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Dawn of Unity: Last of the Seekers, #1
Dawn of Unity: Last of the Seekers, #1
Dawn of Unity: Last of the Seekers, #1
Ebook819 pages11 hoursLast of the Seekers

Dawn of Unity: Last of the Seekers, #1

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Beliefs shattered, two magically linked are called to seek truth.

 

Seventeen-year-old Will escapes from prison six years after his false conviction for murder. Found by a knight who lets Will serve as a squire, Will takes the knight's mercy and follows him to war. He'll protect against infidels, proving to the kingdom he's not the monster they assume he is, and be seen kindly again.

 

As a child, when he burned a souk, Ahmed was terrified. Now sixteen, Ahmed is confident he's improved. Seeking to become grand vizier and bring prestige to his family is everything he thought he wanted. The sultan's test remains: bring an enemy to the capital. He heads to war believing that an enemy's capture is a small price for the sultan's blessing. They're dangerous anyway.

 

Gems of powerful magic bring them together as kingdom and sultanate ravage each other over ignorance and religious zeal, nearing collapse. They're mortal enemies, their monarchs say, but when Will and Ahmed meet amid fear and mistrust they learn to like each other. Their actions no longer seem right and their gems show a resolution. But who are two boys to effect change when those more likely have failed?

LanguageEnglish
PublisherBoundless Adventurer Publishing
Release dateOct 10, 2022
ISBN9781778214202
Dawn of Unity: Last of the Seekers, #1
Author

Nitish Sharma

Nitish crafts a world where magic stirs, unlikely heroes rise, and kingdoms plunge into chaos. Drawing upon the deep wells of myth and history, his stories explore coming-of-age, mentorship, mercy, and resilience through vivid storytelling and compelling characters. His debut novel, Dawn of Unity, launches a sweeping saga following warriors, mages, and monarchs as they face an encroaching evil. Praised for its intricate world—a fusion of magical fantasy and early medieval steampunk—Dawn of Unity captivates readers with its emotional depth and humanity. When not storytelling, Nitish improves his illustration, cartography, and uses his background in the sciences to understand planet Earth. He's always searching, listening to the whisper of stories carried on the wind, for the next tale to tell. 

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    Book preview

    Dawn of Unity - Nitish Sharma

    Pub­lished by Bound­less Ad­ven­turer Pub­lish­ing

    Copy­right © 2022 Ni­tish Sharma

    All rights re­served. No part of this pub­li­ca­tion may be re­pro­duced, dis­trib­uted, stored or trans­mit­ted in any form or by any means, in­clud­ing pho­to­copy­ing, record­ing, scan­ning or other elec­tronic or me­chan­i­cal meth­ods, with­out the prior writ­ten per­mis­sion of the au­thor.

    This is a work of fic­tion. Names, char­ac­ters, places, or­ga­ni­za­tions, and in­ci­dents are ei­ther are the prod­uct of the au­thor’s imag­i­na­tion or are used fic­ti­tiously. Any re­sem­blance to ac­tual per­sons, liv­ing or dead, events, or lo­cales is en­tirely co­in­ci­den­tal.

    Dawn of Unity (Last of the Seek­ers, Book 1)

    First edi­tion Oc­to­ber 2022

    ISBN 978-1-7782142-2-6 (Hard­cover)

    ISBN 978-1-7782142-1-9 (Pa­per­back)

    ISBN 978-1-7782142-0-2 (Ebook)

    Cover de­sign and il­lus­tra­tion by Jeff Brown Graph­ics

    Re­gional map by Karin Wit­tig

    World map by Daniel Hasen­bos

    Dis­trib­uted by Draft 2 Dig­i­tal

    ni­tishsharma­books.com

    For my fam­ily and friends.

    No one achieves any­thing with­out guid­ance. A spe­cial thanks to these in­di­vid­u­als who pro­vided the fol­low­ing ser­vices:

    Ed­i­tors:

    Ayesha Ghaf­far (What Ayesha Reads)

    Gabby D’Aloia (GCD Ed­i­to­rial)

    Beta Read­ers:

    Abi­rami Kirubara­jan

    Faizan Fahim (Bookaapi.com)

    James Gor­don

    Meghalee Mi­tra

    Mo­ham­mad Hamad (The Book Pre­scrip­tion)

    The Book Grem­lins

    Please note that this novel contains scenes of violence, abuse, suicide ideation, torture, imprisonment, PTSD, and one scene involving violence within a place of worship.

    This novel takes his­tor­i­cal in­spi­ra­tion, but is not a his­tor­i­cal novel. The reader should not make con­clu­sions on any cul­ture or re­li­gion by ref­er­enc­ing this novel. Please seek the ap­pro­pri­ate non-fic­tion sources or knowl­edge­able au­thor­i­ties to un­der­stand any his­tor­i­cal pe­riod, cul­ture, or re­li­gion fully.

    Con­tents

    Pro­logue

    Part One: Empty Be­gin­nings

    Chap­ter One

    Chap­ter Two

    Chap­ter Three

    Chap­ter Four

    Chap­ter Five

    Chap­ter Six

    Chap­ter Seven

    Chap­ter Eight

    Part Two: A War Long Waged

    Chap­ter Nine

    Chap­ter Ten

    Chap­ter Eleven

    Chap­ter Twelve

    Chap­ter Thir­teen

    Chap­ter Four­teen

    Chap­ter Fif­teen

    Part Three: The Two Seek­ers

    Chap­ter Six­teen

    Chap­ter Sev­en­teen

    Chap­ter Eigh­teen

    Chap­ter Nine­teen

    Chap­ter Twenty

    Chap­ter Twenty-One

    Chap­ter Twenty-Two

    Chap­ter Twenty-Three

    Part Four: The Gods of the World

    Chap­ter Twenty-Four

    Chap­ter Twenty-Five

    Chap­ter Twenty-Six

    Chap­ter Twenty-Seven

    Chap­ter Twenty-Eight

    Part Five: End of a Cen­tury

    Chap­ter Twenty-Nine

    Chap­ter Thirty

    Chap­ter Thirty-One

    Chap­ter Thirty-Two

    Chap­ter Thirty-Three

    Epi­logue

    Pro­logue

    Do we not both be­lieve in the Fa­ther? Is he not the one who cre­ated Erathas and all peo­ple? the priest said. Whether within Ma­ni­an­ity or Al­hu­rahism this is true. We dis­agree on who, Ma­nis or Al­hu­rah, is the true essence of the Fa­ther but wouldn’t the Fa­ther pre­fer us to co-ex­ist peace­fully? His long, robe-like alb bil­lowed around him. He placed his hands over his cha­suble and smiled at the grand imam in front of him, then of­fered him a sa­cred stole. Ma­nis is a be­ing of praise in Al­hu­rahism af­ter all.

