Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

Norman tromped toward the back of the room in his iron toed guard boots. He pressed something there, and the wall slid open to show a dark tunnel. He looked back at us, “You can’t handle the pitch black can you?”

He ran his hand along the wall searching for something, and the lights in our room went out leaving only the slight glow from the opening we had come through. “Oops. Wrong one.” He muttered, and the lights came back on before we even had time to panic.

He hit something else on the wall, and proclaimed, “I found it!”

It took a moment, and the darkness behind him slowly became very dimly lit. Now I could see a narrow and cramped tunnel with a small light hanging above it. Beyond that there were either no lights, or the tunnel turned.

“Not all the lights work anymore, we need to fix them, but it should be enough for everyone to see their way. Make sure to stay close as the tunnels are designed to be confusing. Last one through please close the door,” He walked forward, and we obediently followed like loyal dogs.

Going through the door we ended up in a single file line behind Norman with Henry first, then me, Dan, and closing the door was Daniel. The narrow tunnel had much rougher walls than the big tunnels maintained by the Wall. Were all areas that went to sections under the city more like this? I thought about how Mr. Repair Man hadn’t wanted to come in this section. Probably not.

I felt a crack in the rough, but never ending shaped stone material. “Why are there cracks in the tunnel?” The last bit of my sentence echoed in down the tunnel in front of us

“Don’t worry. Cracks have been here a long time. Our tunnels were made a touch cheaper so as the ground settled there were cracks. But holding up the tunnel are supports stronger than stone. This stone stuff isn’t doing any weight bearing. At least that’s what my father told me.” Norman’s reassured me from up front, his own voice echoing off the tunnel wall.

He stopped and we all stopped. Up ahead a light flickered on and behind us darkness gobbled up the tunnel. He walked forward, and as we passed I felt the knob he must have pressed to switch the darkness.

He turned down an offshoot hallway, stopped, and pressed another knob leaving the hallway we were in lost to the dark with only the specter of light up ahead guiding us forward. I felt other offshoots we did not take, pits of darkness waiting to trap unwary wanderers. We turned right, and then left, and then a turn that wasn’t a direction until I was so thoroughly confused that I wouldn’t be able to get back out of this place if I tried. How much time had Norman spent in the tunnels to so easily find his way? The only thing he seemed to struggle with was finding the light switches.

“Here’s our stop.” He sounded tired. Or was it sad? I couldn’t quite tell.

Were we at a dead end? How was this a stop? He pressed something in the wall, and above us light shown down through the ceiling revealing a ladder built into the wall leading up to the light.

He started climbing up, and we all followed in order. The hole opened up to a brick walled room with a gorgeous wooden board floor. “How is this still here? Why would someone waste precious wood on a house floor, and how has it not rotted away?” I muttered as I brushed my hand over the floor and pulled myself into the room. It felt slightly wrong, almost too smooth to be wood.

Dan climbed out the hole next to me and I moved over to make room for him and Daniel behind him. He looked at the strange boards and ran his hand over the area my hand had just left. “Does the city grow wood this strangely uniform?”

A shadow passed over the floor and stopped over. I looked up to see Norman’s bald head looking down at me. “It’s not wood. It’s stone board. Fake wood made by the ancestors.”

“Fake wood.” I ran my hand over it marveling at how strange the people were that built this city. The village was so very different from this city. I looked back at the hole we had come through, and now I realized it had a lid that was currently upright. A couple of the fake boards stuck out either side of it looking like wide bits of hay attached to it.

Daniel pushed the lid down right after coming through, and with a click it blended into the floor. It was like it had never been there in the first place.

Norman pointed at the wall nearest where the hole was. “If you ever need to escape. There is a switch along here between the wall and the floor. Press it, and the door will open. Pull it shut behind you. Follow the wall taking a left, a right, and then two lefts. It will lead you to a safe room. In that room, you will find a button similar to the ones along the tunnels. Press it and it will seal off the room and provide light.”

Left right left left switch. “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. And what do I do then if I’ve had to pull this maneuver to escape this place which is already supposedly our safe house?”

Norman shrugged. “One of us should find you. We know the tunnels and we’ve hidden people in them for years before.”

Years. I hoped I didn’t need to use his instructions.

“Dan, come with me. I want to show you around the headquarters,” Henry called out from near the door on the other side of a large table in the middle of the room.

Dan quickly stood up, and I followed suit. Might as well get a tour of the new location.

Daniel gripped my arm stopping me, “You’re staying here. We don’t want too many people to know you are both here. Can’t trust that most people won’t just see you and run to the guard for a little extra money.”

I looked at Dan who was already partially around the table and had stopped, looking between Henry and I.

“Don’t worry,” Henry called out. “Daniel will look after her. We talked about this before we met up with you and decided it was best to only have one of you know the layout of the place and be seen by others. And since she isn’t much of a fighter it’s best to keep her close to the escape door at all times.

