I redid the ending of chapter 4 a bit. This is the closer-to-official version.
The indentations are weird, I know.
Chapter 4. Prisoner, in One Way or Another
Was it?
“Annie?” Jack
said, head tilted in curiosity.
“Her equal and opposite,”
said the woman in a silky, almost seductive voice. “I am Paula.”
Then she walked
over and punched him in the face.
As he recovered
from seeing stars, he reflected on her words. This must be her sister, he
thought. So Annie had told the truth as to her purposes with this visit.
(Funnily enough, so had Jack.)
Jack didn’t have
much time to take in her whole image, because a few seconds later one of the
men grabbed him roughly and tied his wrists, while another stuffed a black bag
over his head. But what he saw was such a departure from Annie that he wondered
how he recognized the face at all.
While technically
having the same face (twins, no doubt), and even technically the same skin
tone, Paula seemed darker, more exotic. She had a more atmospheric glow about
her, if that makes any sense. Oh, a different aura, that’s the word. Her hair,
black with streaks of gold, fell to her shoulders, a bit past where Annie’s
did. She wore skin-tight black military leggings and a skin-tight black
t-shirt; no male could possibly miss the curves and contours of her body. Her
face expressed an animalistic fierceness and even seductiveness that Annie,
poor thing, could never have possessed. Annie’s innocence, so childish and
sweet in her interactions with Jack, had been replaced in Paula by knowledge,
by experience, by raw power. To imagine the frequent blushing of Annie on
Paula’s face would be a silly endeavor indeed. But one thing remained the same:
Paula’s lips, like Annie’s, were the color of strawberries.
And that’s as far
as Jack got before they put the bag over his head. This move irked him, but not
because it made it harder to walk. He was just tired of the pointlessness of
it.
“Guys,” Jack said
through the bag, “I already know exactly where you’re taking me; there’s really
no need to keep it a secret. You’re smugglers, and I’m being taken to your
base, which I’ve already seen.”
Someone punched
him in the side of the head, evidently to try to shut him up. Jack almost
laughed, because he could tell the punch hurt the attacker’s hand more than it
had his head.
Idiots with balloons, that’s all they
are, Jack thought as they tied his hands behind his back.
Then another blow
came, this time from a foot, and the pain this time Jack found far more acute.
This one seemed to have been delivered by Paula.
“Shut up and get
marching,” came Paula’s voice, severe.
Jack obliged,
curious at all these things, and patient enough to wait to see how they’d turn
out. And as they marched him through the jungle, passing between big leafy
branches and itchy, irritating foliage, he tried to put the pieces together.
When he failed at that---it would really require a lot of guesswork, and he
knew that now in the story wasn’t the point when his guesses would be perfectly
correct; that would come later on---he decided to wait just a few minutes more
to show his willingness to comply with their rules, and then strike up a
conversation with Paula, to see what he could glean.
Right when he
opened his mouth to speak, however, Jack tripped spectacularly on a protruding
root, falling face first to the ground.
“That rather
hurt,” Jack remarked to the group from the jungle floor. “Good thing I have
this bag on so no dirt got in my mouth.” He was raised up roughly, but no one
said a word in response. He then directed his words at where he thought Paula
would be. “Always look at the bright side, am I right? Like Annie, the brighter
side of you. You are twins, right? Come on, answer my question.”
“To answer your
question, yes, we were crouching there for at least twenty minutes,” Paula said
in reply to the first question Jack asked in her presence.
“No, my other
question. The question I asked after that, MUCH after that. The question I
asked just now.”
“You’re wrong; it
is not always wise to ‘look on the bright side.’”
“The question
after that,” Jack said after a sigh.
“We are nothing
alike. Nothing at all. Dr. Aperture tells us we share the same genetic code,
but it’s hard to believe him, even though he’s a man of such great science.”
Jack didn’t know
who Dr. Aperture was, but frankly, he didn’t care. He took this time to
identify more differences between Annie and Paula. For instance, Jack noticed
that her voice, though it always retained the potential for silkiness, sounded
harsher, more crisp. She spoke directly, with assertiveness and not a second’s
hesitation, nothing at all like Annie’s flustered talk. Paula’s speech, it
could be said, needed no ellipses.
“So did you find
me at random or did Annie send for you?”
Jack had a lot of
questions, as there were several possible explanations. This question seemed to
entail the most useful answer. It seemed impossible to Jack that Annie going
off into the jungle last night had nothing to do with Paula showing up the next
morning.