      But not one to be wor­shiped. The grand imam ac­cepted the stole, and ex­am­ined its em­broi­dery, oval and petal shapes lay­ered over one an­other to cre­ate a golden flow­er­ing sun. This was the sym­bol of Ma­nis. Tis a sim­ple gift, the grand imam said as he handed off the stole to a nearby as­sis­tant and ar­ranged his kaf­tan.

      To show my in­ten­tions are just that. Sim­ple. Pure.

      For one-hun­dred years have our coun­tries fought start and stop. How will this gift ex­cuse the blood on both sides?

      It will not, but you can agree that it’s a start. Do I not stand be­fore you, far from my home, stand­ing in your Grand Mosque un­armed and with­out es­cort? The priest ges­tured with arms spread wide at the mas­sive, domed room. Huge pil­lars held it up dec­o­rated in colour­ful tes­sel­la­tions.

      You have shown ei­ther great trust or fool­ish­ness. The grand imam chuck­led. Your king wishes us dead. He shows no in­ten­tion of peace.

      Your sul­tan is the same, is he not? Tell me, what does Al­hu­rah say?

      I only in­ter­pret what he wills. I can­not hear him. Such was… was for peo­ple of long ago. The grand imam led the Ma­nis priest to­wards the Eter­nal Flame be­hind him, bur­ring within a mas­sive bra­zier. A power em­anated from it, a type of Godly Magic. Long ago the idols around it had been smashed and Al­hu­rah in­structed that all should turn in its di­rec­tion, if they could, to pray to God. I am sur­prised the grand bishop did not come him­self. Is there dis­agree­ment among you?

      There is… ten­sion. But all of us want peace. More than you know. The in­ter­ests of the Church do not al­ways align with that of the king.

      Nor do our in­ter­ests al­ways align with the sul­tan’s. I do not rep­re­sent all be­liev­ers.

      So maybe we can start to talk of pe— An earth-shat­ter­ing boom fol­lowed by the jolt of an af­ter­shock ripped through the mosque. Dust fell from the roof and walls mar­ring the pat­terned mar­ble floors and car­pets. Shrieks and shouts tore through the mosque door from out­side. The priest al­most fell into the grand imam. In­side the large space, imams and civil­ians looked around and mum­bled while chil­dren clung un­easily to their moth­ers and fa­thers. The door to the Grand Mosque opened and a Sao­mardrim sol­dier stum­bled in, his padded and chain­mail ar­mor stained with blood. Gur­mi­ans! They are here. They’ve snuck into the city an’ are slaugh­ter­ing ev­ery­one! His voice echoed through the space, then his head snapped back. Cough­ing up blood, he fell for­ward and laid still, an ar­row stick­ing out of his back. On­look­ers in the Grand Mosque screamed and the grand imam held up his hands.

      Shut the doors. Quickly! He glared at the Ma­nis priest. You. Seize him! Two imams leapt for­ward and grabbed hold of the Ma­nis priest. The man’s eyes widened.

      You have the wrong idea! The priest strug­gled against the imams’ grip.

      You were a dis­trac­tion. Meant to trick me! The grand imam pointed a shak­ing fin­ger at the priest.

      I had no knowl­edge of the at­tack! I was sent… I came to ne­go­ti­ate. The priest’s face paled.

      Lies!

      It is the truth! His plead­ing eyes fo­cused on the grand imam.

      A boom­ing thud against the Grand Mosque doors shook the build­ing. A few more and the door cracked, swing­ing open. A dozen Gur­mian sol­diers flooded into the space bran­dish­ing swords, their plate and mail ar­mor stained in blood. The men rushed for­ward, slash­ing and stab­bing the imams and civil­ians in­side. One man walked ahead of them. His blue-gold robes bil­lowed be­hind him and a black vel­vet chap­eron sat wrapped around his head. A cape with the sym­bol of his do­main, an im­paled man, draped al­most to the ground. He raised a flint­lock pis­tol and fired, strik­ing a nearby woman in the head caus­ing her to fall on her side; smoke drifted from the muz­zle. With the sin­gle shot used he tossed the pis­tol aside and drew an­other then strode to­wards the Eter­nal Flame, un­moved by the car­nage around him.

      Ver­räter, he spat at the Ma­nis priest. The grand imam looked at the priest, and see­ing no sub­terfuge in his eyes, he was re­leased.

      Curse you, man of your king! Only a de­mon would do what you are do­ing now. The grand imam glared at the Gur­mian lord. The Ma­nis priest trem­bled as he scanned the room with wide eyes. His in­sides threat­ened to spill. Sao­mardrim men, women, and chil­dren lay slaugh­tered around the floor of the Grand Mosque, stain­ing the pat­terned walls, floor, and car­pets with blood. The screams of pain and mourn­ing am­pli­fied up­wards into the wide domed ceil­ing.

      All Sao­mardrim de­serve to die. The Gur­mian lord smiled. He raised his pis­tol and pointed it at the grand imam. The grand imam raised his hand and ges­tured to­wards the Eter­nal Flame. His eyes widened, skin tight­ened, and the anger in his voice seemed to shake the air be­tween them.

      Those of the old days will come. Seek­ers who will end this war. They who can hear the voice of Al­hu­rah. They who can con­tact him and travel to the godly realms alive. They will end this mad­ness!

      The Ma­nis priest looked be­tween the lord and the grand imam. His at­ten­tion moved to the Eter­nal Flame. The power that em­anated from it grew stronger, puls­ing with un­bri­dled en­ergy.

      And you! The Ma­nis priest shouted at the lord who had no­ticed the power in the Eter­nal Flame. The Gur­mian lord raised an eye­brow, his grip on his pis­tol fal­tered, and the Ma­nis priest con­tin­ued, I curse you! Ma­nis be by my side. One of those Seek­ers will kill you for what you’ve done here to­day. This mas­sacre will be avenged! He turned and looked at the grand imam. De­spair painted his face, pain from the blood spilt in such a peace­ful place. He flashed a drained smile. Their at­tempt at peace was over, and now they’d die to­gether.

      The Gur­mian lord fired his pis­tol.

    Part One:

    Empty Be­gin­nings

    Chap­ter One

    Launch­ing from the crest of a moun­tain ledge he soared through star-lit sky, his wings stretched far out­ward re­sist­ing the glacial wind try­ing to shrivel his feath­ers. The bird of prey dived to­wards a grey cas­tle nes­tled against the moun­tain­side on an is­land in the Blue Moun­tains. It was sur­rounded by a deep al­most cir­cu­lar ravine formed by the sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the is­land and the main­land.

