A Land of Slaves

Jonathon Holt knew he'd become a slaver to protect his wife and child. And he knew he'd excel at it. What he didn't know: the Pyschopath, the Wanderer, the Queen, the Paladins would disrupt his life

A Land of Slaves

Chapter 1                                The Cage

            The steady clop of his stallion and the platitudinous rotation of the wagon’s wheels left his mind adrift amongst the passing Winterpines and the Deep Mot Road and the three other slavers flanking his hind and right shoulder.  There was Uchenka, a burly man with scraggly mutton chops, slanted eyes, and the palest complexion young men of the Valley could pull off.  He looked like one of those creatures from the oldest tales, creatures who looked human enough but were darker underneath and carried that aura of cruelty about them. Some were said to have long, sharp fangs and brooding brows, such features Uchenka lacked, but he certainly kept those gelid, agile eyes that burned right through you.  All slavers had those eyes, even Jonathon. He’d told himself a thousand times, maybe more, that he was different, not savoring his profession but toiling over it each day for Kassandra and James.  As his grip tightened on the reigns, he realized just how much he already missed them.  Two days ago, he’d been in Blauvelt, capital of the Valley, having the rest of a brandy with Kassandra and reading bedtime stories to James.  Now, there was only the two prisoners in the wagon, their wrists bound with steel shackles.

            Less than a day now, then we’ll be on our way back.

            Back to Blauvelt and Slaver’s Hold, the heavily fortified castle with the rock throwers and the ballistics that shot the hulking beams at anything that looked at the place with a brown eye. Back to the musty stench of smoke that was always trailing overhead, only cancelled by the underlying scent of the dark forests around them and the fresh aroma of moss. Back to being a slaver but back to Kassandra and James.  He wanted to see the sweet, gentle curvature of Kassandra’s face, the sheepish glint in her eyes when she saw him, the warm smile of her full lips, and bask in the time that he was allowed with her and his son.  Time that felt so ephemeral and devoid of the everlasting.

            Each slaver had their own whip, entirely black and spiked at the hilt.  Below that, there was the grip, wrapped in leather strips and tied in knots on the left side in a neat row.  Mandatory for every slaver.  You always kept your whip at your side unless you were using it.  That was how you could tell slavers from the mercs, traders, and deadbeats. That was how you could tell who the true kings of the board were.  After the whip, each slaver was unique, carrying their own devices of attire and weaponry. Uchenka had his longbow and buck-skinned fringe jacket and the two knives he kept tucked in the comfort of his boots.  And then there was Boone Winthrop and Calvin Rochest at Jonathon’s hind, each in their dusters.  The pair might have had identical apparel except for Calvin’s obsession with old-world relics.  Over his duster, was a breastplate made from horizontal layers of leather and ancient (his word was alu-mi-num) plates that set on the tops of his shoulders.  His legs were coated in bracers of the same metallic material and fit snug over his knees and elbows as well.  Even his weapon was a relic.  A sword, older than the old people, before the fabled times of the machine.  Or that’s what Calvin said.  Often, when he did speak, he spoke of a time when intricate devices made from metal and what he called electricity ruled the world.  A time newer than the old gods but older still than the new.  He insisted it was true despite other slavers proclaiming him false and the high lords’ warnings of sanctioning for undue falsehood. No spreading tales about fiction, but really, it didn’t matter.  Calvin claimed the evidence was in the tattered books the old people had written, those manuscripts that survived whatever had happened.  If you just looked.  Just turned the pages.

Despite the lords’ and most common people’s opinion, Jonathon couldn’t help but think Calvin was right.  He glanced once, twice, at his companions.  Then, carefully, he slid his hand into the pouch of the knapsack strapped to his stallion.  The horse neighed as he grazed the grip of the boom stick, as if it knew of its purpose, he’d found only by chance on a retrieval to Delaran, a glacial country outside of the Valley.  It had been a special retrieval, the capture of a man by the name of Gabriel Lockeheart.  Deadly business, but all the same, the climax left him with the old-world trinket and mystified by the creations of the people before…well he really didn’t know exactly.  Before the time of Shalimar and the Slavers, that was for sure.  The boom stick itself was a combination of heavy stock etched with faded markings that evanesced as you moved up the massive barrel and intricate wiring that tunneled into the stock through tiny holes.  The round sphere at the end of the barrel shot the pellets and steadily increased its outward diameter near the same place.  It was both large and small, the length only a half foot and the width near the same when he felt it should have been slimmer.  The killing mechanism, a lever-like device at the bottom of the stock protected by a trim of some type of metal (alu-mi-num maybe), was all that kept a man’s head on his shoulder lest he wished Jonathon to pull the lever and unleash a barrage of pellets.

 He’d used it once before, in Delaran, chasing after Lockeheart.  In fact, when his companions had been disoriented by a special toxin a particular anomaly had slipped in their water skins (a result from the engrossing eyes of a hired prostitute), Jonathon skewered one of Lockeheart’s thralls when the thrall felt throwing knives would save him.  Little did he know that Jonathon had had a ranged weapon tucked away, and with his friends incapacitated, used the advantage.  That was what led to Lockeheart’s capture and what led to his eventual escape and that in itself was a different story.

 One thing was for sure.  If his companions found him in possession of such a trinket, they’d sooner kill him than sit down for a proper palaver.  Most folks believed trinkets like the boom stick derived from legend and were dangerous, others the very cause of Shalimar and the division of the countries and kingdoms.  Those who expressed those opinions were put to the whip or in worse cases, hung upon the willows or maybe a maple if they were lucky.  At least the maple wouldn’t be as depressing as the drooping sadness of willow.

But another thing was for sure.  If his companions did find it, he’d surely kill them before they blinked.  The boom stick had that power and that was why he kept it.  There would come a day when he’d need of its power again, and when that day came, he’d unleash the fires of the old people and of the old world.  In order to protect Kassandra and James, he needed to stay alive.  They’d be torn apart by the high lords if he didn’t.  He’d seen it before in a slaver named Dara.  After her neck became target practice for the wild men arrows, her son, a scrap of a lad, was reassigned.  Demoted more like, slaver’s son to slave.  His life for servitude.

He let his hand drift from the pouch, leaving the weapon behind.

            It was a slaver’s world now, not a land of books and scrolls. There were still those who valued such things, certainly not Boone and Uchenka, who found little interest in them.  Jonathon had only discovered a meager collection when they ran patrols or delivered or collected slaves from the distant outposts, towns, and cities.  The trick was finding the decrepit gates of the ruins, those that hadn’t been sealed by mounds of earth.  Even with evidence of an older race, the decision was set long ago.  No more old people, only Shalimar and the Slavers.  It was a wonder Calvin stood living and not six feet under the dirt, rotting.  Jonathon had the decency to hide such activity.