And he was right.
“Annie sent for
me,” Paula said.
So did that make
Annie a traitor, a liar, something of the kind? Jack chose to go back further
to more carefully divine the truth.
“So you told Annie
all about this island, huh? And the smugglers? And your business here?”
Paula didn’t
answer that one.
“How much did
Annie know?” Jack said with a warmer temper. “And what the hell was she doing
on that plane if she knew how to find you, and all that crap?”
He was surprised he
hadn’t been told to shut up yet, and hadn’t had to endure the butt of a gun
cracking over his skull when he kept talking. There was never any reason for
that in the other stories; wouldn’t the armed escorts want to pass the time a
bit faster through conversation, too? And honestly, what would they have to
hide? So Jack appreciated that he was allowed to talk freely.
“Shut up,” said
one of the armed escorts, and Jack felt the butt of a gun cracking over his
skull.
“Mr. McDowell,”
said Paula, as the whole company stopped. She lifted the bag over Jack’s head
enough to expose his face. “Or Mr. Smith, as you call yourself sometimes. I’m
telling you this and I’m not telling you anything more: Annie is ridiculous and
a fool. But she is family; she is a part of fjme, so even if I hate her, I will
protect her. And believe me when I say, I’m dangerous...very dangerous.”
An odd thing to
come out of those strawberry lips.
“But ---”
“Shh shh shh,” she
said, putting two fingers on his mouth. Her fingers then traced their way down
his neck, shoulder, and arm until they reached his bicep, where they gave a
little squeeze. “You’re a handsome man, Jack McDowell,” Paula said softly,
seductively. Her hand moved back up to his cheek where she gave him the
slightest of slaps. “Don’t make me change that.”
Her eyes lingered
on him as she slowly turned back around to lead the march through the jungle.
Jack’s face remained exposed, which Paula clearly intended, for right as they
began again a very bushy branch swung up backwards, hitting him in the face.
Fair
enough, he thought, cringing as the branches scratched his face.
The jungle soon
opened up, ushering in the salty air of the sea, and Jack once more took in the
view of the smugglers’ base on the shore of a curving cove, albeit this time
from a different angle. The bright blue of the water and the whiteness of the
sand would have instilled in one a yearning for ice cream, or perhaps
smoothies, if not for the dirty browns and grays of the warehouses and shipping
bays. A very tall steel tower stood on the far side of the compound, clearly
acting as a watchtower, for on top sat a crow’s nest inhabited by several men
with guns. Several more men with guns populated the base, as well as men
without guns, just as Jack and Annie had seen before, all going to and fro,
some driving vehicles, some loading crates, some marching here or there. The
guards wore military regalia and plain white t-shirts; the workers wore rags
and white cloth wrapped around their more sensitive regions. The sun beat down on
them all, but especially on the workers, who had less covering and consequently
much darker skin. Were they natives or imported from elsewhere?
“Postcolonialism,
eat your heart out,” Jack murmured under his breath.
A few dormant
ships floated at the docks in the cove, a couple being loaded up with large
steel cargo boxes via two tall yellow cranes. In the far, far background the
giraffe-shaped mainland continued to expose its long, slender neck to the
curved blade peninsula of Rainswept Isle.
The railroad
bridge that connected the island to the mainland crossed through the base and
then sped into the jungle. Jack remembered from his bird’s-eye-view in the
seaplane that the railway came back out of the jungle roughly on the same side
of the isle but several miles to the east, implying that somewhere in the
jungle it pulled a very wide u-turn. Jack thought three things about this: one,
that it would be rather fun to ride a train through a jungle; two, he wondered
who on earth had built such a thing and why; and three, the train seemed to be
a sure way of escaping this place.
Jack had spotted a
few different ways off the island: by train, by ship; or by sea, by the latter
of which is meant swimming. But given his dearth of swimming-related skills,
this last one wasn’t much of an option. Recall his tortoise-like fall out of the
Ad Nihilum the other day, and his
limited knowledge of strokes. Hell, he didn’t even know if “strokes” was the
right word for them. Methods? Techniques? Laws?
And by ship? Well,
that might get him off the island, but it might just take him to another one afterward.
He would have to find out where the given ship was going before committing to
the lengthy process of sneaking aboard, staying hidden throughout the journey,
and, once at the destination, escaping without anyone knowing. Elephantine
chances of death at every step of the way.
