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Captive
Dara Monahan shivered in the cold marsh wind and tried to ignore her pain. Sharp leather bonds bit her wrists; a filthy gag chafed her lips; the pole to which she was tied gouged her back. At least they hadn’t blindfolded her. But perhaps that was deliberate. Her captors wanted her to understand that her situation was hopeless.
Below the hilltop where she sat, enemy tents and animal cages stretched along the reed-fringed shore of a marsh like a giant slum. Guards in leather armor and queer conical helmets patrolled among the cages; others were busy building a wooden stockade. A flag high above her snapped in the wind streaming in off the marsh. From a distance came the thud of axes and hammers, soldiers’ shouts, and the cries of their animal prisoners.
The animals she was supposed to save.
Invaders from another planet had arrived on Beyond barely three hours ago and already their camp seemed impregnable. They proudly called themselves the Garayak—“victors” in their language—but their bizarre helmets led Dara to dub them “coneheads.” They had defeated rival clans in a brutal civil war on the planet Tartaros, but it was a hollow victory. Greed and conflict both had destroyed their world and forced the victors into exile on another planet, leaving the defeated to starve at home.
Dara and her new best friend, Ali Kolar, had journeyed to Tartaros to discover the secrets that prison planet held.There they were captured and had almost died, but not before learning how the coneheads butchered and tortured animals, bred plants as weapons, and planned to invade Beyond.
Yet what good was that knowledge now?Ali had vanished on the way back from Tartaros and the conehead invasion was now underway. She had to do something before the planet Beyond was overrun, though it was probably too late.
Dara turned her head to see more of the camp, but as she did the living vine around her throat tightened. Her hands were swollen from her bonds, and her left side itched hellishly. I’m such a mess, she thought. Escape? I can barely move. And if I could move, where would I go?
To the east, high above the conehead camp, loomed the Great Barrier Cliffs. Their sandstone pinnacles blazed red in the afternoon sun, rising three thousand feet in a single, breath-taking thrust. To the north lay the valley of the Broad River, while to the south and west the Singing Marsh stretched unbroken to the horizon, its endless sea of reeds rippled and stirred by the wind. Patches of open water broke the monotonous expanse of green beneath a clouded sky. The harsh wind brought the scent of decay and the cries of water birds.
Dara envied the birds their freedom.
What would the coneheads do with her now? Use her, of course, but how? What mattered to them was the welfare of their clan. Dara could give them children in the future. But for now, her chief value was as a hostage to force the surrender the man who had sent her to Tartaros and who defended Beyond—her teacher, Primo Paganini.
At that moment a chorus of male voices rose to a roar and reminded her that something important was being debated nearby.
“Nor gara gu?” came a call from the council tent. It sounded like a question. “Garayak! Garayak!” was the loud response, followed by cheers. Then she heard shuffling feet and was suddenly pulled erect by a leather-clad guard.
“Lehanandra agurgarri!” he barked at her. “Hurbil zaitez!”
She only understood one word, but that was enough. Lehanandra ruled this clan. Dara was being summoned to see the queen.
The guard loosened her gag and freed her feet just enough for her to shuffle forward, though her hands remained bound and the green strangler vine still circled her throat. Dara stumbled toward the largest tent, ringed by more guards.
Lehanandra, the queen of the Serpent Clan, shared the milk white skin, black hair, and deep blue eyes of her subjects, but stood a foot taller than most. Today she wore her usual leather tunic, belted at the waist, and black pants inserted into shining leather boots. Her hair was bound up with a sinuous green plant whose tendrils secured her many braids, mounded into an imposing topknot. Seated on a raised wooden platform with her staff of office across her knees, she radiated power.
As Dara entered, Lehanandra smiled like a predator eyeing its next meal. The guard forced Dara to kneel and then went to stand behind his queen.
“Heldu gara—we have arrived in our new home,” Lehanandra announced with a soft, lisping accent to which Dara had become accustomed during her captivity on Tartaros. “Your teacher, Primo Paganini, will soon learn you are our prisoner. And unless he surrenders, you will die.”
Dara had no reason to doubt her. So far the queen had always spoken the truth.
Ever since she could remember, sounds had made colors in Dara’s mind. A dog’s bark was green, the shade depending on the size of the dog; the slam of a car door ws gray. When people lied, their voices turned a muddy brown, but now as before, Lehanandra’s remained steel blue.
