by Travis Smith
Now she lets out a silent scream as the familiar anaconda of fear wraps itself around her chest, rendering a breath of air impossible. She feels the spiders inside her again. They skitter and claw throughout her wrecked, cavernous womb. She slaps again at her thighs as the spiders finally spill out between her legs and scatter throughout her cell.
Alas, her cell is alight with raging flames. Now she screams anew, but this one is far from silent. She screams until her throat threatens to split and bleed. She leaps out of bed, away from the swarms of spiders that still are spilling out from her wretched hole. The cell’s metal bars begin to melt in the flames and drip down atop her. Each drip sizzles and sends searing pain throughout her skin. She takes a full breath and screams anew.
“We got anotha’ ’ne!” someone screams.
“Been a while since we ’ad a howla’!”
Nearby guards approach the woman’s cell. Inside, she is writhing and shrieking in hysterics that are difficult to behold. She tugs at her hair and spasmodically swats at her own limbs, thighs, and groin. The guards, unfazed, open the door and enter. They seize the frenzied woman and drag her out into the prison’s center. She pays them no heed but instead continues shrieking and flailing against her own body.
Another guard wheels over a heavy metal cart filled with fast-melting ice from distant caverns. They toss the wretched woman inside and replace a heavy lid atop. One guard jumps gleefully on top of the lid as the woman’s screams intensify inside the ice box.
“Fret not, lovey, we gon’ get them demons outta ye!” he calls loudly. His crusty, elated grin conveys that this form of helping others brings to him the greatest of joys.
5
The accommodations surrounding Fanxel were sparse barracks and lean-tos that had been constructed by those displaced from their homes when the rebellions first began. The homes were then reserved for high-ranking guards and officials. The barracks housed trustees and other prison workmen.
Skuttler meandered his way out of the barracks into the communal kitchen. He grabbed a scrap of stale bread for himself before scooping up an armful of corn-based slop and whey to deliver to the prisoners. As he walked into the prison center, his gait shifted erratically. He constantly fought a tendency to turn his body sideways, making his steps inconsistent and shifty. He did not make eye contact with anyone on his journey.
After leaving the old man’s island as a quiet stowaway, he had snaked his way along Fordar’s eastern coast until he found himself a new place to thrive. Fanxel was hard work, but the higher-ranked had a sumptuous lifestyle. They were across the Great Sea from The Baron’s sloppy reign, and, so long as they collectively provided resources and bred and curated faithful acolytes, they were left to their own proceedings. He would keep his head down and not be made a fool of as he had been in the past, by that duplicitous sea vermin Julian and his diseased crew.
“Skut …” a man mumbled in greeting as he passed.
“G’dee,” Skuttler returned, nodding his head and keeping his gaze averted. His accent had changed yet again, from the stammering-falsetto-turned-tactless-pirate-brogue to the sprawling western drawl.
He made his way along one of the rows of cells with a large bucket of slop in his arms, banging a dirty spoon on each cell’s bars as he approached.
“Drop it, or I’ll starve ye three days, just ’til yer half good ’n’ dead,” he reminded any prisoner who dared approach the cell door. One-by-one, prisoners placed their bowls on the dirt and slid or rolled them toward the cell door, where Skuttler would dish out a pile of food. Occasionally he would kick the bowl back toward a prisoner he may find particularly irksome, spilling most of the contents along the way.
As he made his way down the line of cells, he stole glances at Fanxel’s most notorious trustee. The man—if that’s what one could call him—had no known name. He had been called every derogatory nickname that had been dreamt up. Skuttler called him Wheels, as he lacked creativity. The man was an adult’s body atop an infant’s legs and beneath a mutant’s head. His arms, too, were undersized, and the fingers were contracted into dry, cracked claws. He spent his life confined to an unsettling steel contraption—a personal carriage of sorts. It had a round base with a suspended sling, in which he sat. His deformed and calloused legs dangled futilely beneath and served to lamely push him along as he willed. The entire apparatus sat atop three wheels that left dragging skids throughout the dry sand, occasionally peppered with piles of his excrement, which he dropped at will like a wild animal. His oversized head dangled back and to one side or the other, depending on the day. Because he could not lift his weighty crown, his eyes were permanently locked to one side to allow him to see, and his mouth was always half agape, revealing no teeth at all. His scalp had more scars than tufts of hair, and his unthinkable skull had been caved in and cratered in various places.
