by T. C. Edge
Meanwhile, another cell was being opened further away. More huffs and heaves and the second guard passed, carrying a second body. This one didn’t have any obvious injury barring the terrible bruising covering much of his face, and the distorted shape of his nose. It looked badly broken, but then again, having never seen the man before, Kira had no idea whether this was the regular format of his face.
The guard moved out of sight, and the old caretaker came by again.
“Now, no more fighting please. I’d rather not have my sleep interrupted again.”
“It’s night-time?” Kira asked, springing towards the bars, desperate for some sort of information, worthless though it would be.
The old man called Merk nodded without looking at her. He continued on towards the stairs.
“No more fighting,” he repeated. “Save your strength. You’ll be needing it.”
He trundled off once more, leaving the corridor in darkness and silence.
7
Dom sat in a comfortable seat in his private cabin, one leg casually crossed over another, drumming his fingers absentmindedly on his desk. His eyes stared out of the window, the morning just beginning to gather its wits and casting a rather terrific red glow over the calm ocean.
He was tired. Growing up as he did in such opulent conditions, life at sea didn’t really agree with him and sleep was hard to come by. The voyages across the ocean, while lasting only a week or so, tended to turn his stomach in knots and make him irritable, his temper often building to a crescendo half way through the journey, before fading as the prospect of dry land grew ever closer.
Right now, with the journey half complete, he was at his prickly best, and the guards and crew of the boat knew better than to interrupt him with anything less than the most pressing of news.
As he sat there, drumming his fingers and drifting in and out of daydreams filled with great banquets and beautiful women, a knock sounded at the door. It was quiet, nervous, just the sort of knock someone bringing unimportant news would perform.
He ignored it. If the knock grew louder, it might warrant attention. It was a trick he used to great effect, and half the time he’d be left in peace.
Not today. Knuckles met wood once more, and Dom sighed.
“Come in,” he said wearily.
The door opened, and the shuffling figure of Merk appeared in the doorway. A cool breeze came with him, sweeping in from outside and whipping up the old man’s coat.
“Merk, what is it?” asked Dom. He sat up. Merk wasn’t the sort to interrupt without cause. “Come in, come in,” he added as the old man stayed rooted at the threshold.
Merk trundled forward and shut the cabin door. The sweeping breeze and lapping of waves gave way to a brief silence.
“Master Domitian,” began Merk, stepping in front of the perfect centre of the desk. He dipped his head with total deference, drawing an early morning grin to Dom’s face. He had a soft spot for the old caretaker. He always knew just how to behave.
“Trouble, Merk?” He had a good sense of things too, did Dom. His gifts of telepathy gave him that. Mostly, he knew what someone wanted before they came asking, allowing him to prepare his answer beforehand. Clearly, there’d been trouble down in the cells.
“Two, um, injuries, Master Domitian,” said the caretaker, clearing his throat. “One with a badly broken leg, several broken ribs, and a severe concussion. Another has a broken nose, cracked cheekbone, ribs again, sir, and also a thin skull fracture.”
Dom wasn’t overly surprised. When he put prisoners together, injuries were common.
“Who are we talking about here?” he asked.
“Well, it’s Raven with the broken leg, sir. And the other is Leewood.”
Dom considered it.
Raven, he knew, was in with the Stalker he stole from Haven. He certainly wasn’t surprised about that. Those Stalkers were designed to kill and nothing more. Even with his powers suppressed he was a formable warrior.
Hmmmm, what was his name again? Ah yes, he didn’t have a name, just a designation: SH-21. All Stalkers were the same. Dom had just taken to calling him Shadow, which he thought rather suited him given the black cloak they found him in.
The other man, Leewood, had been locked in with a giant called Oom, snatched away from some cave in the northern mountains. Dom wasn’t surprised he came off second best.
“Right,” said Dom. “That’s a tick in the box for Shadow and Oom. How tall is Oom again, Merk?”
“He’s 8 feet 3 inches, Master Domitian. He’ll go well I think, sir. Fast for his size too.”
“No doubt. Enhanced size and speed, that’s a terrible combination. What do they call them over in Haven again, Merk?”
Dom liked to test the old man on his knowledge of the world. He got the impression that the caretaker rather enjoyed the attention too.
Merk pulled his weight back and retrieved his slowly slouching posture.
“Those with enhanced size are called Brutes, sir,” he said. “And the speedier variety are known as Dashers. At least, in Haven, sir.”
Dom gave an amused little chuckle, his black curls bouncing on his head.
“Yes, funny old names really. And people like me, Merk? Telepaths?”
“Mind-Manipulators, sir. And they have Mind-Movers; them being those who can use telekinesis. And um, they have Bats who hear well, and Sniffers who smell well, and Hawks who see well…”
“Sniffers,” laughed Dom. “How very original. They do have a funny way of doing things over there.”
“That they do, master,” said Merk, wishing to laugh but refusing the urge.
Dom straightened himself out.
“Right, so we have Raven and Leewood out of action. How long will they take to heal?”
“The medic said about a week, sir, what with his advancing healing capabilities. He said he’d see to their recovery over the next few days, and will complete it back in Neorome.”