      As he passed the light of the moon his shape shim­mered a translu­cent pale blue. He made a mourn­ful call, tilt­ing his head at the cas­tle. Mount Isen stretched tall in the north­east, a sen­tinel guard­ing the struc­ture on its blue-grey slopes. All around him, a bar­ren moun­tain land­scape spread, cov­ered in snow and ice. This re­mote cor­ner of the world, frigid and empty, acted as a sanc­tu­ary for the be­ings the bird took the form of.

      Glid­ing over a small chasm, only pass­able by a sin­gle icy stone bridge, he passed the two walls, the in­ner slightly higher than the sec­ond. Be­low in be­tween the three keeps of the cas­tle were crude gal­lows and a stock­age where men and women hung, their chains dan­gling off their frozen bod­ies, their wrists bound be­hind them and wrapped in strips of leather.

      He landed on a tower and hung his head for he knew what this place was and for whom he’d been sent. Watch­ing a few un­for­tu­nate souls dragged to­wards wooden stakes, read­ied to be driven through, con­firmed his knowl­edge of this place. It was Isen Prison, the most feared prison in Gur­ma­nis, and it housed who he had come for. De­spite the wind and snow, the prison stood, brav­ing the el­e­ments, ful­fill­ing its grim pur­pose as a place peo­ple were sent to die.

      The bird flew high into the air. As he had done be­fore with the other boy, he would do the same here. In an in­stant, he fiz­zled away, its form fad­ing into specks of glow­ing blue.

    ***

    Held by his arms, he stum­bled up the set of stairs, shack­les clank­ing around his an­kles. Ev­ery mus­cle in his body throbbed with the echoes of re­cent pain and his vi­sion blurred. The boy tripped and stum­bled for­ward, prompt­ing a grum­ble from the broad-shoul­dered guard who dragged him. The guard jerked him for­wards from the top of the stairs into a long shad­owy cor­ri­dor carved through the rock deep un­der­ground, with barely two me­ters of space. The only vis­i­ble light, a glow from a few blue-white crys­tals set into sconces.

      The teenage pris­oner, dressed in a short-sleeved tan-brown tu­nic and shorts with a thin vest over­top, had been se­curely bound. Shack­les con­nected to­gether by heavy chains hugged tightly around his neck, wrists, lower chest, waist and an­kles, slowed his walk across the ragged stone floor, rat­tling with each step. Above the neck iron on his left side was a tat­too, half cov­ered by the col­lar, that read 271. Fresh red stains cov­ered parts of his frayed and torn prison uni­form.

      Again, he slipped, his fabric strip wrapped hands catching his fall, and his guard cursed.

      If you’d walk right, I wouldn’t have to drag you, the guard grunted. A frown cracked the dried grime on the boy’s face, through the shoul­der-length strands of his dark brown hair hang­ing in his face and that par­tially cov­ered his ears. He slid his strip wrapped feet at­tempt­ing to stand prop­erly, feel­ing the hard leather sole and vamp un­der­neath the strips. He glared at a sec­ond guard ap­proach­ing.

      Night treat­ing ya well? the new­comer greeted, ad­just­ing one of his metal brac­ers. The other guard nod­ded and shoved the boy into the damp wall. He slumped to the ground, scratch­ing his cheeks against the sur­face, his chains clank­ing.

      I’m outta here come morn­ing. Could use the rest ahead of the trek down the moun­tains an’ to Blue­shade. This filth’s cell is a lit­tle fur­ther down the hall, DOM-37B. Think you can take him there? The new­comer’s green eyes scanned the sorry crea­ture and he raised a bushy eye­brow.

      Did ya take him to the mages first? Don’t want him crip­pled or dis­eased.

      I did, don’t you worry.

      He’s the one, one the war­den likes. The boy, the youngest pris­oner, ain’t he?

      Yea he’s the one, killer of his own par­ents.

      A flash of heat rushed through the boy and his eyes grew wide as numb­ing pain surged in him.

      What hap­pened?

      War­den’s or­ders. Said to­day’s a spe­cial day for the boy.

      An’ you? Gonna join the army?

      The guard smiled. Ya. In­fi­del Sao­mardrim will fear my blade.

      Leav­ing one hell, en­ter­ing an­other. The new­comer shook his head.

      Bet­ter than this place.

      The new­comer leaned close and whis­pered. War­den’s not right he is. He’s got some­thing wrong in the head what with the things he does to the pris­on­ers.

      Quiet! If some­one hears ya, we’ll both be in se­ri­ous trou­ble. Look, the peo­ple in here de­serve this, as in­tended by the gods. The guard looked back down at the boy. They’re naught but mur­der­ers, thieves, rapists and mad­men. Will you take him to his cell or not? The guard gave the boy’s chains a jerk, send­ing sear­ing pain into his raw wrists and an­kles.

      Yea, just keep your voice to yer­self. The new­comer yanked the boy off the ground, and led him down the cor­ri­dor. Hunched over and arms sag­ging against the weight of his re­straints, the boy hob­bled for­ward into a cell block and a new hall­way. Two sub-blocks, cages, the bars in­ter­twined in chains, con­tained a row of cells. Ev­ery­thing was still, mute, and against the dim light stray dust drifted in the air. The guard pushed the boy against the bars of a sub-block and keys rat­tled as he un­locked the door. The boy slid his face against the mesh cov­ered square spa­ces be­tween the bars and coughed.

      An echo­ing metal grind­ing pre­ceded the slid­ing of two bars; the guard kicked open the lower bar, which was al­ways jam­ming, and swung the door to the sub-block open. He pulled the boy in­side. They walked down the hall pass­ing sev­eral cells un­til they reached cell DOM-37B. The guard slid open the solid metal door to the cell then swung open a sec­ond barred mesh cov­ered door be­hind the first with a ring­ing creak. He threw the boy in­side the squat rec­tan­gu­lar space whose curved roof ran lower to­wards the back. It was barely enough space for a grown adult. Se­cur­ing the boy in chains at­tached to the cell’s walls, and with a last look of sick­ened dis­ap­proval, he slammed and locked the cell doors with a heavy echo. The bang­ing of clos­ing and lock­ing doors did not faze the boy. He’d grown used to it. Left in com­plete dark­ness he could only whim­per be­fore he blacked out.

    ***

    He woke to tor­tured screams echo­ing from some­where un­der the cell block. Dim blue-white light il­lu­mi­nated the cell through the door’s cracks. The light re­vealed the stone walls, their sur­faces coarse and bumpy, less one wall which had al­ter­nat­ing patches of smooth, as if it had been plas­tered over. A foul stench came from a hole in one cor­ner.

      He tried to lift him­self from the ground only to crum­ple back down into a shal­low pud­dle of wa­ter. Burn­ing pain ra­di­ated from him as he shifted to ad­just to the weight of his chains.

