“Do not speak to your betters, wretch!”

Another kick to the gut had me coughing and choking on the floor of the cell. The chains binding me jangled and rattled in a mockingly musical manner. Fighting to get my breath under control, I let myself crumple to the bare stone to avoid drawing any further ire. The man who’d kicked me had curly black hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. His green velvet cloak was pinned by a gold brooch studded with emeralds showing a pair of boars trying to run in opposite directions but tied to each other by the hind legs. There was neither pity nor mercy in his eyes. Seeing no more outward signs of defiance from me, he turned back to Radim Starek.

“Not this one.”

Starek gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. Radim Starek was bald and fat, with jowls that overhung the collar of his brocaded ochre coat. He wore tall boots and had an elaborately beaded sash about his expansive waist. The switch of braided hide tucked under his arm was the usual rebuke, though this time it had delivered by the customer’s boot leather. As the two stepped out of the cell, a subtle movement caught my eye. Something had fallen from the pouch of the green-cloaked man. I waited until both he and Radim were gone before slithering over to take a closer look. It was a short, thin length of steel with a decorative silver knot soldered to one end. A toothpick. A smirk bent my features as I moved back into the corner of the cell. I hid the toothpick along the base of the wall and waited. It was hard to suppress the urge to use this first sliver of hope too soon.

Ever since the pirates had taken our ship and I’d been clapped in irons, I’d been looking for an opening to get away. Even after I’d been sold ashore, I refused to abandon the possibility of escape. But I had to not squander my opportunity. I had to still be here for the dinnertime count to maximize the time before my absence was discovered. So I waited.

As the light outside started to dim, one of Radim’s trusted slaves delivered a tiny bowl of barley gruel. It was stewed to a consistency of a thick paste, and no implements were provided. There was enough of the bland mush there to keep me alive, but not sufficient for much else. I ate it anyway and left the wooden bowl where they expected to find it. After the bowl was collected, I got the pick out from where it lay. The toothpick was not the perfect implement for teasing open a lock, but the locks on my irons were not that complex.

Cool air washed over the raw skin of my neck and wrists as I freed myself from my bonds. Just to be able to stand without the weight of chains upon my back buoyed my spirits immediately. The wooden door to the cell was bolted from the outside, but there was no lock, and my arm fit between the iron pars of the window. I pawed about blindly along the outer face of the door, my shoulder jammed against the bars. My fingertips barely touched the edges of the bolt. Clenching my jaw against the curse in my throat, I teased the bolt with my fingertips, trying to ease it along its tracks. Frustration built anew as it failed to budge. As I eased back to let the blood flow more freely into my arm, I heard the bolt rattle. It was loose, why wasn’t it moving? I reached back out again and epiphany struck. I was leaning against the door to push my arm through as far as it would go. That was binding the bolt against the bracket.

Grabbing the edge of the window with my free hand, I pulled the door towards me to release the pressure on the bolt. I ached from the rough wood biting into my skin, digging in the splinters. But the bolt nudged along its track. Elated, I walked my fingertips along the iron, dragging it slowly free from the bracket on the frame. Choler welled up inside of my as the bolt stopped. I was too close, I just needed to…

The door swung out as I was trying to open the bolt further than fully open. I squelched the momentary giddiness as I stumbled into the hallway. Rather than let a momentary laugh give me away, I breathed deep of the less stagnant air here. Recovering my toothpick, I closed the cell door and returned the bolt to its closed position. Gloom filled the hallway. I tempered my excitement. Out of my cell was not free. I still had to get out of the building, and past any guard Starek had. Only problem was, I didn’t know my way around. I’d been chained up in that cell since I’d arrived. There had to be windows somewhere, because sunlight leaked into the cell block. A few moments of creeping about and I spotted the twinkle of starlight. It was through a slot in the wall near the ceiling. Approaching it, my fingers found the lower lip of the window. I reached higher and frowned. There were bars, about as closely spaced as those in the window of the cell door.

Still, I grabbed hold of the bars and pulled myself high enough to peer out. The window was at ground level, and the cool stone my body rested against retained the earth inside a courtyard. A sliver of moon gave enough light to pick out the square shape of the open area. Neatly fitted stone setts paved the space, giving it an orderly air. The curtain-dimmed glow within windows higher up showed several floors. This place was not small.

I lowered myself back to the floor and moved along the wall to my right. The hall ended in a stout wooden door. Unlike the cells, this one did have a lock, and a keyhole that pierced the mechanism. It was not as simplistic as the locks on the irons, and probing the mechanism with the toothpick had my nerves on edge. I bit my lower lip to avoid cursing as I figured out the lock. I could disengage the mechanism, but in order to withdraw the latch, I needed a second implement. I paced back down the hall, my bare feet almost silent on the stone flags. An examination of the lock on the door at the other end of the hall found very much the same manner of mechanism. Trying not to let out a noise of irritation, I paced back the other way again. I was out of my cell, but I couldn’t get out of this hallway. I was tantalizingly close.

