Call to Mission: Heart of the Splicer 1 Page 5

  Chapter Two

  THE DETAILS OF Dioled were coming into view. A sentry who must have seen them approach from the hill, stood in wait atop the stone wall. Inside, the crowds all dressed in pale robes, a population churning in form and number, the children dancing in abstract form--images of the cloud elves from the storybooks of her own childhood. She longed for those days of complete freedom, and it only made the thoughts that were bedeviling her all the more troublesome.

  She checked to see if Logan was still out of earshot and then leaned toward Caleb slightly, lowering her voice to nearly a whisper. “Caleb, I need to ask a favor of you.”

  “Anything. You saved my life.”

  Sophie resisted the temptation to shake her head and maintain her modesty as she had been doing during the entire trip. Whatever debt to her that he believed in could actually serve some use now. A few guards at the gate took positions along the roadway to greet them. She only had a little time left. “Don’t mention our prisoner to the guards.”

  Caleb’s posture shifted away from her, and he stared with an uneven jaw. When he spoke, his voice rasped along stressed syllables and all but inaudible breaths between them like some demonic language meant for darker conversations.

  “What exactly do you intend to do with him?” he asked, and when she had deciphered the cacophony of his words, she immediately felt guilty for asking him and provoking such a reaction.

  Still, he had given her what she had hoped. He hadn’t told her no, which meant that mere logic would be enough in trying to convince Caleb.

  She decided to begin with the truth, though part of her chastised her nobler side for her disclosure. “You may not realize it, but you saw me draw energy from him back in those cages. He’s a splicer. There’s no other explanation.”

  Caleb’s shoulders rose under his shirt and roiled uneasily around his neck. Ahead, one guard moved to the forefront, ready to receive the Dioledians. His armor appeared strange to Sophie after seeing all the villagers in their celebratory garb.

  The stylized metal plates encased the man’s own windblown attire like shells overgrown on some aquatic species draped in the swaying flow of a river current. The fact that splicers were never known to wear armor reminded her just how dangerous they must have seemed to everyone else.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” he said.

  Sophie changed her pace and veered toward the cart. “I need to interrogate him myself,” she said. In a final attempt to force Caleb to submit, she left his side, coolly sparing him no time for response, and she stood beside the cart, just ahead of Toole.

  Logan looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but she waved her hand at him and pointed to the guard, who was now calling out to them.

  Under the cover of his cries to halt, she grabbed Toole’s forearms, saw his shifty fingers clasp into fists, and said, “If you’re smart, you’ll keep your wrists where they can’t see them. You’re not going into their custody just yet.”

  She was surprised by the strength in her voice. Maybe being outside of the Ether Edifice really was all she needed to prove herself capable.

  Their cart came to a stop, and the leader of the guard approached.

  Sophie leaned forward to obscure the guards’ view of Toole’s hands behind his back. Following her lead, Toole leaned back and casually propped one leg atop the other.

  “Caleb,” the guard said, standing with a foot pointed toward his fellow Dioledian and the other sideways as if to draw a line the rest of them couldn’t pass without confrontation. Sophie noted the way he eased his posture around Caleb though, the two of them being clearly more friends than acquaintances.

  The command in his voice did not falter, however. This was a man of duty, Sophie realized. If Caleb was the same, she hoped he would honor the favor she had asked of him, even if that meant betraying the trust of his townspeople.

  Caleb shook the man’s hand. “Captain Palloroak.”

  Sophie noticed that Palloroak’s robes were bunched together and disheveled under his elaborate armor. Their arrival must have come at an inconvenient time for the captain. She gave half a smile at the sight of him and thought about what it must have meant about Dioled that the head of the village guard had been joining in the celebration inside. This place had a kind of relaxed atmosphere that she could appreciate.

  Nearby, Logan stood almost defiantly to face the guards. Arms crossed, he had lost all visible concern for whatever she was doing with Toole, and that was a relief to Sophie. Her partner wouldn’t say anything about the bandit, or anything else for that matter. She hadn’t expected it to be the case, but Logan was apparently too reserved around strangers he couldn’t push around.

  The thought reminded her again of their mission to introduce the Dioledians to splicing and to forge an alliance between the village and the Ether Edifice. She grimaced and looked away from her partner.

