Clipped Wings

Blood has a funny taste - though barely ever funny in the humorous sense. But the life fluid that our worldly vessels rely upon is nevertheless metallic and sickening, despite it’s necessity.

 

I’d woken up often with unpleasant tastes on my tongue - bile and sourness from times when food had been scarce, and my mother had given us dripping on our bread rather than butter - but there was never enough of even that, and we soon found that it was important to have fresh water to wash the taste of hunger out of our mouths in the morning.

 

But blood wasn’t something I was used to, and I panicked as I came to, spitting and spluttering, trying to breath past some kind of obstruction. I opened my eyes and then shut them again, the meager light of my surrounds too bright for my sore pupils.

 

I kept my eyes closed for a few seconds and took assessment of myself. I listed off my senses one by one.

 

Touch first. I was lying on what felt like unyielding stone or wood - not rough like cobbles. My hands were bound, but the fingers were also bound together, likely to stop me casting magic. There was a piece of cloth across my mouth, presumably to stop me forming runes with my breath. Other than that, I was free to move.

 

Light was falling on my eyelids, but a ruddy red light, not the more balanced color of the outside world.

 

There was a musty smell in the air - clothes washed but not allowed to dry, or old and rotting wood, or spilt and stale food and drink.

 

There was no noise except my heartbeat, my breathing and a constant drip-drip-drip from my left.

 

I exhaled and opened my eyes. I was in what looked like a stone-brick basement and a lantern was hanging from the ceiling above me. I glanced to the left, and noted the damp spot on the roof dripping water. There was a staircase leading upwards several feet to a wooden door. I slowly began to stand, but toppled over, feeling suddenly sickened.

 

Of course, I had sustained a head injury. Nausea, confusion and loss of memories were symptoms. Such an injury was rarely serious over the long term. I buried myself in the calming analysis and let myself breathe.

 

Glancing around again, I saw there were a number of barrels in one corner of the square room, and a straw bed and rough blanket in another. There was a bucket next to the bed.

 

It looked like someone expected this to be a long-term stay. I grimaced and stood up, successfully this time. I felt my scalp, the ropes binding my hands making the action awkward. The skin was unbroken, though my head pounded. I pressed in several spots and found bruising.

I was still wearing the same clothes, though my pockets hand been emptied and my shoes removed.

 

I hobbled over the bucket and relieved myself. The nausea remained with me, but I hardened myself to it. I knew I’d need to be careful. Head trauma victims often had trouble concentrating and remembering, and bound I was, unable to utilize runes, my mind and logic were the only weapons I had.

 

Turning my back to the emotional side of myself, I let the analytical part of myself take full reign.

 

I spent a great amount of time examining the room. I believe I often looked over the same thing twice or three times, forgetting after each and every attempt the details of my previous examinations.

 

Eventually I found several useful pieces of information. One, the rope tying the lantern to the roof was not just fraying, but old and rotten and barely functional.

 

Two, the barrels contained dried cod, liqueur and salt. There were no less than twelve of them. I was not in a prison, but rather some form of storage basement.

 

Thirdly, the door was reinforced wood, and the frame was solid sandstone, but the hinges were old and rusted, and with a bit of work and a solid rock I could probably bust them open. The door was locked, of course.

 

There would be no reason for these people to let me die - they would have just killed me while I lay unconscious if that was their goal. Killing certainly wasn’t something they were adverse to, judging by the scene on the hill.

 

Thinking about the hill and the tinkers, I began to hyperventilate, my heartbeat sped up - but I forced the panic down. Later.

 

So, if I was alive, that meant two things " one, my captors would be keeping me alive for a reason, and would have to make contact with me for the most likely of the possible reasons - the extraction of information.

 

Two, even if they didn’t need to talk to me, they would need to bring me water at some point - I could eat the salted fish in the barrels, but could hardly stay alive on liqueur. For them to give me water, they would need to enter the room and interact with me. That interaction was a chance for me to attain something, even if only information about my captors.

 

I wandered around the room and made observations, calculations, plans for many eventualities.

 

And so, as my analysis ticked down the itinerary and found itself all out of problems that were immediately solvable, I sat down and cried.

 

I was unable to bury my face in my hands, bound as they were, so the tears just trickled down my face. It was a long hour, sitting in the half-light of the oil lamp and staring at the blank walls through blurry eyes.

 

I was supposed to be a mage; words of power between my teeth and the world at my boots, the forces of nature and mathematics and runes subject to my whim. I was supposed to be powerful, powerful enough to stop those who sought to harm others. But there I sat, in a basement, rendered useless by a length of rope and a piece of cloth across my mouth. There I sat, next to a bucket full of my own excrement, the stink of it filling my nostrils. There I sat, completely useless. Helpless. Weak.

 

Finally, I heard the rattling of someone unlocking the door to my personal purgatory. The door opened a crack, and then swung wide with a groan.

 

I lifted my bound hands to shield my aching eyes from the sudden light, and once I had blinked away the tears, I saw a man standing tall. Silhouetted against the white light of the door, features rendered black by the illumination’s occlusion, he looked like a god as he descended down the stair - tall and menacing, dark and suffused with light.

 

When he reached the bottom of the staircase, he became an ordinary man again " though the firearm he gripped menaced me as much as any god’s spite. I put my hands on my head and remained on my knees.

 

He dropped a bucket, identical to the one I’d filled myself; and I heard water slosh around inside.

 

He took three steps towards me and kicked me in the side. I fell over, gasping. He kicked me again.

 

“You broke my partners rib yesterday, b***h.” His voice was loud, and grated against my ears. “In an hour, I’m going to be back down here.”

 

He kicked me yet again, and I felt my gorge rise, bile sliding over my tongue. He continued, “And do you know what I’m going to do? I’d going to break every one of your ribs until you tell me everything; everything you know about us. I’m going to do worse things to you tomorrow, and even worse things the next day. And then I’m going to kill you.”

 

He got down on his knees and forcibly turned my head to look at him, gripping my cheeks. I stared him defiantly in the eyes, unable to respond through the gag.

 

“Don’t worry though. Before we’re through, you’ll beg for me to cut your throat. It’ll be a relief.”

 

I continued to bore into him with my gaze. I am a stubborn man.

 

He stood up, gave me a parting kick rather than a wittily threatening remark, and walked out.

 

Well, I think that went rather well, I thought to myself. I think I’ve made a friend.

 

 

---------

 

I clumsily washed my face, wondering how they expected my to drink though a gag. Maybe, I thought, the water wasn’t there for me to drink. Maybe it was there to clean up after they’d finished with me.

 

I’ll always wonder why they didn’t tie me to a chair, or even tie my legs together. That would have broken me, ruined any chance of fighting back.

 

I only needed once chance, as it turned out.

 

I had no intentions of being subject to the horrors of torture, so I again let my analytical side take free reign. Now was not the time for emotions.

 

Now was the time for some serious execution of plans.