177. A Terrible Rebel

“Wait!”

The stone slid back out again. “Yes?”

The news of Requbar’s impending demise had suddenly made me less keen on my hideaway holiday home. It was fine for a visit, but I wouldn’t want to be buried alive here. I wasn’t looking for that kind of long term commitment.

“How are things in Requabar? I’ve only just arrived here myself. I’m Colin, by the way.” There was a time when introducing myself to someone would have set my teeth on edge and broken me out in a cold sweat. How far had I come that I was now able to hold a perfectly normal conversation with a homicidal maniac?

“Only just arrived and already banged up in the highest security cell in the city?” He chuckled to himself. “Well, well. You must have done something pretty bad to catch their attention so quick.”

“I didn’t do anything.” I sounded a little defensive. “They think I’m somebody I’m not.” Now I sounded evasive.

“Well, whoever this other chap is, I hope he’s out there making a nuisance of himself.” He chuckled some more. For someone about to commit mass murder, he was in a very good mood. “The name’s Schneed. Baker by trade, now a full-time advocator for men’s rights.”

Even though we were separated by a wall and all I could see was his mouth, and occasionally an eye, I could sense him puffing out his chest with pride.

“Not that I’m saying women don’t deserve some rights, too. Just that we should have more than them. Only fair.”

I didn’t see how that was fair, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. I might even vote for him if he went up for election.

“So is it all women that’re the problem?”

“No, some of them are quite nice,” said Schneed very gallantly. “It’s the ones in the palace that cause all the bad feelings. They’re the ones who have to be stopped. Of course, no woman can be truly trusted, but the Queen’s the one who’s making life miserable for us. Do this, do that, nag, nag, nag. And when it’s something we want to do, oh no, that can wait. I mean, it’s only fair we should get to make some of the decisions. But no, she refuses to listen. That’s why we have to resort to extreme measures. If you push a man into a corner, he’s going to come out fighting.”

There was a blur of movement in front of the hole and some hard breathing. It was hard to tell, but I think he was shadow boxing.

“What did they put you in here for?” I asked him. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“No, no, I don’t mind. I’m what you call a freedom fighter. Or a terrorist, if you’re on the other side of it. Not a pleasant thing, hurting people to make a point, but what can you do? Can’t say I’d recommend it other than as a last resort, but when you run out of options, it’s the innocent who have to suffer.”

I couldn’t really see the logic of what he was saying, but he was so genial in the way he justified murder and mayhem, it was hard to take issue with him. He was a surprisingly jolly terrorist.

“So that’s what you’re rebelling against? The women being in charge?”

“Oh no, not just that. Well, it’s a big part of it, of course, but it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge — whoever it is, they’re bound to turn mad from the power. Mistreat the people, embezzle money from the treasury, make a few people they don’t like disappear. Who wouldn’t if they had the chance? But, you know, spread it around. Mistreat everyone equally, that’s all. Don’t just pick on one group. That kind of prejudice isn’t right, is it, Marv?”

There was a grunt from behind him that sounded like it agreed with him.

“No, it’s the whole atmosphere of tyranny and oppression. Ooh, do I not like tyranny and oppression. Ooh, I do not. Having said that, there’s a lot to thank the Queen for. Have you had time to look around Requbar? Lovely city when the flowers are in bloom.

“Yes, I saw a bit of it before they threw me in here. Very pretty.”

“Oh, come now, it’s more than pretty. I may not agree with the way Her Majesty tramples our rights and freedoms, and keeping people in line using fear and intimidation is no way to run a healthy society, but I have to admit, she does know how to make the place look nice. It’s blooming gorgeous. Haha. Not unlike the Queen herself. What a looker! I mean, obviously she’s a despicable tyrant, and we plan to put a stop to her reign of terror, goes without saying, but she does have one of those smiles that can light up a room. Such a shame it has to end this way.” A regretful sigh slipped through the hole in the wall.

