Sleep was the last thing on my mind. Instead, I spent the remainder of the day searching in desperation for a way out of our cell. Stretch was right, there wasn’t any. As the day came to a close Belac returned, throwing open the door.
“It’s time,” he sneered. “Hurry up! I’m gettin’ hungry!”
Stretch knew the drill. He pulled off his shirt and I followed his lead. Belac bound us together with iron shackles, linking our wrists three feet apart. We followed him out of the cell, around the corner, out the front door and down into the swamp. The sun was just setting as we headed out. The troll followed closely behind, his large club clasped tightly in one hand. I was surprised at first that he didn’t tether us to him, but I soon realized it would have been pointless. Just as Stretch had said, the mire slowed our steps to a crawl. We couldn’t run, no matter how badly we wanted to.
“Get ta work!” he shouted, biting down on a pipe held between his teeth. A full moon lit the scene, making it easier to see my surroundings. I followed Stretch, lying down on my back and waiting for the inevitable to happen.
“How long do we lie here?” I whispered.
“Not long, they can smell and hear us. If you watch closely, you can sometimes see them dropping from the underbrush into the water.” We lay there in silence for a moment before…
Plop, plop! Sure enough, the leeches started coming, inching their way across the pond like big black worms. All we could do was wait, while the thought of it nearly drove me crazy. I couldn’t believe Stretch could just lie here like that. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t feel a thing and before I knew it we were covered in over a dozen leeches each. Belac scraped them off with his knife, tossing their squealing bodies into a wooden bucket of swamp water. Then he sent us back out to collect more. We must have caught over a hundred leeches apiece before Belac was satisfied with the count and called off the hunt.
As we trudged back to the castle I took a moment to survey the landscape. Glancing up, I caught a glimpse of something along the ridge of the hill tucked behind Belac’s place. It looked like the top of a stone tower, almost as if another castle was hidden by the crest of the hill. Could it be the Lost Refuge, the place I was supposed to meet Aviad?
I scanned the side of the hilltop, looking for the staircase. Sure enough, within a few moments I was able to make it out, a stone stairway curved up the hill. The base of the stairs started only a few hundred yards from where we stood. Had we really been that close to Aviad this whole time? This was good news.
“Stretch!” I whispered. “Look, I think that’s the stairway I saw on the map. I think Aviad’s refuge is right up there.”
He paused for a moment, scanning the crest of the hill where I had pointed. A glimmer of hope sparked in his eyes when he spotted the tower, but the hope quickly faded.
“What good is it? We’re still trapped.”
“It’s not that far; we could make a run for it,” I suggested, realizing as I said it how stupid it sounded.
“Have you gone completely insane? Even if we could run we’d never make it before Belac smashed us with his club.”
“Then we’ll just have to find another way to escape when he isn’t looking.”
“Yeah, right. Good luck with that!” Stretch stewed.
What was his problem? Couldn’t he see how close we were to safety?
Belac groaned impatiently behind us, “You there, move along.” He kicked up some of the bog in our direction to emphasize his point.
I for one was not going to let Belac douse my spirit. As long as that tower stood at the top of the hill, I was determined to keep my hopes up. With newfound purpose, I began trying to think of ways we could escape.
Each night I watched for any opportunity to make a break for it, but nothing presented itself. Belac was always nearby, watching us like a hawk when we weren’t in our cell. Eventually, my enthusiasm began to fade. Between being chained to Stretch and his negative perspective on things during the day, and the humiliating experience of being used as leech bait during the night, I started to give up trying. The sight of the tower that used to give me purpose just stood there taunting me as a vacant reminder that we were still as far away as ever. It was no use.
As thoughts of escape faded away, my only hope now was that the Codebearers would somehow come to our rescue—if any of them were left after Venator’s raid. Three days of captivity had passed already and I began to fall deeper and deeper into despair. Being used as human leech bait took a toll on my mind and it seemed unlikely we would ever be free.
Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, something out of the ordinary happened that took all three of us by surprise. Belac shot through the door and barged into the middle of the cell when he ordinarily should have been sleeping. He was holding a paper in his hand and he was angry.
“Why are ya here?” he shouted at me.
Shocked at the confrontation, I hardly knew how to answer him. The question seemed obvious enough, but his tone of voice made me worry that I was missing something.
“Well, I was walking through the swamp when you caught me, and…”
“Don’t play games, boy, I know how ya got here; what I wanna know is what you were lookin’ for in the first place.”
“I came to meet a friend,” I answered.
