She gave a hard kick and made to swim through the curve when she was abruptly thrown back by what felt like a solid wall although she had seen nothing in her way. Stunned, she reached forward with her free hand. There was definitely something blocking the passageway. The shaft was very narrow, but Sara twisted just enough to look back up at the opening and saw that the water, far above, was blindingly orange, as if itself was burning. She could almost make out tongues of flame snaking down from the top of the cistern.
She turned back to the obstruction. There was no way to go but forward. She pushed at it again, feeling her fingers tug on something soft and gooey. It dawned on her that the spider webs that had fallen into the well must have collected at the bend. The mist had said she would need to use what she acquired from the dreams if she wanted to escape.
Well, she had acquired two things: a sword and a necklace. Sara was certain the thing to use now was the sword.
She swung the weapon against the entanglement, struggling against the thickness of the water, but once it connected, the webs parted like butter and the blade sliced easily through the waterlogged mess. She continued slicing through the narrow tube until her arm began to tire, but she finally reached the end of the tangle and slipped easily through the parted, sheer curtain. At last, she was free of the webs and saw that the passage straightened and rose upwards.
Sara’s lungs were beginning to burn as she kicked furiously higher, the light diminishing somewhat now that she had passed out of view of the fire. After ascending what felt like at least the same distance as her initial descent, she reached a blank stone wall which blocked the passage. Sara twisted furiously, her hair whipping around as she looked for some other way out. Her chest felt as if were about to explode as she reached her limits of air. She dropped the sword and pushed desperately against the stone with both hands.
It would not budge.
As she shoved at it, her hands brushed against a tiny imperfection in the ceiling. Sara impatiently pushed her floating hair aside and looked closer, feeling it carefully with her fingers. It was a very small, oval indentation recessed into the shape of a rectangle. Sara knew she had only a few more seconds before she began to quench her thirst for air and gulp in the water, becoming a floating skeleton instead of a burning one.
Her mind drifted, a bit foggy, as the lack of oxygen began to affect her reasoning. She had used the sword. It would be no help now. What else? The ring! God yes, the ring.
Trembling, Sara pulled the chain over her head, fumbling a bit to get the circle situated between her fingers, and then pressed the opal into the oval hole, the rectangular setting fitting perfectly into the remainder of the notch. Now what? She rotated the ring slightly and heard a loud, groaning sound. Then, the ceiling slid back and she burst through the well into a stone room identical to the last, except that it was empty and lit by open cathedral windows with sunlight streaming in.
Sara dragged herself out of the cistern and lay gasping like a fish on the stone, looking dazedly up at the row of windows encircling the chamber. Then her head fell back and she promptly passed out.
* * * * *
She opened her eyes, blinking.
“Sara Aster. Awake.”
Sara slowly sat up and felt her dress. It was dry. Her hair was kinked slightly, but it too was no longer wet. She must have been lying here awhile. She glanced over at the low well in the center of the chamber and frowned. The same indistinct mist was floating over it, tethered by the haziness, its eyes, if they could be called eyes, watching her.
She stood up and looked at the figure, her eyes narrowing. “You again,” she said evenly.
The mist undulated, saying nothing.
Sara got to her feet and put her hands to her hips, her lips pursed. She could feel anger and resentment building within her. She was still imprisoned in a stone room. This was preposterous. She had had enough.
“Now look here,” she said to the shape. “I’ve done every single thing you asked. I looked into the Metus Lacus, the Desiderium Lacus, and escaped the chamber. Now what? May I go? I still have no idea whether this is all some jazi-induced nightmare or whether someone at the Horoshaya Yeda slipped some magic fucking mushrooms into my tea. All I know is that I’m sick and tired of living with skeletons, looking into a miserable, depressing future, giving up the best sex of my life, dealing with a hideous spider infestation, virtually being burned alive, practically drowning . . . .”
She stomped her foot, trying to look furious although she could sense the upwelling of hot tears. She fought it back. She was not going to give this being the satisfaction of seeing her cry no matter how much she wanted or needed to.
“Most of all,” Sara said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “I am tired of being treated like a prisoner in a dungeon and kept here for who knows how long. I’ve met all of your conditions, overcome your challenges, succeeded where you implied I’d fail. I want to wake up. I want to go back to my university group, get on the plane and go back to America. Now!” She stared at the essence insolently.
The mist hissed unpleasantly. The mortal woman did not look the least bit afraid. What a cheeky little thing she was. But perhaps that would serve things better in the long run.
America, indeed.
The mist mused. It had been a well-behaved mist for nearly two thousand years, patiently orchestrating these obscure, mildly entertaining trials. But it hadn’t always been a mist. Before the six other mists had conscripted it, it had been mortal, a strong, powerful and feared mortal. Yessssss, it hissed to itself, recalling – a warlord, that’s what it had been. But . . . killed before his time. It suddenly considered Sara. Perhaps the mortal could be used, now that it rightfully had some control over her, to change things.
Perhaps even to prevent the death of its mortal self by taking the life of the warrior who had killed him in battle.
Strands of fog rose from the mist that took the image of arms and then it cast them forward quickly toward the mortal. Black smoke flew from the outstretched arms and dashed forward, slipping in through small gaps in through the woman’s lips.
Sara’s eyes immediately became glazed. She swayed slightly on her feet, feeling her resistance leave her, her conscious thoughts invaded, usurped by something much more powerful.
“What is your will, Great One?” she asked hollowly.
That was better. Much better.
Sara found herself standing on a great plain. The sun burned down relentlessly. She staggered, feeling weak, nauseous, looking at, but not really seeing, the grasses stretching endlessly before her. Could she eat grass? She couldn’t recall the last time she had eaten.
