Dirge of the Dormant, page 25
part #5 of The Mindstream Chronicles Series
Ibsa held the grand duke’s gaze. She was so close. “You needn’t ask the Concord to do it, Your Grace. In fact, we mustn’t. We need Retar to continue holding Palo in high esteem. With a thick mitt borrowed from the kitchen or smithy, you can turn the screw yourself. Of course, as Palo is correct in that the god won’t speak to me any longer, I would be happy to do this deed for you. That way, your hands remain clean.”
A long moment passed while the grand duke considered. Palo glared at Ibsa, and Ibsa gave him a half shrug. If there was one thing she’d learned in her fifty-two years of life, it was that people always saw themselves as being more honorable than they actually were. No, they didn’t always return the extra coins they were given in change by mistake. They didn’t always tell the truth or treat others kindly or sacrifice their own safety to save a puppy or child. Everyone was a hero in his own life history—not the ugly truth he lived but the magnificent fiction he told himself.
“I’ll keep that in my back pocket,” Natan said. “I have another idea to try first. For that, Maga, I’ll need your assistance.”
Ibsa curtsied. “Whatever you ask of me, Your Grace.”
Chapter 17
In the darkness of the outer realm, untamed wights clutched at Tosh’s ankles, trying to pull him down into the mist that floated over his feet. He tried to run, but the claws and tentacles and long whip-like tails ensnared him. He screamed, reaching for Jora to help him. “Tosh, no!” she cried. She grasped his hand with both of hers, unwilling to let him go. Not again. This time, she would never let go.
A single note vibrated through Jora’s bones, gradually fading into her conscious mind. At first, she thought she was at home in Jolver, her hand pressed against the Spirit Stone. It took a moment to remember where she was. Hazred. The capitol. Captured. Bloody fists.
As she came fully awake, she heard a hum that reminded her of a funeral dirge. It echoed against stone and brick walls as it made its way to her ears and raised her skin to gooseflesh. There was something otherworldly about that hum. It sounded less like a hymn composed by a musician and more like weeks’ worth of daily tones emitted by the Spirit Stones. She stilled to listen.
“Some secrets time will never tell.”
“Is someone here?” she asked.
The humming paused and continued after a moment as if she hadn’t spoken at all, repeating the same phrase over and over, as if in answer to the old adage that ‘Time tells all secrets.’
Her eye throbbed, swollen nearly shut, though it was too dark to see where she was anyway. Her hands were still bound behind her, but she recognized her bedding as straw by the texture and length of the blades. To her right was a wall, hard like stone. She tried to kick it, but her boots met with a dull thud that didn’t give or crumble. She climbed to her feet and paced off the cell in both directions, scraping one elbow along the wall to ensure she was walking in a straight line. The room was about six feet square. All walls were stone, and the door was made of metal that felt cold on her bare arm. Kicking it with the flat of her boot made a low clanging sound.
The dirge stopped.
“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone there?”
A soft chuckle came from down the corridor. “Hibsar’s curse. I’ve begun hearing voices.”
“I’m not a voice,” she said. “I’m Jora. What’s that you’re singing?”
“Hush up, you,” the voice said, a male voice with the warble of an old man’s. “You’re not truly there, a mere figment of my imagination.”
Jora wondered how long the man had been there. Long enough to think himself mad. She shuddered, deciding that would not be her fate.
She explored the door and walls with her upper arm, feeling for anything that stuck out, like a screw or nail or the protruding corner of a brick. If she could find something to snag the edge of the kendern and pry it off her head, she could at least find out if King Gerad and Adriel were alive.
With the man’s mournful humming in the background, she searched for what seemed hours, scraping her skin raw and finding nothing to aid her escape. Exhausted and sore from her efforts, she sat back down on the straw. The girl she’d once been wanted to cry. She’d been moments away from victory in that hearing room, but then... Tosh.
