Chapter Thirteen: The Collector
Bohdan Dune and the Perilum Tales
Warmest Greetings and Salutations!
My, oh my, what will happen next? If you need to catch up on previous chapters, be sure to do so here.
Happiest of reading!
Have you ever found yourself in one of those terrible moments when you have been miserably and utterly betrayed? I sincerely hope not. But if you have, then you, dearest reader, might be able to imagine how Bohdan felt at that very moment.
He glared at Silver, who stared coldly at the floor.
“You dirty little liar!” Fedir growled as he got to his feet.
There was a flash of gray and Fedir froze, the tip of the green-haired woman’s sword was pressed lightly against his throat.
“Ah, ah, ah!” She smiled dangerously as she looked from Bohdan to Fedir. “That’s not possible. You see, rule one of the Collector, never tell a lie. I don’t suffer liars.”
“The Collector?” asked Bohdan.
“One and the same, little lovey,” she flashed her yellow smile once more, and he tried not to stare at her rotting teeth. “How do you do?”
Bohdan didn’t answer. While she may have saved them from the shredders, it look little to see the woman meant them no good. He snuck another glance at Silver, who still refused to meet his gaze.
“A wasted Wastelander and a fiery Lush. I’m not sure about the smaller one.” The Collector scrutinized Bohdan from head to foot. “He looks a bit too emaciated to make the journey to Chaosity. It’d be less work to leave him in the swamp. Let the marsh have him.”
A rough hand seized Bohdan by the arm. “Up and over, boy,” a pot-bellied man wheezed as he dragged Bohdan toward the railing. Bohdan locked his legs but it made little difference. Fedir shouted as the rest of the crew laughed and cheered. The man scooped Bohdan up as if he weighed little more than a flame flower. Bohdan kicked and clawed with all his might, trying to grab hold of the wooden railing.
“He fits the descriptions, your Collectorship!” Silver’s voice rang out. “He said he’s headed for the Peaklands to save his older brother! Cobran.”
With a hard yank, Bohdan landed with a thud back onto the floor of the ship. Mumblings and whispers broke out amongst the crew. The Collector’s dark eyes flashed greedily as she stood over Bohdan with fresh interest.
“Is that right?” Her raspy voice couldn’t disguise the tremor of excitement. “Then that would make you…Master Bohdan, as it were, would it not? The great-great grandlovey of the king beneath the mountain.”
Bohdan got to his feet. He could feel every eye boring into him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The Collector threw her head back and laughed. A cruel, maniacal laugh that rattled his bones and sent the hair on his arms standing on end. Bohdan shot a glance at Fedir, but he was peering down over the side of the ship.
“Don’t even think about it, Mr. Lush,” the Collector sighed as she wiped at the corners of her eyes, breathless from laughing. “If you thought the shredders were frightenin’, you’ve got another thing comin’ for you down there. Those crocodilian beasts are nothin’ to the laiths and man-eatin’ flora in these parts. You’d be torn asunder before you could curse the fishes.”
Scowling, Fedir stepped back from the weathered railing.
“That’s a good little Lush. Tie ’em up!” The Collector clapped her hands loudly, and before either of the boys could react, half the crew swarmed them. Bohdan tried to wriggle his way free, but it was no use. His wrists and ankles were bound so tightly, the rope rubbed his skin raw.
“All of them,” the Collector instructed as she shoved Silver towards the other half of the crew.
“No! You can’t!” Silver protested as she kicked and clawed at a toothless, fat-necked man trying to tie her ankles together. “We had a deal!”
“We had nothin’ of the sort,” the Collector said dismissively as she examined her filthy fingernails.
“You said —”
“Ah, ah, ah!” The vile woman interrupted, waving her finger back and forth. “Rule number seventy-six: if it isn’t written down, then it didn’t happen. Two Deady’s and a grandlovey prince in less than a month? Soon I’ll have more gold than that lazy, good-for-nothin’ King Lors, and Gallimaufria will be bowin’ to me. I’ll have the territories and the mountain under my dainty thumb. And it’s all thanks to you, Miss Frost.”