      The boy hud­dled him­self to­gether and squeezed him­self tight. He closed his eyes and tears started to form. ‘Yea he’s the one, killer of his own par­ents.’ His par­ents came to mind, their faces ones of love and com­pas­sion he had once known. He saw his fa­ther’s weather worn skin, felt his firm touch. He saw his mother’s calm­ing smile and heard her ten­der voice.

      Half­way be­tween sleep and wake­ful­ness, he spot­ted a shadow creep­ing to­wards him. The shadow echoed his im­age, its shad­owy hair cut so that it fol­lowed the curve of its head and came closer to­gether be­hind its neck. The shadow’s round jaw­line stretched into a smile while the gash that was its mouth parted and it’s curved nos­trils flared. Pan­icked, the boy scram­bled to one cor­ner of his cell. Red eyes emerged and the shadow growled at him.

      No! the boy cried. Go away. Tears clouded his eyes. I thought you were gone.

      Gone? How can I leave you? I am you! the fig­ure growled and its arms reached out to­wards the boy. Mur­derer!

      No…no… The boy shiv­ered. Green fields, rolling hills, the for­est on the cliff, he whis­pered, at­tempt­ing to rid him­self of the fa­mil­iar vi­sion. He saw his young self, his long hair neatly shaped and side-parted, ea­ger to go to mar­ket the next day, the day ev­ery­thing went wrong.

      Mem­o­ries of your home won’t make things right. You’ll ne’er make things right!

      L-Laugh­ter… chil­dren’s…

      The shadow took hold of one of the boy’s arms. No longer king of your lit­tle treefort, it teased.

      William! William! The boy lurched up­wards, look­ing to­wards the cell door, his eyes wide. That was his mother, that was his name. Why did she have to die? Why could he not be with her? In here, he had time, time and lit­tle to do with it other than to work and think, but he’d not have to think of things, they’d just find him.

    ~~~

    If that’s the case I won’t eat. I’ll feed my son first, Will’s fa­ther said, stand­ing res­o­lutely be­fore his wife. Will’s mother looked at her hus­band, teary-eyed. From the other room a ten-year-old Will hid by the side of the door frame lis­ten­ing care­fully.

      You don’t un­der­stand, Trent! It’s go­ing to come; ya know that, then what? How’re we go­ing to feed the baby? Will? How will we feed our­selves if you in­sist on not eat­ing?

      I know it’s gonna come. Trent held his wife’s shoul­ders. An’ I told you I’ll fig­ure it out, he said ten­derly. He touched his wife’s stom­ach, gen­tly trac­ing the new slight swelling. The child is a bless­ing. Will de­serves a brother or sis­ter. Hear­ing this, Will froze. A lit­tle brother? Sis­ter? What would that be like?

      Half a year ago the Smiths had to aban­don their—

      No, don’t say it. I won’t aban­don my own blood.

      Then how? We can’t make food out of thin air, Will’s mother stressed.

      We could take Will and run away; heard many serfs from other vil­lages who ran from their lords to free­dom.

      But what kind of life will that be for Will and the baby? A life of fear? Where’d we run to? The cities wouldn’t let us in and the lord’s sol­diers would hunt us. We’d die of star­va­tion, sold into slav­ery or worse.

      I s’pose so… Will’s fa­ther re­as­sured her, we’ll find a way.

    ~~~

    Will shiv­ered. He tried to re­mem­ber the names of his friends, but they slipped from his mem­ory ex­cept for one. The one friend who turned out to be trai­tor­ous. As fast as his im­age came it van­ished from mem­ory. The shadow knelt in-front of him.

      You’d kill him too if you could, it sneered. Will looked up at it. Like you did them.

      An im­age passed through his mind. He stood over the bod­ies of his dead par­ents. His mother was still alive; she gasped as blood seeped out around her.

      Wh-Why… she’d groaned.

      The shadow rushed at Will and put a ghostly blade to his neck. Mur­derer!

      Th-That’s not true. Go away!

      You can’t es­cape your­self and what you did, you never can.

    ~~~

    Ten-year-old Will woke from his bed, noth­ing more than a raised straw mat­tress, in a room that dou­bled as stor­age. He turned in his bed and opened his eyes. A dis­tant sound didn’t reg­is­ter to the half-asleep boy but he slid him­self off and sat on the edge of the bed. His mother screamed. Will froze, fear mak­ing him hes­i­tate. He rubbed his eyes. Some­one shouted.

      M-Ma… F-Fa­ther… Will’s voice broke. His fa­ther screamed. He walked for­ward, trem­bling, and ap­proached the door of his par­ent’s room which stood half-open. Can­dle­light flick­ered as he peeked in­side. A cold flooded over him and his heart threat­ened to stop. The en­tire world muted and blurred. His par­ents laid at the foot of their bed with sev­eral stab wounds, blood pool­ing around them. Will ran over and fell to his knees. The sound of shift­ing feet barely reg­is­tered in Will’s ears be­fore he was thrown aside from be­hind. Will fell onto his back and looked into the face of the man who would haunt his dreams there­after. A ragged black beard hung from the man’s dark face, high­lighted by splat­ters of blood. The man pointed a dag­ger at the boy, his dark wide eyes barely blink­ing, his face de­void of any emo­tion, and thick age lines across his fore­head.

      He didn’t tell me they had a son, he said flatly, his thin eye­brows push­ing to­gether. The man took a few steps for­ward. Will was too paral­ysed by fear to re­act. The man moved to strike, his bulky stature tow­er­ing over Will, but as he raised his dag­ger he hes­i­tated then sighed. He stowed his blade. Your ma and pa were in it bad, boy. You’ll join ‘em your­self if you know what’s good for ya. The man’s eyes met Will’s eyes for a mo­ment, then he turned around and walked to­wards a small linen sack filled with coin.

      I’m not here to kill kids. Run off. Will stood and lunged for­ward. He wailed, a sound some­where be­tween anger and de­spair, and at­tacked the mur­derer. The mur­derer stum­bled for­ward be­fore shov­ing Will off him and into his par­ents’ still bleed­ing bod­ies. The man huffed. He picked up the sack and fled from the room.

      Will sobbed, know­ing he had lost ev­ery­thing. A cold shaky hand touched Will’s cheek leav­ing some blood on his face. Will looked at his mother’s pale face; she strug­gled, barely alive.

      Ma… wh-what do I do? Will pan­icked. He looked around and tried to rush away to find wa­ter or linens or some­thing to help her. Be­fore he had the chance to go, Will’s mother touched his arm and he turned to look back at her.

      Wi-Will… l-lis­ten… she said with an ex­hausted and hoarse voice. 

      Ma! Why…

      She coughed, splat­ter­ing blood over her son’s face. Will winced, but he couldn’t take his eyes off his ma."