            “Put that out,” Calvin abruptly said, his eyes darting to Boone, who held rolled Forestweed, smoke emitting from it like the ashen cloak always sailing over Blauvelt, between his stained teeth. Calvin adjusted the patched spectacles on his face. Slaver’s eyes were confronting each other and that was serious business.  Most often, it ended with one’s man teeth in the mud.

            “Ye gon’ make me, Calv?” asked Boone, gripping the hilt of his machete and taking a moment to take the Forestweed from his mouth and spit, a black stain on the relatively clear road.

            Calvin smiled. “No sir, I ain’t.  But I sure like to think Uchenka’s going to get off that horse of his and knock you back whence you came.  Or maybe Mr. Holt there.  He got that dark skin, blend in with the night. Wild side to him, better watch out. Or maybe I’ll ask that wife of yours.  How is Cathy?  I noticed she has a lot of new dark blemishes on her face.  Like her that way, don’t you?”

            Uchenka kept a fixed gaze forward, as if the road might reveal something new and interesting any second, and Boone let a bark of laughter escape him.  Jonathon observed, nearly interrupted when Calvin used his last name.  Around these parts (well around anywhere nowadays) you didn’t want people knowing your last name.  Or your first, really.  Made it easier for them to track you down and stick a knife in yours and your family’s back while the crows stood watching.

            “Now Calv, ye know very well Cathy deserves wha’ she get. And ye think Mr. Uchenka gon’ get off ‘is horse ye got that all wrong.  Uchenka only gut slaves, wild men, and whatever animal he can get those big meaty hands on.  Ain’t that right, Uchenka?”

            Uchenka scoffed. “A man must be careful, lest he find these big meaty hands upon his throat.”

            Another spurt of laughter from Boone, this time more cautious with a touch of nerves. Jonathon heard the man’s gloves grinding against the machete hilt, an agitating squeaking noise.  Now was the time to step in.  He reached for his wide-brimmed hat, revealing his own sour eyes- eyes that could be gentle at times�"when he was with Kassandra and James�"and took it off gingerly and glazed over the three others.

            “Now, Mr. Rochest, what Mr. Winthrop does with his wife is his own business.  Nobody can help her but her.  That’s just the way of the Valley-,”

            “Yes sir, it is but-,”

            “Mr. Rochest, please let me finish.  Uchenka is not getting off his horse and I surely am not.  But I tell you what, Mr. Rochest, if you tell Mr. Winthrop you won’t talk about his wife I’m sure Mr. Winthrop will cease to talk about your contraptions with venom in his voice.  Ain’t that right, Mr. Winthrop?  And if everyone understands, best to just drop off our prisoners to the Cage and be on our way back to Slaver’s Hold for some well-deserved allowance.”  Jonathon gripped his whip, ready in case Boone Winthrop decided diplomacy was better suited for the wild men.  No sense in grabbing his own machete, considering even on horseback they were too far spread around the wagon for close combat.  The whip would wrap around a man’s throat and throw him off his horse.  Winthrop must have been thinking the same thing, because the lift of his shoulders as he shrugged was the only movement of his body.  After that, he was still.  No false moves.

            “I dare say ye right, sir.” He gave his pushing-it grin, slapping his suspended pants, the grind of the machete hilt gone.

            Believing the matter closed, Jonathon returned his attention to the road and was on the verge of his thoughts drifting, thinking about Kassandra and James, and watching the maple leaves plummet onto the mossy undergrowth of the forest, when the Psychopath lifted his mop of blond hair.  That was what they called him.  Psychotic Crady by some.  Just Crady to the smallest minority.

            His blond locks came to a stop, his firm, youthful face held in place by the lack of toxins and years that make a man’s face rigid and rough.  Unlike much of the common slavers, Crady didn’t have a single blemish except for the tiny scar passing over his left brow, the scar most likely born from another slaver’s drunken rage.  He was crisp and clean-shaven and no more than twenty.  His cheek bones were set high and concave, his chin pointed and nose straight. Almost a button nose, but not quite there.  The nostrils weren’t as open as Jonathon nor his skin quite so dark. Certainly darker than Uchenka, who was whiter than the snowstorms in Deleran.  Bronzed, was more like it.  Perfect, a lady of higher position and lustful beauty might remark.  Those in the highest chambers of Slaver’s Hold.  And his body, agile as Uchenka’s eyes but not quite so burly and monstrous.

            “Having trouble keeping your flock together, Mr. Preacher?  You should pray to Aetherian for guidance,” said he, letting his head slip down, perhaps registering the slave’s rags he now wore, but shooting upward again.

            “You’re not to speak.” Uchenka barked.

            “Might as well, where I’m going,” remarked Crady, casting a jeering glance at the other prisoner.  He looked long enough to let the other man see his jagged smile, enough to see the viper-green in his eyes. “You can’t do anything worse than what the Markers are gonna do to me.  Us, I mean.”  His grin widened, wolfish and flamboyant.

            Jonathon plopped his hat back on his own receding line of black, cottony hair.  Receding but still relatively youthful like the boy’s. “You as well as I know you pushed the Council too far.  Killed too many pieces of property in your punishments.”

            “Slavers, aren’t we? Part of the job.  Does not Aetherian, goddess of all slaves, command us to punish?” asked Crady, lifting his head higher, rising from his place on the derelict wagon, practically snorting the air of the forest. “Smell that air?  Delicious.”

            Uchenka spat, Calvin scoffed, and Boone looked like he was suppressing a smile.  Jonathon locked eyes with the Psychopath, his brown meeting the boy’s green.  Ashen eyes, the pair.  Same instances of coldness and cruelty, each having their own unique qualities and kinks.  Jonathon knew his like a twin brother.  You had to be cruel in this line of work.  If you didn’t show it, the other slavers would notice, and when they did, you’d surely end your life with a pickaxe in your hands, blistering with calloused hands, and toiling in the depths of the abyssal salt mines one could find themselves in.  He knew, for he had served as an overseer and relinquished his fair shares of bruises upon those who worked, especially the rebellious.  And his family?  Slaves, sold and shipped off, his wife most likely as a concubine and his son the same purpose or a working hand until he was the ripe age for hard labor.  No choice in the matter, just survival.

            “You deserve what’s coming,” Jonathon only stated.

            Crady cocked his head and then jerked it at the other prisoner.  Those viper eyes settled, measuring their prey.  He’d seen it done a thousand times on a thousand slaves over the course of five years, when he’d first met the boy, most certainly a boy then.  He’d bought his way into Slaver’s Hold with wealth that appeared from the dust of the earth, bewildering many of the senior slavers and irritating many of the mid-men.