And as for the
train, while it was his most plausible option, he didn’t know its schedule, nor
where it went on the island besides around and back again. There could be
dangers in the route he could only guess at now.
So, no perfect
options at this point in the story; the gods had denied him an easy escape. But
this was all right. He felt sure he would be able to figure it out later, and
he had someone to meet with first, anyway.
And remarkably,
getting caught and being safely led right into the middle of it all was...well,
it wasn’t planned, but it did seem
rather fortuitous to Jack, as this compound was his twofold destination;
firstly because of his personal reason for being here, and secondly because
here’s where all the villains were. That’s why he didn’t once try to escape or
argue his way out of the whole being-captured-and-marched-at-gunpoint thing. He
would submit cheerfully to the gods for now. (Notice how “for now” is there,
right there at the end of that sentence. That’s the point of that sentence: he
would submit cheerfully for now. Are
we on the same page? I think we are. “For now,” you might reply.)
And, confirming
these feelings, a large sign across the top of the tallest warehouse read Golbez Industries. Jack smiled at seeing
this, nodded once, and said, “Hm” in a satisfied way. Evidently it meant
something to him. So even though he was smelly, scratchy, achy, breaky, and all
else one would be after going through all he had gone through in the last 24
hours, he was happy.
They led him down
a sandy switchback path and into the depths of the smuggling operation. The
place was less a small covert smuggling operation and more a full-fledged
high-functioning business, almost a miniature city. It lacked a clearly-drawn
residential section, but the several shelters they walked by — little shaded
areas where guards sat on benches and refreshed themselves via drinks and
snacks served by slave waiters — impressed Jack, and he enviously longed for a
glass of pink liquid he saw in the hand of one guard. Though unsure if it were
a smoothie, strawberry milk, or pepto-bismol, it looked amazing to Jack’s
thirsty, hungry eyes, and his stomach growled.
But the guards
deserved their breaks. All that guarding they were doing took a lot of out of
them. Having to keep the slaves in line and hold their guns threateningly and
make small talk to each other...a guard’s work is never done! Until he is
killed, of course. The fate of all such henchfellows....
More to the point,
Paula led the group through the compound, down corridors of chain-link fencing
into a receiving bay where workers loaded up vehicles that looked like baggage
transports from airports. Managing guards directed the cargo to the warehouse
each shipment belonged in. As they passed down one side of a warehouse, Jack
glanced upwards to find a conveyor belt system that wrapped around, and
wondered where the belt led to. Probably to the train station, he determined.
So where did that train go to, anyway?
They found
themselves in the midst of a large, surprisingly well-focused group of guards
and workers. (It was as if they actually believed in the work they were doing!)
It took several a few shouts for Paula to get the attention she so dearly
deserved.
“Hey! Listen to
me! Everyone, shut the hell up, I have something to say!” she barked. She
pushed Jack out in the center of the group. “Take a good look at this face,
lads! You’re liable to be chasing and shooting at him one of these days, so
note some of his characteristics. You’ll see in looking at him that visually,
he is a perfect specimen of the male sex. Notice the effortless, windswept hair
that falls just so over his forehead. His high cheekbones and his gorgeous
eyes. See the stubble on his face that won’t ever grow any longer. And remember
his jacket. That’s his most prominent marking. You see anyone in a similar
jacket out there in your patrols, you shoot to kill. But don’t aim for his
face. We want to keep that much intact.”
Then she smiled
her seductive smile and winked at Jack. After a moment of another lingering
stare (at which Jack frowned), she again barked at the gathered guards, this
time to get back to work, and returned to leading Jack and the escort guards
through the base.
After passing
around the corner of a twenty-foot chain link fence they came to a stretch of
empty white beach. Jack almost wanted to play in it, frolick in the surf, but
that wouldn’t be very heroic of him. Which, of course, made him want to play in
it all the more.
Ahead of them,
across the vacant shore, part of the beach rose up into a cliff, and the other
part curled around it, out of view. On top of this cliff, and accessible via a
green grassy hill, stood an expansive villa, built partly on the cliff
overlooking the sea. There seemed to be a whole separate compound for this
villa, for it was connected with other auxiliary buildings that extended behind
it into the depths of the jungle.
A handrail lined
the cliff’s edge, and Jack eyed an old man with a bushy white mustache and
matching eyebrows leaning against it on his elbows. A huge revolver hung
loosely in his hand as he casually surveyed the sight below. Jack wondered if
that was the man he was looking for.
