| |
I woke to hands shaking me.
“I thought I told you not to die,” my mimic said.
If he was shaking me, he could just go ahead and stop. I wanted to sleep.
“If you keep sleeping you will freeze to death.”
I wasn’t going to freeze to death. Ambrosia was going to come and suck my soul out.
“Something must have delayed her. You’re both going to die before she gets back.”
Then couldn’t I just die in peace? Was that too much to ask?
“I was wrong. The dead aren’t the irritating ones. It’s the living, hands down. I’m trying to keep you alive, you fool. Now, OPEN THOSE EYES!”
My eyes opened and I thought I grunted but it might have just been in my mind. Hands were pulling the leather thongs from my wrists and lifting me up.
“Shhh! We only have a few minutes before the guards come back. Grab his feet!”
There were so many half-whispered voices that I couldn’t tell one from the next.
“He’s not helping at all!”
“I think he’s frozen solid.”
“Can we even save them if they’re frozen solid? You said that we needed them – that they were our chance. But there isn’t a chance if they’re dead!”
“Would you be quiet already? Shush!”
One of my arms was dragging on the ground. I tried to pull it up, but it didn’t move. Skies and Stars! I was in trouble now! I tried to catch a glimpse of Bataar, but I couldn’t see him from where I was. I hoped he’d survived. He was in worse shape than me before.
“You should be soooo glad that you were given me,” my mimic said. “Otherwise, we’d be in the World of Legends right now and I can tell you this – I would be running things there. It suits me perfectly.”
I ignored him. Yes, he’d been helpful, but that didn’t mean that he’d be running anything – except maybe his mouth.
Someone was tying something around me – a rope? Why had they bothered to untie me if they were just going to tie me up again? But then I was being lifted, and to my horror, I was balanced on the top of the wall.
“Ungh,” I managed to say, not at all expressing my terror at balancing over a precarious drop. I could barely make out the details of the city below.
“Three, two, one, and heave!”
Something pushed me from behind. My breath stuck in my throat, my heart thudding irregularly. And then the ropes around me jerked and I bounced against them before hitting the end of the rope again. I swung toward the rockface like a pendulum, gritting my teeth for the impact.
To my surprise, it didn’t come. Instead, hands reached out from the wall – really? – and grabbed me.
No. It wasn’t the wall. It was a door in the wall and a group of young people in fur cowls and warm coats – did they have any extras? – grabbed me and pulled me into the doorway. Hands pulled the ropes from me and then someone was tossing them back outside the door.
My head was whirling as I tried to make sense of what I could see.
“Get him below so that Gran Ti’wilren can warm him up,” someone said and then I was carried roughly to a cart that looked like it might be used for mining. It was on rails. But the sides of the cart were too steep and once I was inside, I could see nothing but the rock above and the occasional light as I was shuttled down the tracks.
Voices echoed around me, none distinct enough to catch the words and before I knew it, I was being unloaded again and carried into a wide circular stone room with windows cut into the rock. A roaring fire in the center of the room vented up into a stone chimney. There were furs spread by the fire and I was dumped onto one of them to lie next to the fire.
I wasn’t complaining. Being dragged and dropped and thrown around like a sack of potatoes had been ... well, it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat ... but lying next to a warm fire? Now that was the thing! I could just lie here all day.
And then the pain began.