            “We sho’ do!” exclaimed Crady, patting the bottom of his fist on the other prisoner’s shoulder, the chains rattling.  “Praise Aetherian!”

The echo his voice produced rang throughout the forest, sending a murder of crows cawing and darting from the maple and willow trees.  Jonathon didn’t like that one bit. The forest seemed to call out, groan, protest such clamor.  He felt at any moment one of the sleek branches would shoot forward, as fast as the explosive pellets that would spew from the boom stick when he chanced to fire it, which was not often considering such devices were illegal in all of the Valley’s holds.  Not so much in the wilder countries like Delaran and Westeria, where there were dainty flowers of purples (the tall tales the brothel masters and other vagrants told of man-eating plants with wicked jaws that could snapped a man’s head off rather than flowers).

No, he didn’t like it one bit.  It didn’t help that the sun hung orange in the sky, threatening to dip and fall behind the distant mountains of the Valley and cast it in deep shadow.  That’s when the wild men emerged, coming from their caves, readying for those who dwelt alone. 

Their party had veered left and stayed left as they approached a fork in the road and a tiny wooden bridge large enough for a wagon at a time with fine, intricate carvings.  The bottoms of the bridge would be slimy and green, the creek underneath decaying and sucking the life from the wood.  Jonathon held up his hand.

“We sho’ do,” echoed Crady, ignoring the wave of the hand.  Normal prisoners would have sealed their lips at the penalty of severe lashing and pain before death.  Not Crady.  “Ain’t that right suh?”  Now he spoke to the other prisoner.  “Once we get to the Markers and the Cage.  You know what them Markers do to you boy?” It didn’t stop with beating and rapping the slaves.  It only just began with mocking their unrefined speech patterns.

The other prisoner, near the same age group as Crady, started to quiver, his meatier, more muscular body (the labor boys always were big until they got bent and old) tensing.  “No suh, I don’t suh.  I jus’ know we in trouble.”  The boy carried the same bronze complexion as the Psychopath on his right, but they’d received their shades by disparate means.  Crady, in the summer, when the sun beat down on everyone, slaver and slave, whipping and screeching at those who plowed and monitored the cropland surrounding Blauvelt.  The Psychopath, a natural slaver.  The frightened boy, a natural slave, absorbing the heat as he toiled.

Jonathon snatched his whip and held it up with such ferocity, he thought he might accidentally lash the poor slave boy without reason.  It wasn’t his fault after all.  Crady was psychotic and the biggest inbreed to have walked the earth.

“Both of you, quiet.  Now.”

As he said this, the world went silent.  Only the chortle of the creek bed as water flowed through it and the light caw of the crows could be heard.  It was too quiet, too peaceful.  The world wasn’t like that. 

“Wildmen?” Boone called louder than what was comfortable.

“Pipe down.”

Uchenka dismounted, gripping his bow in hand, crouching stealthily, and prepared to knock an arrow.  His light advance was muffled, his boots not crunching leaves or making a ruckus like the other three men’s might have done.  “I’ll go check it out.  Don’t mind, do you boss?”

Jonathon nodded, gesturing a hand forward.  Unchenka’s reliability always surprised and gave him some sort of comfort when they were out of the walls of Slaver’s Hold.  Even when they were in the surrounding city of Blauvelt, Jonathon still didn’t feel as safe.  Another rationale for his swift rise in rank.  He cared about Kassandra and James, and in Blauvelt, without his constant watch, they’d be picked off just like the moribund street children haunting the streets.

“Uchenka.”

The pallid, bear-like man looked back long enough for Jonathon to say, “Be careful.”  Then he was off down the road, slowing to a crawl, to a creep, until his advance left him a few feet from the start of the bridge.  From this distance�"twenty five feet at most�"the bridge looked like it stretched five or six feet.  Too far to be accurate but it was an educated guess.  Even with the brevity of the bridge, he couldn’t help but worry about his comrade, who had halted and was now inspecting the ground, lifting the dust of the road up to his nose.  A wild creature, Uchenka.  But tame.  Another reason Jonathon had survived as long as he did.  A shame he might have to kill him one day.

“What did you find Uchenka?” called Boone, yipping his horse ahead, inching too far forward.

“Mr. Rochest-,”

That was when Uchenka lifted his bow and let the fingers holding back to the deadly spear of the bow release.  There was a loud clunk as the arrow struck the middle of the bridge and stuck.  A moment later, came a volley darts discharging from the tree branches overhead the bridge, sailing toward the wood like a band of fallen angels and stabbing into the wood like Uchenka’s arrow.

“Trip wire,” Uchenka explained. “Whoever set the trap did so with some pretty hard-to-find string.  Almost invisible.  They’re long gone now but we should proceed with caution.  This doesn’t look like the work of wild men.  Look here.”  He settled down by the darts, picking one of the metals up between his pointer finger and thumb and presenting it for all to see. “Whoever it was, knew their poisons.  They’re tipped with Cycol.  It paralyzes the body.  Useful for capture but not kill.  Very interesting.”

“Very,” replied Jonathon, drawing near the hunkered Uchenka.  The men had all but abandoned their attempt at caution; if someone were still abroad, watching from the increasing shadow of the forest, the din of the wagon wheels screeching across the dirt and Boone’s brazen calls would have alerted them a half-league back.  While examining the situation further, the loose trip wire that looked more like spider’s silk, the skillfully poisoned darts, and the eerie silence around them might have led to further revelations, Jonathon didn’t want to stick around any longer than he had to. “Uchekna.  If you say they’re long gone why are we still here?”

Uchenka nodded, understanding him perfectly clear.

Uchekna, always understanding orders, the perfect soldier for the perfect world.  You followed orders in a slaver’s world, you survived whether you were slave or slaver.  Followed until your body couldn’t handle the abuses anymore. 

“The cap’s right buck,” Boone remarked. “Onward.”  He turned to Calvin.  “Wagon.”

            Reproachful and unsteady, Calvin wheeled his horse around back toward the wagon, completed the trek, and nipped the back of the wagon horses’ hinds until they rejoined the other three men.  An uneasiness lurked in everything present, men and horses.  Even the Psychopath seemed on edge, cringing and casting sidelong glances at a patch of burnt, skeletal trees in the distance.  Soon they would pass over the bridge, drawl past the ashen wood reeking of sulfur, and finish the remaining two leagues to the Cage and unload their subversive cargo and be hauling themselves back to Blauvelt. 

            And soon, they were off again.  And the willows and maples and the ashen wood took Jonathon’s thoughts once more and all of Shalimar seemed distant and adrift, yelling softly to him from a distant, like voices in the wind on the top of a glowing sea on a full moon’s night.  Voices that couldn’t reach him and tell him to stop thinking of the night to come and the night the Psychopath truly became the Psychopath.

