Demon of the Black Gate

Cerra heard the bar drop into place. She felt a wave of despair, but pushed it back. It was apparent she would have to wait. She sat for awhile, long after the footsteps echoed away along the corridor, her mind playing with the images of home. Her lake and cabin, the seat she favored to work in. All of them fought for realization and all of them faded into darkness. There was nothing here to enliven her.

‘Prison indeed.’ she snorted to herself. ’Why I have seen … “ and the void again shot into her memory.

She felt faint but the image steeled her resolve.

“Well, I’m not going to get anything done like this. You know the song by now ...” she said. Kamir stuck his nose out from under her robe, sensing her movement. “... ‘we can’t stay here’.” She made it a little tune.

“I’ve got to think.”

She got up and stepped over to her bag and stick, lying forgotten against the far wall. She rifled through, finding her seven leaf and pipe. A small wick was pulled as well for the wizard had done the favor of leaving the sconce lit.

She felt her way back to the bench, a mere five paces from where she had originally landed in the small cell. Kamir jumped up and flopped heavily against her thigh when she sat, making sure she knew he was there. She lit her pipe and leaned back.

She let her mind drift. The easiest thing to do was re-create the area of her cell, her new world. The paces across, the two small benches locked into the walls. The small grate high above. She let her ears capture just the sound that leaked from the small opening above her. What of the city’s omnipresent sound filtered down was a thin, indistinct drone. There would be no hope there. A cry for help would die before it reached the airs above.

She imagined the demon was trapped here as well. Where else could he be if her presence was important? She saw the demon in her mind. The shape she had molded with her hands. The world of him as the water … the sight of him as air. The fire that continually glowed in his eyes. Her heart went out to the demon.

“I am here.” she thought with a fierce intensity, one that spoke of love and challenge and a woeful feeling of inadequacy.

She felt an echoed response. At first she deemed it her own thought reformed. But it came from another place. A thrill went through her, like the one that went through her when she swam in his warm currents.

He was here. Captive. Like she. Small good it would do him that she was here. A window too high to be of use. A beam dropped across the door barred her only exit. She would have to wait.

She felt herself drifting. Waiting for what? To be a pawn in this wizard’s game? The beam dropped across the door. Her mind started playing with the image, recounting the sounds of the event. The bar had not been used much. It made a rusty grate as the metal sleeve moved loose on the pin. Luskin could fix that easily. She pictured the bar dropping into place and realized it had been hinged in place. She had not heard a key or padlock. The door was heavy. The groaning hinges had been proof of that as it had opened out into the hall. Her mind tried to play with the world beyond the cell. The hall that led away, but she been jostled and jolted descending the stairs and sometimes bumped along the passage.

She sat in the unfeeling womb of stone. The sconce that cast a weak light into the cell added nothing for her except the smell of the burning oil. She drifted as she thought of her journey here. Through the bowels of the mountain and on the brink of space. Across the sands and seas of time. She had ended here, the oak bar falling into the jambs, locking her away.

She bolted upright.

The bar.

She could see the door and the wood bar as clearly as though she had inspected them herself. She could get out!

Cerra got to her feet and stepped across the small cell to the door. She felt the edges of the slot. It would be eye level for most men, just above her head within easy reach. She inched back the plate that covered the slot with her fingers. She could just fit an arm through. She went back to her bag and emptied the contents of one of her small woven satchels loose into the bag. The satchel would unravel and provide the cordage she needed. Once picked open, the bag released its weave easily. She deftly braided a cord and drew out the pair of tooled brass sticks that the Luskin had made for her. She knotted them together, forming a crude hook.

She felt her way to the door and eased her fabrication through the slot. She let it ease down, hoping there was enough space for it to pass between the bar and the door. The hook hit the bar, making an audible connection. She let the line slack, but there was no movement. She retrieved a bit of her line again, before letting the hook slide back down, and again it lay flat on the bar. Carefully she pulled it up, and reaching through the bars, managed to reach the line where it turned back down and give it a little twist. She heard the hook flip to the other side. She let it down again, jiggling the line slightly as the hook made contact. She felt the hook go slack, then drop a little, the weight back on the line. She paid out more line and the hook slid down further. There wasn’t much cordage left.

She had her ear close to the heavy wood door, and her arm was tiring being held up so. The hook finally cleared the bar as she could feel the line twist slightly as the hook was free to rotate. She eased in her line, as it was likely the hook would rest flat to the door if she waited. The hook caught and held. She hoped she’d be able to lift it. A hand span was all she needed.

She pulled a little harder. The hook held and she heard the gratifying squeak of the bar moving on the hinge. She feared her makeshift line would break if she jerked it, and raised it carefully. Another squeak proved the bar was moving, and she kept the pressure on her line. The metal of the grate could abrade the weave of the line quickly. The bar kept moving, and she pulled harder.

She had been waiting for the moment to push at the door as soon as she felt the bar clear its cradle and it did just as her line snapped. She shoved.

The door stuck, but the bar could not fall back into place. There was enough space for her to slip her fingers through, and she found the end of the bar. She eased it up further, enough that she felt she could get her wrist through. She reached for her cane and slipped it outside the door, wedging it up underneath the bar. Carefully she raised the bar. It would have to clear the other cradle near the hinge before it would completely unbar the way. The door opened slightly more and she heard Kamir slip through.

