CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It wasn't until mid-morning when Lloyd and Boyce finally awoke.
Boyce stretched and went to the window, catching sight of several guards marching back and forth, occasionally looking up at their window.
Boyce smiled at Lloyd and pointed down to the ground.
He went back to the table and sat down.
"Well, Lloyd! What should we eat?"
Lloyd smiled at the ease by which Boyce took the situation and he leaned over the table to him.
"You're calm enough to eat?" he asked.
"We need strength for later. So, while we still have this mock service from these people, we should accept it in our own mock way.
Lloyd grinned from ear to tear then went to the door and opened it. He thrust his head into the hallway and told the astonished guards to bring some food and drink to the room.
It would be very difficult to leave the room this day. They had to wait until dark before they could try anything but dark was many hours away.
Dam Lehnar came around in the afternoon dressed in a snug, short white dress with open shoulders, and she sat about with the two men for several hours listening to Lloyd making up more details about who they were and where they were going.
Finally, Lloyd took her hand and told her that all that they had told her was nothing but lies. He told her that they were sorry for lying to her but it was a matter of their safety and need to stay alive.
Then came a want for a favour.
"You told me the other night that you loved me? If you do, let us go. Help my friend and me to escape the festival opening tonight." he asked her.
"How do I help? My father has me watched, too!"
"Try to get our supplies to us and before the guards come, to take us to the stages, divert their attention and we will try to make out way out of the city."
"I may be able to get most of your things." she promised them. "I can't recover your weapon, however. My father carries it with him."
"We don't care for the weapon as much as we care to take our leave from the city." said Boyce.
There was silence in the room for a moment and Lehnar soon stood up.
"I promise you both that I'll see what I can do!"
With this Lehnar left the state-room and the two men sat back and waited.
Sunset was just a couple of hours away and Lehnar had been gone since the thick of the afternoon.
They were worried that she either couldn't get their supply packs or she went against them by telling her father about their plans.
Regardless of their anxieties, however, they waited for her to come back to them.
As the sky began to darken and the hours quickly gained speed, and Boyce and Lloyd became more restless and nervous. However, their long agitated wait was rewarded, for Lehnar had finally come back to their room with just one of their packs. The pack was Lloyd's and much of what was inside was still there. Only the telescope and its case was gone but the change of clothing and the maps were still inside.
Lloyd kissed Lehnar and thanked her.
Boyce had also kissed her hand.
"Thank you so very much, Dam Lehnar!" gleamed Lloyd.
"There are no guards at your door. I told them that I will watch you both and that you would still think that they were outside the door." she said to them. "Leave the palace through the garbage chutes and make your way in the shadows of the fire alley."
"Thank-you for your help, Lehnar." Boyce said graciously and she smiled.
"That alley will take you to the southern plateau and don't stop until you have reached the Divider's Ridge. My people still stop their pursuit there, if they will follow you at all."
"You are as helpful as you are beautiful, Dam Lehnar!" Lloyd complimented her.
"Take care, my friends!" she said, and the men made their way out of the room and down the
hallway to a closet door, and they found that they inside of the closet had no floor.
Lehnar came out of the room and after Boyce, and Lloyd, jumped into the hole, she closed the door behind them then went to her own room.
They hit bottom in a pile of rotting fish.
"This stinks!" Boyce acknowledged.
They looked around themselves trying no to breathe as they saw the mouldy pieces of bread and meat and other food-stuffs that have been down there for a good lengthy time, which only God could know for certain.
They exited the garbage stores and found themselves in a narrow passage with an open ceiling.
This must be the fire alley that Lehnar spoke of, they thought, and bent down low, they slowly but steadily made their way down.
A quarter-hour later they were at the end of the alley, and to each side of them they saw the walls of the city extending in a forbidding manner.
It was very dark now and only the stars were giving the men enough light to run by.
The plateau spanned kilometres before them, and in the distance they saw the small rise that Lehnar called the Diviner's Ridge.
They ran and kept running. Silently they covered countless meters of ground with each breath that they took.
They had to make it quickly to the ridge but they also had to watch the ground for holes and crevices. If one, or both, were to fall into one of them, they would surely be caught and returned to Sedara.
Behind them they now heard a great commotion and the city of Sedara became lit up like a sun.
Trephor was looking for them and they knew it. They were both tired, almost to the point of expiration but they wouldn't stop, lest they be caught.
It was very dark, and although the stars shone enough light to guide them to their destination, they couldn't tell very well if they were being chased by Trephor's army.
Sedara, behind them, emitted substantial light to produce silhouettes of anyone following them, but because of the size of the outer walls of the city, the two men couldn't see their pursuers until they were almost upon them.
Their hearts beat heavily within their bodies.
The pounding was hard and they soon wondered if their hearts were moving around in their bodies. First their chests throbbed, then the sensations moved to their stomachs and legs, then into their necks and head.
Over and over they were becoming weary and they felt like only the beating of their hearts had been pumping their legs the few extra kilometres to the rise.
Boyce looked back and then saw that they truly were being pursued.
With heavy breaths that wheezed and gagged he told Lloyd that they were being chased, but Lloyd kept his head about his and was steadfast.
"Just a little further, my friend!" he urged.
"I'm with you!" Boyce assured him, in three short gasps.
With strength summoned from the deepest recesses of their souls, they began to run faster and steadier, and the ridge that was once distant began to move closer and closer with each
successive stride that they took.
Behind them, the light of Sedara shrank and the stars revealed a small cloud moving in the same direction as the men.
The cloud was Trephor's army. Some were on horse-back but the major part of it was made up of infantry, running as the men ran.
The faster that Boyce and Lloyd had run, the lesser ahead they thought that they were going.
Lloyd turned his head for an instant and saw the small hermaphrodite army, in hot pursuit, gaining ground with every second that expired.
In his heart Boyce prayed that they could make the crest of the ridge before they passed-out, and there it was. The ridge.
"Oh God, lend us strength!" he gulped to himself.
The sounds of horses and feet grew louder and louder. The hermaphrodites were nearly upon them. Abruptly the men lost the sounds of the army as they lost their footing and they plunged into a drop in the ground, then lost consciousness.