Maelstrom

Aaron is tortured by the Hutcaiah.

13.

Maelstrom

 

He had trained for many years to be physically tough.    Years of exercise, combat training, strengthening muscles and enduring long, weary mock battles in hot plate armor had made him strong.    He had been in several actual battles and knew of the taste of danger and injury.

Yet nothing had prepared Aaron for the type of torture that was savagely used against him as a prisoner of the Hutcaiah.

He hadn’t been naïve about what he was going into, when he had agreed to surrender himself to Emperor Saret-Buyue-Serdi.   He had expected to be physically beaten and abused, half-starved, whipped or perhaps worse, as the Hutcaiah ruler vented his rage and pain over the death of his son upon him.

He had mentally prepared himself for that, and even death.

Yet all of his preparations and training had not helped, for the Hutcaiah had a far different type of torture that would break anyone.

 

They had stripped him of his clothing as soon as they arrived at the Hutcaiah capital.     He was given a long grey robe to wear and then he was roughly led out of the palace grounds, a short distance to the imposing Temple of the Moon, with its huge step pyramid temple.   

At the base of the temple the guards had stopped and yanked him around so that he was looking at a long stone altar that had old blood stains evident on it.

“See, Banxian worm?” One of the wizards who spoke the Common tongue had said to him, “This is the altar of offerings.   Here you shall die on the night of the Summer Moon.”

They forced him to stare at the altar for a long moment, so he would remember it, then, without another word, they had pushed him away from it and down a long set of stairs that descended deep below ground at the base of the temple.

Down, down, down they had gone, until there was no light reaching them from above.     The walls all around them were huge bricks of solid stone.   One of the wizards said an arcane word aloud which had caused the tip of his staff to give off a silvery glow.   

In the eerie light they continued downward until the stone stairway ended at a huge iron door, carved with strange Hutcaiah symbols.    A wizard chanted a few unknown words and the door clicked and opened slightly.   

Then they had pushed him inside, where, to Aaron’s surprise, a group of three Hutcaiah women, wearing blue robes were waiting.

By the light of several staves that glowed as if of moonlight, the guards had forced him to his knees, while the three priestesses (all with the same striking blue eyes that Princess Seba-Yinhu had possessed) each chanted something in their native tongue, while walking around him.

For several minutes they continued their spells, then, when they had finished, he was pulled to his feet and led across the tomb-like room.   Here, against the far stone wall, he was shackled.    He could sit or lay down, but thick iron chains bound both ankles securely.

 

As the Hutcaiah left the room, the same wizard had paused and called out tauntingly, “Now the horror will began, Banxian.   You will experience pain and agony that will make you long for death.    But you shall not die, and though you will suffer as never before, we shall present you to our goddess unmarked by any of our hands.    Such shall be your fate!”

The Hutcaiah mage had laughed as the guards closed the heavy iron door with a loud thud, leaving Aaron to puzzle at the wizard’s words.

But he didn’t have long to wait.

It had begun suddenly, as if he had hallucinated something from his past.    All at once he was charging on his horse, across the parade ground in King’s Reach, his lance ready to pierce a large Ogre.    Gamel, in front of him, found his mark, but his own Ogre knocked the lance aside and then swung his club.   

Aaron felt the impact and fell from his horse.    The Ogre roared with success and charged forward, slamming the club down upon him again and again.   He heard his ribs break, but he could only lay there helpless, unable to breathe, as the Ogre hit him again and again.

Then the scene had changed to an interpretation of events that he had not witnessed.    He was with Queen Eioldeth and her group, defending the palace against Earl Redburr’s forces.     He felt himself moving forward, as if in mud, but try as he might, he could not move faster.   

Suddenly there was a loud roar and he knew that one of their opponents had used a staff to throw an arcane fireball at them.   He tried to cry out to everyone in warning, but he could not open his mouth.    In horror, he saw everyone consumed by fire, screaming as the flames quickly ate them away.   He felt the terrible heat and screamed in agony, but it continued on and on.

Then, abruptly, it had ended and another scene appeared.    This time he saw his parents and sister die pitifully, as poison slowly killed them.    The scene after that was a nightmare of him attacking Redburr’s forces, but in this dream, no one followed him and the enemy army surrounded him and hacked him down.

He felt every chop and thrust of the swords.

On and on, new scenes popped into his mind, each with the intensity of horrible nightmares, mixed with excruciating pain.   Each time he experienced the anguish of seeing friends and family suffering and dying, and felt his own death.

