III. The Dungeons of Castle Vael

Lade frowned as Jor murmured to himself, a mix of humming and singing.  Lade winced. Jor was a terrible singer.

            “Hm-mm...  moon’s gleaming... Hmmm-mmm hmm-mmm-mmmm.... Mmmmm...  a maiden fair.... Hmm-mm mmmmm-mmmm... the ruins of Xith Xanan…”

Chained as they were in a dungeon, Lade was not pleased with Jor’s choice of music. The master of Xith Xanan had been the Dark Magus El’Nafis.  A name used to scare children at night. Shite, the name still scared Lade. El’Nafis had presided over the Tower Tehak, Archmagus of the Tower of Secrets, for much of the last two centuries before he mysteriously disappeared. It was a dark time for all the Sheltered Lands.  Still, he often left the Tower to it’s own devices: he preferred to languish in the privacy of his estate, the Keep of Xith Xanan. The things he did there were horrifying.

“Couldn’t you have picked a happier song?” Lade asked uncomfortably. “Maybe one about valiant knights saving princesses?”

            “Shush.  You’re ruining my song,” Jor replied.

            “For the love of the gods!” Tyril, the eldest of the three youthful cellmates, did not hide his exasperation. “Would you both shut up?”

            Lade eyed his rusted chains with somber dissatisfaction. The blood and sweat of countless men left a coating that both repulsed and relieved him.  Well-worn manacles were somehow softer than bare metal would be.  He tried not to think of what had happened to the manacle’s previous occupants.

He looked around their dimly lit prison: little more than a series of bars separated the prisoners from each other, like animals in a kennel. A walkway ran between the cells to a wooden door. The door, like the walls, the floors, and the dungeon’s inhabitants, was smeared with foul smelling muck. Lade jumped as something in one of cells across the room moved.

            “Hey!” a man whispered from a cell across the hall.

            The boys looked at each other.

            “Yes?” Tyril asked.

            “Not you, the man that was singing.”

            Jor smiled brazenly at Tyril, “How may I be of service?”

            “What kind of man stands when others kneel?”

            “Excuse me?”

            “What kind of man stands when others kneel?”

            “I heard you, but what in the Seven Hells are you talking about?”

            “You sang The Ghosts of Xith Xanan. My friend told me if I hear someone sing The Ghosts I should ask them that question.”

            “Whatever for?”

            “To prove I’m one of them, of course!”

            “One of what?”

            “Gods! Are you rebel or not? If you are, please, you have to help me. I don’t think I have much time left.”

            Jor opened his mouth for a clever reply but Tyril interjected: “Listen, friend, we’re all locked in here just as you are.  No rebellion is going to get us out.”

            “The rebels have friends.  In the castle.  They could get us out! Please.  You don’t know what they do to us in here.” The man’s voice cracked as he spoke, fear making him tremble. “I’m begging you. Please!”

            “I... I’m sorry.  We’re not rebels.”

            A deathly silence fell over the cells as footsteps approached the prison doors.  With a rattle of keys and the twist of a lock, an armored guard stepped into the hall between the cells, walking purposefully to the cell of the tattered man.

            “It’s time,” the guard said as he unlocked the cell door.

            “No!” The man scrambled back along the floor, cowering in the corner like an animal.

            The guard grabbed the man by the wrist and dragged him out by force.  The man shrieked: “No!  No! Noooooooooo! Please!  Anything but that.  PLEASE!  Anything... please!”

            Lade got a closer look at the man.  He could see the marks along his body now.  Bleeding wounds, welts, burns.

            “Don’t worry,” the guard said, “this will be the last time.”

            The man’s eyes widened in fear and he flailed as the guard dragged him down the walkway, shrieking twice as franticly and desperately as before. “No! No! NOOOOOOOOO!”

            The guard smiled as he dragged the hysterical prisoner through the doorway and shut the wooden door behind him.

            And then there was silence.

Reviews

[Leah]

Ooooh, suspenseful. I like this rebellion and how they use questions and answers to identify each other.