Could the queen make good on her threat? The cliff Studio that now sheltered Mr. Paganini was well fortified and could easily withstand a siege. It also sheltered the animal companions Dara had left behind on her mission to Tartaros—the golden cat, Callista; Timi, a small green tree-dweller she had freed from captivity; and Mr. Paganini’s gifted but temperamental parrot, Mira.
For now, all remained safe, but their safety might not last. The coneheads were skilled in psychological warfare. Battle-hardened after generations of conflict on their home planet, they understood emotional weapons all too well. Rather than storm the Studio by force, they would try to attack it from within.
“What if he refuses?” Dara replied, trying to keep her voice steady and block the pain in her wrists. “You can only kill me once, after all.”
“Oh, but we will not kill you right away.” Lehanandra smiled and displayed her sharp white teeth. “Your torture could last days, weeks, even months—however long it takes to bring Paganini to his senses. Every day he will wake knowing you are suffering on his account, but that one word from him could free you. Sooner or later, he will yield.”
The queen signaled to a guard and the strangler vine around Dara’s throat suddenly tightened until she could barely breathe. It seemed the guard controlled the vicious plant. She almost lost consciousness before the coil slackened its grip.
“You see what we can do?” the queen said softly. “This is what will happen to you until your teacher surrenders. This and . . . other things.”
Dara felt too faint to reply. The queen snapped her fingers and another guard brought Dara a mug of liquid and fed it to her in little sips. Its cool, minty taste calmed her throat.
“Of course, you might try to escape, like your friend Ali,” the queen continued. “While he was our prisoner, you would never have dared to disobey, knowing we would hurt him if you did. But we have other ways to make you behave now. While Garayak never rely on one weapon alone.”
“What ‘other ways’?” Dara’s voice was barely a whisper.
“The edenorleg plant—the green “octopus” that attacked your arm on Tartaros—injected a poison that is fatal if left untreated. The drink we gave you just now contained the antidote. All you will feel now is a terrible itch. But after four days, the antidote loses its power, and the poison will take over again. It is not a pleasant way to die.”
Dara remembered being strapped to a bed when a woman in a mask applied a plant like an octopus to her right arm and she felt pain like never before. Razor-sharp thorns left her skin bloody and raw and soon her whole right side was aflame. She should have known that plant had poisoned her!
But now Dara struggled to understand the import of what the queen had just revealed. If she tried to escape, she could get no more antidote and would die. But if she stayed, she would remain enslaved to the coneheads, which felt intolerable.
If Mr. Paganini surrendered, the coneheads would keep her alive, especially since they expected she would one day give them children. But staying alive was not the same as being free. And if he surrendered, Beyond would fall to the invaders, who had already turned their home planet into a wasteland. She could not let that happen.
“I do not trust you,” Dara said in a husky voice. “What guarantees that you will not harm me if my teacher surrenders?”
“Guarantees?” Lehanandra laughed. “There are none. That is a chance your teacher must take. Without his surrender, your death is certain. With it, you might go free. Between no chance and a small chance, which do you think he will choose?”
The queen sounded so confident that Dara began to think she must be right. Mr. Paganini would surely give in. But wait, she remembered with effort, what about his daughter, Lucia? Her mind was not working well, or perhaps this was emotional manipulation at work. She and Ali had found Lucia alive on Tartaros, who had befriended them and escaped with Ali. Lucia was a wild card. Her escape might yet upset the conheads’ plans.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” Dara asked. Lehanandra gave her a sharp look of annoyance.
“And that would be…?”
“Lucia, Mr. Paganini’s daughter, escaped from your planet along with Ali. Once they are reunited, Mr. Paganini will never surrender. He will not want to lose his daughter a second time.” Really, Dara thought, he won’t wish to abandon me, either. That means he’ll be caught between warring loyalties. She had no idea loyalty which would win
“You could be lying,” Lehanandra replied after a pause, “or you could be telling the truth. We captured that woman long ago, but she escaped and made trouble. She and her animals attacked us when we left Tartaros and many of our soldiers died. You say she is now on Beyond? That is welcome news. When we find her she will pay.”
The queen paused.
“We will tell the father what he must do to secure your release. But our forces will also push up the valley of the Broad River as quickly as possible. If Primo Paganini needs more persuasion, we will bring war to his doorstep and destroy the Shining Forest as we go.”