“So I’m just a prisoner again?” I called out, feeling the bitterness of being trapped in a cell rising up as bile in my throat.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, “ Daniel responded. “I would say more like you are our Most Honored now, and in need of protection and guarding. We do have a room connected to this one for your use, and we have selected a loyal maid who will serve you and help you with anything you need.”

Was the only difference between Dishonor and Most Honored the quality of one’s cell?

Dan’s brows dipped toward his eyes a bit, hooding them as he looked down at the ground. Was he going to leave me here? He looked back up at me, and I felt a rock rolling in my stomach.

“What they are saying makes sense. I promise I will be back after looking around.” He turned toward the door.

“You’re leaving me here?” He had been at my side since we entered the city. He was next to me when I was standing on the execution platform, and now he was just going to leave me here in this new cell?

“You will be fine without me for a few minutes Liv!” His rebuke stung. He was right.

I couldn’t say anything more as I watched him walk out. I had no right to demand to stay by his side. He had stayed by mine, but it was his right to walk away. The door closed behind him leaving me with Daniel and Norman. Norman was messing with something on the table.

Daniel sighed. “You two are disgusting.”

“Huh?” I responded, trying to figure out what Daniel was talking about.

“Come on. Let me show you your room,” as he said this, he pulled me toward a fake wood door on our side of the room. The door opened to reveal a small brick walled room with a bed in the corner, a screened off area that I assume had a chamber pot or something similar, and a small table.

“Where will Dan be staying?” It didn’t look like there was room for both of us in this small room, and the bed in the corner looked like it fit one person.

“Dan has his own room. Don’t worry. He is fairly nearby.” Daniel sighed again and shook his head.

“How nearby? Is he close enough to make it quickly if we get attacked and need to escape? I can’t leave him - “

“Look, I get that you’re in love with the guy, but he you have to let him be his own person. That whole vision of honor thing you talk about, and then you expect him to be your shadow?”

“He’s just a friend!” I blurt out, unable to admit to this stranger anything more than what I say to Dan.

Daniel glared at me. “I might have forgone the whole love thing. But I know a person who is head over heels when I see it. I got to watch Henry wallow after his wife until she noticed him. That man cares deeply for you, and you need to either fess up that you want him with you and you love him, or you need to stop holding him so tightly to your side. Either way you should be truthful. We could all die tomorrow, and what would you feel if you die without saying anything? How would he feel if he left without you? How would you feel if you are left without him?”

I looked down at the ground. I could feel my own hurt, and my regret over my crazy short previous relationship. I had been so wrong previously. I didn’t want to be wrong again. “I can’t. I can’t say anything till this is over. I can’t. And what if -”

Daniel grabbed my shoulders and shook me, “Wake up to reality. This might not end well. Life is short. What if we die today? Say what you need to say immediately. I can tell you from when I saw Henry say something that it will be a worry of your chest. Be honest with yourself and others. Isn’t that part of your whole ideal? That vision of honor thing? Build your own honor? Don’t the honorable supposedly embrace honesty; not that the honorable are really honorable anymore.”

I looked up at his dark green eyes that reminded me of tree leaves in the summer. The village where I met Dan. “Fine, you’re right. I love him. Happy? Now how does that help anyone? We have a war to fight.”

“Tell Dan, and then tell me after you’ve told him that it helps no one. It will get this stupid amount of tension between you two to finally dissipate.”

“Fine, I’ll tell him when he comes back in! Does that make you happy?” I yelled at him, hoping my words could slap him.

“Yes,” Norman’s voice came from over by the table making me look back over at him. I’d forgotten he was still in the room.

He shrugged. “Even I could feel the unsaid words and it was bothering me. All of us here have said our necessary things to our loved ones and prepared them for if we should depart. I heard Henry’s wife practically ordered him to fight with tears streaming down her face. I fight so my wife doesn’t have to go serve that bastard of a king every day fearing for her life. Henry fights for his children to grow up without being looked down upon for his marrying below his honor level. I don’t know why Daniel fights.”

“Loyalty to you louts,” Daniel’s voice had a light mocking tone to it now.

I felt my own anger and frustration bleed away. “I will tell him then.”

I looked around for a chair to sit in, but there was nothing in the main room except the table and the two doors, so instead I leaned against a wall.

“How long do you think they will be?” I asked.

Norman shrugged again and Daniel looked over at the door.

The door started to open.

“That’s probably them, “ Daniel smiled gleefully at me, daring me to dodge my promise.

I could see Dan framed in the doorway on the other side of the table, and I could feel a rock lodged in my throat. I couldn’t evade this anymore. I looked down at the ground, unable to look him in the eye and see his rejection. “I love you Dan. I’m sorry I haven’t said anything before this. I -” I couldn’t say anything more. I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t believe my audacity to say this in front of everyone.