The pleasure of memory, p.51
The Pleasure of Memory, page 51
“Miners,” he whispered.
“Miners?” Chance said, “What does that mean?”
“I’ve heard of a sickness miners get sometimes when they’re down under too long or too deep. Makes their hair fall out, and then they get really sick and die.”
“It’s no sickness.”
Beam knew he was right. In his heart, he understood exactly what was happening. Yet, he just couldn’t will himself to face it. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“No, Beam, I think this is something else,” Chance whispered.
“Curse the bloody gods!” Beam said more to himself than anyone, “This isn’t right! I haven’t been a saint, I admit it, but I sure as hell don’t deserve this.”
Chance’s eyes were locked on his. “I doubt it has anything to do with deserving.”
“It’s the damned caeyl. It’s killing me, isn’t it?”
“It’s not killing you,” Chance said, “It’s more like…like it’s changing you.”
“Changing? What does that mean, changing?”
Chance shook his head, but didn’t pull his eyes away. “I’m not sure,” he whispered, “Perhaps a metamorphosis of some kind. Worm to moth, something like that.”
Beam scowled at the imagery. “You think that’s pretty funny, do you? A goddamned worm?”
“I intended no humor.”
“It’s the heat of the caeyl,” Beam said as he brushed the hair from his tunic, “It’s speeding my blood up, that’s all.”
“Speeding your blood up?”
Beam reached for his knife, but the sheath in his boot was empty. Then he remembered Chance cutting the warrior’s bonds the night before. He looked over at the Vaemyd and saw the dagger wedged beneath her belt. He immediately looked back at Chance and resisted the urge to knock him flat. “You gave her my knife?”
“She took a watch. She needed a weapon.”
“You let her take a watch?”
“I can’t take them all, Beam. And I couldn’t exactly tap you for a shift. As point of fact, I haven’t been able to depend on you taking a watch since our first night in the tunnels.”
Beam watched him for a moment, but decided against pursuing it further. There didn’t seem to be a point in expanding their collective aggravation this morning. Instead, he looked at the Vaemyd. “You there, Vaemyd,” he said, gesturing for the blade, “Give me the knife.”
“I told you my name is Koonta’ar,” she said, “Do you have a problem with your memory?”
Beam bristled. If one more person asked him that question, he swore he’d murder them where they stood. “Just give me the goddamned knife.”
“Say my name,” she said stubbornly.
He held his hand out toward her and asked as sourly as he could manage, “Koonta’ar, if you’d be so kind as to give my knife back, I’d be forever in your debt.”
Without breaking eye contact, she tossed it across the corridor. As it clattered to a stop at his feet, she said in Vaemysh, “Notice there’s no blood on it.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Beam said in kind, “If there were, it would’ve been yours.”
Chance gave him a look like he’d just grown a tail. “You said you didn’t speak Vaemysh.”
“I don’t,” Beam said, “I mean...I don’t bloody know. Maybe I picked up a little along the way. What difference is it?”
“That sounded like more than a little.”
“It was a lucky guess. Just leave it, will you?”
Chance looked at him for a moment, and then he simply nodded and withdrew.
As Beam watched the man repacking their supplies, he felt a deep and sorrowful pang of angst. The man was confused and terrified, and though Beam wanted more than anything to assure him, to drive his fear and pain out into the rock, he couldn’t. The unfortunate truth was he had plenty of worries of his own standing in line ahead of the mage’s.
Finally, he sighed and tipped his sword up toward his face. As he considered the reflection looking back at him from the blade, he took the knife and tested its sharpness against his thumb. Then he began to shave.
XXXIV
THE APPRENTICE
L
UREN WONDERED IF IT WAS DAY OR NIGHT.
His world had devolved to a perpetual gloom whose oppression was broken only by the anemic torchlight whispering through the barred window of the cell door on the sidewall at the other end of the long, narrow room. It could have been days or weeks or even just hours since his confinement began. It felt like he was in a dream performing the same simple task over and over, and every time he’d come close to finishing he’d inexplicably find himself back at the start, and the only way he could ever escape it was to either wake up or die.