***

            First cometh the sound of the screams, the horrid ruptures of the still night air and of the wind, much like the voices struggling to reach Jonathon, begging him, beseeching him to wake up.  But he does not listen.  He is adrift and trapped in the memory of the lion’s den.  The den of the Psychopath.  Jonathon feels the boy is special in some way past unique and onto ethereal.  Many times he guesses Crady is more than just psychotic but beckoned and commanded by the very hand and guidance of Aetherian, goddess and mother to all slavers.  She is one of the new gods, those that had replaced the taint of the old ones�"the ones who had promised eternal glory with false prophecies and instead brought Shalimar and all its twisted obscurities.  Her exodus into the new world, the newest of those long past, has no real origin (none that can be traced at least) but certainly she did not appear from thin air.  Jonathon knows very little concerning Aetherian but what he does know comprises of back-alley street rumor and the ramblings of Crady himself.

            Therefore, it no longer fazes Jonathon to see the scene he walks into on a darkened night, a few weeks ago near the year’s end when the maple leaves were just beginning to fall and the willows of the Valley began deepening their reach for the foliage of the dampened ground of the Valley. Crady, looming over three slaves, two slender women with light bruises on their shallow but still confidingly delicate faces and the other a small boy, perhaps one of the wretches’ children.  He holds his brandished whip in one calloused hand high overhead and chants foul incantations of some sort, spouting words the fabled goddess Aetherian told him, each phrase bringing another crack of a whip, mimicking the rolling thunder outside, beyond Slaver’s Hold, beyond the large, encasing stone walls and stained glass of the merciless castle.  A motley group of observers has already assembled, mostly other slavers and a few of the high ladies of court and a high lord here and there, called by the agonizing scream of the women.  Already, the three are bloodied, fresh lacerations dripping blood down their backs.  The slave boy is transfixed in his own world, taking the crack of the whip upon his back, almost welcoming it, for he seems to know what it brought.

            Freedom.

            And Jonathon almost expressed respect for that.  Except the boy and the pair are property, purchased fairly in the markets by some soft lord or another, and used how they were deemed to.  The other boy, the one brandishing the whip, a coarse rage in his flushed features, his blond hair like the fiery whip waving up and down each time he delivered a new blow, seems in his own world too.  Slave and slaver, each recognizing their inevitable place, distasteful as it is. The sight before him and the gathering crowd, which increases at a rapid rate by each howl the woman lets, is inexplicable in mortification and perplexing in nature. One of the women is naked and crouching under a table toppled with wine and food assortments, her legs bearing the brunt of the lashings, saving her bare back from more carnage.  There is a window on the side of Crady broken and allowing the drizzle of rain accompanying the storm to settle in the chamber.  The chamber itself is circular, allowing the crowd room enough on one side to see madness ensuing.

            Crady jeers merrily and throws up his arms with such vitality Jonathon is surprised to find the force those arms possess hadn’t at least ripped the boy to ribbons.  The scrap of a slave boy is the marauder’s keen interest.  More than half the cracks of the whip savage the boy’s hide rather than the two sprawling women.  But that doesn’t keep the women from the blood-filled eyes of Crady nor the shackles of danger.  Already one of them, the fully nude and pallid, lays prostrate on the stone floors, so grief and horror-stricken she is shacking and genuinely sobbing with such veracity Jonathon thinks it’s only a matter of time before she passes from the world due to her own shock. 

            This time around, moments before Crady fully transforms into the Psychopath, he isn’t wearing the barely concealing rags of a slave.  He wears nothing but rugged combat boots and the loose drawstring pants he’d usually been seen in at this time of night.  His bare torso is covered in blue inking, slathered across the rest of his body in snake-like patterns.  There are smaller tribal marks, jagged points, arrows, and circles.  Tucked into the front of his paints, probably pressing against his manhood, lies the big bowie knife, yet another relic from the old world wherever it might have been. 

            “Come forward!” cries he, waving his arms with more effort, up and down, as if the crowd enjoys this motion and he wishes them to call and chant their gratitude at higher volumes.  The glints in some of the slaver’s sharp eyes tells Jonathon some of them do enjoy the outburst.  They are greedy, fresh lust for bloodshed an addiction hard to kick.

            As a newly-appointed officer, he can’t let this charade go on for long.  For that is what he thinks it wis.  Assumes even.  But it isn’t.  It is more serious than he thinks and escalates quicker than he expects.  Crady is under his charge and his responsibility and likewise the reason he will eventually find himself escorting the young boy to his death sentence.  He will be required to correct his mistake after the impending climax, and correcting his mistake would lead to the Cage and the Markers.

            “God-damn it Crady,” Jonathon starts, taking a step forward past the ever-growing tumult of people. “You’re off your rocker on this one.  Too far.  This punishment is coming out of your a*s.  Do you know how much allowance this is gonna cost?”  He is just beginning to raise his hands, attempting in any way to calm the beast that was coming, that was being born into the world when matters fluctuate.

            “Stay back!” screeches Crady, drawing forth his bowie knife and slashing wildly at air.  The rain makes a puddle now.  They needed to close up the broken window.  But like Crady, the rain continues to make its puddle until the floor is on the verge of flooding.  “Aetherian has commanded this punishment.  She asks for it.  She asks for worthiness and I must show her I am worthy for what is to come.  We must stay true as Slavers and dispel the wickedness that has come forth from its hole.”

            That is when Belegrand, high commander, directly under the King of Slaves, aside from the Princes, arrives, barging into the chamber with a red in his cheeks matching the red in Crady’s eyes.  The commander’s presence escalates the situation to dire but not yet exponentially dangerous.  With him here and his massive red beard and steel war hammer and steel-laded (the only other man who wore metal upon his breast in almost all of Shalimar) countenance, Jonathon grows nervous.  He thinks Commander Belegrand will bash Crady’s skull in but he simply glances at Jonathon and then back to the madmen waving a bowie knife in the center of the chamber. 

            And Jonathon goes to action.

            “Crady, what the hell are you talking about?” He takes another step forward and then another until he was five feet from the lunatic.  Crady locks eyes with him.  Up close, his inking appears to glow and light the darkness seeping in from the broken window. “You need to calm down.  Reason with me.”

            “Reason?  Reason!  My dear friend, Aetherian has called me.  She has chosen her champion, the one who will dispel what is to come.  We must continue forever, punishing and capturing her children.  Rejoice!   Are we all not supposed to be her slaves and gather more to her flock?”

            “Yes, yes, she is a good mother.”  He is not sure his agreeance is helping in anyway but he must try anything.  The crowd is silent and only the whimper of the prostrate slave lightens the deep silence.  “But…Crady…if you go around killing all her flock, she won’t have a flock.”

