Prince in the Tower

by Stephan Morse

  The world tilted sideways and went further back in time. Suddenly I was a child again. Roy took labored breathes right next to me as we went through an endless amount of sit-ups. Tal screamed in our faces. “Again!” he said.

  “What do we do when we fail?” the old man yelled.

  “WE TRAIN!” Roy yelled back. I couldn’t even eke out that much but my stomach burned from endless sit ups.

  “What do we do when we succeed?”

  “WE TRAIN!” he answered again. Roy Forge had been made of iron from a young age.

  The past sped out as quickly as it came leaving me bemused and rubbing away the pain of memory at my core. Ms. Sauter’s face, back in the here and now, looked very concerned about something.

  “Mr. Fields?” Ms. Sauter said. I couldn’t even remember her first name. Part of me felt terrified of trying to recall it in case more of the past punched me in the gut.

  “Jay, please.” Only Daniel insisted on using my last name like that, and he was being clever with it. “Bottom Pit. Roy Forge. James sent you.”

  “And then?”

  “Ask him.”

  Another thought occurred to me.

  “They’re…” How do I tell someone that she might be walking into a den of nonstandard races? Wolves would know by smell, but Muni had the entire place layered. “He’s someone I’ve known since childhood. He took care of some of my things, money, while I’ve been in trouble.”

  “Is this more legal trouble?”

  I didn’t have an honest answer. My brain was still working through the past and present memories. Robbing a bank seemed unlikely but maybe there was a similar poor choice buried in the missing parts.

  “No. Roy is a different sort of trouble.”

  “All right.” Ms. Sauter brought her hands together and pinched the inside of her palm. After a deep breath she started again. “It will take me a week or two to get things together. Until then, please try to remember every detail you can. About the charges that might be against you, about your work under Kahina Rhodes. Anything.”

  “All right.” I’d tell her anything she wanted to know, except the things that shouldn’t be shared.

  Our meeting was over. Ms. Sauter flagged the guard and escaped, looking both excited and stressed at the same time. Moments later they escorted me back to my torn up solitary cell and closed the door.

  I stood there and wondered too many things.

  Warden Bennett paced by the door and paused for a moment to breathe in. His footsteps felt pensive, his weight froze in awkward jerks while the world kept on moving. His vampire bursts of speed fluttered about the hall. In the end he never stepped into my cell.

  My getting a visitor likely set off his alarm bells. Had I created more trouble for Ms. Sauter? Roy would be trouble for her, but she seemed like a tough lady.

  I glanced toward the door and felt guards stroll by. My senses were harder and harder to control. Each day brought more of the world under my grasp. People’s very presence in my surroundings grated on me.

  It made sense why I drank so much.

  Moments of the past flashed by again. Daniel’s teenage face, still freckled, still redheaded. At that age he’d less of a tan, but after fifteen it would really take off.

  “You have to try this, man, it does awesome things. Here, man, drink, drink.” He seemed so giddy and happy. I was theoretically fourteen myself. Legally, we were far too young for liquor.

  “It’ll help, man. I think. My dad says there are three kinds of drunks. Angry, excited, and sleepy.” Daniel turned out to be the excited type.

  I’d been the sleepy kind. My mind drifted slowly as Daniel chattered his brains out about anything and everything of note in his life. Most of what he said went over my head. Stories about his life, about what his father had seen, creatures, legends, things that didn’t ever make complete sense.

  That moment faded away as I worked to keep myself in the here and now. More days passed. Solitary lasted longer than the original proposed week. I didn’t care one way or the other.

  No one explained the reasoning for my delayed egress into the world. In my idle moments I’d theorized Warden Bennett was keeping me under watch. The ground continued to shake, smaller tremors that felt duller with each day.

  The world drifted in and out. Memories of Ms. Sauter plastered against teachers who tried to rein me in. Guards overlapped police officers who had dragged me home to a disapproving Tal Forge.

  Time moved funny in isolation. Spans where it felt like days were only hours. Minutes sped by in single blinks. Walls warped in and out as vision swam from mental exhaustion.

  Some nights I groaned. Others I held rigid and desperately tried not to tear up the room any more. A lifetime of control was coming apart at the seams. Before, it’d been easier, because I hadn’t had anything to control. Something about knowing what man I’d been in the past made the here and now feel wild.

  Miss Sauter didn’t return with any news. Nothing came in from Warden Bennett. No visitations by Roy or any other family member.

  Eventually they returned me to general population and the world felt wrong. Not just me and my worn out mind. The shared cell was certainly the same one. I felt the little pockets of items I’d hidden around the room. Some had moved, others were tampered with, but none actually missing. The intrusion rubbed me wrong, but it had been expected.

  I stumbled to the schedule on the wall and noticed my name had been crossed off for the rest of today. There were other markings for tomorrow and the days following. Basic jobs but no allotment of yard time. It might be a punishment for being so good at kicking another man in the ribs.

  Leo’s schedule had him in the same place. His had some other item marked Rec., likely due to successful performance. Apparently he’d been a good boy during my absence.

