Finua

Chapter 19: Kangaroo

We all got separated. I found myself in a dark, cramped carriage, getting pulled by horses up the hill into the elven part of town. My axe was gone, my idol was gone, and I didn't know where anyone was, much less Kwer or Vanessa... assuming at that point that Vanessa would even cooperate enough to bust me out if I had been able to summon her.

And I was having contractions.

I sat on the dirty floor of the police carriage, my butt getting jabbed by little rocks and sticks, and dead leaves and debris crunching unpleasantly under my legs every time I moved. The only source of light was through a small barred window, less of a window and more of a slot, up to which I pushed myself to look through. And I saw a city that I wouldn't have dreamed of even from spending the night one mile below it.

From the bottom: endless streets of cobblestones polished by rain and clean boots to look like a giant flat ear of corn, the color of olives, slick with yesterday's weather; then the people on it, passing by to and fro, casual but not disinterested, routine but not glum; and then the buildings behind them, their doors, often open, always ornate, with some kind of design that was meant to hold attention, and not catch it; then the buildings went up, into rows of windows and pale white bricks; and up, so I had to press my face against the bars and bend my neck like a book being pressed into an already-full bag; and up, so that the peaks looked to be all leaning in over the roads, towards each other, like an illusory dome. This for block after block after block, with the sun shattering every smooth surface into a blitz of rainbows. Is this the world that Kurzog was trying to take his family into? Is this the world that goblins were excluded from?

Is this what was on the other side of the Second Siege?

Did they really take this glory and opulence from us, merely because we killed a lot of people and are just generally shitty and dangerous to be around? Rage at this injustice was pumped from my heart up into my jaw: another contraction then tore through my muscles, threatening the very integrity of my body, and it was as if my unborn baby felt my anger too. Good.

The carriage pulled up to a large, pristine courthouse made of marble. I tensed, knowing the door in front of me was about to be sprung open, but all of a sudden, through that tiny little window came a lovely robin's egg puff of glittering blue dust, and I was knocked out almost spontaneously.

It wasn't very strong, and was clearly only meant for secure transportation of prisoners. Through my haze I saw blurs walk by, and heard scuffling footsteps echo as if from inside a large chamber. I saw the sunlight move from overhead to through a window: I was inside. And then I heard a voice, which sounded like it was coming straight from my own memory: "For god's sake, give her a damn cushion!"

When I came to, it was from another contraction. I gasped myself awake, and flinched violently in shock: I was in a huge cage, like a birdcage for people, hanging from the ceiling about five feet from the floor of a giant courtroom, with nary a single fabric surface: everything was marble or porcelain or chrome or smooth clean granite. And indeed, I was reclined, rather comfortably, I had to admit, on a large, plush cushion, like a portable armchair. Everyone was in front of me: no less than thirty elves, sharply dressed, all seated before my swinging cage in a semicircle, looking at me with everything from skepticism to utter disdain. I looked back at them, through the imposing cast-iron bars crisscrossing right in my face.

And behind all of them, directly across from me, was a door, perhaps the biggest one yet, two massive planks of stone reaching up almost to the ceiling of this dome I was in: one of these planks rotated open, and admitted a small, quick-moving, and rather prissy elf who clacked her way around the room in a pair of unnecessarily loud clogs. She seemed annoyed like the rest of them, but she wasn't looking at me.