Cyrion (12 page)

After a dessert of pound cake served with fresh cream and a medley of macerated summer berries, the children helped Greta clean up. The grumps retreated to their bedrooms upstairs complaining, when safely out of Greta’s earshot, of having eaten too much. After Greta declared her satisfaction at their efforts, the trio made their way out of the spacious kitchen towards Naeem’s study.

“Are you sure she didn’t put pigeon berries in the cake?” Saul asked.

The dun mouse on Anya’s shoulder gave a soft squeak as she scratched its ears. “Yes, I’m sure,” Anya said, rolling her eyes.

Jon rubbed his belly. “Because, you know, my tummy feels kind of funny too.”

“Possibly because you ate six helpings of everything between the two of you,” Anya said, a note of disgust in her voice.

“I’m also feeling kind of sleepy.”

“Me too,” Jon said.

Anya opened the study door. “Well, I doubt we have time for a nap.”

Naeem rose from his soft leather armchair, his customary smile lurking on his bearded face. “Ah, children.”

“Grampa, we—”

Naeem broke eye contact and glanced at the ceiling.

Jon nodded. The grumps are upstairs.

Naeem’s smile widened as he rubbed his left earlobe.

And they might be listening.

Naeem pushed his reading glasses up his nose. “Did you all get enough to eat?”

“Yes, Grampa Naeem, we did,” Anya said. “Thank you for asking.”

Saul yawned. “Yeah, I think I ate too much. Now I want to sleep.”

“Before you turn in,” Naeem said, “I’d like you think about the terms of the agreement you made yesterday. Breaking a promise to the Watchers is serious business.” He looked at the three of them, in turn, over the reading glasses perched on his nose. “I need to impress upon you three that the consequences of you, Anya,
willingly
leaving the city limits are dire.”

He walked towards an ornate wooden bureau standing next to the open study window.

“Now Jon, I have an early Nameday present for you.” Naeem pulled open a drawer and took out a small box. “Something which used to be mine in fact.” He took out a stone pendant hanging on a slender platinum snake chain and placed it around Jon’s neck.

“What is this, Grampa?” Jon cocked his head and examined the pendant. No bigger than his thumbnail, the pendant was heavy for its size. Jon peered closer at the gem. It was an opaque, moss green stone, shaped like a teardrop and stippled with streaks of crimson.

“It’s a bloodstone pendant. Your grandmother had the matching stone, set in a ring. When the time comes, you can give your grandmother’s ring, if you want, to your wife.”

“Grampa…” Jon’s face flushed as he squirmed in embarrassment.

Saul and Anya snickered.

“I want you to promise to keep this on you. Especially if you think you’ll find yourself…out of our reach. This is important, Jon. Promise me.”

“I promise, Grampa.”

“If or when you want my help, I need you to hold the stone like so,” Naeem held the bloodstone with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. “Then you say: ‘Blood to blood, I need you. Blood from blood, I call you.’ Can you remember that?”

“And you’ll come, Grampa?”

“Only if you say the phrase right.” Jon heard an odd note in his voice. Jon jerked his head up, to study Grampa Naeem’s face. He saw a strange expression he could not quite place in Grampa Naeem’s eyes. He was about to ask his grandfather about it when Naeem turned away.

“As for the two of you.” Naeem said to Saul and Anya, “The spell only works if Jon knows the words. So make sure he remembers.”

“We will,” Anya said.

“Well, good night, children.” Naeem gave all three of them a tight hug, which lasted a little bit longer than usual.

The trio made their way to Anya’s bedroom upstairs. Jon heard the grumps snoring through their closed bedroom doors, and wondered if the snores were genuine. Perhaps the grumps hadn’t been eavesdropping after all. Jon closed the door behind him with a gentle
snick
. He then sat on the floor, facing his friends.

“So we wait?” Saul stretched and yawned.

“Yes,” Jon said.

Saul reached back to Anya’s bed and snagged a feather pillow. “So we
do
have time for a nap?”

Jon thought for a moment. “No.”

He watched Saul cuddle Anya’s pillow, a pout on his friend’s face. “There is something we should do in the meantime.”

Jon turned to Anya who was playing with the tiny dun mouse on her lap. “We’re going to need some paper, ink and a quill. Can you get them from the study without waking the grumps?”

