Sanctuary Hall by Alea Henle

Author:Alea Henle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crabgrass Publishing

Part Three

Zhang Cheng

Chapter 14

Words

Cheng kept his eyes closed. His breathing remained slow and easy as he lay flat on his back on the thin mattress in the rickety iron bedstead. Fingers twitched, but surely that happened in sleep and would give no one a sign of his waking. If anyone watched. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, though he could not swear to no. Three, four, five days in captivity—had he lost count already?—and he'd started to learn the rules of his new world.

The better to hope to break them and escape.

The metal bonds circling his wrists and ankles retained a chill, so too the cords chaining him to the wrought-iron bed frame. Likewise the soft breeze slipping across his body and tugging at the thin, scratchy wool blanket covering him had a morning freshness and a hint of dew. Little of smoke, or just the tang of a fire new-lit from somewhere nearby.

Dawn light sifted into the room, but Cheng pretended to sleep as the darkness of his closed eyes lessened and turned to gray lined with red.

A soft scuffling in a far corner, nails against the tile floor. The breeze whisked away from him and returned with the brush of whiskers against the back of his hand followed by the softer pass of a tail. The musk of cat blew through him, then gone, followed by the flickering sensation of tiny feet and a longer, thinner, smaller tail.

A cat tracking a mouse.

Much as Cheng loved cats, he had more sympathy than ever for the mouse.

This night he had been spared dreams. Small mercy.

One of the others moaned. To his left, three beds over.

A whimper to the right.

Rustling, and the smell of some type of cheese.

Who else was in the room? The kind breeze whipped around and returned. It swept the sensation of soft cotton across his arm and torso, and then brushed his tongue with the tang of eggs mixed with cheese. It was not something he would have chosen to eat, and he couldn't hold back a shudder.

Then froze. Had the movement been noted?

It didn't matter. Metal clanged against metal.

“Wake up.” English words, always and only. Accents sharp and hard.

It took him a moment to adjust. Alone at night, he thought in the Shanghainese dialect of his birthplace. Elementals didn't notice. They comprehended meanings, not sounds—although breezes enjoyed taking his words, whatever language he used, and recreating the syllables as they danced. He'd smiled when they first started doing so, not then realizing it was the beginning of the end. That they might come ever closer until they stole his voice as he spoke. Or was it earth spirits that had rendered him mute? Though earth spirits no longer talked to him so much. He didn't want to talk to fire.

He had to force himself to translate or to shift and think in English. It used to be easy, part of his morning routine to consider the day ahead and move to whichever language would best work. English for

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