"Until The Fall" - 38/48

[rissy_james]

Title: Until The Fall
Author: Rissy James
Characters: DG, Cain, Azkadellia, Jeb, Glitch, Raw, Tutor, the Queen, Ahamo, and some old & new OCs
Pairing: Established Cain/DG; established Jeb/Az
Rating: M
Summary: Sequel to " Of Light". After an annual of living in the O.Z., DG sets out to complete the task given to her by the Gale. Soon, she must learn that there is always more to everything than first meets the eye.
Extras: Cast Page on livejournal.com

Author's Note: My apologies on the lateness of this update. Life interferes. On with the show?

Chapter Thirty Eight

Speak softly, and carry a big stick; you will go far.

DG wrinkled her nose at her own thoughts. What use the sage advice was supposed to be, she wasn't sure she knew. Even if she had free use of her hands, and even if there weren't four guns trained on her as she walked, she wouldn't have fancied heading into the trees for a stick. The black sentinels that grew alongside the road were intimidating, branches creaking and swaying despite the absence of the slightest breeze. The forest had long since begun to creep her out, and it was wreaking havoc on her imagination. Her current position as prisoner didn't help matters any.

Keeping her mouth shut, her ears open, and her magic on its precipitous edge, DG paid attention to everything that happened around her. Zero walked behind her, one hand gripping hard the rope that looped her wrists together. Every once in a while he'd give her a forceful nudge, but at the same time guided her over the easiest parts of the path and didn't rush her over the uneven terrain. She'd hadn't tripped once. Tory was close behind Zero, marched along at gunpoint just as she was.

The escort that led them farther into the heart of the Black Forest consisted of four of Catt's soldiers. They were young, but hard and mean. They all seemed to wear the same grimace on their faces, a pained look of boredom crossed with abject loathing for whatever their eyes happened to fall upon. And at that moment, what their eyes saw was DG.

She couldn't care less. All she could think about was the Emerald, pulsing its magic against her leg. The air around her was charged, like the calmness before a storm, that promise on the wind of a real big show of nature.

Zero guided her roughly around a root jutting up out of the path. Jerking against the rope, she mumbled a wordless exclamation of protest. The ropes around her wrists tightened painfully as he twisted them in his hand. It wasn't an effort to hate him, but she'd decided to make a bit of a show of it in front of the lady's soldiers.

The Emerald gave a hot throb in her pocket, and she winced. It was like carrying a live coal.

DG looked up into the skeletal branches that reached high over her head, long-fingered limbs intertwining to create a tunnel. Shadow's Passage... she'd never been in a more aptly named place. Over the course of a half-hour, they headed deeper and deeper into the forest; she was just beginning to wonder if the tunnel of trees would ever come to an end when it very abruptly did, meeting with the forgotten stretch of Brick Route they'd abandoned when it passed through the shield. In the failing light that managed to permeate the canopy, DG could see that some of the bricks had been relaid recently.

The trees grew a little farther spaced on the Route, and it wasn't long before they came to the fringe of what seemed to be the crumbling remains of a stone perimeter wall. Huge, gaping sections of the wall were missing. Other buildings began to pop up around them, ancient remnants of stone structures long left to ruin. The trees thinned out more, and DG could make out brown-canvas tents erected between the broken stone walls and tall black trees. Horses were tethered to posts hammered into the ground, all stamping nervously and watching her with gentle eyes.

DG tried to keep herself calm, collected. Hell, anything a step below hyperventilating was welcome at this point. The men of the camp had noticed their group now; some laughed or called out. Zero was recognized, and then the leader of the escort shouted for the others to put their eyes back in their heads and go on about their business.

The officer leading the group began to bark instructions at Zero. He made it a point to turn around and glare at DG suggestively every thirty seconds.

“I don't want to hear a word outta any of yer mouths. I won't be grieving none if she demands we put a bullet to each of ya in turn,” the officer stated before he halted suddenly; Zero yanked back hard on the ropes around DG's wrists to keep her close. “Make sure you're keeping a lid on this one,” the officer added, with a sharp jerk of his head toward DG.

