Prisoner of Fate

by Tony Shillitoe

  Chase grinned, and asked, ‘So, why are you in here?’

  ‘Wrong place at the wrong time in history.’

  ‘Political prisoner?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘A secret, right?’

  ‘No. Just something long forgotten.’

  ‘How long have you been in here then?’

  ‘Probably seventeen years,’ the old man replied. ‘But I’m not exactly sure.’

  From street talk Chase knew that most prisoners survived a year or two in the Bog Pit. Some particularly tough characters were rumoured to have lasted three years. There was a city legend that one man, a former soldier of the old Shessian kingdom, had been in the Bog Pit since the end of the war, more than thirty years, but no one believed that story. Surviving longer than three years was miraculous. ‘Are you serious?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the old man replied and burst into a wracking coughing fit.

  Chase bunched his knees up in his arms and wondered how tough and wily a man would have to be to survive for a long time in a place like this, where the air and water was rotten like the company, and the food even worse. He knew he could never do it. He doubted the old man’s story. No one could survive for that long in this place. There had to be some way out.

  ‘You.’ Chase sat up, blinking. His left ribs ached as if someone had kicked him. Four ragged figures towered over him in the dull daylight drifting in from an open vent high overhead. ‘There’s rules in this place, mate,’ said a central figure whose features were indistinguishable against the backlight. ‘Rules about surviving. You break the rules, you get punished.’

  ‘Like you don’t go getting extra food,’ said a whining voice.

  Feigning drowsiness by rubbing his face and eyes, Chase replied, ‘I didn’t get extra food. I gave it to this old man.’ A man swung a foot and Sunlight grunted and curled up into a tighter ball. Chase pushed to his feet angrily. ‘Leave the old man alone.’

  ‘The stupid old bugger’s dying,’ said the central figure. Standing, Chase saw that the man’s face was thin and buried in a long straggly beard. ‘You don’t waste food on no one who can’t get it themselves. It’s a simple rule.’

  ‘And you need to learn it, mate,’ snarled the man who’d kicked Sunlight.

  Chase measured the four men. They were weak from the foul prison conditions, but they were obviously street-wise and confident of their ability to fight. He’d met too many like them in the streets and he always made a point of avoiding them. He might stand a chance to land some solid blows if a fight started, but they’d outnumber him and the odds in the end would leave him with a nasty beating. ‘What other rules do I need to know?’ he asked.

  The bearded leader, taller than his companions, leaned forward, until Chase could smell the man’s rancid breath. ‘You’re a smart one,’ he rasped. ‘You learn quick and you might survive in here. Tell him the rules, Boots.’

  The man who’d kicked Sunlight said, ‘You don’t ask names. You don’t ask reasons. You don’t waste food. You don’t get cocky. If Boss wants something, you get it for him. If Boss says “Do it”, you do it. Got that?’ Chase nodded, maintaining an innocent expression, while watching the men warily for further aggressive moves.

  ‘Good,’ said the man named Boss. ‘And now that you know the rules you’ll understand if you get beat up for breaking any of them. Got that?’ Chase nodded. ‘Excellent,’ said Boss. He nodded to his companions and then to Chase he said, ‘And you’ll answer to Bilby, mate, because you’ve got a long poky nose, I reckon. Got that, Bilby?’

  ‘Yes, Boss,’ Chase replied.

  Boss laughed, and the other three laughed. ‘Quick learner, Bilby,’ he remarked. He turned, peremptorily dismissing Chase, and led his entourage towards the bars.

  Chase squatted beside Sunlight and put a hand on the old man’s side. ‘Are you all right?’

  Sunlight flinched and coughed. ‘I’m fine, son,’ he wheezed. ‘They gone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sunlight rolled onto his back and sat up gingerly, coughing. He spat to his right and wiped his mouth with his bony arm. ‘Sorry I didn’t stop him kicking you,’ Chase apologised. At the same moment he noticed the white film across the old man’s eyes and realised for the first time that the old man was blind.

