Page 38

Story: A Forbidden Alchemy

I awoke to labored panting, cussing, a pitching sensation. The man whose back I was draped over held my wrists at a painful angle. I feared the bones of my arm were snapping by minute degrees.

“God almighty, she’s heavy!”

“She’s half your size, Scottie.”

“Aye, but she’s wringin’ wet and dead asleep.”

The pain must have escaped through my teeth then, because the rocking stopped. The men fell silent.

The shuffle of feet, and then the sack that covered my face lifted slightly.

The glow of a lantern blinded me.

“Mornin’, swank,” said the unknown voice. I couldn’t see his face beyond the light. He lowered the burlap over my eyes again.

I was dropped unceremoniously, and my arse hit water.

“Me fuckin’ back is screamin’,” groaned the one called Scottie.

“Yet all I can hear is your whinin’.”

The pair bickered, but I heard very little. Pins lanced every inch of my skin where the water breached my trousers and blouse. Pain surged so intensely behind my eyes it made them bulge. My wrists ached beneath their bindings.

Rope, it seemed. The scratch was familiar, so was the smell of damp earth. The air was thick with it. Somewhere nearby, a canary sang.

While the men argued, I lifted my bound hands and rid my face of the blindfold.

Weak lantern light. Rotting wooden frames. The intermittent drip of water through the ceiling. The ceiling was so low.

Tunnels, I thought, and a wave of nausea followed.

“It’s a quarter till, Scottie. He told us to be back by noon!”

“All I’m sayin’ is, we catch our breath a moment ’fore we keep movin’. Maybe have ourselves a li’l pickup?”

The sound of liquid swilling in a glass bottle found me.

“You take a single hit, and I’ll sing like a fuckin’ bird.”

“All right, Otto. All right. Stand down.”

More splintering pain as I sat upright, and I whimpered.

“Oy! Put that sack back over her head!”

Mud spattered my face as one of them stomped over, but I’d already caught a glimpse of them both. One burly, one wiry, both too covered ingrime to make much of their features other than the stark white of their eyes. Ghosts. Craftsmen. The miners of my childhood.

The one named Scottie bent to peer at me. “All right there, swank?”

I spat at his boots in answer, and he swiftly took my sight away once more.

“Not too ladylike, is she? Ain’t she high-ranking?” said Otto.

“Come on, princess,” Scottie grunted, hauling me upright by the front of my blouse. I felt two of the buttons rip free. My arm scraped against something solid: a wall. “Walk on, now. Mind your step.”

But I refused to yield. I shivered violently.

“Move, swank,” Otto intoned. “You ain’t got much choice.” With that came the click of a pistol’s hammer and the press of cool steel on the back of my neck. “No tunnel can kill the likes ofyou, can it?”

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