The Quarrygate Gambit, page 17
Except he could hear Julien, so he didn’t have to imagine.
At night, the guards weren’t right by the box. There was a hallway patrol, and while the guards were doing an excellent job with the watch, one place they weren’t paying much attention was the hold box.
Julien was just whimpering when Verci got there.
“Jules,” Verci whispered. “I’m here.”
“You keep saying that,” Jules whispered hoarsely. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“I just got here, man,” Verci said, looking over the lock. Pretty simple one, he’d have it open in a trice. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“I keep asking you to get me out, and you keep saying you’re here.”
Saints, he must be losing it in there.
“Jules,” Verci said firmly but quietly as he worked the lock. “I don’t know what you must be going through in there, what you’re seeing and hearing, but I’m really here right now.”
“Verci?” Julien asked. “Get me out of here.”
“Almost got it,” Verci said as the lock clicked and cracked. The door practically flew open, and Julien fell out on top of Verci. Verci barely had a chance to brace himself to keep the big guy from cracking on the floor, and did his best to gently get Julien onto the floor without collapsing under the weight. “Got you, got you.”
Julien looked around, his neck cracking audibly from the movement. “You . . . you’re really here. I didn’t . . . I wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah, man,” Verci said, caressing the man’s head. Julien stunk of sweat, piss and filth, but Verci didn’t care. “It’s all right, you’re all right.”
“I couldn’t move in there, I couldn’t . . .”
“Now you can,” Verci said. “Can you get up?”
Julien strained to push his body up so he was sitting. “Give me a minute.”
Verci would have loved to tell him to take all the time he needed, but surely guards would come this way soon. “Just a bit. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“What about the rest?”
“I can’t do that yet,” Verci said.
“We can’t leave them,” Julien said. “No, we’re not.”
“I’m not,” Verci said firmly. “I am getting you out. And I’ll stay and work with the rest of them.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Julien said.
Verci got up and helped pull Julien to his feet. “Nothing is right, especially what you went through. I’ve got an idea to get you out, and then I’ll work the rest.”
“But what will I do?”
“You get home, you tell Helene where we are, the names we’re here under, and that should help.”
“Are you sure? Ken would be better . . .”
“But you need to get out of this, man,” Verci said. “Come on.”
“And if you just break me out, the others will get it worse . . .”
“I will take care of it. I’ll take care of all of you, we just . . .”
“Well, look here, look here,” a guard’s voice said. “Looks like someone had a plan.”
Verci turned around and saw at least five guards there, all with handsticks. More than he could reasonably handle right now.
“Gentlemen,” Verci said calmly. “The poor man was suffering, I had to get him out of that box.”
“Well,” one guard said. “That’s very kind. Guys, isn’t that kind?”
“So kind,” another guard said. “You don’t see much of that in here.”
“And the big guy was ready to come out. Weren’t you, big guy?”
“Yes?” Julien said meekly.
“Get him out of here and clean him up,” the lead guard said. “Send him to his bunk.”
Two guards came over and hauled Julien off.
“Now, for this selfless fellow,” the guard said, looking at Verci. “You were right, his time in the box was over.”
“Just wanted to help,” Verci said.
“But now . . . looks like the box needs a new resident. So we’re very glad you decided to be helpful and volunteer.”
Chapter 16
IT WAS NEAR THE END of the day, Verci could tell that much. The box had tiny cracks that allowed the sunlight in, and he could hear the activity in the yard throughout the day. He didn’t cry out or give the guards any sign that he was going to break, though. Whenever he heard folks in the yard, he would start singing folks songs or bar ballads. He didn’t know which ward was in the yard at any time, but if it was Ward Seven, his folks would know where he was and that he was all right. And if it was Ward Four, that would be a message to Asti.
He chose the songs as a message. “Get My People Home.” “March Back for Me.” “My Sweet, She Is Waiting.” “Pick a Fight With Me, and My Brother Will Fight You Too,” If Asti heard those, he’d know.
If he heard. For all Verci knew, Asti had gotten himself thrown in a box himself. Or worse.
His voice was gone by the end of the day. Nothing to eat the whole time, and water was just a ladleful poured in the hole in the top, only a few swallows actually got in his mouth.
His legs were cramped, he couldn’t move them at all, and his arms were no better. Once there were no more yard sessions, then it was just quiet, just him in his thoughts.
This was really where someone would break, he realized. Asti had told him a little—only ever so little—of the torture and abuse he had suffered in the Poasian prison in the Napolics. This was nothing compared to that. Verci would hold it together.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the dark and the pain. If he kept his mind busy, kept it focused, he’d be all right. He’d make it through the night until he fell asleep. They wouldn’t keep him in here much longer than tomorrow morning. He just had to get through the night.
He visualized himself sitting in his workroom, in the back of the shop. He made a point of conjuring up the image in his mind in elaborate, painstaking detail. The height of his work chair. The wood grain of his bench. Each tool, on its niche in the wall, he placed them there in his mind’s eye, one by one, in the correct place.