Some of the nightmares were accurate; most were distorted to make it much more terrible.     Many never really had occurred at all, but he went through them as if they had.

He saw betrayals of friends, terrible atrocities that he could not prevent, he saw his father kill his mother, he saw the Hutcaiah prince savagely rape and then kill Lysa, he saw a huge red dragon eat his sister alive and his father change into a demon-like Death Knight.

The visions came one after another to him and he was caught like a leaf in the midst of a hurricane.     Bravely he fought against them, but to no avail.    Time lost all meaning to him.

They would stop twice, each day, long enough for him to eat food that was brought into his cell.   He never heard or saw those who brought the food to him, for, except for the reprieves to eat, his world was a spinning nightmare of pain and suffering.

They didn’t even give him any time to sleep.    Oh, he would fall into exhaustion, but the dreams were still there when he was unconscious.    

After a week, his mind began to crack.    During the food breaks, he would just lay there in his filth, shivering and too sickened to eat.   At times he would forget who he really was, or where he was.    He could not think clearly why he was here; only that everyone had betrayed him and left him to die.

 

Even Yesh.

He began screaming out curses during the eating breaks, damning friends, family and foes alike for what they had done to him.    By the end of two weeks, he didn’t even recognize his voice when he heard the screams coming from his own lips.

Now nothing was real to him, he was in Hell, an eternal place of torture.    He had no means to take his life, or he would have done so days (or was it weeks or even months?) ago.   He was surrounded by demons - invisible, torturing devils that brought the dreams to him.   

Aaron would growl at them and try to bite them, but they were never there.    The rats and cockroaches were taunting him, mocking him at all times.     He’d simply bark at them, clawing at them with his hands, but they’d scurry away.

Yet the nightmare visions continued and he lay there experiencing them, wishing death would find him and end this terrible agony.

Then, after years or decades of torture (or so it seemed to him), one day bright light came into the cell, pulling him out of the visions.   He snarled at it like a rabid dog, but figures came into the cell and someone touched him on the head with a staff and he fell into a deep slumber.

 

***

 

He did not know that they took him from the Cell of the Damned, up the long stairs and into a hidden entrance into the Temple of the Moon.    Upon a table he was laid and they stripped him of his robe, which was ruined with stains of his own waste and bits of food.      They strapped Aaron to the table and then the priestesses of preparation carefully washed his body and anointed it with the holy oils.    His filthy hair was scrubbed clean and cut short in the manner of all male slaves.   Then they chanted healing spells so that his sores and cuts would disappear, for a sacrifice had to be perfect for the goddess.

Finally, as Aaron slept in an arcane induced slumber, they dressed him in the pure white robe of a sacrifice and placed sandals upon his feet.  

The priestesses turned him over to the guards, who bound him to the wooden litter with the pure white ceremonial ropes and then carried him on their shoulders up a ramp that led to another hidden exit out of the temple.    There, an hour before the ceremony would begin, they set the litter down upon the platform of sacrifice.

Upon his chest, bound with the white ropes, the guards placed the pure blue topaz gem that all sacrifices must wear before Kuyomi-Chia would accept them.    The guards bowed reverently, and then quietly hurried back down the ramp into the temple, to prepare themselves for the Festival of the Summer Moon.

Reviews

[Elina]

"...the door clicked and slightly opened." Perhaps reorder the last to words so it reads, "...and opened slightly."
"...(each which gave off a glow as if of moonlight)..." The wording is a little awkward...perhaps some rewriting?
"...attacking Redburr’s forces alone, but in this dream, no one followed him..." In this sentence, you've already implied that no one is following him, since you've stated that he was attacking Redburr's forces alone.
"...each with the intensity of horrible nightmares, with excruciating pain." I'm not entirely sure why, but this bit feels a little off. Perhaps, adding "and" before the "with excruciating pain" part would help. ? Or possibly rewording it slightly. ?
"...recognize his own voice when he heard the screams coming from his own lips." This feels a little redundant with the double-usage of "own."
"He had no means to take his life, or he would have done so days (or is it weeks or even months?) ago." Here, you will want to adjust the tense in the parenthesized portion to match the rest of your book. "...was it weeks..."

Golly, what a chapter! My heart breaks for poor Aaron...such a horrifying ordeal. You've done a lovely job of further drawing out the reader's sympathies.

[Eddie Davis]

Thanks, it is a joy to have you look at my work.