I was dizzy from all the flip-flopping. It was hard to tell why he was so set on bringing the Queen’s rule to an end. He seemed like her number one fan.

“And how’s it been going?” I asked. “With all the death and destruction, I mean?” The city had looked in perfect order with not much in the way of anarchy from what I’d seen, other than one dead dog.

“That’s the thing, you see. Every time we’re on the verge of instigating an atrocity that’ll bring the city to its knees, the Queen’s Guard swoop in and arrest us all. How they always know is a complete mystery. But this time it’ll be different. We’ve got a new leader. A real visionary. He’s got us working around the clock on a plan that can’t fail. Complete annihilation, one hundred percent guaranteed. Just you wait and see.” He certainly sounded confident.

“And is just the three of you, in the rebellion? You, Marv and the leader.”

“No, no. Haha. Hundreds strong we are. She may be able to catch us before we have the chance to do any real damage — all credit to her, she’s a sharp one — but she hasn’t been able to smash the organisation like she’s been trying to. You see, we have a little secret.” His voice dropped down to a whisper. “They’ve locked us up so many times we’ve got this whole place mapped out and full of escape routes.”

I made my way closer to the wall as his voice got lower. “You’ve been here before?”

“Sure, plenty of times. Most of us have been locked up in here one time or another. And we always get out.”

This didn’t make much sense to me. “You always escape and they always put you back in here? Isn’t that a bit dumb.”

“I know, but that’s the thing about women — they may have the muscle and the fighting skills, and sure, their threshold for pain is way beyond anything we could withstand, but up here—” there was a pause which I assumed was for him to tap his head “—not the smartest. They have no idea how we do it.”

Somehow I doubted the jailers would keep putting them in the same cells if there was an easy way out. Even if they didn’t know how they were doing it, no one would keep making the same mistake over and over. Not unless they had an ulterior motive.

“Are you saying you found a way to leave your cell and make it back into the city without them ever being able to figure out how you did it?”

“That’s right.”

“And how do you do it?” I didn’t expect him to tell me, but thought I’d ask anyway.

“Well, I think I can trust you, even though you don’t have much of a beard. You’re still one of us. Here’s the thing... we spent so much time in here over the years, we slowly took the place apart. Look.”

He began removing stones from the wall one by one. They slipped out like he was taking apart a puzzle, each piece perfectly made to fit with the others. Before long there was a large hole in the wall.

“See? It’s that simple. And then we put it all back together. You wouldn’t even know it was possible. Solid as a rock.” He banged the side of the opening with his fist. Nothing moved.

I banged it on my side. It felt completely stable. “Impressive.”

He smiled at me. Now that I could see his face clearly, he looked even less like a terrorist. He had a large round face, a trim white beard and a heavy walrus moustache. There was nothing very terrifying about him.

“Of course,” he continued, “no point being able to take the walls apart if you’ve got nowhere to go, which is the other mistake the little darlings made putting us in here.” He raised his eyebrows and paused.

“Which is?” I asked, taking the bait.

“We’re so deep down, we’re right close to the rat tunnels. You go through this wall back here and you’re into a network of tunnels the likes of which, ooh, like a maze it is, couldn’t find your way out even if you had a map.”

“Then wouldn’t you just get lost in there?”

“Oh, we know it well enough to get to our base. We’ve got a super secret hiding place they’ve been trying to find for years. Never even came close.”

He seemed very open about telling me all this. I would have thought if he wanted to keep his rebel base super secret, telling a complete stranger about it probably wasn’t such a good idea.

“Take down the wall, pop through the other side, put the wall back. Gone.” He grinned at me. “It’s that easy. Ain’t that right, Marv?” He moved aside to address his buddy who was sitting against the far wall.

Which was when I realised something wasn’t quite right. Marv, for a start, was very clearly a woman.

I gave Marv a wave hello and got a brusque nod in return. No two ways about it, definitely a girl.

