After recovering their strength from the battle, the prisoners passed the journey with more or less the normal range of human emotion. Many wept, Keren among them. Others offered prayers; some silently, others while glaring challengingly through the bars at their captors. Their leaders conferred quietly amongst themselves, planning an escape once the opportunity presented itself.
Gratitude was offered silently for their kin who had been spared, hidden in the forest. All of them together would join in spontaneous bursts of song; hymns from their own ancestors who had once suffered a great loss in distant times.
It took but a few days for the caravan to traverse the plains. They passed through the alpine forests which skirted the edge of the mountains, where the trees were ever green. At last they came to the steep crags surrounding Belshazzar’s fortress, which was carved from the very rock of the cliffs.
A long way it was up the churned and muddy road to those leering doors; black gashes chiseled from the freezing granite. The Herayan villagers were unloaded from the carts, clapped in chains and led through the gate.
There were many levels to the dungeons within the keep. Keren and her people were led past rows of cells, where they saw what had become of the other tribes that had defied the Tyrant King.
The newest inmates were dirty, stinking, hollow-eyed, pitiful human beings.
The oldest were barely recognizable as human beings at all. They were emaciated figures huddled in balls of tattered rags, muttering senselessly, wide eyes staring at nothing.
The villagers were divided up among the cells of one block, about twenty apiece. Splintery, rough-forged iron bars separated them from their neighbors. The walls dripped with endless streams of water. Moss and lichen grew in the cracks between the stones. The floors were strewn with old rushes, dirt and human filth.
The prisoners were made to clean their cells once a week, but that hardly helped when there was not a single chamber pot to share amongst them. Food and water were served in communal tin pans that the prisoners had to ration among themselves. The pans were sterilized from day to day by nothing more than their own saliva.
Inside that keep, within those rough-hewn cells which stank of death and mold, Keren’s people wasted away. The men were set to work in the mines and smithies, digging ore and smelting iron. The women labored over spinning machines and fletching arrows. They worked ceaselessly in caverns that never saw the light of day.
At first they imagined it was the lack of sleep and daylight that was causing them to go slowly mad.
Malak was the first among them to make the connection.
“It is the undead,” he told them one night in their cell. “You notice how they watch us? They wait for you to start thinking about escape, or ruining whatever craft you’re working on at the moment. Then they slip into your thoughts and tweak them just so. They make you want to stop thinking that way, because if you don’t, they’ll hurt you. And then, next time you try it, they give you such a splitting headache that you can’t think straight anymore.
“They fill your head with whispers you can’t ignore, can’t get away from. They threaten your loved ones, and make you think you’re just torturing yourself!”
The villagers considered this, peering suspiciously at the Necrow standing watch outside their cell. The guards’ backs were turned, but the villagers knew by then that these creatures did not see with their eyes. They listened breathlessly for the whispers, but could hear nothing.
“Of course they’re not going to do it now,” Malak went on. “That’s their whole point: to addle your wits until you don’t even know what reality is anymore! Just look at the poor souls who’ve been here longer than us – they can barely speak without garbling their words together! You don’t get that way just by working long shifts in the mines!”
His audience shook their heads doubtfully, but the next time they were at work, Keren realized what Malak had meant. She was fletching arrows, and thought for a moment about making them crooked, in such a way that it would be hard to tell unless one actually fired them.
As soon as Keren began to seriously contemplate this, however, she was filled with such a sense of horror that the arrow fell from her hands to clatter on the floor.
If you do this, your friends will all be put to death as an example to the others.
Keren fought to keep from screaming, her whole body shaking as she sought to drive the foreign voice from her head. But the presence was like a ghost, and slipped through her thoughts like fog. After it had passed, she could not tell if the memory had been only a figment of her imagination.
She knew then what it would be like to go mad.
She also resolved that it would never happen to her.
Keren could not bear the idea of her mind becoming some play-ground for the disgusting avatars of death. So she avoided detection the best way she knew how: by submission and misdirection. This was a tactic Keren often employed in human interaction (using one’s body to express one thought while thinking the opposite); although it was somewhat difficult to use in a purely mental exchange.
The trick was to keep one’s true thoughts and intentions as close to one’s subconscious as possible. One’s conscious mind could then occupy itself with forging new emotions and impressions. Whenever a mistake occurred, one must be prepared to disguise it with as much drama as possible.
Whenever she was tempted towards rebellion (say, by making crooked arrows), she would invoke the most genuine feelings of panic and regret she could imagine. Before the unseen Necrow had time to step in, she would fill her mind with lamentations: I am a wretched and sinful human being! How could I dare to question the tasks our wise lord Belshazzar has set for us? I pray that I may never think to question our wise lord’s judgment again!!
Surprisingly, the Necrow didn’t seem to catch on to what she was doing. They usually left her in peace, and Keren dutifully focused on keeping her true feelings as un-thought as possible.
There were times, however, when Keren could not act quickly enough to summon the requisite emotions, and had to bear the Necrow trampling through her mind once more. In these cases she had to practice submission, yielding to the wraiths’ demands without resisting, and yet, still reminding herself in the back of her mind that submission did not equal agreement.