“You’re one of them, aren’t ya? One of the Resistance—lookin’ fer Aviad! I bet they sent ya here tryin’ to find him, didn’t they? Am I right?”
I was surprised to hear him talk so boldly. How on earth could he have known? Was he working for the Shadow too?
“Well, am I right?” he yelled, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yes sir,” I said, cowering under his ferocity.
Belac lowered his voice in a mocking demeanor. He was no longer yelling but relishing his role as the bearer of bad news just the same.
“Well he ain’t here. Never was, never will be. I doubt he even exists—just a fairy tale the so-called Codebearers made up ta get boys like you to help ’em fight.”
Now I was really confused. This troll knew more than I thought possible. He’d hardly spoken over the last several days except to bark a command at us now and then. But here we were, engaging in conversation about the Codebearers and Aviad.
“How do you know about all that?” I finally gathered the courage to ask.
“I’ll ask the questions. A patrol of guards came by today, woke me up. Said they was looking for a boy like you.”
For a moment, my heart skipped a beat. Could it be that the Codebearers were in fact looking for me? Or was it the Shadow, following their orders from Venator as I had seen in my vision?
He slammed the notice onto the wooden table in front of us. I recognized the symbol at the top of the paper immediately; the Shadow’s mark of the double S was as clear as day.
“Says here, they’re offerin’ a handsome reward ta anyone who turns the boy in. See for yourself.”
I read over the notice.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
Belac just stood there, stroking his goatee, enjoying the suspense as I awaited his decision.
“Never helped out the Shadow before, but I fancy they’ll think pretty highly of me if I do—might even make me rich.”
“Please don’t,” I pleaded. “It would be a mistake to…”
“You listen here. I’ll do what I want,” he barked. “I don’t take orders from no one. Not them, not you, not the Author, not anyone, see? I’m free to do as I please.” He grumbled under his breath something I couldn’t understand, then added, “Wretched Shadow think they own everythin’ ’round here; a curse to us all. They can’t just barge in here and take my slaves from me. I gots a right to keep whoever I finds stealin’ from my land, don’t I?”
I wasn’t sure if he expected me to actually answer that question. I wouldn’t know what to say even if he did, so I kept my mouth shut and just stared back.
“The Shadow do pay well, so I’m told. Maybe if I turns both of you in, they’ll reward me double.” A stupid-looking smile spread across his face, but it faded just as fast. “But that’s just what they’d want me to do, the slime-faced rats. That’s how they’d be stealin’ my slaves. I’m gonna have to sleep on it.”
Thundering back to the door in a foul mood, he slammed it shut and pounded down the hallway, mumbling all the way.
“Ugh, I’m so tired of this!” I screamed out loud. “What purpose does our being here serve? If the Author is so close, why doesn’t he step in and help? I can’t take this anymore; it’s so pointless.”
The whole journey seemed to be coming to a meaningless end. In an ironic twist of fate, we were most likely about to be sold back to the very enemy we had come here to escape—the dreaded Shadow.
Stretch fueled the fire of my rage. “There’s never any purpose, Hunter. Face it—we’re all just one step away from here to Frank over there.” He pointed back to the skeleton slumped in the corner. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”
The sight of Frank made me furious and I kicked a wooden stool at the dusty old skeleton in frustration. The collision of the stool shattered his brittle bones and sent his skull rattling across the floor to Stretch’s feet. The only things left in place were a few ribs and a pair of boney legs. Stretch gawked in awkward silence.
I had completely lost it, never before had I been so controlled by my own anger. I rubbed my sleeve under my nose and breathed heavy, steady breaths.
“What did Frank ever do to you?” Stretch finally managed to say, picking up the spinning skull from the floor. All I could do was laugh a little hysterically at the destroyed remains of our roommate. Stretch joined in as well.
“Sorry, I don’t know what got into me. This place is just so…so…depressing, I can’t stand it anymore.”
“I know what you mean,” he replied, picking up bits and pieces of what was left of poor old Frank. We were still chained to each other, so I leaned over and helped him gather the remainder of the bones. Together we carried our piles back to the corner where he had rested in peace. As we knelt down to place Frank’s parts back in his lap, I noticed something I hadn’t before. Scrawled into the rock wall behind his ribs was a hidden message.
I pushed the remainder of Frank’s body aside to get a better look at the inscription.
“Hey, have some respect will you?” Stretch griped. “You’ve done enough already, don’t you think?”
“Look,” I said, pointing at a mysterious script etched on the wall.