6
“Line ’em up, boys!” a guard shouts, breaking the mid-morning hush over the prison. “Look sharp ’n’ savvy if ye ever wanna see these bars from t’ other side!”
Boss paces the Fanxel grounds with three men following close behind. The men are wearing elaborate green cloaks that flow behind them against the desert breeze.
“Either o’ these two’d make good brick totes,” Boss comments as he passes by a cell. The three men inspect the specimen and nod in agreement.
“Stout, indeed,” one muses.
“This ’n’ ’ere don’ look like much, but he come from a fam’ly o’ potioners. ’At’s why I’m askin’ a hundred paga fer ’im,” Boss explains.
The thin young man stands and approaches the cell’s bars, his arms outstretched before him in an innocuous plea. “Please buy me, sirs,” the man begs. “I’ll meet yer every whim. Please get me outta this ’orrible place!”
Boss draws his dense wooden club and cracks the prisoner’s wrist through the bars in an instant. “Stay yer pulin’ nonsense, boy, or I’ll make sure ye die b’ind these bars! He’s three hundred paga now.”
The display continues on through midday, as it always does. Half the prisoners cower away from being sold into a life of torture and inhumane labor, while the others leap at the prospect of being out of Fanxel’s cells.
At last the investors indicate a number of prisoners at whom they would like a closer look, and the guards pull the sniveling, wretched men and women from their cells and line them up in the prison center.
“What did ye do?” an elaborately cloaked consumer asks one of the women, who winces as he approaches. “Before all this unpleasantness began?” His tone is soft and unassuming, and the woman believes for a moment that he mayn’t free her only to work her ’til her dying breath …
“I tended my babes,” the woman replies through bitter, silent tears, “while their pa’ minded the cattle ’n’ goats …” But as she speaks, she brings her meek gaze back to the man’s own, and she catches a darkness behind his eyes that opposes his gentle voice.
His eyes move from her breasts to her legs.
“Ye’ll ’ave new babes now,” he assures her. “A whole new fam’ly t’ tend to.”
Her eyes dart to Boss, the head of Fanxel and all transactions therein, but he pays her silent plea no heed. Those who oppose the new world order are but property. And once they leave the prison grounds, they become the property of those who put the paga in Boss’s pocket. He spares no thought to how the investors choose to milk their property of its value.
“Tits come wit’ a bit o’ extra fee,” he states, his tone strictly business. “A hundred ’n’ fifty paga, an’ she’s all yers.”
7
Wheels sat outside a cell ahead of Skuttler’s morning rounds and made his usual guttural quacks again and again. His small arms flailed in a furious, ineffectual windmill.
“Haagh! Bitch! Haagh! Bitch! Mommy!” Most of the few meaningful words he could say were curses.
Skuttler glanced around the rest of the prison’s center, where all the morning guards were ignoring the
agitated man. He dished out breakfast for two more cells before his curiosity got the better of him, and he broke away to approach the commotion.
“Wot ’n hell’s got yer gibs today, Wheels?” he snarled as he approached.
Inside the cell that had Wheels’ attention were two men who were attempting to hush the deranged man in the grotesque carriage as he interrupted them.
“Oy!” Skuttler yelled at them when he saw the desperation on their faces. “Fuck’s ’at?” he demanded. “Stop ’at, now! Guard!”
“Please!” one of the prisoners implored in a harsh whisper. They turned their backs to Skuttler and rushed to conceal whatever it was they were working on.
“Guard! C’mere! Stop, ye wretches!” Skuttler threw his ladle through the bars, where it bounced unnoticed off one man’s back with an ineffectual thud. “I’ll ’ave yer nuts in the lunch deliv’ry fer this!”
At last the guards began to take notice of the commotion and rushed over.