Slowly, deliberately, he constructed the entire room in his mind, and held that image. He let himself sit there, fully inhabit the illusion. He was not trapped in a cramped box, he was in his workroom. He was going to build a new gadget. Something to help them all escape.
He opened up the drawer with his supplies. A few choice gears and springs. Yes, that would do quite nicely. He gathered each of them together, ordered them on the table, and got to work.
Yes, he could see it clearly. He just had to focus, and get it done.
* * *
Verci had built device after device. A toy gearbox, a repeating crossbow, a shackle-trap, a climbing rig. Each built with meticulous care, each laid out in their place on his workbench. He was very pleased with all of them, such good work. Perfectly done. Fine additions to his inventory.
The smell hit in the back of his nose first. Acrid, burning.
Smoke.
All of his new devices were smoking. Thin wisps at first, but then thicker and darker. He reached to grab one, but it crumbled into ash.
“No!” he shouted as it fell apart in his fingers. He grabbed the next one, but it also turned to ash. All of them did, and then the whole workbench.
“Stop, no, stop!” he shouted. He couldn’t lose it all, not again. He couldn’t let it fall apart, he couldn’t fail, not again, they’d all . . . Raych was counting on him, Corsi. Asti. All the others. There was so much smoke now, he couldn’t see his workroom, couldn’t breathe. “I can build it again, I can—”
A hand touched his shoulder. “Verci.”
The word, his name, was spoken so gently, filled with such love, that it brought him pure serenity. The smoke cleared away to his empty workroom, and in front of him, a young blond cloistress.
“I know you, don’t I?” he asked her.
“Not yet, not really,” she said. “I wasn’t really me when I came to you, not yet, not the me you’re going to know.”
“Who are you, and what . . . what is this?”
She took his hand and sat him down. “This is you, locked in a box for too long. You tried very hard to keep your mind together, and you made this delusion for yourself to keep control. But it was starting to collapse, and if it had, you would have completely shattered with it.”
“I . . . no . . . I was in my . . . we’re in my workshop.”
“You’re still in the prison, Verci,” she said. “You had been falsely arrested, put in the prison, and you got put into the box rescuing your friend. You need to remember.”
“Right,” he said, pushing through the cloud. “But then, where are we?”
“In your delusion, my dream?” she said with a shrug. “A place where we both can meet, for a moment. A place I could reach you, remind you to survive. Tell you need to get through this, but you will get through this, because you have so much more to do.”
“You came to the shop, called me Saint Terrent. Sister Myriem, right?”
“I may have done that, but I wasn’t myself then. Not who I am now, and certainly not who I will be. But we will meet, and you will get through this test, Verci Rynax.”
She said that with such conviction, he couldn’t help but believe it. “So just get through this, get out of the prison, and everything will be fine?”
Her eyes welled up with tears. “Oh, Verci. I wish I could tell you that. It’s going to be so hard for you, my friend.”
“Why can’t I just have a normal, quiet life?”
“Because someone has to stand up, Verci. For your family, for your neighbors, for your city.”
“Does it have to be me?”
She smiled; a soft, sad smile. “There was a girl in trouble, the daughter of the man who killed your father, and only you could save her. What did you do?”
“You know what I did, I think.”
“Because that’s who you are. You’re never going to just sit there and let things happen. That’s why you can’t just have a normal, quiet life.”
A question weighed down his heart. “But can my son?”
She touched his face, and he could feel her sorrow, but also her faith and certainty. And with all that, a sense of calm filled him, even though there was fear.
“Keep fighting for him, always keep fighting for him, and we can hope,” she said. She took his hand. “Now, Verci Rynax, stand up.”
She pulled him to his feet, but he wasn’t in the workshop. He was standing outside the hold box, in the Quarrygate prison yard. Weak, hungry, thirsty as all blazes, but on his feet.
“Gotta say, most folks don’t just stand up when they get out of that,” a guard said. “You’ve got some iron, Tacklin.”
Verci looked about. Three guards, but no Sister Myriem. Had he really almost cracked in there, and hallucinated her? It seemed so real, though.
“Appreciate the compliment,” Verci said. Burying the anger, the fear, the urge to scream, he put on his best smile. “Is it lunchtime? I am rather famished.”
* * *
The guards had taken Verci to the water closet and stripped him out of his grays, dunked him in the bath for a scrub, and thrown new clothes at him. Verci kept the smart comments going the whole time—I’m a married man, you know and At least buy me a beer, first and the like—while trying to keep the memory of the dream in his head. What did she say? He needed to stand.
Someone needs to stand up.
Right now, Asti was missing, and surely the others had been lost without him. It had been, what, six days since Helene’s party? He had no idea, but he had to get to Jules and the others, and come up with some way to help them. As many ways as he could, try them all.
“Come along, finish getting those on,” the guard said as Verci dressed.
“I’m working on it,” he said with a bit more edge than he should have dared, and the glare from the guard was definitely a warning. “I do appreciate the fresh grays.”
“You’re probably going to pull laundering duty next, Tacklin. If you stay out of trouble.”
“Why wouldn’t I stay out of trouble?”