  ‘No harm, son. No damage done. Used to it,’ said Sunlight, and a sly grin appeared in the midst of the old man’s dirty grey beard. ‘I long ago learned to curl up and stay still when people like them hit or kick me. They get discouraged by a target that doesn’t want to fight back.’ He coughed and struggled to rise, so Chase offered an arm. ‘I need a piss,’ Sunlight muttered, and he tottered towards the sewer channel to relieve himself. Remembering his own need, Chase joined him. Fresh urine steamed in the channel and the pungent aroma teased their noses. ‘Don’t care what any man says,’ said Sunlight, whimsically, ‘but a man’s still free as long as he can enjoy a morning piss.’

  Chase laughed, and said, ‘You didn’t tell me last night that you can’t see.’

  ‘You didn’t ask,’ Sunlight replied. ‘And in the dark we’re all blind.’ He finished his toilet and turned. ‘Do you mind leading an old man to the water trough?’ he inquired.

  ‘A pleasure,’ Chase responded. He took Sunlight’s arm and walked him towards the trough, conscious that their movement was watched by others who looked up despondently from where they sat or leaned against the wall. At the trough, Sunlight pushed aside the green surface scum and scooped a handful of water into his mouth.

  ‘How can anyone drink this stuff?’ Chase asked.

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Sunlight replied, straightening up. ‘Let me get you some.’

  ‘I can help myself,’ Chase replied.

  ‘I know,’ said Sunlight, ‘but let me get it for you.’ Chase reluctantly watched the old man scoop aside a handful of algae, dip in his hands and lift the water towards him. ‘Try it.’

  Chase bent forward and sipped at the offering. The moisture soothed his parched throat. He drank again. When he was finished, he asked, ‘How come it tastes so clean?’

  ‘I know where to scoop,’ Sunlight replied. ‘It’s why I’ve been able to survive. Most of the new prisoners either dehydrate for fear of drinking this scum or they end up with the running shits because they do drink and get infected.’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Chase said. ‘When did you learn to feel the quality of the water?’

  ‘Call it a Blessing,’ Sunlight replied, and a faint smirk danced on his face.

  Chase wiped his hands on his navy trousers and smoothed back his dark blond hair. The grey daylight filtering through the vent revealed the extent of the Bog Pit cell.

  It wasn’t a single room, as he’d assumed, but three cavernous areas joined by large openings carved in the rock. The men scattered around the walls and along the floor were thin, hungry and desperate, and as he returned Sunlight to the place where they’d slept he sensed a feral presence worse than any he’d encountered in the city slums. These were the men who failed to survive against the odds even in the city’s grimiest backstreets, men trapped and destined to die. They had nothing to lose in this place, not even identity or dignity. To the outside world they were already dead. He glanced at Boss and his three cronies leaning lazily against the rusted iron at the bars. Boss was talking to a guard, a solid, black-bearded bald man, with a massive axe dangling from his belt. ‘Is Boss friendly with the guards as well?’ he asked.

  ‘My guess is that you can see him at the gate,’ Sunlight replied.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s his way of making himself a big man in this place,’ Sunlight explained, as Chase and he sat against the wall again. ‘He keeps the peace in here and for that they slip him morsels of food as reward.’

  ‘Who are his friends?’

  ‘There should be one with a whining voice. That’s Pigspit. The one with the big boots is called Boots. The third one’s named Dogger. He never speaks, but Boss gets him to kee
p an eye on special cases as Boss calls them.’

  ‘What nickname did they give you?’ Chase asked.

  Sunlight chuckled softly, and said, ‘Boss said he’d call me Cockatoo, but when I became too frail to get food for myself he stopped talking to me. His policy is to let the sick and dying die, preferably quickly. He’s hurried it along in some cases.’

  ‘He’s killed other prisoners?’

  The old man nodded. ‘Of course. It’s part of his commission. That’s why the authorities put him in here.’

  ‘When did he arrive?’

  ‘About a year ago, I think,’ Sunlight explained. ‘My eyes were getting bad, but I could still see enough back then. Rumour is that he was a murderer on the outside, mainly of easy targets. He killed them for money.’

  Chase stared at the rakish figure by the bars. A memory stirred. ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘No. His first rule when he got in here. No names. Just the ones he gives you.’

