An Island for a Cloud

9.1 Cloud arrives in the city of blue sky

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Aleuta.

Four days passed since Cloud had found herself locked up in what was unmistakably an Aleutan dungeon. Never in her life was she forced to sit still in one place for so long. She spent her days pacing around the cell, barely restraining herself from screaming and kicking the wooden door.

The cell was round and cave-like, and did not allow for more than ten steps in each direction. Twice a day some water and a loaf of bread were pushed through the slit in the door by a mute guard. It was her only distraction from the forced monotony.

In the middle of the cell floor was a hole the size of a grown-up man. An iron grid covered up the opening. Cloud had heard rumours about the Aleutan dungeons and knew what the hole was for. This was how Aeutans got rid of the unwanted prisoners.

The floor had a round cone shape, inverted toward the outside. With the grid removed, falling asleep meant rolling down and falling out into the death. The prisoners would spend days without sleep but the end was always the same. Through the grid, Cloud could see the sharp protruding edges of the mountain wall below and did not want to think of how many lives they had taken.

In the night, Cloud was kept awake by the cold wind howling through the grid holes and the rattling of her own teeth. The stony floor was covered with the little straw that had not been blown away by the wind.

She only had the cloths on her that she wore the day she was taken from Leivrat, meant for warmer climate beneath the mountain. Up here, they did nothing to protect her from the cold and wind, and she froze miserably. Still, the opening in the floor was a welcome sight to Cloud. Through the grid she could see freedom. It made the feeling of the walls closing in on her slightly more bearable.

With the passing days, Cloud had plenty of time to think about the events that had gotten her where she was now. Many times a day she called for Aerus, hoping that he might be somewhere in a nearby cell. That she was not a sole prisoner, she deduced from occasional cries for help and moans that reached her. Yet, she never heard any response from her friend and fears for his life and her inability to help, made her heart ache.

What is it that was stolen from the Aleutans? This was the question that puzzled Cloud most while she paced the cell. It must be something so valuable that even an Aleutan Minister would descend to Leivrat. Only Aleutan guards ever set foot in the old city of Veilys. And how could the Aleutans possibly know that Aerus was the one who stole from them? Her friend does not have the brains to conceive an idea to do something as risky as this. And that without telling her first about it.

Something was not right.

The feeling that the stranger's and Aerus's disappearance were somehow related only increased the more she considered it. Suddenly it made sense to her why Aerus still had the coin bag on him when he returned. She even jumped to her feet when the thought struck her. The stranger took Aerus and made him steal from the Aleutans! The coin bag was a payment. Of course she could not be sure, but nothing else made sense and this was the best explanation she could think of.

She remembered seeing Aerus's broken nails and cuts and bruises covering his entire body. There were rumours that it was possible to climb the mountain all the way to Aleuta and back again in three-four days. The same amount of time that her friend's disappearance lasted. It was said, the Aleutans guarded the paths well. Trained eagles, with sharp eyes able to see clearly day and night, hunted the mountain ridge. Nobody in their sane mind would ever dare to get anywhere near Aleuta uninvited.