He threw his head back against the stone. The pain seared across his skull, and he felt a strange satisfaction for it. In truth, the pain was all he had. The pain distracted him from his self-pity, at least temporarily. The pain grounded him.
The decaying straw covering the stone floor was thick and greasy from decades of excrement and decay. And though his vision had adapted as well as it might to the perpetual dusk, the acrid fumes wafting up from the rotting bedding made his eyes water constantly so that the flesh around his eyes burned viciously from the relentless irritation.
He struggled against the rusted iron collar for the thousandth time. The damned thing was rubbing his skin raw. His neck was perpetually hot and sticky from the blood oozing beneath the corroded metal. The chain leashing him to the wall was so short that he had to hold the collar up when he rested to keep it from choking him to death in his sleep.
In the scheme of things, though, he knew the pain was the least of his worries. He could endure the pain. It was only physical after all, and he could escape the weakness of his body when he meditated. What terrified him most was the fact he wasn’t alone.
The sparse light seeping through the caged window brought all the horrors of this dungeon to life. His nearest mate laid a few feet away on the sidewall, hanging from a throat shackle identical to his own. His hollowed eye sockets gaped incessantly at Luren. The fleshless mouth hung open like a frozen scream. Tatters of rotting, colorless cloth draped the ribs like cobwebs. Yellowed hair sprouted in clumps from patches of mummified skin.
And there were others keeping him company in the cell as well, though they were little more than scattered suggestions of death. A skeletal arm, a toothless jawbone, a rake of ribs curling up from the rotting straw, eyeless orbs peering up from the bedding like a swimmer spying on him from just above the waterline. The images were gruesome and hopeless, but they weren’t the worst of it. His most chilling companions were the rats.
They crawled through the gloom like living bits of shadows, climbing in and out of his companions’ ribs and eyes, gnawing on their decaying bones. Their ever-present eyes gleamed red in the anemic light so that he was always aware of their hungry gaze. One particularly greasy black rat had the habit of climbing atop the skull of Luren’s nearest neighbor and clicking at him as if urging him to hurry up and die so that he and his family could dine.
Luren snapped his head back against the stone again. The resulting pain was like a stomp on the floor that scatters a swarm of ants. It drove away his fears and gave him strength. It told him he was alive, and as long as he was alive, there was hope. He closed his eyes and thought of Chance and home. He had to get out of here. He refused to die in this wretched place, alone and forgotten.
His fingers slipped along the coarse iron collar until they reached the lynch peg. This part of the collar was in much better condition than the rest of the shackle; he could feel the fresh grease and smell the biting scent of oil even above the stench of old urine. He’d tried repeatedly to coax the peg into surrender, to use his caeyl energy to alter its position in time-space just enough to slip it free, but he’d failed every time. He was too young, too inexperienced.
He wasn’t mature enough to have his own external caeyl, like the one in Chance’s staff. He could only use his Bloodlink Caeyl, the one imbedded in his brain at the base of his head, to summon the natural energy emanating from the earth, and then only to a small degree. He could create brief space-time events like levitating pebbles or freezing water or creating fire, but none of that would serve him here.
Everything was different here. The earth beneath Prae’s keep was impure. It was corrupted and spoiled. Its effects somehow fouled the caeylsphere so that the natural energy available to one of his inborn talents was made nearly useless, and he lacked the skills and experience to subjugate its corruption. His was a pure magic, and in this place, purity was a handicap.
He knocked his head back against the wall.
Where the hell was Chance?
He hit his head again.
He needed Chance. He needed help!
Hot tears burned his eyes. He buried his face into his hands. “I’ll die here alone,” he whispered, “And no one will ever know what happened to me.”
He heard the familiar sound of tiny claws scratching against bone.
The black rat was back, watching him again from atop his cellmate’s skull. All thoughts of Chance and self-pity dissipated with the sight of that miserable vermin. Survive first, grieve later.