    Don’t leave me! Please no… I don’t know what to do…

      Will. She smiled, stag­ger­ing on her words, Stay strong, Wi-William. He or she would have… She placed a hand on her stom­ach, but lost her train of thought. Will looked over with wa­tery eyes. She stared, lin­ger­ing only a mo­ment, then closed her eyes and lay still.

    No! Ma wake-up! No. No. Moth… er! Will screamed and lost him­self in his sad­ness. He hugged her body and laid by his dead par­ents stained in their blood. The only thing that marred the smooth pool of crim­son on the floor was the mur­derer’s knife. The world spun around him and blurred away along with the sound of his own cries.

    ~~~

    Will sobbed, hug­ging him­self against the bit­ter cold of his cell. He kept try­ing to re­mem­ber the faces of his par­ents but they be­came ob­scured, blocked by some un­seen veil. In­stead, the face of the mur­derer sharp­ened. When Will was ten he re­mem­bered the man as a ghoul­ish look­ing mon­ster, but he’d only been re­press­ing the man’s true face. Re­cently, it had be­come more vivid. Af­ter that night, his life was never his own to live. Cold-hearted, stoic men were all he ever knew there­after. Men who never lis­tened to him, never be­lieved him when he kept telling them he was in­no­cent.

    ~~~

    He was a shadow him­self, hol­low in­side, and he watched his body dis­si­pat­ing into a black red mist. He stood in his par­ent’s room. Dizzy and con­fused, he stum­bled to­wards the door. He was cov­ered in blood. He fell. Tears filled his eyes. He crawled for­wards, strug­gling to get up but crashed against the door frame. Strug­gling to stand straight, he looked back at his dead par­ents.

      ‘Wi-Will… l-lis­ten…’ Will’s mother spoke, but it was only in his mind. Will walked out the front door into the light of early morn­ing. The sounds of chirp­ing birds and blow­ing wind seemed muted. Will am­bled down the main path to his vil­lage’s cen­ter where the green rolling hills rose to the chapel upon them.

      ‘S-Stay strong…’ his mother whis­pered. Will reached the guard­house and knocked on the door.

      ‘He didn’t tell me they had a son.’ The dis­tant voice of the mur­derer spoke. A con­sta­ble opened the door and stared in sur­prise and con­cern at the bloody ten-year-old who had come to them.

    Home, Will said. They fol­lowed him back home and in­spected the hor­ri­fy­ing scene. They ex­am­ined the dag­ger and no­ticed it matched with a set of dag­gers be­long­ing to Will’s fa­ther. They stared in dis­be­lief at the boy.

      The con­sta­bles pinned Will’s arms be­hind his back, and cuffed him in irons; the cold metal clicked shut tight around his wrists. All Will could do was stare at his dead par­ents obliv­i­ous to the dis­may of the adults. He stared at the face of his dad. His fa­ther’s eyes stared back, cold, life­less and empty.

    ~~~

    Will watched the shadow stand­ing at the door of his cell. It looked out­wards, away.

      Where has your life gone? it teased, say­ing each word slowly and with care. Bound to a small rec­tan­gu­lar cell, the pur­pose of your life merely to sit and to work. It turned back to face Will and smiled, a black jagged twist in its face. Will stood, arms sag­ging, pulling against his chains. Streams of black mist shot out, em­a­nat­ing from the shadow and clouded his cell. Will coughed and tried to ad­vance, but the cloudy mist en­gulfed him.

      A cold hand clamped his neck. His breath­ing grew strained and glow­ing am­ber eyes widened ahead of him. They glared at him as if ad­mir­ing a tro­phy. Will’s in­sides tight­ened, his eyes stung, and his voice left him. He tried so hard to look away, but could not. Sweat broke out over his skin. Some un­seen force made him stare into the eyes, the war­den’s eyes. His vi­sion blurred and his fore­head throbbed in pain. It spoke with both the voice of the war­den and that of the shadow.

      ‘You are guilty, you are dan­ger­ous, and you are a mon­ster,’ it growled, ev­ery cold breath smelling of fe­ces. Will’s eyes wa­tered. Mon­ster… mon­ster… the word in­vaded his mind.

      Isen Prison housed the worst of Gur­ma­nis’ crim­i­nals, peo­ple like him. Its denizens were mur­ders, rapists, traitors, ter­ror­ists, and those who slighted the roy­alty.

      Night af­ter night, the shadow tor­mented him when he was younger. Ev­ery night Will woke in his cell and cried. The other pris­on­ers seemed life­less and would not speak to him. The guards looked at him only with dis­dain and a de­sire to in­flict pain. Slowly, his thoughts and self-per­cep­tion de­te­ri­o­rated. He was a boy in a night­mare; he was afraid all the time. Will told him­self no one cared about him and he de­served to be in here. He was alone and he was worth­less. He slowly lost one emo­tion af­ter the other and only de­spair, stress and de­tach­ment filled the void. He was wicked, evil even. Why else would he be here? He was the shadow, a de­mon of the worst kind. That was why, like the other pris­on­ers, he also learned to be silent.

      N-No… Will spoke into the dark. NO! he shouted, his voice bounc­ing off the walls of his cell. The shadow backed away. Go. Away. Will growled, glar­ing. The shadow smiled, floated back­ward, and faded. Will col­lapsed to the floor and gripped his throb­bing fore­head. 

      He lis­tened to his own breath­ing and the faint noise of guards shout­ing at some­one. Sev­eral thuds, a rod hid­ing flesh, barely reached Will’s ears.

      A filled wooden tray and cup slid through an open slit un­der­neath the door. He looked at the hard, dark coloured bread and thin cold soup. Will pulled the meal for­ward and ab­sent mind­edly shov­eled it in.

      Lay­ing back and look­ing at the grey floor, he caught sight of his scarred hands and ran them through his dirt filled, slimy hair hop­ing not to find any lice. They would clean the lice out when he got them. His hair fell back into the left side part it nat­u­rally kept.

      A pain pierced Will from his left shoul­der, his brand. He ran his fin­gers across the an­gry scar, traced its X sur­rounded by a cir­cle, the mark that for­ever tied him to this dark place. Cuts had been opened over it from the tor­ture he suf­fered hours be­fore. He held his chest, feel­ing the other brand they had given him, slightly larger than the fist of an adult man, an M for mur­derer. Will squeezed his eyes tight, re­sist­ing his thoughts and the mem­ory those scars elicited.

    ~~~

    Bound by leather straps on a stone ta­ble, Will could only look up at the snowy sky. He’d met the war­den for the first time. A guard fixed a strap in his mouth; it sep­a­rated his teeth and pinned his head to the stone. It hov­ered over him, the red-hot brand­ing iron. The black­smith brought it close to his face and the heat dried his skin while the tangy sent of burn­ing metal filled his nos­trils. He stared wide-eyed at the siz­zling prod.

