Author's note: Thanks again to everyone who reviewed this week!
Update: It's just been brought to my attention that none of my page breaks show up when I post. In related news, if anyone has any advice on inserting page breaks or section markers, please mention it in the comments.
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Chapter 4
Despair
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"Sir, you shouldn't be the one to go." Hawkeye's voice was flat, her worry suppressed beneath her mask of professionalism.
"And who else should go, then? Breda? Falman? None of you would make it five feet into the compound before getting caught. At least I look like I belong." Roy brushed aside her concerns, though he knew how deeply she disliked it when he went somewhere she could not follow. She had an almost pathological need to watch his back.
"We could find some other way. What good will it do us if you get caught? Do you want to give them another valuable hostage?" Hawkeye voiced her protests, though she knew that there was little chance of swaying him now. The most she could do was to try to point Mustang on a course that would minimize risk wherever possible.
"He's been in their hands for almost a week. Do you really want to leave him at their mercy any longer than necessary?" Roy demanded, knowing that Riza had a soft spot for the young alchemist.
"No, sir, you know I don't." There was both reproach and resignation in her voice now, and Mustang knew he had won the argument. He bent back to the map spread across the table, comparing a rough, woefully guess-work sketch of the compound to a map of the city. This was one time when his Xingese ancestry would come in handy. His dark looks, while exotic in Amestris, were almost run-of-the-mill here. There were enough merchants and immigrants of Eastern descent in this city that Mustang would look like one among thousands.
Edward, on the other hand, was a different matter. They would have to be extremely careful about getting him out of the city. His automail would be a dead giveaway to anyone searching for him, and his pale hair and striking eyes made him stand out no matter what country he was in.
This far East, Mustang's information network ran very thin. He had called in a lot of favors, and a lot of bribes, to get what knowledge they had. They knew that a group of supposed scholars and intellectuals had purchased a moderately-sized compound in the oldest part of the city. These men, funded by a cadre of mostly anonymous nobles and wealthy merchants, were very tight-lipped. Their servants could not be bribed, and they had a reputation for disposing of any who displeased or threatened them. They had a second, lesser-known reputation: they would pay handsomely for knowledge, whether it came in the form of books, artifacts, or people. More than one alchemist had been rumored to have entered the city, never to be seen again. Whether they had been imprisoned, enslaved, or killed, no one seemed to know.
Nor did anyone seem to care. In this city-state built on wealth and power, and run by a corrupt government, justice relied more heavily on influence than on truth. The missing alchemists had been foreigners, and relatively poor ones at that; they had disappeared into thin air, with only unsubstantiated rumors to mark their passage.
Roy was lucky to have gotten hold of an old man who had worked in the compound years ago, before the current occupants had taken it over. It was thanks to that man that they had a layout of the buildings, though it was possibly decades out of date. Mustang was banking on the new owners reusing existing rooms, rather than renovating. The grounds had had a rather well-fortified set of holding cells, placed underground and equipped with fetters and bars. His bet was that Ed, as a dangerous and no doubt belligerent prisoner, would be held there.
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The guards dragged Edward back to his cell, pinned his arms against the walls, and locked the cuffs. They knew that an alchemist's greatest weapon was his ability to transmute, and so they kept his arms constantly chained apart. When they fed him, they would only ever unlock one hand, and a guard would keep sharp watch over him the whole time. Not that he ate much; the constant drugs left him with no appetite, and what little he did eat roiled in his stomach.
He sagged against the chains, too exhausted from pain to even lift his head. His automail leg twitched and spasmed, a reaction to the torture. He hoped dimly that the port wasn't permanently damaged. This was the second day in a row that his captors had combined torture and questioning, having been pleased with the results. Ed wondered how long it had been since he'd been captured—a week? Longer? At first he had plotted and planned ways to escape, though most of his discarded schemes involved the alchemy which seemed to have deserted him.
That was another worry, one he longed to investigate further. He had had a chance to transmute, once when the bandits who had kidnapped him had carelessly believed him to be unconscious; again, nothing had happened. The part of his brain that wasn't consumed with pain or devising ways to escape worried over the problem like a dog over a bone. His strongest theory, of course, revolved around the mysterious transmutation array. Perhaps it had not just knocked him unconscious when he activated it; what if it had taken something, or damaged him in some way?
All of his thoughts, schemes and worries alike, were dulled and slowed by the drugs. It was hard to focus on details, and he thought that he was losing time. He would find himself staring blankly at the floor, and realize that he couldn't remember what he had been doing or thinking. Edward felt that if he could just think clearly, he could escape.
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Mustang casually strolled down the street, his lazy manner covering his sharp-eyed reconnaissance. They had finally had a stroke of luck; the compound's western wall fronted a narrow street, which led into a busy market. At night the stalls were empty and deserted, but right now the busy morning traffic neatly covered up his loitering. Some of the smaller, poorer tradesmen, unable to afford a space in the market proper, had even spilled out into the street adjoining his target. He was able to get a good look at the area without attracting any suspicion.
