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Chapter Ten
My eyes dart open, and I stare at the prison walls around me. Angelaria's skin is filmed with sweat, and Talen's hair looks a little dusty. I swallow a few mouthfuls of cool water. I don't know how long we've been trapped here, but it seems like days. The three of us are living like caged animals, using a cooking bowl for a chamber pot that's now overflowing. I'm already oblivious to the smell. Our potable water's running short, and we've rationed what little food remains in our stores.
My armor feels loose now, and I know that isn't a good sign. I never had much body fat; with it gone my muscle will be next.
Five times a day, I rap on the walls with my fist hoping that someone in the keep will hear us and help us to get out of this trap. But it's difficult to hold onto such hope when (from my perspective) it's clear we've been buried alive. Once, while my friends slept, I crept up the walls and tried clawing at the stone again using my dual cibrian wrist blades. Dust from my efforts sifted down upon my companions, and the sharp knives did little more than leave gouges in rock that for all I know could be several feet thick. I'd hoped to sway the pit back onto its pivot but nothing I try will even move it slightly, even when all three of us press on the walls near the top. It's like the corridor is now locked into place.
Angelaria wakes from her sleep a few hours later, and I offer her the last of my water. Talen shrugs off his sleepiness and lays his head on his folded arms. His stomach growls and I give him some of my food. I avoid mentioning that it comes from my ration. He chews on it quietly while staring at the stone walls around us.
Another day passes. I don't want to die here. This is all my fault. They wanted to leave and it was I that convinced them to follow me into the keep. I apologize as best as I can but it does nothing to assuage my guilt.
"Shut up, Kian," Talen says. "This isn't your fault. We could have said no."
Angelaria nods, then says with a dry voice, "I agree. What's done is done."
Despite their words, the only thoughts that occupy my mind have to do with the complete mess I've made of things.
When the first scratch comes, I think I've imagined it. Talen's sleeping with his head on my shoulder. I peer around, see nothing, yet it happens again. This time it feels like a fingernail has been drawn across the surface of my mind.
Honestly, it's not the kind of thing I can describe easily. A few minutes pass and it happens a third time. It's stronger than before and almost hurts. Angelaria's eyes jerk open and she casts them about wildly, flicking first to each of the walls and then to the floor. I touch Talen on the shoulder and rouse him as delicately as I can. Crusty-eyed, he rubs his eyes before realizing that something weird is happening.
I see a flicker at the corner of my vision, and a figure appears. It's dressed in sweeping robes of royal purple. A misshapen head crowns its humanoid body, and a writhing mass of long slick tentacles drape down in front of its torso. This creature stretches forth a hand hung in rich jewels and bands of gold and silver. A second and then a third appear; I once again feel the scratch, harsh and abrasive, and it hurls me to the floor. No matter how hard I try, I'm unable to control my legs or my arms. Talen and Angelaria look as if to cry out but two of the creatures sweep them up in their arms and disappear with them. The last grips a hold of my helmeted skull and lifts me off the floor. A swirl of light follows, and I realize I must be traveling through the stone itself.
Horror of horrors! I've never felt anything so strange and so disconcerting.
It's as if my heart leaps into the roof of my mouth. I gasp but am unable to breathe and my body feels like it's been stuffed with lead pellets. My lungs burn with sweet longing for even a single gulp of air but it never comes. But right before blackness takes me within its folds the torment ends, and my vision clears.
I'm in some underground place.
The creature tosses me like a sack of turnips onto the floor. A sharp rock bounces against my killsuit; sparks flash and that's when I see the others: the human beings who've been caged here in this land of eternal night.
When I've caught my breath again, I stand. All around me are hundreds of cages. They contain human beings...men and women...and they all face me, some with expressions that fill me with fright. Three are missing limbs and eyes, several more drool from the mouth and look dim- witted. Yet all of them no matter what their condition now cower before the purple master that stands over me. They do so even though they are protected behind bars of steel. The purple master raises himself to his full height of seven feet, and his tentacles writhe about a circular and serrated maw that resembles the jaws of a lamprey.
