Break the Chains

Chapter Eighteen

After a cursory pat-down to make certain she wasn’t hiding any more improvised weapons, Ripka was marched out of the sheltering walls of the prison. Though it was only mid-morning, a darkness crept across the sky, thick clouds casting shadows over the island’s cracked and patchwork landscape. Ripka shivered as she was hounded along, one guard and Captain Lankal prodding her down a winding dirt path. A creeping wind wormed its way beneath her jumpsuit.

“How long?” she asked, scanning this new path, trying to fit it in her mental map of the prison’s island. They were on the opposite side of the prison from the yellowhouse, as far as she could tell. Here the ground was scattered with fruit-bearing trees and cracked stone beaches plunging down to the frothing shore.

“First offense is eight marks,” Lankal said. “Gruel will be handed down to you once every six hours. You’ll be given your water for the day when we put you in. Ration it wisely, you won’t get more.”

The path sloped down a hill, angling for the beach, and through the trees she began to see small cottages in various states of disrepair. Not a single stream of smoke curled from their half-crumbled chimneys.

“People lived out here?”

Lankal snorted. “Used to be the guards brought their families out with them. Now we leave ’em back in Petrastad. Where it’s safer.” He eyed her, his grip momentarily tightening on her elbow. “Never could be sure what people like you’d do to ’em.”

Nothing, she thought. Or at least, I wouldn’t. But she bit her tongue to hold back the words. She’d stabbed a man in the elbow, possibly dooming him to a lame arm for life. She doubted Lankal would believe she wouldn’t harm an innocent, even if she had been acting in defense of her own life.

He tugged her arm, turning her down a side path, and she nearly stumbled. Her breath felt too-hot in her throat, her voice scratchy and raw. The chill in the air aggravated each breath. Thick-leaved trees lined the path, and at the top of a knoll, she saw it – the well.

It was about three paces in diameter, its walls crafted of native grey stone and its winch and bucket system well cared for – the rope looked unfrayed, the wood recently oiled. A gabled roof covered the top of the well, no doubt meant to keep leaf and other debris from fouling the water. Nothing about it gave her any reason to believe it was anything more than a simple, if large, well.

Unconsciously, she dug her heels in. The other guard jerked on her arm, forcing her forward. “Come on, no stalling.”

“That’s… That’s a real well.” Her cheeks went hot with embarrassment as Lankal chuckled.

“What’d you expect?” he asked.

“Something purpose built, like a narrow pit.”

“It is a narrow pit, isn’t it?” Lankal directed her to the wall around the well. She peered into the hole, and could see nothing but abyssal blackness.

“Up you go.” He patted the top of the wall. “Stick your arms out so we can get the sling on you.”

At least they weren’t going to try to lower her in the bucket. Ripka sat on the cold edge and swung her legs over the rim, feet dangling into the dark. She forced herself to breathe slowly as the guards took straps from the bucket and fitted them with surprising care around her chest and arms. She tried very hard not to think of what waited for her down there in the dark. Forced images of skittering, crawling insects from her mind.

“Is…” She cleared her already sore throat and tried again. “Is there much water left?”

“No more than a dribble, and that’s just seep. This well dried up a long time ago.” Lankal gave the straps two firm tugs, jerking Ripka forward. She gasped as her center of gravity teetered on the edge of the wall and shot her hands down to grip the hard stone. The other guard snorted. She soothed herself with images of shoving him face-first down the well.

A gust of wind pushed at her, taunting. A heavy, dark cloud slid across the sun, making the well look even deeper.

“If it rains?” she asked, visions of the well filling with fresh water rose unbidden to her mind. She swallowed dry air. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she couldn’t swim.

“Someone will come along and pluck you out if it gets too bad. But you’ll have to make up the time when the weather clears.”

Lankal hesitated, lips pressed together as if he were trying to hold in what he wanted to say. After a moment, he shook his head and puffed out a breath. “Look, Ripka. I know adjustment to the Remnant can be difficult, but you’ve got to put in the effort.” He held up a hand to forestall her response. “I saw why you fought. I watch the yard from the nest. I saw everything. You’ve got a hard sense of justice, and I can respect that. But you’ve got to let it go. I looked up your file after that first night. You’re a thief, not a killer. Yeah, you got some moves. But we’ve got nasty pieces of work on this island you seem determined to piss off. There aren’t many come through these walls I think can be rehabilitated, but you’re one of them. Don’t get yourself murdered before you get the chance.”

Stunned, it took her a moment to find a response. “I’ll do my best. Captain.”

That seemed to please him. He nodded, and held out the rope he’d wrapped tightly around his elbow and hand so that she could see it, and then gestured to the pulley system above. “I got you. Go on now.”