            “They will go to her kingdom�"to the Xemora�"to serve her.  But that is not important.  What’s important…,” His eyes dart to the three slaves.  Jonathon sees his grip on the knife tighten, the promise of death written on his contorted face.

            Jonathon raises his hand, hailing Crady’s attention.  “He-Hey, Crady.  Why don’t you put that knife down.  Those slaves are another’s property.  How about you just come with me, with Commander Belegrand to see the King.  I’m sure we can figure this out.  And you can tell him what you think is coming.”  Jonathon paused a moment, frowned.  “What is coming?”

            Crady c***s his head.  He seems to be glazing over the crowed.  He smiles.  Raises his bowie knife high in the air, his charade coming to a juicy pinnacle. 

            “Paladins.”

            No sooner does he say this does the first slave finally receive their death penalty.  Jonathon shoots forward, the blood coating the stone chamber floors, the crowd intently watching and some gasping.  He draws his fist back, and with all his strength and gathered momentum, swings and strikes Crady’s perfect face, damaging that perfect jaw.  No use.  The first punch, even with a blow that would have knocked a sane man unconscious, does little.  Instead, Crady turns quickly, bringing the butt of the knife that would have been meant for Jonathon’s own jaw down on the prostrate woman’s head.  He has to follow the blow to the floor but there is a loud crack and the woman never gets up again.  Jonathon lifts Crady, his back now turned away, by the armpits, lifts him high off his feet and brings him back.  The thrashing creature snarls like a rabid dog and brings the knife down on Jonathon’s forearm but the pain is like an afterthought.  From behind both of them, Commander Belegrand joines, assisting and commandeering one arm while Jonathon grasps the other.  Together they draw Crady away, but before they get far enough, knife still in hand, Crady brings his arm down, temporarily freeing it, and manages to unleash it.  And unleash it he does. The knife sails away like a comet.  It arches and digs into the surface of the table sheltering the last slave. It tears through completely and stabs into the woman’s forehead. 

            “Bloody-,” starts Commander Belegrand but is too focused detaining the rabid dog. 

            There is going to be hell to pay, Jonathon knows.  He thinks for sure all his allowance will be forfeit.  He is a captain and one of his team members has gone rogue.  More than rogue.  Psychotic.  Crady certainly isn’t the same.  Aetherian had seen to that.  And this talk of paladins, unheard of.  Nothing that should have concerned Slaver’s Hold.  But he can’t help but wonder.  His wonderment shatters when the last slave, the burly boy with more than a dozen lashes to his back, spasms once and then converges into automatic jerkings that are so fast he thinks the boy is bashing the backside of his skull into the stone.  Ten seconds of this aberration brings a white milky foam to the boy’s mouth.  Some of the ladies, clearly perplexed and slightly frightened now, forget all cordiality and rush by his side, attempting to hold him down and force the spasms to a halt.  But these actions seem to fuel the violent convulsions.  At first, when the convulsions do finally stop, the ladies cry out in triumph but soon realize the stillness is nothing to celebrate.

The blood is pooling then, mixing with the oncoming rain, mixing with the excited calls of the crowd and the absent sound of the women slaves’ whimpering. 

            “Aetherian guide you all!” calls Crady to the crowd as Jonathon and Belegrand drag him away, grunting from the effort.  He has that wicked smile on his pointed face as they depart and leave the horrific scene.

            And so forth comes the Psychopath, into the world of man, bringing with him the fires of ancient Hell and all of Aetherian.  Jonathon will find this out, soon or later.  In the back of his mind that truth has already taken root and festered, a thought beneath the skin that you think about but never really put to action or revelation.  But he will not find out until the business with the Cage and the Markers has concluded.  That conclusion will mark the beginning of a new era, an era that will bring not only the power of gods and goddesses but the power of the people of old and all their contraptions.

***

            He just wanted Crady dead already.  His band of four was on the verge of realizing that want, that insatiable itch that had developed right after Crady had thrown his bowie knife through a dining table and still managed to sever the life of another slave.  No man could have done that, not even Uchenka with his thick arms and seasoned body. The knife would have stuck, suppressed by the wood’s hold, even if it was thrown by the strongest man in all of Shalimar, Delaran, Wisteria, or any of the lands south, east, west, or north.  That table, much like many of the tables in the megalith castle, was crafted from the cleanest, robust, and impregnable maples and put together by the finest carpenters.  In fact any dining table in any chamber of Slaver’s Hold resembled each other in identical fashion, wide and oval-shaped with stocky legs that curved like the waves of the distant waters. 

            Impossible.  Magic and fairy creatures only dwelled in James’s story books.  And most of those didn’t tell of magic or fairy creatures.

            “Mr. Holt,” Boone called from his horse.

            Jonathon jumped, glancing sideways left and right.  He shook his head.  Still the same prisoners.  Still the same dirt and muddied road, still the same dark willow and maple forest with falling leaves and cold drafts, still the same sailing clouds in the sky, now darker and covering what was left of the setting sun.  The foliage was drowning in shadow, and in less than an hour, they’d only be able to just see beyond a few feet of the road.  The fog would settle; the creepers (tiny little roots that only unfurled at night for whatever reason) would come to trip you and clutch your legs.  The big wolves would leave their hidden dens with all the rest of night’s creatures.  The forest would come alive and the ancient willows would groan and perhaps come alive, as if they were popping out of James’s story books by the number.  Night in Shalimar was no place for day-dreaming and drifting.  He’d need to leave those thoughts behind if they were going to avoid the wild men who’d howl just like the wolves. Because when you thought they were wolves you’d hold your ground. Men can handle wolves.  The wolves would keep their distance from a party of four heavily-armed men.   Wild men would tame the wolves, strike out their savagery and ask them to howl with some false, foul language, and they themselves would become more than just wolves and you wouldn’t just deal with wolves.  You’d deal with an ambush on all sides, the wild men firing a synched volley of arrows before you knew what was happening, the wolves bounding out of the woods howling and snarling, tackling.  Ripping and tearing flesh and bone.  Bloodletting on a different scale.

            But for all the wild men were worth, they’re guerilla tactics and they’re skill, they amounted to grains of dust when it came to Blauvelt and certainly nothing when it came to Slaver’s Hold.  Arrows didn’t harm blocks of stone and certainly not the massive walls guarding the palace.

            “I told you, no last names,” hissed Jonathon. 

            “We’re almos’ there.”

            Boone pointed up the road, through the ever-increasing shadows that weren’t quite concealing the distance.  The snowcapped mountains were closer and the soggy hills just below them were a few hundred yards away.  Upon the hills, the trees turned darker and lacked the bucolic features of regular countryside. Their trunks were charred and ashen but lacking the qualities of newly burnt wood, as if a great fire had scorched the earth long ago.  No falling leaves, just barren, but they managed to produce ferns and some grass, rich and lively.  There was a section on the left-hand side that was almost barren if not for the jutting stone pillars peeking through the tops.  On the right, the hills stretched for leagues, hugging along the mountains of the Valley.  Compared to the mountains, which were miles high, the hills were a comfortable three hundred feet or so high at their highest and fifty at their lowest.

