The Sun Singer

Chapter Four - Gem and Cinnabar

Cinnabar’s knife glistened in the firelight.
Sonny, who lay on his back with his hands tied behind him, plastered a neutral expression on his face. This must be another one of those “tests” he had to face: Cinnabar is: (a) crazy, (b) nasty, (c) murderous, (d) all of the above.
Cinnabar leaned over and laid the flat of the cold blade against his neck. Her green eyes bored into him, probing, sensing strengths and weaknesses. Sonny blinked but did not look away. The ground was colder than the knife. He was on his own now. Neither Robert Adams nor his parents was going to charge into the campsite to save him now.
“I’ll remove the gag if you promise not to yell,” Cinnabar whispered. Her whisper was ugly, mocking.
He nodded—but only slightly, with blade at his throat.
“You know what will happen if you yell?” she asked, smiling.
He nodded again.
“Fortunate that you understand,” she said.
She pulled the knife away and jammed it into the ground several inches from his head. When he flinched, she did it again. He looked past the knife, which at this distance blocked most of his field of vision, and saw Gem watching them. She sat, cross-legged, on the far side of the fire, motionless, relaxed, her expression concealed by the dance of shadows.
Cinnabar untied the gag and yanked it away. The coarse material rasped out of his mouth like sandpaper. His tongue was dry. Before he could speak, she grabbed him around the mid-section and hauled him up against a tree. Then she thrust her knife back into its sheath. The lack of pressure against his right hip told him they’d taken his knife. The flashlight was out of sight, and the staff lay near the fire as though it were another stick of wood for burning. Without its shine, it looked dead—the magic had fled from it and vanished into the night.
“Who are you?” asked Cinnabar. Her eyes were inhuman.
Sonny stumbled on his first attempt at words. He needed water. His tongue and lips were bruised from the rough cloth.
“Speak up, child,” she snapped. Her right hand fluttered past the knife.
“Little girl, my name is Sonny Trout,” he said. “If you are the good people I am looking for, you have a very crude way of introducing yourselves.”
Cinnabar looked around at Gem. “We’ve caught a nasty fish,” she announced.
Gem closed her eyes and did not answer.
“Sonnytrout.” Cinnabar said the name as one word. “Yes, a fishy sort of name. Your clothes are strange, too. What is this—cotton?” She sat by the fire and rubbed her hands. “Damn cold,” she said. Then, as though it were an afterthought, she asked, “Who are these good people you’re looking for, Sonnytrout?”
He wished he knew. Now was not the time to ask about Aton, the sun with white hair.
“Did you get lost in the big, scary woods?” she added. “Justine’s people never did like the woods. Good people? A patrol, I bet. Or maybe the rest of your army is camped around the lake.”
“I’m sorry, but. . .”
“Yes you are,” she cut in. “What kind of soldier crashes through the woods like a blasted woolly mammoth?” She shoved at the staff with her boot. “And with no more of a weapon than that—an old man’s walking stick.”
“You’re not letting him talk, honey,” said Gem. Her voice was song-like, gentle, and fluid as water.
Cinnabar ignored her. She watched him trying to conceal his shivering. “Ah,” she said, “the poor little thing is freezing. It’s a wonder you’re not a block of ice with those silly, lightweight clothes. Where did you get them?”
“At a store near my house,” said Sonny.
Cinnabar's hand snaked out suddenly and she slapped him hard, numbing the left side of his face.
“Don’t be sarcastic. I didn’t think you sewed them together yourself.” She spat on the ground. “You could have, of course. A mama’s boy like you might know all about sewing and dolls and such.”
“Enough,” said Gem. There was power in her low voice. “You’ll never learn anything from him this way.”
Cinnabar shrugged, got up, and walked over to a small black tin near the fire. She extracted a piece of chicken from it and chewed on it sloppily as she walked around the fire in a tight circle. When she finished, she flung the bone into the trees.
“Sonny,” said Gem, “there’s no way for you to escape.”
How did she know to use his first name? She came over to him and untied his hands and feet. “Cinnabar, give him some of that coffee.”
Cinnabar grumbled, but said nothing understandable as she filled a dirty tin cup for him. He gulped the bitter coffee eagerly, greedy for the warmth it provided. There was such a contrast between the two women, he wondered how they tolerated each other. Gem sat, seemingly unaware of him, and sipped her coffee absently. Her braids hung down in front of her, each tied off with a leather thong. Her deep bronze skin was weathered darker than the leather. While waiting for her to speak, he calmed his nerves by silently counting backwards from one hundred, visualizing himself becoming more relaxed with each descending number, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, breathing in and breathing out, ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four, breathing in and breathing out.
When he was halfway to zero, she looked at him across the top of her coffee cup and smiled. “It will be best if you tell us what you are doing here,” she said. She pursed her lips and blew into her cup, stirring up a jet of steam. “Why were you sneaking along the forbidden trail at the base of Mount Gordon?”
She waved her hand at him—a signal that the time had come for him to tell his story. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His wrists hurt, but he was more relaxed. Cinnabar watched, like a cat ready to spring. He could make a dive for the staff. Well, then what? He didn’t know how to bring back its magic and was angry that the elf hadn’t told him the wood’s secrets. Above all else, he needed to find Robert Adams.
“By what right do you hold me captive?” he asked as harshly as he felt but more harshly than was wise.
Cinnabar loomed over him like a rabid dog.
“Sit and stay sat,” Gem hissed. Then, to Sonny, “You must have fallen from the sky like a spent star, oblivious to earthly events. You’re out of place and I cannot read you.” She straightened up out of her slouch and seemed more formative, taller, perhaps more dangerous than the volatile Cinnabar. “We took you captive because it was necessary. So.”
He grew cold as he looked into her cold eyes, but he did not turn away, for the icy chill was like a forgotten old friend. This time he did not fight it. He slowed his heart rate, controlled his breath, and “heard” a few lines of a recent whispered conversation between the two women.

