CHAPTER 3

A cold liquid dripped onto Laban’s forehead and trickled down his face. He woke up. He wiped whatever it was off with the back of his hand.

“Please tell me that was just water,” Laban mumbled.

“Probably,” Torreck mumbled. “But really, I can’t make any promises.”

“Ugh,” Laban moaned. His head was still throbbing, as was the rest of his body. “How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Didn’t,” Torreck replied.

“Yeah… I don’t think I did either,” Laban agreed. He tried to twist the knots out of his neck and back. “Just closed my eyes for a few minutes. But I guess we don’t really know how long we’ve been down here.”

“Yeah, it’s probably been a while. Which is strange, come to think of it. It seems like it’s been almost too long. You’d think the War’acks wouldn’t pass on a fun evening of torture. Or at least their supper…”

“The dark is probably playing tricks on us. It probably hasn’t been as long as we think.”

A loud noise echoed through the corridor above them, like the sound of metal against stone. They could hear voices, but they were distant.

“I just had to say something, didn’t I?” said Torreck.

A faint flicker of light could be seen through the metal grate above them. The sound of approaching footsteps drew nearer, but then suddenly passed by them and began to fade.

“I guess I spoke too soon,” Torreck said. “Maybe they’ve forgotten about us. That doesn’t sound so bad. I think starving to death down here might be the best option.”

“What do you mean?” Laban said. “We’re not going to try to escape?”

“Escape? How do you plan on doing that, kid? By praying to your gods?”

“They could protect us,” he replied, though softly. “They saved me before.”

“You got lucky.”

“Maybe. But luck has to come from somewhere.”

Laban felt for the pouch at his side. He thanked Those Above that it had stayed with him through this ordeal. He pulled out the stone and cradled it in his hands. He tried to situate himself as comfortably as possible on the bone-riddled floor of the dark tomb. Meditation in such an evil place would be difficult. But at least it’s quiet, he thought to himself.

He closed his eyes. He let the weight of the stone rest in his palms. If he focused hard enough, if his meditation was deep enough, he almost thought he could feel a warmth flowing from the stone into his hands. It would recharge him on days when he was particularly weak and lift his spirits even in the bleakest of circumstances.

That was what he hoped for now. But he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking and his heart from wanting to pound out of his chest. From the stone, he felt not warmth, but cold. Perhaps, he thought to himself, there is simply no warmth here to draw from. Even the poor stone suffers in the heart of this wretched cave…

Laban took a deep breath. His heart began to settle down. He could feel the eye etched on the surface of the smooth stone staring back up at him. He imagined that through it, Those Above were watching him, too. They were watching both of them in that cave.

A wave of comfort passed over him. For a brief moment, the horrid memories of days passed were bound once more. It felt like when his mother wrapped her arms around him as a boy. “Everything may not always be okay,” she had said. “And not everything will turn out the way we want it to. In fact, it rarely does. But everything will happen the way it is meant to. It will end in whatever way They have planned. We only have to trust Them, and surrender to the flow.”

Her words seemed to echo back to him through time. It had taken a long time for him to understand what his mother had been trying to tell him. Even now, he knew he probably didn’t understand it fully. But at least he had learned to trust.

“I think they’re coming,” Torreck interrupted his meditation. Laban was startled. He turned to see that the flickering lights had reappeared, and they were getting brighter. His panic began to return. He returned the seer-stone to its home, and hid the pouch within his robes, hoping to conceal it from their captors.

Laban drew another breath.

“We’ll be okay,” he said softly. The reassuring embrace of Those Above seemed to linger for just a moment, even as the War’acks were at their door.

“You go ahead and tell that to them,” Torreck said.

Someone threw open the metal hatch above them, and the fiery light of their torches poured in. Laban blinked against the sudden brightness. A tattered and tangled mess of rope was thrown into the pit. A trio of War’acks clambered down. Samson was with them. He carried a vile assortment of gleaming knives, rusty pistols and other makeshift weapons which hung at his sides, jangling out sinister notes as he walked.