      I won’t lie… this will hurt a lot. Tears clouded Will’s eyes, he strug­gled to no avail prompt­ing three guards to hold him down on the slab. An­other pulled up his prison uni­form to ex­pose his right arm and heav­ing chest. The guards wiped away grime and dust then the black­smith lifted the brand­ing iron and pushed it onto Will’s chest. A sec­ond later an­other, smaller brand­ing iron was pushed into his right arm. Yet an­other mo­ment later, they pulled back his head to ex­pose the left sur­face of his neck, and a mage dripped ink onto his skin be­fore burn­ing it into his flesh, forc­ing the ink to take the shape of 271. The brands hissed upon his skin and the boy’s muf­fled screams were car­ried away by the wind.

    ~~~

    Will ex­haled. He trem­bled and held him­self tight, chains clink­ing as he moved his arms. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head try­ing to push the mem­ory away. His head pounded with a dull thud. Will pushed the palms of his hands against his fore­head. He’d re­mem­ber so much on days like to­day. Why? Why did his mem­o­ries tor­ment him? He ex­haled again and opened his eyes. The sore feel­ing be­came ap­par­ent to Will again as he slumped against the cell wall and looked into the dark ceil­ing.

      It was his six­teenth birth­day to­day.

      Alone in the dark, he cried.

    Chap­ter Two

    Af­ter Will had eaten, he pushed the empty tray to­wards the cell door and wiped any re­main­ing tears. He crawled over to the cor­ner of his cell and rose to his knees. Push­ing lengths of chain out of his way and pulling up his tu­nic, Will uri­nated in the ran­cid hole. His cell grew thick with a ni­troge­nous stink be­fore it thinned and dis­si­pated. Will hud­dled against the back wall. He waited.

      Shout­ing echoed out­side as doors slid and swung open. A ba­ton dragged against the sub-block bars, its clang­ing bounced off the walls, keep­ing in time with a hum. A hand reached in, grabbed the empty tray, and pulled it away. Will showed no re­ac­tion. He stared to­wards the grey ground ahead of him.

      His cell door lock clicked. A guard slid the outer door open let­ting it hit the end with a ring­ing echo. Dim crys­tal light flooded Will’s cell. He sat stoic.

      The guard looked through the in­ner door bars and huffed. Be­hind him, in the hall­way space be­tween both sub-blocks, the cell block com­man­der walked by with his pa­pers hold­ing a thin scepter with an oc­ta­he­dral crys­tal set on one end. Around him other guards un­locked cells and lined up the pris­on­ers, col­lect­ing them out­side in the sub-block. It was a ca­coph­ony of clangs, clinks, and rat­tles.

      Sun’s up 271. Get-up, the guard or­dered. He yawned and spat to the side. Bags sat un­der each of his grey eyes. Will touched the grainy floor and scraped up some dust as he stood. He pulled on one of the chains con­nect­ing him to his cell in or­der to hoist him­self up. He hov­ered, tak­ing a mo­ment to steady him­self. He blinked, face non-re­ac­tive, at the guard. The guard tapped on the in­ner cell door, sig­nal­ing Will to shuf­fle for­ward and slide his shack­led wrists through the up­per tray slot. The guard was joined by an­other younger guard who leaned against the frame of the door and flicked dirt from un­der his nails. They ac­knowl­edged each other be­fore the older guard ad­justed Will’s shack­les.

      Cousins, un­cles, broth­ers, sons, the men folk are nigh gone now from the coun­try­side. All of em been con­scripted into the war, the older guard com­plained. I’m afeared they’ll take my son when he’s grown, they will. Back-up kid. 

      Will obeyed. The older guard un­locked the in­ner cell door and stepped to­wards Will to un­lock the chains bind­ing Will to the cell.

      War needs men. Who are we to deny the king ‘is men? the younger guard an­swered the first.

      Cause ere­long they’ll be none left on the farms. Army’s good n’ all, an’ a cru­sade’s re­deemed a soul or two, but even the army can’t keep it up with­out no farm­ers to work the fields, smiths to smith, hunters to hunt, tan­ners to—

      Yea yea. I gets it.

      You just not got yer own fam­ily yet. The older guard loos­ened Will’s leg irons and worked his way up to the other re­straints. I got a wife n’ child to worry bout. Thing is, at the rate con­scrip­tion is go­ing, pretty soon they’ll con­script women too.

      Ha! Come now, Fight­ers Guild given birth to plenty ca­pa­ble fe­male fight­ers.

      Right but once the men folk are dead, then the women folk fol­low, what’s gonna be left to fight for, eh? Chil­dren will be all that’s left and the Sao­mardrim will run o’er them like they were ants.

      Yer fancy… what’s they call it… rea­son­ing.

      It ain’t fancy. Com­mon sense, plain and sim­ple. The older guard huffed.

      Well here’s some sense. We got pris­ons here and there with de­gen­er­ates ready to fight. Men in here make up a few hun­dred, the women an­other hun­dred or so. Then we also got us.

      Sure, you and plenty of oth­ers wanna fight. But the pris­on­ers in here, they’re needed to get the crowdite and other met­als. Still gotta sup­ply the armies. The older guard fin­ished re­mov­ing the re­straints con­nect­ing Will to his cell. He raised Will’s arms and pressed hard on his wrist shack­les, en­sur­ing they were se­cure. Will flinched at the slight pain, and the guard ex­am­ined his face.

      Been cry­ing, have you? he huffed, I ‘d think you’d for­get that kind of thing.

      Will stared blankly at him. The younger guard stepped for­ward.

      Re­mem­ber this kid eh? 271? Six years ago, we took bets on if he would sur­vive. The younger guard nudged his part­ner.

      That was ‘afore we knew the war­den fan­cied him and wanted to keep him alive. The older guard laughed. Boy’s still alive. The guard looked Will in the face. You ought to die al­ready ya know, no one grows old in this place, one way or an­other.

      He’s sure as any to be run through with a Sao­mardrim blade, I think. Prob­a­bly de­serves it too.

      Sure. Come on, let’s go. The older guard gripped Will’s left arm and ush­ered him out of his cell. He pushed Will against the sub-block bars out­side while the younger guard slid shut Will’s cell doors. Sao­mardrim pris­oner camps are dot­ted around the coun­try I hear. All sup­ply­ing ma­te­rial for the war. I think with the amount of peo­ple sup­ply­ing ma­te­rial and the army still not get­ting enough, means this war is in real bad shape.

      Who says the army’s fail­ing? the younger guard huffed.

      You’ve heard, haven’t you? King Dug­gan’s been hir­ing more mer­ce­nar­ies cause the levies ain’t pro­vid­ing.