She wondered if being a female had something to do with her success at these tactics – she had seen them used in one form or another by grandmothers on children, or wives on husbands. It seemed the men among them were succumbing to the madness more swiftly than the women.
The women, however, were much more prone to the ravages of grief, and so lost their luster and their lives as quickly as their menfolk did.
They never even saw their enslaver, the Tyrant King. Apparently he was too preoccupied with political matters to find time to gloat over the wretchedness of his slaves.
Their jailors, on the other hand, were ever-present. Never did the prisoners find the chance of escape they had hoped for.
The Necrow did not eat. They did not sleep. They had no way of seeing, yet acted as if they had perfect sight. They did not speak, but as they paced the corridors, you could sometimes hear them whispering inside your head. Several times while sitting in her cell, Keren would lift her head from her knees and glimpse one of them staring at her.
Throughout all this, her people continued to practice their spiritual rites. Though they lacked the proper materials to work many of their rituals, and were unable to smuggle items from the work-halls, they made do with what they had.
Every day they would gather and bow their heads, the trickling in the walls informing the cadence of their prayers. “God is my shield and my life. Each night when I sleep, I wake again because He preserves me. I shall not fear when evil assails me, for my life is in Him, and through His grace, I shall never die.”
Yet one by one, Keren’s kin succumbed to death. Illness, injury, grief; all these were killers. Those who did not die lost their minds instead.
>
Keren’s one comfort was that she shared her uncle Malak’s cell. Occasionally he would make banter after their day’s work, keeping the men’s spirits up, but over time his good humor fell to weariness. His broad chest grew emaciated, his cheerful face gaunt. His eyes became sunken and hollow, feverish and muddled with encroaching madness. He really was the eldest of them now. And yet, he stoically kept his wits alive as long as the youngest man.
One day Keren found him sitting at the front of their cell, staring through the bars at one of the Necrow standing guard. Keren could not tell the difference between these specters, but she imagined this one had visited their cell before. Malak’s eyes were glazed over, his tongue mouthing soundless words. Keren rushed to him and clutched his hands, weeping, begging he not succumb to the madness.
Malak blearily turned his old eyes to her. A tiny smile plucked at his chapped lips. “Ah…my favorite niece. It’s good to see you again.”
“Uncle! Please, please don’t listen to them. Don’t think at all if you have to – just don’t let them get inside your head! Please!”
Malak glanced at the Necrow’s back, but he no longer seemed to be looking at what was really there. “Pray for your people, Keren. Pray that they be delivered from suffering. He has answered my prayers…surely He will answer yours.”
“What prayers?!” Keren cried. “Nothing has changed! We are all trapped here, most of us are dead, and there is no hope of escape! What good will praying do us now?”
Malak patted her shoulder weakly, the breath whistling painfully in his chest. His ribs were stark beneath the tattered rags of his vest, his once-proud body eaten away by disease. “Have hope, my child…God is always listening. He has promised the righteous eternal reward…if it comes not in this life, then it must come in the next.”
It was the last coherent thing he ever said.
For several weeks afterwards, Keren huddled in that rotting cell with only the mutterings of the insane for company. Malak…Asher…the parents she barely remembered. Gone. There was no one left. Soon she would be gone, too. She would have wished for death then, had she not been so terrified of it.
Malak’s last words rambled through her head, stirring up childhood memories. Stories of destiny, stories of sin, stories of messengers from the sky and demons from below the earth. They were all a fool’s jest; a distorted mirror in which man’s hopes and fears were warped and reflected back at him. Farce and folly, tragedy and comedy warred within the last, dying breath of her clan.
Their God had forsaken them.
CHAPTER 2
ESCAPE
Being a woman did have some advantages. If she could discover how to evade the mental manipulations of the Necrow, and be exempt from working in the mines, Keren just might find a way to survive. Unfortunately, the women in Belshazzar’s prison were subjected to horrors even the men did not have to endure.
From the day they arrived, the few young women who were in their company were dragged off one by one. They were taken away for a few hours, perhaps even for a day. When they returned, they were shadows of their former selves.
Their parents would rage, demanding to know what injustices had been done to them, but the girls would refuse to speak. Often they glanced towards their Necrow jailers in fear, as if they would be punished for speaking of what had been done. The Necrow, as usual, betrayed no emotion.
It was after the third such kidnapping that Keren noticed the pattern, and for a panicked afternoon sought to disguise herself as best she knew how. She smeared dirt on her hands, face and hair. After a moment she decided that wasn’t nearly good enough, and slathered herself with feces as well. She almost hoped she would retch from the stink, just to add more filth to the mixture.
Her posture she immediately altered to a hunch-backed slouch. Luckily her breasts were small enough to be all but invisible in such a position. She made sure to keep her voice as low and unpleasant as possible, and shuffled her way about with no hints to the fact that she had any femininity whatsoever.