From around the
curving cliffside, right at its base, came a tan-colored open top jeep, driving
down what could hardly be called a “road,” but rather a pathway that looked
slightly discolored compared to the ground around it. Paula ran out from the
group to flag it down, shouting what sounded like “Golbez, Golbez.” The jeep
stopped, but not until it and Paula were too far away for their voices to be
heard. Jack did not get a great look at the men in the jeep, but enough to make
out a bulky and impossibly huge-looking man in the driver’s seat, and an older,
fatter one with tan-colored skin, round glasses, and a white lion’s mane of a
beard around his chin sitting shotgun. The glasses reflected the sun, making it
impossible to see his eyes. It was this one that captured Jack’s interest the
most. Once again he whispered “Hm” to himself, but this time with a more
contemplative inflection. And for some reason, Benny Hill music was playing in
his head.
As Paula
approached, the heavy man in shotgun stood up in the jeep and made some
gestures. He looked angry. When they were done speaking, the jeep drove off and
Paula jogged back to the group.
Jack opened his mouth to say something (he wasn’t sure what, yet) and
Paula accordingly socked him in the jaw. He stumbled back, and when Paula saw
that he was still conscious, groaned, and tried a second time.
“Must have missed
the right spot,” she muttered as she cocked back and threw her small but
powerful fist at his chin again. This time it had the intended effect: Jack was
out cold.
Jack woke up...in
a prison cell!
Not much of a prison
cell, though. A pretty typical one, about ten by ten feet, and undoubtedly
underground, as there were no windows, which might not have been a sure
indicator, but Jack decided that the cell felt very undergroundy anyway, and he
was right. Very little light, cramped, hard
stone floor and adobe-like walls on three sides. The fourth side was
made up of iron bars, as prisons often go. Between three proverbial hard places
and a fourth, different kind of hard place. (Iron bars aren’t terribly
proverbial, but they are still very hard. Have you ever been hit by one? The
argument gets complicated when we come to the definition of “place.”)
In any case, Jack
found it really quite an uncomfortable place to wake up from unconsciousness
in. Bits of straw were strewn here and there, probably more for dramatic effect
than any pragmatic reason. (Primitive prison cells generally have straw in
them, for whatever reason.) He huddled in a corner attempting to get over the
pounding pain in his head. He’d been hit there a lot recently, and it was just
now catching up to his brain.
At first he tried
to do this by thinking through his situation, guessing what was going on with
the mystery of Annie. This, however, literally made his head hurt. All the
questions hurtling at his brain, received and amplified in the pulsating
throbs, pushed out his capability to reason, and even, to a certain extent,
care.
But he knew he
must. He was trapped here until he figured...something out. Annie, an
investigative reporter investigating a tropical island her assassin twin sister
had tipped her off to as being filled with smugglers, criminals, murderers,
plunderers, thieves, really incompetent guards, the like. The killing of the
hero, the passing of the torch, the crashing of a plane. Then of course Hilti,
the New Zealander on the plane, the onetime pilot, then murderer, then
paratrooper...what was that all about? Hilti had (rather tropishly) mentioned a
map...
A map Jack refused
to look for, or care about. He had come here for personal reasons, not to find
treasure or free an enslaved people or stop a smuggling operation. He had
officially decided he didn’t care about any of those things, and refused
several offers he had received from rich investors and prestigious collectors
of antiquities to go off on silly adventures. He was here for one reason only.
A reason he had thought those gods of pulp fiction would respect, and wouldn’t
be able to twist into an adventure.
He really should
have thought about it a little more. Heading to a business located on an
obscure, secret, tropical island? He sighed, very angry at himself.
Then he frowned.
He had lived
through these kinds of situations time and time again, had revealed mysteries,
answered riddles, and more than anything else, solved puzzles left by ancient
peoples protecting treasure that only the right one could discover. Given all
this, Jack would have thought he’d be tired of more questions to answer. But
Annie, blasted Annie....
Probably shouldn’t have been so hard on her,
he thought. But I had to be. I had to crush her crush so I wouldn’t get bound
up again. So I could be free.
And
look where I am now.
Ah,
well, that’s the punishment of the gods for my rebellion. What an ironic
punishment. Take away my liberty to move around because I didn’t make out with
a girl I’d just met earlier in the day. But of course, all my previous romances
never started that early, so why should this one have?
