Abbalar Tales ~ 20

 Abbalar Tales ~ 20 Corvalen

By Len Morgan 

They gathered some sacking from the upper shelf, as darkness, descended, seating themselves either side of the door.

"What did we discover?" Wizomi spoke his thoughts aloud.   "Five bottles of wine and one of vinegar, assorted sacking, and wooden shelves bolted to the walls.  A long narrow grill running beneath the shelving on the long side wall, which could just provide us with a means of escape, if we can remove it."

"Escape to what," Genna asked?

'Well friend WIZ, it's a pretty situation you find yourself in, and without any help from me, I might add.'

'Orden?   Are you aware of our situation?   Can you make any suggestions?'

'It would help if we knew whether the grill is painted and what it is made of.   Get me that information and I will assess your chances of removing it,'  Orden answered in Wizomi's mind.

'Try scraping it with a fingernail to see if it will peel is the metal soft or hard?.   If it is soft, try soaking bare metal with the vinegar and tell me what you observe.   It could possibly weaken the metal bond'   A new voice interposed.

'Aldor?   You made it!'

'Hello Wiz, I'm on my way, I should be with you in days…'

'I would advise against seeking us out, I suspect they are using us as bait to capture you,' Wizomi warned.

'I doubt anybody would recognise him anyway' said Orden.

Wizomi clambered under the lower shelf and began to scrape the metal until it was bare.

"Pass me the Vinegar," he said.   He poured the liquid onto the metal, 'its fizzing!'  He noted silently.

"Somebody is coming," Genna hissed.

From outside the cell, they heard a group of people approaching.

"Replace the sacks where they came from, quickly!" said Wiz, urgency in his voice.

They were barely seated, either side of the door, before the visitors, stopped outside.

"I don't care how thoroughly you searched them, I saw a light shining under that door.  I want the whole place searched again, thoroughly!" 

Further talk went unheard over the rattling of keys turning the rusty workings of the lock.   The door opened easily on well-oiled hinges and two overlarge figures stood silhouetted against the lanterns held by a third man who remained stationed outside.  

 "When I close the door, I want them thoroughly searched that means the cell also," he said, hanging one of the lanterns on a hook immediately inside.   The stockier, and younger of the two men carried a short but heavy cudgel, the other carried leg irons, with which he shackled them together whilst his partner began a systematic search of the cell.  

"They're kind of young, little more than kids.   About the same age as your twins, maybe a bit more," 'leg-irons' observed, inspecting them critically, whilst carrying out a thorough and efficient search.

"Anything?"   Lantern man called from the other side of the door.

"Nothing!" said leg-irons.

"What are you being held for?" asked Cudgel.

"I came here in search of the young lady here, why she was brung, only the bringer knows," Wizomi replied, "Mayhap you could find out for us?" He added hopefully.

"Don't hold your breath for an answer," leg-irons chuckled.

"Where are we?"   Genna asked, speaking for the first time since their arrival.

"We are here to get answers not to provide them," yelled lantern man more to warn his comrades, against giving something away, than to chide her.   "Have you found anything Harby?" he added.

"Not so far" Cudgel man answered, "open your mouth boy," he said to Wizomi, holding the lantern above and close to his face, "and you," he said to Genna bringing the lamp closer to her. "Hey she's a looker and no mistake," said leg-irons.  

"Eyes off Bodley, she's not fer the likes o you," Harby warned him.   He completed the search by running his fingers through their hair, "They're clean," he said, evidently satisfied, picking up the five bottles of wine he smiled.   "You won't mind if I take these will you," He said heading for the door, as Bodley unfastened the irons.

Harebelly kicked hard on the door and yelled, "OUT!"   He returned in moments to place two bowls of stew, on the floor, just inside the door together with half a loaf of black bread each.

 .-...-.

