Plans

"Hey, Gabe?" Roland whispered into the dark after a while. He had contemplated the woman's words and Gabe's questions, but had no good answers for now. Still, action must be taken sooner or later.

"Yes?"

"Would you mind untying me, please?" Roland asked, a little mad at himself that he hadn't asked earlier.

"Oh! Yes! Sorry!" Gabe's whispers revealed his embarrassment. If Roland remembered correctly, the boy was about six years old. Finn had mentioned him in her letters, and she'd barely done the boy justice. He was bright and helpful, and had spent an interminable amount of time in this crushing place without his mind breaking.

Roland wondered about any connection to Finn's mysterious orphans, who didn't or couldn't talk about what had happened to them. Had they been brought to this miserable place and been driven mad by it? Was the experience so traumatic that, as Dr. Sherman had postulated, they simply blocked it out of their memories entirely?

It would be hard to describe this place without seeming mad. It was just like a nightmare. Perhaps the children had tried to describe it at first, but it was written off as bad dreams until they gave up talking about it.

"Thank you, Gabe," Roland said as his wrists were finally freed. "Now, what we need is a plan."

They began discussing possible strategies. It was a struggle, to decide whether to try and save everyone right away, or to try for just the two of them to escape and go get help. There were pros and cons on both sides.

His desire was to want to get everyone out immediately, but that was logistically much more difficult to organize, not to mention the greater risk of recapture with a larger group. It simply might be better to come back with help later. Yet, to leave helpless children behind in the hands of their kidnappers left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Surely he couldn't do such a thing, not after knowing how scary and lonely it can be for a child without a home, lost in the dark. He shuddered, remembering the early days after he'd run away from the orphanage.

"We need to leave fast, if we can, and get help." Gabriel said. "But I don't know how to get out of the dark. Are you a soldier? Can you tackle or kill the bad guys and we can get out the same way they get in?"

"That's a risk, but it might be worth taking... Are you sure we can't get to everyone? I don't want to leave anyone behind." Roland hated putting this pressure on Gabriel, but lives were at stake.

"I TRIED," came the exasperated whisper, "We can't find them in the dark. It's impossible, and Rhone will come back before we get to them. We need help first. I'll stay here with everyone and you go on. You'll be faster without me. My legs are short."

"I'm not leaving you behind, no matter what." Now that Roland had Gabriel, there was no way he was letting him out of his sight... well, presence, until he could safely deliver the boy to his sister. Not if he could help it. Escaping with two was almost as easy as escaping with one. The boy would be able to hide easily, and Roland could carry him on his back if speed was needed at any point.

"Ok." The boy conceded. Despite his argumentative nature, he was always taught to respect his elders. Also, this place was creepy and he would rather be out as soon as he could. He was brave, but not as brave as he wanted to be. "But how do we get out?"

"I have no idea. Your thought about shoving them aside and using the door they come in has some merit, I think. Is the door always in the same place?" Roland asked.

"Usually, I think, but sometimes not." The boy supplied unhelpfully.

"I see." Roland closed his eyes to think, though there was little difference in what he could see whether they were open or not.

A lull hit their discussion, and another whisper reached Roland's ear from the darkness. "Roland! Can you hear me?"

"Who's there?" He called back. His loud call was again reduced significantly in volume the moment it left his mouth.

"I think that's Miss Amelia." Gabriel put in. "I tried to find others, but my rope wasn't that long and I didn't want to go further and get lost."

"That was a good call, Gabe." Roland complimented, smiling in case the boy could see his face at all. "Now we have more rope, don't we?"

By the dim light of the glowing necklace, Roland attached the rope his hands had been tied with to a tree root where he'd been left. He added his leg bonds to extend the length. With one hand on the rope and the other hand holding Gabe's, the two ventured into the darkness where they thought the whisper had come from.

Roland's wounds ached badly, and he tried not to jostle them as they felt around the mossy, lush forest floor. How strange that trees and plants could grow here with no light, Roland thought to himself. All plants he knew of needed sunlight to grow. What kind of eerie plants could do without any sun, moon, or starlight? He wondered if they would look different than the trees and grass he was used to in the real world.

The real world? His world? The place he was from. How confusing this was, being trapped in The Dark Place, as Gabriel had called it. He wondered if the ominous name was a practical description used by the Rhone or an ominous description born of Gabriel's six year old imagination.

Soon, after feeling around more, they bumped into another tree. Its bark was rough and craggy, so much so that it could almost be mistaken for stone. Still, the shape of it was unmistakably that of a large tree. Scooting around the tree, they came to the warmth of a person.

"Miss Amelia?" Gabe whispered hopefully.

A hand shot out of the darkness, feeling and searching until it found Gabe's face. He flinched but held still, hoping it was her.

"Oh, child, thank goodness you're all right. How did you get to me? Was it Roland? I see a necklace." Amelia's voice quivered. Her hand turned toward the light and paused, palm up. Roland took it and held it gently.

He was still embarrassed about being in his underthings, but had no recourse but to talk to the woman. At least he wasn't overly visible in the darkness, he told himself.

"I'm here too." He said. "Are you tied up?"

"Good. I've been yelling at you since they left, hoping you could hear. I untied my bonds long ago but had no landmarks to find my way to you in the dark. I was afraid the glow would disappear and I'd be lost forever." She paused here.

"Don't tell them anything." She whispered, or yelled, adamantly.

"What do you mean?" Roland asked, confused. "What could I tell them?" He had none of the great military secrets of Klain at his disposal. He was merely a new recruit. Anything he knew would be all but common knowledge amongst the people... but then again, there were no other soldier prisoners. He gulped. Would they interrogate him about the city? Is that what Amelia meant?

"I could hear what you were saying. Your necklace... it was your mother's?" She asked.

"Yes," He confirmed, "The... whoever she was... seemed very interested in it."

"You need to get out of here, and quickly, before they figure it out. She may have already." Amelia insisted.

"Figure out... what?" Roland was confused. What did Amelia know?

"You were raised by an aunt, correct? Beatrice, called Betty?" Amelia probed.

"Yes, for a time." He blinked. He didn't recall mentioning anything about that when he had briefly visited her home before, much less mentioning a name.

"And she gave you the necklace." Amelia stated this as fact.

"Yes, but... what's going on?" Roland was drowning in curiosity. How would a woman he'd met once in a village know this much about him? Finn had mentioned the herbs having powers. He frowned. Was Amelia involved somehow in using the herbs for mysterious purposes? Was there some kind of divination to be found in them?

Amelia certainly had seemed to have enough knowledge of rare herbs. Perhaps she had far more knowledge than Roland had anticipated. He tensed, wondering whose side she was on in this matter. Her knowledge of his past seemed almost as great as his own. That type of knowledge could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Amelia sighed. "I suppose I may not have the opportunity to tell you what I know of your past after today, especially if they figure it out first. I... helped your aunt kidnap you, a long time ago."

"What??" His shocked yelp came out as another whisper, robbing it of the incredulous tone it would have otherwise possessed.

"It's... rather a long story, but I suppose I'll have to tell you if I want you to trust me."