  Nathan’s activities were unchanged from the rotation he’d been on before my stretch in solitary. I frowned. Was the man really going to survive here?

  The cell gates were open, allowing us to roam around the floors while guards stood above. Normally, when we weren’t performing assigned duties, we’d been set loose until lockdown later at night. None of it mattered a ton since I stayed near my bunk to protect my meager collection. Or to stay sane.

  The furthest I voluntarily dared was at the edge of my shared cell, where I quietly studied other people. They were always in clumps of three or four. Some scuttled between here and there passing messages. Females existed but seemed to group up on their own. Occasionally, women, and men, vanished behind curtains with other people. No doubt they plied an age old trade for goods or services.

  My shoulder rolled to one side as moments and twitches were observed. Tearing up the wall and being on my own had left me sore. My body ached from stretching at all hours of the day.

  I studied the crowd while absently scratching my side. Most people here were human, maybe about forty percent werewolves. Less than five percent were elves. One used an illusion to make his ears appear rounded. Two huddled in the top corner, skittish about coming out of their cell.

  And the smaller group belonged to three partial vampires. I hadn’t seen them in the yard, but vampires didn’t function well during the day. All three were together, slapping each other and gesturing to members of the crowd while making comments.

  No natural light shone in from any windows. I only knew it was nighttime from the aware vamps and cold brick on the edge of my tactile senses.

  Everyone here was a violator of Sector crimes. Accidental and deliberate, but not all crimes were murder or anything close. Robbery from an elven clan would rate as a cross race offense. There was a television show based on entrapping would be trespassers with illusions. They’d leak rumors online and then send those stupid enough to try to jail after exposing them on national TV.

  Leo had been right. Most people here seemed to resist the lingering hostility. When a human bumped into a wolf there were angry glares but no spoken words. Different groups would curse
and flip each other off but never actually approached for a confrontation.

  Guards watched from above with indifferent gazes. From their perch nearly anyone could be brought down in moments. Their guns felt heavy and fully loaded, fingers clutched stocks but never reached around to the trigger.

  Between their looming presence and the barely displayed hostility below things felt almost normal. But at the same time this entire system was designed to punish those who didn’t fit within the rules.

  I still only had one official strike. No privileges were given and none were taken away. I turned back into the cell and counted my belongings once more, to be sure they were all in the right place.

  9

  Focus on

  “He only ever wants to talk about you,” Leo said one day as we both stood at the rail. Below us people moved around.

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Parent child relations were a skewed thing in my mind. Flashes of the past still attacked me nearly anytime I tried to remember something. They were confusing, with every ounce of raw emotion I’d felt the first time.

  “It’s frustrating,” Leo continued.

  “I’m not an expert on your father,” I answered.

  “You’re his friend. You grew up together.”

  A bit of the past hit me. I was a young boy who’d lived with Tal and Roy for two years. They didn’t treat me as family, but as a roommate taking part of all the activities. I went to school with Roy, which was frequently a disaster. At night I’d be drilled in basic exercises.

  I stood there in a ring against children my own age. Heavy padded gear lined my head and hands. Everything restricting and confusing. Part of me was excited, but the rest was worried on what might happen.

  “Want advice?” Tal said in the memory.

  Young me nodded.

  “Pick a goal. Some fighters go in to win, others not to lose, some settle for just a single punch. Whatever works for you, just pick a goal.”

  “Okay,” I responded.

  “Runt,” Tal’s sharp word made my head jerk up.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t compromise your goal. You pick winning, you win. You pick a single punch, make it a wallop.”

  The scene skipped again as Leo tried to unload all his teenage angst on me. His words were lost under the pressure of my mind pulling events together. I knew now Tal had never really figured out how to handle family members.

  The old man had left me alone with Roy. He preferred to watch fights from the sidelines, like a spectator and not a coach. He cared for how the fight looked from all aspects.

  I ignored the growling voice in the back of my head. It wanted to fight.

  Roy stepped into view and made me lose concentration. He said, “Remember, none of them out there matter. Just you and your opponent.”

  He was doing his duty as an older tribe member, according to Tal, by checking the gloves and headgear. He put a small piece of plastic between my lips. Then Roy turned and scanned the other fighter. The other boy was equally scrawny and had been swallowed up by blue plastic to my red.

  From Roy, the words sounded easier to believe, easier to relate to.

  “What if I lose control?” I asked.

  “You won’t. Just remember what we’ve practiced. Father may be a bastard but he’s taught us well. Remember yourself, remember the rules.”

  Roy managed to keep his face straight. At times, he felt and acted dead. Other times he boiled on the edge of lashing out.

  I bit the mouthguard and nodded. The headpiece pressed uncomfortably into my scalp. The gloves were too tight and heavy.

  Of course I lost it, punching like a crazed child long after the fight had ended. I remembered the hands pressed against me, pulling me from the fighter I’d been going wild on. Later, in the car, amid angry glares from other children’s parents and a passive side glance from Roy, I shivered violently.

  Tal got into the vehicle after taking care of the aftermath. I learned later that I’d been removed from the bracket and banned from their program.