The wicked black rat dropped and rose, dropped and rose, again and again, as if locked in the hypnotic rhythm of some evil dance, all the time chattering, chattering. The sight was revolting and terrifying. Then he saw the rest of them. The dark straw beyond the black rat and its corpulent perch was moving. Shadows flowed through the decaying straw. The rats were creeping toward him in a slow, determined wave. There were more than he had ever seen.
He withdrew as far as the wall would allow. The king rat’s chattering grew louder and more maniacal. The dark wave of vermin crept closer, developing form and substance as they swam forward. The clicking of teeth rose from the mob, growing louder and more determined as their frenzy intensified.
Luren dug through the slimy muck beneath the straw. He needed a weapon, something he could throw.
The black rat was dancing so feverishly atop his cellmate that the skull rocked forward and back in an unnatural nod. Luren felt something warm scurry along his leg. He screamed and kicked at it. The rats were nearly on him.
In the last possible instant, he found a piece of bone beneath the fetid straw and heaved it at the black leader. The projectile landed a direct hit, knocking the squealing rat away with a sickening thud. The skull toppled backward in pursuit, bouncing off the wall and rolling out into the middle of the cell. It came to a rest amid the scattering rats with its cavernous eyes gaping up at him in surprise from the filthy bedding.
With the loss of their leader, the rats evacuated the cell, pouring like water out through the cracks and crevices hidden in the darkest corners of his prison.
Luren couldn’t scream. He couldn’t even breathe. His fear boiled up to such an unbearable frenzy that it seemed to circle back around to reason again, until there was no fear at all, only truth. And with that, a rush of terrible clarity seized him. He had to act now, really act, or he’d certainly die here alone in the dark silence. He’d never see Chance again. He’d never feel warmth or sunshine or love, not ever again.
He twisted himself around in the imprisoning collar and found the lynch peg again. He pushed his life force out into the caeylsphere. He summoned from the depths of his spirit every bit of power and knowledge he’d achieved in his apprenticeship. He closed his eyes and strained to remember every lesson Chance had ever given him, every act he’d witnessed Chance perform with his caeyl, every moment in his life when he’d felt the earth’s energy pulse through him. He opened his mind and his heart, and as he did, his senses became a magnet for power, a conduit for the earth’s natural energy, exactly as his mentor had taught him.
He held his open palms up on each side of the lynch peg. He muttered the ancient words of lost chants as his thoughts condensed to a singular point of focus.
He anguished that way forever, it seemed. Finally, a dim blue glow tingled against the flesh of his palms. The energy was meager at first, but it quickly grew in intensity until blue sparks sizzled from flesh to iron on both sides of the shackle.
He pushed his mind ever deeper into the effort, exactly as he might put his back into rolling a heavy rock. The world around him faded away. He was floating in a dark void where nothing existed except the shackle and his mind and the caeylsphere.
The smell of ozone filled the dank cell. The lock began to glow ever so slightly, a blue heart pulsing in the darkness, a glimmer of hope. Another blue spark sizzled across the tiny space between him and the metal. And then a sharp crack split the silence of the cell. A rush of steam puffed from the metal like a last gasp as the space that had once been the lynch pin became nothing more than dripping water.
The pin was gone. The shackle was open with the sparkling remnants of his magic still popping and racing across its surface.
Luren dropped his face into the stone. “Oh, my gods,” he whispered as his eyes flooded hot with tears, “Thank you, Calina. Thank you. Thank you.”
Numb fingers pried the rusted iron collar open. He’d barely opened it wide enough to free himself when he heard the voices. He froze. Someone was coming. Dreadful memories rushed in, memories of the grievous whippings he’d received at the hands of the jailer on that first day he’d arrived.
He pushed the collar closed. He couldn’t let that miserable shell of a jailer know he was free yet. He needed a plan.