“Destroy your new home?” Dara was dumbfounded. “You mean like you destroyed your old one?”
“Not everything will be destroyed,” Lehanandra replied, speaking as if Dara were a backward child. “But enough to give Paganini reason to worry. That way we double the pressure, combining your fate with the planet’s. If he thinks that his surrender will not only spare your life, but also save the planet he loves, that will speed his decision.”
Dara opened her mouth to reply, but before she could the Serpent Clan ruler curtly ordered, “Zoaz hemendik!” The guard who had brought Dara stepped from the platform, pulled her erect, and frog-marched her out of the tent.
They headed for the animal cages. Crude wooden crates stacked one on top of the other held many animals brought from Tartaros, hungry and in pain. All came originally from Beyond, then shipped to Tartaros, and were now being returned in captivity.
Dara’s arrival triggered a loud commotion of howls and screams. The guard pushed her inside an empty cage, bound her feet again with leather thongs, and locked the door. The cage smelled of blood and feces and Dara recoiled at the stench.
Lehanandra had said the antidote against her poison would last her four days. If she managed to escape, could she reach Mr. Paganini before time ran out? And if she did, would Mira’s medical skills be enough to save her? The parrot had saved Dara from an infection caused by an animal bite here on Beyond, but what did she know about the poisonous plants grown by the coneheads?
There was no way to tell. So if Mira was powerless to save her, would Dara rather die from the poison, or spend the rest of her life a prisoner of the coneheads? The answer was clear. She had to escape.
Tonight offered the best, perhaps her only chance.The stockade was not yet finished, but once completed, escape would become more difficult. Not that it would be all that easy now.
For one thing, the green plant that wrapped around her neck would throttle her if she tried to move. And even if she managed to loosen it and untie her leather bonds, she would still have to pass through a camp filled with hostile soldiers, any one of whom might sound the alarm or kill her on the spot.
One fourteen-year-old girl against an armed camp seemed like terrible odds.
Dara fought a wave of despair. I’m still alive, she thought, which is a victory in itself. If I can’t move, I can at least listen, like I did when I was a prisoner in my cell on Tartaros. As before, she sent out her hearing in search of patterns that might help her plan her escape.
The first was the sound of tramping feet. Troops were being marched around within the camp. From out on the marsh came the plaintive calls of night birds and a deafening chorus of frogs. But though the distant hammering continued, she could hear no guards close by. The coneheads seemed confident that their cage, their poison, and their new stockade would be enough to keep her a prisoner. As Lehanandra had said, the Garayak liked to use more than one weapon at a time.
Now she needed a plan. Dara tried to block out the distracting sounds in order to concentrate.
Her first thought was to disguise herself as a conehead soldier. Except for the queen, the Garayak were short, and at five feet eight inches she was tall for a girl. If she could find a helmet and some leather armor, she might pass for a conehead in the dark. But for that she would have to free herself from the cage, which was a non-starter.
Not such a good plan after all. Dara thought some more. If only she were armed. But the coneheads had taken her knife when she and Ali were captured in the underground city of Hirizuga.
Then it came to her. She did have a weapon after all! It was her knowledge of Meerkat, the common animal language of Beyond. Not that she knew it well. But her lessons with Mr. Paganini and coaching from little Timi had taught her the essentials. If she could make herself understood now to the animals in the nearby cages, perhaps they would help her. By bringing her here amidst their cages, the coneheads had unwittingly put her within signaling distance of possible allies.
The cries and groans around her seemed to rise and fall like a chant. Dara waited for the next dip in sound and cried, “Aram!” “Friend!” The noise from the cages around her suddenly quieted. “Aram!” she called again and rolled the “r” as Timi had taught her.
Now she had their attention. But what should she say? What could she say? Even if she could find the right words in Meerkat, what chance was there that the animals could help her escape? After all, they were prisoners, too.
From the cage to her left she heard the unmistakable grunt of a long-haired forest pig. She had seen them before and marveled at their strength and size, their powerful legs and sharp tusks. Meerkat words for animals often mimicked the sounds they made, so she addressed the pig by name.
“Pig,” she called out in Meerkat, grunting as best she could. “Are you there?”
The creature coughed a “yes.”