How could he be alive? The day he’d left for war had been hard, for she’d been only four years old and she’d adored him, but the day he’d returned had been one of the worst in her life. She’d Observed him die. She’d watched his body burn on the pyre. Except that hadn’t been him. It had been another man’s corpse disguised no doubt by scripture to make his family believe he was dead.
That made no sense. Why would Tosh be there in Mangend? Her memory of his face was admittedly faulty, faded from the years since she’d last seen it. No, Tosh was gone. That specter she’d seen was simply a stranger who vaguely resembled him. And right now, he was undoubtedly being interrogated or tortured by the grand duke’s men to make sure he wasn’t a traitor.
What would he say? That he didn’t know who Tosh was? That he hadn’t been Dyre Kyear and Kayla Lanseri’s firstborn son? That he’d never had two brothers and two sisters, one of whom had terrible nightmares? That he’d never held young Jora at night, rocking her and telling her stories about the day she would grow up and beat those scary monsters’ asses? That he’d never confessed to having strange dreams of his own about a glowing red crystal?
She might have been a young girl when he left for war, but she would never forget her brother, her hero. After he left, she’d fashioned him into the brave soldier in her mind who went with her into the dreams and slew those scary monsters. As she grew older, the imagined Tosh would teach her to fight too, and they would battle the creatures together until she was old enough to no longer be afraid of them.
And now, a decade after pretending to be dead, he was pretending not to know her.
Jora’s heart felt like it was being squeezed to fit into a chest much too small for it. She took a few deep breaths to stave off the sobs that threatened to choke her. I’m the Gatekeeper. Gatekeepers don’t cry. She rocked forward and back, repeating the words “He’s not Tosh” under her breath. Tosh was dead. That Mangendan stranger, no matter how much he resembled her dead brother, was not him, could never be him.
And she’d lowered her guard because her eyes had deceived her. Her heart, so desperate to believe her brother was still alive, had deceived her. Now she was stuck in this dungeon with a madman, and King Gerad and Adriel were at the grand duke’s mercy. Even the whistle that could summon the Colossi was gone, confiscated by her captors. Jora was a failure. She was too young and stupid to wield such power as the Gatekeeper. She would slowly go mad like the fellow down the corridor. King Gerad and Adriel would be starved or beaten to death. Arc and the others would never know what had become of them. They might form a party and come in search of the king, but they would be met with denials and sharp weapons and turned back. Gerad’s children would grow up fatherless as he had. They wouldn’t even have a body to burn during their mourning.
“Figment, are you crying?” her neighbor asked.
She wiped her face on her knees and sniffled. “No. I’m thinking aloud is all.”
Jora tried to sleep but only dozed, plagued by dreams of faces changing into those of her dead family members. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in that dungeon, but it felt like days. Every minute, counted off by the beats of her heart, felt like hours. Her stomach rumbled, despite the terrible stench that pervaded the cell. She hadn’t eaten since before she and Adriel entered the capitol the previous day. At what point did a starving person stop feeling hungry? Was it the moment before death? Did she have this ravenous ache to look forward to for the next few weeks while she wasted away? Or was it like the pain of an untreated injury that gradually subsided until it was no longer noticeable?
“Figment, are you still there?” her dungeon mate asked.
She stood and groped her way to the door. “I’m still here,” she said, angling her mouth to the door’s small opening. “What’s your name?”
The man giggled, a mad sort of laughter. “It’s been so long since anyone has used it, I’ve forgotten.” His voice sobered. “You’re not real anyway, so what does it matter? Call me ‘Lunatic.’“
“I’ll do no such thing,” she said. “And I am real, a prisoner like you are. My name’s Jora, and I’m the Gatekeeper.”
“Hah! Only until you die,” the man said in his warbling voice. “Then you’ll be nobody, a nameless wretch lost for all time in the dungeon of despair and nightmares. I was once...”
She wasn’t sure whether he’d stopped talking or if he was speaking too quietly for her to hear, but she knew he was right. He’d gone mad. If she were locked up so long she forgot her own name, she would kill herself. She returned to her pile of straw and sat, contemplating her predicament.
