by Sohan Ahmad
Tyr crumbled to his knees. Come back to me. Silently watching as she was taken from him. I’m so lonely without you, but what do I do? If I kill them, will you be free to see me again? His killer’s mind only wished to protect his happiness, but he could not listen. Why would I even think such a thing? They’re her mother and father. What’s wrong with me? Lifting himself and the rainbow disk of sugar from the moist grass, he retreated for the woods. Wait for me, Thena, I will find a way.
As Tyr rushed home, Erik watched nearby from the shadows of the tower like the coward he was, reveling in victory. He grabbed his arm, which yet throbbed from their previous encounter. “This is what you deserve, freak,” Erik whispered to the wind, releasing a wad of spit from the crack in his lips before returning home to savor his success.
Tyr entered the woods in a particularly foul state. Unable to ease the anger in his heart, he grasped the closest blade of wood he could, hacking and slashing the thickest oak in sight. For hours, he continued, until light fled the skies and a dozen swords lay splintered at his feet. I won’t forget our dream, Thena. The palms of his hands swelled red with blisters as the rapid currents of fury in his chest boiled down to a simmer, clearing the seething fog in his mind. One day, my name and sword will rise so high that they’ll shatter the chains that keep you from me. Please wait for that day.
The Wind swept through the darkness, arriving as a shadow behind him. “The spirit has returned to your sword. What will you do with it?”
Tyr reached for the bright candy that had begun to melt within the sweat of his pocket and cast it into the darkness. “Master, I don’t want to play with the other children anymore. I’ll train each day until I’m stronger than the Beast Kings and make the world as I see fit.”
I am sorry Tyr. My prayers were not enough. Zephyrus wished he could weep for Tyr, but the boy was right. Damn the gods. I can finally be of use to you. “Wash yourself and gather your steel. You will need better opponents than sleeping trees.”
Chapter 13: Shiny New Chains
Lucivius Mammon, the Betrayer of Dragons and Bale’s hated enemy is my new master. The interior glass of their carriage had been washed in black to protect the pale lord from the harsh southern sun. For hours, the boy sat bound and silent. He’s so sweaty and he won’t stop staring. How much longer? The young slave wondered until finally, the caravan stopped.
“Thank the Dragon’s Star we are home,” Lucivius said.
As the doors to their wagon opened, Cyrus took measure of the new prison that would be his home. So, this is The Climb? Less than a day’s ride west of the Cathedral, it was a fort that nestled between the royal roads of the Viper’s Tail and the winding highlands of the Slithering Hills. Compared to the royal castle, the walls here are very low. Where are the bowmen? He wondered, his eyes bouncing from corner to corner. The only watchmen that stood atop each pillar were cold-blooded creatures made of stone. As his eyes continued to wander, he noticed another peculiar site. Lucivius doesn’t fly the Cardinal’s banners? Built atop blocks of grayish green stone, The Climb took shade under banners of scarlet, painted with the Betrayer’s sigil of a blue cobra with dragon wings.
A trio of bronze swords, decorated with blue and crimson linens, greeted them as they stepped onto grass. “Welcome home, Lord Mammon,” shouted the captain of his guard. Darius Lionmane stood two times his master’s height, stout and strong as any shield should be. He was the first of his guards from his days before the Dragon Council, loyal and obedient like a hound, never questioning the hand that fed him. As he took the pale lord’s sweat-soaked hand and helped him out of the carriage, his second, Bracchis Rayne, yanked Cyrus by his chains.
When the pull of iron forced Cyrus to stumble, Lucivius rushed to his aid. “Fool, be careful with the boy. He is a favored gift from His Holiness. You will treat him as well as any other slave under my protection.” Though the bronzed sentry’s apology tasted sour to the boy’s ears, he kept silent as Lucivius returned greenish-yellow eyes toward him. “My sincerest apologies, dear boy. Sadly, I employ them for their brawn and not their brains. Do forgive them, won’t you?”
Why does he speak as if we are equal? Cyrus wondered. Is this what he did to Bale before he tricked him? He asked himself before recalling a lesson he once taught. Slaves are not allowed to think. “Of course, Master.”
