TWO
Before Daniel knew he was climbing back to consciousness, he knew pain. His face hurt. His stomach hurt. His wrists hurt. Each became apparent with the next step up the ladder. He was regretting each step. The pain in his face localized to his jaw on his left side.
Once that one was defined, his senses were able to identify the next worst pain, his abdomen. It was a different pain, a soreness like a hard workout in Krav Maga where every lesson was full contact. Sensei said, “What is the point of learning combat if there is no contact?” Maybe that explained the pain. He’d been thrown and landed badly. As his addled mind was searching for logic, his burning wrists arose, presenting themselves for placement on his growing list of things that hurt. His wrists felt raw: scraped, or maybe burned. He tried to open his eyes to examine the aches and they found darkness.
“I can’t see!” He said it aloud, and to be truthful it was more of scream. He heard himself say it, which elevated his panic. If his ears worked and he couldn’t see he might really be blind. “What the Hell is happening?” he pleaded into the dark.
Barton saw the stranger start to stir and sat still and quiet. The guards said the man had tried to ravage Lissette, the Baron’s betrothed, and at the festival tournament no less. The man was at least stupid, obviously mad, and possibly violent. Barton saw the sluggish movements in what little light leaked into the cell through the bars in the cell door, the three inch gap between floor and door, and the indirect moonlight through the high window slit. The window slit was a light colored square about a span and half off the floor. Even in his youth he would have been hard pressed to jump that high. He had been fast and clever, not tall or powerful.
Now he was neither, he thought, with a slightly audible sigh. Well past his prime, his hair thin and silver he was the same average height as his father. But a hand smarter he thought with a smile. His train of thought was broken by another moan from the madman. When there was no movement, Barton went back to his thoughts.
Very clever indeed, he thought. So clever he had been in a dungeon cell alone for three days. Now that might seem like an evening in his favorite tavern compared to what the next three days might bring trapped with the lunatic.
At three paces square, the room was too small to hide in. He pondered crushing the stranger’s head before he could wake up but Barton was sure if he broke his only weapon, a wooden bowl, the guards would refuse him another. He had a few pounds to spare, but starvation had been tried and rejected as unappealing earlier in his life.
He turned his head from side to side to use his night vision the way he had been taught. That provided enough information to his brain to see that his new companion was over six feet, almost tall enough for an elf, but heavier in bone or maybe muscle.
The man moved again and his mumblings were getting stronger. Yes, Barton nodded to himself, the stranger was definitely coming around. The initial shout by the stranger, focused Barton on his own survival and what his next steps should be.
“Is anybody there?” Daniel asked, an edge of panic in his voice.
“I am here,” Barton said quietly. “Calm yourself. Not only is night upon us, but this cell is dark during the day.”
Silence followed for several seconds and Barton thought it best to nudge the conversation. “You groaned and moaned while you slept. When the guards threw you in here they were none too gentle. How badly are you injured?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said, still not completely clear-headed.
Barton smiled to himself in the dark. This madman was not sounding too dangerous but then as madness comes and goes, it was too soon to tell.
“Describe your ills, I have some knowledge that may be of use,” Barton offered in a friendly tone wanting to keep the larger man calm.
Daniel was hurting and confused. He remembered a beautiful girl, a dream of talking to her while he stood naked on a hill overlooking some kind of jousting tournament, like at a renaissance festival, and the lights going out. But he also knew he was listening to one of his dad’s recordings just before everything went weird. Even though the lights were out, nothing around him sounded, felt, or smelled familiar. Especially the smell. It reminded him of the old cat lady hoarder’s house a girlfriend had enlisted him to help clean
“My face hurts, my guts hurt, and my wrists are burning,” Daniel said slowly, “I remember this dude at the festival wearing chainmail and punching me but that was in my dream.”
Barton smiled, this time with some humor. “It takes no soothsayer or diviner to recognize those ills. Your face is sore from the blow that laid you low, your guts pain you, no doubt, from being brought to the castle over a saddle, and the wrists, though I cannot see them, I would guess burn from the cords with which they were bound.”
Daniel could only say one word. It wasn’t much of a word but it seemed the key. “Castle?”
“Yes, the Baron’s castle.”
“Baron?” Daniel could only seem to get one word out at a time. What was he doing in a castle? What Baron? Then he realized he was still in the same dream. But if he knew it was a dream why didn’t he wake up, and since when did dreams hurt?
“Baron Kleinhurst. The vouch same Baron who’s betrothed you attacked.” Barton had decided to confront his cellmate with the situation; better to see if the stranger could be provoked into a fit rather than wait till he regained his strength and bearing.
“Man, this dream just gets weirder and weirder,” Daniel mumbled.
“Then you believe your dream tells of your future?” Barton asked somewhat intrigued.
Daniel sat quietly trying to match the question to his statement. Didn’t weird mean something to do with divining the future or fate or reading tealeaves to the Greeks or somebody, he wondered, but if I have to think this much in a dream, aren't I supposed to wake up?
