Prince in the Tower

by Stephan Morse

  “When will he see you?” I asked Leo.

  Leo chose not to answer.

  Soon lunch ended and the two of us traveled to our separate destinations. I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d been put on mop and bucket duty, but it was wonderful. These hours of quiet work happened to be the only solitude I got. Freedom without other people made my muddled memories survivable.

  Occasionally I saw others during my rounds. They were like me, people who sought a quiet moment of contemplation to help them crawl away from imprisonment. Some stared at walls, others the back of curved hands covering their faces. Their tension seemed to reflect mine.

  Dipping the mop into my water bucket reminded me to relax my shoulders. Scrubbing off grubby tiles tired my arms. I’d started putting all the strength I had, minus the extra abilities, into my cleaning. It served as exercise which kept me pleasantly exhausted each morning.

  The job I’d been given wasn’t important, but it was useful. Other people would find it demeaning but not me. I’d been spending my life cleaning the areas I lived in and that wasn’t likely to change.

  Near dawn I checked the cleaning materials back in and waited while a guard recorded every item used. Each container returned was measured for their total amounts and weights. As if I’d use bleach to poison someone else’s food. There were easier ways to kill someone.

  Then, once cleared, I lumbered back to our cell to be locked in for the night. Nathan was already in his rack staring at the wall. Leo was doing curls using the sheets and his foot.

  “Tomorrow,” I stated.

  Leo paused between sets and nodded slowly.

  “Is he visiting you?” I asked again.

  Leo shook his head and motioned for me to clear the floor. I crawled onto my side and lay back. Next to me the younger runt started doing a round of pushups.

  “Want me to pass on anything?”

  Leo again declined to answer and continued with his exercise routine. Minutes later I was asleep, reconciling those previously shrouded memories against my life.

  As a child, I had a small concept of written words. The idea of weeks was intangible, months an unanchored word, seasons nearly mythical. Years later my new family would teach me these words, but the young Jay Fields had no clue.

  So when I stood in front of the restaurant before dawn and tried to understand the signs and posters nothing useful resulted. There were big squiggles and little ones. Hand written things and strange uniformed text. Nothing stood out, everything blended in a mash of colors.

  The pictures were mouthwatering.

  Nighttime was most peaceful. It’d taken me days to figure out crossing the street. Metal objects with angry people inside honked loud blaring things in my direction. Like everything else I learned by studying those who navigated the strange land.

  But only when I wasn’t hungry.

  My mind couldn’t conceive that someone needed to cook the food or that people worked in exchange for money. No, all my brain knew was hunger might be resolved if I dared brave the inside. I’d survived nearly two more weeks before growing desperate, and Daniel hadn’t been by in days.

  He’d sneaked into my small sanctuary. We’d gotten into a child’s fight, one where he’d broken my nose, and I’d scratched his side and nearly broken his arm. The fight ended in him not returning.

  Hunger drove me to the food place again. I took a chair from the ground and swung it toward a window. The crash of glass shattering was sudden and sharp. An alarm went off moments later, the noise piercing everything worse than the car horns. Worse than the wailing sounds of sirens on police vehicles.

  My head hurt. I stood there, pressing hands to temple and warring between the noise and my hunger. Soon two cars showed up.

  “Hands up!” The words were almost in slow motion. They distorted against the backdrop of sound. Moments later another car pulled up and someone else got out.

  This was more than one or two people. All were men in blue with those shiny badges on their chests. They had small things in their hands they brandished like weapons. Their weight felt light.

  “Drop the weapon and put your hands up!” Words were still distorted but the intent was clear. I snarled while hurling the chair.

  They ducked, and one pulled the trigger. I barely had time to sense a boring sensation as the projectile hurled through air toward me. It missed, sailing into the restaurant’s interior.

  And I ran.

  They shouted more words I couldn’t understand. The sirens and building security alarm overpowered my then meager senses. My strength was paltry, just barely that of a grown adult.

  I wound through alleyways, across empty streets, and spiraled around the neighborhood toward home. Footsteps behind me faded the longer our chase went on.

  Finally, huffing, I made it to the building I’d claimed as home. This place was my small piece of sanity in a foreign world. There, I hid, hungry and shaking, with both arms wrapped around my legs, holding back every emotion from flying out into the world without me. Heat came, as it always did, my breathing becoming more labored. I remembered fighting the urge to yell, the pounding thrum of my pulse.

  Words poured through, not my father’s wisdom, not his reassuring words of guidance. This was something else. A voice wholly mine and terrifyingly angry.

  Burn them all.

  It was the first time I’d ever heard it. Nothing like father’s words which were both distant and caring. Nothing like the chatter of other people. This was personal, intense, like I’d opened all my senses for the first time and peeked outside of my eyes to cast judgment upon the world. Projecting a desire for flame and ashes upon an existence that dared deny me food.

  I shivered and swallowed for a distraction. Anything to stave off the gnawing hunger and the mad voice it induced. The voice stayed silent. I huddled in my refuge, arms still crossed over my legs, while heated air slowly dispersed throughout the room.

  I knew anger and it scared me.