A dark shadow passed before the barred window to the cell door on the far side of the room. Keys jangled. A key scratched the metal in search of the keyhole. Then tumblers clacked confidently as they rolled away under the pressure of the key. Slowly, the great door swung inward, squealing on rusty hinges, flooding the cell with light. Luren buried his face in his arm to escape the pain of it.
He squinted up over the edge of his sleeve. Two silhouetted figures were moving toward him. One of the shapes, the one with the torch, stopped at the middle of the cell. The face of the jailer simmered in the torchlight behind it. He was old and hunched. Cobwebs of hair moldered on his large, flat head. The flesh on his face dripped down his cheeks and jowls like melting wax, but his eyes were sharp and far too keen.
The second figure, the one in front of the jailer, was fully shrouded in the shadows cast by the torchlight behind him. He stepped toward Luren, stopping just at his feet. Then he squatted before him.
The man leaned closer, close enough that Luren felt the warmth of his breath on his face. It was sour with old alcohol.
“So, this is the apprentice, eh?” the man said.
Luren’s breath caught in his chest. The voice was intense and strangely familiar.
The jailer shuffled forward and stopped just behind the squatting man with his torch held high. “Aye, sire. Scrawny little rat, ain’t he?” The voice was unnaturally shrill.
“I’d expected something modestly more impressive,” the kneeling man said, “I swear, there’s barely enough boy here to bother with.”
Luren looked up into the face. The man’s hair was shoulder length and straight, and appeared reddish where the torch lit the edges, but that was the extent of what he could make out. The details were lost to the shadows.
“Refresh my memory,” the kneeling man said, “What’s the name again?”
The jailer floundered with the question. “Name? Uh...Creenon, sire.”
The dark figure rose up and wheeled on the jailer. Luren flinched at the sound of a harsh slap.
“Not your name, idiot!” the man yelled, “What’s the boy’s name?”
“The…the boy?” the jailer snuffled.
Another slap. Another shrill cry.
“You worthless hack,” the familiar voice bellowed, “Get out! Out!”
Luren hid behind his knees. The jailer shuffled out of the cell. He was still whimpering.
The figure squatted before Luren again. “What’s your name boy?” His voice resumed its false gentility. “I’ve been told, but my memory for inconsequential facts is sadly not what it once was.”
Luren squinted up into the shadowy face. He refused to show fear to one who’d doubtlessly exploit it. “Who asks?” he said.
The man laughed. It sounded absurdly musical in the fetid misery of the cell. “Excellent,” the man said, “Even after all this time under such distasteful accommodations, you remain feisty. I admire that.”
Luren didn’t respond.
The man turned slightly and yelled out to the jailer, “Creenon! The torch!”
A grunting response rolled in from the dungeon beyond.
The man turned back to Luren. “How many days have you been my guest now? Five? Six? The time passes so quickly when one is consumed with the glory of planning great events. I’m afraid it leaves little room for the concern over others.”
Luren felt his heart stop. He couldn’t draw a breath. He suddenly understood, and he cursed himself for not realizing it earlier. This was Prae!
The jailer appeared with a torch. His features twisted demonically in the dancing flame as he approached Prae. He stopped immediately behind him. “Here ye be, sire,” he said, “It’s a torch, just like ye’d be asking.”
Prae twisted to look up at him. The jailer fidgeted and averted his eyes.
“Well?” he said to the jailer.
The jailer was practically dancing in fear. “Sire?” he asked.
“What practical good is a torch held behind me?”
The jailer seemed confused by the statement. Then he quickly knelt beside Prae and held the fire above and between them. As he did, Prae’s face flamed to life.
His nose was long and narrow on a thin, angular face. His fine, shoulder length hair glimmered reddish brown in the torchlight. Save for the fine, black lines of face paint around his eyes and an excruciatingly manicured beard, he looked hauntingly similar to Chance.
For the barest instant, Luren felt a false surge of hope. Perhaps it was Chance. Perhaps this was some strange flux of space-time. Perhaps he’d been locked away in some dark dimension of the Wyr Realm where time passed differently than in the mortal world. Perhaps Chance was here to free him.