  Chase was remembering a dark narrow alley on a rainy winter night. He was about to climb out of the window from the metal merchant’s shop when two shadows passed, one a few steps behind the other. He hesitated to avoid discovery—waited in case either shadow was going to enter the merchant’s shop—before cautiously peering out of the open window. He heard a muffled shriek cut short. In the further end of the alley, a figure rose from the shadows and stalked back towards the main street. Chase had slunk back into the safe darkness of the merchant’s shop, but the figure stopped outside the window to brush down his cloak and in the poor gaslight filtering from the main street into the alley Chase glimpsed the man’s gaunt features, hawkish-looking eyes and grim expression. Then the killer moved on. Later, when he mentioned the incident to his sister, Passion, she told him about a local murderer being sought by the authorities because he was randomly killing minor people for very little money.

  ‘I’m going to look around some more,’ Chase announced.

  ‘There’s no way out, lad,’ Sunlight reminded him.

  Chase grinned and stood. ‘There’s always a way out.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Chase skipped over the sewer channel and followed the cavern’s curve until he stood directly beneath a vent. The daylight filtering through the grate was wintry grey and the sky, the little he could see so high up, was also grey with rain clouds.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ a gruff voice asked. He lowered his gaze to a skeletal figure. ‘I said, mate, what are you looking at?’ the stranger repeated.

  ‘How high is that vent?’ Chase asked.

  ‘Who cares?’ the man grunted. ‘I don’t like your attitude.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Chase replied. ‘Who are you?’

  The man squinted through saggy eyes and a bedraggled shag of dirty hair. ‘Who’s asking?’ he growled.

  ‘My—’ Chase went to reply, but caught himself and said, ‘Boss tells me I’m Bilby.’

  ‘Then piss off, Bilby,’ the stranger snarled.

  Chase slid his right hand into his pocket, turned warily, and retreated to a shadowy nook in the cavern from where he could survey the layout in more detail. He knew from his earlier reconnoitring the previous day that there was a vent in the ceiling of each of the three caverns, at least thirty spans above the floor and in the centre of the roof. The walls were limestone and damp in many places, easy to dig into, but there seemed no possible way to climb to the vents. He picked up a loose chunk of limestone and experimented with digging, but the limestone tool crumbled even as it scored a hole in the wall. Digging a tunnel would require stronger tools, but it would be possible given the soft material. The problem was that digging would be very obvious in the cavern and it would attract too many prying eyes. Several inmates were already watching him intently after his brief digging experiment. He shrugged and pretended to shuffle towards the sewer for a piss.

  He followed the sewer to the point in the wall where it emptied into a tiny tunnel. He was certain the sewer tunnel would have to run out to the cliff to empty its contents, so he had a sense of direction from it, but the tiny sewer offered no possible escape route. Disappointed, he returned to hunker down beside Sunlight who was picking at his remaining teeth.

  ‘Another one’s rotted away,’ Sunlight mumbled, a finger still probing a molar. ‘Hardly got any left.’ Chase sat beside him, brooding, staring at the ground. ‘Given up after one day?’ the old man asked.

  Chase looked up. ‘No. I don’t give up that easily.’

  ‘Then what are you thinking about, son?’

  Chase checked to see if anyone was within hearing, and when he was satisfied no one could hear him he said, ‘I want to know why you were put in here.’

  Sunlight stopped picking at his tooth and sucked in his breath. He coughed, and spat, and said, ‘You already asked me.’

  ‘And you told me nothing.’

  Sunlight coughed again. Throat clear, he said, ‘I discovered something I wasn’t meant to know.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous for you to know.’

  Chase laughed. ‘You’re the one telling me I won’t get out of here so what harm is it going to be to tell me?’

  ‘They’ll hunt you down.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The Seers,’ said Sunlight.

  ‘The Seers?’ Chase queried. ‘Why would they be threatened by what you might tell me?’

  ‘I was a Seer.’ Chase’s mouth opened in disbelief and he studied the craggy, filthy face with its milky unseeing eyes and straggly grey beard. ‘You don’t believe me, do you, son?’

