Diamondsong 02: Capture Read online

  She didn’t understand either of these pyrsi. Ferala’s inaction felt inexcusable at first sweep, but could his taking action have caused more harm? Had he consciously decided to leave the victims uninformed? Could confronting Neimano have resulted in a coup, with Neimano openly in charge instead of precariously in check?

  And Neimano, he made less sense—though, she realized, it wasn’t his desire to overtake the Ja-lal that confused her. If he truly believed the Ja-lal threatened harm to the Fo-ror, if he truly believed they were lesser, then his desire to control them could be explained. Even his lack of aversion to the Violence—she found it abhorrent—but she could link it to the same lack of empathy she’d seen in Lodon. Belief in absolutes lent itself to such logic.

  Ella was right. The Great War had never been resolved; it had only been pushed into stasis, fostering such logic as Neimano’s.

  What confused her was why he hadn’t tried, then, to recruit her. The whole point of his plan, she now understood, was to leverage her influence for the good of the Fo-ror: influence she still had, in her contacts, her insight, even her appearance. He was now willing to toss that aside?

  The act couldn’t have been for Ferala’s benefit; Neimano knew that Ferala knew the truth. Then, after her own bit of redirection, he’d not wanted Dime to know. Which didn’t fit his plan. Unless something had changed. But what?

  In some sense, she regretted leaving the complex so soon, and considered going back, as Rock had, and letting herself be imprisoned again, if only for more answers.

  No.

  She wasn’t going in that cage again, nor would she endanger her ability to return for Rock. And she needed to get back to the city, back to her family. They weren’t safe; she understood that now.

  She jumped at a rustling in the hedge. “Are you back there?” She recognized Tikinal’s voice.

  “Yes, here.” She shook one of the branches.

  “Come over this way!” She could just make out a gesture leading down the wall. He wasn’t flying; it made sense he wouldn’t want to draw attention to this spot. Dime pulled up her bag and jogged down the side of the wall until she found a space to squeeze through. “Ow!” she said, glaring at the branches scratching her hands.

  “We fly over it,” he said, with a sigh. “Sorry, I didn’t consider that. Now, over here, away from that stench.” They walked together over a hill, into what seemed to be a storage yard for fallen trees. Piles of lumber rested under a wooden roof. The smell here was of fresh air and cut wood, and Dime breathed with relief.

  “I can’t believe you sat by the compost,” he said, his wings flapping a little. “That’s why I said to hide!”

  “I didn’t want to confuse you.”

  “But you have, anyway. How did you endure the smell?”

  Dime decided not to tell him about the bells she’d recently spent covered in sewage.

  He handed her a largish package, wrapped in paper and tied securely with cloth handles. “Get away before you unpack this. Just take it for now. You need to go.” He chuckled. “And the next story I read about a pyr who’s granted three wishes, I’ll hope it’s not a pen, a drink, and a game. I am questioning your survival skills.” He hesitated at the end of the sentence, as if unsure what to call her.

  “I’m not sure we’ve formally met,” Dime said, surprised to realize it. “I am Fe’Dime. I used to work for the Circles—our government—then I quit.”

  “Ma’Tikinal,” he returned with a nod. “I work for the Seats and will enjoy thoughts of this unachievable quitting fantasy over a ferm in the near future.”

  “No, don’t. I’m the one making the bad choices.”

  “If you mean waiting for me behind the compost heap, I agree. Otherwise, this has been my pleasure. Now, listen. There is a stairway on the far edge of the city. It’s old and heavily damaged, but should help you return to the top.”

  “It’s ok,” she said. “I’ve got climbing equipment.” She’d lost the one hook, and had left several spikes lodged where she’d last climbed down, but she should be fine.

  “I’ve not climbed it myself, so I don’t know how passable it is; I just thought maybe it could help you.” He handed her a tri-folded paper, neatly sealed with wax. “Here, this is what I know of the location.”

  Dime had considered asking Tikinal a few more questions. About Neimano and Ferala, what he knew of any plans. Yet, here, with the pyr putting himself at risk to help her—for he hadn’t been under orders the first time he’d done it in front of Neimano’s study—and with the feeling of goodwill between them, she couldn’t ask him to take one step further. She wouldn’t.

  Instead, she smiled. “I don’t know why the Heartland needs the Seats when they have you.” She realized the words sounded condescending as she said them; she hadn’t meant it that way and tried to recover. “I just mean that I’ve worked around leaders a long time. In Lodon.” She pointed the way Tikinal had just indicated. “You strike me as someone I would follow.”