Where is my boyfriend? I don't spot either him or Angelaria in this strange pit. The rocky walls rise up behind the cages into darkness. The only light emanates from glowing lichen and bioluminescent moss that clings to the surface of the stone. It's so dim, that I can make out few details.
The purple master dons a box of ornate metal and clasps it about the throat. A moment later it speaks through the device; the voice is ghastly and grates on my nerves. The now familiar scratch draws itself across my mind, deeper and more invasive.
"I am the Master Kierak..." the voice box intones. "You are my slave. Do not seek to harm us with your weapons for you will fail. You will use them in the arena for your protection and survival. If you live I shall make you one of my thralls, and you will be afforded things that you desire."
I empty my utility belt of the knives and daggers I carry. I think about the poison, and don't give any indication that I possess it. But then the scratch in my mind returns and drops me to the floor, writhing and unable to move.
"This one thinks he can hide his thoughts from our psionic detection. How amusing..." the voice box intones. "Hang him up by his arms and let him feel the sting of the nettle flog."
A figure moves behind the monster that calls itself my master. It's human and wears two bands of leather that cross sinewy pectoral muscles. The human is bald and has a mouthful of misshapen teeth. With a grip like an iron vice, he clenches me tight by the back of my neck and drags me into a cage recessed within the cliff walls. I can't even fight back. Nothing in my body responds. I even drool on myself.
The strong human male fumbles with the straps of my armor and after several minutes, the breastplate comes off. He throws that and my helmet on the floor but leaves the rest of my armor in place. Naked down to the waist, he turns me around and shackles my arms and legs into iron cuffs stained with old blood. He tightens them down on my wrists and ankles with a tool; sudden pain shoots through my forearms. But with the onslaught of this pain, I realize Master Kierak has returned use of my limbs to me.
Now, however, it's too late for me to act upon this newfound freedom.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask. I jerk on the chains but no matter how my muscles bulge and strain, I only fill the pit with the clank and rattle of my struggles.
"More questions," Master Kierak says. "New humans are always difficult. You think because you build cities across the land that you are somehow its rulers. Your perceived power is an illusion. The first rule of being a slave is to know your place. You will always obey, and you will never speak unless addressed directly. You will accept these teachings as truth, or live in pain every day of your miserable life."
In the neighboring cages, the other human prisoners howl insanely. I glare at the pen to my left; a bloated head with eyes spread wide over a thick nose bridge greets me back. It's partially human, vaguely familiar, but ghastly deformed. Then it comes to me: the man is Piggy escaped from Soulwarden's destruction and now a slave like me. I wonder where the dwarf Maven is, but I see him not.
Piggy sticks his tongue out of his mouth and licks the iron bars, laughing and grinning at me.
I swallow my spit and try to get a good look at the brute behind me. Is this what the tentacled-thing calls a thrall? He slaps me on the back with rough hands and steps out of the cage to retrieve a whip made from three long strips of leather and coated with fine hairs. The howls grow even louder when he strikes; the weapon bites me across both shoulders. Almost immediately I feel welts rise; the blood inside me burns. He hits me again and again, across different portions of my back. It feels like thousands of nettles are being rubbed on my skin and try as I might, I can't get away. I close my eyes tightly, but the searing pain about my shoulders becomes a fiery inferno. Somewhere between here and there I lose consciousness. But I never scream, not even once.
I wake up to a strange voice. I feel a hand clasp my shoulder; it still burns from the angry welts. The stranger presses a pewter mug to my lips. It's filled with cool water. I douse my thirst, but the cup contains only a single mouthful and no more.
"My name's Shar," the voice says.
I look and see a man standing there. He wears the leather straps across his chest and bears a tattoo of a kirin on his right arm. He's huge, muscular, and stout of frame, outweighing me by almost two hundred pounds. I'd guess he's nearly six inches taller than I.
I try to speak but my tongue's swollen. "More water?" I manage to whisper.
He shakes his head. "Water must be earned. Only the thralls can have water when they wish." As if to emphasize this, he dips the cup in a bucket at his feet and drinks deeply, throwing his hair over his left shoulder. "The Master wants to see you."
I try moving my fingers but can't. The tightness of the manacles has cut off almost all the blood circulating to my hands.