DG glared at the soldier before her; she was angry and ready to lash out, but she bit her tongue. She kept up the appearance of a defeated little princess, cowed before all the scary, burly menfolk.

The leader's eyes drifted back behind her. “Who's the kid?” he asked Zero conversationally, as if the two men were old friends.

“Don't need to be worrying about that one,” Zero said. “Its this one.” His free hand went up and wrapped DG's hair around his fist in one quick motion. He was yanking her head back before she'd realized what a good grip he had; she cried out in shock. It didn't hurt, he was careful about that, but the sudden pull jarred her breathing and sent her heart pounding.

The commanding officer smirked at her. “Watch that pretty head of hers. The lady has great plans for it.” His chuckle reverberated coldly through her body. He began to walk again, and she was forced to follow. The bricks beneath her feet weren't solidly set, she felt as if she were treading on unsteady ground.

Catt's tent was larger than all the others, a pavilion of velvet brocade, the deepest red DG had ever seen. The tent was opened by the guard on duty, a young man who could barely contain the look of disbelief at the sight of not only DG, but Zero as well.

The inside of the tent was darker than the shadowed afternoon outside; a single lamp burned and it took DG's eyes a moment to adjust. There was a gasp of stunned pleasure, then a thickly whispered “My Gods.” The witch was laughing, an unrestrained cackle when DG's eyes finally focused on her.

The Lady Catt clapped her hands together. Zero dragged hard on the rope and forced DG to her knees. A hand on the back of her head forced her chin down in reverence. DG tried to shake him off, but it did little good. The supplicant prisoner act was growing stale.

Catt approached rapidly, but to DG's surprise, the witch passed right on by her.

“Boy,” came Catt's hollow whisper.

From behind her, Tory said cheekily, “Miss me?” DG could hear the casual grin in his voice, and she almost shook her head at his audacity. She began to realize that the kid had more backbone than she, and she sure as hell hoped he knew what he was doing.

“You always were a cocky little thing,” Catt quipped lazily. “Bind him, now. Be mindful, he's got a bit of a spark in him,” she instructed her guards sharply. The sounds of a scuffle broke out behind DG, and she was unceremoniously hauled to her feet by Zero. He moved her out of the way to the periphery of the tent, displaying everything that happened to them both from the sidelines.

Two guards had set upon Tory, but he wasn't putting up much of a fight as they held him and tied his wrists. He regarded the bonds with disinterest, a tiny smirk gracing his lips.

“Is this really necessary?” Tory asked, gesturing vaguely with his bound hands. He sounded as if he found the entire thing funny.

“I should kill you where you stand,” Catt spat. Her face was a mask of thinly-controlled fury, green eyes shooting daggers. Across the tent, DG had to stop herself from cringing, but Tory seemed immune to the witch's wrath.

“Why would you want to kill me? I brought you a present, old friend.”

Catt turned on her heel, red hair fanning out behind her as she whirled on DG. “Ah yes,” Catt muttered, as if she'd just remembered that DG was there. The princess glared back with all the hatred she could muster - quite a bit, considering all she'd been through in the past few weeks. She could feel her magic coursing through her, barely contained within her body as even the tips of her hair felt charged with her Light. “Little princess, all alone. Where's your old Tin Man, sugar plum?”

DG's cast her eyes down to the floor. She had no idea where Cain was, or if he was safe. She could hope all she wanted that he'd gotten to Azkadellia, and that help was on its way, but hoping could only get her so far. The cold, hard reality was that she was, as Catt had taunted, all alone; she didn't even know if Hass had made it past the shield.

She'd faced a witch alone before, hadn't she? Come out relatively victorious, if she discounted the fact that she'd been thrown off a tower the last time. She drew in a deep, replenishing breath as Catt stared at her, calculating every nuance of tone or expression the princess had to offer; stone-faced, DG gave up nothing.

