The Railroad War by Wesley Ellis

Author:Wesley Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

At that particular moment, Ki was anything but all right. He had regained consciousness and opened his eyes to find himself in total darkness. There was no way for him to know how long he had been unconscious, Ki realized. The afternoon had been very late when he’d left Cheri, and the darkness could indicate that it was now night, or that he was confined in a cellar.

All that Ki was sure of was that he was lying on his back on a hard surface. He moved, and for an instant his head felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck it. He forced himself to relax, and after a few moments the pain settled down to a painful throbbing. Instinctively he started to bring a hand up to his head, and discovered that his wrists were tied together tightly and that his hands had no feeling.

Closing his eyes, he waited for the throbbing to subside, and moved again. This time the stabbing surges in his head were less intense. After he’d moved his arms experimentally and found the pain bearable, Ki started to roll onto his side. When he moved his legs to get the necessary leverage, he learned that his ankles were also lashed together.

Moving clumsily because of his bonds, Ki finally succeeded in rolling. He felt the floor, but his numb fingers could not identify its composition. It could have been brick, wood, cement, or even paper. Levering himself into a sitting position, he looked around. He thought, but could not be absolutely sure, that in two small areas high above his head he could detect a difference in the density of the blackness that surrounded him. All he could really be sure of, Ki thought ruefully, was that wherever he was confined, its darkness was total.

Having reached that conclusion, Ki closed his eyes again. Having closed them, he thought with wry amusement that habit was strong. Then he began thinking seriously about the logical succession of moves to be made. There were so few that his meditation was brief. There were only two moves indicated for the moment: get rid of his bonds and discover where he was.

Flexing his forearm muscles and twisting his wrists with all the strength he could muster produced a tiny, almost infinitesimal amount of slack. Small as it was, the slack restored part of Ki’s circulation, and when he tried to open and close his hands, he could now feel them move. After he’d flexed his fingers for a few moments, the numbness that had deprived him of a sense of touch began to diminish. Ki put his fingertips on the floor, and after rubbing them on its surface for several minutes, he could identify it as being made from bare boards.

Ki’s training in unarmed combat had taught him how flexible the human body can be; by exercising the control he’d acquired through years of exacting discipline, even with his wrists bound he could reach almost as far and move his arms almost as freely as he could when they were not tied.

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