  The memory faded and my past let go. A leg jerked back, reacting to a prod that had barely registered.

  “Wake up,” an unfamiliar man said.

  My eyes blinked away cobwebs. Our cell was dark. A figure rattled the bars with an annoyed look. One of the guards had come down for reasons unknown.

  “You Jay Fields?”

  “Yeah.” The word slurred as I sat.

  “Visitation is today. Get yourself together and I’ll escort you.”

  I looked at Leo and Nathan, then realized they had barely stirred. The guard must have poked my foot through the bars.

  “’Kay.” I hit the sink, stared at the shitty mirror, and recalled the professional figure I’d been months ago. In Kahina’s employ I had been a man worthy of respect. Wearing the Deckard suit would have helped mitigate my gruesome image.

  Then I’d be someone Roy wouldn’t be ashamed to know. I wouldn’t be that little boy, hungry, tired, and scared. Reliving those memories over the last few nights made my life disjointed. I got lost between now and then.

  I fought to keep my breathing even as the guard put cuffs around my wrists. I worked to keep my steps measured as we walked past a few early risers who felt the need to glare. We traveled through the security gate, past more guards who watched with a wary eye in my direction, to an elevator and downward.

  The guard didn’t talk much other than to give orders. He reminded me of the rules of conduct and warned getting out of line would be a strike on my record. He suggested strongly I behave no matter what happened. I just agreed to everything.

  They walked me into a decent room. There wasn’t a lot in it, just a table and two benches. The guard sat me down, bolted the chains to the seat, and went to stand outside the door. Roy was on one side of the bench and didn’t seem pleased.

  Roy looked just as crisp and professional as I had when working for Kahina. Most so, he really wore the suit. The man had a way of carrying himself that made everyone else seem like a slob.

  It amazed me he co
uld strip all that off, be tattooed then ruthlessly fight people to near death in a pit. He had found the balanced between man and monster I struggled to achieve. Separating those two personalities required an intense discipline. More flashes of memory poured through and shifted off to the side. There was no time to get lost in them now.

  Later I’d sort through it.

  “James,” Roy stood and greeted me. My mind shifted into the other vision for a moment and saw the solid outline of the bouncer’s form. His kind rarely had any energy going to and from. Their actions were always firm, not in flux. It was like the only thoughts of action in their mind were either acted upon or completely disregarded.

  I tried to shake but my chains rattled.

  “Hi, Roy.” My eyes examined the metal tether for weakness. He seemed to be waiting for me to start.

  “The trinket’s busted.” I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “Charred, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep myself under control.” Snapping at Leo had been a bad sign. Wanting to kill Spike and his friends had been a worse one.

  Roy nodded.

  “I will contact Muni to get you a new one.” The man was even decisive with his words. Problem, immediate solution. His struggle was for clarity as everything Roy said came out a weird mixture of crisp and marble mouthed.

  “No.” Never again. “The price is too much. I can’t do it again.”

  “Are you okay?” He switched to a more fatherly tone. We’d known each other for most of my life and he still flipped over to worry.

  My head shook and eyes cast down for a moment. Both hands grasped upward at air. “I’m still sorting out the memories. They’re jumbled, messy, and painful.”

  Silence ensued. I tried to stay calm and composed. It wasn’t working too well. These chains irked me. Being locked in this room grated on my nerves. Admitting my memory was a muddled mess added a layer of nervousness into my emotional mix.

  “How was the funeral?” I ventured into another topic.

  “Insufficient, but those who knew the old man were there. Almost all of our family, many fighters from his ring days.”

  “Must have been some crowd.” The girls would have made quite the lineup. Two dozen beautiful women mourning the death of Tal would have emphasized the loss.

  “They were respectful. My father was a pillar of our community. Even our new members were restrained.”

  The wake would have been another story entirely. Bottom Pit might have been shut down completely. People would have been drinking and brawling, celebrating a warrior’s life with exuberance.

  “Have there…” Moments flashed by. Faces blurred as each person from the family struggled to stand out in my mind. I shook the sensations off. “… been many new additions?”

  “Some. Not as many. Hunter Crumfield did what he could, but his interest has always been in you, not us. Keeping the family together has been” —Roy frowned—“challenging.”

  I leaned my head down and tried to scratch an itch. The chains rattled.

  “Daniel’s like that.” I sighed. “Steven’s new? Some of the girls? Muni’s godson?”

  “Yes. Steven’s part goat or similar. Daniel mentioned pan pipes, and to keep him away from his family. A few others of the tribe or the ladies have turned up.”

  I frowned and tried to remember the names of their species. Daniel had access to lots of information as a Hunter. His kind, Hunters, had compiled a large database on the races. Habits, pathologies, extra strengths and especially our weaknesses.

  “Are we enough?” My lips twisted and I tried to remember what the next few steps would be.

  “To go public?”

  I nodded. Roy had talked to his father about going public before. It was an option but the cost would be difficult.

  “Perhaps. We’ve expanded over the last few years. Would you believe the girls wanted to open a dance studio and theater?”

  I smiled. That was really good news.

  Roy smiled too, and kept going. “My boys suggested Rachel open a bakery, but she declined,” he said.