“Your call, friend. Keep your hands as clean as that outfit.”
“It isn’t that clean,” Verci said. “But if I’m on laundry duty, I’ll keep things sharp.”
“Just keep your mouth dull, hear?”
“Heard.” Verci finished putting on the sandals. “Ready. Where to? Is it meal time? I’m famished but got no sense of time.”
The guard handed Verci a canteen, and Verci took a swig. Just water, but it was more than welcome. “Meal isn’t for another couple hours. Your ward’s on work detail now, but you can get back to your bunk until meal.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Gotta say,” the guard said. “Most boys don’t walk out of the box like that.” He raised an eyebrow. “Heard you were some kind of insurgent.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Did you serve army or something?” the guard asked, leading Verci down the hallway.
“Nah,” Verci said, following his instincts. This guard was oddly chatty, might as well go with it. “Just a tough street kid is all. Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask, but I may not like the question.”
“My big friend, the one who was in the box before me, he doing all right?”
“That guy, man,” the guard said. “You’d think a guy like that would be a really tough, but he spent a whole day in the infirmary before the doc tossed him out.”
“But now?”
“Blazes, I don’t know. He hasn’t caused me any trouble, I can tell you that.”
That wasn’t what Verci would call good news, but it could have been worse.
As they went down the hallway, they passed a young man who was clearly not a guard, and not a prisoner. He was wearing a frayed wool suit, patched in several places, and spectacles with a chipped lens, carrying an overstuffed valise. Verci’s instinct was lawyer, and an overworked and underpaid one at that, which meant one thing.
“Justice!” Verci called out. “Justice Advocate!”
“Hey, watch it,” the guard said, yanking Verci’s arm.
“Justice!” Verci called to the young man again.
“You’re going to end up back in—”
“Back in where?” the young professional man said, walking over. “This man is calling for justice, you best not be intending to punish him for that.”
The guard stammered a bit. “No, but . . . but there’s a system to . . .”
“I’m familiar with the system, sir,” he said. He looked Verci up and down. “Is there an issue, friend?”
“Quite an issue,” Verci said. He glanced at the guard. “Not with him, he’s doing his job admirably.”
The guard relaxed his grip a bit at that.
“Go on,” the young man said. “I don’t have much time to waste.”
“Sorry, Mister . . .”
“Cheever,” he said. “Cheed Cheever.”
“Am I correct you are with the Justice Advocate Office?”
“You are,” Cheever said. “And I have quite a full load, so . . .”
“Of course,” Verci said. “I’ve been misidentified and held here without trial, without representation, as have several friends of mine.”
“No trial?” Cheever asked. “Even a preliminary hearing?”
“There was that, and we were sent here under . . .”
“Presumptive custody,” Cheever said with a groan. “If that was done, I’m unable to help until you have trial . . .”
“But the name they arrested me under, it isn’t mine, sir,” Verci said. “I’ve not been able to properly identify myself, my family doesn’t even know where I am, and there was no legal representation at any stage.”
Cheever glared at the guard. “You know that isn’t right.”
“I had nothing to do with that, chap.”
Cheever pulled out a notebook and stylus. “I’ve got a full docket, but give me the name you were arrested under and your proper name, I’ll see what I can be done.”
“Verci Rynax is my actual name,” Verci said. “My wife is Raychelle Rynax, living on Junk Avenue in North Seleth.”
“What name did they charge you under?”
“Tacklin,” Verci said. “I forget the given name there. Indick?”
Cheever wrote it down. “I cannot promise anything, Mister Rynax, but I will at least follow up with you.” And he pointed a thumb at the guard. “And I expect to continue to hear of the admirability of your work, friend.”
The guard made a face, but said, “You can bet a wage on that, chap.”
“Capital,” Cheever said, putting the notebook back in his pocket.
“Please, try to contact my wife, if nothing else,” Verci said.
“I will try, sir, but you must understand . . . I’m already late.” He rushed off.
“Feel better, Tacklin?” the guard asked.
“It really is Rynax,” Verci said. “And, yes.”
“Well, then, maybe we can bring you right to the laundering before supper,” the guard said, pulling Verci along. “Since you’re feeling so good.”
Chapter 17
VERCI HAD, OUT OF SHEER exhaustion, slept hard on his bunk in Ward Seven, though he was plagued by shapeless nightmares the whole time. When the shrill blasts of the wake-up whistle yanked him out of it, he couldn’t remember a single detail of them, just the overwhelming sense of dread he had felt.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Julien told Verci as they joined the line to the water closets. “I was . . . I was real worried about you in there.”
“I managed,” Verci said.
“Better than I did, that’s for sure,” Julien said. “I just . . . thank you, really, for coming for me.”
“Had to do it, and it was worth going in to get you out.”
“But maybe we should be smart, keep our heads down?” Julien asked.
Verci was surprised to hear that. “We need to get out of here.”
“Yeah, but . . . we can make it if we’re just smart, I think. The trial will come and we’re innocent, so that’s going to be fine, right? Because they’ve got it wrong.”