The pale lord’s cheeks burned flush with a pink hue as he giggled like a gleeful child. “What an absolutely darling voice you have. Perhaps you can sing for me later, but for now, I fear I must bathe, for the journey has left me with a despicable stench. I will see you again shortly, my dear boy, but for now, Bracchis here will show you to your quarters. Ta-ta.” As Lucivius departed alongside his captain, he reminded Brachhis, “how silly of me, I nearly forgot. Take him to Grenn first for marking, we wouldn’t want the others to confuse our new treasure for another’s.”
“As you wish, my lord,” answered the bronze dog before unlocking the restraints on Cyrus’s ankles. “You heard the master, follow me.”
“Yes sir,” the boy obliged, walking with wary eyes like a house pet thrown into the wild for the very first time. How can such exotic flowers grow in Isirian soil? From blue roses and red lilies to black tulips and green spores on violet vines. It was a stark contrast from the dark and dreadful rumors he had heard. The Devil’s Garden is beautiful. How did it earn such a name? He wondered.
Scattered throughout the beds of pretty petals, the Betrayer’s slaves tilled the soil with an unexpected vigor, smiling and waving as he crossed their view. What is this? Before he realized it, his hands unwittingly returned the gesture, but again, something plagued him. Was everything Bale told me about this man a lie?
Bracchis would not allow him to find the answer. “Move your feet, boy, Grenn awaits us below.” Beyond the tilled dirt, an oval-shaped mouth of black led down into the earth atop a bending tongue of stone. Each step took them deeper into the narrow chasm where the light was slowly swallowed behind them. Cyrus followed closely, his fingers latching onto the bronze sword’s cape like a babe to his mother’s breast as the scarlet cloth melted into the darkness. His only remaining guide a chain of dimly flickering candle flames, tethered to one another against the walls of the skinny hall. Yet Bracchis moved as if he was born to see the night.
Are we in the demon pits? The boy wondered as cages of stone and iron scattered on either side of them, unseen within the shadowed lungs of the tunnel, except for when the metal columns clanged.
Cyrus cowered behind the scarlet cloak as the drips and whispers danced within his fear; however, the light soon returned when his guide announced, “We’re here.”
What is that stench? Cyrus had never smelled as foul an odor as he found inside. The river of black emptied into a wide cave, burning under the amber gaze of mounted torches. Chains hung from the walls and ceiling like jungle vines, tangling flesh and bone within their grasp as the dank, damp floor lay littered with bloodstained chairs and urine-soaked tables. The slaves here are nothing like those above. Shades of their former selves, scrawny and weak, their skin stripped nearly to the bone.
However, of all these things that made him tremble, the worst was the man who stood beside an empty wooden chair with leather straps where wrists would rest. “Grenn, Lord Mammon wants this boy marked,” Bracchis explained to the bald-headed boar.
Grenn’s left eye was a mangled scrap of torn flesh, and the strands that left his scratched rock of a head escaped toward his chin. A long, scraggly beard draped around his jaw to make a smile that his mouth no longer could while an untamed bush grew atop his chest. His belly’s even bigger than Lucivius’s. Cyrus thought, glancing at the leather apron that did little to conceal Grenn’s bulge. His arms were stout like stone stumps, and his skin glowed pale like the shed skin of a snake as his chubby fingers motioned them forward.
No, I don’t want to go! Cyrus begged to any god that would listen, searching for a way out. The mouth of darkness is my only chance, but I’ll ne
ver make it with Bracchis behind me. He realized. I must endure. Cyrus stepped forward slowly as his shadow quivered behind the flames. Closed slave eyes gradually began to open as Grenn plucked the boy from the floor like a grape from its vine. Placed upon the seat of shaved lumber, his tunic was ripped open.
The bald boar lifted a dripping sponge from a nearby bucket, scrubbing the boy’s chest until his father’s painted mark was but a streaked memory. Cyrus could not escape the dense breath of garlic and week-old fish as Grenn continued to wrap his wrists in leather shackles. “Squirm and I make it pain,” the boar warned.
Cyrus could hardly breathe, nodding his head in place of an answer as Grenn unsheathed a rod of black from the fire behind him. Its head burned red, hissing as it touched the cold air. The boy’s eyes curdled as the heat kissed his freshly washed skin. Stay away. His chest caved to avoid its red lips, but there was nowhere to escape. Grenn’s brand smothered him like a forced lover, holding him down as his fingers clawed against his palm and his grinding teeth formed dust. Endure, he told himself over and over again, endure! Until it was finally over and the brand of Lucivius Mammon was seared into his flesh.
