Chapter 160 - Four

VIII.

The darkness of night was a frightening, unfamiliar thing to El. 

Fortunately, her entire body exuded a faint light. So if she curled up into herself, and narrowed her eyes, just right, it was nearly enough for her to convince herself it was still day out. 

Just like this, her thoughts drifted. If I can stay like this forever...

At the sound of the canvas of the tent fluttering, she quickly righted herself and saw Typhon standing there.

"You again," El said, with a disdainful frown.

Typhon was beaming, holding something behind his back.

El sighed. "I already told you--"

"I know you said you'd rather stay locked in there," Typhon blurted. "But I decided I'm going to break you out anyway!"

"Oh, really?" She raised an eyebrow. "And how do you intend to do that?"

Grinning to himself, Typhon revealed to her his father's set of keys, and rattled them in her face. "I got these off my dad earlier," he said. "One of them has to fit!"

"Is this really what you want to do, Typhon? Won't you get in trouble?"

Typhon shook his head at the idea. "I couldn't go on working for my dad, anyway. Not after I've seen this."

El leaned forward in the cage, extending an arm out through the bars to touch him on the face.

Typhon winced at her touch -- she'd brushed the spot where Elias had struck him earlier, and the broken flesh had become bruised and swollen.

"Did your father do this to you?"

"No," Typhon quickly answered. "That was...something else. But like I said, don't worry about me."

"You're the one that needs saving."

After some fumbling, Typhon managed to undo the lock.

El remained in the cage, however.

"Quit playing around," Typhon beckoned. "I get it, you're scared, but if you don't hurry—"

"Don't bother," came a voice from the shadows.

Typhon froze, aghast. He knew that voice. He'd heard that voice every day of his life for the last three years.

"Dad!" he cried, turning sharply.

El's eyes widened – that scary man is his father? 

Baraba stepped forth into the light, arms crossed, along with a retinue of mercenaries. "This explains that stunt you pulled earlier."

Typhon drew his dagger.

Baraba laughed."Come now, boy." 

"Put that letter opener down, and we can both forget this ever happened."

Incensed, Typhon sliced at the air.

"How am I supposed to just forget about this!?"

"You're selling a girl into slavery!"

Baraba, who had remained calm up to now, abruptly flew into a rage.

"It's more than just the money, boy!" 

"I've been saying for years that I'm too old for this life, and I've finally found my out!"

Baraba drew his scimitar.

"Think carefully before your next move, boy."

"Because I won't be holding back."

El gasped – is he really going to fight his father?

All because of me?

The two clashed, parrying blow after blow, letting the fight take them across the room.

Typhon was holding up surprisingly well -- gone was the usual second guessing and self doubt, replaced with a razor focus. For in his mind, this was a battle of purely good versus evil. One that he could not afford to lose.

"It's time I put you in your place!" Baraba abruptly yelled.

With a heavy swing of his blade, reality came crashing down on Typhon.

Typhon parried the blow, but the sheer force behind it was still enough to knock him back with an alarmed gasp, stumbling then falling into the sand.

Baraba approached him, sneering.

"You talk all high and mighty," he said, "but I guess thieving is all fine and good, huh boy?"

El tensed as Baraba pulled back his blade -- "No!" She whimpered.

She watched in horror as he plunged his blade into the ground, right where Typhon's head would have been if he hadn't rolled away at last second.

Typhon, panting, returned to his feet.

"So you're gonna kill me now, dad?" He said. "Is that just how you solve all your problems?"

"You don't know the kind of people I'm working with!" Baraba spat, shaking his fist. "If I lose the girl, I'll lose my head!"

El breathed a sigh of relief at Typhon's successful evade, but knew it would be short-lived.

I can't just watch -- I have to do something!

With all the commotion those two were making, some of the other men around the camp were being drawn into the tent from all sides.

Seeing this, Typhon picked up a handful of dirt and threw it into Baraba's eyes, blinding him.

"El!" He called out to her. He desperately reached his hand out toward her, only grasping at empty space.

"Typhon," she answered, as she calmly rose to her feet. This was it.

As she was facing him, Typhon could not see the trails of blood running all down El's back.

All he could see were El's eyes as they glistened -- not as with tears, but from the fire burning within.

"If only my wings...could carry us both," she said.

For Typhon, time seemed to slow to a crawl as the mercenaries were closing in. Baraba attempted to grab him from behind, but he pulled away.

El, in those fleeting moments, remained perfectly calm. 

They sprouted from out of her back, one to each shoulder blade – thin stalactites of bone, in a spray of blood. Then, within the span of a few heartbeats, they grew and expanded outward into a pair of flexible, double-jointed structures, until they each spanned up to five times her full body's width.