Bohdan hung upside down over the shoulder of a hideously foul-smelling member of the crew. The man’s stinky sweat soaked through his mangy shirt, soaking Bohdan’s cheek. He watched helplessly as the Collector swaggered over and grabbed his face.
“The little prince and I need to have a chat. We can’t risk bringin’ the wrong grandlovey now, can we?”
The Collector smiled her horrible smile, which looked even more mortifying upside down. She slapped him lightly on the cheek then snapped her fingers. Fedir shouted as he was thrown down into a hole in the deck. Silver’s cries of frustration were silenced by a sickening thud. Bohdan shouted and tried to break free but his upside world swayed back and forth as he was carried through a door into a warmly lit room.
With a sudden whirl he was tossed right-side up into a chair. He winced as he bit into his lower lip, but he wouldn’t allow himself to cry. “What have you done with them?”
“Shut it, boy,” the man snarled.
Bohdan’s lip throbbed, but he was quickly distracted by the room he now found himself in. Thick green velvet curtains hung over the dirty windows. A dozen melting candlesticks were perched on every surface. An impossibly large wooden desk squatted like a sad beast, covered in countless scrolls, inkwells, and feather pens. And spread open in the center of the desk was a map.
Even from upside down, Bohdan knew at once he was looking at a map of a mountain, and within the mountain was a kingdom. There was a palace and a moat. A surrounding village. A couple vegetable fields. A river. A prison. All around the kingdom and throughout the mountain were an endless series of tunnels. The different areas all had names, but the words were too small to make out.
And far below the kingdom and the tunnels were enormous caves. He leaned forward to get a better look of the sketched creatures, but he was shoved back into his seat.
“Fascinatin’ isn’t it, little lovey?”
The Collector smirked as she swept around the desk and sat in a throne-like chair. She smiled ruefully down at the map.
“An entire kingdom squirreled away beneath the Great Mountain. Little miss says you’re lookin’ for your brother? I hate to burst whatever disillusioned bubble you’ve been livin’ in little lovey, but no one gets in or out of that mountain unless that wretched king and his wee little gobbies want you to.”
“I’m his great-grandson,” Bohdan rebutted. “Why wouldn’t he want me in the mountain?”
The Collector smiled greedily. “You’re a lot smarter than you look, little prince. And you’re right. He does want you in the mountain. In fact, he’s willin’ to pay such a sum, it could rain rubies for a month and it still wouldn’t match the price. And I plan on getting’ every last gem-drop. If you catch my meanin’.”
Bohdan stared at the horrid woman with open dislike. She possessed the same greedy satisfaction of taking what didn’t belong to her as Vexil did. The same smug smile. Bohdan had dealt with people like this his whole life.
And he knew just what to do with them.
“If you say so, your ladyship.”
“Collectorship, as it were, little lovey.” The Collector frowned as she shifted in her seat. “And what do you mean by that?”
Bohdan shrugged. “My ma has told me all about him, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of man to keep his promises.”
“Oh, he’ll keep his word, little prince.” The woman leaned back in her chair and stretched out her bootstrapped legs onto her desk. “Because once I hand you and little miss over to him, he’ll have everything he wants.”
Bohdan frowned. “What does he want?”
The Collector smiled wide. “Why, a big happy family, of course.”
There was something in the way she spoke that made Bohdan’s stomach twist into knots.
“But…Silver isn’t family.”
“Not yet, anyway,” she winked. “Don’t worry yourself, little prince. You’ll get your brother, I’ll get my throne, and everyone will be happy as a dust storm on junking day.”
Bohdan said nothing. Anyone with half a brain knew the likelihood of her ragtag crew and rickety ship conquering the whole of King Lors’ royal guard and Pigs was next to nil. Furthermore, only a delusional fool or deranged maniac could convince themselves capable of outsmarting an ancient king with an army of rats and goblins in a magical mountain.
“What about Fedir?”