The myriad sets of battered eyes that squinted in the darkness burst into glares. They gazed upon him like starving beasts in the wild, faced with their first meal in weeks, but he could only see the scarred face in front of him. “Why no screams?” Grenn asked as his rotting breath choked the boy’s air.
“You told me not to,” answered the boy, his voice coarse and dry like a fruit squeezed of all its juice.
The Betrayer’s jailor smacked him hard as the blood beneath his pale skin boiled. “I said no squirm, not no scream. They all scream, so you scream now,” he barked, his open hand forming a fist to pound the boy like a slab of raw beef until the wooden chair toppled from the weight of Grenn’s fury.
Cyrus lay battered, blood leaking down the side of his black and blue cheek, but he was not broken. Mother dealt with much worse. His once frightened were ablaze with frenzy against the cold stone floor. I will never scream for you, monster. Taunting the boar to rush once more.
“Maggot,” Grenn snapped, defiance glaring into his one good eye. “I make you scream before I cut you blind!” the jailor yelled before lunging for the bronze sword’s sheathed blade.
“Fool,” Bracchis shouted, too late to stop him. “Lord Mammon wants him alive,” he said, reaching for his pilfered steel as one of the blinking lights vanished from the darkness.
Grenn was deaf to his warnings, focused only on the tenderized meat in his sights. He raised steel high above the boy’s shackled wrists, dropping it swiftly like a headman’s ax. “Stop at once!” Lucivius shouted, appearing from the shadows. The boar’s blade paused, its edge hovering over the young slave’s slender wrists like a chained wolf baring fang and spit. “Bad Grenn.”
Bracchis rushed forward to reclaim his weapon from the brute before both lowered head. “Master…”
“Silence!” the Betrayer said with the back of his ring hand. “I should have left this matter to Darius.”
The boar took his master’s swat like a fly bite against his thick, pale skin, lurking back to his corner as if nothing had happened. However, the bronze dog felt a harsh sting from Lucivius’s pink lash. “Apologies, my lord,” Bracchis said, glaring at the stone floor. There was nothing else to say, and what bothered him more was that he knew it.
Amid the scolding, Cyrus lay still and silent against the dank, damp floor as the pain finally set in. With each shout, his vision blurred, and with each blink, his consciousness slipped into the loving arms of slumber. Just as his lids collapsed, fluttering like butterfly wings, he saw a pair of feet running toward him. Mother? The next thought was darkness.
It lasted a dream’s length. Part of him hoped he was dead and reunited with her, but the feeling of wet cloth against his battered face woke him from such a fantasy. His eyes slowly opened to the hands of two women scrubbing and washing the blood from his black and blue cheek.
The taller was nearly twice so. She’s not from the south. She was old and wrinkled, with vibrant strands of cyan pulled back tightly as one fox tail of hair wagged from behind her head. Blue hair like Bale. Is she an Easterner? Firm and fit, she appeared half warrior maiden and half farm girl. Her narrow palms were withered dry like a prune from decades of service, but the fire had yet to die in her stern white eyes. She reminds me of one of the old stories Mother used to tell me when I was younger. The only woman Beast King, the Storm Dragon, Silari Silonica. In this place, however, she was no king, only a beast.
A shuffle of feet alerted him to the second, a young woman not much older than himself. Mother! he thought as he gazed upon her delicate skin of milky white. Instinct made his hand reach out to hers. The Goddess has returned you to me. But his movement frightened her. No, you’re not her. The young woman’s eyes glowed an emerald light that took shade under locks of black and crimson curls. She hid behind the blue-haired crone, clinging to her back like an infant scared by the first sight of her reflection.
“Lie still,” the old eastern woman scolded. “She doesn’t take well to strangers.”
“Who are you?” Cyrus asked, “what are you doing to me?” As he attempted to rise, the pain reminded him. “I was strapped to a chair against the floor—and then I remember nothing.”