“I know she is near,” says Gem.
“Gem, are you sure this time? She is long lost.”
“Cinnabar,” she replies, “yes, I am sure. We must find her soon. It is our only hope.”
“I have a more immediate hope,” says Cinnabar. “I hope we are not discovered on this forbidden trail by the wrong people.”

“Yes, Gem,” he said, “I’m as out of place as you are, searching for someone I may never find.”
“Mother, how can he know?”
Sonny ignored her, following Gem’s lead. “I don’t understand it myself. I apparently walked through a doorway between worlds.”
“Fool,” screamed Cinnabar. Like a cat meowing loudly, she was all mouth. “We don’t have time for a bedtime story.”
“You know that there are such doorways, Cinnabar,” said Gem.
“The world I come from looks like this world,” said Sonny. “It’s hard to tell at night. You have different names here. I’ve never heard of Mount Gordon. The mountain on this side of the lake is called Mount Allen.”
Gem gave him a funny look. “Perhaps,” she said. There was a hint of kindness in her voice. Cinnabar was vigorously hacking up a stick with her knife. “Supposing that you uncovered a portal between worlds,” said Gem, “why did you choose to open it?”
“I know little about that,” Sonny said. “I was told there were people in a city called Pyrrha who needed help. I didn’t know what kind of help—my mission was rather vague.”
Were these women the cruel and twisted danger foretold by the pheasant feather? His intuition was silent and he had no coin to flip.
“Go on,” said Gem.
“I went to a cabin and told the Guardian—the Nunnumbi—that I came in good faith, and he let me pass.”
Gem gasped, and some of the deep tan drained out of her face. When she saw him studying her, she instantly regained her composure.
“This Guardian, what did it look like?”
“A pillar of light, bluish-white and spinning like a tornado.”
“It’s a trick, Gem,” said Cinnabar. She chopped another twig in half and flung away the pieces. “It’s a rotten, evil trick. Let’s finish him off before we’re caught in his ugly trap.”
“Silence.” There was a quiet force in the soft-spoken word. “There’s no way Justine’s men could know the Guardian’s name. It’s never been written.”
“Somebody talked,” Cinnabar told her. “We’ve had traitors before. I think we may have another one now. The wardens could have forced a captive to speak. They have ways—you know that.”
“Yes,” said Gem. “I know that better than you. I should think you would remember. . .” She sighed and left the statement unfinished when Cinnabar turned away from her and looked at the ground. “Well then, Sonny, who told you there were people here who needed help?”
“A friend named Robert Adams.”
“This Robert Adams, did he come through the door with you? Does he hide in the woods?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
“I wish he did.” He glared at Cinnabar. “After my reception here, I could have used his help. He’s a magician, you might say, and he’ll look for me if I don’t return.”
“Tccch! Such a story,” said Cinnabar as she overtly tested the sharpness of the blade with her thumb.
“Cinnabar, we must take him with us.”
“What? He’s a spy who knows the right things to say. Justine gets crafty in his old age. Using a child is a new tactic.” She winked at Sonny.
Gem smiled. “At fifteen, you’re not much older than a child yourself, perhaps the same age as this one,” she said, pointing at Sonny.
“Maybe, maybe,” she replied, her face flushed. “That doesn’t mean we must trust him.”
“No, not yet. But we must get back to town. Marten worries.”