“Miners?” Chance said, “What does that mean?”
“I’ve heard of a sickness miners get sometimes when they’re down under too long or too deep. Makes their hair fall out, and then they get really sick and die.”
“It’s no sickness.”
Beam knew he was right. In his heart, he understood exactly what was happening. Yet, he just couldn’t will himself to face it. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“No, Beam, I think this is something else,” Chance whispered.
“Curse the bloody gods!” Beam said more to himself than anyone, “This isn’t right! I haven’t been a saint, I admit it, but I sure as hell don’t deserve this.”
Chance’s eyes were locked on his. “I doubt it has anything to do with deserving.”
“It’s the damned caeyl. It’s killing me, isn’t it?”
“It’s not killing you,” Chance said, “It’s more like…like it’s changing you.”
“Changing? What does that mean, changing?”
Chance shook his head, but didn’t pull his eyes away. “I’m not sure,” he whispered, “Perhaps a metamorphosis of some kind. Worm to moth, something like that.”
Beam scowled at the imagery. “You think that’s pretty funny, do you? A goddamned worm?”
“I intended no humor.”
“It’s the heat of the caeyl,” Beam said as he brushed the hair from his tunic, “It’s speeding my blood up, that’s all.”
“Speeding your blood up?”
Beam reached for his knife, but the sheath in his boot was empty. Then he remembered Chance cutting the warrior’s bonds the night before. He looked over at the Vaemyd and saw the dagger wedged beneath her belt. He immediately looked back at Chance and resisted the urge to knock him flat. “You gave her my knife?”
“She took a watch. She needed a weapon.”
“You let her take a watch?”
“I can’t take them all, Beam. And I couldn’t exactly tap you for a shift. As point of fact, I haven’t been able to depend on you taking a watch since our first night in the tunnels.”
Beam watched him for a moment, but decided against pursuing it further. There didn’t seem to be a point in expanding their collective aggravation this morning. Instead, he looked at the Vaemyd. “You there, Vaemyd,” he said, gesturing for the blade, “Give me the knife.”
“I told you my name is Koonta’ar,” she said, “Do you have a problem with your memory?”
Beam bristled. If one more person asked him that question, he swore he’d murder them where they stood. “Just give me the goddamned knife.”
“Say my name,” she said stubbornly.
He held his hand out toward her and asked as sourly as he could manage, “Koonta’ar, if you’d be so kind as to give my knife back, I’d be forever in your debt.”
Without breaking eye contact, she tossed it across the corridor. As it clattered to a stop at his feet, she said in Vaemysh, “Notice there’s no blood on it.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Beam said in kind, “If there were, it would’ve been yours.”
Chance gave him a look like he’d just grown a tail. “You said you didn’t speak Vaemysh.”
“I don’t,” Beam said, “I mean...I don’t bloody know. Maybe I picked up a little along the way. What difference is it?”
“That sounded like more than a little.”
“It was a lucky guess. Just leave it, will you?”
Chance looked at him for a moment, and then he simply nodded and withdrew.
As Beam watched the man repacking their supplies, he felt a deep and sorrowful pang of angst. The man was confused and terrified, and though Beam wanted more than anything to assure him, to drive his fear and pain out into the rock, he couldn’t. The unfortunate truth was he had plenty of worries of his own standing in line ahead of the mage’s.
Finally, he sighed and tipped his sword up toward his face. As he considered the reflection looking back at him from the blade, he took the knife and tested its sharpness against his thumb. Then he began to shave.
XXXIV
THE APPRENTICE
L
UREN WONDERED IF IT WAS DAY OR NIGHT.
His world had devolved to a perpetual gloom whose oppression was broken only by the anemic torchlight whispering through the barred window of the cell door on the sidewall at the other end of the long, narrow room. It could have been days or weeks or even just hours since his confinement began. It felt like he was in a dream performing the same simple task over and over, and every time he’d come close to finishing he’d inexplicably find himself back at the start, and the only way he could ever escape it was to either wake up or die.