“The Lush?” The Collector huffed. “He looks fit enough. A Huntsman-in-training I dare say. He’ll go for a pretty coin in the mountain. They need strappin’ boys to dig the tunnels.”
The air seemed to vanish from Bohdan’s lungs. He couldn’t let that vile woman separate them. If they were going into the mountain, he and Fedir had to stick together, and preferably on their own terms.
“Well then, that’s all for now, little prince. If I were you, I’d try and get some sleep. It’s two days to Chaosity from here and I need you lookin’ presentable for the Cleofell Ball.”
Bohdan balked. “The Cleofell Ball?”
Every child in Gallimaufria knew the tales of the Cleofell Ball. Each year, the wealthiest patrons of the kingdom came from all over for a night of unmatched splendor at King Lors’ palace.
“Yes, little lovey, the Cleofell Ball. I can’t have my personal servant lookin’ like I plucked you from a Vody Laith den. And don’t think for one second I’ll let you out of my sight once we’ve stepped off this ship. I’ll be closer than your shadow. Take him!”
With a snap of her fingers the door to her study swung open and the hideously sweaty man returned. He flung Bohdan back over his shoulder. Bohdan’s face smacked against the man’s smelly, wet back and he tried not to puke. The next thing he knew, he was tossed into a cramped room below deck.
“Sleep tight, my loveys!” The Collector sang croakily as the door slammed shut, followed by the click of a key in a lock. “Don’t let the ratties bite.”
Bones aching, Bohdan rolled onto his side and got himself into a sitting position. He winced. His wrists and ankles stung from the overly tight ropes. Weak sunlight spilled in from a small dingy window just above his head. Battered wooden boxes and empty green glass bottles were heaped all about the tiny space.
“Wastey! Thank the Winds you’re alright.”
“I’m fine, Fed,” said Bohdan, relieved to hear Fedir’s voice. “But we’ve got to get out of here.”
He peered over at Silver, who was sitting directly beneath the dirty window. She looked as if her mind was far away from the cluttered room in which they sat. As she stared through the glass the pale light caught a single tear trailing down her face.
“Was any of it true?” asked Bohdan. “What you said about your sister?”
“She probably doesn’t even have a sister,” spat Fedir. “She’s a rotten liar.”
Silver met Bohdan’s gaze, misty-eyed, though her expression did not change.
“It was all true.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She was so changed from the confident, haughty girl he’d come to know in the marsh.
“My sister Caspia vanished like I said. I was tearing the marsh apart looking for her when the Collector found me. She sold Caspia to the king beneath the mountain.”
Bohdan shook his head. “Then why are you helping her?”
“She has a quota to make,” Silver said miserably. “When she saw what the king paid for Caspia, she got it into her head to see what King Lors would pay for me. But a few days after she snatched me, she learned that the mountain king is on a hunt for his long-lost great-great grandsons.”
Silver’s voice faltered. “The Collector made a deal with me. If I helped her find the grandsons she’d take me to my sister. I’ve been staying close to the Wasteland border to watch anyone coming into the marsh, but never dreamed I’d actually find you.”
“But what about the music?” Fedir asked, clearly still suspicious.
“I don’t know how to explain the music,” said Silver. “I don’t know where it comes from. I assumed it was a trick of the Collectors until Bohdan told me about your siblings.”
“Maybe it’s something in the marsh,” suggested Bohdan. “It was different from the music I heard in the Wastelands. It wasn’t as…clear, somehow. I don’t know how to explain it. Or, maybe, the pipers have ways of taking kids into the tunnels here in the Marshlands too.”
“So, what do we do now?” Fedir grunted as he leaned forward before hopping up onto his feet. He swayed back and forth to maintain his balance, then hopped like a desert hare over to the small window and pressed his forehead against the dirty glass.
“It’s covered in muck,” he mumbled. “I can’t see anything.”
“It wouldn’t matter even if you could,” said Silver darkly. “The Collector is like an all-seeing-eye. She knows this marsh like the back of her hand. How do you think she found us so quickly?”
