Stalemate

Chapter 34

Doon had not been hungry for a long time. They had finally made it to the mountains they'd long been gazing at. The path had changed from dirt to gravel and they walked along on a steady incline; the path had become curved, winding around a slope that would lead them to a plateau. The plateau would carry them up another mountain, and eventually they would see the city before them, set unnaturally in a valley.

Dinor tried several times to offer Doon food, another stale biscuit or some of the candy, at least, but Doon knew he couldn't stomach anything but water. There was a hollowness about his stomach, but one he knew wasn't a result of hunger. It was the different kind, a dreading. A foreboding. Uncertainty. Doon was tired of being uncertain; he wished that, for once, something clear would be revealed to him and he would no longer stumble through this life blindly, not knowing what would happen next. He missed the feeling of control that his stay at the windmill house had provided him. Sometimes he imagined himself going back there and never leaving it again. But he knew that it could not be so.

He didn't know what to expect of this reunion with Ashtin, or if he would even succeed at it. All he knew was that somehow, miraculously, she was alive. And that somehow she'd found herself wrapped up with Dorden's government. Doon didn't know what to make of this, either. Ashtin was not particularly nationalistic, or at all forthcoming. She had been quiet, she was never known to get herself into trouble, or display any sort of patriotism at all, even in the weakest sense of the word. The only thing she ever did was ask questions and be curious.

Something must have happened. She must have been forced into this, there was no other way.

Doon thought this, yet, for reasons unknown, an old Minarian folktale came to his mind: the story of Cornelius and David, two leaders in Minara's history from long, long ago. In the very early days of the country, long before Minara developed an organized government, there were two clans. The two brothers, Cornelius and David, had been separated as children and, by some happenstance—which always seemed contrived to Doon whenever he heard the story—they ended up in different clans. At some point, the two clans went to war over land or resources or whatever else people go to war over, so the brothers became inevitable enemies. They coincidentally each became generals of their own armies. When the war was almost finished and David's army had almost completely wiped out Cornelius's, they finally reunited after many years. Over time, because the story had mostly been passed down orally, two endings emerged: first, that the brothers chose their bond over patriotism and established a peace act, and the second, that Cornelius had been so desperate for power that he speared David in cold blood, winning the war for his clan. Doon had always preferred the latter ending.

Doon knew he had always seen something in Ashtin; he'd for a long time thought it was dangerous, but he'd resolved that she'd only been trying to cope, in her own way, with the horrors of Cherry Hill. He knew this now. He felt foolish—and frankly, like a terrible person—for criticizing her for it. But Ashtin was gentle, too gentle for anything nefarious.

"I've seen the villa a few times," said Dinor as they turned another bend. "I know its structure and all the entrances." He smiled vaguely. "Peter joked about raidin' it a few times. But he might not've been jokin' for all I know."

"How hard is it gonna be?" Doon asked.

"Not as hard as you'd think. There's two main gates, one at the front and one at the back. The grounds have a lot of hedges and stuff so it'll probably be pretty easy to stay hidden. The guests usually stay on the second floor in the east wing, so we can watch and see if we can find Ashtin's room. If we can't catch her in time, we probably won't get a chance."

Doon shoved his hands in his pockets and found a pebble to kick about. "How many guards?"

Dinor inhaled. "That's the tricky part. There'll probably be at least two at each gate, not counting the ones posted at the doors of the villa."

"How do we get past 'em?"

"I've done stuff like this before. Not this grand, but I've distracted shopkeepers or warehouse workers while the boys snuck in. But I'm not sure how I'll go about it with these guys." Dinor sighed. "But I'll figure out 'somethin."

Doon wondered if Dinor was angry at him for dragging him into this. If not angry, then resentful. But if he was, so far he wasn't showing it.

"If it's the second floor, how'll I get up there?" Doon asked.

"Last I saw the place there were vines growin' up the sides of it. Seem sturdy enough to me for climbin'. But if not, you could probably pull yourself up onto one of the terraces."

"Okay," said Doon.

It occurred to him now, that if they kept traveling at this rate, they'd probably make it to Concord in two days.