by Everson Cook
Damon Arkon once again found himself tied up. Only this time it wasn't pleasurable. In any way.
Once the guards had gotten Damon to the bottom of the stairs, they brought him to some kind of check-in desk at the jail's entrance. And by brought him to the desk, they basically got to the last stair and squeezed into the tiny space between the edge of the desk and the rock wall of the hallway. One of the legs of the desk was shorter than the other and looked like it had been gnawed on by someone with what were probably now very dull teeth. The top of the desk was scratched up from people clinging to the last vestiges of their freedom. In the deep cuts, Damon could swear he saw flecks of blood and what appeared to be the remains of fingernails from days past. On the wall behind the desk, was a painting of a man dangling from a board that was hanging over a body of water, quite possibly a moat. A water monster known as a pringxit swam underneath the man's feet, waiting patiently for him to drop. Below the creature was scrawled "Hang in There!"
If Damon had thought the screaming was bad when they were three or four flights higher, they were positively earsplitting down here.
"Name?" asked the bored guard sitting behind the desk at the entrance.
His helmeted head was resting in one hand. An ink dipped quill pen was held at the ready in the other. It hovered over a thick, leather-bound book with ragged pages. The book looked like it was at least as old as Damon, which placed it at about twenty-seven years old.
The guard to Damon's left hit him. Damon understood the hit to mean he should speak.
"What?" Damon shouted.
"Name!" the check-in guard shouted back.
"Damon Arkon," Damon said.
"The world's greatest swordfighter," the guard on his left added. Both guards stifled laughs.
Damon glared at them.
The bored guard, who had almost started writing, paused and gave Damon a once over.
"I thought that was Lance Polehea. You said your name was Damon Arkon."
"Yes, yes. That's what I said." Damon rolled his eyes.
"You can't be both Damon Arkon and Lance Polehea. That's just not possible."
"Would you agree though that it's possible that who you believe to be the greatest swordfighter in the world, might not actually be the greatest swordfighter in the world?"
Damon looked at all three guards for assurance.
All three guards shook their heads in disagreement.
"Did you bring chains?" the bored guard asked as he went back to writing in his book.
The other two guards looked at each other and then back to the third guard.
He didn't glance up until he had finished writing on the page, "Damon Arkon – world's greatest swordfighter? Highly unlikely."
"Look, if he is, and we all agree that he isn't, but on the off chance that he is, which, again high unlikely, the world's greatest swordfighter, then we should chain him up. We'd hate for him to do some fancy swordplay in here. This is a jail after all."
The other guards nodded in agreement.
"Again, this is highly unlikely. A precaution. I mean, if he really was that great, he probably could've stolen this pen by now and killed all three of us."
The bored guard picked up the quill pen and pantomimed drawing his pen across his throat like a knife slitting it open. He flopped his head back, closed his eyes, and stuck his tongue out. Damon crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.
"Oh, for sure," one of the guards said while nodding enthusiastically.
"Lance would've done it," the other guard said.
"I've seen Lance do it," the bored guard said.
"You have not," Damon said with disgust. "Anyway, I could do it too. If I wanted".
"No you couldn't," the bored guard said, setting the pen down at the edge of the desk, almost as if to dare Damon to make a move.
"Sure I could. If you say Lance did it, there is really no reason why I couldn't."
"Except for the fact that I'd expect it now."
The bored guard looked from the pen to Damon. Back to the pen. And then back to Damon.
Damon started to raise his hand.
"Ah ha!" the bored guard exclaimed. He snatched the pen away, thereby saving his life and those of the other two guards.
Damon continued to raise his hand and itched at a spot just below his hairline.
"Nice try!"
"I had an itch," Damon said.
"Likely story."
"Oh, give me a break," Damon said.
"I'll give you a break," the guard on the left said.
"I'll go get the chains," the guard on the right said. He made to go by Damon and the other guard, but the space was so tight that he couldn't squeeze past to the stairs.
After what felt like every possible option of maneuvering was exhausted, it was determined that there was no way the guard was ever going to get past. The other guard agreed to go get the chains instead.
Once that guard was out of earshot, Damon turned to the others and said, "Don't you think it would've made sense for that guy to just volunteer to begin with?"
The others agreed with him.
"I mean, I'm not looking forward to getting thrown in jail for, as far as I'm concerned, no good reason, but that doesn't mean I want to frivolously waste whatever time I have left in this place."
The guards said nothing in response. The guard at the desk went back to resting his head on his hand. He twirled the quill pen this way and that. The other guard stared silently at Damon, waiting for him to try and make a move. As boredom set in, Damon drifted to examining his surroundings. To his left was a wall. Behind him were the stairs. And to his right, beyond the guard, was a wide open space followed by a long hallway that stretched into darkness. On both sides of the hallway were cells that as far as Damon could tell were full. Based only on the volume of the screaming, of course.
"You ever consider moving the desk to that wide open space?" Damon asked.
"What?" the guard behind the desk shouted back. He stopped twirling the pen and focused on what Damon was trying to say.
"I said, did you ever consider moving the desk to that wide open space over there?" Damon shouted back.
