chapter 3, part 1

“Milady. Wake up.”

Maya opened her eyes blearily and found herself face-to-face with Sylvia.

She licked her dry lips and managed to slur out, “What’s going on?”

“It’s time to get up.”

Slowly, it all came back to her. Being captured, being interrogated, being imprisoned, the strange meal. Groggily she sat up and looked at Sylvia.

The knight’s belly, she could see, was still slightly puffed out but wasn’t the veritable globe it had been the night before. Vaguely, Maya remembered the half-formed fantasies her mind had created as she was going to sleep and felt her face growing hot.

Sylvia frowned. “Milady? Are you alright?”

Maya cleared her throat. “Quite, thank you.” She looked around uncomfortably. “I see there’s no need to change, given that we fell asleep in our clothes.”

Sylvia chuckled. “I wonder if Greldedor will let us do laundry at any point. I suppose I can ask her.”

“Did she come by already this morning?”

“Yes,” the knight responded. “I was fast asleep until she came tearing a hole in the wall.” She gestured vaguely at the spot in the room where the door had been but which was now undifferentiated stone. Magic was now the only way in or out.

Maya nodded but didn’t respond. The silence stretched out as the two sat in the early-morning sunlight, waiting.

“I’ve never seen magic like hers before,” Sylvia said after a while. “That kind of power is strange. I’ll admit that I’m no expert, but I wonder how she does it.”

“It must be the Crystal,” Maya said with conviction. “I haven’t seen it yet, but it has to be powering her somehow. There’s no other explanation.”

Sylvia snorted. “There are probably plenty of other explanations. The wand she uses could be something special, or it could be that she travels around with a legendary creature – did you know that there were still dragons in the world? I never knew that.”

“There are plenty of strange things in the world,” Maya said dismissively, waving a hand. “And who knows if that’s even a true dragon – it doesn’t talk, after all, and according to the legends it should be wise and eloquent.”

Sylvia shrugged. “Are we still planning on trying to find a way out of here today?” She started to say something else but cut herself short as the sound of stone grinding on stone announced the arrive of Greldedor.

The witch stepped over the lip of stone left behind by her spell and addressed the two younger women. “I trust you slept well?”

Sylvia glanced over at her charge and knew immediately that Maya intended to stay stubbornly silent, so she smiled, gave an overly-lugubrious bow, and answered, “Quite well, milady.”

Greldedor let out a huff of what might be satisfaction and looked Maya and Sylvia up and down. “You know, it’s quite inconvenient to have to keep track of you both. I think that all our lives would have remained much simpler if you hadn’t come banging around in my house to begin with.”

Maya took that as her cue to speak up. “As servants of the queen we cannot allow your evil deeds to continue!”

Greldedor sighed. “What evil? Living out in the woods and not bothering anyone? For someone as well-born and well-educated as you are, you certainly do believe everything you’re told.”

Well-born? Maya wondered just how much the old witch knew. “You were plotting to overthrow the divinely-chosen queen of the land,” she said stubbornly. “That can’t be ignored.”

“There’s no were about it, dear.” Greldedor twirled a lock of her long blonde hair around one long, thick finger. “I’m still planning, plotting, and scheming.” In an utterly childish gesture, she stuck out her tongue. “Now, let it never be said that I’m a cruel jailor. Let’s get you some breakfast and I’ll hand you over to Brightscale for a bit.”

Breakfast, thankfully, was normal – the portions were large, but that wasn’t unusual for Greldedor, Maya had come to realize. It at least wasn’t the humiliating stuffing of the night before. She noticed Sylvia eating with great gusto in spite of last night’s experience. Some people, she thought to herself, never learn.

After they had eaten, Greldedor guided the two outside into the small clearing between the witch’s tower and the forest. Maya had also become used to this during her short stay here; Greldedor seemed to consider herself some sort of moral paragon and evidently keeping her captives locked up inside for the whole day went against her personal code.

Greldedor waved her wand and the heavy oak door to the tower opened. Maya blinked as her eyes adjusted painfully to the bright sun outside.

“Enjoy,” the witch said.

Maya grimaced ruefully. She was sure that she and Sylvia could outrun the witch, but without armor or weapons, their chances of survival in the forest were slim – even if they could evade the dragon.