“I dismissed him,” DG said evenly. “I sent him to meet with the generals. He'll -”

But whatever DG had been about to say, it stopped in her throat, stayed there and died as movement behind Catt caught her eye. All the blood and breath went out of her as Jeb Cain shifted in the shadows, wearing the Lady's uniform. She couldn't hide her surprise at seeing him, but the Lady was unconcerned with what startled the princess.

“Untie her,” Catt demanded of Zero. It was her first acknowledgement of him.

Zero did as he was bid, business-like gestures now, drawing no attention to himself through word or deed. As soon as her hands were free, DG rubbed her wrists where the ropes had irritated her skin and rubbed it raw. First one, then the other, watching Catt all the while. The Lady stalked away, situating herself behind a table. Over top the littering of papers, she produced an old leather-bound book.

DG tightened her grip on her own sore wrist, forgetting that she was trying to soothe her ache. There it was, right in front of her, the cause of so much worry, the cost of the information the Reader had given her. The Record.

“I could find him in an instant,” she said bitingly; an empty threat.

DG shook her head, called the bluff. “No you can't, otherwise you would have done it by now, and brought us back here yourself.”

The witch's features tightened. “And he'd be dead, riddled with the bullets of a firing squad.”

“Why do you think I sent him away?”

There was a beat of silence, and then another, before the witch broke in with a chuckle. DG stood her ground and resisted the urge to shudder at the pained cackle. “Take the princess away,” she commanded of her guards. Immediately, men stepped away from the opposite side of the tent; DG was taken by both arms, the ropes that had accompanied her in forgotten in exchange for two sets of very big hands. Jeb made no move to leave the Lady's presence, and DG had to force herself to keep her eyes off of him and on the floor.

“Take this pathetic waste as well,” the witch added, nodding her head toward Zero. “If he fights, kill him. Leave me with the boy.”

DG didn't ask why the witch wanted Tory. Her stomach was twisting itself in knots as she realized she didn't want to know. Shoved out of the tent by the two guards holding her, and listening to the faint struggling that followed her, DG was led to a hole in the ground. A cellar, belonging to a building that no longer remained. She stumbled down the flight of rickety stairs into a small, low-ceilinged dungeon.

The air that enclosed her felt thick and old in her lungs. A stone corridor stretched off in either direction. Torches mounted on the walls cast long, eerie shadows on the cut-stone walls. The place was in horrible disrepair. The guards shoved her down the hallway. She glanced over her shoulder to see Zero being hauled off in the opposite direction, handled much more roughly than herself.

Thrown into a cell, she hit the stone floor hard. The door was slammed shut; a small window set in it allowed light to slice into the room through the iron bars.

Standing, DG brushed herself off.

Locked in a cell, underground, in an enemy base, surrounded by a magically-generated protective shield, miles from anywhere friendly.

Are you ever fucked, babe.

“Kinda figured that out a while ago,” DG muttered to herself as she walked a slow circle around the room. Over the next hour, she studied every single inch of the space. The walls were crumbling, the ceiling sagging. She'd probably be lucky if the entire complex didn't collapse in on her.

The only thing in the cell aside from herself was a block of wood, which she upended to use as a chair. Leaning back against the wall shared with the next cell over, she didn't think she could take another self-assessment of the situation. She definitely didn't need to be alone at the moment.

She held out her palm flat in front of her, and watched as a round ball of light lit up her skin. It hovered a few inches above her palm for a moment until it set off, accelerating as it did a complete lap around the room. It stopped four feet above her head, near the ceiling. The shadows it cast on the wall drew DG's attention, and she carefully stepped up on her makeshift stool.

A series of stones had been chiselled out of the wall, leaving an open pass into the next cell. Too bad the hole was too small for her to crawl through. With her lips pressed together, she heaved a defeated sigh and hopped down to take a seat once more. She rested the back of her head against the cool stone wall. The wisp had settled down into her lap, pulsing lightly as it hovered over the Emerald still stuffed into her pocket.

She didn't dare take it out, or touch it. But she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Had she really come this far only to fail now?

***
“Grows dark.”

Cain grunted. “I noticed.”