Dom smiled at the mention of his city. So close now. So close.
“Well, it’s not a huge loss as far as I see it. I put those two in with Shadow and Oom precisely because they were fragile. They’ve lived through it, and so will toughen up for the experience. They’ll have time to get themselves fighting fit for the games.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else, Merk? How about our red-head? She and the sailor-boy getting along?”
“I believe so, sir. All other cells appear to be cooperating. I told them to stop fighting now…”
“Merk,” cut in Dom, his tone reprimanding. “Don’t go telling them that. I know you think they should be shackled, but this is part of the process. It isn’t my doing now, remember that. I’m just a link in the chain.”
Merk nodded. His lips quivered.
“You have something to say?” queried Dom.
“No, sir. Um, just that…you’re more than a link in the chain. I feel so privileged to be able to work for you, Master Domitian. It is the honour of my life.”
“And what a fine man you are, Merk. A terribly fine man.” His lips launched into a glowing smile. Merk looked at him, awed by the craftsmanship of his face.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now, if there’s nothing else, then that’ll be all. See to it that the prisoners get their first rations today. We don’t want them starving to death on this floating rat-nest.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dom smiled, a common conclusion to his interactions with the old caretaker, and watched him spin off and leave the room. As soon as he had, he leaned back in his chair, pulled open a drawer on his desk, and tapped a couple of buttons on the attached keyboard.
Immediately, the wooden wall opposite him drifted apart at the centre, revealing a whole litany of screens. There were sixteen of them, arranged four-by-four, each one showing an image of the dungeon cells.
Half were empty, with the other half at double occupancy except for those containing Shadow and Oom. Both had proven Dom’s suspicion
s right, and both were clearly not made for sharing. He looked to the floors of their respective cells and saw blood splattered across the wooden floorboards.
He shook his head at the barbarity of some people. Dom was more refined, though couldn’t deny the sport of it was appealing. Sport that his mother put a great deal of stock on.
The thought of her caused a little clench in his chest. It was one of the few negatives about returning home, dealing with her. He wasn’t alone in that, of course. The entire city had to bear that burden too…
His eyes swayed to the other cells, filled with his contenders. He nodded as he looked from one to the next. A good batch this year, he thought.
He liked variety, as did the people, as did his mother. He always found that the westerlands, across the ocean, served to deliver some of the most beastly men. Some were like Shadow, a Stalker built to kill. Others were like Oom, mountain men, hardy and monstrous. There were tribal men too, and seafarers, and mercenaries and assassins and bounty hunters. He had gathered a fine batch from all sorts of places and with all sorts of skills. Oh, the people were in for a show.
His eyes finished on the screen to the bottom right. Inside, the red and blond hair of its two occupants was quite striking. Her, the warrior; him, the fisherman’s son. They truly were like chalk and cheese, hailing from two very different walks of life.
And yet, he couldn’t tell who’d perform better when the time came. He’d seen people train all their life and then fall on the first day. He’d seen others who’d never picked up a sword learn quickly to use it to devastating effect. No, he wasn’t going to count out the boy called Finn. And he wasn’t going to place any money on the girl called Kira, even if he was permitted to.
He’d watch them, and he’d wait.
And he’d enjoy the show.
8
They say that people who live underground tend to sleep more. Apparently, you might fall asleep and wake up thirty hours later, thinking you’d only taken a nap. Without sunlight, or any manner of telling the time, it seems the body tends to seek sleep as if too bored to stay awake.
Kira had experience of subterranean living herself. Back in Haven, much of the rebel forces lived in secret tunnels beneath the city, so the feeling of claustrophobia and lack of light wasn’t overly new to her.
Then again, her specialised eyesight granted her night-vision, among other perks, and many of the tunnels and caverns were vast and well lived in, called home by many hundreds.
This place wasn’t the same. It held a darkness Kira never knew existed. It smelt of decay, like slow death. It rocked and rolled on the waves, the motion a growing problem as the days went by and she spent more time awake. It was, even removing the terrible kidnapping and unsavoury crowd, an awful experience on a purely physical level.
Time remained hard to determine, and her attempts to garner further information from the old caretaker fell on deaf ears. He began to come and go with small rations of food, sliding them carefully beneath the bars before snatching his hand away as if teasing a snake.
The two missing fingers on his right hand clarified his nerves for Kira. She attempted to ask him about it but always seemed to be met by the same reply.
“Hush now, no talking down here…”
If ever someone did try to wrestle too much information from him, he’d pull out one of his canisters and send them back to sleep. Kira quickly learned that answers would be in short supply, and so gave up any further attempts to ingratiate herself with the old man.
Her cellmate, Finn, appeared to be equally hard to break down. Mostly, he sat in the darkness, lost to his thoughts. On the rare occasions that the caretaker set a candle to the corridor, providing some relief from the gloom, Kira would find him looking at her with interest, only turning away when she caught his eyes.
But mostly, it was in pitch black that they dwelt, with their waking hours limited to small snippets before being put back to sleep. They would wake to eat and, if required, use the bathroom – a generous term for the hole in one corner of the cell - a matter which, for once, made Kira happy for the darkness.