“Can you…?” Dara realized she did not know the Meerkat word for kick. “Can you push against your cage and mine and free us both?”
There was a brief silence, then came another grunt, followed by a crack like a hammer blow. Then another. Dara feared the guards might hear the demolition now underway, so she called out, “Rooa! Noise! Other animals make noise!”
This was all the encouragement needed. At once a chorus of wails and moans mounted from the animal cages that made Dara’s hair stand on end. It seemed like all the hurt and despair that these captives had experienced during their weeks or months of exile on Tartaros now fueled one violent, purple protest.
The intensity of these captive voices overwhelmed her. It was not just hurt, but a fierce anger that surged through the soundscape. If they ever recover their freedom, she thought, the animals here could prove to be the coneheads’ worst enemies. They will certainly want revenge.
But beneath the surge of protest Dara could still hear the steady thump, thump of the forest pig’s blows against the wooden walls of its cage. Then came a splintering crash and a sharp, yellow squeal that could signaled surprise or triumph. Soon she felt her own cage shake as the pig began to batter it from the outside.
His violent blows tossed Dara this way and that and her body began to ache from the shaking. Then with a final crack one side of the cage caved in. The pig’s hind legs and hoofs came within inches of her head, and again she heard its squeal of triumph.
Dara tried to work her hands free but the vine around her neck, as if sensing her wish, tightened and she gasped for breath. The pig pushed its snout in through the hole and bit the vine in two. She could feel the sharp bristles as it began to chew and smelled its rancid breath. It must be starving, she thought. Then it pulled at the thongs at her wrists and feet and severed them with another bite and she was free!
Her first thought was to free the other animals imprisoned here. Her second was that this was sadly impossible. How many more cages could she and the pig open before the guards arrived? Not many, maybe not even one. It was a cruel choice—to desert the other captives and save herself in hopes of perhaps saving them later. The animals had helped her with their din. Dara felt forced to explain why she was abandoning them now.
She rubbed her swollen wrists and crawled from the shattered cage, careful to avoid the splinters, then knelt in front of a neighboring cage. To her horror it contained a dozen meerkats—among her favorite animals on Beyond.
“Sori falieh tanee,” she said, and pointed toward the marsh. “I have to go there.” The meerkats sent up a furious barking, meaning “No, no, no, no!”
Dara found herself forced to relent. She would not abandon these little creatures as she had first abandoned Timi, though she had rescued him in the end. How long ago that seemed.
She peered through the darkness to see if the pig would help her, but it had disappeared. Perhaps it had already found the marsh. She hoped it could swim. In any case she was on her own.
Dara pulled a piece of wood from her broken cage and set about prying open the meerkats’ prison. When that piece broke she fetched another. Finally she managed to lever two bars loose—enough for the slender meerkats to squeeze through.
Some emerged, but others stayed behind, barely able to move. Again, the hopelessness of her situation flooded over Dara. Even if she could open every cage, not all the captives would be able to get away on their own. She could not possibly take care of the wounded and the dying and escape herself.
“Find the old man who lives on the cliff,” she said to the nearest meerkat, hoping it would know this meant Mr. Paganini. “Tell him bad people are here who will—.” She broke off and desperately tried to remember the word for “attack.” But the word failed to appear. “Bad people are here from another planet and they will make trouble!”
The meerkat coughed a “yes,” and squeezed out of the cage.
“I must leave now,” Dara said again to the others. “But I will come back!”
With that promise she slipped away, trying to ignore their desolate cries, and headed for the marsh. She tried not to feel like a coward as she passed cage after cage, full of despairing animals, and again and again repeated, “Sarashefilisin—I will come back.” Then she added, “Kha tatanu saforunkashisin—and I’ll rescue you.”
She had once promised to rescue Timi and then abandoned him. Her guilt and shame still haunted her. But this time she intended to keep her promise.
By now it was pitch dark. Flickering torchlight illuminated the stockade where the coneheads’ building project continued, but around the animal cages. deep shadows pooled. Dara hastened through the darkness until a timber wall loomed ahead. Was she too late? Was the stockade already finished?
No, not quite. A narrow gap still remained between two posts, perhaps meant to frame a future gate. She hurried through the gap to the edge of the marsh.
Then a harsh trumpet sounded. Her flight had been discovered! There was no time to lose. Dara splashed into the freezing water, pushed through the tall reeds, and began to swim.