Clenching her jaw against rising panic, she turned around so that she faced out of the well, then began to ease down, fingers gripping the top of the well’s lip so hard that her stubby nails bent back. Stone scratched her chest as she wormed her way over the edge, walking herself down the wall. When she hit a depth as low as her arms would go without dropping and still hadn’t touched ground, she froze, squeezing her eyes shut as if internal darkness was somehow safer than the unknown darkness below. Rope slack piled between her shoulder blades.

“Let go,” Lankal said.

“I don’t–”

The other guard pried her fingers from the wall and she plunged down, the harness snapping tight against her chest. A little cry of shock escaped her as the straps dug into her and she spun, slowly, in the empty air in the well’s center. She cracked her eyes open to glare at the grey sky above. The other guard chuckled. Bastard.

Her dangling feet found purchase on moss-slick ground, and she heaved a sigh of relief as her weight was taken off the straps. Rolling her shoulders, she peered at her new place of confinement as best she could in the dark.

As her eyes had not yet adjusted, she saw only gloomy walls of deep grey, reaching up to the equally dismal sky above. The ground was slick with mud and lichens. She trailed her fingers along the hard stone, feeling the shallow gashes made by those who’d come before her. As she brushed deep gouges, spaced evenly as fingernails, she shivered and jerked her hand away.

Tension let out in the rope, and it slid down her back until it looped back up near her hips. “Hey!” she called. The words echoed back at her, slamming against the well’s walls. “What do I do about the harness?”

Lankal stuck his head over the wall, she recognized him only by the silhouette of his shaggy hair. “Don’t take it off, and if you try to climb out the winch is set to release all the rope. You’ll be stuck down there until we can be bothered to get a new rope out to you.”

“That happened before?”

“More often than you’d think. And sometimes we have to wait for a shipment to come in from Petrastad. Step to the right.”

She did so without thought. His voice carried the air of command she’d grown used to following before she’d risen up to become the watch-captain. Something slammed into the ground alongside her. She knelt, feeling along until she found it. A water bladder, holding maybe a half a bucket’s worth. Not enough to sustain her if she’d spent the day in the field, but enough to keep her hydrated while she waited to return to the world above.

“Thanks!” she called, but they had already gone.

That realization, that cold hard truth, that they had left her so easily – and that, in doing so, she was truly alone in this dark hole – bit into her. No more answers to her questions. No more gentle assurances that this was all a part of protocol and would be over soon. No, she was on her own, left to wait out her time until she’d considered what she’d done and decided it wasn’t worth this particular flavor of punishment.

But she didn’t agree with that. If she hadn’t stabbed that man he’d have throttled her to death. He should have been the one shoved in this yawning grave, not her. Lankal seemed to agree with her actions. She wasn’t even a real criminal, not really. Skies above, she’d been a watch-captain most of her adult life, and a watcher before that. They couldn’t know about her past as a prize fighter and, even if they did, everything she’d done then had been above board. Clean. Legal. They couldn’t punish her for that.

Couldn’t leave her to rot for it.

She caught herself pacing, her steps small and controlled, her hands gesticulating to the empty air as she worked through these thoughts. With a slow, deep, breath she consciously released the tension that had knotted her whole body. Forced herself to relax, concentrated on the thunder of her heart until it’d calmed to a reasonable rate.

She’d only been alone a few moments, and yet the isolation had clutched her fears tight. Didn’t help that she’d never been a fan of small spaces.

Rubbing her hands together to hide their tremble, she sat with her back against the wall, head tipped up so she could see what little there was of the sky. A storm was blowing in, she was sure of it. Maybe they’d pull her out early. But they’d have to put her back in later, and it was those first few moments that’d been the worst. That she hoped would continue to be the worst.

She forced herself to think of her tasks. Of finding Radu’s competition, of flushing out Nouli before Detan arrived. With the storm threatening, she had no doubt he’d be along soon. No one wanted to get caught out over the Endless Sea when monsoon season struck.

Sometime, during the rambling of her thoughts, her exhausted body gave up, and she sunk into a deep, well-needed rest.

A rock struck her on the head, waking her up.

“Hey,” a soft woman’s voice whispered from above. “You up?”

Ripka groaned and dragged her hands through her hair, blinking at the renewed vision of the prison walling her in. She wished, deeply, that whoever had woken her had left her alone to rest. Unless they were hauling her up because rain was coming.

The very thought jolted Ripka to her feet. She glared at the sky, fearing blackened clouds and the first brush of droplets, but saw only a clear stretch of pale blue with the silhouette of a woman’s head outlined against it. By the poof and curl of the woman’s hair, it was either Honey or Kisser. Unless someone else with similar looks had decided to pay her a visit.