“Tell me of your dream, perhaps I can help you to find a key to this weirdness of which you speak.” Barton smiled and relaxed. This man seemed too confused to pose a threat and the madness might prove the foil to allow his escape. If nothing else, he thought, as he leaned back against the cold, stone, wall, it will pass the time.
Daniel was in the dark in more ways than one and could see no reason at this point, not to play through whatever was going on. “Ok, I was working at the college, doing recordings for my dad and then all of a sudden I was standing buck-naked on a hill looking at this beautiful girl as she watched some medieval jousting tournament. Then she turned and didn’t freak or anything but calmly talked to me till somebody came up from behind and punched my lights out.” Daniel listened to himself as he spewed his tale. He was discussing his dream in his dream and that had never happened before. It didn’t sound good or sane. And he hurt.
Barton sat quietly for a moment. The words he heard were only partly understandable. From the context he could make some sense out of it but he was concerned that the madness was manifesting itself again and he reached for his wooden bowl. The words the stranger spoke sounded mostly to be babble, although it was very clear the young man was getting more agitated.
“Stranger, and strange you are for many of the words you use are unknown to me, recordings, buck-naked, and medieval are all puzzling. Indeed the concept of evil in half measure seems dangerous if spoken in the wrong circles. And, I should correct you, my name is Barton, not Okay. Perhaps if you used other words I might be able to understand and help.”
Daniel was now sitting, painfully, in the dark barely able to make out some glint of the other man. Daniel was facing that glint and what he thought were the origins of the voice. “Sure, why not”, Daniel mumbled. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“Exactly,” Barton agreed with the enthusiasm of all good con men sucking in a mark. “One of my favorite phrases as well. Like mid-evil, no point in only going part way.”
Daniel was numb with the strangeness of the dream, and the effort to make it make sense. The pain was a sharp reminder of the o
ddity of this nightmare and it was taking the resistance to the oddness out of him. This can’t be a dream, he thought, maybe I was mugged at the lab. Could this be a coma? Could I have a cracked head?
“Ok, excuse me, Barton, I will start over and if I use a word that makes no sense to you, stop me and I will choose another, OK?” Daniel heard Barton inhale as if preparing to speak and quickly added, “OK means do you understand or is that agreeable to you.”
Barton nodded and remembering the darkness replied, “OK.”
“I spent the day with my new girlfriend, a girl with whom I like to spend my time,” he added as that same inhalation sound started again, “we had been working out, exercising together when I realized I was behind in my recordings.”
“Pardon, sir, but I have several questions, your lady exercises with you? And, if not too forward on my part, may I know your name?” Barton asked.
“Daniel Mullins, sorry, I assumed if you were in this dream, you would know who I am. Where I come from it is common for men and women to exercise and keep themselves physically fit and strong.”
“And what is a recording, a retying of ropes?” Barton asked.
Daniel scratched his head in bewilderment. This dream was very undream-like and he didn’t really want to think about any other explanations. "A recording is a way to record… no, that won’t work, it is a machine for capturing sound so that the sounds, like music, may be saved and listened to many times.”
“What a wondrous device!” Barton exclaimed despite his desire to remain the aloof master here. Barton knew there were magics that could reproduce sounds and scenes, but he had not heard of a device that would do the same.
“Anyway, I had gone into the laboratory to save sounds of rituals and tribal magic when I must have fallen asleep and hit my head for this crazy dream to have started.”
Barton was fully attentive now. A device for storing magical sounds would be of incredible value and this man took it for casual acceptance. No, he reminded himself, this is the madman. But what possibilities! “And were you listening to the music or chanting it, my friend Daniel?”
“Uh, I was humming it, I guess you might call it chanting. That’s my job. I have what is called perfect pitch. I can repeat any musical sounds I hear exactly as I heard them. My dad is a professor, scholar, and he employs me to make clean clear recordings of the chants he finds in his travels.”
“He builds a storehouse of magical sounds?” Barton asked. “He must be a powerful wizard or magician and you then, are his son and apprentice?” Barton was fully attentive now. His years on the edges of magic made him much more open to the possibilities. He was beginning to hope that the madman might not be mad after all.
“No, well, yes, I mean I work for him so in a way apprentice is an OK word, but he is no wizard and there is no magic, just old superstition.” Daniel, was trying to put an end to this conversation but the guy in the dark wouldn’t let it go. Daniel began to slowly feel the ground around him looking for a rock or something in case this guy was crazy. Wait a second, Daniel told himself, this has to be a dream of some kind. It keeps sucking me into it.
“And when you were chanting,” Barton continued, “were you thinking of a beautiful maiden and knights and tourney?”
Daniel was getting very uneasy about the direction this conversation was taking. As hard as he was trying to tell himself he would wake up any minute, there was a thread of an explanation creeping into the back of his mind and he really did not want all this to start making sense. “Well, yes, I was thinking of a girl who looked a lot like the one I saw, but not about knights and such, and that must be what started this wild dream, or delirium or whatever it is.”
