they reached the top, a pair of matching guards pushed open twin doors.
A bright light shone in the airy space. Shikoba blinked, forcing her eyes to adjust to the glare of sunlight streaming through an atrium of clear glass. Her jaw dropped.
Glass in Shadra?
Her eyes swept the compound. Men and women in rust-coloured tunics and matching, flat-topped caps rushed through the atrium, carrying bowls and jars full of substances she could only guess at. The sleeves of the tunics were different colours. She did not know why, but when a steady stream of people with the same coloured sleeves entered and exited a door to the right, as they marched past, she understood that the colours denoted rank or possibly a special skill set. None of those doors were their destination, however. She attempted to fix a map in her head of the hub, counting the number of doors and the colours of the people who went in and out of them, like ants scurrying along a fixed path to the queen.
But it was no queen she was going to visit. Her guard marched her over to a staircase that curved up the glass dome to a second level and then down this quieter hallway to a tall, polished door set with a golden handle in the shape of a dragon’s head. Her guard pulled her to a stop, then unfastened their chains from her wrists, leaving her main chain intact. The first guard knocked.
A male voice called, “Enter.”
The door swung open of its own accord, and Shikoba was pushed into the room. The door closed behind her as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior, much darker for the walk through the brilliant sunshine. Waves of heat rolled over her from a source in the middle of the room.
“So, Shikoba. We meet at last.” The silk in the voice slid across her fear like liquid steel, strumming her nerves. She took a further step into the room, blinking furiously to try to clear her vision. Sweat broke out on her brow as her vision cleared and she was able to make out the view of the interior.
In the center of the theatre-shaped room a fire blazed, leaping with abandon from the glowing mass at its base. Suspended from a set of chains that disappeared into the dark shadows of the ceiling was a woman, hanging by her feet above the pit. Her arms were invisibly bound to her sides. Her chestnut hair covered her face and flames licked at the strands sending tiny sparks curling through the air, but it didn’t matter. Shikoba knew exactly who it was.
“Harm my mother, and I will kill you,” hissed Shikoba, all fear fleeing as rage boiled to the surface of her emotions. “I will make it my personal mission to feed you to the sea drake in tiny, living pieces. Take her down. Now!”