  Logan would be surely be forcing his way of life on others in no time. It would make her job all the more difficult; but until she could interrogate Toole, she would have to endure the task. She leaned farther into the cart in case any guards on the wall were trying to get a closer look at her hostage.

  The Dioledians they had been traveling with were quickly ushered through the gates after the guards had inspected them for injuries. The fact that one among their group was not present upon their return did not go unnoticed.

  Some of the guards hung their heads or stared into the crowds behind them like a horizon of clouds hovering ominously before an approaching storm. Sophie wondered what kind of cruelty they had committed by interrupting their celebration with news of a Dioledian death.

  She almost wanted to surrender Toole to the guards so someone could be held accountable for the sake of the victim’s family; but she had to deny them that justice, at least for now.

  Palloroak patted Caleb on the back, and afterward, his hand rested upon the hilt of his sword. It seems that he was good at navigating the border of his friendship and his responsibilities.

  “I’m not going to let you keep me from the celebration any longer, Caleb,” Palloroak said. He smiled and nudged his fellow villager, but Sophie could tell the thought of the Dioledian who hadn’t returned home still bothered the captain.

  His cheerfulness quickly disappeared into a stern brow that had clearly seen long days atop the walls. “Let me just take a look at your company,” he said, “and then you can head inside. Agreed?”

  “That’s fine,” Caleb said, glancing first at Logan and then at Sophie. As the guard passed him, he clenched his jaw as if to apologize to Sophie for failing to stall for them or offering any kind of distraction.

  Caleb really would allow Toole to be discovered if it meant retaining his honesty, and she couldn’t blame him. She held her breath momentarily and thought about her options, her hand still clinging to Toole’s forearm in preparation to do whatever was necessary.

  Palloroak walked first toward Logan, his suspicion visibly piqued, and Sophie realized that the way Caleb had casually passed his eyes over the two of them had actually influenced the captain’s course of inspection. Caleb had bought her more time than she had given him credit for.

  She followed Toole’s arm down to his wrist and tugged in a panic at the leather bindings. With only her one hand put to task, she couldn’t seem to do anything more than twist the knot, tangling it more. She caught her other hand clenching the cart’s edge too tightly.

  The pressure of her grip had turned her fingernails red with pale crowns, splitting the plies along the cart like city gates against a siege machine. The captain of Dioled was right to be suspicious of them. She was about to set loose a criminal at their threshold, and if untying the bandit in their midst wasn’t enough to get her caught, showing her struggle surely would.

  She relaxed both hands, and as Palloroak finished confiscating Logan’s stolen dagger and was turning to search her, she finally had lodged her fingernails into the knot and slid them away,
uncoiling the leather cords in one steady pull. The leather fell onto the bench behind Toole, but he didn’t move his hands to the front like she had wanted.

  Instead, each hand above it favored the other wrist, caressing the indented marks that lined his skin like riverbeds in a drought. Palloroak was upon them now, and all she could think about was how this bandit could have easily slipped his bindings if even she was able to untie them with only one hand.

  Looking at the negative space between those marks on his wrists, he almost looked like some stonework golem pieced together like the very wall of Dioled itself. She held her breath, worried that he was about to show exactly what he was made of.

  Palloroak reached a hand toward Sophie and nodded. She took the invitation to offer herself up for his searching by spinning with her arms held out. The captain didn’t come any closer, perhaps because his noticeable mix of authority and hospitality kept him from being too forceful about his duties.

  Either way, Sophie was relieved, as she wanted neither the invasiveness of a close inspection nor the risk of losing her advantageous position behind Toole.

  When her display had convinced the captain well enough, he made the same gesture to Toole, but this time, he waved for the bandit to step down from the cart as well.

  Toole didn’t move. His fingers remained wrapped around each wrist, appearing like some philosopher’s statue, smirking at the authorities and his captors alike, a gargoyle lying in wait to strike.

  “Let’s see those hands,” Palloroak said. He started waving again, showing his growing impatience. They were close enough to reach one another, and Sophie began to regret releasing Toole at the thought of whatever he was planning.

  The bandit leaned back just enough to block Sophie’s line of sight.

  “Let’s play a game,” he said.

  * * *

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