With her wrists shackled behind her back, the kendern on her head, and the kastdern around her neck, she was helpless, unable to call her allies for help. King Gerad’s only hope of rescue would come from Archesilaus. How long would it take for him to organize and launch an assault? Days, even weeks. She needed to figure out a way free now.
Some time later, a door rattled in the distance and footfalls grew near but stopped before they reached her cell door.
“Is it Suns Day already?” her dungeon mate asked.
“You ask that every week,” the guard said. “You could save me the pain and tell the grand duke what he wants to know.”
Her dungeon mate didn’t answer, at least not loudly enough for Jora to hear.
“Tell me where it is, and I’ll spare your life and give you the drink.”
“You can kill me a thousand times, and I’ll never reveal the gotsgebine’s location to such a monster as him. Or you, for that matter.”
What’s a gotsgebine? Curious, Jora went to the door to hear better.
“We will kill you a thousand times. How do you want it today? Fast or slow?”
“Nothing I say will have any impact, so do what you came to do, you reeking old bugger.”
“What are you doing down there?” Jora asked. From the little window in her cell door, she saw the old man’s cell door standing open but made out nothing beyond flickering light and long shadows.
“None of your concern, Gatekeeper.” In a softer voice, the guard said, “Did you hear that? Your neighbor’s the Gatekeeper. If she can’t escape from here, no one can.”
“She’s real?” the madman asked.
The guard laughed. “Sure, she’s real. You aren’t that mad yet, old man, though a dagger in the ear to scramble your brain might help things along.”
“Do it,” the prisoner said. “Perhaps my next hundred years will pass more quickly if I’m drooling in the corner.” He cackled gleefully.
“Naw,” the guard said. “You need to be alert and aware, otherwise your punishment won’t be effective. Let’s do this.” He grunted with effort.
In response, the prisoner gurgled as if he were being choked.
“Stop!” Jora cried. “Leave him alone.”
“Mind your own business, girl, or I’ll come in there and carve you a new hole.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Sir?” Jora asked. “Are you all right?”
Only silence answered.
She didn’t know what to do but call out to him every now and then. A minute passed and then another. “Sir? Are you there? Can you hear me?”
“Will you shut up?” the guard snapped. “He’ll be fine. Give him a minute.”
At last, she heard the old man gasp and cough as if he’d been held under water and was finally let up. “Hibsar’s curse,” he muttered. “Please end my misery.”
“Drink up,” the guard said. “All of it. There. Good boy.” Jora saw the guard step out of the cell and reach for the door. He carried an empty tin cup in one hand.
“How many was that?” the prisoner asked. His voice had a different quality now, the warble gone.
“Eight hundred thirty-one.” The cell door clanged shut, and the guard locked the door before walking back up the hallway out of view.
“Sir?” Jora asked. “Are you all right? What did he do to you?”
Her dungeon mate didn’t reply for several heartbeats. “You’re still there, Figment?”
“Yes. I’m Jora, remember?”
“The Gatekeeper,” he said, his voice soft. “Yes, I remember. Worry not for my sake. I always survive their abuses. It’s your own life you should be concerned with.”
Chapter 18
Some hours later, or perhaps days—Jora couldn’t tell—the door at the end of the hallway creaked open. Footsteps stomped down the corridor, echoing ominously.
“Not again,” the old man wailed, his voice still clear of its earlier warble. “It’s not time.”
“I’m not here for you this time,” the guard said, his voice growing nearer with every approaching footstep.
Jora stood and looked out through the little window. The glow of light neared, swinging like a pendulum. A big guard came into view, the lower half of his face covered by a scraggly, black beard. He wore a black uniform and a sword at his hip.
“Stand back,” he said. His eyes were like cold, black coals. Jora obeyed. What else was she going to do, unarmed, shackled, and weak from hunger?
The keys jingled and the lock on Jora’s door rattled. The door swung open, and a single guard stood in the doorway carrying a lantern by its metal handle.
“You’re wanted in the courtyard.”
“Could I have something to drink?” Jora asked, her throat raw and her voice scratchy.