  Tikinal looked more uncomfortable at her second statement than he had at her first. “The Ja-lal, you must have such interesting perspectives. Here, I have the lot that I have. That Sha gave me, as they say. I am a clerk, my parents were clerks, and theirs before them. And I made it here, of all places, so what better could I have done? It’s not something you consider in any other light.”

  A substantial silence followed, during which Dime was certain he was thinking about how much better he’d be than some of the Seats. She raised an eyebrow, and Tikinal sighed. “They couldn’t lace their tree shoes without me.”

  “Maybe someturn they’ll realize that. Actually, they won’t. But, for what it’s worth, I know it. From afar, anyway.”

  The smile they exchanged reminded Dime of home. Not to say, her specific home, but that time, not so long ago, before everyone was a stranger, and every step uncertain. He reminded her of old friends, of Circlemates, of those cycles when the bells had passed by in a comfortable rhythm.

  She’d tipped that cart herself, it was true, but if she’d known how much of a change it would be— No, she’d still have done it. Yet a fondness returned at remembering how nice it was to have friends and see familiar faces. Maybe, someturn, she’d see Tikinal again.

  “Thank you for everything. Please thank the High Seat as well.”

  Tikinal’s mouth twitched. “I will.”

  She watched with a bit of awe as Tikinal flew off. Balancing the cloth handles of the bundle in her fingers, she pried open the note paper to see what Tikinal had sketched out for her. From his traced drawings, she could see that she was already nor of the city, essentially against the Great Cliff. If she hugged the cliff’s base, she should be able to follow it along until she found the staircase, or perhaps its remnants.

  Chiseled stone would be her clue, he’d written. So Dime, as she walked, kept an eye out for any stone that was cut, not natural. Just as she began to worry she’d missed it, a jagged edge almost tripped her. Searching around, she found other pieces, parts of an old pathway.

  Rummaging through her backpack, she took out a set of claws and other climbing supplies, replacing them with the cloth-bound package. She thought about resting, but she’d promised to leave as soon as she could.

  She trusted Tikinal would deliver the note to Rock, and Rock would understand why she’d had to leave for now. Just in case the note fell into the wrong hands, she’d been somewhat cryptic, but she’d written in terms she knew Rock would understand. Realizing Rock had given away her own escape to help Dime had tugged at her mind, but she’d promise to return to the Heartland, and her next priority had to be ensuring her family’s safety. The best she could do, for now, was to promise Rock she would not be forgotten.

  And she wouldn’t be.

  Her backpack secured into place, she wrapped her hands, checked the straps, and took large steps up the rocks, until she reache
d the rock face and the climb truly began.

  “Staircase” was a generous term for the passage. It was more like a common climbing spot for travelers, who had chiseled large ledges into the rock to allow for rest. These had been created over what looked like many cycles, with some heavily crumbled or buried under thick scruff.

  No matter their state, the results were still appreciated, for she hadn’t gone up the cliff before, and the climb was long, hard work. The ledges were a welcome break from the concentration, and definitely to her aching muscles.

  Reaching a larger ledge, she finally stopped for a meal, though she wasn’t going to risk a fire. She unwrapped her dusty, sore hands, and spared a little of her water to rinse them off.

  Rummaging in her backpack, she grimaced at what remained of Wayniam’s root chips; they must have been cooked with oil that had leaked through the paper wrapping. Fortunately, the greasy bundle had wedged in between her spoon and cooking pan; she didn’t want to be the one to tell Ella she’d stained her nice new clothes with food she’d stashed from prison.

  She took all her critiques back once she popped the first cold, greasy chip in her mouth. It was delicious, satisfying, and worthy of the view in front of her.

  Here, nestled against the side of the Great Cliff, she could see over the treetops of the forest—a sea of green bumps as vast as the plains of her home, spreading as far as she could see in either direction.

  In the distance, she saw what must be Pito, identifiable by the thin columns of smoke snaking up from the treetops, and also from the occasional structure that poked through.

  Dime was too far away to see anything specific, but had the idea of a high-class family, dining on a treetop deck. Maybe one of them was peering at the cliff through a telescoping glass. Just in case, Dime waved.

  The few fairies she’d met seemed less enamored with the trees than she’d expected. The trees and their elevated views were to them a normal backdrop for their lovingly decorated homes. Dime knew she could never have that perspective. Spending as much time as she had in the center rooms of the towers gave her a passionate appreciation for windows, one she knew she’d never lose.

