2

Escape

               The next morning (at least I assume it was morning; there weren't any windows in the room and I didn't know when I'd fallen asleep) Dyln shook me awake. "Keep you head down and don't make any noise," she hissed. "They're taking us out for questioning and the way you look you'll be chosen first!"

               "Space lemons!" I hissed under my breath. When a normal person would say "darn" or something, I say "space lemons." God knows.

               I knew she was right and didn't ask any questions. I ducked behind her and tried to breathe lightly. In minutes whatever officials had chosen the unfortunate first were gone, and I leaned against the wall and sighed in relief.

               "Lucky you're so tall," I commented. "What d'ya think'll happen to whoever got picked?"

               "They'll be asked dumb questions, if it's even the slightest bit likely that they're Lord Dilandau's heir they'll do a DNA check, it'll be proved that they aren't, and they'll be told to get their ass back home."

               I doubted that it was that simple. "Do you think it's you?" I asked, trying to sound innocent.

               "I don't think it's anyone," Dyln answered with obviously false cheer. "If Dilandau's heir is real, and I'm not sure I believe in that prophesy thingy anyhow, then they'll be pretty well hidden and wouldn't have been easy to round up."

               "Bad bluff," I said scornfully. "You're worried and you believe it."

               "Is it that obvious?" she asked with a nervous laugh. "I tend to be a good liar."

               "Well, it was you that told me about everything in the first place," I pointed out.

               "Good point," she acknowledged. "Alright, I'm worried. Not really for me, but for whoever it turns out to be. They'll either be executed or imprisoned for life. I've spoken with just about everyone here and not one seems like they'd destroy Gaea. If you know your destiny, at least it seems to me, you can always decide not to follow it. The future is in the making, as someone used to say to me."

               "Hitomi wouldn't agree," I said.

               "Bully for Hitomi," she snapped. "I don't care. There's no destroyer in this room, Dilandau's heir or not."

               That was comforting. At least someone believed that I wasn't automatically a psychopathic annihilator. "Can I trust you, Dyln?" The words were out of my mouth before I thought, and once I'd said them I wasn't sure whether to be regretful or relieved.

               She looked surprised. "I'm not sure. Nobody's asked me that before. I think so. Yes. You can."

               That was license enough. "It's me," I whispered.

               Dyln blinked bewilderedly. "Say again."

               "It's me. I'm Dilandau's heir."

               "Ommigod," she gasped, then got a hold of herself. "Well, I guess it ain't that surprising. Like I said, mirror image. Well, we are in trouble."

I gaped at her. "We?"

               Dyln grinned nervously. "Aw, come on. I'm on your side. One can't help one's heritage. Unfortunately, yours is very apparent. I'll try to think of a way to get us out of here. In the mean time, lay low."

               I smiled appreciatively. "Thanks, Dyln. I guess you are a friend. Gee, I never had one before."

               The door flew open, and a tall, blond man (who was quite handsome, despite the fact that he had to be about forty) strode into the room. His entrance was sudden and startled us both. Thus, Dyln didn't mange to move in front of me and I had frozen before I got my head down.

               He scanned the room and his eyes came to rest on me. "You, girl," he said, looking oddly downhearted. "Come with me."

               I gave Dyln a desperate glance containing, she said later, a plea for help and a goodbye. Luckily for me, she responded to the former. "She's, er, a mute. If you want to get anything out of her you'll have to let me come along to, um, interpret her sign language."

               The man shrugged and let us both follow. I turned to Dyln and nodded, the most I could do to thank her. It seemed like a very long walk, and I was so freaked out I didn't notice any of the statues or flowerpots along the halls and kept tripping. More than once I had to bite my tongue to keep from either swearing or yelping. Once I did let "space lemons" slip out under my breath, and the man leading us gave me a very suspicious glance.

               After what seemed eternity we came out in a richly furnished room. The handsome blond who had led us sat next to a spectacularly beautiful blonde, making quite a picture. A short man about thirty sat on a large, ornate throne. I recognized him from another of my mother's mysterious pictures as the fabled Lord Van, so it stood to reason that the salt-and-pepper haired woman on the smaller, slightly plainer throne was Lady Hitomi.