“We ought to stop and make camp,” Glitch spoke up from his position at the rear of the caravan. Travelling with the headcase had never been a treat, as the man had always been chasing after his distractions. Now, re-brained, he was still the same old nuisance, constantly drawn to things that perked his interest. Insects, especially. It was enough to drive anyone to the brink of irritation, and Cain had been biting his tongue for the past hour.

“Aww, come on, Tin Man! Have a heart! I'm a thinker, not a hiker.”

Cain shook his head. He didn't need his own distractions muddling up his thinking.

The Black Forest was more overbearing than he'd imagined it would be. The trees grew so close together, their root structures must have been one tangled mess, snaking out and wrapping around those of its neighbour. The trunks left soot on his fingertips, the bark hard and black as pitch.

“We aren't makin' camp,” Cain said firmly.

“We'll get lost in the dark,” Glitch argued, running to catch up and even his stride next to Cain's. “I don't know if you'd noticed, but the broad leaves of the mature trees will block any light from the moons that you might be banking on. The canopy and understory are so thick, I'm surprised anything on the ground grows at all, but the herbaceous layer is abundantly diverse, and -”

Cain cut him off. “We won't be gettin' lost. You wouldn't let us do that, would ya, Furball?”

There was a scowl in Raw's deep voice. “Raw not compass.”

“Can you see in the dark, Cain?” Glitch asked, as if genuinely curious. Cain rolled his eyes and didn't answer. Glitch was unperturbed by this, and went right on yakking. “Well, I can't, although I must say, my other senses are most certainly up to the task of naviga-” There was a thump, and an “Oof!” and then silence.

Cain smirked. “How's your shoulder?”

“Oh, hush,” Glitch said crossly.

Cain kept his remaining comments to himself, though he couldn't help the smile at crept up onto his lips. Raw chuckled low once, and then the men travelled in complete and utter silence, but for the beat of their boots on the road.

There was no chance of stopping, at least not in Cain's mind. Not with DG needing them, waiting on him. He'd told her two days, and that left him with thirteen hours, if his assumption of the time was correct. They'd been trudging through the trees without rest for hours, but there were still too many spans left to cover for his liking.

They were on a gradual northeastern route, one that would take them far from where the army had already begun to amass their force. Just a show, nothing more. A diversion.

Cain had memorized Andrus' maps, marked by the young sergeant who'd come out of the forest. He now knew the location of the road, the gatehouse at Shadow's Passage, and the layout of the camp itself.

Jeb was still over the border; Cain grit his teeth at the thought. He hadn't let Jeb take up much of his thoughts in the past few months, not with the boy doing so well for himself on his own. That didn't mean that Cain wasn't itching to wrap a firm embrace around his son's lean shoulders once all this trouble had passed.

As for what was being done at the moment, he had no idea what DG and the kid planned to do, but he knew that sooner or later they were going to be caught. If not at the shield, then before they'd reached the temple that was DG's destination for the Emerald.

Deadwood Fall.

It took trust in Zero to force himself to believe he'd find DG safe, and trust in Zero wasn't something he was about to afford himself.

There was a soft growl behind him.

“Tin Man need more faith in DG. Princess is fine. Will stay fine.”

Cain ducked his head under a low-laying branch, barely clearing the crown of his hat. “Would you mind stayin' outta my head?”

Another soft growl. “Body speaks without words. Won't stop, won't sleep.”

“Time enough to sleep later on,” Cain said. He didn't speed up his steps, knowing that the terrain was uneven and he was likely to turn his ankle if he wasn't careful.

“Worry over princess wrong,” Raw continued in his simple, easy way of ignoring everything Cain said. “Should worry more about boy. Much more.”

“Seems a bit unlikely,” Cain mumbled impatiently, not bothering to project his words when he knew the Viewer behind him would hear every word he said.

“Is it right to call Tory a boy?” Glitch mused aloud. “Wouldn't the inner self be a greater reflection, no matter the outward appearance?”