The War’acks barked and growled at each other in their own language. They smiled evil grins and chortled like wicked goblins. They were, in Laban’s mind, probably debating just how to end the poor boys’ lives, or maybe the best way to prolong their deaths.

One of the men, whose face was painted black, unsheathed a knife and held it to Laban’s throat. He whispered taunts and insults, but Laban could not understand him. The point of the knife slowly wound its way around his jaw and up the side of his face, slicing the flesh of his cheek. A warm line of blood ran down his face. The end of the knife ended at his eye. He gripped Laban by the throat so he could not turn away. The black-faced War’ack made ready to carve out the eye with his blade.

“No,” Samson shouted. “He needs them to see. String ‘em up first. I don’t want them to squirm.” He grinned through broken, rotten teeth. The other two War’acks began to uncoil long strands of wire, covered in pointed barbs.

“Oh, no way you’re tying me up with that!” Torreck shouted. He grabbed a large, heavy bone off the ground and sprung to his feet. Before any of the War’acks could react, he swung hard. The bone whistled through the air, then cracked against the side of the black-faced man’s head. The man reeled backwards. His body collapsed in a heap amid the rocks and bones. Torreck swung again. The man tried to dodge the blow, catching the end of the club with his hand. Laban could hear the man’s fragile bones shatter. He shouted in pain and surprise, recoiling, and clutching the damaged appendage.

Laban nearly went deaf from the sudden explosion of gunfire. His hands clenched over his ringing ears. Torreck stumbled back. He tripped and fell hard onto the ground. Laban saw that Samson held a pistol in his hand. The barrel still belched smoke and filled the cave with the smell of brimstone.

Ignoring the gun, Laban rushed to Torreck’s side. Dark blood flowed from his right ear, which was now mostly missing. The War’ack had missed, Laban thought, breathing a sigh of relief. He isn’t dead. Laban tore off a strip of cloth from his robes and tied it around Torreck’s head in an attempt to slow the bleeding.

“I didn’t have to miss,” Samson growled. “I am a very good shot.”

He re-holstered the gun. He then looked over to his one companion whose skull had been smashed. He knelt down, and very quickly surmised that he was dead.

“You’ve killed one of our warriors,” the War’ack said. He turned to the other wounded. “We’ll gather more. Let’s go.”

“I can’t,” the man stuttered, showing his hand. It was already heavily bruised and swollen, and the fingers were bent out of shape. “I can’t climb,” he said.

“Then you can rot with them,” said his leader. He drew the pistol, and fired a single shot. It landed square in the man’s forehead. He was dead before he could even make a noise. The sound of the blast echoed within the confined walls of the cave for several seconds. Then it was silent.

Samson looked back towards Laban and Torreck.

“I will be back,” he said. “And then you will suffer.”

“I thought that was the whole point of throwing us down here,” Torreck mumbled. “To make us suffer.”

Samson pulled a long, serrated blade from its sheath. It looked like it was fashioned out of some sort of bone.

“If it’s suffering you want,” he hissed. “You can be made to suffer.”

The War’ack lunged forward. The white blade of the knife flashed in Laban’s eyes for only an instant before it disappeared, plunged deep into Torreck’s thigh. He screamed through the pain. The War’ack twisted the knife sharply before removing it from the boy’s leg.

“That’s to make sure nothing like this happens again,” said the War’ack. “I will be back.”

He gripped the rope in his calloused hands. Ascending like a spider up a strand of her web, he climbed up through the opening above them.

When the light had faded and the hatch sealed shut, Laban realized that he had been holding his breath. He let it out. He felt freed from the War’acks’ horrible spell that had held him terrified. The sound of his quivering breath was the only noise that filled their empty prison. Although, it was less empty now. Laban could no longer see the bodies of the two dead men. They were hidden in the blackness. That frightened him even more. Their angry souls, Laban sensed, still lingered. Their limp and decaying bodies were no longer capable of harm, but in death they had been made perhaps more powerful…

Something stirred in the darkness. Laban’s heart jumped at the sound of rocks cracking together.

