The waking of storm and.., p.18
The Waking of Storm and Flame, page 18
Chapter XI
Eyes in the Dark
How long have I been in this box? Hours? Days? There’s no way to tell. Is this truly what my life has become? Wasting away in this pit of darkness while the rats wait for a feast?
The chains around her arms were heavy, the shackles biting into her wrists. Dim braziers flickered far down the hall, casting little light. The disembodied screams of another prisoner pierced the darkness, their torment echoing off the walls and gnawing at her sanity. Desperate for relief, she sang weakly, hoping to drown out the chilling melody of pain.
Why are they doing this? What are they trying to get out of them? Is it to sate a sickening madness they subject me to this? I’ll never get out of here...
As the hours ticked by in the darkness, the screaming turned to uncomfortable silence. A horrid aroma filled the air inside her cell. A nightmarish delight of burnt flesh and stale, uncirculated air filled her lungs, and left a sickening taste in her mouth. On the cycle went, another hour, another victim. The peace of one death only foretold the coming of another. A cell door opened, the unfortunate individual protested their innocence. Begging for mercy, they were drug deeper in the dungeon. A moment’s reprieve and then...
Again. Again. Again, they don’t stop! Day and night, night, and day. Over and again...again...again.
She stood, shivering, and approached the cell door. Grasping the cold iron bars, she cried out, “Someone, please! Stop the screaming! I can’t take it anymore!” Her voice echoed down the hall, interrupted only by the heavy footsteps of an approaching guard. It was a rare moment of interaction, other than the brief visits for bread and water.
“Sir, please. Please make it go away. The screaming, it’s in my head, it’s all around. It burrowed in through my ears and it gnaws at my sanity. I can’t stop it. I hear it in the silence when it’s not there...” She saw the guard come into view. Oh thank the Goddess someone’s coming.
“Now what’s all this racket down ‘ere huh?” The first words she had heard in recent memory.
Oh please no... She recognized the northern accent. Even as crude and improper as the guard spoke, she discerned that this must be Essea. “Good sir, please. There must be something you can do about this incessant wailing. It never stops. I can’t sleep and I-”
“Oh, I see. How tragic this must be for you my dear,” he said and sounded sincere. “You just need something else to keep your mind on then. I’ll see if I can’t help you.”
“Yes! Yes! Please, anything is better than-” Crack! A wave of pain coursed through her fingers as she clung to her cell door in shock. The pain radiated through her right wrist and up her arm. The guard had slammed his iron club against her right hand on the cell door, a human buffer between two pieces of cold metal. She fell back to the floor, clutched her hand, and writhed in agony at the painful throbbing in her broken fingers.
“That’ll give you something else to think about,” he said as his voice trailed off down the hall. “Your time’s coming, princess. Make the best of it while you can.”
She shook and wrapped some cloth of her dress around the injured hand. It had turned a dark color in the dim light. Her breathing intensified and shallowed as she pushed herself back into the corner of the cell. The pain surpassed her tolerance, and she succumbed to shock, failing to notice the deep voice which tried to get her attention from somewhere down the hall.
“Alira!? Alira? Is that you?” The voice called out just loud enough so she could hear but not so loud as to alert the guards. “Alira, if that’s you, please answer me!”
The sound of footsteps echoed back down the dark hall, and three shadows stood before the door of the caller. “What do you want? Begone from my sight.”
“Oh, feisty this one,” the guard with the keys chuckled. “It’s been decided that he needs someone of status. So, you’re up, friend.”
The guards entered the cell and began beating the prisoner with fists and metal clubs. Despite his struggles, the assault continued until a final, brutal strike from a metal gauntlet silenced him.
“You’re not supposed to kill ‘im! What good’ll he be to Calos if he’s dead?” the first guard asked.
“He put up a fight, didn’t he? Deserves every bit of what’s comin’ to ‘im.” He turned and kicked the prisoner hard in the stomach. “That one’s for killin’ my brother,” another guard said, and fumbled with a piece of rope to tie the hands of their prisoner behind his back.
