Chapter 72 - Hell Has Devoured Me

— Tamarak —

Seven hundred and fifty-nine days.

I haven’t seen the sun or the moon since, but I feel it, every time the sun sets, every time it rises. I’ve counted. Seven hundred and fifty-nine days since they took me.

I’ve seen many come and go, I’ve seen a few die. I’ve trusted the wrong one, now I pay the price.

I thought I had grown desensitised to all those that would come through, all those that had their life shattered like mine.

The guards opened the cell. Mine was one of the biggest, sometimes I shared it, sometimes not. I had been alone in mine for nearly two days now, if you didn’t count the corpse in the corner. It had been once a phoenix. They wanted his heart, the operating room had been busy with a particularly rowdy troll, so they did it here. They didn’t bother to clean up.

When the smell will be too much for them in their quarter upstairs, they’ll clean it.

Meanwhile, he was poor company.

One of them brought in my new cellmate.

She was beautiful, there we dirt stains on her dress. It was white, long, with an open back of netted macramé. It was simple but elegant, her skin was luminous despite the fact that she looked like she had taken a beating and was wearing a vinethorns collar.

And she was unconscious, limp as a ragged doll.

The jailer put her down delicately. I’ve never seen them have so much reverence. She must be expensive.

They dragged the chains and locked her limbs like they once did mine. Then they left, locking behind them, without a word. They rarely talk to us. They generally beat any who dares utter a word, it made us a bunch of silent shells, moving from time to time. Some died before their body broke, the spirit gone, the eyes dead, with nothing left in them. It tends to happen within the first month, if they ever last this long.

It always depended on where the money was.

The light dimmed as they departed, leaving a single bulb near the door where I couldn’t see it. The rest of the underground bathed in darkness.

In front of my cell, the damn naga kept looking in my direction, her double-ringed yellow eyes barely ever blinking. That thing creeps me out. There were a few cages in the corner, some empty, some not.

The cells were not as crowded as they’ve been last month, but they didn’t even bother with moving those in the cages to proper cells.

One was a tiny girl, she had been begging for her parents for weeks in Korean. I knew they’d been taken apart, she would not see them again. She understood that after a while, and stopped talking altogether. She slept most of the time now, eating on the ground like a vulgar animal whenever they bothered feeding us. The rest of the time she would stare at nothing in silence.

A few cages back, though, was another who was struggling more. A tall man, human, so he must be some sort of practitioner for them to care to take him. He had skin midnight coloured, and the tiny cage, that was a little tight for the girl, put him in a permanently contorted position, unable to sit up or lay back properly.

I’d heard him sing a few times, in the early days. It sounded like Cajun creole. But they beat him enough time for him to stop. At first he would stubbornly sing again, sometimes even in their faces. But like any other, there came a time when his spirit broke and he lost the will to sing.

I was dreading the awakening of my cellmate. They always cried and pleaded when they woke up.

I hate the tears, especially of women and children.

It hurts something deep inside, something I thought already dead, that stir one last time to hurt me once again.

It’s better when they kill them before they have time to wake up.

It’s easier this way.

They don’t have time to suffer too long, to know what’s coming, to feel it. It’s just over.

I’ve wished for things to be over for so long.

At first, I kept attempting to escape. I’ve tried so many things, but no matter how far it went, it never worked all the way through. Then I began to wish on a rescue, or someone to come and kick their asses. Maybe they made enough enemies that eventually one would come to wipe them all off. Then I realised it was not happening, and my thoughts turned to death. I tried what I could in my limited position. They would never let me. In the end I just retreated inside my head. I tried to entertain me, calculate, remember all sorts of things, make sure my mind would not fall apart. But I stopped bothering with time. They’s only so long someone can last through Hell.

Hell has devoured me a long time ago. There is nothing much left other than what stirs up every time a new one comes in. It will return to its slumber soon enough.

I heard the wheels of the metal carts before they opened the door.

I knew what that meant.

My withered muscles spasmed in gruesome anticipation.

I sick part of me wished for them to come for another, any other.

They wheeled the cart to my cell and unlocked it.

Please let it be for the girl, I wished.

But they looked at me.

