Jones's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Jones ran until the screams behind him thinned to echoes. The corridor forked, then forked again. He dug the old compass from his coat, but the needle hung snapped against the glass, useless. He pocketed it and picked left because left sloped up. The slope ended at a wall of broken ice. Pale blue blocks had crashed down from some vent above, sealing the passage shoulder to ceiling. He pressed a palm to it. Cold bit through his glove. No way through without hours he didn't have. He backtracked. In the next chamber he found the wreck. A rusted hauler, painted red and blue once, lay tipped against the wall, doors pried open, seats slashed. The court's hunters had been here. They had searched it and moved on, which meant they were ahead of him now, not behind. Jones crouched by the wheel well and made himself think. He turned the purple ring on his finger, the black band with its painted flowers, and used the small steady fact of it to slow his breath. The hunters had a direction. He didn't. But a searched room was a room they wouldn't search again. He climbed inside the wreck and pulled the torn seat over himself. He waited. Footsteps passed in the corridor, then faded toward the ice. When they were gone he crawled out and followed their back-trail the other way. He was still lost. But he was no longer wandering blind. He was moving against the current of people who knew the way out.