last stop was the kitchen. With the hope of finding Rand alone, I waited until after the staff had cleaned up dinner. He was standing at a counter, working on menus. Each week’s menus had to be approved by the Commander before Rand could give them to Liza, who made sure the required food and ingredients were available.
“You look better than I feel,” Rand said in a soft tone. He held his head like a full cup of water, moving slowly as if to avoid spilling over. “I don’t have anything for you to taste today. I haven’t had the energy.”
“That’s okay.” I noted his white face and the dark smudges under his eyes. “I won’t keep you. I just need to borrow some things.”
Interested, Rand almost returned to his jovial self. “Like what?”
“Bread. And some of that glue you invented. Medic Mommy used it to seal a cut on my arm. It’s wonderful stuff.”
“The glue! One of my best recipes yet! Did she tell you how I discovered it? I was trying to make an edible adhesive for this mammoth, ten-layer wedding cake and—”
“Rand,” I interrupted, “I would love to hear the story, and you must promise to tell me another time. But we’re both short on sleep.”
“Oh, yes. You’re right.” He pointed to a stack of loaves and said, “Take what you need.”
While I collected bread, he rummaged around in a drawer, then handed me a jar of white glue.
“It’s not permanent. The glue will stick for about a week then it loses its grip. Anything else?”
“Um. Yes.” I hesitated, reluctant to make my last request, which was my main reason for wanting to be alone with Rand.
“What?”
“I need a knife.”
His head jerked. I could see a spark behind his eyes as the memory of how I had killed Reyad flashed through his mind. I saw the gears in his head turning as he weighed our fledgling friendship against this unusual request.
I fully expected him to question me as to why I needed a knife. Instead he asked, “Which one?”
“The scariest-looking one you’ve got.”
14
THE NEXT MORNING, I headed out the south gate just as the sun crested the Soul Mountains. Soon a glorious sweep of sunlight rushed over the valley, indicating the start of the Commander’s exercise. My heart pulsed with excitement and fear. A strange combination of feelings, but they fueled my steps. I scarcely felt the weight of my backpack.
I had worried that the items contained in my knapsack could be considered cheating. After much thought, I decided that a prisoner intent on escaping from the dungeon would save some of her bread rations, smuggle a weapon from the guard room and steal the other items from the blacksmiths. And if I was stretching things a bit, then so what. No one had told me I must flee with nothing.
My determination to “escape” had increased since the plan had first been proposed. The money was merely a bonus at this point. I wanted to prove the Commander wrong. The Commander, who thought I wouldn’t get far, who had been concerned my death would jeopardize his exercise.
Before leaving the castle complex, I had stopped for a moment to view the main building in the daylight. My first impression was that a child had built the palace with his toy blocks. The base of the castle was rectangular. It supported various upper levels of squares, triangles and cylinders built atop one another in a haphazard fashion. The only attempts at symmetry were the magnificent towers at each corner of the castle. Streaked with brilliantly colored glass windows, the four towers stretched toward the sky.
The castle’s unusual geometric design intrigued me, and I would have liked to view it from other angles, but Valek had instructed me to leave the complex at dawn as I only had an hour’s head start. Then, the soldiers and dogs in pursuit would try to discover which gate I had exited, tracking me from there. Valek had taken one of my uniform shirts in order to give the dogs my scent. I had asked him who would taste the Commander’s food while I was gone, and he’d given me some vague reply about having others trained in the art of poisoning who were too valuable to be used on a regular basis. Unlike me.
My southern route was an obvious direction, but I didn’t plan to maintain it for long. I hoped the soldiers would assume I was headed straight for the border. The castle complex was in Military District 6 and quite close to the southern lands, wedged between MD–7 to the west and MD–5 to the east. The dead King, who had built the complex, had preferred the milder weather.
Alternating between jogging and walking, it wasn’t long before I entered Snake Forest, avoiding Castletown. While studying some of Valek’s maps the previous night, I had noticed that the forest surrounded Castletown on three sides. The northern district of the town faced the castle. Snake Forest also spread out to the east and west like a thin belt of green.
At the official southern border, Commander Ambrose’s soldiers had cleared a hundred-foot-wide swath from the Soul Mountains in the east all the way to the Sunset Ocean in the west. Since the takeover it was a crime for anyone, Ixian or Sitian, to cross this line.
I jogged through the forest, making a conspicuous trail. Breaking branches and stomping footprints in the dirt, I remained southbound until I reached a small stream. My hour head start was almost up. I knelt by the stream’s bank and reached into the water. Pulling out a handful of mud, I let the water drain through my fingers. I hunched over the stream and smeared the wet sediment on my face and neck. Since I had pulled my hair into a bun, I rubbed mud on my ears and the back of my neck. I hoped the men would guess I had knelt here for a drink. After stamping footprints near the stream’s bank to mislead my pursuers into thinking I had walked into the water, I traced my route back until I found a perfect tree.
About six feet from my path, a Velvatt’s smooth trunk rose high into the air. The first sturdy branch off the main trunk stretched fifteen feet above my head. Trying not to disturb the ground surrounding my scent path, I removed my backpack and pulled out one of the items I had borrowed from the blacksmiths. It was a small metal grappling hook. I tied it to the end of a long thin rope coiled inside my bag.
With my head start gone, a sudden image of guards and dogs exploding from the castle flashed through my mind. Hastily I threw the hook up to the branch. It missed. I caught it on the way down. Frantic, I threw the hook again. Missed. I calmed my raging pulse and focused on the task. The hook snagged the branch. Confident the hook was secure, I tied the extra line around my waist so it wouldn’t drag and put on my backpack. Grabbing the rope with both hands, I pulled my weight off the ground and wrapped my legs around the slack.
It had been a long time since I had climbed this way. All the way up the rope, my arm, shoulder and back muscles complained over my year-long inactivity. Once I reached the top, I straddled the branch and repacked the rope and hook in my backpack.
A strong breeze blew from the west. Wanting to stay downwind of the dogs, I spent the next half hour climbing east through the trees until I was well away from my original path. For once, my small size and acrobatic abilities proved a benefit.
When I came across a Cheketo tree, I found a secure nook near the trunk and unslung my backpack. The Cheketo’s leaf was the biggest that grew in the Snake Forest. Its circular-shaped green leaf, spotted with brown, was perfect for my needs. I sat still for a minute, listening for sounds of pursuit. Birds chirped