She nodded, put the mouse on her shoulder, and left.

“What do you have in mind?” Saul sat up, setting Anya’s pillow to the side.

“Grampa said that Anya can’t leave willingly. So I thought we should leave the grumps a note, telling them that we forced her to come with us.”

Saul snorted, shook his head, and leaned back on his elbow, legs outstretched. “There’s no way they’d believe that.”

“So not the point. The point is that the only proof they’d have of what happened is she’s been taken.”

“Taken?” Anya asked as she re-entered the room. She was carrying a sheet of paper and a small pot of ink. The mouse perched on her shoulder held a grey goose feather quill in its front paws.

“We need to give the grumps a reason to think that we kidnapped you.” Jon smoothed the paper on the wooden bedroom floor.

“So his plan,” Saul said, his eyebrow arched, “is to write them a note.”

“Would they believe that?”

“Maybe not,” Jon said. “But they’ll want to. Can anyone think of anything else we can do?” He studied each of his friends in turn.

Saul and Anya remained silent.

“All right. Someone else needs to write this, though. My handwriting’s pretty awful.”

Saul sat up, took the quill from the mouse, and dipped it in the pot of ink. He began to write, the tip of his tongue peeking out from between his lips.

Dear Grumps and Gramps
,

“Wait,” Jon said. “You can’t call them those names.”

“I’m not going to spell out everyone’s names, am I?” Saul said, frowning. The grey goose feather quill, still poised and ready, dripped fat drops of black ink from its sharpened nib onto the parchment. “I’ll run out of space.”

“Just keep going,” Anya said.

Like your rulebook says, me, Jon and Anya are going on a qwest to prove we can be Watchers. Grampa Naeem can tell you where it says so in the book.

“That’s going to get Grampa in trouble.”

“What can they do to him?” Saul dipped the quill into the pot for more ink. “Anyway, we never actually told him what we’re going to do. S’not like he can read minds.”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Just go on.”

W
e are going to rescue Gun-jeel’s family and friends from per percus

Saul turned to his friends. “How do you spell ‘persecution’?”

“I don’t know,” Jon said.

Anya growled. Saul darted a look at her face, then quickly returned to the ink-splattered parchment.

persekewshen. We will be back as soon as possible.

Gun-jeel is the goblin.

Love,

Saul, Jon and Anya.

“Done,” Saul said, a triumphant smile on his lips.

Jon sighed. “The most important part?”

“Oh yeah. I forgot.” Saul bent over the parchment again.

P/S: We kidnapped Anya. We had to fight her a bit.

“Oh great. Now we hit girls?” Jon said.

“I said only a bit.” Saul surveyed around Anya’s neat, pink bedroom. “I think maybe we should mess up the room. To make it look like we really fought.”

“Quietly though,” Anya said. “Don’t want to wake up the grumps.”

Anya pulled off the light summer duvet and left it in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. Saul took a small wooden stool and pulled off one of its legs. He winced at the sound it made when the wood snapped. Jon threw Anya’s pillows to random corners of the room.

Saul surveyed the scene, arms akimbo. “I think that’s messy enough.”

“Now, the last part,” Jon said. He picked up the pewter candleholder and blew out the candle. Darkness shrouded the little pink room. Anya placed the still damp letter on the barren bed, denuded of all its covers, where it was sure to be found. She weighed the parchment down with the candleholder.

“Anya,” Saul said, his hand on her shoulder, “consider yourself kidnapped. Now let’s go before they catch us.”

THE JAILBREAK

The trio made their way through the house and down the stairs. They were headed for the storeroom beside the kitchen, where Jon knew the grumps stowed their packs, when he noticed three backpacks lying on the wooden kitchen table. He grabbed Saul’s shoulders and motioned towards them. Jon walked over to the table and examined the packs.

They were bigger than the packs he and Saul usually carried. Much bigger. Hemp ropes were coiled on each side and some kind of animal fur bundled on the top. He put the new pack on and realized that it was also heavier than his old pack. Much heavier.

After his friends equipped their packs, he gave them a nod, and then headed for the backdoor. They tiptoed past the chicken coop, holding their breaths, so as not to wake the roosting hens. The trio made it out onto the street undetected. Jon turned the key and re-locked the side gate.