  And the trees . . . these stunning trees. Grand trees, not the carefully planted ornaments of Lodon. How could anyone live amongst them and not revere every moment? Dime allowed herself one more take to soak it all in, and then, repacking her bag, she proceeded back up the cliff.

  Her arms ached, but she believed she was almost to the top. She couldn’t see exactly because of the bright glare of Sol against the cliff’s face above her. Tiring of the long climb, she pulled herself on, planting a few new spikes where she didn’t trust the ledges, and forcing herself to focus on each tie and pull of the ropes, each stretch to a new ledge.

  With each pull upward, Dime thought again about her steps. She replayed Ferala’s words in her mind. Her energy had been focused on learning the truth. She’d done so to an extent. But now what should she do? What was next?

  Her plan before all of this had been to start a music school. She supposed she could do that still, but where? In Lodon? Where Sol’s Pillars might start a revolution at the sight of her return?

  She could probably twist a story about being taken and then released, but even if she could bring herself to do so, who would believe it? Every pyr now knew she’d been taken by fairies, and there had to be a reason why. They’d demand to know it. Nor would this keep her safe from Neimano, should he decide again that she was his to capture.

  Or, she supposed, she could tell the truth. She was a victim of the fairies, not a conspirator. And she’d like to stay in Lodon and live out her life. Would the Circles run her out? Would they allow her to stay, as Suzanne had, secluded on a remote edge? Would they drive her away? What about Sol’s Pillars; her very presence would upset every form of leverage they had over their followers.

  Dime’s children loved Lodon. They would not want to be sent away, into hiding, when they’d done nothing wrong. Yet she couldn’t see how they could continue to thrive among neighbors who marked them as associating with monsters. Even now, they weren’t safe. She remembered Neimano’s cold stare, and forced herself to accept this.

  There was no going back; of this Dime now felt certain. Contact was on the verge of cascading between Ja-lal and Fo-ror, and then no one would be safe from Neimano, and Sol’s Pillars, and whoever else was out there eager for tensions to spark.

  Ferala had asked her if she wanted peace. Of course she wanted peace, but at what cost? At what risk that instead of peace, she would restart a War?

  One way or another, change was happening. Maybe Dime needed to help guide that change. She couldn’t rely that someone else would.

  But—why her? Why did she have to be the one? Why hadn’t anyone else stepped out to lead the charge? No, the Free Winds had. Others had. But they were kept muted, kept in check by a government designed to serve them. Controlled by the fear of what breaking out could cause.

  Dime wasn’t sure she could do what the Free Winds couldn’t.

  She longed to talk to Dayn. Dayn, he’d help her talk through it. The idea of returning to someone she could fully trust, someone she could tell every bit of this to without any thought of motive, comforted her more than she could allow herself to consider right now.

  And, so as she reached the top of the cliff and Sol’s Reach again stretched before her tired eyes, Dime set aside the actions that were not yet clear, and moved to the front of her mind the one that was. She would find her family and ensure they were safe. After that, she’d have decisions to make.

  Dime didn’t choose this path, but the idea that she could do something with it lingered in her mind. She’d quit her career, but she hadn’t quit herself. She hadn’t lost her skills, her life lessons, her friends. A pyr who had done her best all these cycles, she didn’t have to be in one particular place to make a difference.

  And that’s where Neimano had it wrong. Proximity to power made an easier path to influence, but the pyr xemself was the source of xyr own power. And he could put Dime right back in that alley, and she’d climb out of it again. And again. Not until she reached the top, but until she reached where she wanted to be.

  Right now, Dime wanted to be back with her family.

  And that’s where she was going to go.

  End of Part 02

  About the Author

  E.D.E. Bell was born in the year of the fire dragon during a Cleveland blizzard. With an MSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, three wonderful children, and nearly two decades in Northern Virginia and Southwest Ohio developing technical intelligence strategy, she now applies her magic to the creation of genre-bending fantasy fiction in Ferndale, Michigan, where she is proud to be part of the Detroit arts community. A passionate vegan and enthusiastic denier of gender rules, she feels strongly about issues related to human equality and animal compassion. She revels in garlic. She loves cats and trees. You can follow her adventures at edebell.com.

  Continue Dime’s story in . . .

  Part 03: Heart

  edebell.com/diamondsong