Schneed wasn’t a fan of women. He was willing to kill in order to defeat them. Why then, did he have one in his cell with him?

“So, you and Marv... been together long?” I asked.

“Him? Oh, he’s new. Just his luck, the day he joins up, we get nabbed.” Schneed shook his head at the poor timing.

Call me overly suspicious, but him getting caught the same day he hooked up with a new female recruit might not have been a complete coincidence. Of course, I was making assumptions without knowing the full story.

Schneed referred to Marv as a ‘he.’ There was no ambiguity about him as far as I could see, but I might not be seeing things clearly. There was only a single candle in their cell, same as mine, so the lighting wasn’t the brightest. But Marv wasn’t even slightly androgynous. He had quite pert breasts, for one — a purely scientific observation — and a very feminine face.

Which led me to the obvious conclusion: ladyboy.

Now, not everyone would have jumped to this conclusion. There could be many reasons why Schneed, enemy of womankind, would have a female partner to aid him in his terrorist activities. But one thing was undeniable. Schneed was treating Marv like he was male.

And who was I to say he wasn’t? The fantasy world was full of strange creatures. Half man, half horse. Head of an eagle, body of a lion. Maybe Marv was one of those. The fabled chick with a dick. Didn’t appear much in Lord of the Rings, but probably turns up in A Song of Ice and Fire at some point.

“Now,” said Schneed, “I’ve told you things that would be disastrous if the other side found out. Absolutely disastrous. I’m trusting you to keep all this to yourself.”

I nodded, although it wasn’t me he should have been worried about leaking information.

“We can’t have them knowing our comings and goings. You let a woman know what you’re up to, you can guarantee she’ll put a stop to it.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m just going to stay here and grow out my beard.”

“Good lad. That’s the one thing they can’t outdo us on. A man with a nice thick plumage on his chin knows he’s a man, and so does everyone else. I mean, look at Marv. You don’t grow a bushy bastard like that if you’re some girly.”

I did look at Marv. He had as smooth and hairless chin.

One of us was seeing things. It could quite easily have been me. Without meaning to, I found myself staring at Marv. ‘He’ didn’t say anything, just shifted awkwardly and avoided eye contact.

“Hey, Marv,” I called through the hole, “what’s your secret? I don’t seem to be able to grow much more than a bit of fluff.” I rubbed my chin.

“Nothing to it,” said Marv in a fake deep voice. “Just man up and push it out.”

He was doing that voice women do when they impersonate men. A bit similar to the way black comedians do white guys. You know what it’s meant to be, but at the same time, you’ve never actually heard anyone that sounds like that.

“So you got caught just after Marv joined up?” I said to Schneed.

“Aye. Terrible luck.”

Something was definitely going on here, but I thought it best to play dumb. If he thought Marv was a man with a big beard, then I’d go along with his delusion for the time being. It wasn’t really any of my business.

The simplest explanation was that Marv was a spy. Yes, I realise that was probably what I should have guessed before jumping straight to ladyboy, but I like to keep myself open to all possibilities. I’m a very open-minded person.

Marv had disguised herself somehow, in a way that obviously didn’t work on me. Magic of some kind. If women were able to walk freely among the men without being detected, it would explain how they were able to scupper the men’s plans every time. Not necessarily a bad thing.

If Marv’s objective was to prevent the city being destroyed, I’d be happy to leave her to it and stay in my cosy cell. Then again, there were dangers here, too.

“What I was wondering was, if you’re so troublesome to them, why don’t they just cut off your, you know... turn you into eunuchs?”

Schneed jerked his head back, startled. “What? Why would they do that?”

Had I gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick? Didn’t they say they had eunuchs up at the palace? If they were prepared to cut off the balls of the guys on their own side, surely they’d do at least that much to the ones opposing them.

“Wouldn’t it be easier for them?” I asked, genuinely curious. “It seems like it would be a lot simpler than putting you in a cell you always escape from.”