It just wasn’t right. I couldn’t have failed already. I could-

I could feel something metal underfoot.

Kneeling, I ran my fingers over the metallic object. It was a grate covering a drain. Why was there a drain in here? My mind went back to the windows and the neatly paved courtyard. When it rained, water would spill through the windows and would need someplace to go. I traced my fingers along the outside of the drain cover. It was small, but I’d lost weight in captivity. I might just be able to fit through it if I got the grate off. Holding the toothpick between my lips, I hooked my fingers under the metal grille and pulled up.

The sudden grinding noise was like a deafening cry in the silence.

“Who’s out there?” one of the slaves from the other cells called.

“Is somebody out there?” Another asked.

“What’s going on?” came a third.

I ignored them and strained against my atrophied muscles to tear the small grate out of its dirt-encrusted frame. Dragging the cover aside, I reached down into the hole. There was a small dribble of moisture along the bottom. Not a lot, but enough to tell which direction it was flowing. The space was tight, but I slipped in feet-first and pulled myself along the channel. Fitted stone brushed suffocatingly close to my face as I entombed myself within the drain. The water ran along my spine and soaked my shorts as I pulled myself along. Both of my sides brushed against the edges of the channel, and I had to almost bury my face in my arm to avoid scraping my nose off. I could only inch along iota by iota, but the trickle of water helped slicken my path.

Into the inky blackness I passed, my nose clogging with the scent of my own body and of stale mildew. I nudged my rear along by pushing against the ceiling with my hands until my knees threatened to get lodged. Then I dragged my legs straight again using my heels. Wiggling down the passageway, I dare not stop, nor think about what would happen if I ran into an obstruction. There was much that water could get around that I could not. With the walls pressed in on me, I fought not to cry out. Holding the toothpick helped. I dared not speak, lest I accidentally inhale it. Progress was maddening, as ages crept by and I knew I couldn’t be past the back wall of the cells. But I had to keep going. Stopping or retreating were no longer options.

My feet emerged into a wider passage. Not a wide passage, and one that ran perpendicular to my drain. Testing the flow of water along its bottom, I twisted my body to transition to sliding in that direction as I wormed around the corner. I almost got wedged against the far wall when my backside reached it. Scrunching up my bruised middle, I dragged my feet along the far wall as I tried to convince my spine to bend just a little bit more. The corner of the drain bit into my ribs and I forced as much of the air from my lungs as I could squeeze out. The corner struck me in the armpit and I slipped free, flopping into the flow within the new passage.

I gasped around the pick between my teeth and blinked against the blackness. There was no light down here, so the random pinpricks of closed eyelids danced before my open eyes. This space was not roomy, but it was bigger. I could now scoot along instead of wiggling. I followed the water. Drains tended to get larger the further down the flow you went. Sooner or later, it should spit me out in a river or harbor. Of course, there could be another grate there. I shoved the thought from my mind. I would deal with that when I came to it. For now, I had a passage to scoot along, and I didn’t want to ask what were the skittering things I kept brushing aside as I moved. At least they didn’t bite me.

A brazen rat bounded over my chest.

My heart pounded and I almost yelped as it passed further up the drain. Only the determination to not get the toothpick lodged in my throat stilled my voice. In the dark, amidst the vermin, awash in gods knew what, I struggled to regain my composure. If I kept moving, I would be free. Every moment of rage and frustration spent in chains flooded back to me. I was not going to lose it here. Willing my fright-frozen limbs back into motion, I resumed dragging myself down the tight passage. No, it was not a tight passage, merely narrow. The first drain had been far tighter. I could almost see this one as roomy. I tried not to laugh at myself. It wasn’t even taller than the length of my thighs. Whatever descriptor, I was moving again, and faster than I was before.

All drains were built to lead somewhere, and this one was no exception.

I lost the toothpick in the cistern as I splashed into the fetid liquid accumulating in it. The cistern was tall enough that I was able to stand up as I fought to spit the retch-inducing taste out of my mouth. My hands rested against the vaulted roof of the tiny chamber as I coughed and spat in a vain attempt to rid myself of the lingering flavor of a half mouthful of the foul fluids. I couldn’t stay here, I’d choke myself to death. Picking along the perimeter of the cistern, I looked for an exit. It was not hard to find, though I did have to crawl into it. This passage had a dry, flat bottom and a rounded barrel vault of a roof. Still not very big, it struck me as an overflow release for the cistern.

Wet and reeking of aromas I didn’t even want to contemplate, I refused to let the physical ordeal drag on me. Forward was freedom. There was no way I was still under Radim Starek’s slave house. This passage came out into a larger dry cistern. I could not feel the roof and I dare not venture away from the wall into the inky blackness. Unpleasantness crunched underfoot, and stale, stagnant air filled the space. Though I had trouble smelling it over what I was dripping with. I followed the wall to my right. It was no better or worse a choice than any other, and easily reversed if I found out otherwise.