  ‘I’ve never met a Seer,’ Chase replied. ‘We don’t see them in the Foundry Quarter much, only the ones they call acolytes.’

  ‘How old are you, son? Seventeen?’ the old man asked. Chase nodded. ‘Well, by my estimation, I think I’m nearly sixty-seven,’ Sunlight said. ‘The eldest prince was twenty-five and the youngest one not even born when they locked me away. Even after seventeen years they won’t let me out of here because of what I know.’

  Curiosity aroused, Chase leaned closer. ‘So what aren’t you supposed to know?’

  ‘If I share this with you, son, your knowledge will make you a dangerous man, and your life will be at a greater risk than you might want it to be.’

  Chase snorted. ‘At greater risk? My arm’s going to be hacked off, and I’m in here. I don’t have much left to lose under these circumstances, don’t you think?’

  Sunlight’s face remained grim, as if he was still deciding on whether to share what he knew. He sighed, and asked, ‘Have you heard of the Demon Horsemen?’

  Chase shrugged. ‘Of course I have. Every mother tells their children that tale to scare the living daylights out of them and make them believe in Jarudha.’

  ‘It’s good advice,’ said Sunlight. ‘The Demon Horsemen bring death to all who see their burning eyes or smell their fiery breath. They are meant to be Jarudha’s scourge for evil.’

  ‘It’s a fairytale,’ said Chase.

  ‘It’s no tale, son. The Demon Horsemen are real. Or at least, they can be made real.’

  ‘This is your secret? A lesson in religion? Everyone knows this,’ Chase scoffed. ‘Just no one believes it.’

  ‘What if I told you that there is a very special key to open the locks that let the Demon Horsemen ride across our mortal earth?’ Sunlight said.

  Chase searched the cell for a clue that anyone was listening to their conversation before he asked, ‘What key?’

  ‘It’s called a Conduit.’

  Chase blinked. ‘And what’s a conduit?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of Lady Amber?’

  Chase grinned and sang softly,

  ’Twas said she was a beauty rare, Of snow white skin and long red hair.

  He chuckled. ‘Do you want the nice version or the tavern ditty?’

  Sunlight ignored the question. ‘Lady Amber was a Conduit. She could call down the Demon Horsemen. She called them down to
destroy two armies.’

  ‘Lady Amber was a legend,’ said Chase disdainfully. ‘She’s made up. My mother used to sing that song to send me to sleep.’

  ‘There are other kinds of Conduit,’ said Sunlight. ‘My colleagues are creating a new one. They intend to use it to destroy humanity.’

  ‘Are you saying a Seer can make the Demon Horsemen come to life?’

  The old man snorted. ‘A Seer is a man of learning and magic. As a servant of Jarudha, he can do things that are beyond the realm of any mortal. Jarudha gives him this power.’

  ‘And that means he can kill everyone?’

  ‘No,’ said Sunlight. ‘One Seer can’t do that. Alone, a Seer’s ability is weak. He’s restricted to simple spells. But with others, his power can be increased significantly. Yet even with a hundred Seers to help channel the magical energy, one Seer cannot summon the Horsemen. They need a Conduit.’

  ‘What do you mean by summon? And what’s a Conduit?’

  ‘Summon means to call them from another plane of existence. A Conduit is like a medium through which the beings that are summoned can be projected into this plane of existence. Can you read?’

  ‘Yes,’ Chase replied indignantly. ‘My mother taught my sister and I how to read and do sums.’

  ‘Have you ever read MultiDimensional Theories?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not,’ Sunlight said. He sighed again and coughed. ‘It would take too long to explain it to you. It took me eight years to unravel the theoretical information in that book and another three to understand what Seer Truth was really trying to say. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Chase whispered.

  Boss and his three colleagues approached and Boss cast a cursory glance at Chase as he passed. The four thugs circled three men who were sitting on the floor several paces along the wall from where Chase and Sunlight sat. All eyes in the cell turned to watch the new drama unfold. ‘Just Possum,’ Boss growled. Two men scrambled out of the circle and scampered to safety. The remaining man cowered in the centre.