“Boy, girl, don't matter,” Cain said. “Pain in the backside covers just about everythin'.”

“I found him delightful. Her delightful. Him. Well, whatever,” Glitch said. “The child may aim to kill the witch, but one fact is for certain, he wants the spell upon him undone. Why else would he go in himself, when he knows that Catticalisa has been hunting for him for over century?”

Something in Cain's head clicked. For once, he wanted to be listening to Glitch's train of thought.

“Maybe he's willing to use himself as a distraction. For DG, I mean,” the advisor said slowly, as his brain stumbled over the calculations necessary to draw his conclusion. The uncertainty of his tone, however, struck Cain as worrisome.

“Or...” Glitch continued haltingly. “Or maybe he's handing DG and the Emerald over as a trade.”

Cain swore under his breath so darkly that a tiny gasp of shock slipped past Glitch's lips.

“Come on,” Cain said steadily, looking neither of his companions in the eye. “Long way to go yet.”

***
DG was growing a little tired of being stuck underground. She was a child of the sprawling, infinite prairies, of open highways. She began to think it might have something to do with the stillness of the air, the lack of the slightest tickling breeze. A little more than a day had passed since she'd entered the cover of the forest with Tory and Zero, and all she could think about was the warmth of the suns on her skin.

Down in the crumbling dungeon, she waited. She didn't know exactly what she was waiting for, just that something was going to happen soon, and she needed to be ready for it when it came tearing around the bend. Running over the things she did know in her mind didn't help much. Zero was locked in a cell down another cold stone hallway; the Lady Catt had taken more interest in Tory than she had in DG, and that seemed to be a problem; the Emerald was still undetected, but wouldn't remain that way for long. Especially since she was locked up and at the mercy of her enemy.

She just had to hold on. Hold on, keep it grounded. The words of the wizard of her dreams.

DG sat on the floor with her back up against the wall, a little to the left of where the flickering torchlight in the corridor cast a weak beam into her cell. Her legs were stretched out in front of her. At the moment, she was tapping her toes together, listening to the dull sound of the rubber soles knocking against each other. She wanted her sister; she missed Cain and Raw; she didn't know where Hass was, and was worrying about him more than herself.

She kept her eyes open, because the stark nothingness behind her eyelids frightened her. She wasn't scared of the dark, exactly; it was more the emptiness, the unknown of it. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them. The Emerald, compressed in her pocket, gave a faint pulse.

She was on her own, which was never a good place to be. She'd always second-guessed every action she'd ever made for as long as she could remember; one bad decision when she was five-years-old had tainted her ability to trust her own instincts. Cain always told her that her instincts were incredible, but she couldn't quite bring herself to believe him.

You've come this far, Deeg, she tried to encourage herself. It's just a bit farther. You've just got to figure out how to make it out of this cell, past the guard at the door... and past every Longcoat between the door and Deadwood Fall. Wherever that is...

DG gave a quiet, hollow laugh and let her head fall, pressing her forehead to the tops of her knees.

She didn't uncurl her body for a long, long time. When she did, it was because the shouting and cursing from the hallway jarred her out of a fitful doze. For the first few seconds, in that bewildered haze between asleep and awake, she wondered where she was. Hitting her head on the stone wall of her cell as she moved to sit up brought it all screaming back.

The commotion in the corridor brought DG closer to the door to get a better look. A pair of guards held a struggling body between them. The only thing DG caught a glimpse of was a length of dark hair before the new arrival was out of sight again; it was the loud, angry voice that carried into the cell and piqued DG's interest.

“Godsdamned witch can't do this!” the girl bellowed, her voice cracking with the strength and strain of her words. The guards laughed at her. The sound of a rusty door being wrenched open and thrust shut again cut through the air, silencing the girl's shouts, before there was a reverberating crack and then a plainly audible whimper.

DG raised an eyebrow. A tiny sound, and yet she'd heard it clear as a bell. It didn't take long before she was standing under the hole near the ceiling and listening hard.

“Stupid, stupid...” the girl next-cell-over muttered.