At that point she’d lost all care for the damage to her health caused by her wretched condition. Disease and death seemed far more preferable than the alternative. The villagers also sought to disguise their daughters from the attentions of the Necrow with varying success. Some were taken. Others were overlooked. All of them eventually wasted away from sickness or sorrow.
After several months Keren was the only female left that had been taken from her village. Every day she was shocked to find herself still alive, despite the abhorrent conditions in which she lived. Several times she felt sure she was coming down with the plague, but it proved to be only a passing cold.
She began to despair that she would have to take matters into her own hands.
Keren woke one morning to the sound of iron bars grating against the floor. That was normal. She curled up tighter in her little nest of soiled reeds, hoping the Necrow would write her off as one of the ill or insane and not force her to work that day.
Cold hands seized her arms instead. That was not normal. Keren cried out in surprise as she was lifted bodily off the floor and carried from the cell. She didn’t have much strength left in her, but she did cling to the bars for a moment and scream before she was dragged away. She felt like a child again, clawing uselessly against the snow. The few men of her tribe who were left were too far gone in madness to heed her cries, and only looked on stupidly as she was carried away.
Malnourished as she was, Keren could do little more than twitch and jerk against the monster’s grip. It held her face-forward as they marched along the corridor. Keren stumbled most of the way, unsure whether the creature was trying to drag her or make her aching legs march in double-time.
They passed other Necrow on the way, and Keren noticed something strange: as each of the pale masks turned to look at them, they seemed to shrink back, making room for her captor. Yet undoubtedly it was a Necrow that held her. Did these creatures then have some sort of rank or hierarchy amongst themselves?
They turned corners again and again, passing farther from the prisoner’s block but coming no closer to the workrooms or mine entrances. Where were they going? She tried to struggle anew, but the Necrow merely squeezed her tighter, the energy instantly leaving her limbs.
Finally they reached their destination: a clean-swept chamber about twenty feet square, lit by a pair of candelabras. A secluded place, perfect for private deeds, unveiling fair maidens from where they hide within their cocoons of muck.
Keren blinked rapidly, wondering for an instant why she would think such a thing, before she realized it was the Necrow speaking. His words sounded like a secret caress in her mind…
“Eeakh!!” Keren screamed, trying to jump away. The Necrow released her, and she fell to the floor.
There was the sound of a wooden door swinging shut. She scrambled around just in time to see the creature sweep off its cloak and hang it by the door.
The Necrow was tall, well built; a perfect simulacrum of a man in his mid-thirties. He wore the typical leather armor of his kind: a simple jerkin, vambraces, trousers and greaves. The familiar bone-white mask covered his face, glinting starkly against his deeply mottled skin and jet-black hair. He grinned at her, and took off the mask.
Keren braced herself to scream again, but the man favored her desires by keeping his eyes closed. It was not time to look yet, anyhow.
She shrank back as he walked towards her, his hand outstretched. Come, little mouse. It is time you shuck this tedious cocoon of filth. She shook her head, knowing the “cocoon” was the only flimsy protection she had. But he took her hand anyway, and she barely had breath to protest as he hauled her to her feet.
He led her to where several pails of water sat along the wall, warmed by stones which had been heated over a fire. She couldn’t help feeling a twinge of longing when she saw those, and the Necrow sensed it, and smiled again. Beautiful maidens are not meant to live as you do. Come, let me set you free –
Wit
h a few deft movements he plucked the tattered rags from her shoulders and threw them aside. Quickly she covered herself, trying to keep from bursting into tears. The Necrow lifted the first bucket, took out the stone, and upended the bucket over her head.
Keren gasped as clean water cascaded over her, a wonderful sensation she had not hoped to experience again in her life. For a split second she imagined she was swimming in the river near her village, the endless currents washing over her, untold freedom calling in the waves…
Then the Necrow’s hands were on her, scrubbing vigorously with a bar of soap. Keren squeaked and tried to keep his hands away from certain parts, but he didn’t seem particularly interested in them anyway. She looked askance at his trousers, and saw with a start that he was not even aroused.
But then, why should he be? She wondered. He’s some kind of demon-spawn, after all, wearing a body that only looks like a man. He can’t appreciate the same things as if he were alive–
Not true, the Necrow said, upending the second bucket over her head. Keren gasped, trying to keep the soap out of her eyes. I may not be a man, but I can still appreciate beauty. He spun her around, drying her briskly with a scrap of cloth.
Keren stood facing the wall, her arms wrapped protectively around herself, dreading what might happen next. Her skin glowed pinkish in the candlelight; Keren was surprised to realize she had forgotten the color of her own flesh. Or perhaps it had simply paled from its usual shade after so many months away from the sun.
Her upper arms ached from where the Necrow had seized her. She looked askance at one and saw a deep bruise already beginning to purple the flesh. Hot tears stung her cheeks. He had no right! What did this cursed spirit have to gain by stripping her naked and basking in her shame?
She turned around preparing to do – something – when she saw the Necrow had finally opened its eyes. The misty orbs she remembered as a child shone blankly in the half-light.
Necrosis (The Omens of Gaia Book 1) Page 2