The Alyta Trilogy: Handmaids, Heroes, and Hierarchy

Alyta floats aimlessly downstream, feeling that strange force telling her to go there.  She passes another exiting stream, without light.  As she passes it, the force tells her to go there.  She must go there.  She swims back violently, combating the once calm, now forceful, stream.  Somebody doesn�t want her to go there.  She kicks with all her might and breathlessly reaches the opening.  The smaller stream is calm.  She swims towards a tiny shaft of light.  She surfaces and finds herself in a domed area of rock, black as pitch.  As her eyes adjust to the surrounding, she sees something move to one side of the dome.  She is taken aback and stares at it intently to identify the type of creature it is.  She gasps slightly as she realizes that it is a sleeping human.  She creeps closer to it, and almost trips when she sees that it is Jason.

Irregular gasping that is not his own wakes Jason up from his uneasy slumber.  With effort, he opens his eyes and sees a dark figure above him.  It is not in a fighting stance, so Jason doesn�t take the effort he barely has to defend himself in any way.  He struggles to look up again, and sees that the hair of this figure shimmers light brown from the little light in the cave.  Not believing that his hope could be true, the word �Alyta� starts to come out of his mouth, but trails off and all that can be heard is the ancient sound of dryness. 

Alyta recognizes her most hated sound in the world: the sound of something without water.  She looks over to the pool in the center that is their exit.  She senses that the water is undrinkable, on purpose, for the captive of the cave to die longing for something that they see, but isn�t really there.  She doesn�t stop for a second, but clenches her hand into a fist above Jason�s mouth and squeezes.  Water drips out, weak at first, but then strong as a rapid stream.  Jason lets his horrible thirst be quenched by the water, and after a few minutes, Alyta nurtures him back to a healthier state. 

They speak in quiet tones, every sound harsh for Jason who has been in silence for almost a day.  Jason tells of how he was kidnapped, and listens eagerly to Alyta�s tale of how an impostor is running the castle.  At the first mention of the castle, Jason sits up straight.  �The coronation!  Someone is planning to sabotage it!�  Directly after he says this, he grabs his head in agony.  �You�re not ready to just get out there and fight.  You need to rest.�  Alyta consoles him.  �No.  You�re either for me or against me, but I am going.  I must and there is no time to spare.� Jason says hastily, still holding onto his head against a hidden throbbing.  �Fine,� Alyta concedes just as hastily, �where you go, I�ll go too.  The exit is there,� she says, pointing to the vat of unclean water.

Supporting Jason by the arm, she takes him over to the water and explains the passageways.  �I don�t know how you�re going to breathe� I get the air from the water itself.�  �From the water?� He says to her back as she dives in.  He takes a gulp of air and follows her.  Do I really trust her this much?  He thinks as he follows the color of her retreating dress in the water.  Soon, though, she turns in to a smaller stream where there is light and he can take more air in.  After three of these stops, he starts complaining about how it is keeping away from his country and that he should be there to save it from a false ruler being crowned.  Alyta tells him that she has an idea and he follows her.  They don�t come up for a while, and Jason�s breath runs short.  He doesn�t see any lighted passageways in sight, and starts to worry about where this air will be coming from.  Alyta comes up to his side underwater and points to her mouth.  What can she be doing at a time like this, he wonders.  She gives up trying to tell him with her hands and presses her mouth to his.  Jason feels pure oxygen enter his lungs.  Water from her hands?  Air from her mouth?  There was definitely something weird about this girl.  But then again, he had never met an Atlantian before.  He was really glad that he had met this one.  They continue swimming, Jason getting air whenever he needs it from Alyta, and Alyta feeling content to breathe the water.  They finally get to the end of all the passageways, and emerge from the water.  They are in the middle of the city, in a fountain of the goddess Aphrodite.  Some of the nearby townspeople stop their busy activity just long enough to stare in amazement at the two bedraggled royals.

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