“What happened to him?”
“Always wanted to prove himself. They tell me he wanted to make a name for himself, show ol’ Arty what he was worth and all that. He broke ranks as the battle was gettin’ started. Rushed out at some dark-haired girl. Took his head clean off she did.”
“Sorry for your loss mate.”
“We got our revenge, didn’t we? Sounds like the battle in the Southmarch was a blood bath. Any dead southerner is right in my book.” He finished tightening the bonds on the prisoner’s hands. “There, all ready to go.”
Two of the guards picked up the prisoner under the arms and drug him out of the cell. The third locked the door behind them and followed down the dim hallway.
“Who is this one anyway? Why’s he so important?”
“No reason, Calos was just saving him for last, he’s got something special lined up for her. The torture’s all for sport, anyway, can’t say they don’t deserve it.” The labor in his voice was evident as he carried a full grown, limp man.
“He doesn’t look like the rest. Ugly, old, bearded mug on him.” The guards dropped the prisoner and slumped against the brick wall for a rest. The guard with the keys rolled the prisoner over with his boot.
“That’s because this one’s a Reyvian. Gentlemen, allow me to introduce the one they call Sayyed. Captain of Princess Verbrandt’s personal guard.”
* * *
Alira awoke to the feeling of numbed pain in her hand. A cell door slammed down the hallway and three sets of footsteps trailed off into silence. The faint light in the hallway had diminished to the point she couldn’t make out what was in front of her. In the void of uncomfortable silence she slipped further into madness. A twisted part of her thanked the guard for the pain, as it formed her only tether to the real world.
As she rocked back and forth on the ground, another sound of footsteps drew closer. They weren’t the cadence of the guards that she had grown accustomed to, but instead they were far different. The beat was slow, and every footstep was sure of its place. A scratching against the brick wall accompanied it, louder and louder it grew, and appeared to echo off the walls. The lights in the hall faded to black as a lone figure stood in the doorway. At least, she believed she could make out someone.
The longer Alira stared into the dark, she made out that the figure was cloaked and bore a long staff. “Who’s there?” she called out. “Have you come to torment me?” The figure’s body turned toward her and picked its head up. The sight of it unnerved Alira and sent a cold chill down her spine as the temperature in the cell dropped. Those eyes, I know them.
The yellow in its eyes cut through the darkness like horrid lights. But it can’t be him, we don’t count him among the living. Surely, this person doesn’t bear the size of Artim. What is it? A creature? A person? It studied her and then, as though it were a spectre, drifted through the iron bars and into her cell.
“I must ask, child of the light, do I frighten you?” The figure spoke soft and slow with a deep voice that was not of her world. “Your heart beats so loud, it betrays your feigned courage. I smell your human blood, fresh and warm, running through your veins.” The closeness of the creature’s yellow eyes in the dark rendered her speechless. “It would be rude of me not to introduce myself. I am Calos, advisor to the Imperator, Vanir. I have come on personal invitation from the viscount. For in his dungeons, he said, I would find something rather... exciting. I must say, I am not disappointed, but I admit, I already knew you were here.”
“What... are... you?”
“I come from a time before the first rising of the sun and the falling of the moon. I remember the desolate rock that sailed amongst the stars. When I first opened my eyes there were few, now there are many. My master, the Archon they called him.”
Alira shuddered, his words twisted her insides and forced out a weak whimper. There was no conceivable way she could escape a follower of Aegill. Against her desire, she choked out a response. “And what, Calos, does a shadow blight of Aegill want of me?”
Calos raised his staff and lifted Alira. He pushed it outward, and her body flew back against the wall. “Do not allow his name to escape your lips again. You, child of the failing light, are not worthy of him.”
