counter and collects his baked goods. With a quick goodbye he leaves the bakery and hurries back down the street toward the Dancing Squirrel.
The light is beginning to fade as the sun nears the horizon. The street is not nearly as crowded as before, though many are still out and about. He steps quickly, but doesn’t run as he wants to avoid drawing attention to himself. It doesn’t take him long to reach the inn, and as he enters the common room, turns toward the stairs and races up to the second floor.
Going down the hallway to his room, he opens the door and finds Miko lying bound and gagged on the bed. Dropping his sacks of tarts on the floor he rushes over, drawing his knife to cut the bonds. Miko is on the bed, eyes wide and trying desperately to say something.
“Hang on Miko,” James says as he reaches the bed. “I’ll have you free in a second.”
Just as he brings the knife close to cut Miko’s bonds, he hears a floorboard creak behind him just before something cracks him in the back of the head. His knees buckle as darkness takes him.
Chapter Eleven
Groaning with pain, James returns to consciousness. The pain throbbing in the back of his skull beats a steady rhythm. Lying on what feels like a cold dirt floor, he opens his eyes, or at least he thinks he does as there is nothing to see but darkness. He attempts to rise but discovers his legs and arms are bound, and is able to do little more than wriggle about. Slowly, so as not to aggravate his headache, he looks around to see if there may be a crack of light that would indicate a door, but none are to be found. Either I’m blind or in a hole in the ground, he thinks to himself.
“Miko,” he whispers. “Are you here?”
“Oh, thank god James,” somewhat muffled, Miko’s voice comes to him from the dark. “I feared you might be dead. You were out for a long time.”
“Where are we?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Miko replies. “They put a hood over my head before they took us out of our room. After that, we were loaded in a wagon and I think they covered us up. I was told to be quiet or they would slit my throat.” He paused a moment before saying, “I’m not sure how long they had us in the wagon before we stopped. I am pretty sure we were brought inside a building. They brought us down some stairs and then dumped us in here. That was hours ago. I tried to wake you when we got here, but you didn’t respond.”
“Were they the ones who we encountered after leaving Bearn?” James asks.
“No, I didn’t recognize any of them,” he answers. “Why?”
“I was coming back to tell you that I saw Lord Colerain here in Cardri,” James explains. “Perhaps our being here and his being in Cardri are related. I can’t think of any other reason for us to be in this situation.”
“You’re probably right,” agrees Miko. “What are we going to do?”
“Did you mention to them that I can do magic?” he asks.
“No, I haven’t said anything since they surprised me back in our room,” Miko replies.
“Then let’s hope they don’t find out. It may be the edge we’ll need to get out of here.” James concentrates and casts his light spell, the effort of doing even so little magic causing the pain throbbing in his head to increase. When the light appears, he discovers they are lying in what looks to be a root cellar. Sacks, along with several boxes, are stacked against all the walls save one. That one has an old wooden door, apparently the only way out.
He looks over at Miko who’s bound like himself, with the hood still covering his head. Scanning the room, he sees what looks like a little hand trowel, similar to what his grandmother used in her garden, wedged in between two of the sacks. He slowly wriggles his way over to it and maneuvers himself to grab the handle with his fingers. Holding it as tight as his position allows, he twists his body sharply and rolls away from the sack in an attempt to dislodge it. But it’s wedged in there too tightly and the handle slips from his fingers.
Twisting around again, he lies on his back and places his feet against one of the sacks trapping the trowel and pushes with all his strength. The sack topples over and spills grain as it hits the ground, causing several rats to scurry away. He leans upon one elbow and is relieved to find the trowel lying loosely upon the ground. Wriggling his way over to it, James tries using it to saw through his bonds. The thought of doing magic to break the ropes binding him makes his head ache.
“What’s going on?” asks Miko who is unable to see what James is doing because of the hood.
Groaning with the effort to apply proper pressure to saw through the rope binding his hands tied behind his back, he replies, “I found something that may cut the rope.”
“Can’t you use magic?” Miko asks.
In dire need of an aspirin, James says, “I’d rather not if I don’t have to.”
The trowel isn’t very sharp and having his hands tied behind his back doesn’t give him much leverage to be very effective. He works at it for several long minutes before managing to saw through the bindings.
“Got it!” he exclaims when the rope finally comes apart.
With his hands free it’s much easier to sever the rope binding his legs. Once his legs are free, he comes to his feet and goes over to remove Miko’s hood.
“Thank you,” he says to James once the hood comes off. “It was getting hard to breathe in there.”
“No problem,” James replies as he begins using the trowel to saw through Miko’s bindings. Once he frees Miko, he goes over to the door. He’s not surprised to find it locked. Using his orb of light, he examines the door closely. He can’t really tell anything about the locking mechanism as it is located on the other side, so he decides to try prying the lock up. Using the trowel which is fairly flat, he slides it between the door and the door jamb and very cautiously slides it up until he feels resistance. Giving it a little more pressure, he hears a faint click as the trowel pushes the latch up. He presses lightly on the door and it begins to swing open.
Opening the door a bare crack, he sees nothing but darkness on the other side. Pulling the door closed, but not far enough for the lock to secure itself again, he turns back to the room and Miko.
He takes Miko’s hood and puts the glowing orb in it, leaving only a small opening which will allow only a very dim light to escape. Signaling for Miko to remain quiet, he opens the door slowly and the light coming from the hood reveals a flight of wooden steps on the other side leading up to another door. The door at the top of the steps has light radiating through the cracks around it.
“Looks like they’re up there,” he says to Miko who nods. “How many of them were there?”
“I only saw four before the hood was put on me,” replies Miko.
“Let’s hope they didn’t invite any friends along and maybe we can get out of here,” he says as he slowly starts to climb the stairs. Turning back to Miko he says, “Stay down here for a second, I’m going up there and see if I can tell how many we have to deal with.”
Miko nods understandingly and remains by the foot of the steps.
James takes the steps slowly, trying to minimize their creaking by placing his feet as close to the edge of the wooden steps as possible. Cautiously, he makes it to the top where an old, cracked wooden door stands closed. Leaning close to the door, he hears several voices coming from the other side.
“Just how long are we supposed to wait?” one whiney voice asks impatiently.
“We were told to wait and wait is what we’re gonna do!” another voice commandingly tells the first.
“Yeah, stop yer whining Elz,” another adds derisively. “We’re making enough off of this.”
“Alright, alright,” Elz says, “I’ll wait.”
The sound of cards being shuffled comes from the other room. Listening for a while, he determines there are just the three of them playing cards. He then returns back down to where Miko waits and tells him what he overheard.
“I don’t like this James,” Miko says. “If there are three up there, then where’s the fourth and is he the one they’re waiting for?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to be here when whomever they are waiting for arrives,” he replies.
“I agree,” Miko says, “we better get out of here fast.”
James returns to the cellar where they had been dumped, and takes a quick inventory but finds little of use, just grains and seeds. The boxes however give him an idea and he pries three small boards off of one that’s broken.