I almost didn’t believe my eyes when a gray light oozed into the space. What time was it? Was this the first seeping light of dawn? No, however long I’d spent in the passages, it hadn’t been all night. The weak light was spilling down from a gap in the ceiling. The parallel lines of a ladder cut into the wall led up to it. My atrophied limbs protested the effort as I mounted the ladder and forced them to climb. They shook and trembled lifting my reduced body weight, but lift it they did. The light was brighter at the top of the ladder.

The ragged edges in the gap in the ceiling showed where metal bars had been removed. The floor surface around it had been torn up and was in the process of being refinished for laying a new mosaic. The vaulted roof of the passageway was in better shape, having been replastered already. A pale grid ran along the smooth surface, stopping where it reached sculpted elements. At the far end, a pair of figures had their backs to me. One sat, fastidiously copying lines from a sketch onto the wall grid. The other stood, shaking his head. A lantern rested on the floor between the two.

“It’s not going to fit at that scale. The grid is too big, there aren’t enough rows.”

“I know,” the seated one said.

“Then why are you still doing it?”

“I mentioned that the scale was off on the sketch because this hall was shorter than the others, but do you know what he said?”

“Let me guess,” the standing one said, “It was something like ‘I am the Master, and you are only the apprentice, you do what I tell you to.'”

“Almost word for word. So, I’m copying the sketch and am going to run out of room before I get their heads on the wall.”

“He’s going to yell.”

“He’s going to yell either way, at least this way I can say I did what he told me to.”

“Good luck,” the standing apprentice said. I ducked below the level of the floor as he turned in my direction. I didn’t dare shift my hands or feet to lower rungs and hung there, the pain and trembling in my limbs growing as the apprentice’s footfalls scuffed across the stone floor. The space grew brighter as his smaller lamp approached, leaving me painfully exposed. All he needed to do was glance down at an inopportune moment, and…

The unhurried footfalls continued to grow closer as my aching fingers began to slip. Hanging my body as low as I could manage was harder work than I’d asked of myself since being caged. In my position, I couldn’t figure out how to surreptitiously adjust my grip on the stone rungs. Staring helplessly at the molded plaster along the ridge of the ceiling vault, I listened to the footsteps growing closer. Surely there was no way he could miss me hanging right there, eyes-wide. And yet, all that passed over the hole was a sleeve and a paint-stained hand. As his steps began to recede past me, I had to pull myself onto straightened legs before my grip failed entirely. While this lurched my head and shoulders above the level of the floor, it was at least reasonably silent.

I glanced over my shoulder towards where the first apprentice was still transferring the sketch to the wall. While the way he sat left his back towards me, it meant he had a clear view of everything in the passage past him. The only other choice was the direction the second apprentice had gone. I had to keep moving, staying here was not an option. Putting an arm on the floor level, I resumed my climb, careful to minimize the noise I made. Rising to my feet, I kept one eye over my shoulder and another on the doorway as I inched away from the first apprentice. Reaching the arch, I had to turn my head to take in the next room.

The small lantern of the second apprentice provided only a dim ambient glow to most of the domed space. It glowed from somewhere up in scaffolding that had been erected to provide access to the dome interior. Patches of the original mural still clung to parts of the dome, though it was dominated by the gleaming white where a wedge shaped span had received fresh plaster. The light reflecting off this span was all that reached the tilework pool that had been drained of water and had collected a layer of old plaster dust. This had to be part of a bath house, albeit one under renovation. I eased my way under the scaffold, keeping the woodwork between me and the painter’s apprentice above. There had to be another door, rooms this large rarely had a single entrance. But the light was so poor, most of the walls were cloaked in shadows.

Feeling along the walls also helped keep me out of sight of the apprentice, so I searched for an exit that way. Post after post, I found nothing but wall beyond. And that was all I found when the scaffold ended. Standing here, holding onto the last scaffold post, I could hear the tuneless humming of the apprentice as he worked. Every so often he sang-whispered something about “Little leaves” as he went about his work. With the cross-bracing in front of me, I stepped between the poles. The triangle-shaped gap was more than big enough to move through, but I dared not bump the structure lest the noise or vibration give my presence away.

Reaching for the wall, my arm failed to find anything. My first thought was that I was simply further away than I’d estimated. Edging closer, I reached again. My hand passed through empty space. Following the scaffolding cross bars, I found the post again and the wall beyond. There was a door frame not a hand’s span away from the end of the scaffold. The door itself sat halfway open. Gripping the edge, I wormed around it so as to not squeak any hinges. I froze as I spotted another light. The passage I was in was painted in dark blue ocean scenes, and soaked in much of the ambient light coming from the far end. There was another door on the side of the passage whose outline was mere darkness in the blue. The other light, past the end of the hallway, another painter’s apprentice?