Twisting the staff, Calos stretched Alira’s muscles and bones beyond their limits. Her scream of agony echoed, but he showed no mercy. “What you’re experiencing now is merely a glimpse of his power.” The sensation of her broken fingers being pulled apart was excruciating, and though she longed to lose consciousness, Calos ensured she remained fully aware of the pain. She clenched her teeth, and flared her nostrils as foam gathered at the corners of her mouth.
With a sharp motion, Calos drove the pointed end of his staff into the stone floor, releasing the pressure but keeping her pinned against the wall. Leaning in close, he examined her, a grotesque figure of southern royalty. His grey-skinned hand traced a path down her face, the sharpened nails scraping her delicate skin. She struggled to pull away, but the force of his power held her firm. He then pulled up the sleeve of her tunic, his fingers dragging from elbow to wrist. The sting of his nails pierced her arm, and blood flowed as his yellow eyes locked onto her, rolling back in his head.
The sensation that burned through Alira from her wrist up through her arm. It travelled past her elbow, into her chest and slithered up Alira’s spine and into her mind. The fire inside her head burned, incinerated by a supernatural heat, and eviscerated by madness. Fragment by fragment Calos examined her memories. She was helpless to fight back, and the sadistic smile on his face told her he had found what he came in search of.
Moments later, the inferno in her mind receded, dissipating through her wrist. As Calos’s eyes returned to their yellow hue, he released his grip. He withdrew his staff from the floor, letting Alira collapse. She fell to the ground, her knee slamming against the cold stone.
“So, it is true then,” he said to himself. “He must know that line endured. Vaal, the fool, so close he was.” Calos looked down at Alira, who drug herself into the corner. “But not close enough.”
“Why.... Why are you doing this to me?” Alira’s voice trembled as she fought pain and fear.
“The end, my dear. I seek the end, and the closer I get the more I realize there is still much to do.” Calos walked across the cell towards the door. He stopped as though a question still puzzled him.
“What did she promise you, when you spoke to her?”
“You’ll have to be... a little more specific than that.”
“His warrior. Drea, it was called. I could not see the truth of your mind, her light blinded me to it. So I ask again, what did she promise you?”
“She told me that the shadow had returned. She told me a great and terrible being called the corruptor had awoken and taken hold of the North-” As the words escaped her, Alira realized that he stood before her, Calos the Corruptor. “-and if we didn’t stop him, that the others would follow, the Archon would rise once again, and the final judgment of all humanity would be in peril.”
“Then he too is calling. Well, Aten, allow me to show you the end of a fated line.” He slammed his staff into the ground and opened a blackened rift. “Tonight as the moon rises overhead, in the name of his Dark Majesty, Alira of the line Verbrandt... you shall be put to death.”
Her voice broke. “I fail to take your meaning, demon.”
“As we speak the Essean army marches into the mountains. They will raze everything in their path. Those who kneel before Illyria and pledge themselves to his cause will be spared. The rest will be put to the sword. Lord Artim has chosen to see to this personally, for he was promised something else.”
“They will never stop fighting you. Even if you breach the walls of Namelle, you will never be able to claim victory over us. You may take my life, but as long as the Verbrandt line is remembered, as long as there is a lioness left to fight–which she certainly will–then my people live on. I will become a martyr, you will gain nothing from my death.”
“Perhaps not.” Calos laughed and turned away from Alira. “But nonetheless, it’s a new beginning.” He walked through the rift and vanished into the dark.
She sat against the cold stone with nothing but lost hope, awaiting the moment of her execution. Alira’s mind searched for a way she might be saved. I need you Zahra. I need you now more than ever, else this night I will find my way back into the arms of our brother.
* * *
The seconds ticked by, and Alira felt each one in her heart as if they tolled a bell escorting her to an inevitable doom. If I am to go, let it be swift. Give me the courage to show them the true strength of Namelle. It helped to picture herself as Zahra, steadfast into her last moments. But I’m not Zahra. I’ll break, and they’ll see it. Alira’s mind continued to keep her its prisoner as she curled into a tiny ball on the floor.