“So, what, we just wait around for that maniac to sell the two of you off, and do the fishes-know-what with me?” Fedir’s voice shook as he spoke.
“We’re on our way to Chaosity,” said Silver. “With any luck, we can escape there. It’s overrun with people. From what I’ve heard, it should be easy to hide.”
“There’s no we,” Fedir growled, accentuating the last word. “I knew we never should have trusted you.”
The girl looked as if his words had struck her, but she said nothing. Bohdan couldn’t blame Fedir for being angry, but he thought it was a bit unfair to punish her. Silver was trying to find her sister, just like they were. But even more than that, Fedir had been the one to rescue him from the bullies at school. He didn’t like hearing Fed talk to Silver so meanly.
“She was trying to get back to her sister, Fed,” said Bohdan. “Wouldn’t you do whatever it took to get Wren back?”
Fedir frowned before sighing heavily and flopping back onto the floor.
“I suppose so, Wastey,” he sighed again. “I’m sorry, Deady. This place doesn’t bring out the best in me.”
“Silver,” she corrected, but the bite she usually spoke to Fedir with was gone.
Fedir smiled and nodded. “I’m sorry…Silver.”
“Me too.”
Bohdan slept fitfully; fairly certain a rat had scampered by his head more than once in the night. He was in the middle of a dream about Ma, though she was as young as he was.
She was walking through a dark cavern. He tried to call out to her, but it was as if she couldn’t see or hear him at all. Bohdan tried to take her hand, but she simply kept walking, following a glimmering, iridescent string through the darkness. He stared, awestruck, as a massive, winged beast with skin like the night sky shot out of a chasm before them and let out a blood-curdling shriek.
“It’s one of those blasted devil’s chickens!”
Bohdan opened his eyes, no longer in an eerie cavern with his young mother, but back in the storage room with his fellow captives. Sprawled across the floor, hair and clothes damp from the moisture in the humid air.
“Her Majesty, you mean,” Silver rebutted, her voice thick with sleep.
“No, I mean those obnoxious Wastey chickens!”
“A Devil’s Hen,” Silver yawned loudly before rolling onto her side. “Its name is Her Majesty.”
“What is a Devil’s Hen doing in the Marshlands?” asked Bohdan.
“What is anything doing in the Marshlands?” grumbled Fedir.
Silver moaned. “It’s the Collector’s prized pet.”
Bohdan stared up at the grim ceiling and thought of his dream. Of the fearsome beast that soared up from the steaming chasm and bared its blackened fangs. And the shining string his mother had been following through the dark.
He sat up abruptly. In all the chaos and flurry of adventures since leaving Teller’s Point, he’d completely forgotten about the pendant. “I might have something that can get us out of here.”
“Nothing can be worth more than yourself,” said Silver. “I’ve been listening to the Collector rattle off numbers for weeks. She’s a shrewd woman, and nothing matters to her more than gold coin and power.”
“Not something to offer her,” Bohdan said as he wiggled his way across the floor like an inchworm and maneuvered one of the glass bottles into his hands. “Something to help us get out of the marsh.”
“A bottle?” Silver asked incredulously. “I think the humidity must be getting to you.”
But Bohdan wasn’t listening. He was trying to smash the bottle against the ground, but his hands couldn’t raise it high enough to do any damage. Fedir got to his feet.
“I’ve got it, Wastey. The glass won’t pierce my boots. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this last night! You little genius, you.”
Bohdan rested the bottle on its side and wriggled out of the way. Fedir focused on the bottle, and jumped. It broke into pieces with, mercifully, little noise. Fedir sat back down and carefully scooted a large, unbroken piece toward Bohdan. Once Bohdan had the piece securely in his hands, he moved it back and forth across the rope until it fell away.
“Thatta boy!” Fedir whispered.
Bohdan cut the ropes away. The skin around their wrists was bright pink and glistening. Surprisingly, the air made them sting worse than the ropes did.
“So, what is it, Wastey?” Fedir asked, keeping his voice low. “What have you got?”