“Whoa! Frank’s last words,” Stretch stared in reverent awe. “Too bad they aren’t in English.”
The two of us stood there dumbly, staring at the cryptic message for no more than a minute when the writing began to look familiar.
“Hang on, Stretch, I think they’re letters!”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s our old DaVinci trick. The letters are backwards, just like we used in the clubhouse.” I was excited at the challenge of solving a puzzle.
“Frank knows DaVinci?” Stretch asked. I just shrugged it off and we both went to work interpreting the hidden message. After several days as Belac’s prisoners the opportunity to entertain our brains was a welcome treat.
Before long we had deciphered the message by scratching each letter into a pile of dust as we went. In the end, the words were written in reverse and strung together in a single line, but a single phrase became clear:
“What a lousy thing to write in code,” Stretch complained. “Frank must have been off his rocker when he wrote that.”
“Maybe it’s a code for something. Maybe he hid something behind a rock that brought him joy,” I speculated.
We searched the area surrounding Frank’s remains for the better part of ten minutes before the answer hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Wait! I know those words,” I suddenly recalled. “They’re from a song Gabby sang when her husband died trying to save me from the dragon.”
“What does it mean?” Stretch asked, suddenly interested in the story behind the ancient text.
“It means the Author is at work even in the darkest of times, we just have to trust him.”
We both sat there in silence, lost in our own thoughts. The timing of the words couldn’t have been more perfect and I knew deep down it wasn’t an accident at all.
“Do you remember the song?” Stretch asked.
“Part of it, I think,” I replied.
“Can you sing it?”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Until now Stretch had seemed more or less uninterested in what I’d experienced in my travels, yet here he was asking me to sing. Clearing my throat I tried my best to sing the tune that had haunted me ever since Gerwyn’s valiant last stand.
Be not sad, oh heart of mine.
Find the joy that’s hid behind.
Through darkness light will find its way
While we await the dawn of day.
As I sang the words my chest filled with new hope. Somehow the Author had entered this place and changed my perspective. For me the proof was undeniable. There was more at work here than I could possibly understand. Belac and his leeches had nearly drained me of the will to survive, but now in our darkest hour yet, an unnatural peace came over me and I knew without a doubt that the Author was still in control.
Click! Creaaaaak!
Our thoughts were cut short by the sound of our cell door moaning softly open. We turned our heads, expecting to see Belac’s shadowy figure in the doorway, but to our surprise nobody was there.
“What’s going on…?” Stretch whispered.
“It looks like somebody opened the door,” I replied softly.
“I can see that, but who? And why?”
“I don’t know, maybe we should…” I was going to add, check it out but Stretch interrupted in a commanding voice.
“Who’s there!” he said to the doorway. There was no response. Either the Shadow were hiding around the corner about to raid our cell and take us hostage, or something else was going on.
“Let’s check it out!” I said at last.
“Yeah, you go first,” Stretch replied.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re older.”
“Only by a month.”
Stretch shrugged his shoulders as if to say oh well and I could tell arguing was pointless.
“Okay, fine, I’ll go first; like it’s going to matter, we’re both chained together anyway.”
“Well then, I’ll be right behind you!” he said.
The two of us tiptoed across the cold stone floor, one in front of the other, carefully making our way toward the abandoned doorway. We reached the threshold and I turned to make sure Stretch was ready. With a nod from Stretch, I swallowed my fears and peeked out. The hall was empty.
“There’s nobody here,” I said in shock.
“You mean we’re free?” Stretch was confused.
“I think so.”
Free. The word never sounded as sweet.
“Well, what are we waiting for, c’mon let’s go! The front door is right around the corner.” Stretch leaped out the door and dragged me down the hall by our shackles.
“Wait,” I said, digging in my heels and putting a stop to our flight. “Before we leave, we have to find my things.”
“Are you kidding?” Stretch asked. “We need to get out of here as fast as we can.”
“Listen, Belac still has my sword and the Author’s Writ. We can’t survive out there without them. We need to go to his room and get them back.”
Stretch threw an I can’t believe we’re doing this look my way and I caught it. But before he could argue the point I set off down the hall, dragging him along behind me.
The main foyer was an empty room with high ceilings and a few ragged tapestries on the walls. To our right, two large double doors offered an easy escape, but on our left the stairway led up to Belac’s bedroom. His snoring echoed through the foyer from his room at the top of the stairs. I remembered Dad used to snore just like that when he fell asleep on the couch watching a baseball game—only ten times worse.
“You sure you want to do this?” Stretch pleaded, looking over at the exit on our right. “I mean, isn’t there a saying about letting sleeping trolls lie?”
