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Welcome to In a Land Far Away!

Chapter Two
Down the Dungeon Corridor

The path outside the Great Hall was generally used by servants but I had used it for years to get to my room quickly. Sometimes on nights like tonight when the ball was in full swing I would see young men and women snuggling together in the bushes. I couldn’t help thinking about Kale as I walked. He had striking green eyes and a beautiful smile. He was nothing like any of the men I knew, including my own father.

I pulled the door to the kitchen open and slid between the servants rushing around refilling trays. The head cook, Abigail, a stout little woman with a crop of fuzzy, gray hair, smiled at me. It had taken me some time to get Abigail to like me.

The first time I had entered the kitchen I was shooed away with a wooden spoon. After several attempts to cross the kitchen unseen I brought her a gift from Alanonya of rare herbs I had picked in the forest around Castle Wynon. Abigail have been more than excited and often requested that I collect her certain herbs while traveling with my father. I gave her a little wave as I walked through and made my way down the stairs just outside the kitchen.

I entered the lower corridor that was lit only by a few torches on the wall. The dungeon, which held dangerous men, was ahead quite a ways and I would turn onto the stairs right before the entrance. There had been times when I could hear some poor soul wailing in the dungeons, or angry yelling, even laughing. There was a long sweeping curve halfway down the hall, as I rounded it I found myself walking toward a tall figure. He had a menacing look that should have warned me the first moment I saw him, but like a stupid child I continued walking toward him.

The closer I got to the man the more I wanted to turn and run. The walls were so damp that when I brushed up against it, trying to stay as close to one side of the narrow hall as I could, water ran down my arm. The man was getting closer. I wondered where he had come from. He was not a servant or a guard, of that I was sure. I had taken this corridor enough to know everyone who dared pass thorough it. Most people in the castle were afraid not only to enter it but to even pass it. I was not afraid, not until now.

The man was almost upon me; his eyes gleamed in the torchlight. I wrinkled my nose at the smell he gave off, a smell I recognized as the smell of the dungeons and the prisoners kept there. Smoke from the torches filled this high point in the hall and it took all I had to keep from coughing. My eyes fixed on the floor as a realization hit me. ‘He has escaped.’ The thought drifted through my head like wild fire on dried pine needles. I kept my eyes to the floor and walked as if he were not there. The closer he came though the more frightened I became.

‘Silly girl, is it so exciting to walk in the dungeon now, now that you face a real prisoner on the loose? Now look at you scared to death that he is going to murder you on the spot. It’s only exciting when they are behind bars.’ I rolled my eyes at myself and felt my feet moving a little quicker. I wanted to be past him so that I could run the rest of the way to my room.

Finally, I was upon him. I held my breath tightly and turned my head toward the wall as we passed, but before I could force my legs to move any faster I screamed at the pain of my hair, all bundled up in an already tight knot, being snatched almost out of my head.

He shifted me around in the hall so that he could put a dull knife, but a knife nonetheless to my throat. His voice was like gravel in my ear, as if he had not had a drink in several weeks. “Here I am trying to find a way out of this disgusting excuse for a castle and what do I find in my path but the Heir to the Throne of Rouk herself walking through the dungeons as if she belongs.” He coughed sickly in my ear. “Where were you off to Lady? Do you have a secret lover in the dungeons? A little late night sex with the guards? How many at once?”

I shook my head as much as I dared. “My room,” I whispered. “I was taking a short cut to my room.”

The man grunted loudly as if disappointed. “A short cut through the dungeon?” He was silent for a moment before he went on. “Listen here, Princess,” he whispered. His voice was horse but very deep. “I want out of here, now, and you’re going to take me if I have to slit your pretty little throat.”

I whimpered as he jerked my hair again. “Now, where are the guards? Why are none here? If you scream I will put an end to you!”

He pushed the blade harder against my throat. It took me several moments to collect myself before I could manage to speak and my first attempt was not only inaudible but incoherent. “Ball,” I finally managed and the man loosened the blade a little.

“All of them?” the man asked. I simply nodded. “Alright, get me out of here without being seen, Little Miss Short Cut.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as tears began to fall. “I can’t,” I whispered. “It’s almost over.”

The man let out a sigh. “Are there people who will be leaving the castle grounds at this ball?” I nodded. “Then take me to get some fancy clothes and we can blend in.”

I sort of like this idea. I would get him clothes and anyone who saw me trying to leave the gates without a guard would know that something was wrong. Still, my stomach was in knots and I could not think of a place to get this man clothes. “NOW!” he growled in my ear. I whimpered and told myself to walk. Just walk and figure it out on the way. So, I walked down the hall, up the stairs, and into the hall where my room was. As we walked past my door I turned away from it. The Duke of Bellmont was a very tall man and he had several fancy outfits in the room he kept in the castle, right across from my own.

I stood in the corner of the Duke of Bellmonts quarters watching as the man with the knife rifled through the clothes. He washed his face with a damn rag, smoothed his hair and combed it, then dressed in a frilly blue suit that made him look almost silly but no less frightening. He turned toward me and he looked like someone I knew. My thoughts were so scattered that I couldn’t figure out whom. Our eyes met and I held my breath and tried to take a few steps back but the wall stopped me, so I slid down it. He tossed me a black hooded cloak and told me to keep my face covered.

We wandered down the corridor, his arm around my shoulder and the knife against my side. To anyone else it would look as though his date had drunk a little too much. He walked slowly until we joined a crowd leaving the castle. The people in the crowd talked and laughed as the walked and the man with the knife joined in. “Great show at the end,” he said. The man next to him smiled and said something about snow. They laughed together as we walked out the castle gates.

I hoped he would let me go now that he was free but he pulled me along with the knife in my side. We walked quietly letting the crowd around us go their own ways. When the crowd was gone he stole a horse from a pub and shoved me into the saddle. He climbed up behind me as I considered the easiest way to jump from the horse. When he was settled in the saddle he tied my hands to the pommel with the reins.

We rode through town with little incident. Several guards passed but even as I gave them a pleading look they smiled to the man holding me hostage. I struggled with the reins trying to loosen them but it only made them tighter.

As soon as we passed the last street lamp the horse jumped into a run down the north road. For several hours we followed the bending, turning path along the river. If he ever let me go, I could follow the river home.

At a prominent fork in the river he stopped the horse and led it off the path into a clearing. He untied my hands and pulled me off the horse only to shove me at a tree and hiss at me to sit down. I did as I was told but I was not happy about it. He threw several sticks into a pile and waved his hand over them. The ignited instantly and I pushed myself back against the tree. A mage. Now I knew how he escaped. I stared into the flames while he paced back and forth.

He jerked me up off the ground. I had an odd feeling like I didn’t know where I was but then I realized and I knew I had fallen asleep. How could I have fallen asleep? I didn’t understand.

I rubbed at my eyes and stumbled away from him. I could hear the soft beat of a horse coming toward us. I watched down the trail waiting for it to come into view. The man who had captured me watched as well. Why wasn’t he trying to hide? It was possible that the horse coming down the path belonged to one of the guards from the castle.
The horse was close enough for me to see it was not a guard. The closer it got the better I could see and I realized that it was just as good as a guard. It was Kale trotting along on the beautiful black horse I had watched him arrive at the castle on. A smile spread across my lips and my heart leapt.