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“One more thing,” Commander Irving said behind me.
“Aye?” I stopped mid step, looking over my shoulder.
“Don’t speak to the soldiers. They won’t talk to you anyway.”
“Because I’m a runner?”
“Because they have no tongue,” he replied, the scratching of the quill never ceasing. “We cut it out when they’re children.”
My jaw went slack, unable to hide the shock in my face. Fortunately, he never looked up from his writing, never gave me the curtesy of his attention.
“That’s…but why?”
He finally broke from his scribbles and glared up at me, plainly annoyed at this point. “Because they don’t need to talk. They are soldiers and they are here to train, to protect, and to defend. Words require thought, and thought requires a conscience. The Dark Army has no need for any of it.”
I retreated from the man sitting at the desk, completely horrified at the factual tone in his voice. Disappointed or indifferent, he then mumbled for the men outside to unlock the doors. For the first time in my life, I was thankful I’d been sent to the mountain.
Wherever my real family was, whatever reason they had for selling my soul—I forgave them for all of it.
The bed was worse than my cot.
I tossed and turned on the firm mattress. The bruised bony parts of my joints rubbed tenderly with every motion, and the rough sheets felt gritty against my skin. Sleep teased just beyond my reach, and right when I thought I was about to finally claim it, a soft knock tapped against my door.
I threw the covers back, fumbling to put on my leathers and cover my bareness as quickly as possible in my groggy state. The metal door groaned against crudely crafted hinges as I pushed it open, where I discovered an unlikely face.
“What the blight are you doing here, Mitch?” I asked, rubbing my eyes free of tiredness. “I only have a few hours left before they kick me out of this godsforsaken place, and I haven’t slept at all.”
Mitch only held a finger to his scaly lips and beckoned me to join him in the quiet hall. I glanced back at the bare bed, then at the poor soldier standing expectantly outside my door. My mind and body silently battled—my curiosity ultimately winning the war, and I followed him.
He led me down several corridors. We slipped between shadows, hiding from other soldiers still up late roaming the halls. He grabbed me gently by the elbow and tugged me along, and I followed obediently, too terrified to think of the consequences should we be caught.
We traveled deep into the citadel. The hallways dipped lower, tunneling into the earth until the floor and walls were damp with dew. Each slick step resonated along the metallic hall to announce our arrival on the other end.
When we emerged, we were met by a similar group of soldiers, but my escort did not seem surprised at their presence. In fact, he seemed to expect it. Their thick bodies and linen night clothes partially concealed a door, a door significant in size and decorum with great locks covering the expanse of its rusted entrance. Mitch handed me his torch as we approached.
He gestured something with his hands. At first glance, it seemed chaotic and disorganized, but after watching him closer I noticed a pattern to the gestures. His fingers twisted in purposeful movement, and the men across from him observed his motions with careful eyes. Mitch then stopped these movements a short time later, sending one of the other men to begin his own set of gestures. His thick fingers signaled something of their own merit, something unknown to me but understood by the guard at my side.
“Signs,” I whispered. “You’re using signs to speak to each other.” My wonder peaked watching the exchange. The guard next to the one signing caught my eye and nodded, a slight smile drifting across his lips as I shook my head, impressed. I couldn’t imagine the time it took to develop and learn this, and to do it all in secret. Their uppers believed they could silence their soldiers, but the human spirit could never be muted. They may cut out their tongues, but they could not cut out their hearts.
Whatever Mitch told them, they parted to let us through. He grappled with the locks, sliding the weight of the metal bolt through the slot and freeing the door from its bindings. He beckoned me to walk inside the room it concealed as he pushed its weight aside.
It was dark—until Mitch followed behind me with his torchlight. In the blazing light, marvels unfolded before my very eyes—an entire history of a world we once had, there in front of me. Gold chests lined the floor, so filled with riches they were unable to shut completely. Jewels and coins spilled from their mouths, littering the floor with unnecessary amounts of wealth. Shelves of textbooks lined the walls, ancient writings describing life and politics hundreds of years ago, descriptions of an age in the sun. My hand drifted toward one of the spines—a thick, leather-bound text grabbed my attention immediately. Gold inscriptions lined the sides. The characters were from an unknown language, but I didn’t care. I desired to know what knowledge it held inside its pages and visit a time before my own.
Mitch placed two fingers on my wrist and lowered my arm, shaking his head in forbiddance. This was not what we were here for, the old books were not what he needed to show me. His other hand pointed to the wall opposite us, and I followed his fingers to discover the true fortune of the room.
It was a map, not unlike the one the queen had handed me just days ago. Outlined and hung in a pewter frame, I recognized the major landmarks of Valdihr. Among the painted illustrations blooming in hundreds of shades of colors, the familiar mountain range dangled in the lefthand corner and climbed down to the foothills near Helencort. The five lower kingdoms were in their same spots, but something else littered the map. Something different than the one I stored in my memory.
There were other names between the kingdoms, different cities and towns lining the roads. Their number made it impossible to count them all in their entirety, but I still hungrily scanned each name. There were bright lines painted in gold across the map, each one stretching and twisting through a kingdom and to the southern border. Five lines total, I assumed the leylines, and they each converged at a single point just as the commander indicated.
“This is it? The old map of the world?” I asked.
Mitch nodded.
“Why are you showing me this? Your comrades are heading there now to search for the stones. What possible reason do you have for bringing me here?” Not that I wasn’t grateful. Just the act of sharing a piece of our world’s history, a lifetime forgotten by years of darkness, was special in its own sense. I felt privileged to witness something very few people knew about.
He used the same two fingers on my arm to point to the map and then brought them on my temple.
“You want me to learn it?”