Aldor’s Return 

As he drew nearer, he felt excited, he was almost eager to set eyes on Corvalen once more.   After his strange meeting, he felt at peace - he had forgiven himself - and was now able to ride in and embrace his destiny having jettisoned all the emotional baggage he had accumulated, over many years.   He entered the fringes of the city, passing close to the 'Pochette Platzi'.   Recalling Genna's obsession with the place, remembering how her eyes lit up when she spoke of it.   To Aldor, it looked a little shabby, he smiled anyway.   But, who was holding them and where he thought.   He closed his eyes, 'Wiz?   Where are you?'   He asked.  

.-…-. 

As they slammed the cell door shut and turned the key, Wizomi cursed under his breath.   "Damn, Damn, I should have obtained some form of implement from one or other of them, but I was too slow," he chided himself.

"Something like this?" Genna asked, holding up a small folding knife.  "I liberated it from Harby's pocket while he was searching me.  That will teach him to keep his mind on the job," she said smugly.

They ate the stew and bread quickly, not knowing where their next meal might come from.    Then Wizomi clambered under the bottom shelf, and succeeded in bashing his head on its underside, dislodging it in the process; the shelf flew over his head and shoulders landing with a clatter at Genna's feet.   They laughed, spontaneously.

"It wasn't attached." She laughed, tugging hard at the second shelf, "sorry the others are firmly fixed."

Wizomi was soon ensconced, beneath the second shelf, busy scraping away the paint around the edges of the brickwork.   "That should do it," he said with satisfaction after half an hours work.  The paint proved to be more resilient than the mortar surrounding the grill.   Ten minutes later, he announced, "we need two cords eighteen or so inches in length.  We can use them to pull out the grill and hold it in place after we have gone.”

Genna took one of the sacks and proceeded to rip it along its warp. "Pass me that knife," she said.   Five minutes later she had plaited two basic but serviceable lengths of rope.  

Wizomi cursed a second time, "My fingers are too thick to lace the cords through the grill."

"Let me try," she said.   "Yes," she said on her third attempt "Done it!"

"Good.   All we have to do now is hold one end each and pull…"   Seconds later, he peered warily out, through the hole, into a long deserted corridor.

"It hasn't been that long since they fed us, I'd guess we could have five or six hours before they return."

"Do you want to wait to feed your face again, or shall we go wand-a-bout?" he asked.

In the corridor, he carefully replaced the grill so it would pass cursory inspection.   He stepped out the length of their cell, and found another identical grill and, others at regular intervals running in either direction.   Carefully he marked their cell before they headed off down the corridor.

"We need to discover where we are," Wizomi said.

"What difference will that make" she asked.

"Oh!   Believe me, it will make a difference,” he assured her.

As they travelled down the tunnel, they were struck by its repetitive nature, completely uniform, so that you could trick your mind into thinking you hadn't moved at all.  

"There has to be some difference," he said under his breath, trying hard to convince himself.

The corridor had a very slight but constant curve to the right, from Genna's point of view; she offered the observation for comment.

"It could be a coincidence, or it may prove to be a circular corridor but, just think how large a circle that would be," he said aloud.    "Genna, Walk ahead, and count your steps until I say stop." 

She began to walk "1, 2, 3, …… 826,  27,  28…"

"STOP!   She barely heard his distant yell.

She turned, but he was out of sight.   She walked towards the opposite wall.  On her second pace, he came into view, walking rapidly towards her.

"Incredible," he said, drawing a circle in the thin layer of dust on the floor, quartering and segmenting it. "Say that's 828 yards, I'd guess there would be 12 segments which would make it between 4 and 5 miles round…   The outer walls of the city would be roughly six miles round.  This could be a single tunnel inside the walls of Corvalen.   But it was not built recently, nobody could keep such a large construction project secret for long; this tunnel is close to twenty feet wide.   How could they dispose of such enormous quantities of soil, or indeed import the amount of rock and building materials required to build this?"   

"Have you seen the ceiling plates, thousands, it’s like daylight in here, and I know some pretty wonderful people, but none could even guess how to create such objects," she said.  

He shook his head falling to his knees.

"Wiz, I think we'd best move on, do you hear that sound…?"

(to be continued)

Copyright Len Morgan