            He shook his head again, wiped the grogginess out of his eyes.  He must have been entranced for an hour or so at least.

            “Yes, seems we are.”

            “Ye alright, Johnny boy?” Boone grinned wickedly.  “Been thinkin’ bout that slim-trim wife of yers?”  John smiled at that, slipped his hands into his saddlebag and brought forth some freshly-rolled Forestweed and tossed it to Boone.  That was what held his squad together, the reward, given to each member who did their part.  It’s what kept Boone tolerable through the ten years of service Jonathon had spent with him.  The reward was an area he’d reached with everyone.  Uchenka often enjoyed praise and the first spoils of the animals he felled or the spoils involving any wooden objects, bows certainly at the top of that list.  Calvin had his relics.  And everyone lived happily ever after.  Except there was one man he couldn’t reach and he sat in the wagon, casting his shadow over the other prisoner, babbling about Aetherian.

            “I was going to trade that for something pretty but enjoy it.  Thanks for waking me-.” He ran his head along his companions and the wagon.  “Where’s Uchenka?”

            “Up ahead,” Calvin answered for Boone. The man was whittling a piece of willow wood in his hand with an intricate little relic.  The carving looked like a creature of some sort but Jonathon could hardly make out its tiny features in the failing light.  “Scouting the Cage entrance.  Making sure it stayed untampered what with that skilled wild man crawling about.  No more traps.”

            “Good.  Let’s pick up a trot.  Get this business over and done.” 

            As the two nodded and picked up their pace, Calvin ensuring the wagon horses matched the pace, the Psychopath once more began his charade.  It started casually enough, Crady tapping the knee of the other prisoner, casting his shadow, the loose incantations of Aetherian.  His lips were pressed against the prisoner’s ears, and inadvertently or by some force, the prisoner did not draw away.  He simply let Crady’s lips caress his ears and spill whatever gibberish Crady concocted spew.  Abruptly, the Pyschopath halted and shot his eyes toward Jonathon.

            “Markers.” He stated, scratching his cocked head, as if he were contemplating why the world spun instead of halted.  “What do you think they are…Johnny O’, my fine-featured friend?  My very very dark friend, with the eyes like two coal embers.  What words of wisdom do thou giveth unto me?”  He tugged at his rags, a flash of anger in his eyes, the outward emotion of claustrophobia written plainly on his face.

            They approached the entrance, a hundred yards ahead.

            “With you babbling on like that,” surmounted Calvin. “It’s a wonder we didn’t toss you in the Cage years ago.”

            “Soft, lest I speak to you.  I speaketh onto Johnny O’ and Johnny O’ speak onto me.”  He laughed then, a shrill noise echoing throughout the nearly pitch black forest.  It seemed that the man’s laugh marked the last light of the sun, drowned from Shalimar and replaced by the coming darkness.  The moon was absent in the sky and the clouds were darker than ever.

Boone reached for his whip, gave it a crack, and let it sail across Crady’s face.  The boy’s cheek bubbled with fresh blood.

“Now, Mr. Rochest, I believe Cathy wouldn’t approve of that behavior.” Johnathon held up his hand, the signal recognized by Boone.  “Now Crady, it be better if you just silenced yourself.”

“Answer my question and Aetherian will grant you that request.”

Jonathon sighed.  They reached the entrance, Uchenka delivering them all his grim expression.  He remained silent while Johnathon finished.

“I don’t know what the Markers look like.  But you’ll soon find out.”

            He gave Crady one last paused glance and then redirected his attention on the entrance and the pallid Uchenka.  It was an old world door made from sturdy, bolted steel and broken, bullet proof glass.  Part of the burnt hill drooped over the top portion of the door, covering half of an outlandish emblem in the center.  The lower half had mud splatters and the remnants of faded paint which had had its color drained long ago on the metal sides.  Now there was only the chippings, a few hundred feet of dirt overhead, and the abyssal hole the broken glass revealed.  And yet the door held.  The first reason it had to be hidden behind raked leave piles.  The piles didn’t need to be larger and taller than a giant but they needed to be large enough to cover as tall as a man could crouch.  It was no secret the wild men had visited the Cage on their own occasions (the leftover scraps of their leather attire and broken arrows told him that much) and that the road led to the entrance but the leaves kept away wandering beasts.  In fact, animals were the only parties that needed deterring.  For all their daunting attributes, the wild men veered away from the Cage as often as possible, mostly because of the Markers. The wild men feared and respected whatever lay hidden in the depths of the eerie place.  In some sense, Jonathon thought that the slavers should fear it too.  The Cage carried a musty, suffocating air, and it smelled and sounded like whatever world had created Shalimar�"a world of death and destruction. 

            “Ready to ge’ what you deserve Crady?” Boone questioned, both Crady and he exchanging their sadistic grins.

            “As ready as I’ll ever be suh!” he ejaculated, elbowing the other prisoner.

            The men set to work, dismounting their horses and pitching them two a hewn trunk, unbuckling the shackles tying the two prisoners to the wagons, and inspecting all their equipment, stowing it in the wagon and covering it with a cotton tarp, making sure to grab as much rope as they could afford.  In the meantime, Jonathon found a moment to tuck his boom stick into the pocket of his duster. The process took less than ten minutes and they were prepared to make the journey under the hill and into the depths of the Cage.

            Like always, when they were assigned to the sentencing of criminals, Boone stood watch just behind a bush or a tree a distance away from the wagon to catch any unsuspecting thieves or wild men (or at least observe what they took).  Uchenka took point, sniffing out any bear traps or trip wires, while Calvin got them paste the front gates using some sort of identification card he’d found in the ruins long ago.  And then there were Calvin’s light sticks.  Flares, he called them.  They emitted a red light and smoke, which only added to the dreariness and sense of desolation once inside.  And Jonathon…he did the heavy lifting.  Carried the ropes and other supplies, but mainly…he completed the final act.  Sentencing a man to death didn’t seem justified unless you had the nerve to carry out the sentence.  Never felt right, letting a younger man carry that burden.  It was hard enough killing a man when he wanted to kill you; it was even harder to kill a defenseless man. 