“Now! Turn ’round ’n’ show me yer ’ands!” one named Falace called. He fired a single shot into the sand beside the prisoners to drive his command home.
The cellmates shrieked and tumbled away from the puff of sand and rock that shattered around them.
“Git yer keys. Open it up. Now!” he demanded another guard, who obeyed promptly and with an eager grin. Wheels, meanwhile, had lost interest, and he worked his hobbled legs against the sand in a poor effort to scoot himself away.
When the cell was open, the men—including Skuttler—rushed inside and seized the prisoners by the necks. Falace kicked away a small mound of sand where the prisoners had tried to bury their contraband. He revealed a small pouch filled with clinking coins.
“’Tis mine, I swear it!” one of the prisoners pled before Falace forced the butt of his gun into the man’s gut, producing a coarse thump and groan.
“This wot the fuckin’ hoo-ha’s about? Some coin?” Falace snarled.
“They musta stole it,” Skuttler attempted to add.
“An’ wot’re they gon’ do?” Falace spat in the nervous lackey’s scabbed face. “Buy their freedom wiv ten paga?”
“W—well, sir, they—they’s clearly up to—”
Falace shoved Skuttler aside and dropped the pouch of coins into his own pocket before storming out of the cell and back to his business. “Show ’em wot’s comin’ fer those ’at steal from my boys,” he said on his way out. His delighted guards obliged without hesitation, and they did not stop kicking the helpless men until their pleas ceased and spoiled the good time.
Skuttler, however, hobbled out of the cell behind Falace, his back hunched and his head bowed, giving him an animalistic appearance as he tilted his neck to look up at the guard.
“Wot say ya t’ me ’avin’ one o’ them fancy boomsticks?” he asked, pointing to the foreign rifle in Falace’s arms.
Falace turned. “Ya kick up an ’ole fuss like ’at, fuckin’ up my breakfast chatter, ’n’ ye wanna be rewarded with a weapon, lackey?”
Skuttler faltered, but only momentarily. “Well I’s jus’ tryina ensure the safety o’ yer guards ’n’ meself alike.”
“Safety from a sack o’ coin?”
“W—well, sir, I knew they’s up t’ somethin’ no good, an’—”
“Waagh! Fuck! Bitch!” Wheels interrupted from across the prison center. “Mommy! Fuck!” he screamed at no one in particular.
“An’ p’rhaps if I ’ad me—uhh—” Skuttler nodded again at Falace’s weapon, “one—uhh—one o’ th—them …”
Falace scoffed as the wretch’s voice trailed off. “Ye wanna rank up, jus’ ’ave yerself a sit-down wiv Boss.”
Skuttler contemplated this in silence as Falace walked away for a moment before responding again. “A’right. Point me in ’is stead.”
Falace whipped around, his temper mounting and stormed back toward Skuttler, raising his gun toward the man, who in turn raised his hands in front of his face. “Ya wanna talk t’ Boss, ye filthy curd courier, it’ll be two hundred paga.”
Skuttler whimpered and backed away, shrinking down as if to take to his hands and knees.
Falace stamped a heavy boot down on the man’s foot, eliciting a satisfying yelp like a wounded coyote. “An’ twice that if ye got som’n’ else t’ say t’ me today.”
With that he turned and walked away. Skuttler plopped onto his side and nursed a throbbing paw. Most of the guards watched the battering of the two prisoners in the open cell, and most of the other prisoners looked away in terrified silence, but as Skuttler cast a spiteful glare at the back of his assailant, he could swear he heard snickering from behind him. An unconscious low growl rose in his throat before he slinked away back to the barracks.
8
A man stands in silence. His cellmate sleeps in the cell’s only cot. He watches.
Why does he get the cot? a voice asks inside his head. The voice is not his own. He tells them lies, the voice assures, lies about you.
“He hates me,” the man whispers to the voice. Even in the early evening calm, no one hears him.
He tells them all lies and warns the guards about you.
“Warns them of what?” the man asks. “I’ve done no wrong …”
He tells them you plot against them, the voice whispers on cue. He tells them to poison your meals.