“That’s one.” she murmured to herself. She was concentrating on the bar. If her cane slipped … or … she shut the failures from her mind. The bar gave another rusty creak and cleared the second cradle. The door flexed out, the bar sounded a metal complaint at the hinge pin. Cerra let herself squeeze out, hips catching. The stick fell from her hand with a clatter as she pushed herself free and the door swung back, jammed shut by the bar.

Cerra picked herself up from the smooth stone floor of the hall. “And that’s two.”

She stilled her breathing, listening. To her the clatter had been deafening. She was certain alarms and shouts would be filling the air at any moment. She heard nothing except the dead sounds of the crypt. She lifted the bar properly this time, setting it in the vertical slot that she knew was there to hold it. She went back into the cell and sparked an idea as she gathered her things.

“Witch, am I?” she murmured to herself. “I can do witch”

The most powerful spell she could think of was confusing the issue. She took threads from the bag she had already partially unravelled for the line. She found a vial in her purse of flower elixir that was mostly oil. She coated the strings the oil and laid them out in a pattern on the rest of the bag laid flat. She decided on the runes for ‘run’ and ‘home’. She thought of adding the runes commonly used for ‘up your ass,’ but thought better of it. She didn’t have much time and magicians didn’t do that. Did they?

She lit the wick she kept for her pipe and set the ravel on fire. It would only burn a moment or two. The oiled threads should leave a burnt image on the remains of the bag, then smolder itself out. She returned the two metal pins to her hair. She rather liked them she thought, “I’ll have to get more made when I return to Ishkara.”

She gathered every other unused scrap and stuffed it in her bag. She would leave nothing else behind. She slipped out of the cell and clucked softly to locate Kamir. She caught a whiff, and then heard a brief mewl as he slipped out to join her.

“You left a turd.” she whispered with a grin. “My feelings exactly!”

She flipped the hood of her robe over her head, and tucked in her curls as best she could. The sounds of the wizard and his soldier had come from off to the left as she had been in the cell. The other direction could only lead deeper into the dungeon, and the thought didn’t appeal to her. There was no other way to go. She put her right hand on the far wall and began walking along carefully, fearful that tapping her stick would give her away.

The first corner was immediate, and it didn’t take long for her to reach the second turn. She remembered the corner because one of the men who bore her down wacked her head swinging her around. There was no emptiness in front of her to indicate anything but a wall, and so she let herself make the turn. A trace of heat and smell of oil spoke of a sconce casting weak light.

‘About thirty paces to the stairs’, she thought, and crept forward, her fingers tracing along the mortared rough stone. The corridor reminded her of the cave tunnel except closer. She had been in the bowels of the earth. This hallway was meager by comparison. Her hand swept past a shallow alcove. Her fingertips fell over cloth, rope, some leather straps. Her hands quickly darted up. Wrought iron hooks were set into the wall. She fell more cloth. Another coat she decided. The small alcove ended and she walked a few more careful paces until she felt the flow of air shift slightly up, the sound coming back at her askance. The stairs must be right in front of her. She edged forward carefully, feeling for the first riser.

She was about to step up when she heard the muffled clump of a shutting door and the faint sound of voices coming from far above her. Much higher than distance they had carried her down. The quiet echo suggested a tower. They were unfamiliar to her for Amberland Gap had no such structures. But the sinuous curve of the sound as it floated down limned the space in her mind. She couldn’t help but think of being inside a man’s prod. She scarcely had the thought when the sounds of descending footfalls broke her concentration. The echoes made it sound like many feet, but she quickly sorted out that it was one person. She could not hope to gain the ground floor without being seen. Nor was there any refuge in her cell. She might not even make it that far anyway.

Her thoughts flashed back to the alcove she had felt. She edged her way back to the narrow inset. The steps were louder. Another flight closer. She was certain whoever it was would not stop at the ground floor. The only torch she thought would be lit was thirty paces away. The hallway would be fairly dark. She stepped into the near corner of the alcove and flipped the hood of her robe onto the iron hook. She reached and grabbed a coil of rope and added that to the hook for effect, the weight of it pushing her closer to the corner. She slid her hand close to her body, enough to tuck in some stray curls. The steps were descending from the ground level now, and she felt Kamir curl in around her ankles. The heels of the guards boots reached the bottom, followed by automatic unhurried strides.

She held her breath. Five paces. Three. She closed her eyelids as though it would produce the final stillness. The footsteps passed without faltering. There was no smell of a torch. She heard his receding gait, the sound changing sharply when he turned the corner. It wouldn’t be long now she thought.

The dull creak of the bar being raised and the equally strained hinge of the door cast their sounds back to her. The sound of his curses carried a great deal further and she heard him returning in a hurried rush. Turning the corner he sounded as though he was bearing down on her. She willed herself to stillness. She felt the air of his passing, so close was he to brushing her.

His steps carried without faltering to the steps and began their hasty ascent. Again he didn’t stop at the landing where she knew a door must be but continued to rise, the guard’s resounding footsteps coming from further aloft, changing pitch as they climbed. Her mind settled on the image of a seashell she had seen as a child: a spiral of chambers curving to a point yet to be revealed.

Cerra eased the rope coil from the hook, and urged her cloak free. She held herself flat to the wall as she stepped out into the passage. She waited. The footfalls ceased far above her. There was an exchange of voices, too low to hear. She did not dare move from her hiding spot until she knew where they would search first.