She cocked her head, staring obtusely at the small holes in the baked earth. Then it registered. Rodents. She sank to the ground, kneeling before one of the holes. A rodent usually made two holes to each burrow. An entrance and an exit. But what if she waited here long enough? Wouldn’t one eventually decide to check the other door? Maybe when it appeared, she could bash its head in with a rock. It did not occur to her that she had no rock. Her stomach rumbled. Mmmm. Lemmings, jerboas, maybe a fat, very slow suslik.
Sara sat very still under the hot sun watching the hole with marked interest. Her mind drifted lazily to thoughts of broiled mice, crisp desert hamsters . . . great spirits what if a porcupine waddled by? She had no fire. Well, no matter. Perhaps raw rodents wouldn’t be bad. After all, wolves and leopards ate them whole and enjoyed them. Would it really be so different for her?
Sara, lost to her dreams of steppe food, failed to hear the sound of approaching horses. A group of fifteen men wheeled up behind her, eyeing what appeared to be a young girl in a tatter of rags sitting alone in the middle of the plain, staring at the ground.
Most of the riders were bare-chested and wore hideskin bands around their waists from which hung short strips of heavy leather in the front and back, leaving the sides of their hips exposed.
A dark, thickset man at the head of the group shifted in his saddle and grunted. “What are you doing here, girl?” he called to her from his horse.
Sara heard the man’s question coming from above and behind her. Her mind registered that he spoke in a language different from her native tongue, but somehow she had no difficulty understanding him. She got up, unsteady on her feet, and turned to face him.
The man immediately saw that this was no girl, but a woman. And a woman from a different land. Her skin was pale, sallow, weak-looking. Her eyes were a dull blue, although he had seen blue eyes on occasion among his people. She was skinny. She looked as though she hadn’t eaten in days, perhaps longer. Her hair was brown, matted and dirty.
He dismounted. In addition to the short loincloth which left little to the imagination, he wore a strip of thick, black hide which wrapped around his neck and over one shoulder before running down the front of one huge arm. It was attached by metal studs to straps of leather which encircled his muscles. The last strap wound around the man’s wrist and connected to a metal ring on his middle finger. The effect was intimidating.
He walked the few paces to Sara and circled slowly, considering her, one hand on the hilt of his sheathed saber.
“What is your name?” he demanded. His voice was strong, his demeanor authoritative.
It was easy to see he was used to being obeyed.
Sara looked at him, a bit of glassiness in her eyes. She told him. He grunted. The name was unusual. He had never heard it before.
“Where are you from?” He was tiring of this woman, giving her one last chance to convince him she should be allowed to remain unmolested on the plain.
Sara thought for a moment. It wasn’t just that she was starving and having difficulty thinking clearly, but . . . she really didn’t know. She tried to recall how she had arrived on the steppes; what she was doing in this country . . . this land, wherever it was; anything . . . anything at all from her past. She drew a blank.
Receiving no answer, the man spat. He picked up a tangled lock of Sara’s hair and then dropped it. He jerked his head at one of the men on horseback and moved swiftly to re-mount his horse. “Take her,” Sabalak ordered. “Add her to the rest at camp.”
One of the men dismounted, walked to Sara and lashed her wrists together in front of her with a leather thong. He dragged her to his horse, threw her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing, mounted and slid her to a seated position in front of him, facing forward.
Perhaps I’ll have her myself, thought Sabalak as he watched the man secure her. Cleaned up a little and fed a lot, he was certain she would be quite fuckable.
The riders immediately set off again at a gallop across the plain toward distant gray mountains. As the wind rushed through her hair and Sara leaned back against the horseman’s bare chest, it occurred vaguely to her that she should have resisted.
* * * * *
The horseman holding Sara broke from the group, rode to one of the enclosures, and dumped the woman unceremoniously next to the gate. He departed without a backwards glance. An ancient-looking man with dark, wrinkled skin, his loins bound up in a diaperish animal wrap, puckered his toothless lips at Sara in a lecherous smile and then swung open the gate and pushed her inside.
Sara stumbled a few feet over the dry ground and then stopped, squinting in the bright sunlight. She was in a wide, circular enclosure, the fencing made of small saplings bound so tightly together they were next to impossible to see through. A large slanted roof jutted from the enclosure in one corner. About twenty women huddled underneath its shade.
A beautiful, slender woman walked from the shelter and approached Sara. Leather strips crisscrossed her breasts, leaving her nipples exposed and she wore a band around her waist similar to the dress of the horsemen, except that the strips hanging down were longer and of soft, supple cloth rather than stiff leather. Plain gold bands encircled her upper arms and she wore an anklet of linked silver rings. Her long, dark hair had several braids in it, each woven with tiny blue and white beads.
The woman stopped in front of Sara, her eyes haughty, taking in the woman’s state and condition of her clothing.
“I am Rainura,” she said dismissively, turning Sara from side to side to see her better.
She did not ask Sara’s name and it was clear she did not care.
“Follow me.” She walked to the shelter without looking back. Sara hesitated briefly, and then followed.
“Nazin, Kumys, you will attend her,” commanded Rainura. Two women got to their feet from where they had been seated on the ground and walked toward Sara, their expressions blank.
Rainura pulled a wooden stool to a small round table and seated herself. She began grinding a white root into a paste with a pestle, adding water as she worked. The stool was the only seat in the enclosure. It was not particularly comfortable, but it clearly designated Rainura’s status as she did not have to sit on the ground. Rainura was no slave whose sole purpose was to sexually service the men. She was a concubine, a consort, although with no real rights to any particular man. But she was treated better, dressed better, and she protected her rank viciously.