Dead Man's Shadow, Chapter 7

Elena struggled against the rope, but she had nothing to push against. Lights began to pop in front of her eyes. She struggled to draw in a breath, but nothing came. She was barely aware of the Inquisitors exiting the room and closing the door behind them. Valeri continued to shout after them, but his words were rapidly lost in a loud ringing sound. As she continued to struggle, she began to twist in the air, but nothing relieved the pressure on her neck. Panic coursed through her veins as her vision began to go dark. A noise that might have been wood on stone sounded from somewhere in the room, but she was too light-headed to process it. Blackness rose to claim her, becoming an almost soothing balm for her panic. Her struggles slowed. Something smacked into her foot, and she weakly kicked at it out of reflex.
Suddenly, a voice cut through the heavy blackness in her mind, speaking in accented Old Théan. “Put your knees on my shoulders! Push up! Do it now, in Theus’s name!”
Almost too weak to understand what she was hearing, Elena felt something collide with her knees. Some part of her deeper than any of her thoughts seized control of her legs, pushing with everything she had left to get them onto the top of whatever the obstruction was. On the top, with a mighty heave, Elena’s legs forced her upwards, and the rope released its death grip on her neck.
Cold, beautiful, life-restoring air rushed into her lungs with a single instinctive gasp. Her damaged throat protested, swelling shut almost as fast. The single breath of air that she had been able to get ejected itself from her body in a set of powerful coughs that caused her entire body to shake. The motion was too much for her, and she toppled off of her perch, the rope closing down her airway once more. She flailed wildly, and her foot made solid contact with something soft and yielding. What might have been a pained grunt sounded immediately before the voice spoke again.
“Careful, now! Get back up! Stop struggling! Move to your left and back up, just like you did before!”
Somehow, Elena managed to do as the voice instructed. Her knees found the same nearly-solid surface that they had before and managed to push upwards once again. Though her entire body was screaming at her, she forced herself to take a single, slow breath instead of a desperate gasp. She managed to make it through two of those breaths before the coughing started again, and this time she was able to keep herself mostly on top of whatever she was kneeling on. Balancing was awkward with her hands tied behind her back, but she got the hang of it quickly when her life depended on it.
For the next several minutes, Elena focused on breathing and keeping her balance. Very slowly, her vision returned, and the ringing in her ears faded away. Unfortunately, with the blackness receding, the panic began to rise again.
Oh, Theus, what is happening? This must be a nightmare…
She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to breathe. When she moved back and forth to maintain her balance, the rope touched against the sides of her neck, reminding her of the reality of her situation. Its nearness caused her panic to grow quickly, and she opened her eyes, looking down at her perch to try and hold it at bay.
The sight that met her eyes was one that she at first did not understand. Between her knees was a mop of circular dirty grey grass, slightly higher than whatever her knees were actually on. As she took in more breaths, her head began to clear, and she realized that what she was actually looking at was hair. A few breaths later, she realized that Valeri was now somehow beneath her, and she was kneeling on his shoulders, facing away from the cell door. The aging shopkeeper was determinedly not looking up.
“Thanks,” Elena tried to say, but her word dissolved into another fit of coughing. She tried again, and this time managed to get the word out, but her voice was far too husky to sound like hers. Vaguely, Elena wondered how bad the damage to her throat was.
“I could not let you die,” Valeri said. “I am sorry that you got involved in this.”
“Don’t be; I did this of my own volition.” She coughed again, trying to clear her throat. It did not seem to help.
“Who are you?” Valeri asked. “I am certain that I have never seen you before.”
“You haven’t.” Elena reflexively tried to glance over her shoulder at the door to the cell, but the motion threatened to unbalance her again. She kept her position and instead contented herself with staring at the back wall of the alcove. “I don’t know how much I should go into just yet…”
Valeri apparently understood her motion and the words that accompanied it. “Don’t worry, if they are listening, then they would have already come in when you coughed.”
Elena admitted that he had a point. Still, she doubted that it would be a good idea to admit that she and Felix were both there to save him because of his position. “I am here to get you out of here,” she told him. “I happened by the bookstore and ran into your assistant. She said that she was worried about you, and I decided to see what I could do to try and help.” Each word that she spoke hurt her throat, but she continued. “The Inquisition and I have never been on the greatest of terms, so…”
“I see. That was very brave of you. And noble.”
“Well, look how well that turned out for me.”
Valeri chuckled at her comment, causing his shoulders to move. Almost immediately, Elena lost her balance and nearly fell off. “Wait! Wait!” she gasped.
“Oh, sorry.” Valeri’s shoulders immediately stilled, and Elena managed to remove the minor pressure from her neck once more. When she had settled back down and was breathing carefully, he spoke again. “How did you manage to get inside the church?”
“I climbed in through the bell tower.”
Elena felt Valeri’s impressed blink. “That is… really?”
“Yep.” Elena coughed again, though much weaker than the last time. She wondered if she would be able to get her bound hands out from behind her back. Ordinarily, she would have been able to do it, but she didn’t think that she could accomplish the feat without falling victim to the noose again. Instead, she began to strain against the ropes on her wrists, trying to free her hands. There was a bit of play in the ropes from her struggling while she was being tied up, but not enough for her to get out. She guessed that if she kept trying that she would eventually be able to free herself, but she doubted that they had time for that. If anyone came to check on them, then she would very likely wind up in the same predicament again, but this time with someone watching to make sure that it worked.
“You’re a miracle, you know that?” Elena commented as she worked on the ropes. “I honestly thought that I was dead there.”
“I did too,” Valeri admitted. “I couldn’t get this chair over as fast as I wanted to. However you managed to push yourself up, though, that was the miracle. I thought you had already passed out.”
Elena was going to say something else when she heard the sound of the door opening. She immediately froze, and felt Valeri do the same. She wanted nothing more than to turn to see who was coming into the cell, but she knew from experience that it would be impossible. Behind her, the door slid open all the way, and footsteps entered the cell.