Bohdan pulled the pendant from beneath his shirt. Against the dark, grimy room, it shone all the brighter.
“A necklace?” Silver raised an eyebrow.
“It’s magic,” Bohdan said quietly. “My Aunt Irenie said it would guide me, but… I had to believe that it would or it wouldn't work. It belonged to my Ma.”
Silver eyed the pendant incredulously. “If it was supposed to guide you, why didn’t it do anything when we were in the marsh before? The only magic in Gallimaufria seems to belong to the mountain.”
“And my mother grew up in the mountain,” said Bohdan, firmly. “I forgot I had it. Maybe I have to ask it for help or something.”
“Bohdan, I—”
“It’ll work!” Bohdan interrupted Silver before she could finish. “You both believe Caspia and Wren are in the mountain don’t you? Why can’t you believe me with this?”
Fedir reached out and grabbed Bohdan by the shoulder and gave him a slight shake. “I believe you, Wastey.”
Bohdan rubbed his thumb across the pendant. It had to work. His dream couldn’t have been a coincidence. He placed the pendant in the palm of his hand and closed his eyes. “Please,” he whispered. “Show us where to go.”
Silver and Fedir gasped. Bohdan opened his eyes, and stretching from his pendant to the small window was an iridescent string. He reached out to touch it but his hand went right through, as if it were a vapor.
“Fishes below,” Fedir said under his breath. “Wastey, you did it!”
“You can’t see it if you don’t believe,” said Bohdan, smiling at Silver, who looked at a loss for words. “You must have had some faith in it after all.”
“We need to get the window open.” Silver stepped over to the murky glass. She pried at the pane, but it was stuck in place by layers of filth and moss. Frustrated, she began digging through the broken crates in the corner. A rat shot out from the pile of wood toward the door.
“Stop it!” Silver said in a raised whisper. “It’ll go straight to the Collector!”
Bohdan and Fedir sprang into action, each flinging themselves towards the mangy creature, but it vanished into a large hole in the far wall hidden in the darkness.
“We’ve got to move,” said Bohdan. “Break the window!”
Silver took the piece of wood and slammed it against the glass, but nothing happened.
“Let me.” Fedir raised his boot and kicked at the glass. A large crack split diagonally across the pane. He gave it another hard kick and the glass shattered into pieces.
Bohdan stuck his head out of the window. The ship was gliding slowly through a dense part of the marsh. The trees were closer together, and they seemed to be floating on a river, rather than the wide open water from the night before. Mud and mossy ground waited a couple of meters beyond the ship. If they jumped, they could be on land within a few strokes.
“Tie the ropes together,” Bohdan said as he picked up the pieces off the floor.
The other two did as they were told without hesitation. Within a minute they had a makeshift rope about twice the length of Bohdan.
“I want shackles on those little brats!” The Collector’s voice came from the end of the corridor. “Then throw them in the brig. Let’s see what they can manage locked in the bowels of the ship.”
Bohdan handed Fedir one end of the rope. “You two jump first. I’ll hold the other end. Pull me along when you reach the edge of the river.”
They could hear the click-clack of the Collector’s boots coming down the corridor, followed by the lumbering stomps of the crew.
Silver climbed through the window and jumped. Fedir just after. Bohdan lurched forward, pulled by the rope, but it flew from his hands. He watched in horror as it fell into the river.
“They’re jumping into the water, your Collectorship!” A voice called out from above. “Silver and the Lush are swimming to the shore!”
A key rattled in the door as Bohdan pushed himself through the window. He heard the creak of the hinge and a shout as a hand grabbed his tunic.
“I don’t think so, little prince!”
But Bohdan kicked wildly, hitting the Collector square in the chest, and sent himself hurtling towards the water.
Thanks for reading along! Tune in next Monday for the next installment.
“We Wait on the Winds.”
-Periwinkle Twist
But he can’t swim!! What’s going to happen?!
I just read all thirteen chapters - love it Ali! Definitely captures you.