Oh yes, he had
previous romances. Either they died tragically in his arms, or somehow
disappeared within a few days of the adventure ending, of getting back to the
States. In dealing with Annie later on, he supposed he could assuage his guilt
by explaining to her the possibility of the former fate: he wouldn’t let
himself fall in love with her to protect her, so that she wouldn’t die. There
would be a significant chance of her dying if they gave in to romantic
impulses, he could tell her. Of course, that might make her fall in love with
him even more. Hmm...
Her tearful face,
lit by the glow of the fire, surfaced in his mind, joining with the throbs
already there to create guilt, a sharp guilt that could not be disassociated
from the physical pain.
It annoyed him.
They’d better not keep me in here for long,
he thought.
Then he realized
they’d probably be keeping him in here as long as it took for him to reach a
certain conclusion, some sort of epiphany. If he refused to think about it,
he’d be damned to this cell until he exerted effort. A perfect example of how
oddly the passage of time worked in Jack’s life. And how little choice he had
in his day-to-day life. (And understand, this was indeed his day-to-day life.)
So to get out,
Jack had to make some kind of discovery or realization. He wasn’t sure whether
he needed a grand one or just a little moment of remembrance, something to
spark a plan in his mind of how to get away from the smuggling base to freedom
and safety. A plan that would inevitably go wrong, forcing him to improvise....
The problem was,
he didn’t want to get out of the smuggling base. He needed to be here to
accomplish his personal mission. But how to gain a conference with those
persons whom he needed to meet? Would the god be okay with that? Could they
compromise, and combine his own purposes with theirs?
What was it they
wanted of him?
At that moment, a
light switched on.
Followed by
several others, a series of dirty bulbs hanging from the ceiling that
illuminated the rest of the prison, which had escaped Jack’s attention before. The
light hanging directly in front of his cell flickered on and off, and emitted
an eerie zapping sound in parallel.
Then, from his
spot on the cell floor, Jack heard other sounds. Creak of a door, leather shoes
stepping down steel stairs, slam of a door, more stairs. The switch for the
lights must have been outside the jail.
And here came the
switcher, creaker, stepper now:
A brown-skinned Indian
man, wearing only a small red vest over a fit tattooed body and dark parachute
pants. Long black hair in a ponytail trailed down his back. At first Jack
didn’t know if by “Indian” he meant actually from India or a Native American,
but it soon became apparent that he meant the latter. Still, the ethnicity
seemed to be mixed to some degree. A mixture of what, Jack wasn’t sure. He
stood up to meet him at the iron bars.
The Indian man
spoke in a calm, demure voice, never varying in tone or volume.
“I can see who you are,” he said. “You are a
prisoner. A condemned soul.”
“Perceptive of
you,” Jack spat. He wasn’t sure if he meant it sarcastically or seriously. He
also wasn’t sure why he spat. Bitterness seemed to fit at the moment, he supposed.
“I can set you free,” said the Indian.
“In which way do you mean?”
The Indian man
smiled a very wide smile that could have meant either he was exceedingly
cheerful or exceedingly amused or exceedingly evil. Perhaps exceeding all
three.
“My name is Vanasmas. I am here to investigate
who you are,” said the Indian.
The flickering bulb just above his head cast down varying judgments of
light. Sometimes in the dark, sometimes in the light. It confused Jack.
“I’m investigating too,” Jack said, glowering
and turning away. “And so…so was Annie…”
“Who?”
Jack looked at
Vanasmas sharply. Annie…an investigative reporter…investigating him... that was
the first realization. The second was that this man, obviously having some
authority, did not know the name Annie. And yet Paula had supposedly found Jack
because Annie had found her, meaning Annie was around here somewhere, but
maybe... hiding?
“Nothing,” Jack said. “Vanasmas, you said your
name was? What nationality is that?”
The Indian ignored
his question and returned fire.
“You say your name is Jack MacDowell. Are you
sure that’s your real name?”
“Pretty sure.”
“You didn’t steal it from anyone else?”
“I’m not a thief.”
“Your real name is not Smith? Ruggles Smith?
The name you had on your plane ticket?”
“My name can be whatever you want it to be.
But wait, how do you have the plane ticket? How do you know what name...”
“We investigate all those who come to this
island, my friend.”
Jack started to think about that, but Vanasmas pressed on, somehow
interrupting his thoughts with his words. (Words can be very powerful.)
“Now, if you are
being completely honest with me when you say your name is Jack MacDowell…“
“Oh, I hear it now. No, my name isn’t Jack
MacDowell.”