He threw his head back against the stone. The pain seared across his skull, and he felt a strange satisfaction for it. In truth, the pain was all he had. The pain distracted him from his self-pity, at least temporarily. The pain grounded him.
The decaying straw covering the stone floor was thick and greasy from decades of excrement and decay. And though his vision had adapted as well as it might to the perpetual dusk, the acrid fumes wafting up from the rotting bedding made his eyes water constantly so that the flesh around his eyes burned viciously from the relentless irritation.
He struggled against the rusted iron collar for the thousandth time. The damned thing was rubbing his skin raw. His neck was perpetually hot and sticky from the blood oozing beneath the corroded metal. The chain leashing him to the wall was so short that he had to hold the collar up when he rested to keep it from choking him to death in his sleep.
In the scheme of things, though, he knew the pain was the least of his worries. He could endure the pain. It was only physical after all, and he could escape the weakness of his body when he meditated. What terrified him most was the fact he wasn’t alone.
The sparse light seeping through the caged window brought all the horrors of this dungeon to life. His nearest mate laid a few feet away on the sidewall, hanging from a throat shackle identical to his own. His hollowed eye sockets gaped incessantly at Luren. The fleshless mouth hung open like a frozen scream. Tatters of rotting, colorless cloth draped the ribs like cobwebs. Yellowed hair sprouted in clumps from patches of mummified skin.
And there were others keeping him company in the cell as well, though they were little more than scattered suggestions of death. A skeletal arm, a toothless jawbone, a rake of ribs curling up from the rotting straw, eyeless orbs peering up from the bedding like a swimmer spying on him from just above the waterline. The images were gruesome and hopeless, but they weren’t the worst of it. His most chilling companions were the rats.
They crawled through the gloom like living bits of shadows, climbing in and out of his companions’ ribs and eyes, gnawing on their decaying bones. Their ever-present eyes gleamed red in the anemic light so that he was always aware of their hungry gaze. One particularly greasy black rat had the habit of climbing atop the skull of Luren’s nearest neighbor and clicking at him as if urging him to hurry up and die so that he and his family could dine.
Luren snapped his head back against the stone again. The resulting pain was like a stomp on the floor that scatters a swarm of ants. It drove away his fears and gave him strength. It told him he was alive, and as long as he was alive, there was hope. He closed his eyes and thought of Chance and home. He had to get out of here. He refused to die in this wretched place, alone and forgotten.
His fingers slipped along the coarse iron collar until they reached the lynch peg. This part of the collar was in much better condition than the rest of the shackle; he could feel the fresh grease and smell the biting scent of oil even above the stench of old urine. He’d tried repeatedly to coax the peg into surrender, to use his caeyl energy to alter its position in time-space just enough to slip it free, but he’d failed every time. He was too young, too inexperienced.
He wasn’t mature enough to have his own external caeyl, like the one in Chance’s staff. He could only use his Bloodlink Caeyl, the one imbedded in his brain at the base of his head, to summon the natural energy emanating from the earth, and then only to a small degree. He could create brief space-time events like levitating pebbles or freezing water or creating fire, but none of that would serve him here.
Everything was different here. The earth beneath Prae’s keep was impure. It was corrupted and spoiled. Its effects somehow fouled the caeylsphere so that the natural energy available to one of his inborn talents was made nearly useless, and he lacked the skills and experience to subjugate its corruption. His was a pure magic, and in this place, purity was a handicap.
He knocked his head back against the wall.
Where the hell was Chance?
He hit his head again.
He needed Chance. He needed help!
Hot tears burned his eyes. He buried his face into his hands. “I’ll die here alone,” he whispered, “And no one will ever know what happened to me.”
He heard the familiar sound of tiny claws scratching against bone.
The black rat was back, watching him again from atop his cellmate’s skull. All thoughts of Chance and self-pity dissipated with the sight of that miserable vermin. Survive first, grieve later.
