The Agrista (Between the Lines Book 1) (30 page)

  “What if you apply it to our shoes?” Johanna suggested.

  “That’s quite clever, Johanna,” Cerin said, surprised. “I could, in essence, scratch the coordinates into the rubber soles and apply the potion to our footwear,” he briefly considered. “Though it has the potential of flipping us upside down, which would render us rather useless unless you’ve a remarkable sense of balance and strength. I can’t claim to have either in this wretched body,” he concluded with a dissatisfied grunt.

  “It’s worth a try,” Johanna urged. “I think our density and mass will be enough to keep us upright, despite the pull of opposing gravity. I refuse to be dead weight, in any capacity.”

  “Bit of a scientist, are you? You’re smarter than you’ve let on, Johanna,” Cerin smirked.

  “Not really. I just like to know how things work,” Johanna blushed. Cayden internally beamed upon hearing this. She was bright
and
modest.

  “It’s a risky plan,” Cerin puffed his cheeks out.

  “Do you have a better one?” she challenged weakly.

  “Okay. Hypothetically, let’s say we go with your plan,” he ignored Johanna’s question outright. “In order for Flight’s Fancy to work, I need to know the exact coordinates of our destination. How do you suppose we get them?”

  “I have the coordinates,” Chrystina’s whisper drew everyone’s attention. “The location of the maze changes every day. When we go to pick up Aemilius’ daily meal, we’re given a map, a compass, and a list of coordinates. It’s a game to them,” she frowned.

  It just might work
. Cerin had considered all other paths, but they only led to dead ends.

  “Make up your mind. We’re running out of time!” Fallon demanded.

  “It’s only our
lives
on the line. Forgive me if I want to approach the situation with careful consideration and explore
every
available option,” Cerin remarked dryly. “As a leader of Milités, you should appreciate that.”

  “You’re right, Cerin. It is your lives on the line, but it’s also ours. It’s everyone’s, really.” Alex grasped for the right words as they charged to the tip of his tongue and stopped short, running in circles.

  “I have to leave w-within the hour. What are we d-doing?” Chrystina asked nervously.

  “Alright, alright!” Cerin sighed, defeated. “We’ll go with Johanna’s plan.”

MAZE TO AEMILIUS

 
“
P
ity you’re to die a virgin, girl,” a robust, sweaty guard cackled as Chrystina sailed past him in the dimly lit corridor. “I can fix that for you,” he grinned widely to reveal a startling lack of teeth that churned her stomach.

  “She’s no virgin! You’re what, fifteen? Sixteen? The prince had to o’ had his way with her by now.” Another guard, substantially shorter than his companion, scoffed.

  “You’ve sisters, don’t you, girl? I bet he had the lot of you all at once!” The rotund man chortled. “Lucky bastard!”

  “Yeah, and I bet she liked it! Didn’t you, girl? Has anyone ever told ya you look like a bird?” the shorter guard mocked. “I’ve a fat worm for ya!” The two rocked with laughter. “I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share by now! What’s a couple more?”

  “I don’t mind an experienced woman meself. They know what they’re doin’,” the bigger man stroked his chin speculatively as he stepped into Chrystina’s path, refusing to let her pass and laughing at her futile attempts to do so.

  “I’d rather a maidenhead, but I’m no’ picky. I don’t mind sloppy seconds, or thirds. In the end, they all feel the same,” the shorter guard sniggered, forcing Chrystina to shrink against the wall as he eagerly advanced toward her with a wide gait.

  Johanna and Cerin watched in horror as the repulsive pair cornered her with violent thoughts, evident in their salacious glares and twitching fingers. Cerin mercilessly pressed his balled fists to his sockets, causing floaters to pulse beneath his eyelids as he racked his brain for a solution. He had to do something.

  “Where have you been, child? Aemilius is not a patient man!” Agatha squawked from behind the guards, forcing them apart and grabbing Chrystina firmly by the wrist.

  “Oi! She’ll be as late as we please! He’s going to kill the girl, anyway. What’s it really matter, old woman?” the bigger guard grunted.

  “Oh? As late as you please, is it? If she’s late,
we’re
the ones that get punished!” Agatha snarled.

  “It matters not to us what happens to you lot,” the shorter man scoffed.

  “No, I suppose it doesn’t. But the Queen likes things closely controlled. Do you want to be the ones to explain to her why the the chemist is unhappy?” Agatha smirked, knowing she had them. It was no idle threat.

  “Ugh. Off with ya, then! She’s too ugly, anyway. It’d be like rammin’ the back end of a Dooble!” the plump guard sneered.