  I’d done wrong. I expected Tal to turn and point with an accusing finger in my direction. The older man took another route than the expected berating. “Did the advice help?” Tal asked.

  I gave him a worried glance. Adults tended to get upset with me. Teachers, police, and store owners. Nothing I did fit in with what was expected.

  “You won,” Tal said.

  “I did?”

  “Technically. Did you focus on winning?”

  “I guess.”

  “Good. We’ll start with that. Focus.” He nodded. “It works for everything. Pick a goal, and don’t let go.” Tal started the car, sounding upset and happy at the same time.

  “Hamburgers, please,” I muttered.

  Fighting made me hungry.

  Leo was still babbling by the time my mind came down. His expression pinched more around the edges with every sentence. The tightness of his shoulders and short breaths were serious and upset. It wasn’t even anger at our situation, but with his father, and only that.

  Never mind the mass of people at all corners of our prison wing. They only bothered Leo when someone tried to talk to him. I’d watched two people try to start fights with the teen and both had ended up on the ground with a broken bone, but no one officially witnessed a thing.

  “Don’t you work at Bottom Pit with the others?” I asked.

  “Only part time on the busiest nights. I have homework, and college exams.”

  “Huh.” I sniffed and pressed a hand against my temple.

  Roy and his kind didn’t strike me as the college type. Then again, classical music and professional suits also went against the image. Roy existed by only operating in extremes.

  Leo kept going. “Not that it matters to my brothers. Or uncles, or anyone in the Tribe. If it’s not punching people for glory then it doesn’t matter. Not saying I’m against a good fight, but there’s more to life.”

  “Sure there is,” I said. Hell. This guy was practically my nephew. I should be better at giving him advice.

  I had nothing useful. My solution to problems had been liquor. It had been another form of running away, I could see it now. Prison, reliving the past, and living in Tennison gave me perspective.

  “You think prison is the best place for soul searching?” I asked him.

  Someone passed by and laughed. The new person was a gruff human who seemed amused at everything. He slapped the younger man on the back, which earned a glare from Leo.

  “Sure is. Better than when you’re dying in a ditch from a stupid knife wound,” the newcomer said. He smiled and kept edging toward destinations unknown.

  Leo stared at the man’s back, then at me. I shrugged. Leo realized he was talking to a brick wall and drifted into silence, watching the crowd. He studied a budding conflict on one side, which never came to fruition. We went our separate ways for work.

  More days passed, including disapproving glares, needless insults, and sweat inducing memories. One morning, I woke in my cell from a phantom pain that had happened years ago. My ear rang for hours after recalling a punch from the past. Sometimes I’d be half awake, grunting from exercises Roy had drilled into me over the years. The line continued to blur.

  Flashes of Kahina made me happy until the current situation set in. Those moments were shoved into a mental box to keep the past in proper order. They hurt though, and I almost wanted the fresh pain to stay. Those moments of the past seemed more real than dragging days of repetitive schedules.

  One night, maybe two months and change into our stay, Leo had had enough of Nathan’s bruised form. I shook to awareness as the young man started in on our human companion.

  “How long will you let this continue, Simms?” Leo asked.

  I had to applaud the young runt for not slurring his words like his family did. He was far clearer most of the time.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” came the stuttered response. He cast his eyes aw
ay.

  Their talking bothered me. “Leave him be, Leo.”

  “He’s pitiful. I’d thought there was something worthy of respect from his reason for being here, but this is nothing.”

  “He’s just trying to get by.” I half shrugged while staring at a rock I’d found outside. It was shiny enough to distract me.

  “You two don’t understand,” Nathan Simms muttered.

  Leo shook his head. “What’s to understand? You let yourself be pushed around. You told us you fought a bloodletter but refuse to stand up in here. It makes no sense.”

  I snorted. That was almost the pot calling the kettle black. Leo was an entirely different person around his family. Literally the runt. No matter how much he argued or postured, his brothers, the twins, had passed their trials into manhood where Leo hadn’t.

  Which, unfortunately, was my fault. It probably explained why Leo was always hovering near me. He was trying to prove himself worthy. The attempted rescue in the woods was another action in the same vein.

  “It’s not easy.” Nathan Simms hugged himself tightly.

  I frowned and considered how I’d been treating Leo.

  “Look at me. I’m not like you, I’ve seen how others act. They’re all afr—” he started over “Nervous about approaching you. Either of you. I don’t get it, and I can’t...”

  “Wait, put up with this abuse? Is this to get back to your sister?” Leo asked. He glared at Nathan. I had no clue where the sudden stroke of genius came from but it made sense.

  Nathan shook while rubbing one arm against another and nodded his head jerkily.

  “If I fight back, I’ll go to the other side and die. There’s no other choice.”

  I’d seen the type. Lots of people had ended up in terrible situations trying to do what they believed to be right. Hell, I was a prime example.

  “There’s always a choice,” I muttered. “It’s just two crappy choices.”

  “Like what?”

  “You could have killed the vampire the first time.”