The wicked black rat dropped and rose, dropped and rose, again and again, as if locked in the hypnotic rhythm of some evil dance, all the time chattering, chattering. The sight was revolting and terrifying. Then he saw the rest of them. The dark straw beyond the black rat and its corpulent perch was moving. Shadows flowed through the decaying straw. The rats were creeping toward him in a slow, determined wave. There were more than he had ever seen.
He withdrew as far as the wall would allow. The king rat’s chattering grew louder and more maniacal. The dark wave of vermin crept closer, developing form and substance as they swam forward. The clicking of teeth rose from the mob, growing louder and more determined as their frenzy intensified.
Luren dug through the slimy muck beneath the straw. He needed a weapon, something he could throw.
The black rat was dancing so feverishly atop his cellmate that the skull rocked forward and back in an unnatural nod. Luren felt something warm scurry along his leg. He screamed and kicked at it. The rats were nearly on him.
In the last possible instant, he found a piece of bone beneath the fetid straw and heaved it at the black leader. The projectile landed a direct hit, knocking the squealing rat away with a sickening thud. The skull toppled backward in pursuit, bouncing off the wall and rolling out into the middle of the cell. It came to a rest amid the scattering rats with its cavernous eyes gaping up at him in surprise from the filthy bedding.
With the loss of their leader, the rats evacuated the cell, pouring like water out through the cracks and crevices hidden in the darkest corners of his prison.
Luren couldn’t scream. He couldn’t even breathe. His fear boiled up to such an unbearable frenzy that it seemed to circle back around to reason again, until there was no fear at all, only truth. And with that, a rush of terrible clarity seized him. He had to act now, really act, or he’d certainly die here alone in the dark silence. He’d never see Chance again. He’d never feel warmth or sunshine or love, not ever again.
He twisted himself around in the imprisoning collar and found the lynch peg again. He pushed his life force out into the caeylsphere. He summoned from the depths of his spirit every bit of power and knowledge he’d achieved in his apprenticeship. He closed his eyes and strained to remember every lesson Chance had ever given him, every act he’d witnessed Chance perform with his caeyl, every moment in his life when he’d felt the earth’s energy pulse through him. He opened his mind and his heart, and as he did, his senses became a magnet for power, a conduit for the earth’s natural energy, exactly as his mentor had taught him.
He held his open palms up on each side of the lynch peg. He muttered the ancient words of lost chants as his thoughts condensed to a singular point of focus.
He anguished that way forever, it seemed. Finally, a dim blue glow tingled against the flesh of his palms. The energy was meager at first, but it quickly grew in intensity until blue sparks sizzled from flesh to iron on both sides of the shackle.
He pushed his mind ever deeper into the effort, exactly as he might put his back into rolling a heavy rock. The world around him faded away. He was floating in a dark void where nothing existed except the shackle and his mind and the caeylsphere.
The smell of ozone filled the dank cell. The lock began to glow ever so slightly, a blue heart pulsing in the darkness, a glimmer of hope. Another blue spark sizzled across the tiny space between him and the metal. And then a sharp crack split the silence of the cell. A rush of steam puffed from the metal like a last gasp as the space that had once been the lynch pin became nothing more than dripping water.
The pin was gone. The shackle was open with the sparkling remnants of his magic still popping and racing across its surface.
Luren dropped his face into the stone. “Oh, my gods,” he whispered as his eyes flooded hot with tears, “Thank you, Calina. Thank you. Thank you.”
Numb fingers pried the rusted iron collar open. He’d barely opened it wide enough to free himself when he heard the voices. He froze. Someone was coming. Dreadful memories rushed in, memories of the grievous whippings he’d received at the hands of the jailer on that first day he’d arrived.
He pushed the collar closed. He couldn’t let that miserable shell of a jailer know he was free yet. He needed a plan.
