Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [28]
Ari looked back at me.
“You are so not Luke Skywalker!”
Ari’s mouth quirked. “You prefer Han Solo, then?”
“I …” I didn’t know. I remembered Star Wars, sure, but I didn’t remember whether I liked it, or the actors in it. I remembered only the parts that had nothing to do with me. When I tried to get at what I’d actually thought about anything, I hit more darkness. I wanted to scream. Instead I gave a shaky laugh. “You’re not Han Solo, either.”
“Ah.” Ari nodded knowingly. “That leaves only Darth Vader, then.”
Chill mist drifted through the air around us, thicker than before. “Darth Vader was kind of cute when he was younger,” I said. At least, I thought so now—who knew what I’d thought before?
“Darth Vader was a jerk when he was younger,” Ari said without heat.
“As opposed to his old age, when he had a productive career blowing up planets?”
Ari laughed, and the sound echoed off the walls around us, making the corridor feel just a little less cold than before.
We reached a dead end. Ari shone his light on the wall, and I saw depressions in the gray stone, evenly spaced, like a ladder. Ari put the flashlight between his teeth and began to climb. The light faded above me. I found the first foothold as much by feel as by sight.
I felt claws through my jeans. Freki scrambled up my legs, over my backpack, and onto my shoulders. He was heavier than he looked, but I didn’t kick him off, whether because he really was cute or because I’d grown used to his company, I didn’t know. His fur was soft against my neck.
My arms were nowhere near as strong as my legs. They strained as I climbed. The voices and images faded away. The wall disappeared into the mist below. Dizziness washed over me, and I turned quickly back to the cold stone I was climbing. Apparently I was someone who was scared—terrified—of heights. I remembered falling through empty space, water roaring in my ears. My head swam. My grip loosened on the stone.
Claws dug into my shoulders. “Ouch!” The memory fled and I quickly tightened my hold.
“Thank you, Freki.” I was breathing hard. The fox nudged my neck with his damp nose.
I didn’t look down again, just focused on finding handholds and footholds, on climbing higher and higher, following the blue beam of Ari’s flashlight above me.
The light vanished. My breath caught, but then the light returned—Ari knelt on a ledge, pointing it down at me. I kept climbing. Freki leaped from my shoulders onto the ledge. I followed, shaking out sore arms.
Ari led the way up a low staircase and into another stone room, like the room where I’d slept, only larger. He swept his light around the space, which held no mist at all. There was a small stone bed, covered with furs, and a huge wooden door—a door!—carved with a pattern of arcs and lines. No handle, no doorknob—but a door was a start, right? We just might make it out of here.
Ari’s light moved on, to a stone desk covered with scraps of parchment and more animal skins, a wooden staff—carved with symbols—leaning against it. An old man sat in a wooden chair there, head on his arms, asleep. Ari’s eyes grew large. He quickly shut off the light. I guessed the man hadn’t been here when Ari found this place—or maybe that was one of the “problems” he’d mentioned. Pretty big problem, having a guard at the door. In the dark Ari grabbed my hand and pulled me back toward the stairs.
I heard a sound like wood scraping stone. It echoed and re-echoed through the chamber. “Who disturbs my sleep?” a voice boomed.
Heavy footsteps strode across the floor, right toward us.
Chapter 7
Light bloomed from niches in the walls. Ari and I whirled around, racing for the stairs, but then we heard wingbeats down below.
Right. No going back that way. We turned to face the man. His brown beard was streaked with gray. His wool cloak hung open over a belted shirt and baggy pants wrapped with strips of leather. His eyes swept quickly over Ari and took on a calculating look as they focused on me.
“That one is no friend to