The thrall laughs. He reaches to his belt and pulls free the tool that he previously used to tighten the bonds about my wrists. He loosens them slowly until I can slide my hands free. I fall to the floor almost instantly, pressing my face against the filthy straw and wondering if this is all a nightmare. I beg Tethyr to please let me wake up.
"Rise!" Shar commands. He pinches me by my left arm and hauls me to my feet. Eyes in the cells adjacent to mine watch on with curiosity, but the faces behind those eyes say nothing. "Don your things. The master will see you now."
Feeling returns to my arms very slowly, and I slip my killsuit back onto my back which is now covered with festering welts from the nettle flog. The cool armor comforts my tender flesh. Once I'm done, I follow the thrall out of the cell with plodding footsteps. He ascends a narrow stone staircase which eventually broadens onto an arena at the bottom of yet a still larger central pit. I glance upward to seats cloistered along the walls and am greeted by the visages of hundreds of the purple-robed masters watching a battle between a thrall wielding a sword and axe and an armored Valion knight chained to a boulder. He has no weapon but his fists. A single ray from above illuminates the death match in sparkling golden light.
So this is their sport.
I watch only briefly, see a fist fly and a leg broken when it snaps in three places. Screams from the pit tell me that the thrall has been killed. Valion knights, even weaponless, are great warriors.
I'm ushered past this spectacle to a shadowy place where the creature that caught me now sits upon a chair of purple velvet. Then Shar kicks at the backs of my knees to force me to the ground. The monster regards me with lifeless eyes and dons the voice box. "You are lean of body, and I choose you as my champion. You will fight sport today in the arena. That is your only purpose now," the voice box intones. "If you live, you will earn some of my respect, and I shall reward you. You will find my generosity to your liking. The rules are simple: you will not have any weapons. Weapons are reserved only for thralls. For this reason, you will fight without your helmet as your helmet controls your suit." As soon as he says this, Shar removes my helmet and places it on a pillow near the master.
I watch for a minute while the combat in the arena starts anew. Curiously, the purple masters exchange coins using the hollowed out shells of abalone.
"Who are you?" I ask him. "Why are you doing this?"
"More questions. I will permit it this once because you must be thick-witted. You and those we found with you are the ones that invaded the domain of the elder brain. From the tone of your voice, I sense that you expect mercy human. I shall show you the extent of my mercy so that your pathetic brain might understand and comprehend."
At his command, Shar turns and leaves, striding back down the path that we just walked only moments before. I wait on my hands and knees, not daring to get up. The creature stands, tentacles writhing. They make a hissing noise as they rub together. I note that this same noise grows all around me; it must be their way of expressing mirth.
Before too long, Shar returns with a woman I've not seen before. She looks frightened and is taken roughly by the hands and forced to sit where she is bolted to the floor by chaining her wrists to loops of steel driven into the ground for such purpose. Immediately afterward, a plank of wood is lowered over her head to rest on her shoulders. The creature places its tentacles around the frightened girl's head, and she starts to scream. Her eyes roll back into her head and her voice catches in her throat; her knuckles flare white. "No!" she cries out.
The thing, enjoying itself, slips its tentacles about her face and moved them over her nose, stifling her breathing. I hear teeth chomping through bone; blood flows in rivulets down the length of her brazen hair and flesh. The tentacles fillet her flesh. They break the girl's skull into pieces exposing the meat of the brain, all so that he can feast upon her. She lives a few moments in complete agony, dropping memories with each bite, losing control of motor functions, but the thing never deprives her of the ability to see. Not until she's completely dead. Then Kierak sits back on his cushion so that I can get a good look at what's just happened. Her skull is bloody but empty; her brain is completely gone.
He burps.
My stomach seizes up as I stifle my own urge to vomit.
"You will fight now," the voice box intones. "Yes?"
I nod. Yes. I will fight.
"Good. Perhaps you are not as stupid as I thought." Then Shar hands Master Kierak a cloth with which to wipe his circular maw.
"How is this contest scored?" I ask.
Master Kierak stares at me for a moment as if dumbfounded. "Scored? There is no score. All matches are to the death. Winning is all that matters."
I will post Chapter Eleven next week.