Lastly, there came the feathers, as a brilliant, yellow-white down grew forth and transitioned to pure white.

"Wings!" Typhon christened them, in amazement. Does that mean she can--

For a moment, El paused to look at Typhon. They locked eyes, in the stunned silence of everyone gathered there, communicating without words.

Go, Typhon's eyes commanded her. 

I'm scared, hers answered.

But she felt she didn't have a choice, anymore. 

With a single flap of her wings, she produced a mighty gust, kicking sand and dust everywhere as Typhon and Baraba's company to shield their eyes. She shot into the air, with enough force to burst out of her cage, then pierce through the canvas of the tent and beyond.

Typhon, seeing that everyone else was still in shock, used this distraction to make his escape.

He ran out to the stables, with Baraba's men in pursuit. There, he quickly mounted a horse and took off across the prairies at full gallop, cheering at the glowing white figure of El soaring overhead, looking like a winged comet streaking across the starry night sky.

Typhon imagined that from here it would be best if she just continued flying up and away, until she was well beyond the grasp of Baraba and his men.

But if that were the case, he realized it would mean she'd be leaving him too.

He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to see and do things together with her, now that there was no longer anything to hold them back.

Typhon wasn't ready to say goodbye. 

"This way!" He commanded at the heavens. "There's a town nearby!"

Immediately, El adjusted her flight path: losing, instead of gaining altitude, and slowing down to better match Typhon's horse's speed. As a stranger to this world in need of guidance, she wanted to stay bound to him.

El wasn't ready to say goodbye either.

Typhon laughed, even though the road ahead had likely just gotten much more difficult for the both of them. Because in the end, what mattered most was that El was free.

And for the first time in a long time, Typhon was free too.

IX.

Eugene was the clock tower man, and those few that were aware of his meager existence invariably knew him as such.

Every day, he would ring Khadez's clock tower bell. He would ring it once in the morning, to awaken the town, and a second time in the evening, when it was time for everyone to sleep. A thankless and mundane job, to be sure, but one he nonetheless carried out with utmost diligence -- never missing a day, whether in sickness or in good health, in times of peace or times of war, even as he was approaching his twilight years.

With all his duties finished for the day, he would retire to his little room up in the clock tower.

It was his favorite time, when he'd lay in bed and begin thumbing through an interesting book he'd picked up from the market. 

Up until, yawning, he would find himself drifting off into sleep...

Thump.

Eugene bolted upright in his bed, startled by a sudden noise. A loud thud outside, like something heavy had just slammed into the clock tower.

Something larger than a bird, he figured. Something...he couldn't imagine what. 

Eugene scrambled downstairs in his nightgown, taking a candle with him. When he walked out into the lamp-lit street and cast his light around the side of the clock tower, he would unwittingly reveal a scene that was like something straight out of the fantastic yarns that cluttered his bookshelf.

A girl with great, white-feathered wings lay unconscious on the ground, in a pool of scattered down.

A dark-haired boy was crouched down on his knees, cradling her in his trembling arms.

"T-t-that girl," Eugene stuttered, dumb with disbelief. "She is...she has..."

Eugene took a step back, uncertain if this was something he wanted to get tangled up in.

"Please help us!" The boy pleaded. He wore a mask with a stitch running across the forehead, that almost looked like a scar. "She's hurt, and we need a place to spend the night!"

Eugene shook his head, unconsciously gawking. "I'm sorry, I..."

Decades of isolation had put a definitive damper on his speech, just as decades of ringing the town bell every morning had dulled his hearing.

Typhon gripped him by the hem of his nightgown, tugging at it desperately.

"We're being chased! And if my father catches us, he'll..."

Eugene made a slight sound like a whimper, his calm evening ruined.

"Quickly," he urged Typhon, looking around to be sure no one was watching. He thought he could hear hooves coming from somewhere, but the streets were empty.

Typhon carried El up the stairs after Eugene, into the gearbox as the old man called it. It was the main chamber that contained the bulk of the clock tower's internal mechanisms, where narrow walkways wove a treacherous path between the large gears. A single, tall window provided af view overlooking the town during the day, but at this hour of night it was all black.

"Watch your head around here," Eugene said. But when he looked, he realized the boy wasn't paying attention.

Typhon was laid down beside El on the walkway, watching her face intently.

His thoughts were racing.

What if she never opens her eyes again?

He wouldn't be able to go back to his father. He'd have to strike out on his own.

More importantly, how would he be able to live with himself?

Eugene, deciding it was best to give the two some privacy, moved to the ladder a few paces away that led up to his room, sighing.

Oh, to be young and in love.