“Oh?”
“No, it’s Jack McDowell.”
“That does make a difference,” said Vanasmas,
calmly. “But not entirely.”
“I’m here to see
Golbez,” Jack said boldly.
“Oh?” said
Vanasmas, looking only mildly surprised. “I still must find out who you are,
Jack McDowell. It is very much important to me. But I do believe I can see much
already. I can see the prisoner in your eyes. It is so very sad. I see
bitterness. I see entrapment. So very much anger. At the spirits, no less. My
friend, one should never have so much negative energy directed at the great
spirits that compose our life. One must live in harmony, in balance. There is
so very much good to seek after. Meditation can truly help you in that search.
Here, I will show you the spirits I have applied to my own temple.”
He lifted his left
arm and flexed. He pointed to an animal on his bicep. In the flickering light
it was hard to discern its exact shape. No matter; Vanasmas proceeded to
explain.
“This is Burro Bill. He is the donkey of
donkeys. He is also my closest friend.”
Vanasmas opened
his vest up and exposed a large image of an eagle with a fish in its claws,
soaring up from the surface of a lake.
“This is Swiftfast. I call him that because is
so very fast.”
Then on his right
arm, a monstrous, coiling snake, wrapped around his bicep.
“This is Monty. He is a Python. Sometimes he
threatens to swallow Burro Bill whole. It is at these times I find meditation
most effective. It calms the spirits, replacing their anger with the peace of a
waterfall.”
“Aren’t waterfalls noisy and violent?”
At this Vanasmas
narrowed his eyes on Jack, and did not say anything for a full ten seconds.
Then, very slowly, he raised up his arm and, without looking, reached up to the
flickering bulb. He took it in his hand….then crushed it with a single squeeze.
Darkness and quite
a lot of pain were the immediate results. “Ow!” Vanasmas exclaimed under his
breath, wincing as his hand was sliced by the shards of the broken bulb. “Ow ow
ow ow ow.” He took a few deep breaths as he shook the shards from his hand and
tried to regain his former composure.
Jack stared incredulously, nearly to the point where he would raise an
eyebrow.
“Sometimes balance
must be achieved by violence,” Vanasmas said, trying to not react to the pain.
“I know who you really are, my friend, my brother. I know what you’re here to
do. And so the gods must be appeased, and the opposing spirits extinguished.
Therefore, I am going to set you free.”
“How are you going
to do that?”
“By kilting you.
No, darn it,” he cursed under his breath. “I mean, by killing you.”
“How?”
“Shooting you.”
“Won’t work,” said
Jack. “Why, anyway?”
“You’re here to
stop me, are you not?”
“I don’t even know
what you’re doing.”
“Oh, are we not at
that point yet? Apologies, apologies, my friend, my spirit brother. I extend my
hand in temporary unsettling friendship. But I do not think I will allow you to
meet Golbez.”
The incredulity
reached its necessary threshold: in the darkness, Jack raised an eyebrow. No,
he raised both eyebrows. Who the heck
was this guy? Like he was going to prevent Jack from seeing Golbez!
Vanasmas walked
away from the cell and started up the out-of-sight stairs. Jack heard the
steel-stair-stepping stop, the unseen door creak open, and Vanasmas’s demure
voice speak.
“On second
thought, I should probably just have you killed. It would be good to get it
over with quickly, you know.”
“Then you’d better
kill me now yourself, and not wait for it,” Jack called after him as the door
then slammed shut. With the door went the rest of the lights. Jack rolled his
eyes in the darkness, sat down against the adobe wall, and sighed. Enemies
would be here soon. Jack idly wondered how his escape would play out.
Then, feeling
lonely, he sung “Deep River” to himself. The prison had tremendous acoustics.
I liked the element of mystery that Vanasmas adds to the story. In general, I've liked the writing in this story best when it has a nice mix of characters interacting and humor.
ReplyDeleteCrap. I commented on the wrong version of the chapter. Figures. Since this is just a revised version, most of my previous comments apply to this chapter as well. In regards to the differences and the effect they had, I think they made a few things clearer like what Vanasmas intends for Jack and who is telling the story (less choppy than before). Oh, since you via Jack make a big deal about the difference between "island" and "isle" later in the book, maybe it should be consistent throughout? You may have reasons for having a variation here as compared to later, but I'm not sure why. Consider sticking with the "island" fixed to "isle" you use later. Other than that, I thought the revisions helped clear up my confusion. Nice work.
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