The man gasps at the news. “I knew it was off!” he says, his coarse whisper rising to a growl. “I knew he was set agains’ me!”
End him before he ends you! the voice commands.
The man’s sleeping cellmate rolls over. “Fuck’re ye talkin’ to?” he asks through a groggy rasp.
But the man’s hands are already around his throat.
He screams through the tight grasp as he struggles to hoist his drowsy figure out of the cot.
“Poisonin’ me!” the man shrieks, waking every other sleeping inmate and drawing the attention of those who were already awake. “I’ll kill ya where ya lie!”
The cellmate leaps from the cot at last and knocks his assailant off balance. The attacker stumbles back against the wall, where he is quickly back to his feet and rushing his sluggish cellmate.
Before much of a scuffle can unfold, there is a rising uproar of excitement outside the cell. Guards rush to open the door and pull the quarreling men into the prison center for all to see.
“Lay out yer bets!” a guard calls. “We got a brawl startin’ up!”
Bored guards in the nearby barracks hear the commotion and rush to bring their paga into Fanxel. They lay out small stacks of the coins in front of a group of intermediaries and convey which fighter they expect to arise victorious.
The two prisoners are dragged into the open and thrown in the middle of a large circle of jeering guards.
The reassuring voice in the man’s head has vanished. His once menacing grimace has faded into frightened indecision.
“No,” he struggles to say over the chanting crowd. His cellmate stands across from him, still looking dazed and half asleep. Even in his shocked state, the man is twice his size and will surely be able to defend himself.
The two look around with frantic eyes, searching desperately for a route of escape, but they are fully encircled by an excitable horde.
“Go on then!” a man screams at them, impatient.
“Got thirty paga on the loony ’n’!”
“Finish the job, ya wacked up kook!”
At last the larger man rushes his smaller cellmate, seeing no other way out of this. The opponent’s previous homicidal resolve has receded along with his delusions, and he receives the blows with two thin arms guarding his face. He accepts the attacks until the shouts of the crowd grow dim along with his consciousness and his weak arms fall limp by his side.
When it’s over, the guards drag the two men back into their cell. For the victor, one guard tosses in two coins.
9
Skuttler spent an evening or two licking his wounds and nursing his damaged ego before returnin
g to his duties delivering fodder to the inmates. The stress sores around his mouth had returned after days of deliberation and internal strife. He would never rise in the ranks and earn his rightful place if he couldn’t palaver with Boss, but Falace would certainly hinder him any chance he got. He knew he couldn’t make a fuss or retaliate against the spiteful guard lest he risk being ostracized and cast to the wolves again from another crew.
Coins clinked in his palm as he jostled the near-empty sack of paga he’d amassed. The leaders paid their loyalists around Fanxel, but mess duties provided paltry compensation. If Falace intended to obstruct his reasonable request to speak with Boss, he’d have to find another way …
He returned to the prison center in the late morning with his usual buckets of whey to find that Boss and his crew had returned from an expedition with a new batch of inmates. He fought a fleeting desire to approach the leader directly and ask for a sit-down, but he’d seen that go badly many times before. He touched the weightless satchel of coins in his pocket, and it reassured him that he’d need to play this one more wisely.
Just as Skuttler resigned himself to delivering his morning fare and returning to his quarters quietly, a startling image caught his eye. In a far cell across the prison sat a familiar face. The Stranger was slumped against the bars of his cell staring vacantly at the top of the cells across from his own. The man looked half-dead, which was not a particularly new phenomenon.
A grin spread over Skuttler’s face, and his tongue darted to a fresh sore that was cropping up on the side of his mouth as he backed into the shadow cast beside the line of cells. Divine fate had twisted her claws around this wretched stranger anew and delivered him into the perfect setting for Skuttler to exact his revenge. The scoundrel had demeaned and disgraced him far too many times, and while he had grown content with the notion that he may never see the rat again, this new development could change everything.
“Ooh, ye’ll b—be needin’ t’ play this one r—r—right s—sage, master Skut,” Miles whispered from the shadow. “R—right sage indeed.”