“Alira? Alira, are you there?” A weak, pained voice called out from down the hall.
“Mohammed!? Is it really you?” She pulled herself closer to the cell’s door. “I didn’t think you’d pull through, oh thank the goddess.” She rejoiced, a small moment of salvation in the last hours of her existence.
His cough was deep and persistent. The sound he made as he wretched and spit concerned her. “Don’t... thank her just yet. I don’t know how much time I have left Alira, so you need to listen. As they broke my fingers one of them let slip... they’ve sentenced you to die. Tell me it isn’t so.”
I wish it weren’t the truth, that this was only a nightmare from which I’ve yet to wake.
“Listen, Alira, you need to do anything you can to get out of here. Fight them. Run. It... it doesn’t matter what. You need to live. You are far too important to this world.”
She held her head to her knees and worried for her friend. Alira looked at her hand and remembered she had given her only chance of escape to save the others. “I don’t have the ring, what more can I do? Where would I go? I’d not make it across the plain before the Caruxian Hounds would run me down.”
“If you can get free, there is another way. My people spoke often of Aten and his rebellion, I know you’ve read the story. They guarded a secret, somewhere deep in the desert it hides. I was...” His breathing sounded labored and weak. “Too young to be told the entire truth, but I’ve guarded the only piece of the secret I knew. One that each member of the Sect of Nine is told.”
“It is to unite the Fates, no? Drea told me that.”
“No, the secret of the sect is one my mother once told me, ‘as the lines are drawn together, follow the desert road to the dying sun. The secret lies in the heart of Juneau.’”
“Juneau? So it is real!”
“A secret waits across the endless wastes of the desert, Alira. It is the true reason you must unite the fated lines. Aten can wait, it is the sect you must seek out. It is in them where you must place your faith.”
“I will do everything I can, I promise you.”
Their conversation was interrupted by footsteps of the guards and accompanied raised voices. “See to it she’s dressed how they brought ‘er in, Calos’ orders... and be quick about it, half the city’s already assembled below!”
Three guards rushed to Alira’s door and unlocked it. “It’s time now, princess,” one said as he swung the door open, and the two others followed him inside. “Now be a good girl and hold still. This’ll all be over quick if you don’t fight it.” She tried to resist, but Alira was overpowered by her captors. She spat in the face of one of the guards and received a punch to her nose in receipt. It dizzied her, and water filled her eyes, blurring her vision.
Piece after piece, her armor was strapped back onto her, including Tempest at her waist. If a member of Namelle's royal family was to be executed, she had to look the part. Her hands were bound behind her, and she was dragged from the cell down the darkened hall. The broken fingers in her hand throbbed painfully, and she cried out as blood trickled from her nose, pooling in her mouth. As she passed, she glimpsed Sayyed, hunched over his cell door, his head bowed in resignation and acceptance.
Or death has taken him...All the other cells are empty... where are the rest?
She was drug up stone steps covered in dirt and bloody boot prints that seemed all too fresh. “Alright now, let’s stand you up ‘ere. This is where you walk out on your own. Don’t worry though love, you’ll find your way where you’re going easy enough.”
The guards pushed open the door at the top, and shoved Alira out onto a large wooden platform surrounded by soldiers. At the bottom, all of Essea seemed to have gathered to witness the death of their enemy, illuminated by torches and moonlight. Alira was picked up and taken closer to the platform. She saw several, headless bodies wearing the colors of Namelle, having met their fate before her. Their blood covered the block on which she was set to be executed.
“See now the leader of the southern, rebellious Kingdom of Namelle!” Calos yelled to the crowd as he apparated from the darkness of the night and was met with a chorus of cheers. “I present Princess Alira Verbrandt, last of her wretched, royal family.” The cheers turned to displeasure and the crowd hurled objects at her, striking all parts of her body. A small rock hit her face and left a deep cut that bled down her cheek. She was led to a spot with a view of the block. The guards tried to force her down and stomped on the back of her legs so she would kneel.
