No less than a few seconds had passed when the girl spoke up.
“Mighty lucky for you.”
Gelbus rolled to the grate in the floor, gripping it hard. “You have to get me out of here. I don’t think I’ll ever be that lucky again.”
Maria shrugged and patted the weapon on her hip. It was a sword—one fit for a king. “Luck or not, I wasn’t going to let that sonuvabitch kill you. I was just about to blow a hole through the floor and give them a taste of their own medicine. Glad I didn’t, though; I’d rather get you out quietly instead of dying guns-a-blazing…at least for now. Trust me, guns will be a-blazing soon enough.”
Gelbus cocked his head at the girl. She spoke so oddly; her speech infused with strength and equal parts maturity and immaturity. Yet something in her eyes urged Gelbus to trust this Earthling, to follow her.
Looking around the cell at his grim prospects, he quickly realized he didn’t have much of a choice.
“Stand back,” Maria ordered.
Gelbus listened.
The girl’s arms started to glow a violent blue. Gelbus saw twists of red in that blue, as well. He knew a lot of things, but he didn’t know what the red in the magic meant, though he could’ve guessed. This Earthling witch was more powerful than she realized, which meant she was more dangerous.
Her hands came up and gripped the grating. Wind blew her hair back from her head. Her eyes took on the same glow as the magic radiating off of her. Then…the grating was no more. It crumbled beneath her touch, turning to dust. It made only a slight sound, no louder than a breeze sighing through trees, but it was masked by the clamor of the nearby prisoners, including that dratted dog.
Maria looked at what was left of the grate in the palm of her hand. As she looked, it quickly caught on the air and puffed out into the darkness beyond the glow of her skin, like sand slipping through the spaces of ones fingers.
Gelbus had seen a lot of things, but an Earthling with such power? Never.
“You can close your mouth,” Maria said. “I didn’t know I could do that, either, until about thirty minutes ago; I’m quickly finding out that there’s a ton of stuff I don’t know I can do until I do it.” She reached a hand up through the opening, offering it to Gelbus.
“Oh, w-why thank you,” he said, but the truth was he wasn’t sure if he should touch that hand or not. She had just evaporated steel with her magic; imagine what she could do to flesh and bone. “I think I shall help myself down.” He offered her a weak smile.
It didn’t take a genius to notice his wariness, and Maria read his features like a book. “I have enough control over my magic to make sure I don’t steamroll your little Gnome hand.”
“I’m hardly worried—” Gelbus began, but he lost his balance, realizing—albeit too late—that he should’ve taken Maria’s hand.
He landed on the stone floor hard. It was not a long fall…at least not for a normal person, but he was a Gnome, barely of much height, and the eight-foot drop felt like twenty to him. Judging by the rattling of his bones, it might as well have been a hundred.
“Ooh,” Maria said, bending low to help him up. “Are you okay?”
Gelbus shot up with a smile plastered on his face. “I’m better than okay.”
Maria looked on confusedly.
“I’m great!” he enthused.
“Quiet!” she admonished him. “Keep your voice down. Those other prisoners can’t mask our sound for much longer, and it’s only a matter of time before the Dragon Tongue come back.”
Gelbus stood up and dusted himself off. He was a bit dazed, and perhaps Maria could see that because she asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, yes.” Gelbus looked around, taking in the old, rusty piping and the sweaty brick wall. Not to mention the drainage opening adjacent to the hole Maria had opened in the cell’s floor, which was now the hole in their ceiling. “Why I guess we are in the sewer system, aren’t we?” For the first time, he noticed the smell: harsh, assaulting his nostrils. “Judging by the stench, I would say that’s a big ‘yes’.”
“I wish I could’ve gotten in a different way,” Maria shrugged.
She leaned around the corner, no doubt planning their next route. Gelbus noticed she looked ahead—closer to the cells instead of away.
“Now since I’ve busted you out, and since you’re not going to spill your secrets, can you at least help me get my family back?”
Gelbus hesitated. I escaped death once. Can I really play my luck? He thought not, and this conflict showed on his face; the girl had saved him, and he had been raised right.
Reluctantly, he nodded his head, which bore no hat, and no flower. “Come. I’ve heard the dog barking from this way.”
Maria’s smiled beamed. “Thank you!”
Gelbus led the way around the corner, weaving through a webbing of drainage pipes, passing under the squares of light thrown into the darkness by the grates in the floors of the cells above. They were as quiet as they could be.
About five minutes into their journey through the foul smell, the rats’ nests, and the dripping gray water, Maria stopped. She tilted her head to the right as they came upon a fork in the passages.
“This way,” she said.
“How do you know?”
In all honesty, Gelbus was confused, and a Gnome like himself was not used to that feeling unless he was in his cups.
“Eh, it’s a long story, and one you might not completely believe,” she answered.
“Another time, then,” Gelbus replied.
“Yes, because there will be another time. We’ll get out of this alive,” the girl said fiercely, and then she turned the corner and led the way.
Chapter Six
Lake Fever was not a