“At least we’re alive,” a voice moaned. It was only Torreck.

“For now,” Laban replied.

Laban could hear him fidgeting with the bandages on his head. He tore off another from his own clothing and wrapped it tightly around his leg.

“Still,” Torreck continued. “At least I’ll have some cool scars. And a good story to go with them.”

“I don’t understand how you can be joking around right now,” said Laban.

Torreck gave a muffled laugh. “Kid, right now, all I’ve got left is jokes. If we’re gonna die, might as well go out with a smile, right?”

“You don’t think we’ll ever get out of here,” Laban said.

“Well, I don’t think I’m going anywhere, kid. Not now.”

“I’ll carry you out.”

“Then neither of us are getting out for sure. I’d just slow you down.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“Let me guess. Those Above will save us?”

“They might.”

“It’s weapons that’ll save us, kid. Though I doubt we would make it more than a few feet before they slit our throats, or worse. Even if I had both my legs, we wouldn’t stand a chance against the War’acks. Better men than us have tried and failed.”

Laban slumped down on the floor. He felt for the reassuring lump of the seer-stone underneath his robes. He wasn’t ready to give up hope. Not yet.

He stood up. He found the wall of the cave and began walking forward. His steps wobbled under his still-trembling knees. He cautiously placed one foot in front of the other, feeling his way along the cold, stony wall. His hand brushed over a stream of something cold and sticky. His hand recoiled and he inhaled sharply in surprise. He continued on. His foot met something soft. He cringed, realizing that it was a dead body�" the body he’d been searching for.

He drew a breath to help calm his nerves, but it was much less effective than he would have hoped. Death was not anything foreign to him, but that never made it any less… unsettling. He crouched down next to the dead War’ack. Laban’s hands felt around in the darkness until they found flesh. It was still warm. He fumbled for the belt around the man’s waist. His fingers discovered something long, cold, and slender, fastened securely to the War’ack’s belt.

“This one has a knife,” Laban said.

Torreck only mumbled in response.

“Are you alright?” Laban asked.

“I’m fine,” he groaned. “It’s just that the bleeding won’t stop. I’ve lost a lot… give me that knife. I think I have an idea.”

Laban reached into the folds of the War’ack’s cloak. He grabbed the handle of the knife and tugged it free from its casing.

“Where are you?” asked Laban.

“I’m here,” Torreck responded. Laban followed the source of the sound, wandering back along the wall. He tried not to think of what would happen if he were to trip and impale himself…

“You got the knife?” Torreck asked. Laban handed it to him, then sat back down on the ground.

Laban could hear Torreck rummaging around in the rocks that littered the floor. He would pick one up, strike it against the blade of the knife a few times, then toss it aside with a dissatisfied hmph.

After what was apparently too many failed tries, Torreck growled and settled back down, clutching his throbbing leg.

“It’s no use…” he muttered. “I’m going to bleed to death. I guess you get to fight off these b******s without me.”

Laban didn’t know what to say. After a few moments of silence, Torreck began to speak again.

“Say…” he panted. “What’s that magic rock of yours made of?”

“It’s a seer-stone,” Laban corrected. He placed his hand over the concealed rock as if to protect it. “It is sacred.”

“Sure,” Torreck said. “But what’s it made of?”

“I… I don’t know,” Laban replied.

“You keep saying that it’ll save us. Well, it might do just that. But only if you give it to me.”

Reluctantly, Laban retrieved the holy stone from the leather pouch. He turned it over several times in his hands, feeling the grooves carved into its surface. He didn’t want to give it over. It was sacred to him, even though to Torreck it was just another brown stone. He wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t worthy of being smashed against the blade of some War’ack’s knife.

Then the words of his mother played back through his mind. Everything will happen the way it is meant to. He stretched out his hand to Torreck. His fingers slowly loosened their grip on the seer-stone, and Torreck snatched it up.

“Thanks,” he said. “If you still believe in praying, now would be the time.”

