The Sky Demons Part Two: Quest

Chapter Five- Up the pressure

Tenmar- Up the pressure

I sat back against the wall of the cell, doing my best to ignore the pain from the bruises on my chest and legs from where I’d been hit by the staff, but with nothing else to grab my attention I was finding that hard to do.

My ankles were in shackles and I had no way of undoing them, but Firah needed me, and the rest of my family at The Hideout needed help; I had to get out of here. I turned slightly, ignoring the sickness in my limbs and churning stomach and gripped the chains where they were connected to the wall. I tugged as sharply as I could manage, trying to dislodge the bindings, but they didn’t budge an inch. My arms ached and shivered as I slumped back.

Kayira shifted on the floor, her head turning to face me, eyes open.

“Hey,” I said.

She smiled weakly, then groaned and screwed her eyes shut, pressing a hand to her head. “Oh, deity, my head’s pounding,” she peered at me with mostly closed eyes, “I’m guessing you haven’t found a way out of here yet.”

“No,” I replied, not in the least bit wanting to shake my head or make any other unnecessary movement.

She sat up slowly, wincing as she put her weight on her burned hands and then leaned slowly back against a wall as I had, breathing slowly and deeply. A few long moments passed before she slid her gaze back to me.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait for our chance to escape then,” she sighed.

*** 

I drifted in and out of sleep, without much else to do other than feel the pain of my bruises; I think Kayira was doing the same, though we didn’t speak much so I wasn’t sure.

The room was fairly cold so at first I didn’t notice the slow drop in temperature until I started shivering. I tried to sit up properly, moving away from the wall, but found myself suddenly overcome with the sensation that gravity was pressing down on me, as if it had suddenly increased in force. With a little effort I turned my head to look out through the bars, wondering if Grey was standing outside, playing with us again.

Mist drifted along the corridor and flowed into the cell like a slow wave, obscuring the light of the torches outside.

“K-kay? Any idea what’s happening.”

“No,” snapped Kayira, pressing herself back against the wall as outside the bars a section of the mist condensed and darkened into a shape: not Grey, not a spectrumosa. This looked like some kind of beast; its formed blurred then solidified. A section of mist dissolved away from top to bottom, and then reappeared again, like a mouth opening and closing. The creature worked its mouth silently a few times as if it were chewing on something, and then words filled the cell.

“You were hired to disband this group and release the creatures of my realm. You have failed.”

I tensed, feeling the coolness of the room and increased weight of the air around me, pushing relentlessly down and remembered Asher and Serry’s account of how it had felt to meet Diantha. ‘Creatures under my protection’ it had said, which must be referring to the animals of the forest that the smuggling group were stealing away, acting in direct defiance of the deities’ laws. The tree that protected our hideout was carved in the image of a peryton, Jia had once told us that that was the form taken by the protector of deciduous forests. I peered close at the figure; was the mist above its head also just slightly darker than the rest around it? In the shape of a single antler perhaps?

It couldn’t be one of Grey’s illusions could it? How would he know what form the forest deity took? They were supposed to change every few decades and were rarely revealed to anyone.