Journey to the Forgotten Island

Chapter 6 - Last Chance

'Lila hasn't returned,' Emili said. 'We've heard nothing from her since she left.'

Toma was confused, 'But my expedition has been delayed by ten days, I would have expected her returned by now. Or at least the delivery of a letter from her destination. Are you sure Lila hasn't been caught?'

Toma stood facing Emili in the courtyard of the smugglers' tavern. Unfavourable winds and other undisclosed problems had delayed the voyage and Torros had sent an attendant to Toma's door every day with a simple message: The ship will not sail today. It was only this morning that the message had changed. This time the attendant had said, The ship sails at high noon.

The delayed departure had given Toma time to collect as many coins as possible from every corner of the old town from anyone willing to take paper gold. He had often had to accept unfavourable exchanges, one time going so low as to accept fifty iron for one paper gold – half of the amount expected. Now, before he departed, he was sending all his iron, four hundred coins, to the western desert. He would have sent more but he had to pay another four hundred coins for their safe delivery. It had been more than half a month since he had delivered his message and coin to Lila and the silence from his sister was unusual and disconcerting. He had hoped to hear word from his sister before his departure.

Emili gave him a look with her hard eyes and said, 'Smugglers are caught and killed every day. Often the guards who catch us do worse by us before they take our lives. But Lila is the deftest and most cunning smuggler there is. My guess is she has been delayed by hiding.'

Toma was not reassured but there was nothing he could do but to hope Emili was right. Every extra second he spent in the Smuggler's Tavern bore the unnecessary risk of being caught by guards or worse, his own men in the military. He gave Emili his heavy package of coins and slipped back out into the marginally safer streets of the old town.

The sun was bright and high enough that even the muddy ground of the old town - usually cast in shadow from the tall unsteady wooden buildings that often reached across the narrow alleys and leaned against one another for support - was lit brightly. The mud was quickly drying and dust swept itself along the alleys, pushed by the firm and steady winds that had returned after the chaos of storms that had raged in the previous days.

Toma had already evacuated his few possessions from his quarters and was going to walk straight to the ship. But today was the day when a famous bakery in the old town cooked its fresh cherry tarts in the western style, with crumbled dough that reminded of the crunch of desert sand. Toma had made a habit of going to this bakery every time that the cherry tarts were freshly baked, and he now made his way there for a final taste of the west before his ship sailed east.

As he arrived, he saw a small crowd gathering around the bakery. He waited at a distance for all the mothers of the quarter to buy their bread and cakes. An old lady, no doubt demented, sat in the mud, her skirts spread about her as if her legs had sunk deep and she was now trapped up to the waist. She eyed him and cackled, and he uneasily moved forward and away from her, eventually standing next to a narrow alley. The smell of the bakery drifted towards him and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He glanced back at the old, demented woman one last time then looked back at the bakery to watch the mothers make their orders. Suddenly, a pair of hands grab him from behind. He'd had his back facing the alley and he cursed himself for his lack of vigilance as the two strong arms snatched his neck and shoulders and pulled him back into the darkness. He heard the old lady cackle again. All he could think was that in the next second a cold knife would slice through his throat and the criminals would run off with his soldier's sword, for which they could collect several hundred iron coins on the black market. He tried to shout for help but the grip on his throat was too tight and all he could do was grasp at the arms that seemed to drag him endlessly deeper into the darkness of the alley. Above, the old buildings leaned in together and shut the sky and light out altogether. His kidnapper dragged him around a corner, and it was as if he were being pulled into the depths of a cave.