Spring 86: curtainwall

Most cherished Zann,

I was crouching in the dark, feeling very sorry for myself, and I started thinking about the border-bridge piece Ellewen had been fidgeting with.

Where had he gotten it?

He didn’t keep the border-bridge set at the Public Bureau. It was in his little room nearby. In a carved case on his table. He wouldn’t take just one piece with him out of the room. And he didn’t take the whole set out. So how did the piece come to be in his hand?

Also.

The specific piece was the rear curtainwall. It was a strictly defensive piece, and one of the less important ones. It was a piece that you don’t bother playing unless your position in the game is quite safe.

I thought about this for a long time.

I thought about how subtle Ellewen could be, and about how the two of us spoke when we would talk together.

In the end, I decided that it might be wishful thinking, but probably he had used a tiny amount of lauran glamour, enough to trick my eyes but not Lord Clear’s, to make me think I saw the gamepiece in his hands, and he drew my attention to it, and he was trying to tell me that I was safe. I cried again, for relief, but also from frustration, because obviously I wasn’t safe. Ellewen had been wrong.

I called up through the open pit. “Hoy! Is anyone there? Hoy!”

I tried again, a couple of minutes later.

And some hours later.

I was starting to get thirsty.

Earlier, I had thought that there was no light coming in from above. Now that my eyes were more used to the darkness, I could see that that wasn’t quite true. There was a little bit of light. I could see a round circle of grey above me. Very dim. I could see it, but I couldn’t see anything by its light. I didn’t cast any shadow in it.

My leg hurt.

The skeleton, or skeletons, on the floor… how long have they been here? The palace was only a few years old. But some of the walls and doors down on this level looked like they were centuries old. Did the greenfolk build the palace, or just bring one here that had already been built? There sure hadn’t been any dungeons in these hills for them to build the palace above.

I couldn’t count on anyone coming down to this part of the palace. I needed to make a plan.

Love,

Ybel