"Oh," the guard said as he made it out.
"We had it there once," he said dully. "It didn't work out." He shook the desk, wobbling it on its shorter leg for effect.
"What happened to it?" Damon directed his eyes toward the gnawed leg.
"A rentaur."
"A rentaur?
"A rentaur."
"No such thing. A story told to children to keep them from falling asleep," Damon said.
"No such thing," the bored guard repeated with a chuckle. "Then how do you explain this?"
The guard slipped off his glove from his left hand.
Where there were fingers on the glove, there were none on the guard's hand.
Damon recoiled in disgust. The other guard, having seen the stump many times before, didn't even flinch.
"Bless the Gods!"
"They were my now ex-wife's second favorite part of my body too," the guard said.
The other gave the kind of laugh of someone who had heard that particular joke so many times yet still felt obligated to provide some kind of reaction.
Damon felt a strange sense of relief when he heard the sound of clanking steel bouncing off the rock stairs and the guard slipped his glove back over his stump. The clanking got louder and closer. Before long the guard appeared with the chains. Damon reluctantly, yet obediently, proffered his hands, and then after he was secured, he was lead down the hallway to his cell.
4
Damon sat with his bound hands in his lap, his legs splayed out before him. He carefully studied his cellmate. It was very possible the man had died at some point after Damon's entrance.
The man had been very much alive when the Flenshorn guard originally had unlocked the cell to usher Damon inside. The spit that had almost finished drying on Damon's tunic was evidence of that.
Now, the man
was deathly still. There was a serene calmness to what Damon had originally thought might be part animal. Like a Hairnian had mated with an eletruck. And no one, especially the overly passive Hairnians, would be caught dead fornicating with an eletruck. Because by the time they had their pants down around their ankles, it wouldn't be long before their severed head joined them.
Damon didn't think he detected so much as breathing coming from the man. It certainly would've been easy to see the rise and fall of the man's lungs in his nude, emaciated body. Damon could make out his ribs easily enough. And a snakelike bulge that curled around in his lower abdomen which Damon thought might be the man's intestines. Another snakelike bulge dangled between the man's thighs. Whereas Damon had both of his legs dangerously sticking straight out into the middle of the six foot by six foot cell, the man had his wrapped up under him in a way that would be extremely uncomfortable for someone who was alive.
The man stared straight ahead at Damon. His eyes appeared to not blink although it was hard for Damon to say. The cell was mostly in shadows with the occasional illumination by flickering candles bouncing lights off of the gray rock walls.
And when there was a flicker of light, Damon tried not to take in his surroundings too much. He had learned that the hard way. Earlier, Damon had noticed a dark patch glistening below a hollowed out cylindrical area of the cell wall. When the flickering light had caught a thick fluid dripping there, he had almost retched. Although it did strike him as curious how the man was able to make the hole in the first place. Or was that one of the available cell upgrades? It was at that precise moment that he decided the only thing he would truly watch was his cellmate. One, because the man might be dead. Which, quite honestly, would be a blessing. And two, if he wasn't dead, there wasn't much Damon could do to protect himself from him, what with being chained up and no weapon in sight. Damon prayed to the Gods that the guards would come running if they heard his screams, but he wasn't willing to place too many coins of any color on it. He knew for a fact that if pressed, he could scream quite loudly, but was unsure if the guards would be able to pick his screams out from all of the rest.
Damon heard the jingling of keys coming down the hallway and quickly scrambled to his feet. Keeping one eye on his cellmate, he angled his head to look out of the bars that lined the upper part of the wooden door with the other. The smell of something delicious hit his nose before he saw one of the guards come around the corner. This was a new guard, one Damon hadn't seen before. The guard was short and somewhat portly. He looked like a cannon ball with a poorly drawn face and a mustache scrawled on it as an afterthought.
On a silver serving platter being held in both hands by the guard was a partially eaten baccow. Despite the fact that some of the meat had already been torn off, the guard was struggling with its weight. The baccow's crisp, orangish-brown skin glistened in the lit hallway. Two apples, almost artificial in appearance with their overly bright red coloring, had been stuffed into the baccow's mouth. Between the apples nestled a pickle. The baccow laid on top of a bed of green and purple grape leaves.
Damon's mouth began watering. The child of a prostitute and a father he never knew, his family had never been able to afford the succulent beast that the nobility took for granted. Imagine his surprise to learn that it would just take his being thrown into prison to experience such a delicacy. And he got to have sex with a princess from Gonst, too. If he had known that was all it would take, he would've allowed himself to get caught with a princess a long time ago. The Gods knew he had bedded plenty. Wait until he died and mentioned this to his parents in the afterlife, assuming they all ended up in the same place. And Damon's mom knew who his father was and was willing to introduce them. They would not believe his good fortune.
"Yoohoo, guard. Over here."
The heavy platter swayed gently as the guard turned his body in the direction of Damon's voice.
"I'll gladly take a plate of that, my good sir. And serve one up for my definitely not dead cellmate. That man has quite an appetite." Damon patted his gurgling stomach. His tongue quickly ran over his upper lip. He could already taste the salty juices there.