“No, no, no,” he insisted. “They only snip the ones who volunteer for the army. I mean, they’ll try to convince you, lie through their teeth, and for some men it is actually worth it, but as long as you don’t sign up, they’ll leave you alone.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘worth it’? Why would anyone volunteer to have their balls removed? What’s the upside?”

“Oh, there are many advantages to taking up the Queen’s colours.” He scratched at his beard. “Job security, for one thing. No more worrying about getting married and having a family. All your decisions made for you. No jealousy or needless violence, apart from when you’re ordered to kill, obviously. The perfect life for the confirmed bachelor, really. I thought about doing it myself when I was younger.”

He sounded almost sorry he hadn’t taken the plunge.

It seemed very unnatural to not value something as basic as sexual desire. I myself had always downplayed sex as not the most important thing in life, but that was mainly because I never had access to any.

Even now, I still believed obsessing about sex was retarded and just a way to control people — to sell them things, blackmail them, seduce them, trick them — but that didn’t mean I thought it would be better to get rid of it completely. And the idea someone would gladly give it away was pretty messed up.

“Don’t you think it’s possible the Queen tricked you all into thinking it’s not a bad thing? Because I can assure you, it is a bad thing, and you not freaking out about it is freaking me out.”

Schneed looked confused. “Nobody’s making you do it. Why should you care what another chap decides to do with his jumblies?”

Which was a fair point. Not my business if someone wants to make a lifestyle choice I wouldn’t want to make. As long as I wasn’t affected, live and let live. And yet...

“You got to remember,” said Schneed, “they still need us. Heh, if they went around slicing bits off without anyone’s by or leave, who’d be left to take care of their needs between the sheets, eh?” His face took on a strange leer. “They still need men to do the dirty deed.”

I hadn’t considered that side of things. There were women in charge. They had their eunuchs to fight for them. They still needed men to make babies.

“They have husbands?”

“No, not husbands. Nothing like that. They don’t like men hanging around the palace. No, they just ship in some studs every couple of months. Quite wild goings on, so I hear. Never been invited myself.”

“These studs, they’re just used for sex?”

“Milked dry and then sent home. It’s fluids they want.”

All things considered, it sounded fairly benign. Then again, I didn’t know what ‘milking’ entailed. Frankly, I didn’t want to know.

“So nobody has to become a eunuch?” I felt like it was worth confirming this detail.

“You want to, you can. You don’t want to, you don’t have to.” Schneed made it sound very reasonable. “Of course, there are some circumstances where it’s forced on someone, but those are very rare.”

“What kind of circumstances?”

“Criminals, deviants, sexual offenders, magic users. That sort of thing. Can’t say I disagree with her on those. Right, Marv?”

Marv grunted.

Magic users? I could use magic. I’d been thrown in here because they thought I was some powerful wizard.

“Why magic users?”

“It’s unnatural, isn’t it? You can’t have people walking around, meddling with dark forces. That’s just dangerous. No, I’m with Her Majesty on that one. Cut off their goolies, I say!”

“Does it happen very often? I mean, where a wizard gets his, you know, balls removed?” I didn’t even like saying it.

“Oh, not often. Last one was a street magician. Nice chap. Kids loved watching him make coins disappear. He seemed quite happy afterwards. A bit quiet, but fine otherwise.”

A shiver ran down my spine. The Queen, as far as I could tell, had it in for anyone who could do magic, even if they were just tricks.

“Was that your card?”

“Yes. You’re under arrest. Take off your trousers.”

Madness. I could do magic. Real magic. I had no wish to join the Brotherhood of the Baggy Pants.

One side wanted to relieve me of the only two friends I had left. The other side was willing to destroy an entire city to get what they wanted. It was an unforgivable act of terror that could not be allowed to happen. And the city thing didn’t sound like a good idea, either.

“Erm, this escape plan of yours, you said you had room for one more?”