  Chrystina lost her head at the mouth of the maze. She’d held it together until now, even beneath the cutting scrutiny of Cailene’s dogs, gnashing their teeth in promise of harm. Seeing the gargantuan mass of gnarled wire and reinforced steel melted her own down to smoldering iron, languidly stretching out across the banked flames of fear and hardening into something unrecognizable as she shuddered amidst the heat.

  The pale faces of her fallen friends – slack-jawed and lifeless – lined the looming walls of the perimeter on silver pickets. They seemed to be frozen in a private moment of fear and reflective resignation, identical to her own. For just a moment, she envied them, lost to this world forever. Every face she recognized brought about a violent shiver that sent her slowly crashing to her knees, obliterating the crumbling floodgates and liberating a tumultuous cry that left her shaking.

  Johanna had never seen the maze up close, nor heard tales of its appalling grandiosity, for no one had lived to tell them. She processed the gruesome sight in silence with macabre fascination. It was no worse than she’d imagined. Growing up among the rebels, Johanna had seen things no man should ever see, let alone a child.

  Still, seeing it and
smelling
it now was far more pungent than fleeting thoughts, and she couldn’t deny the rise of bile worming its way up her throat and threatening to expose her true vulnerability. She might be an old soul, but she was, after all, still only a child.

  “Johanna,” Cerin’s wavering tenor ripped her from her racing thoughts. “It’s time.” He held up the nearly empty vial of Flight’s Fancy, and she nodded in recognition. “There isn’t much. It will only lift us a few inches from the ground, but it’s enough to keep us from triggering the detonators. We still need to be extremely careful, and walk single file,” his firm voice was drowned out by Chrystina’s racking sobs. “Let’s hope this works!”

  Cerin cringed as he applied the remaining drops of Flight’s Fancy to their shoes, not knowing
what
to expect. Johanna’s heart broke into a gallop when he tightly grasped her hand to steady her as she slowly rose into the air. She grew mildly disgusted with herself at the reflexive reaction. Now wasn’t the time to be mooning over boys.

  “Stop your sniveling!” a nasal male voice boomed over the loudspeaker, wired to be heard throughout the maze. Cerin couldn’t help but note how familiar it sounded. “I’m starving! Enter the maze at once!” it hissed, accompanied by an overwhelming feedback of shrill frequencies and crackling static.

  “Y-yes, sir!” Chrystina sniffled.

  Her next breath exploded into a gasp as Cerin latched onto the back of her dress. It was followed by a quick succession of clumsy steps to hide her surprise, causing the others to scramble behind her in a heap of flimsy limbs. Their Parvúlus Armor was their only saving grace, working as a charge of similar polarity as it repelled the steel walls, saving them from sure destruction and discovery.

  “Slow and steady!” Cerin reminded with a hiss.

 
People always say the first step is the hardest, but the ones that followed were just as difficult. Chrystina took painstakingly slow and deliberate steps so that Cerin and Johanna could mimic her movements with ease. The sharp corners proved to be especially difficult, causing the others to go bounding off the sides and careening into her tensed back, making her footing markedly clumsier as she stumbled forward.

  Most of the slaves’ footing got a little sloppy around the corners. They were terrified to see what might be waiting for them around the bend. To Aemilius, she simply looked scared. All the power lie with Aemilius himself at the heart of the maze, and he refused to even entertain the thought that someone could penetrate the systems he had in place, despite the nagging feeling in his gut as he watched Chrystina robotically worm through the corridors.

  Chrystina felt her head spin out of control along with the faulty compass the closer they got to their destination. She foolishly cast a terse glance at the large glass face of the lab. It was much like looking into the hypnotic eyes of an enormous snake as it stretched its jowls and readied itself for the kill. Aemilius’ foreboding silhouette cast a shadow over her footing and struck a fear in her so deep that it momentarily paralyzed her.

  “Keep moving! If you stop even once more, I’ll reactivate the maze and get the Queen to send in another. Perhaps one of your sisters?” Aemilius’ shrewd bark sent her charging forward with weak strides.

  When they finally reached the entrance of the lab, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders, only to be replaced by another. Fear begot fear, only strengthening their burden by means of reciprocity. They braced themselves at the sound of mechanical whirring as a large iron door slowly rose to reveal an endless spiral staircase limned with shadow.

  A chill ran up Chrystina’s spine as she took in the daunting structure. The dark hid many things, and none of them were good. It comforted her greatly to know that she wasn’t alone. One by one, the stairs appeared before her like freshly erected cairns. She felt the weight of each meticulously placed stone; barrows of final prayers that unearthed her own and laid her calm to rest.