It would not do to upset Greta.

Click

“Jon, what if there’s a curfew?” Saul said.

Jon scanned the deserted street and surrounding houses. “I don’t know. We just have to be careful and not get caught.”

“So what’s the plan?” Saul asked.

“We break G’hanjl out.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know yet.” Jon heard Saul’s sharp intake of breath. “But I’ll think of something soon.”

“Jon, hold out your hands,” Anya said.

Puzzled, Jon held out his hand.

“When I said ‘hands’, I meant both of them.”

A blush crept up his neck, and Jon was grateful it was too dark for anyone to notice. He held out both his hands. A warm, furry thing scrabbled in his left palm and Anya’s small hand rested in his right.

“When I’m done, put us in your shirt pocket. Remember not to squeeze us.”

Jon’s ears popped, like there was as sudden change in atmospheric pressure when something relatively large suddenly became something relatively small. Anya’s pack thumped down on the cobbled city streets. Jon stepped into the moonlight and peered at the mice on the palms of his hands in speechless amazement.

The two mice were identical, from their short, brownish-black fur, to their black-tipped tails. They even sat up on their hind legs and cocked their heads at him at the exact same time, the exact same way. The only difference was that one of the mice had a pair of blank, silvery discs for eyes. One of them was clearly blind.

Just like Anya.

The blind mouse gently nipped the ball of his thumb and squeaked in what Jon could swear sounded like impatience.

“All right, all right,” he said. He placed the mice in his front shirt pocket. He felt both their heads poking out at the same time. “Stop wiggling. You’re tickling me.”

“Jon, come on.” Saul peered around in puzzlement. “Hey, where’s--?”

Jon gestured wordlessly at the mice poking out from the top of his shirt pocket. Saul’s eyes widened as his jaw fell open.

“Wait, how…?” Saul finally managed.

Jon shook his head and shrugged. One of the mice squeaked again. Louder, this time.

Saul peered at Jon’s pocket, forefinger extended. “Okay, I understand. No time now. But you’ll explain this later. Right?” He turned away, nodding to himself. “Right. For now, we should go. Keep up, Jon.” He dashed off into the gloomy streets.

Jon sighed, picked up Anya’s pack, and jogged to catch up.
Everyone’s rushing me tonight.

They glided through the silent cobbled city streets like shadows on still water, easily evading the few torch-bearing guards patrolling the streets. Linwood City guards seldom expect trouble because few criminals were stupid or foolhardy enough to target a known Watcher city.

The boys hid in the shadows of the dogwood trees outside the guardhouse across from a row of outhouses. They watched in silence as a gong farmer, pushing his creaking wheelbarrow of vats, stopped beside the outhouses. Jon gagged from the odor of humanity that poured out when the gong farmer, whistling, uncovered one of his vats. Still whistling, he went on to empty the contents of each outhouse into the open vat, highlighting the new note to an already fragrant city night. Jon concentrated on taking short, shallow breaths through his mouth until the farmer replaced the lid of his vat.

“All done, sirs! Heard you’ve been ill. Got ‘em stalls nice and clean for you.” He trundled off with his creaking wheelbarrow, still whistling, to the next collection point.

Jon decided the air was safe enough to breathe normally when the last echoing notes of the gong farmer’s whistling died in the deserted streets.

Just as Saul was about to make a dash for the jailhouse door, Jon gripped his shoulder. “Wait.”

A few moments later, Jaelyn came hurtling out of the guardhouse into an open outhouse. He was followed by another guard who rushed, retching, into the other outhouse.

“Wot was that you fed me, you rotter?” the other guard shouted through the closed outhouse door between bouts of retching.

“You took ‘em yourself, Eddie! Them was my cook—” Jaelyn interrupted himself with a loud, liquid
gurk.

Thank you, Grammy Greta
.

“Now,” Jon said.

They dashed across to the outhouses and slid the steel bolts shut, locking the guards inside.

“Oi! Who’s that outside, then—” Jaelyn started to say, before he was cut off by another liquid
gurk.

Jon glanced at Saul and recognized his own sense of mischief reflected in the smile on his friend’s face.

They entered the deserted guardhouse and ran pell-mell to the annex where G’hanjl was locked.