            With that thought, he found himself taking the rear, watching as Uchenka then Calvin slid into the abyss, until he himself slid in behind them, letting the dark of the night be replaced by the dark of the old world.  As he slid in, that dark seemed to hiss when Calvin lit his flare ablaze and tossed Jonathon his own.  Instantly, the shadows receded and the red smoke trailed along with the stale scent of ancient air.  Directly in front of them was some sort of closed desk area, not exactly like the ones in the brothels of Blauvelt but more refined and seemingly uptight.  Along with the seared mounds of papers scattered around the floor, they were surrounded by broken chairs and rolled-over couches and tipped over pots.  The walls had the same bleached-faded paint as the sides of the glass door, and Jonathon thought the ceiling might cave in at any moment.  The desk area rested against a wall lined with soiled graphic images, some still carrying the faces of the old people, and beyond that, the room stretch in both ways, expanding into more sections of broken chairs with burnt cushions and identical hallways with endless doors.  Or they would have been identical except, on the left side, the floor dipped and led to another abyss�"the abyss they needed to descend, a giant crater wrapped around in a confused oval cutting passage to the farthest end of the hallway.

            “Alright,” Jonathon said to his companions.  “Let’s do this.”  He turned back, called out to Boone outside, and a moment later, his two prisoners were presented, their arms and feet bound and connected by the ankle.  Crady was smiling as usual and the other prisoner had his head trained to the floor.  Clearly, he wasn’t interested in his surroundings.  “Keep your head up Boone.  Watch and listen.  Don’t fall asleep like last time.”

            Nodding, the man departed and their business resumed.  Boone dozing entered his mind instantly but he redirected his attention.  Jonathon pushed Crady forward, clutching the man’s forearm, toward the abyssal hole, past the scarred scene while Calvin handled the other prisoner. 

            “Hello Mutual Scientific Horizons,” Crady cooed.  He was looking at the big sign over the desk area like some sort of lover.  He turned to Jonathon.  Being so close, he smelled like the forest and the familiar scent slaves carried on their rags, sickness and disease.  “Feels kind of tingly being on the other side of things.  Long have I cast the slave and the unfaithful slanderer to his death.  Now it is my time.  First there will be the hole, then the password, then the other hole and the Markers.  Then my goddess Aetherian and all her infinite glory.”  

            “My dear fellow, a man is going to find big meaty hands on his throat if he does not cease speaking,” Uchenka warned and glared.  Crady took the warning with a grain of salt, talking and musing all the way to the abyss, as they clasp metal clips to keep the ropes stable, as they descended one by one, Uchenka first, followed by the first prisoner and Calvin, and finally Crady then Jonathon. 

            The descent took no more than two minutes but when they each hit the floor, the entire setting had altered.  No longer did the dreary, paint-deprived walls of the first floor haunt them but a greater apparition known to some as a basement, to others a dungeon.  Much of the room consisted of worn-out machines of every sort.  There were etched wheels pinned by huge bolts and nuts and huge cylinders coating the sides of the spherical walls, paired together by slender pipes of rusted iron.  In the center of the room, there was another abyss, guarded by a metal fence.  The largest of all the cylinders ran through the abyss upward and down, and its length could only be calculated if you knew how far up and down the ancient edifice went.  Most of the machines lacked any function or sound but there were a few still functional, humming and groaning, each on the last stretches of their artificial lives. 

            Uchenka ushered them along, circling around the giant cylinder, lightly humming (almost watching in some way), toward another tiny circular door.  Although not as expansive as the first floor (at least in the common room where they had been), everything was metal here.  The old people loved their circles and their squares and triangles.  They loved their metal and machines.  Maybe that had been the problem.  Jonathon wasn’t certain but what he did know is the place gave him the creeps.  It was too silent and solemn, too absent of emotion.  It sent more chills down his back than Commander Belegrand reprimanding his daughter.  The man certainly didn’t harm his daughter.  He loved his daughter.  Showed a love to her that he couldn’t show to James.  Tough love.

            Calvin stepped forward and inspected the thickset door.  Its peculiarity and differentiation compared to the other metal contraptions surprisingly didn’t surprise him.  Whoever made this door had it winterized, as Calvin called it.  It shone with a luster absent in its metallic companions and carried properties of a different maquillage.

            They waited.  Silence.  Stillness, as if all other life hadn’t mattered nor would ever matter.  And then…the Eye shot forward from the wall and inspected Calvin.

            “AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.  MADAM OR SIR, PRESENT VISUAL ATHENTICATION IDENTIFICATION OR SUFFER THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW.”

            The eye hovered over them, shining a bright flash of light over them.  It was just as spherical as many other contraptions, except it carried a long-tubed barrel on its bottom, a faint and ready glow inside.  A set of antennae stuck from its head like hair ears, twitching, detecting, and analyzing its newfound trespassers. Sharp fins protruded out of the sides.

            Calvin held the red identification card between his fingers, yet another instrument crafted of metal.

            “ANALYZING…IDENTIFICATION CARD ACCEPTED.  FACIAL RECOGNIZITION NOW REQUIRED.”  

            It ran its scanning ray of light across Calvin’s face.  Beeped once, twice, three times. 

            “ERROR.  FACIAL PATTERN INVALID.  INTRUDERS HAVE 30 SECONDS UNTIL THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW IS AMINISTERED.  29, 28, 27, 26-,”

            Calvin smirked.  “Override code Alpha Charlie 1976598.”

            The floating device chimed, clicked, its internal hardware registering the new information.  It buzzed, chimed again, and a familiar over joyous beeping resulted.

            “Scares the hell out of me every time you do that,” commented Uchenka.

            It spoke softer.  “Override code accepted.  Welcome Dr. Carter.  A pleasure, as always.”

            “Thank you little eye.”  Calvin swirled around, the same mysterious glint in his eye he most often carried around the old people’s machinery.  He also carried a confident gait, strolling and observing without caution, in his natural element.  “Ready?”

            Jonathon had enough time to nod before the spherical winterized door started the long process of sliding open, grinding against metal walls and gears, groaning with such exhortations you thought it was on its last leg, a fading essence passing into a void of ancient machines.  It took nearly thirty seconds, the internal gears on the walls just beyond the door clicking and unlocking and letting the bolted door shift upward clockwise until a tiny dark compartment just above engulfed it. All that remained was the hall ahead and the corridor they’d soon reach and the aching, unsettling lights that were now blinking to life.  Jonathon wasn’t exactly sure how to describe them except white.  More than just white.  Blindingly white, placed into the safety of the walls, neither bulging nor carrying the life of a warm fire nor revealing any hints of how they were lit and what kept them lit.  All he knew was the light flashed on when authorized people passed through and dimmed when those authorized people passed on, toward the next door matching the shape of the hexagonal hall.  The whole process, powered by Calvin’s electricity.  Not exactly Calvin’s.  The old people’s but he liked to think it was Calvin’s invention rather than the ghostly forgery of long-dead humans that clearly existed but were shrouded in mystery and unwarranted suspicion. 