  She soon lost herself in the surge of fluorescent lights that flooded the stairwell with every next step she took. Cerin and Johanna struggled to keep pace as she hurried hers along, but they could scarcely see their footing, let alone her ebbing outline.

  “It’s about time! What took you so long?” Aemilius flung the door open as soon as her foot hit the top step. It chilled her to know how eerily cognizant he was of her every movement while she remained completely blind to his.

 
He’s so familiar
, Cerin scoured his mental faculties as he looked the gangly man over.

  “Get to work!” Aemilius huffed, throwing himself back down in his chair.

  Aemilius was in his mid-fifties, but looked well into his sixties, exposing a string of sleepless nights and poor decisions. Just shy of 6’6” and thin as a rail, his jet black hair was streaked with silver and puffed out beneath his glasses, as if trying to make up for its absence over his glossy dome by drawing attention to the unruly sides.

  His comically large coke bottle glasses spent more time resting at the butt of his nose than they did over his eyes, for his face was unnaturally flat, and there seemed to be nothing to hold them up. His thin lips pursed into a constant moue of disapproval to hide his extremely crooked teeth and only exacerbated his shrewd appearance.

  “Put the food down there, you filthy cretin!” With a roll of his eyes, Aemilius motioned to a nearby table before jumping to his feet and rushing off in another direction. “Don’t touch
anything
! It’s important for my lab to remain sterile, and you’re anything but.” Aemilius impatiently rummaged through a drawer for eating utensils. Anal to the core, he insisted on using his own personal set.

  Cerin and Johanna flattened themselves along the back wall to avoid Aemilius as he chaotically stormed about the room. Chrystina kept her head down and stood stock-still to avoid a further onslaught of verbal jabs. Seeing as her station was the only provocation he needed, her precautions would be all for naught.

  Aemilius wove through the room with the lithe dexterity of a snake, seeming to find order amidst the overwhelming chaos. Several black lab tables lined the room and filled the spaces in between, making the lab itself a makeshift maze of much smaller proportions. Large cabinets adorned every inch of the walls, filled with various tools of the trade. Half of their contents were strewn atop the tables in a confusing – albeit orderly – fashion.

  At the back of the room, a blood tinged curtain draped across the floor, marring their pristine surroundings, which was pronounced by Aemilius’ disheveled appearance as he briskly paced the room. Chrystina shuddered to think what might lie behind the curtain, and forced her attention back to the task at hand. Aemilius boorishly plunked himself down in his chair and glared at her, letting out a staccato of a sigh.

  “Bring me my food!” he demanded, slamming his fist onto the arm of the chair.

  “Y-yes, sir!” she struggled to keep the fear out of her voice, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. She dumbly held out the platter of food, only to meet with further scorn.

  “I’m not going to eat it on my lap, you imbecile! Bring the table here!” he jerked his head toward a nearby table with an impatient groan.

  Chrystina placed the tray of food on the small iron table, and wrapped her arms around the two front legs as she awkwardly bowed her legs. The table was even heavier than it looked. She managed to pull it over, inch by inch, but not without a grating cacophony of tearing marble and screeching iron.

  “That’s close enough! Ugh! Graceless swine,” Aemilius muttered as he turned toward the table. He hesitated before removing the cover from his food. “Stop hovering!” he hissed, shooing Chrystina away as if she were a whimpering mongrel.

  Wild boar ate more gracefully than Aemilius. He double-fisted his food, shoving piles of it into his mouth before he’d finished swallowing his previous bite. He often missed his mark and hit the floor. Because he ate with such speed and fervor, he was unable to control the intake of air, and made a distinct snorting noise as he suckled his food. It was a miracle the man had never choked to death.

 
Great Lucidus, he reminds me of that idiot, Emil!
Cerin smothered his forthcoming gasp with the back of his hand.
It can’t be, could it? Emil could be short for Aemilius…It must be!
Emil was a former schoolmate of Cerin’s, and the only person Cerin had ever met that ate – quite literally – like a pig.

  Emil had acted as the schoolmaster’s warden, revealing every minor infraction of his fellow classmates’ and gloating about how cunning he was to catch them. Meanwhile, he painted a huge target on his own back that stood the test of time. Fear of repercussions had little bearing on children that age, and didn’t stop Emil from getting tormented throughout the rest of his school days. The cruel treatment only strengthened Emil’s foolish notions, and Cerin was often at the head of it.

  “I keep hoping they’ll send up someone with at
least
half a brain. I’m in dire need of an assistant,” Aemilius sighed, hoping Chrystina would have sympathy for his plight. “I’m going to give you the same choice I gave all the other rats,” Aemilius set his utensils down and began cleaning his glasses with the edge of his dingy lab coat, only making them filthier.