Torreck grasped the stone in his hand. He knocked it against the flat side of the knife. Nothing happened. He struck it again, harder. Still nothing. A third time. A sudden shower of golden sparks briefly lit up the room, illuminating Torreck’s face for only an instant before they were snuffed out.

“Well, what do you know?” Torreck said. “Maybe your pet rock has some magic in it after all…”

Torreck slipped out of his outer coat and laid it in a heap on the floor. With the knife in one hand and the stone in the other, he smote them together. Glittering sparks rained down onto the frayed cloth. He tried again and again until the sparks began to catch. The first hints of flame began to eat away at the garment, charring it a sooty black. Soon, the whole thing was ablaze. The warm fire cast haunting shadows across the walls and over the faces of the motionless occupants of their cell. Laban pulled the collar of his tunic over his mouth and nose, protecting himself from the bitter smoke. He could see now, in the light of the dying embers, the open gash in Torreck’s thigh.

Torreck jammed the knife deep into the heart of the burning pile. He let it sit for several minutes until the fabric had been reduced to nothing but smoulder and ashes. He retrieved the knife. It glowed very faintly�" a dull, bloody red in the darkness.

“Let’s hope this works,” said Torreck. He inhaled sharply, then held his breath. He pressed the searing metal against his wounded leg. Black smoke and the smell of burning flesh filled the cave. Torreck’s pained cries were loud enough to be heard all through this War’ack fortress, though they would have been indistinguishable from any of the countless other prisoners.

Torreck took the blade off his wound. It clattered against the ground as he threw it far away from himself. Torreck panted heavily, clutching his scorched thigh.

“Let’s hope… that I never have to do that… again…” he said between breaths. He tried to laugh, Laban guessed to help dull the pain, but it came out as more of a choked sob.

“Has the bleeding stopped?” Laban asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t think I can walk, though.”

Even if he could, Laban thought, they were hopelessly deep underground. There would be no way to signal for help. The rest of the village would have noticed by now that he and Torreck hadn’t checked in, but it was doubtful that they would waste any resources on searching for them. Every moment that they spent here in the belly of this War’ack prison drained even more of his hope of ever seeing the light of the sun again. He felt like a stone, half-buried in the desert sand, slowly being eroded away by the harsh, eternal winds until there is nothing left at all. Like the stones of the Outland, he was absolutely powerless to change his own situation. If Those Above were watching, they were certainly taking their time to come help them....

“Well, I guess we’ve got a knife, now,” Torreck said. “That ought to come in handy, right? Here. You take it. Make yourself useful when they come back.”

Laban held the knife in his hand. The warmth from the fire still lingered on the metal. He tried to imagine himself actually using it. He had been an orphan of the Outland for a long time, but he had never been called on to actually defend himself, at least not with a weapon. Torreck had not hesitated to strike back against the War’acks. Even after all they’d been put through, he had the strength to kill one of them with a single blow. Laban wondered if he would be able to do the same. He pictured himself striking at the animals that called themselves men, drawing blood and cutting them down before they had a chance to do the same to him. Physically, his arms may have possessed the strength. But Laban knew, even in his lowly situation, he couldn’t bring himself to end another man’s life, no matter what they had done. Torreck would see that as a weakness… he thought. And perhaps it was. Men did not survive in the Outland through kindness and negotiation. If there had been a time when such values were upheld, it had long since passed. The Territes would not listen to reason and certainly neither would the War’acks. The Malkuth had to make their point through the end of a loaded rifle.

Laban ran his fingers across the hilt, feeling all its facets and grooves. Laban wondered about the years of stories�"and horrors�"that this weapon carried with it. It could have been stolen from a Malkuth warrior or perhaps even a Territe. Maybe it had been lost on the great field of battle, and later scavenged from the Outland, or simply taken from the corpse of a hapless prisoner of the War’ack. He suspected that many people, innocent people, had met their end on this blade. He hoped that no one would ever again. He loosened his grip and let it fall. The metal rattled against the ground, and then silence returned to the dungeon.