A dark shadow passed before the barred window to the cell door on the far side of the room. Keys jangled. A key scratched the metal in search of the keyhole. Then tumblers clacked confidently as they rolled away under the pressure of the key. Slowly, the great door swung inward, squealing on rusty hinges, flooding the cell with light. Luren buried his face in his arm to escape the pain of it.
He squinted up over the edge of his sleeve. Two silhouetted figures were moving toward him. One of the shapes, the one with the torch, stopped at the middle of the cell. The face of the jailer simmered in the torchlight behind it. He was old and hunched. Cobwebs of hair moldered on his large, flat head. The flesh on his face dripped down his cheeks and jowls like melting wax, but his eyes were sharp and far too keen.
The second figure, the one in front of the jailer, was fully shrouded in the shadows cast by the torchlight behind him. He stepped toward Luren, stopping just at his feet. Then he squatted before him.
The man leaned closer, close enough that Luren felt the warmth of his breath on his face. It was sour with old alcohol.
“So, this is the apprentice, eh?” the man said.
Luren’s breath caught in his chest. The voice was intense and strangely familiar.
The jailer shuffled forward and stopped just behind the squatting man with his torch held high. “Aye, sire. Scrawny little rat, ain’t he?” The voice was unnaturally shrill.
“I’d expected something modestly more impressive,” the kneeling man said, “I swear, there’s barely enough boy here to bother with.”
Luren looked up into the face. The man’s hair was shoulder length and straight, and appeared reddish where the torch lit the edges, but that was the extent of what he could make out. The details were lost to the shadows.
“Refresh my memory,” the kneeling man said, “What’s the name again?”
The jailer floundered with the question. “Name? Uh...Creenon, sire.”
The dark figure rose up and wheeled on the jailer. Luren flinched at the sound of a harsh slap.
“Not your name, idiot!” the man yelled, “What’s the boy’s name?”
“The…the boy?” the jailer snuffled.
Another slap. Another shrill cry.
“You worthless hack,” the familiar voice bellowed, “Get out! Out!”
Luren hid behind his knees. The jailer shuffled out of the cell. He was still whimpering.
The figure squatted before Luren again. “What’s your name boy?” His voice resumed its false gentility. “I’ve been told, but my memory for inconsequential facts is sadly not what it once was.”
Luren squinted up into the shadowy face. He refused to show fear to one who’d doubtlessly exploit it. “Who asks?” he said.
The man laughed. It sounded absurdly musical in the fetid misery of the cell. “Excellent,” the man said, “Even after all this time under such distasteful accommodations, you remain feisty. I admire that.”
Luren didn’t respond.
The man turned slightly and yelled out to the jailer, “Creenon! The torch!”
A grunting response rolled in from the dungeon beyond.
The man turned back to Luren. “How many days have you been my guest now? Five? Six? The time passes so quickly when one is consumed with the glory of planning great events. I’m afraid it leaves little room for the concern over others.”
Luren felt his heart stop. He couldn’t draw a breath. He suddenly understood, and he cursed himself for not realizing it earlier. This was Prae!
The jailer appeared with a torch. His features twisted demonically in the dancing flame as he approached Prae. He stopped immediately behind him. “Here ye be, sire,” he said, “It’s a torch, just like ye’d be asking.”
Prae twisted to look up at him. The jailer fidgeted and averted his eyes.
“Well?” he said to the jailer.
The jailer was practically dancing in fear. “Sire?” he asked.
“What practical good is a torch held behind me?”
The jailer seemed confused by the statement. Then he quickly knelt beside Prae and held the fire above and between them. As he did, Prae’s face flamed to life.
His nose was long and narrow on a thin, angular face. His fine, shoulder length hair glimmered reddish brown in the torchlight. Save for the fine, black lines of face paint around his eyes and an excruciatingly manicured beard, he looked hauntingly similar to Chance.
For the barest instant, Luren felt a false surge of hope. Perhaps it was Chance. Perhaps this was some strange flux of space-time. Perhaps he’d been locked away in some dark dimension of the Wyr Realm where time passed differently than in the mortal world. Perhaps Chance was here to free him.
