Thankfully, the captain left her without needing to be ordered. The room was small but private, and the door locked. Tress felt a great deal better once she was safe inside. She poured some water into her butterfly cup and settled onto the bunk to think.
It all felt so much more real now. Was she really doing this? Had she really left her home? What were those strange colorful pigeons, and why were they talking to her?
This last part was a side effect of the poison the captain had ordered put in Tress’s drink. There are, unfortunately, no talking pigeons in this story. Merely talking rats.
THE RAT
Tress awoke. That was nice.
Tress very much approved of not dying on the first day of her adventure. However, she had a pounding headache, and all she could see was blackness. Did one see blackness, or was it the mark of not seeing? Can you hear silence? Taste nothing?
Well, judging by the creaking of the wood, she was in the ship’s hold. She groaned and sat up, then felt around. Her fingers met bars. She was in a cage.
“You won’t find a way out,” said a quiet voice. It sounded male, but had a pinched quality to it, like someone had taken the speaker’s words and was squeezing out the juice.
“Who are you?” Tress asked softly.
“A fellow prisoner. I heard them talking about you. You’re an inspector?”
“Yes,” Tress lied. “For the king. I can’t believe they’d dare assault me.”
On the inside, Tress was panicking. The captain must have figured out her ruse. The ship would be returning to Diggen’s Point to find the real inspector, and everything would fall apart.
No. It had already fallen apart.
She sat down, her back to some bars.
“Lunatic choice you made, Inspector,” the voice said. “You boarded the ship alone? How did you think this would play out? Were you planning to take them all on your own?”
“Take them?” Tress asked. “Where?”
“You…don’t know?”
In case you’re new to this, nothing good ever follows a question like that.
“This is a smugglers’ vessel,” the voice explained. “They forged mercantile writs from the king. It lets them buy and sell goods without paying tariffs.”
Tress groaned, thumping her head against the bars. “And they thought I was suspicious of them. They thought that’s why I got on their ship.”
“It wasn’t?” the voice said, then started laughing. Or rather, Tress thought it was laughter. It came out as a high-pitched series of squeaks—like the sound of a hyperventilating donkey. “It was completely coincidental? Oh, you poor woman.”
Tress folded her arms tight in the darkness, suffering the mockery. At least she wasn’t going to be taken back to Diggen’s Point to be turned in to the duke. Instead the smugglers would undoubtedly murder her and dispose of the body.
She decided not to cry. Crying would be utterly impractical. So it was settled. Absolutely no crying.
Her eyes vetoed the resolution.
“Hey,” the voice said. “Hey, it’s all right. At least you got off the Rock, right?”
“You know about the Rock?” Tress asked, wiping her eyes. Stupid things. Probably just wanted something to do, with the not seeing and all.
“I was on my way there for a visit,” the voice said, “before the sailors found me out. Locked me in here.”
“Why would you visit Diggen’s Point?” Tress demanded.
“I have my reasons,” the voice said. “My kind are mysterious like that.”
“Your kind?” Tress asked.
“Here, let me show you. Might want to shade your eyes.”
A moment later light poured into the chamber, spilling from a small hole in the hull. Tress blinked, pushing her frazzled hair out of her eyes as she made out her surroundings. She was in a cell built into part of the ship’s hold, maybe four feet on each side and not much taller.
Across from her, lashed on top of some boxes, was a much smaller cage. In it sat a common black rat. He’d pulled a cork from the hole with his little paws.
“I keep this thing plugged,” he said, “so they don’t know about it. Don’t want them to move the cage, you know? I…”
The rat trailed off as he turned and saw her for the first time, then cocked his head.
“What?” Tress asked.
The rat was silent. The only sounds came from the ship rocking in the spores and the boots thumping on the deck above. Tress pulled back. She didn’t like the way the rat stared at her with those beady little eyes.