      You hear about Fritz from the in­fir­mary? Poor sod killed him­self. Found out his vil­lage was rav­aged, razed to the ground. All the men young an’ old were dragged off to war and the women, chil­dren, and the el­derly hanged. His wife, chil­dren, and fa­ther among them.

      The king did that? The older guard’s eyes widened.

      Or­dered it. Vil­lages who won’t sub­mit their share to the war will get it. Bur­dens elim­i­nated. God be mer­ci­ful to Fritz upon his judge­ment.

      Sui­cides go to the Un­der­world.

      The cell block com­man­der walked down the space be­tween the sub-blocks. He no­ticed Will pushed against the bars and strode up to him. From across the bars, he glared at Will.

      271, the com­man­der barked. Will didn’t re­act, his eyes dead. To at­ten­tion 271! The older guard shoved Will and he blinked, look­ing at the com­man­der. When I call you, you lis­ten. A night ago, I got a right shout­ing from the war­den. You know how it is boy. War­den takes you into his quar­ters and you gotta serve him well. If not, I get the flack for your id­iocy. Got it?

    Y-Yes, Will croaked. The com­man­der shoved his scepter be­tween the bars and jabbed it into Will’s side. The crys­tal lit up, sparks jump­ing from it. Ten­drils of pain shot through his mus­cles, tis­sues, and bones ren­der­ing him shak­ing in rhyth­mic shear­ing hurt. He sti­fled his shouts. The crys­tal fiz­zled out and Will gasped, pant­ing. The com­man­der took it away and grunted.

      Lost its charge. When the war­den wishes some­thing for you to do, you do it. If I get yelled at again, I ain’t giv­ing you a change of clothes when you come back, an’ you’ll just have to live naked, ya hear?

      Will strug­gled to stand, echoes of pain sub­sid­ing, but he nod­ded. The com­man­der moved on­wards. Will was dragged to the pris­oner line and at­tached to it. He stood there. He waited.

    Will shuf­fled for­ward, chained to­gether and flanked by two tall pris­on­ers, watch­ing the heavy con­nect­ing chain ahead of him sway­ing. The chains rat­tled taut, urg­ing him along. Will lifted his feet against the pull of his chains and let his arms sag. The pris­on­ers shuf­fled from the cell block through three barred doors and en­tered into a large rec­tan­gu­lar cav­ern. Sharp ta­pered sta­lac­tites and sta­lag­mites grew out from the cor­ners, from the wrin­kled and frac­tured grey-blue roof and floor, barely vis­i­ble through dim blue-white spell crys­tal light.

      Keep yer heads down till we get down, y’all hear an’ don’t you for­get to pray to yer mis­tress if ya care for it, a guard shouted.

      Will stum­bled for­ward, fol­low­ing the mo­tion of his fel­low pris­on­ers. He looked up, hes­i­tat­ing a look. This com­plex, a sys­tem of mines, was carved deep into Mt. Isen and weaved it­self in all di­rec­tions lead­ing through nu­mer­ous tun­nels and spa­ces. At the far end, three huge metal barred cages at­tached to gi­ant chains, one large cen­tral one and two smaller flank­ing ones, acted as lifts

      The thick air, hazy with vis­i­ble dust, held a hint of rank mine wa­ter. Sounds bounced off the wall reach­ing ev­ery per­son in this en­closed place and the heat of ev­ery body mul­ti­plied to fight the cold. Some pris­on­ers in front of Will started to mum­ble prayers, di­rected to the huge statue of a fe­male stand­ing on a step higher than the cen­tral lift, jut­ting out from the wall re­cessed to ac­com­mo­date it. The god­dess of slaves, crim­i­nals, and the im­pris­oned stared down at the pris­on­ers with an ex­pres­sion of in­san­ity, her hair pulled back into a pony­tail. She was a young woman wrapped in a straight­jacket and chains and small fangs pro­truded from her lips and horns from her head. Will didn’t un­der­stand this god be­cause his par­ents had al­ways taught him of Ma­nis, the only in­her­i­tor of the Fa­ther’s essence, the one most wor­thy of de­vo­tion, and through whom was the only way to the Fa­ther. The god­dess de­picted be­fore him, in be­tween wooden cross-beams, looked noth­ing like the al­legedly benev­o­lent Ma­nis. Will frowned; in his mind Ma­nis was any­thing but benev­o­lent. With­out warn­ing some­one shoved him. Will grunted and fell a lit­tle for­ward.

      Keep look­ing at the ground boy! You want to pray? Ya do so with your eyes on the floor! a guard shouted be­hind him.

      Will fixed his eyes on the ground. He shiv­ered. Will and his fel­low con­victs shuf­fled to­wards the cen­tral lift and were locked in­side. Will missed work­ing in pro­cess­ing when he was younger be­cause it was eas­ier. The guards had ini­tially put him there, where he would sort ore from rock, crush that ore with ham­mers and crush­ing ma­chines, wash ore in troughs of run­ning wa­ter with a brush, and roast ore in fur­naces and pits.

    The lift made a loud creak, and de­scended into the depths of Mt. Isen. They passed dozens of tun­nels and cav­erns un­til they came to the low­est sec­tion. The air grew thicker and harder to breathe. They fol­lowed like sheep out and through a dim crys­tal lit tun­nel, over a floor of wooden boards hid­ing drainage and ven­ti­la­tion pipes. Once they got to a larger, round cav­ern, not too far from the lift, they were pushed to their knees. The mas­ter miner, and his as­sis­tant ap­proached and ad­dressed the guards.

      Poor wretches, a guard teased. Ore veins are of the hard­est type. Can’t put fire to it so you’ll have to force it out with wedges. Gonna need ev­ery minute to reach yer quo­tas. Time to get to work. Guards sys­tem­at­i­cally ar­ranged pris­on­ers along the length of the ore vein and linked each per­son to the other by chains ad­justed to give the con­victs room to ma­neu­ver. Es­cape by brute force was im­pos­si­ble in those re­straints, be­sides, the con­victs from Will’s cell block worked at the low­est level and the only es­cape was up, through lifts and guards.

      Ev­ery­one re­ceived the tools they needed to work and were ex­pected to mine all day. Any at­tempt at us­ing the tools to at­tack a guard, pris­oner or one­self was quickly thwarted. Guards roamed the in­te­rior of the mines whip­ping slow work­ers, as­sign­ing tasks or so­cial­is­ing with their fel­low guards­men. A mage, who could re­act fast to the ef­forts of any pris­oner at­tempt­ing to end their life, was sta­tioned nearby. Pris­on­ers dug, cleaned, and groaned.

      As soon as a guard was sat­is­fied with Will’s po­si­tion along the vein, Will started chip­ping and dig­ging a space to in­sert a wedge. Dust flew back over his face with ev­ery blow. The sounds of clank­ing chains and of metal on rock echoed through the cham­ber. Clink, tick, clink, tick. Time dragged al­most to a stand­still here.