Occasionally, shrieks would pierce the silence, and Kira would sit bolt upright and listen for the ensuing brawl. Yet it would never come, and she’d know that it wasn’t a fight between cellmates, but the voice of a nightmare, spreading from the mind of some troubled soul.
One of them came with more regularity than the others, and Kira recognised it as coming from the lungs of a woman. That gave her some solace – to know that she wasn’t the only female down in the dungeons – though this particular girl appeared rather more daunted by the experience that the rest.
Every time she woke, she seemed to immediately find her voice, calling out for information, begging to be freed. She was told several times by Merk to ‘hush’ but refused to obey. Eventually, one of the red-robed guards had returned to see to her. Moments later, her voice was stifled and hadn’t been heard since.
Finn, too, seemed to say more in his sleep than he did when awake. Kira would hear him mumbling incoherently, jumbled words whispering into their cell. She’d listen and try to pick things out, and soon heard a single word that came with regular repetition: Dana.
She knew it wasn’t a word, but a name. A name of someone close to him. A mother, perhaps, or sister or lover. Someone special, someone he’d been taken from. Someone he was desperate to return to.
In some warped way, having him there with her gave her strength. The boy didn’t seem to belong. He didn’t fit with the sparse evidence Kira had accumulated, with the suspicion that it was only warriors and killers gathered here. He was a rose among thorns, and any fear she felt, any dread at her predicament, was set aside as she wondered just how he must feel.
And even in the silence, in the darkness, without sharing many words, she began to feel some bond to him. Through the jumbled words of his nightmares, she felt his pain, his grief, his desire to get home. She’d been fighting all her life to help people, and now here she was, locked in a cell with a young man who didn’t belong. A man who, perhaps, needed her help too.
So she shuffled towards him, listening to him mumble in his dreams, to his body shaking on the wooden floor up against the wall. She didn’t know how many days had passed in this stinking, festering place. Days, a week, she couldn’t tell, not with most of her time spent locked away within her subconscious.
But she felt a desire to comfort him, and moved from the bed that he’d given her and onto the wooden floor. She felt through the darkness and settled her hand gently onto his head. She felt the dirty strands of hair, drenched in sweat and accumulating grime, and began to stroke and whisper softly to calm him.
She didn’t quite know why she did it. Perhaps a desire to comfort herself as much as him, to feel some closeness with another human down in this place. Or to take her thoughts away from herself, from her own desire to return home, and harden herself once more.
Whatever the reason, she stroked. She draped her palm up and down his hair, and soon his mumblings began to ease. And staring through the blackness, she began to see the outline of his sleeping face, the contortions of anguish fade, the flickering eyes settle.
She smiled in the darkness.
It felt good to help someone, even if they’d never know. It felt like home.
Dom stared at the screen, a strange look on his face.
He’d been doing the same for several days now, watching his prisoners, sizing them up, drawing his conclusions about the sorts of people they were.
He’d seen Oom stamp about regularly and try to wrestle his cell free of its bars. He’d seen Shadow sit with an eerie stillness, right in the middle of his bed, just staring out into the corridor like a statue until Merk wandered back in to put them to sleep.
He’d seen the second girl among the assembly – Gwyn, who’d proven herself weak during his original tests – continue to refuse the orders of Merk to stay silent. Eventually, he’d had to send a guard to put her to sleep
for the remainder of the journey.
He’d seen various other happenings, and had drawn various conclusions based on them. Already he’d begun to compile a list of attributes for each contender, which would help to inform the seedings he’d give them. It was all part of his job, and this year he was very keen on coming away with a champion from his batch.
After all, he’d lost out to Lucius for the last three years running, and was adamant that he’d call a halt to his rival’s winning run.
It was to Kira and Finn that most of his attention had been taken, however. He figured that putting a girl like Kira in with a boy like Finn would draw him from his shell a little. Had he been placed with anyone else, he may well have gone the same way as Raven or Leewood, and frankly Dom was rather keen on seeing what the young man was capable of when his powers were returned.
Right now, as he watched them, he was seeing something he’d never witnessed before. Kira was stroking his head, soothing him, casting his demons away. Given how pairings between men and women were almost unheard of here, it was a situated he hadn’t yet encountered.
He watched with some interest, wondering what to make of it. Then he merely smiled, shook his head, and turned his eyes away.
Women, he thought. Warrior or not, they’ll always have a sensitive side.
Mentally, he added a black mark against Kira’s name. The protective desire that seemed to be innate within all women was one reason he preferred to use men in the games. Perhaps he’d made a mistake in putting the two together.
Then again, not all women had that protective streak. He only had to think of his mother to realise that…
He stood from his chair and marched to the door. Beneath his feet, the motion of the ship was slowing, a feeling that never failed to set a bright feeling within him. He cast away all thoughts of work and allowed a smile to reveal his white teeth, opening the door and feeling the warm air of the Mediterranean spread in.
Ahead, the coastline was growing clearer by the minute, and the bright blue sky and sparkling sun seemed to be good omens of his return. The coast had been intermittently visible for a day or two now, sometimes belonging to the mainland, and at others to the islands that dotted this part of the world.