15 A king with an agenda. Part 5

Sany, with her face stuck between the two rods, could feel the coldness of the black, smooth, iron bars pressing against her cheeks. She was looking at out at the blankness of the corridor through which Dev had disappeared on his glowing, purple, barrier-carpet thing. Something poked her brow and she looked up at the bobbing parrot, his red feathers looking deeper and darker than dried blood in the gloom of the hallway.

The red parrot looked down at her, and she stared back at him. "Mr. Peru, you disappeared when he showed up!" Sany bared her teeth at the bird.

Mr. Peru titled his whole body and flew inside the small room and settled himself on Kon's nose. "Obviously I did," Mr. Peru said in a matter-of-factly voice. "I'm not good at fighting. I was not made for battles."

Sany moved away from the bars, walking toward where Kon lay. "Yes, I can see that," she said while a vein danced on her forehead. "But you could have warned me?"

"I could have," Mr. Peru said, and pushing his sharp talons inside Kon's nostrils, he began flapping his wings, stretching Kon's nose upward.

The scene was bizarre and ironic at the same time, but Sany paid Kon's elongated nose no attention. "Then why did you not warn me?" she said in a sweet voice.

"Because," Mr. Peru said, "no one else warned me."

"I see…" A few seconds passed, and Sany leaped at him, her elbow raised, like a wrestler. "You little devil."

"Ohhh." Mr. Peru released Kon's nose and flew toward the grey, caving ceiling. Sany missed him and landed hard on Kon, planting her elbow into Kon's chest. Kon's body folded like a fragile card and for a moment he took a shape of a perfect 'u'. Then his legs and hands fell back to the ground, and he resumed his snoring, lying sprawled on the floor that smelled like some bear's sweaty armpit.

"Ehh…" Sany looked at him with her jaws hanging all the way to her chest. "EHHH! Is he in a coma or something?"

She grabbed his collar and shook him really hard. "Kon, WAKE UP." She received no response from him. His head just merely lolled like a head of a badly built puppet, and his spit drooled out from the corner of his lips.

"I think they did something to him," Mr. Peru said, hovering over her head.

Sany raised her hand and slapped his left and right cheeks until her hands turned sore. "Ahh. I got some of his drool on my hand." She dropped him back to the cold, stone floor, and shaking her hand in the air, she crossed to the bars.

Dev said that Kon won't wake up for a while, she thought while she stood propping her hands against a rod; could it be that the other so-called wizard did something to him?

She heard the clatter of footsteps and looked up and saw two guards approaching the cell. They stopped a few feet away from her and just stood there watching at her warily.

"Hey, were you sent here to guard us?" she asked.

They did not respond.

"Hey," Sany said, a bit loudly, banging her arms against the bars.

"Why do you ca—" one of them started, but the other guy cut him off and said.

"Don't talk with these Gorgon's scums."

"Huh? So, you are being told that we are from Gorgon kingdom?" Sany said, her voice echoing across the subterranean hallway. "That's not true. You are being manipulated. Your king is from my timelin--"

"From your timeline?" the first one spat. "You are from this era! A mercenary hired by our enemies. Now shut up, or I'll cut your head off." He drew out his sword and held it before him.

Sany glared at him and then at his gleaming sword while her hands squeezed the dark, metal rods that were holding her inside that tiny room. "Damn it," Sany muttered. "Only if I had a sword with me. I could have cut past this stupid… Ahhh." She turned her attention away from the guards and looked down at the iron rods.

An idea just came gatecrashing into her head.

If I can't cut them, Sany thought; then I can break them with my power of sound.

She wrapped her fingers around the iron bars and started channeling her energy into the rods.

Mr. Peru swooped down and sat down her head. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not telling you," Sany said, cat-eyed.

"Tell me. Tell me. I'm curious."

Sany sighed. "Have you ever seen old videos of women breaking glass with their voices?" she said while the rods under her hand started rippling. "It's called resonance. Every material has a natural frequency. I'm trying to match the frequency of my sound to the natural frequency of these rods. And when my applied frequency will become equal to the natural frequency of these rods, then the output of the total energy will reach its peak. And when that would happen, these rods would start shaking and bending like a rubber band and would eventually crack. Get it?"

"No," Mr. Peru said.

"I kne—Found it. Now I'll have to just maintain this frequency," Sany hissed. The rods were now shaking as if they were a thin fork. Suddenly, cracks started appearing on their metallic surfaces.

"Hey, do you hear something?" the first guard asked.

"Yes, I do," the second guard said, nodding.

The sound had now become a high pitch whine.

"Huh," the first guard said at the top of his voice. "It's coming from the cell. She is doing it!" He drew it sword and charged in her direction. "Get awa—"

A loud twang and crack cut the cold, dark air, and the guard skidded to a stop, with his eyes popping out of his sockets, staring at Sany as she walked out of the cell with two, long, splintered rods in her hands.

"Is she a w-witch or something?" The guard looked behind at the spot where his friend had stood a few seconds ago. He drew a sharp breath. "Curse him," he muttered and slowly looked back at Sany.

"You guys were going to cut my neck?" Sany asked, grinning evilly.

"Y-you are a witch!" The soldier turned around and bolted away from her.

Sany sighed. "Come on, guys, let's get away from this place." She looked behind her. Mr. Peru was still pulling Kon's nose.

"He is not waking up," Mr. Peru informed her. "I guess we'll have to carry him."

Sany loosened her grip around the rods, and they fell to the floor with an echoing clatter. Her shoulders slumped. "You mean I'll have to carry him."

"Yes, precisely." Mr. Peru saluted with his right wing.

Sany slapped her hand on her forehead. There was no way she could escape the palace with Kon on her back. Suddenly, all her efforts to get out of the cell felt like were in vain.