  I laughed. Rachel had issues leaving wherever she’d claimed as home. The fact she’d picked up and moved to Tennison for me was downright amazing. Yet another aspect of my history that hadn’t fully registered.

  Hell. They’d all uprooted their lives just to help me. The smile soured as my mind whirled around what had been happening. The amount of work everyone had gone through to help me.

  Roy noticed the change in mood and shifted his answer accordingly.

  “Some of the others have been working with government officials, getting a feel for which way they’d lean. We have no sure answers. Hunters like Crumfield know we’re out there, but no one knows how many, or how concentrated we’ve dared become.”

  “No, then. We can’t risk it,” I said. All those people back at Bottom Pit, the girls, Ted and Barnie, Roy’s tribe, would be in trouble if we went public. It took hundreds of years for humans to accept the three races already in existence. We, people like us, were all supposedly dead.

  Where did that put me?

  “Are you sure? Being public would give us legal recourse, but it’d also put our more frail members in danger.”

  “Hell,” I muttered. “I’m not sure of anything. I don’t know what’s the best way to go. I don’t know how to keep everyone safe. Plus the fallout, the worry. People would riot and burn down your homes.”

  “That’s what we worry about,” Roy said, and nodded. Neither of us said we were afraid of it, but we were also responsible for those near us. “Hunter Crumfield showed us the Sins. They implied things could go wrong.”

  I nodded while my gut tightened. The Sins of the People was a visual story elven clans kept a record of. It helped them explain why they had to be part of the Purge.

  I vaguely remembered some of the wording now. Without Muni’s charm in my way these things were becoming more apparent. And Roy was right to be worried. Humanity had reacted out of fear before. People like me had reacted out of rage before. Such a battle would only escalate and result in more death.

  “Do you plan to stay here?” Roy switched topics.

  I huffed and tried not to think about the Sins right now. It didn’t work right without an elf. Everything about it felt like a badly told bar tale until seeing the presentation.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure what’s best. Fighting the charges means risking exposure. Staying here keeps me near Leo,” I said. This place annoyed me but the alternatives weren’t great either.

  Roy nodded but said nothing of his son’s welfare. It struck me as weird since runts were meant to be protected until they were warriors. This whole throwing Leo into the legal system spoke of more than simple runt status.

  “They’ve got a trial set for you with a list of charges. The case is still building though, so it might be a while,” Roy said.

  “It doesn’t matter!” It only took a few crimes to put me away for one lifetime. “I’m guilty by the law! Every single action I’ve done can be considered a hate crime since there’s no one else like me!”

  My arms slammed down. The table dented and chains groaned. Air grew heated and I struggled to get myself back under control. I rapidly wound the metal around my forearm and held tight, as if my surfacing mind could be restrained through a physical binding.

  The outburst was unexpected, to me and Roy. For just a moment his energy fluctuated in defense. I saw a swirl of essence as one he almost backed in to a fighting stance. One ghostly arm swept up and the other back. But Roy, the physical version, hadn’t moved an inch.

  My guards were less composed. Two came in the door, one with an electric taser out and ready to go. My fingers were up and body huddled. They reviewed the room’s status briefly before unhooking the chains and ushering me out.

  I managed to speak again and said, “Find Daniel.”

  I could feel Roy’s attention locked on my retreating form. There was no swirl of movement or sign of a nod. He sat still and
kept silent as they yanked me away.

  6

  Solitary Pity

  The past rolled through, as it had repeatedly for days. At least these thoughts were becoming more linear. Individual items cropped up randomly, but at night it kept a single thread. Maybe I had Muni to thank for that.

  This time I was a child again, and my dwelling had been invaded. Three people stood, poking and prodding everything. I could feel each disturbance of desks, shuffling of the tarp and stir of air.

  Their talking was harder to understand. One voice was deep, but didn't feel in charge. Another voice registered with sharper tones. A woman whose sounds were bored and edging into annoyed. The man in the middle touched nothing. He stood while his minions went about their disturbing inspection of my home.

  I was in an air vent elsewhere in the building—hiding off in a corner and waiting for them to leave. Not that anything up there was of any value. No food, no money, nothing of consequence to normal people, but this was my home.

  That only made sense in an abstract way. My thoughts as a small child had been muddled half the time. Almost instinctual instead of reasoned.

  Those thoughts had picked up the invaders’ footsteps from outside. Unhurried weights pressing mud and concrete down as the three walked up. Options were weighed and escape routes barely considered before one was chosen. I chose an exit then quickly crawled forearm over forearm down a metal pathway.

  "He might be down here," the bored female said. Her words had become more distinct and chased after me. I felt her kneeling before the ventilation duct I'd crawled through.

  "Kid!" the deeper male shouted down the tube.

  I had to get elsewhere immediately and should have left a long time ago. This den wasn't worth fighting over, and I was too small for a battle on their scale. These three people were all bigger than I, moved with a stable grace.

  Danger. Flee.

  The voice in my head was back, and useless because I'd already made a move to escape. I slowed to reduce noise while shuffling around a corner. There were twists and turns to the shaft, one combination would lead outside.