As far as he could tell, the walls were built in an old-fashioned style; very thick at the base, tapering towards the top. Broken glass and jagged metal were set in mortar on the top of the wall to discourage anyone from trying to scale it. Mustang grinned to himself; he had no intention of trying to climb it. He walked around for a few more minutes, before ambling away from the market. No one noticed him, not even in passing. He circled around the block, then climbed into a truck parked several hundred yards down the street from the compound's main entrance. Hawkeye sat in the driver's seat, a sniper's scope pressed to one eye.
"Let's go. We need to leave before they close the gates." The city recorded every vehicle that entered and left, and they wanted a clear record showing that they had departed before sunset. "What did you see?"
Hawkeye shifted into a lower gear as they approached the more crowded streets near the gate. "Not a lot of people coming or going for most of the day. Mostly servants, and then for an hour or two before dinner time a lot of wealthier-looking men. They went in different directions, and didn't return."
"Going home for the night?" Mustang raised an eyebrow.
Hawkeye nodded. "That would be my guess, sir."
Roy settled back in his seat. "Good, that means there will be fewer people in there tonight."
The truck slowed to a stop at one of the checkpoints, and Hawkeye leaned out of the cab window to sign the logbook a bored-looking city guard held up to her. A few minutes later, and they were motoring along the road that ran parallel to the city walls. On this side of the city lay the slums, and further out, the farms, that could not fit within the confines of the walls. If you continued following the perimeter of the city, the dwellings tapered off, until there was nothing but desert. Here, though, the river ran with enough water to support agriculture, and even those too poor to afford wells could draw from the open water.
"Drop me off here." Mustang sat up straighter in his seat, ready to get out.
Hawkeye stopped him with a hand on his arm, "Sir, don't do anything stupid."
Roy grinned at her concern. "I'll be fine. You know me."
"That's the problem, sir."
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Edward slumped in his chains, the bonds pulling his shoulders back painfully, but unable to gather the strength in his legs to stand and relieve the pressure. He couldn't decide what he wanted more, clean water or the chance to stretch out flat and sleep. While thirst and nausea clawed his throat, the desire for rest was almost overwhelming. Even if he could have slept while hanging from his chains, the guards had added sleep deprivation to the list of tortures they were inflicting on him. At all hours of the day and night they would randomly strike the bars of his cage, rattling the door and calling out threats. Every time, his body would tense with a rush of fear and adrenaline, terrified that they were coming to torture him again.
His thoughts were beginning to drift often now, and he wondered in a detached way if he was losing his mind. He couldn't tell how much of his incoherence was due to physical stress, and how much was due to the constant drugs they plied him with. Ed had always prided himself on his resilience, his ability to stand up under even the most horrific circumstances, but he had to admit to himself that he had no strength now. This weakness terrified him; he had lost everything he could normally count on to save him- his intelligence, his alchemy, his iron will. He thought of Winry, of Al, somewhere out there in the bright world, and wondered if those he loved would ever know what had happened to him. The Fullmetal Alchemist hung in his chains, and despaired.
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Mustang slunk along the alleyway, keeping to the darkest parts of the already shadowy street. He counted his paces, consulting a scrap of paper with a crudely drawn map on it. Once he had found the proper place he knelt before the wall, using his coat to shield the tell-tale glow of his transmutation. A narrow staircase sunk down into the ground, ending in an arched doorway. The Flame Alchemist froze, listening carefully for sounds of an outcry. If their informants and intuition were correct, his new doorway should open into an underground storage room, part of the kitchen facilities; hopefully it would be deserted at this time of night.
After a full minute without hearing any warning sounds, Mustang descended the stairs, easing the door open carefully. As his eyes adjusted to the near-pitch darkness of the cellar, he could make out baskets of potatoes and apples lining the floor, large ceramic crocks, and other pantry equipment. Mustang eased his way carefully across the crowded floor to the door, again listening carefully for any sounds. Because this cellar (usually) had no exterior doors or windows, it was unlikely that this area would be guarded. He slowly worked the door open, careful of creaks, and scanned the narrow hallway beyond. A few doors opened off of it, most likely storage rooms like the one he had first entered, and a stair at one end led up towards the kitchens. After confirming that the coast was clear, he crossed to the end furthest from the stairs.
Here came the trickiest part. He would be transmuting into completely unknown territory, presumably filled with guards, and still unsure of Ed's location. He took a deep breath, and laid his hands against the wall.
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Author's note: Reviews and constructive criticism are great inspiration, so to help keep me inspired I have a game: if I get 5 reviews between now and Friday, I'll post an extra chapter this week.
Still looking for a beta reader!