One of them rolled the gears linked to my chains, locking me in position against the wall with my arms and legs spread wide.

The naga kept looking at me, unblinking.

They took the knives and pincers and went at it.

I tried not to scream.

I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. But there is only so much a man can endure.

I screamed in the end as they peeled the skin of my stomach and put the long strips in liquid filled jars.

When they were satisfied of the amount gathered, they released the locks on the chains holding me and I fell to the grimy ground with a thud.

My throat was raw, my corpse exhausted, I just stared at nothing in particular as they rolled the cart away and out, locking the cell behind them and the door of the room a little later.

I saw two pink orbs looking at me.

She was awake.

Probably shaken up by the screams. Yet she hadn’t moved, I supposed it was the best way not to attract attention to oneself, but most did not manage this. They would scream and cower in a corner. Or crawl to our jailer begging for mercy. Yet she played dead.

He eyes stayed on mine, I felt a pull, stronger than anything I’ve felt in a long time. A pull to bring my mind back into my skull from whatever dark cave it had been hidden in.

I said nothing.

What is there to say?

She said nothing either.

Once the silence was complete for a few minutes and the men clearly gone, she looked at her left hand. There was a small silvery band on her ring finger. She twisted it around revealing a massive opal that had been hidden inside her palm.

I’m pretty sure if they had noticed such a jewel, they would have taken it. There was one silvery ringlet on either of her writs with a plain white crystal in the inner wrist. Those were probably not worth much though, which was probably why they didn’t bother.

She examined her chains, then clawed at the collar. It covered nearly the whole length of her neck.

We heard them coming back. She twisted the ring again to hide the stone, and returned her arms in the exact position she had been in, and closed her eyes.

I guess this one has good survival instinct. Generally no one gets this good without a bit of training. But it might not last long. They’ll get to her, like they got to everyone else, like they got to me.

They returned to our cell.

“Is she awake?” asked one to the other.

He walked to her and gave her a light kick on the head. She didn’t stir.

“Doesn’t seem like it.

“Maybe we should make a move before she decides to starve herself of something stupid like that,” said the man in the back.

“What you want to use?” asked the one standing next to her head.

“Kyle said he got himself a rawhead and bloody bones.

“You think those things can breed?

“Not a clue,” he shrugged. “Maybe we can try it.

“We’ll have to talk to Omar first.

“Right,” he said and moved aside to let his partner out of the cell. “Once the drugs clear, we can start on the blood.

— Kaden —

I was looking at the content of the vault.

Father came to stand beside me.

“Oh,” said Alik that was following in tow.

“You’re thinking of using them?” asked my father.

“I’ve all of this, right here,” I said. “What if I need them to succeed?

He nodded. “We were supposed to just hold on to them, not used them. That would change things,” my father said.

“I know,” I said. “But could I risk not using them either?

“Quite the conundrum?” said Alik. “That’s why power is dangerous to begin with. The moment shit happens, it’s really tempting to use it.

“Would it be wrong?” I asked.

“In the end we are nothing but men. It’s not up to us to decide what is wrong and what is right. We can only guess,” he said. “Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. I’m not even sure we’ll ever know. Every time period seems to have a different definition. Different cultures, different places, it’s always different. That’s the thing with morals, we can only clumsily attempt to get it, but it’s only when we truly fail that we realise the fuckup.

I looked at all the artifacts that were in my possessions. Some I knew held real power. None enough to topple empires, but together, enough to make them worry.

“Is it different from buying human weapons, from using our claw?

“Who knows? Even if it was right, it doesn’t mean it won’t have bad consequences. It brings us back to intent versus action. We can say all we want that it’s the intentions that counts, but if the actions lead to more death, I don’t think many people will really consider the intention anymore. Which means you have to chuck your emotions by the window and start to calculate. How many lives on one side, how many on the other? That’s why power tends to corrupt, there is never a perfect solution and one day you have to sacrifice pieces. That’s how it gets to you in the end,” he said.

My father looked ahead in silence.

“I’m not strong on sacrificing pieces,” I said.

“Me neither,” said the wizard.

“I guess we’ll have to look at option three then,” said my father.

“I guess we have,” said Alik as we stare a bit longer.

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