I had to make sure I knew what the light was, otherwise someone might come up behind me.

Creeping down the hallway, I strained my ears to listen for the slightest noise. Even the second apprentice’s humming failed to reach me. Even at my slow pace, I reached the end of the hall quickly, it was shorter than the other passage. Peering through the doorway, I took in the space beyond. The light came from a small brass lantern hanging from the top arch of the faulted ceiling. The pale blue and white tilework on the floor and grotto scenes on the walls told me it was another bath chamber before I even spotted the main pool. Wisps of steam rose off the surface of the water. Off to the left were three curtained alcoves. I knew what those alcoves were before I even looked past the curtain. They had to be ablution alcoves. The main bath was for relaxing, not cleaning.

I could not resist temptation.

Having been kept in that fetid cell and doused in the foulness of the drains, a spot to clean up was irresistible. I slipped into the first alcove. It had a wash basin, a bench, and some shelves with soap, towels, and wash rags. I closed the curtain and set about washing up as quietly as I could. As the filth came off, I felt almost human again. Of course, the sound of boots on tile told me how stupid I was. I mashed myself into the corner beside the curtain. I held my breath and listened to the pounding of my heart in my chest as the footsteps stopped outside.

A wordless snarl penetrated the curtain. Boots angrily stomped down the passage towards the domed bath chamber. The door slammed open.

“I have told you two, you are not allowed to wash up in my bath chamber. I don’t care how much paint you get on yourselves, you’re tracking dust and grime into the only clean room in the bath house!” The door slammed shut. Bootsteps clomped back into the bath chamber, passing me and entering the next alcove over. Confused, I peered past the curtain. There, on the pale tile, my footprints showed where I’d come in. Without footprints going back, why would he think the apprentices left the trail? Oh, clean feet wouldn’t have left such blatant tracks. Moving back into my hiding spot, I listened to the splash of water from the next alcove over.

How long was he going to be in there? If I left at the wrong time, he’d come out and spot me. It might be wiser to wait him out. Gods, I was sick of waiting. I’d come so far from that cell. This house had to have an exit onto the street, but I was stuck waiting while a man with a familiar, angry voice washed up. I forced myself to calm down and wait. The splash of water stopped, and bare feet padded to the pool. I kept my irritation in check. Getting impatient now meant getting caught. The sound of him entering the water was subtle, but triggered another thought in my head. If he was in the pool, it was likely he left his clothes in the other alcove. My own attire left much to be desired, and would immediately get me recognized as an escapee.

But he was bound to hear me, or see me. But if I waited, I would have to sneak through the city as I was. I could be quiet. I knew I could be quiet. But if he was looking this way, the effort would be worthless. Peering through the gap at the edge of the curtain, I assayed the other man’s location. All I saw of him was a mop of curly black hair. He was in the pool, shoulders at the level of the rim, back towards me. Made sense, it was the closest spot to the ablution alcoves, and there was little point in walking around to the far side. Ever so gingerly, I moved past the curtain. I wanted to just step around the wall separating the alcoves, but could risk rustling the curtains, or having my footfalls heard. So I moved into the open, steadied the first curtain, and held my breath. The man in the pool made no motion as though having noticed me. Easing past the cloth, I entered the second alcove.

The man’s clothes were neatly stacked on the bench across from the wash basin. The green velvet cloak drew my attention immediately. The gold and emerald brooch upon it bore the image of two boars tied by their back legs trying to run away from each other. So, that was why the voice was familiar. Grinning, I got dressed.

Undoubtedly, it was the sound of boots on tile that got his attention.

“Who the-” he started, partially raising out of the water and turning towards me.

“Do not speak to your betters, wretch!” I snapped, echoing his earlier words as I kicked him across the face. He spun about and slumped on the rim of the pool. I poised to strike again, but he looked rather unconscious. For a moment, it crossed my mind how easy it would have been to push him in and let him drown. But, no. I’d already repaid him the cruelty he’d done to me. It was Radim who deserved my ire. Him and the pirates. Both had laughed when I insisted my ransom was worth more than I’d fetch as a slave. Neither believed I was who I said I was. But first, I needed to finish making my way out of this place. The City of Breakiron was a port town, and it was easier to walk out of in the clothes of a fellow nobleman than the rags of a slave. I’d have to sell his velvet cloak and maybe the brooch to make my way home. Then… then I could dream up my revenge on Radim.

For now, I walked out of the mansion as though I owned the place. In the poor lighting, a casual glance wouldn’t realize I didn’t. It was safer than sneaking about. On the street, the crisp night air smelled faintly of saltwater and horse droppings, but anything was sweeter than that cell.