“Who’s there?”

A snort-laugh. “Kisser, obviously. Came to see how our sparrow was doing in her new nest.”

“It’s a little drab. Could do with some curtains, or a flower arrangement.”

“Didn’t peg you as the decorating type.”

“I’m not.”

“Ah. Jokes to stay sane. I can understand that. You got enough water? Sometimes they short the bag.”

Ripka swallowed, the paper-dry rasp of her throat stinging from the motion. How long had she been asleep? Her neck felt swollen, pudgy. She gave the side of it an experimental poke and winced. Not a good idea. Groggy from her nap, she fumbled around on the mossy ground until she found the waterskin. Popping the cap off, she gave it an exploratory sniff. Didn’t seem spoiled, or drugged, and that was all she could ask for, really. Carefully, she doled out a few drops onto her tongue and swallowed. It burned going down, but she knew her body needed it.

“Should last me. How long have I been down here?”

“Three or four marks, I should think. Pulling your hair out and screaming at the sky yet?”

Ripka laughed, and regretted the sting in her throat. “Truth be told, Kisser, you woke me up.”

“Damn, girl,” she whistled low. “Heart of stone in you. Not many can take a catnap in the well.”

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she could make out the scratch marks along the walls in detail. Most were marks of time, and many stick figure sex scenes, but some… Some were pleas for help. Mad ramblings. And there were those claw marks, like some poor soul had tried to dig their way out. She wondered how many of the insane were stuck down here, simply because the guards didn’t know what to do with their outbursts.

Dark stains smeared the grey stone around her. Many looked like palm smears. She tipped her head up and focused on Kisser’s eclipsing face instead.

“Not many are as exhausted as I am by the time they get down here. What are you doing over here, anyway? Isn’t it work detail?”

The dark shadow of Kisser’s hand blurred over the blue sky like a streaking bird as she brushed away Ripka’s question. “They’re burning lime for fertilizer, and I’ve got sensitive lungs.” She coughed, and Ripka shook her head at the fakeness of the sound. “So they sent me to do my daily wander about the island. Good for my lungs, all that light exercise, you understand.”

Ripka pursed her lips. She wasn’t fool enough to complain about the lack of oversight from the guards, but their incompetence niggled at her. She’d been in Kisser’s company a sum of two marks, being generous, and already she’d determined the woman was faking illness to be let off the prison’s leash.

“You got a lot of freedom,” she ventured.

“My parents are silk mercers, all the way back in Valathea. I’m no flight risk – everyone here knows I’ve come to keep my head down, do my time, and get back home to the family business.”

“Lotta money in silk,” Ripka said, unable to hide the bitter tang to her words. She carried no doubt that Kisser’s family was bribing the officials here to allow their child special freedoms. If Ripka’d been warden, she’d have dumped any guard caught taking such a bribe in this blasted well.

Kisser laughed. “True enough. But that’s not why I came to see you.”

“I’d wondered. For someone interested in keeping her head down, you’re sure willing to get tangled up with a troublesome new intake.”

“I know what I’m about,” Kisser snapped. Ripka tensed, wondering if she’d pushed her too far. After a few beats of strained silence, Kisser said, “Anyway. I know you’re hurting. Can’t do anything for you now, but once you’re out, I can take you to see Uncle. He’s curious about you, and your handsome friend.”

“Uncle?”

“The man who can get you what you need, understand?”

“Yes… I think I do. Thank you.” Ripka’s mind was awhirl with possibilities, strategies. If this man were the connection to the outside smuggling, then she’d have to walk a fine line. She’d have to pretend progress to Radu while keeping him off the scent that she’d discovered the source. She couldn’t blow her contacts with Kisser and the other girls so soon. A betrayal now, before she found Nouli and was certain of Detan’s impending rescue, could leave her without any allies to leverage. Or worse, completely exposed if the whim struck Radu.

“Good. And no need for thanks, we look after our own.” Which meant Ripka would owe Kisser one pits-deep favor. Kisser’s head disappeared from above the well and she slapped her hand on the top of the wall, the meaty thump echoing around Ripka. “Oh, and Captain?”

“Yes?”

“I asked around about that man of yours. I don’t know what you know, but… He’s trouble, missy. Watch him close.”

Ripka clenched her fists in frustration. “What do you mean?”

“Glasseaters don’t just leave.”

Kisser’s boots crunched away over tree deadfall, leaving Ripka alone with her plans and her worries. With a heavy, exhausted sigh, she sank back down to the loamy ground, praying to the sweet skies that sleep would carry her through the rest of her isolation.

It began to rain.