The Pass Phrase: Chapter 2

Little was the last to arrive. They had been arriving before her, staggering arrivals in order to slip unnoticed

She saw the baby’s mother immediately, a tired-eyed woman bouncing it on her shoulder. Little tapped the older woman and held out the now-dried herb. “Give this,” she murmured, indicating the baby. “It’ll keep her calm.”

The mother opened her mouth as if to question and then closed it just as quickly. That was the rule. The walkers weren’t customers. They had to do exactly as the guide told them to, or she was going to leave them to fend for themselves, for however many minutes they could manage to survive. She didn’t have to risk her life for people who wouldn’t follow her safety instructions.

Little surveyed the crowded room and counted twice to be sure. An elderly couple, the mother and babe, two middle aged men, a tall boy with the beginning of a beard, and a girl about Little’s own age, 16 or so. A whole family, she had to guess.

She indicated the tunnel with her head, checked for comprehension and agreement, and then went in first.

It was very slow going. The space was narrow and not tall enough for even Little to stand up straight. They probably only walked a mile, dipping underneath the wall and then climbing up into the dank forest. When they emerged into the undergrowth, there was almost no light visible through the trees. It was probably not yet 10 am, but this place was always dark. Little counted her charges as they came out and then checked the concealment on the exit. It was stable. As it closed, she could see the moment that her charges forgot where they had exited. They looked around with confused frowns, obviously disoriented.

They couldn’t make their way back without her, no matter what. They couldn’t get to the sanctuary without her, either. For them, it was success or death.

Little breathed in the forest air and listened intently. She didn’t smell the rank death that accompanied outright danger. But she also didn’t hear the normal sounds of the forest.

Something was relatively close.

‘We need to move quickly.’

She tapped on the two adult men and indicated the elderly couple that had to be their parents. She mimed lifting. The old man made an appalled expression and came very close to protesting before his wife tugged on his hand urgently.

‘Ha,’ she thought uncharitably. ‘Not used to taking orders from a girl, I bet.’

With the slowest members of the party lifted, she checked the baby. It did seem drowsy. She hoped it stayed that way. Her nerves were tense as she lead the group at a fast clip, not bothering to walk as silently as she could. There was no point when the people following her didn’t even know how to keep from standing on sticks that would break or rustling dried leaves underfoot.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she went on. She didn’t see any direct signs of a monster, she didn’t have evidence they were being tracked, but something just didn’t feel right. She looked into the trees, the bushes, and underfoot. She caught glimpses of yellow and white below the leaves.

Ah.

Little held up a hand to stop the group. Carefully, she ushered them back a clearing, avoiding the den she had been about to lead them into. There were too many animal bones under the leaves. Whatever was nearby was lazy and hungry. It might den there for a while. She made a mental note, adjusting her internal map of the safest paths through the ward limit until the hidden entrances.

After that redirection, she reached the day’s designated entrance without complications. She opened it and made eye contact with Loud, who was on the other side of the door today. Her friend and recruiter gave Little a fierce smile.

Little grinned back, victorious. 4 more. Just 4 more trips. Loud had already paid her debt, and Little would soon have that success as well.

When the family was safely inside, Little closed the entrance. She looked up to the sky, trying to judge how long that had taken. Longer than ideal, not as long as it could have been. She ran back to her entrance into the city, loping silently and covering ground at a pace only an experienced guide could hope to. She knew this path well, knew many variations of it. There were multiple portals, which she could use if the planned one was too risky that day. She could step on only stones because she knew exactly where they were, making nearly no sound and dislodging nothing to make extra noise.

She slipped inside and quickly returned in the tunnel. She made sure there was no dirt or leaves on her dress or hair before she stepped back into the servant’s hall in the church. She went and washed some dishes. She prayed again. She went out into the street and realized that if she didn’t hurry she would miss her chance to eat before beginning work for the day.