"Right away. Anything for the world's greatest swordfighter." The guard bowed elaborately. His body was at a 90 degree angle, the platter inches from the floor.
"Completely unnecessary, but appreciated all the same. It's about time I got some respect around here," Damon said.
The guard set the platter down on the dusty floor, right outside of Damon's cell. He was laughing before he even got fully upright. The guard slapped his knees and threw his head back. His face became red with exertion. Damon could hear the hearty laughter follow the guard as he walked back to where he came from.
Then Damon heard the dogs. Three of them. Barking up a storm as they came from the other end of the hall. They banked off the corner and skidded to a stop at the platter. They tore savagely into the remains of the baccow making short work of it.
Damon added his screams to those of torment that surrounded him. Then he heard himself cry. Except he didn't believe he had ever done such a thing. At least not since he hit puberty, but those were tears of joy and completely acceptable. And it certainly didn't feel like he was crying. He raised his hands to his face and gently touched his dry cheeks with his fingertips. He looked at his hands puzzled. He swiped at his face again with a little more effort.
Then he realized that what he was hearing wasn't crying at all. And it most definitely wasn't coming from him. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. His eyes widened in panic.
He deliberately turned and looked right into the black, dead eyes of his cellmate. Who was laughing mere inches from Damon's face.
5
His black eyes managed to appear wild in his ash-colored skin. It was like a fire had burned out and he had been rubbed in the powder that remained from the disintegrated wood, except his eyes were somehow left untouched. That color.
"Boo!" he said. His breath smelled like the only thing on the prison menu was feces.
The man was cackling inside Damon's personal space. And Damon did not enjoy people invading his personal space. Damon tried to pull his head back to give himself more room, but it bumped against the door. This provided him only an additional inch or two. He placed his palms on the man's chest and gave him a gentle push.
"No offense," Damon said, adding his winningest smile.
Thankfully, the man took the hint and backed away. He slid back down to where he was moments ago. He rested on a pile of brownish-yellow straw that served as a cushion and a bed. And a toilet. The man held up a hand as he brought his laughter under control.
"Sorry about that, but hoo boy, the look on your face when that big, old guard there set that baccow down. You looked like you actually believed they were going to feed it to you."
His laughter started up again as he reflected back on that moment. He rocked back and forth and pointed at Damon. He slapped his knee a couple of times before calming back down.
Damon wished that he found it as funny as his cellmate did. He reflected back on that moment as well, and nope, he was still angry about it.
"The name's Jin. If you ask any of those guards out there though, they'll only refer to me as Cave Walker."
Jin held his hand out to Damon. Damon eyed it suspiciously before he eventually accepted it. Jin's hands were dwarfed inside of Damon's. They were surprisingly hot as if Jin had held them under a fire before making contact.
"Damon Arkon, The World's Greatest Swordfighter."
"Figures you'd be some kind of fighter what with that grip and all," Jin said, nodding toward Damon's bound hands. "Pleased to meet you Mr. World's Greatest Swordfighter."
Damon plopped back down in his own pile of straw across from Jin. One of his legs was propped up while the other was aimed right at Jin. If Jin was going to make some kind of move, Damon was hoping to fend him off long enough with that leg.
"Jin? What is that, Argordan?" Damon asked as
he tried to get more comfortable. The only thing he liked about straw was rolling around in it. And even then, that was only if a naked woman was also involved. He had tried it on his own once and it just wasn't the same. Too many stiff pieces of dead grass ending up in the most uncomfortable of spots.
"Hairnian. On my mother's side."
"And your father?" Damon asked. He was as comfortable as he was ever going to be.
"Never met the guy, but there are some rumors he was descended from an eletruck." Jin winked at Damon.
Damon laughed uncomfortably.
"And you, Mr. World's Greatest Swordfighter?"
Damon gave it some thought before answering.
"Hard to say really. My mom was a prostitute, her mom was a prostitute, as was her mom, and so on. Never knew my father. Nor my grandfather. I consider myself a man of the world. Although most people like to say I'm just a dick who came from a ton of other dicks."
Jin let out a loud roar of a laugh and gave his knee a couple of hardy slaps.
"What's this about the guards calling you a Cave Walker? Never heard of it?" Damon said.
Jin quickly stopped laughing. He face changed from jolly to serious.
"What did you call me?" Jin leapt to his feet. He towered over Damon, who wasn't exactly cowering, but close enough. Damon realized now that his leg was not going to protect him in any way.
Damon decided if he was going to die, while this wasn't on his list of top ten ways to go, it could be worse. There were at least one or two other ways that would defeat being beaten to death in a prison cell while bound and lying on top of an uncomfortable bed, cushion, or toilet of straw. Like, well, nothing immediately sprung to mind. But he was sure if he was given at least a few more minutes to live something would eventually come to him.
Jin quickly looked out the door for the guard on duty. Seeing no one, he crouched back down, bringing his face within inches of Damon's, once more invading his personal space.
"Pecked to death by a chicken with a dull beak," Damon shouted as he twisted his face to the side.