“After. Come on. The grand duke hates waiting.”
She preceded him out, her mind battling the headache as she tried to think of a way to fight him. If she ever made it home, she would beg Tylia to teach her how to fight with her wrists shackled behind her back. She’d once heard of a Quandarian fighting style that used only the feet. As she passed her dungeon mate’s door, she rose up on her toes to peer into the cell, hoping for a glimpse of the old man. The guard’s lantern cast a brief light on the face of a man much younger than she’d expected.
“Is that you?” she asked.
“Shut up,” the guard said. He smacked the back of her head hard enough to make her stumble.
“I’m here, Figment,” he said, his voice soft. No one came to the little window to see her as she walked by. Perhaps he was chained to the wall within the cell. When she figured a way out of there, she would set him free.
With the guard behind her, she climbed two flights of stairs and exited through another metal door, ending up in an area enclosed by three red brick walls and surrounded by trees and bushes. The ground was softer there. Daylight glinted through the leaves and branches, and a bird chirped gaily nearby. The guard led her out into the open, and Jora found herself in a courtyard. She blinked, her eyes sensitive to the glaring sunlight.
To one side stood a gathering of people in gray and black. The guard pointed, taking Jora by one arm, and they headed that way. Most of the people were soldiers, but she recognized one of the Witnesses and her captor, the grand duke.
“Come, come,” said Grand Duke Natan. “Join us.” He, too, wore gray, an unusual color for him. Jora had no time to wonder why, for the crowd parted, revealing a naked woman in the center.
“Adriel!” Jora said. She tried to shake free of her jailer, but his grip tightened on her arm.
Adriel’s face and body were covered with bruises and cuts, dirt and smeared blood. Her arm, the one that had been severed and healed by the godheart, hung limp and awkward from a dislocated and bruised shoulder. Utterly broken, she kept her gaze on the ground at her feet.
“What have you done to her?” Jora demanded. “Let her go.”
“She’s been tried and declared guilty for attempted regicide.” Natan turned to Adriel. “Her sentence is death by beheading.”
“No!” Jora cried. “Hurt her and you’ll be sorry.” With one hard twist, she broke free of her guard, but he caught her again before she’d made it two steps. Another man looped his arm into hers, and the two of them held her fast. “Please. For the sake of peace between our nations, pardon her for any crime you think her guilty and let me take her home.”
“It’s far too late for that, Gatekeeper,” Natan said. His eyes glinted as he smirked, then he nodded to the two men nearest Adriel.
They dragged her to a large, flat stone, forced her to kneel in front of it, and pushed her torso down so that her neck was exposed. She didn’t struggle or resist, didn’t try to get away. Adriel was resigned to her death.
“The question is whether to use the axe or the sword. I leave that for you to decide, Gatekeeper.”
“Please,” Jora said. “Spare her. She didn’t try to kill you or anyone else.”
“Oh, but she did. My prime maga saw the inscriptions she tried to draw and had to furiously counter every one. You were there. You saw it happen.”
“Adriel was only trying to lift the silence so I could summon my allies.”
“So that you could kill me. Yes,” Natan said. “I’ll get to you shortly. First things first. Now, tell me axe or sword.”
“She was only doing her duty. Let her go.” Jora cast about in her mind for something to say that would convince the grand duke to let Adriel go. “She’s only nineteen years old. She could... I don’t know, bear you sons.” She cursed herself the moment the words were out of her mouth, for they were among the stupidest she’d ever uttered, but what other argument did she have?
“I already have a wife. Axe or sword?” Natan shouted. “Choose or I’ll choose for you.”
“I can’t,” Jora said, her voice quiet. “I can’t. Don’t make me.”
“Axe it is.” He pointed to Adriel. “Behead the wretch.”
Jora turned her head and shut her eyes, unable to bear the sight of her best friend being murdered. One of the soldiers grasped Jora by the head and turned it back. “Watch,” he told her, “or we’ll cut off pieces of her until she’s dead.”