The wrinkled attendant flashed a familiar scar, except hers was on the back of her hand, shedding the meek and meager mouse from behind her to show that she had the same. “You see. We are his just as you. This frail, timid child is Katia, and I am called Z’hiri, if you must know,” she answered, returning her hand to where it was needed. “The master commanded we clean and mend your wounds, and so that is what we are doing.” Dunking a red-soaked rag into a bucket besides her, she asked, “What stupidity entered your mind, boy?”
Just like Bale. I wonder if all Easterners speak this way. Cyrus pondered a moment. Why did I do it? “Honestly, I’m not sure,” he answered. “I guess it made me feel strong for the first time.”
Z’hiri scoffed. “Just as I thought, stupidity. What strength can a slave have?” Despite her disdain, Katia’s earlier fear faded into a grin. As she grabbed a wet cloth to stain her pure skin with his blood, Z’hiri’s brow twitched. Haven’t seen her smile in months. “Katia, don’t you dare listen to his rubbish. Stupidity is a poison.”
“Please forgive me,” Cyrus apologized. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
The blue crone cut his words clean, sharp like a butcher’s knife. “Enough, we were told to clean you, and so we have. The master awaits you in his chambers, best not make him wait.” Without another word, she darted off, dragging the young girl behind her. “Leave him be, girl, we have work to do.”
Even if it was his desire, he couldn’t follow. Not yet. He lay there on his sheeted slab of stone like a corpse, his bones still so tender until one of Darius’s bronze dogs rattled his cage. “On your feet. Lord Mammon calls for you.”
Cyrus dared not disobey again so soon, returning into the coarse caress of his torn and tattered tunic as he followed closely with a drag in his step. The tunnel’s not so bad when I’m walking into the light. No longer needing to clutch the guard’s cape as a crutch. Above ground, the sun had yet to sink as they passed small buildings of brick and black glass toward a twisting tower of ruby-red stone that nearly grazed the clouds.
Once inside the palace, an empty cage carved of cedar caught his eye. It was tethered to ropes and gears that hung from the heavens. “That ain’t for commoners,” the guard said, telling the boy what Darius often told him: “Only the master and his guests are allowed to ride.” He pointed instead to a steep spiral of endless steps and said, “That’s the path we take.”
The boy’s weary legs trembled at the sight of it. So, this is why they call it The Climb, he thought as the pain scaled up his foot and through his back. By the time they reached the top, he was lathered in sweat. A crescent door of azure-painted wood, trimmed in scatt
ered zircon, invited them into the Betrayer’s den. It’s so colorful. He thought, glancing at walls carpeted with a tapestry of inks while silk and satin cushions smothered the floor. Where are the windows? A good question, but a common answer for those few who have seen Lucivius’s saggy skin burn against the morning light.
“Excellent! Come forward, my boy,” he called out before waving off the guard. “Leave us, Quintilus. You are making him nervous.”
The bronze dog obeyed like an obedient pet. “As you wish, my lord,” he said, whimpering away with a muffled grunt as his spiteful glare lingered on the boy’s back.
Cyrus found some small measure of relief being alone with his new master. One less sword to worry about. But even more so. These paintings are beautiful. One more so than the rest.
“I see you have a good eye for beauty, my boy,” Lucivius remarked. Behind a table lined with scrolls and ribbons was a depiction of a Colossean myth told to children in each of the four kingdoms as well as every island nation along the Sovereign Seas. “This is my most treasured possession, gifted to me by Kasiya Karra, a famed painter from my eastern birth city of Elatia.”
Its dancing colors sung the song of the Creator’s first mating with the Earthly Mother, which birthed Colossea. “He descended from the heavens as a being of pure light, dressed in a robe of stardust, riding a trail of thunder like a chariot. Smitten by his glorious glow, she reached her rocky heart out to him so he could strike it with a hammer bathed in sun fire. The impact shattered her heart of stone into the seeds of life that first sprung upon her once desolate soil as he became the sun and stars to gaze upon her for eternity,” Lucivius reminded him.
I loved when Mother told me the story, but…Cyrus had never seen the tale told in such bold color. I have to be more careful from now on. Pride nearly wasted what Mother gave to me. His eyes met his master’s for an instant, and he agreed, “It is an inspiration.” With head lowered, he uttered words he never thought he would: “Thank you for saving my life, Master.”