Barton was thinking fast now. Could the stranger be so ignorant? Could what he said be true? The stranger may have stumbled onto a spell of travel but even more importantly had made it work. He could be an undiscovered magician of rare order, perhaps even a wizard, but how could such a person have gone undiscovered. The wheels were turning in Barton’s mind; with his knowledge and the stranger’s ability, there could be a means of escape. Barton released his excitement with a sigh. These are only the rantings of a madman, he reminded himself, but the glimmer of hope did not completely fade.
“Tell me, Daniel, when you dream, is it usually as clear as this? Have you ever had a dream in the dark before, or perhaps felt pain so crisply?” Barton asked.
Now he‘s done it. The Barton character in my dream is starting to problem solve. It must be a coma, Daniel thought.
“No,” he said slowly, thinking about the questions in turn, “I’ve dreamed of pain, but not like this without waking up, and I don’t think I have ever had a dream in the dark.” Daniel searched the memory of his dreams, and suddenly brightened, “I usually do have really clear and vivid dreams. So this could be a dream.” The last comment Daniel said with more enthusiasm.
Barton sat quietly for a time letting it all sink in. The tale was as hard for him to believe as it seemed to be for the stranger to accept.
Barton wondered how long it would be before false dawn allowed him to see more detail and glanced up at the small square opening that served as a window in the thick wall. Even with help to reach it, it was too small for any but a child to wriggle through. But there might be other ways out.
Daniel was noticing the texture of the dirt floor. It seemed to be a layer of dirt that got harder as if there were stone under it. How can this feel so real? Daniel asked himself. His wrists were chaffed, and his face was swollen, he could see only the barest outlines of Barton from the tiny flickering glow under the door. If he looked at the glow then his eyes had to adjust back to the dark.
“Are you beginning to see more?” Barton asked. “Perhaps the torchlight leaking beneath the door will provide some illumination, though what you see will be hardly worth the viewing. You will at least prove to yourself that you are not blind.”
Daniel had been lost in thought and not noticed that he was starting to make out more detail. The small square cut out in the wall was more obvious but barely. From the color he guessed the moon was out. The old guy was right. This didn’t feel like a dream. In as much as that was the explanation that he liked the best, it just didn’t fit. It’s like being awake in a dream, he thought. Could I be in a coma? People in comas have claimed they could hear the world and not respond and also claimed they were in other places. This is a coma. It has to be.
Daniel looked around the cell more closely, looking to find any anomalies that might help him understand what was going on. He could see the small square slot of a window if he didn't look directly at. He could tell by feel that the walls were rough-cut stone in big rectangles. No mortar that he could feel. The floor was mostly dirt and straw and the place smelled of old urine and worse that didn’t smell so old. The bottom of the door to the cell was rough and uneven and stood a couple inches off the stone floor. There was no mistaking the orange flicker of distant torchlight.
He looked indirectly at Barton, and began to make him out. He was a lot smaller than his voice sounded. He had shoulder length hair that must have a lot of white in it or maybe a hood. The light and dark splotches on his face could be a salt-and-pepper beard several days old and he was dressed in a tunic belted over leggings. He was guessing in the near darkness and began to wonder if comas just fill in detail as your brain needs it. He thought Barton’s tunic could be orange and the leggings green, but in the light the colors were more of an impression.
His shoes were more like calf-high lace-up moccasins that were a darker color, like the belt. The colors were a guess but at least he could see some differences. Not being blind was the only good news he had.
Barton was watching Daniel and smiled pleasantly. Daniel could see the reflective teeth and by reflex tried to return the smile at least half-heartedly, but movement made him wince. He brought his hand to his face and felt the swelling under his left eye, in his cheek, and lip. He reached down to feel
his abdomen and saw that Barton was dressed like a king compared to him. He wore a rough, ragged sack made out of something like burlap. Shaped like a dress, it hit him about half way to the knee. He had no belt or shoes. His abdomen was sore, but didn’t feel bruised and when he looked finally at his wrist he could make out the discoloration that hurt when he touched it. Rope burns! Or, more like the bruises and cuts from leather thongs. Reality, or whatever was left of it was making its presence known in undeniable fashion.
THREE
Ok, Daniel thought, if I am wherever I am, it’s time to find out where that is. If that sentence made sense, I ‘m in big trouble here, he laughed and winced.
“So, Barton, other than in the Baron’s dungeon, where am I? What country?”
“You are in the lands of Baron Kleinhurst, in the country known as Wales and more specifically the Brecon Beacons. Know you of this land?” Barton asked.
“Wales, sure, the Beacons are sort of in the middle and east, I think.” He said it with uncertainty in his voice. Wales was obvious, but the Brecon Beacons he vaguely remembered from an English history course or novel or something. “And what is the year?” Daniel asked.
Elves- the Book of Daniel Page 2