That being said, the dragon itself didn’t seem particularly intelligent. It didn’t even seem to be watching her as she ambled across the clearing, feigning innocent interest in a clump of Queen Anne’s lace growing there.

“Now, did you build the tower by magic or did you have to hire workers from the nearest village? In either case it’s good craftsmanship, but there doesn’t seem to be much of anything in the way of places for guards.” Maya chuckled as Sylvia’s words drifted across the clearing to her. Of course her idea of “distracting small-talk” was “desperately suspicious shop talk.”

“Magic,” Greldedor responded, “and I hardly need room for guards when I have Brightscale here.”

“But now, what if Brightscale wanted to take a day off? What then? You could even invest in some skeleton guards, like what the queen uses for places where she can’t trust us human guards.”

“Necromancy is a debased art…”

Maya let their conversation fade out of her awareness as she began furtively working her way around the tower, looking for the window that might be to her cell. There was one, but it was certainly too high up – it might be to Greldedor’s lab.

She filed the information away but it gave her little hope as there was nothing climbable or safe to land in near it – to jump from there without the use of magic would be certain death. Although, if it were Greldedor’s lab, there might be usable magical equipment inside.

A rumbling voice snapped her out of her reverie. “Maya Alzeanath,” it said, “it would be well for you to return to your companion.”

She snapped around and saw behind her the massive face of the dragon Brightscale.

Trying to regain her composure, she choked out, “So you do talk.”

It blinked its enormous amber eyes at her slowly. “No tame dog am I,” it said.

Maya swallowed hard, trying to think what to say. “No? Then why do you serve the witch as one?” The dragon didn’t respond immediately, so she pressed on, “Why not aid us in our quest? We serve the queen and the cause of right.”

A moment passed. “My mind,” the creature said slowly and solemnly, “is my own.” It exhaled out onto the mage and she choked at the sulfurous heat. “It is not well for you to try to escape. Return.”

As she walked back towards Greldedor, anger boiling in her, she looked back at the tower. There, set into the ground near the far side of the structure was something – a door? It looked an awful lot like the door to the root cellar at the castle.

Sylvia waved to Maya from across the clearing as she approached. Maya gave a confident nod. They were led back up to their cell, Sylvia clearly excited by something.

As the wall merged shut behind them, Sylvia turned to Maya with a grin. “I found out where our gear is being kept.”

Maya felt a thrill go through her. “Where?”

“The tower apparently has a basement dug underneath it,” the knight whispered.

Maya remembered the door and let a slow smile take control of her face as she began to formulate a plan.

After a few hours, lunch was passed into the room through the non-door. It was another large meal, but Maya didn’t mind quite so much as she had at dinner the night before – eating was at least something to do in the long hours of captivity as the two women considered their escape.

The sun set, and in due time, it was dinner again. As the wall began to grind open, Sylvia sighed. “Why doesn’t she just give us bread and water like a normal jailor?”

“Would you prefer that?” Greldedor asked from the portal in the wall. “Come along now.”

The two obeyed, Maya with a veritable spring in her step. She had no doubt that freedom was coming, and soon.

She sighed, however, as she saw that the table was once again set with a ridiculous feast – this one much larger than the night before. “What’s the point of this, Greldedor?” she asked as she sat down at one end of the long table.

“I’m merely trying to be a good host,” the witch responded as she also sat down. “Are you going to help your friend this time, or no?”

Maya gritted her teeth but didn’t respond.

Remembering Sylvia’s discomfort the night before, Maya did try to load her plate a bit more heavily this time. She finished her first plate and filled it a second time with the rich variety before her – creamy cheeses, brightly-colored candied fruits, roasted meats dripping with fat – but by the time she was halfway through that, she felt herself slowing down as her stomach protested the stuffing.

Sylvia, she noticed, didn’t seem particularly perturbed. As Maya picked at her second plate, the knight was already on her third – the woman, Maya thought acidly, must have a pit for a stomach.

Still, the mage watched with a kind of fascination as the platters of rich food disappeared into the knight’s mouth. Unlike the last night, Sylvia seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself – smacking her lips, licking her fingers, chasing every last scrap of food around on her plate each time it was emptied. It was a glorious display of gluttony.