Chapter 11: The Pen’s Reach

Resuza sat crossed-legged in the middle of an underground ice cave. The cave was spacious and comfortable – just the way that Resuza wanted it – because she herself had carved it by using the Foreseeing Pen. On the floor of the cave were blankets, several half-frozen flasks of cider, a few knives with handles made of bone, and a large pile of biscuits. Resuza had stolen all of these things from a locked storage room within the slave quarters. By using the Pen, she had succeeded in burrowing into this storage room, getting what she needed, and then getting out – sealing the tunnel behind her, with the Pen, by forcing the walls of the tunnel to cave inward. Every night, for the past week or so, she had been using the Pen to lay the groundwork for their escape. The cave was her storage depot, where she was compiling all of the supplies that she and Hill would need to escape.

There were two tunnels leading into Resuza’s storage depot. One tunnel led directly back to the slave quarters, which was only several hundred meters away. The other tunnel went off in a southerly direction and continued for a very long way – perhaps as much as three miles – though it was impossible to tell. The prospect of building a tunnel that stretched for such a great distance would normally be inconceivable – especially for one person – but the Pen had made it possible. Once she had mastered it, Resuza simply flicked it on and walked forward very slowly and the Pen did the rest.

Resuza stood up and headed down the tunnel that went south, the one that would lead them to their escape. As she walked, the prospect of her escape seemed more and more real, and with this came another realization: she was officially giving up on finding her sister. Most likely, Naomi was dead – Resuza had come to accept this likelihood – but there was a small chance that she was alive, tucked away in some remote corner of Dargora. If this was the case, then this meant that Resuza was abandoning her sister – yet again. Resuza had abandoned Naomi for the first time when Dragoonya horsemen raided their village in the Urals. Resuza had begged her sister to run, but Naomi wouldn’t budge, and so Resuza eventually fled without her. Afterwards, Resuza had vowed to herself that she would never rest or give up until she found her sister; and yet here she was, several years later, doing exactly that – giving up, running for it, trying to save her own skin – once again. The thought made Resuza feel disgusted with herself, but what choice did she have? If she stayed in Dargora much longer she would, in all likelihood, end up dead, and her bones would be yet more building blocks for the towers of the city.

No, thought Resuza. No way.

She walked for a long time, perhaps thirty minutes or so, until she reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t really the end. It was just the spot where she had stopped drilling the previous evening. Once here, Resuza took out the Pen and opened it up so that she could see into its barrel. She then took an ice chip from the floor of the tunnel, loaded it into the Pen, aimed it at the wall in front of her, and clicked the emerald. A spray of water and powdery snow soaked her face. She squinted and pressed forward, continuing like this for two hours or so until she broke through and found herself staring into a gaping chasm. She peered into the darkness and saw that she was looking at a vast canyon made of ice. The bottom was hundreds of meters below. It made her nauseous just to look down into it. Perhaps she could find a way to tunnel around this canyon – that was her only option. But she would need to get her bearings, which meant getting up to the surface.

Resuza pointed the Pen to her right and began drilling a new tunnel that made its way, at a gradual angle, all the way to the surface. She drilled for twenty minutes until finally she broke through and saw the world above. The mere sight of it filled her with joy. The sky was cloudy and, hanging in a gap in the clouds, was the moon – shimmering in all its brightness. She scrambled up to the surface and quickly surveyed her surroundings. There was a large rock nearby, shaped like a giant egg, and she climbed up to the top of it so that she could have a better perspective.

What Resuza saw dashed all of her hopes. The canyon was not only deep and wide, but incredibly long. It stretched in either direction for as far as the eye could see, and it appeared to serve as a moat that protected Dargora. And beyond the canyon there was nothing but endless fields of snow. There was no way out and, more devastatingly, there was nowhere to go.