DG pressed both hands against the stone bricks and tilted her head back. “Hey, you okay?”

“Do I sound okay?” came the incredulous reply.

DG smirked; she couldn't really help it. She didn't know who the hell this girl was, but something about the voice struck her as familiar. She didn't believe it possible, but she'd thought that about a lot of things in the past year since being tornado-tossed into the Zone. “So...” she asked slowly. “Everything going according to plan?”

The girl snorted. “Not exactly,” she said.

“Of course not.” DG laid her forehead on the cold brick and resisted the urge to knock her head against it a few times. “Where do we stand then? Aside from locked up.”

Silence stretched out as DG's quip hung in the air between the two cells. Then, the girl began to laugh; a nervous giggle at first that grew into a full-blown side-holding fit. The type of uncontrolled laughter that eventually gives way to tears. DG waited out the girl's moment until the inevitable hitch came. It grew quiet again for a few long, painful seconds before the girl moaned achingly. “Oh Gods, I've really fucked us over.”

DG frowned. “Tory, don't -”

“I'm not Tory,” the girl snapped. Then she laughed again, a short hiccup of a giggle.

“Then what do I call you?” DG asked with a sigh. She was losing patience, not to mention hope. A little shocking that she had any hope left to lose.

“You can call me Zee if you'd like. Just not Tory, ever again.”

DG turned and leaned back against the wall; swallowing hard, she glanced around the semi-darkness. “You never answered my question. Where do we stand?” DG kept her tone steady and serious; she wasn't about to lose her head. Once she forced herself to be calm, continuing on that way was remarkably easy.

Zee cleared her throat. “Its a little less than a span to the temple. The only question is how to get you and your macguffin there. Our one and only ally is locked up and most likely going to be executed - as soon as the witch decides which body she wants to take. Yours or mine. He's low on her list of priorities, but she's not going to forget about him.”

Jeb's face flashed through DG's mind. Maybe Zero wasn't her only ally; in any case, Zero had done exactly what he'd promised her, he'd gotten them through the shield and into the witch's presence. And whether she could count on Jeb had yet to be determined. She didn't have time to consider what he could be doing at Catt's side in the first place.

“Not worried about the Lady Catt taking a liking to your face?” Zee asked scathingly, interrupting DG's thoughts. “She might, you know. Your Tin Man is definitely a perk that I haven't got to offer.”

DG crossed her arms defensively over her chest; a chill settled into her bones, taking root and spreading out to her very skin. “Wyatt would know it wasn't me.”

“Are you sure?”

DG nodded slowly, even though Zee couldn't see her. “Yeah, I am.”

“The mind believes what the eyes see,” Zee said, quite sure of herself. “Look at your own sister. By the time anyone realized something was wrong with her, she'd killed you.”

Craning her neck, DG glared hard at the gap between their cells. “Let's focus on now, please,” she said. “Can you do magic?”

There was a long, deep sigh. “I haven't had proper control of my Light in a long, long time, so I'd like to wait until the headache wears off. In case you hadn't figured it out, Catt just put me through the wringer with her spell.”

DG bit her lip. “Sorry.”

Zee grunted in acknowledgement, but said nothing else. There were faint sounds of shifting and sighing in the next cell before it grew too quiet for DG's liking. Frowning, she shoved herself away from the wall and walked to her door. There were no guards in sight, though only small sections of the passage were illuminated by torchlight.

Damn, she really missed the glint and gleam of Central City, the towers lit up against the night. Homesickness sent her crashing; she slid down the door and landed in an unladylike heap on the floor. The flood of memories in her brain was unrelenting.

When had she become such a crybaby? Last time she'd checked, she wasn't a woe-is-me type of girl. She wasn't a damsel in distress, and she was wasting precious time. She had to get the Emerald to the temple... what the next step from there was, well... she'd figure that out later.

Once again, she crossed the room, parking herself under the gap in the wall. “Zee?” she called out quietly.

“Yeah?”

DG took a deep breath. “I have a theory,” she began slowly, “which can't be unproven...”

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