            It was no surprise when the door leading to corridor split in half, revealing another musty, dismal place much smaller than the spherical contraption they’d left.  This space transformed into a rectangle, the far walls to the left and right jutting with what Calvin called wires, except they’d been lacerated by something, split in two.  Or maybe chewed.  Never could be too sure.  Except for the obvious.  The shapes lacked the natural ruggedness of the world above.  No shrubs or trees or even wild men.  Just a still, lifeless space filled with falling dust particles and the odor of rust.  So much was the rust contorting the air, Jonathon thought his hands were scrapping dust right off the knobs, buttons, and levers upon the tables in front of them.

            “Shall I prepare some Cypris for you, Dr. Carter?” asked the eye, humming overhead, just an inch from the ceiling.  Two stubby, stick limbs shot from its underside, three chopstick fingers at the ready.  “My scanners show a 100% decrease in Cypris shipped to this facility.  But I’d happily check our storage.”

            Another routine question.

            “Oh my dear eye,” called Crady, hailing it with both hands raised. “Bring us all the Cypris you can find.”

            Calvin ran his fingers over the flashing tables with the knobs, buttons, and levers.  “Ignore that order.  Open ground shaft 36.” 

            Instantly, the eye descended, hovering over a fallen clipboard with burnt pages.  It clasped the clipboard in its arm and tossed it aside, smacking against the wiring on the far wall.  For a moment, one of its arms retreated within its underside, then shot forward again with a tiny brush and began a fast sweeping motion, dusting the floor until the number 36 was all that was left upon the same winterized metal of a hatch door.  When this business concluded, the eye tapped the metal once, twice until some sort of number-punching device revealed itself, three by three. Numerous clicking noises began, each number unlocking some gear or piston or god knew what. 

            Jonathon watched in wonder as the screens on the table flipped on, showing graphs and charts with little red dots next to them showing one word he could decipher: COMPROMISED.  The hatch opened slowly, the gears and hinges grinding as before, the groan of the building prevalent.  Moving in such a place seemed a dreadful idea, considering the whole ceiling might tumble on top of them at any moment.

            Uchenka gave Crady a shove. 

            “In you go.”

            Crady and the other prisoner froze.  The other prisoner’s eyes were so wide with disbelief at such a sight Jonathon thought he’d sit there an eternity unraveling the mystery of the eye.  How something so heavy and made of solid metal could be forced up by one simple command.  By gears and pistons.  However, the prisoner took a step back, shaking his head back and forth.  Some things weren’t worth thinking about, no matter how tempting.

            “This can’t be happenin’.  Now suh, you know I did’n mean t’ go rebellin’ but the work was s’ hard.”  He fell to his knees, sobbing, his head lowered like some sort of worshipper.  “Take m’ back suh, I swear I do good service.  Good service.  I swear suh!”

            Uchenka presented his whip and found enough space in the small rectangular room to lash the top of the prisoner’s scraggly head and hair.  “Get up now, or I swear to-,”

            Jonathon held up a hand.  “That’s alright Uchenka.  No need to torture him.  I’ll handle this.  Got to, a job like this.  If your ordered to carry out a sentence, you carry out the sentence.  Doesn’t mean we can’t give those sentenced a moment of peace.”  He walked behind Crady, being sure to walk steadily in case Crady found some inner madness that would save him from his fate.  Wrapping his hands on the shackles, Jonathon pushed against Crady’s wrists and back.  “Sorry about this Crady.  But what you did…that wasn’t…”

            “Jonathon.”  The grin, the sureness, the nod.  “I’m going to kill you.  And your wife.  And your son.”  He turned enough so Jonathon could look into his eyes.  “Mark my word, by Aetherian’s grace.  I’m going to kill you all, starting with you wife.  Then your son.  Then you.”

            For a long half-minute, Jonathon was so perplexed and bewildered by the sureness in Crady’s voice, he couldn’t quite register what he had said.  Kill his family?  Kill him?  His son?  How would that be possible?  No one ever crawled out of the Cage.  No one ever lived to see the light of day once they crossed into the ancient building with the chiming machines playing their perfect rendition of death and coming destruction.  No one survived the Markers�"they were…were inhuman, born under the very gods the old world forged in the new.  They’ve taken worse than Crady and won. They would take him, neutralize him, and ultimately destroy him just as they had the lands prior to Shalimar, and with the passing of Crady, the world would become a little less chaotic and back to the way when things made sense, a simple slaver’s life.  Running through the motions.  Seeing Kassandra and James every day for the rest of his life and completing the necessities for the reward of security and safety.  For allowance. 

            Jonathon caught himself nodding, a savage grin coming to his own mouth.  Two could play possum.  Two could spoil the bunch of apples.  Two could-

            He shoved Crady with such force the boy went sprawling forward, diving headfirst into the blackhole that led to the Cage and the Markers.  This was what was necessary.  This is what must and would be done in all the days Jonathon had left.  Any man who would speak of his family in such a way would find the same fate waiting for them.  Everything else simply ceased to matter. Gods, masters, slaves, Shalimar, the other countries and kingdoms�"everything.

            He glanced at Uchenka.  The burly man eyed him with a strict curiosity, not pressing but certainly curious.  Calvin was tinkering with the table, the only time the rights were given to him freely, without Shalimar law bringing its wraith upon him.  

            Let Uchenka think what he would think.  Jonathon clenched his fists, blood warming his face, adrenaline coursing through his veins, his heartbeat rendering him blind to reason and control.  He eyed the other prisoner who was now crying.  Normally, he would have patted the boy on the shoulder, told him that there were gods other than Aetherian.  Other gods that honored slaves, that gave them some sort of haven from the wickedness of the world, and that if he were to just accept his death, he could dwell in that place.

            Not this time.  No, not when the Psychopath had sunk his claws into him.

            He snatched the boy by the back of his neck and scruff of his rags and shoved again.  As the boy stumbled and fell, his cry of horror sent Jonathon turning, his back a shield against what he had done.  Next came the ache in his heart, the ache he saved James and Kassandra from feeling everyday of their lives.  All he could think about was escaping, leaving this foul creation.  Back to Kassandra.  Back to James.  Back to what mattered.        

Author's Note

I'm open to all suggestions. I'm about 85 pages in this book and I believe its working out well. I've completed an entire work and I think it's time to share. With your good graces, please give me any advice, what you like and dislike, and your over all thoughts.

Reviews

[TerryDarcy-Ryan akaSh..]

Mr. Cody, I enjoyed reading this piece. You have a skill for details. I can see your characters, and their surroundings. That is the mark of a Well written story, the images it brings the reader. Thank you

Sheer Terror

[Cody Mitchell]

There may be grammatical errors. I haven't edited thoroughly.