               The pretty one cocked her head. "Two, dear?" Something about her voice told be right off that she wasn't very bright but held a high position (a princess, I later discovered), definitely a dangerous combination.

               "The short one is mute," he explained, coming up a little short himself. I got the idea that he was a man of few words.

               "Ooooooooh," replied doll-face. "I see."

               No you don't, dipstick, I thought. I might have just been my usual jealous prejudice towards attractive people, but I was developing a real dislike for her in record time.

               Van took out a scroll. Squinting a little (I suspected a war wound at the time, but it seems he was just going farsighted), he read with the disinterested boredom of someone going over something for the umpteenth time and starting to hate it.

               "Name," he grunted.

               I moved my hands randomly for a few seconds, and Dyln said, "Sakuyah Ree."

               "Age."

               "Sixteen."

               "Parentage?"

               "Unknown."

               I then understood Dyln's tactics. She was carefully weighing her replies so it seemed likely that I would have fallen under suspicion in the first place, but that I wasn't close enough to be suspected of being the real heir. That way, no one would get offended or feel stupid and I could leave.

               It was a good plan and would have worked well had an oily voice not suddenly appeared from behind us. "Your Majesty, need we listen to these lies? The girl's very appearance warrants a DNA test."

               I turned to see who had spoken, and a small, blah-looking, scrawny man of indeterminate age stood in the doorway. While Hitomi wore an expression of intense dislike and grudging respect, the others all acted as if God had just wandered into the room. "As you say, my Lord."

               As Lord Van was the king himself, the only person he should have addressed as such was a more powerful king. I doubted that this new arrival held that rank. Had I known more about politics, I would have see that something odd was going on then and there. As it was, I simply gave him a poisonous glare and wished he'd throw himself through a ship's engine while it was running (that's an excusable desire, right?).

               Dyln was less subtle. "Screw plan A, Dil. Run for it!"

               I was eager to comply, though I didn't really think she should have thrown off our cover so quickly. I admit to panicking myself, though, so that would be a real case of a leaf calling grass green. I kept quiet. Besides, I have short legs and low endurance. It seemed wise to save my breath for running.

               As could have been expected, the entire castle was alerted to us within seconds. I was very simply following Dyln, and, looking back, have no idea how we got out of there. A lot of luck and some pretty ingenious ducking and sneaking was involved, and to this day I suspect her of training at a professional thieves' guild. She hasn't admitted it yet.

               I have a better idea of what happened when we were actually outside the castle. I was surrounded by a huge city and as it was "rush hour" we melted into the traffic with relative ease. Luckily, none of the guards who were after us had gotten a particularly good look and had little hope of picking us out of a crowd. One of them passed within five feet of me and didn't notice a damn thing.

               We lay low in a rotten, long abandoned cart until sundown and then jumped in at the end of a long line of merchants leaving for Asturia. Again, we passed close to a gaggle of soldiers, one of whom asked Dyln if she'd seen herself. I almost choked to death trying not to laugh, and my resourceful companion had to say that her half-witted little sister was asthmatic. We had had several similar encounters throughout the day and I had learned a real respect for her, or at least her imagination, by the time we passed through the city gates.

               The area around the city was wooded, if not exactly a wilderness. As it turned out, for all her street smarts Dyln couldn't take a step without tripping over a root. It was my turn to shine. It was barely eight o'clock when I had built a fire, set up camp, and caught a handsome carp.

This was all perfectly routine to me. Mother sent me to the nearest town for news and supplies about twice a moon, and it was a round trip of about six days.  Thus, I had done a lot of camping. My companion, on the other hand, hadn't.

Dyln was a city creature through and through. It didn't sound like her annoying whining about our less than deluxe accommodations, how hard the ground was, the temperature, the dew, my cooking, sparks from the fire, etc., etc. would ever stop, and it was getting pretty annoying. Eventually, however, her griping became sort of soothing, and I fell asleep to her eloquent views on the many reasons that mud should be abolished.