The next trip, two weeks later, was much less pleasant. Little delivered only two of her 6 walkers to the door. She had managed to avoid most of the blood, but she had to scrub her sleeve well in the church’s kitchen before braving the trip home. It was very hard to conceal the limp she had. Her ankle was burning with pain, swollen and angry. She wanted nothing more than to sit down but she instead tried her best to attend on the other leg as much as possible. 3. She only had 3 more trips, but she had to postpone and let other guides take chances that she wanted while she healed. The next message that Loud passed to her came 3 weeks later, and it wasn’t a proper guide job. She was supposed to take a turn on the inside.

That was less risk and less reward. It was some coin that she could access once she managed to move into the sanctuary, though, and she’d be much better off with a significant nest egg waiting for her after the move.

Little traveled the forest silently and slipped into the sanctuary without any issue. She took up a post at the entrance. It was long and dull, despite only lasting a few hours. She let in a wide-eyed family. She nodded at the tired-looking guide who dropped off a group of children, and gestured them on to the person who would help them get where their parents had arranged for them to be.

Privately, Little grimaced. She hated those trips. It wasn’t that the children were particularly bad walkers. It was the knowledge that when their disappearance was noticed, the parents were probably going to wind up arrested and questioned.

The city definitely knew that people were being smuggled out, and the authorities very much wanted to know how. The parents didn’t know how it was done or by whom, of course. That wouldn’t keep them safe. They almost certainly wouldn’t be joining their children.

The last group of the day was late. Little shifted her weight from one foot to the other, unsettled. She knew this guide, she knew that the older woman was good at the job. It felt very wrong and ominous to feel the minutes stretch out.

When purple smoke began to swirl in the entrance gate, the relief was palpable. Little straightened her spine, ready to slam the entrance shut again if there was a sign of trouble. The clients filed through, moving quickly. Little glanced at their faces, noticing how pale and frightened they were. That didn’t mean much.

The grim expression on Red’s face, however, did set Little further on edge. She glanced behind and then stepped through the gate. Little blinked and let her pass.

That wasn’t the usual policy. It meant that Red thought the way she’d came was too dangerous to go back by.

Little raised her hand to close the portal- and stuttered on the words. A horrible pale face was on the other side, upside down.

She’d seen that one before. She’d seen that monster. That was the guide-killer of her nightmares.

Little grabbed at Red’s sleeve and shoved her back to see the danger, switching her tactics. It was harder to force the door shut without the pass phrase but she couldn’t let that thing hear it. Screams rang out, she was moving on a practiced reflex, but even as Little did her duty she was transfixed by the monster only feet away. It was making direct eye contact with her, yellow eyes intent. As she closed the portal it smiled at her, showing white teeth with fabric caught in between two fangs. It didn’t even try to come in.

The door was shut, they were safe. She heard conversation and panicked crying around her, but Little stood stock-still.

That thing had been intelligent. Intelligent like a person, which it was not supposed to be. She didn’t know how she knew but she felt in her bones that something was deeply wrong.

“It didn’t hear, did it?” She didn’t know who asked, but she heard Red fiercely deny it. And then Red paused and backtracked on her certainty. Because if the thing had been close enough to stare into the door, it had been close without her perceiving it.

She realized what exactly made her so certain that the monster was intelligent. Concealing itself from Red was no small feat, even though she had clearly felt scrutiny and lead her clients on a long path. If it was merely a hungry beast, it would have tried to push its way into the sanctuary. Little and Red together might be able to kill it. Might. But there was a very good chance that anything that got inside would eat its fill, kill the gate guardian, and be able to slip back outside before anyone strong enough could race over to fight it.

It hadn’t even tried to come inside, but it hadn’t been afraid. It had gotten what it wanted, and what it wanted was information. What information that was exactly… Little couldn’t guess.

Little was nearly late back to lunch because it took time to fetch the mage who could change the pass words. She memorized the new sequence with a sinking feeling, wondering if anyone would be caught in the forest with the old password before the information could reach them.

She wondered if that would happen to her one day.

...probably not, she decided, in her inner world again as she scrubbed pans. She only had 3 more trips and then she was done forever. Odds were very good for her.