“That sword is special. We’re going to need it if the Shadow are looking for us and I can’t use it without the book, at least not yet.”
With cautious steps we made our way to the top of the stairs and opened the door to Belac’s room. It squeaked slightly but he didn’t seem to notice. The troll was sprawled out on an oversized bed in the center of the room, surrounded by piles and piles of stuff. Needless to say, Belac’s decorating style was what you might call “eclectic.” A collection of meaningless junk he had acquired over time was heaped in piles throughout the room and tucked into corners gathering dust. Some of the piles were so precariously stacked it was a wonder they were still standing at all. Finding my things in this mess was going to take a miracle, but we had to try.
We stepped into the room, searching for my missing backpack. After only a few minutes, I spotted it near the window on the far side of the room. The last rays of sunlight were shining; the afternoon had gone by far too fast. Belac would be waking up any time, we had to move quickly.
I held a finger to my lips and pointed to the window so Stretch could see where we were heading. One step at a time we inched our way over and around piles of junk to where my pack was. Belac had taken the liberty of rummaging through my stuff, emptying my pack, throwing things around on the floor. Stretch kept a sharp eye on Belac as I gathered everything. My Veritas Sword was only a few feet away, but the book was nowhere to be seen.
Turning to Stretch I pressed my palms together and opened them in a motion that was meant to mimic a book. He understood and shrugged, looking around the room. Just then, Belac snorted loudly and turned over in his bed to face us. My heart stopped, and then I noticed it—my book was under the bed, right below Belac’s snoring head.
I pointed Stretch toward the book. His eyes widened as he shook his head, making a slicing motion across his neck as if to say abort mission, but I couldn’t leave now, not when I was so close to getting what I had come for. I was determined to get the book back.
Inch by inch we crept closer to Belac’s bed. When at last the book was within reach, I knelt down and took hold of it with my unchained hand. I slid the book toward me, across the stone floor, making far too much noise for Stretch’s comfort. Belac didn’t even move, his snores drowning out any noise that might have disturbed him.
I picked up the book with a sigh of relief but before I could turn away, a familiar sight caught my eye. There, shoved beneath the bed amidst a pile of junk, was the unmistakable form of a wristwatch. It’s glass face was cracked and lifeless and it shouldn’t have been worth a second look, except for the fact that I recognized it. This wasn’t an ordinary watch; it was a binary one. Unlike traditional watches, binary pieces don’t have hour and minute hands, but instead have a sequence of seemingly random LED lights. The unusual pattern is like a code that to a trained eye tells the time.
I knew this because Stretch and I used the binary code system when we wrote secret messages to each other. My dad had taught me how to read it several years ago, using a binary watch much like this one that he always wore—in all my life I’d never seen another person wear one like it.
Ignoring Stretch’s silent protest to my extended delay, I moved to the side and reached for the platinum wristband, pulling the discarded item from under the bed. As I held it in my hand I pondered the meaning of this discovery. What were the odds that someone else had lost a watch like this in Belac’s castle? Could this be my father’s? Was it possible my father had actually been here before me?
I stared at my reflection in the cracked face, not sure what to believe, knowing full well there was one way to find out. I swallowed nervously and turned the watch over, then gazed in disbelief at the back of it. The letters C.B. were etched in the metal—my father’s initials.
A loud snort from Belac snapped me back to attention. There was not time to process what I’d just found, so I jammed the watch into a pocket and headed back to Stretch. Together we followed the path to the door, being careful to step over the piles of junk as we left. We had nearly made it out, when disaster struck. Stretch’s foot caught the edge of a rug and he stumbled to the ground, pulling on the rug just enough to cause a leaning tower of junk to topple to the ground in a loud crash.
Belac sat up in shock. His eyes shot a look of terror down my spine as they met mine.
“You! How did you get out?” he growled, reaching to the side of his bed and pulling up his club.
Stretch bounced to his feet and pushed me out the door. “Let’s get out of here!”
We tore down the stairs as quickly as our legs could carry us. Belac emerged from his room in a rage, threatening to crush us with his club. “You won’t get away from me that easy,” he shouted, jumping down the first three stairs in a hurry. As we struggled to open the front door, Belac missed a step and slipped, falling back and hitting his head hard. The clumsy oaf rolled down the remainder of the stairs in a painful sequence of bumps, finally coming to rest at the base of the steps in a moaning, motionless heap.
Stretch threw open the door, “Now’s our chance! Let’s go!”