      Faster fool! a guard shouted. Will froze and braced him­self. The swish and crack of a whip hit­ting home broke the rhythm of their work and the pris­oner be­side him moaned. Will flinched. The pris­on­ers worked in si­lence, with­out emo­tion. There were no fights, no so­cial­iz­ing among pris­on­ers, nor any other typ­i­cal in­ter­ac­tion an­other prison may have be­tween in­mates.

    Will was chip­ping at a rock fold when a hand clasped his right shoul­der and yanked him up. Will jerked, drop­ping his pick.

      You, you’re com­ing with us. the guard hold­ing him com­manded. He was from an­other cell block.

    I didn’t do… wrong, Will pleaded, his voice flat. The guard dragged Will out of the pris­oner line. A sec­ond guard un­locked the chains con­nect­ing Will to the other pris­on­ers then he took hold of Will’s left arm and both guards dragged him deeper into the mine. Panic over­whelmed him, but his face was blank, hid­ing it. They dragged Will past other lines of pris­on­ers, their blank faces fo­cused on their own tasks. They en­tered a lift and took it up. Will stood be­tween the two guards, head down, limbs droop­ing from his chains. His chest heaved and sweat trailed down his back.

      The boy stinks some­thing aw­ful.

      He’s in his years of change, it makes it worse.

      You think if we dump mine wa­ter onto him it’ll snuff out the smell?

      I’m pretty sure that’ll kill the boy.

      Maybe that’s for the best.

      He’s due to bathe soon.

      He’s all yours then. I’m not blind­fold­ing him and drag­ging him across the bai­ley. Will’s heart raced, won­der­ing where they could be tak­ing him. They ap­proached a smaller newer sec­tion of the mine and here the pris­oner lines be­gan to dis­ap­pear. Fur­ther they went, Will’s chains clank­ing, past rooms with wooden ma­chines pump­ing wa­ter out of the slightly flooded tun­nel they were wad­ing through. They ar­rived at the en­trance to a small round room where two guards and a sergeant crowded around, look­ing at the floor.

    Please, fin­ish… work, Will begged, on the verge of delir­ium know­ing the pun­ish­ment that would come if he didn’t fin­ish. One of the guards hold­ing him punched Will. He fell for­ward and coughed, clasp­ing his stom­ach. The sergeant turned to Will, pulling him up.

      Be quiet, id­iot! he spat. A guard un­shack­led him.

      I-I… ah… Will stepped back as the chains fell away. He rubbed his wrists where the irons had bit him. He’d al­ways been shack­led. At first their sight, weight, and re­strain­ing na­ture al­ways tor­mented him and made him feel like the mon­ster the war­den loved to call him as. Over time they had be­come a nor­mal part of who he was. Hav­ing them re­moved sim­ply re­minded him that they had been there.

      The sergeant spoke again, Climb down the lad­der in this shaft. He moved to re­veal a hole in the floor. You’ll fit in there. Go down. Tell us what ya find, you have two min­utes or we smoke you out.

      Will nod­ded, choked down his ner­vous­ness, and shuf­fled to­wards the shaft. The rope lad­der dis­ap­peared into dark­ness. A guard ahead of him, who wore a faded blue sash across his torso, held up a glow­ing blue-white crys­tal set in a sconce. It flick­ered, gain­ing Will’s at­ten­tion, then dark­ened. The guard touched the crys­tal and blue-white light flick­ered back into ex­is­tence, hold­ing a steady dim glow. 

      Will hes­i­tated, and the sergeant prod­ded him for­wards. Will climbed into the abyss. He hit the floor with his feet, his grip-less leather soles al­most slip­ping him; he could see noth­ing. Will took a few ner­vous steps, con­cen­trat­ing on not trip­ping, un­able to walk as well un­re­strained. A crys­tal torch was dropped down the shaft be­hind him. It flick­ered as it landed but was too thick to shat­ter. Will picked up the crys­tal torch and waved it in front of him to ob­serve the walls. The space was no smaller than the cramped round room with the guards. They must have un­cov­ered this room by ac­ci­dent as pris­on­ers were min­ing. He searched for any­thing worth men­tion­ing, feel­ing his way along the walls when his hand pushed against a hid­den but­ton. Stunned, Will re­tracted. The wall in front of him low­ered mak­ing a soft grind­ing noise.

      What’s go­ing on in there? a guard shouted. Any min­eral veins of worth?

      Will kept quiet. When the door opened fully, Will stum­bled for­ward, un­sure if he should en­ter. In­side the new cham­ber, a wide set of stairs led deeper into the earth. As Will left the last stair, his foot sunk into the ground, trig­ger­ing a lose stone. The rum­ble of slid­ing earth echoed around him and he stared ahead as glow­ing blue lines and sym­bols swirled and formed on the walls. They took more shapes, im­ages of war­riors and crea­tures, and Will couldn’t make much sense of them. Their light over­whelmed the light of his crys­tal torch.

      Drawn were long­ships, mail ar­mored men, large round shields, and promi­nently, an ar­mored war­rior hold­ing up a longsword as he rode on the back of a half-bird, half-lion crea­ture; a grif­fin.

      The blue light turned red fur­ther down the hall where a round ob­ject sat on a pedestal. Above it, the glow­ing light traced out an im­pos­ing grif­fin on the wall.

      Will walked down the vaulted hall past de­grad­ing stat­ues of peo­ple he had no knowl­edge of and past two sealed doors he tried to open but could not. He ap­proached the pedestal; the round gem cap­tured his at­ten­tion. No, not a gem, some­thing more per­fect, even flaw­less. About the size of a pearl, its out­side re­flected his im­age like glass and in­side whiffs of coloured mist floated around. Over­all, it re­tained a red look. Will tugged the ob­ject free and held it in his palm. He rubbed his fin­gers over its smooth glass sur­face. Slowly the ob­ject grew to fit snugly in his hand. Warmth ra­di­ated from it and up his arms, pen­e­trat­ing him like veins of heat and re­vi­tal­iz­ing ev­ery tired mus­cle. Will looked at it cau­tiously. It must be magic. It was valu­able, per­haps. He’d have to give it to the guards. The ob­ject cooled a lit­tle, pulling away the warmth and en­ergy it had given. Will hes­i­tated; he wanted that again. Both shot back up his arms and filled his body. Will stood there and rev­eled in it. A de­ci­sion made, Will stuffed the item into a fold in his tu­nic; he would not give it to the guards. He turned and re­traced his steps.

      Upon com­ing to the first room the door closed it­self be­hind him. The guards above laughed. They’d thrown some­thing down the shaft and it was gen­er­at­ing smoke. Thick grey clouds packed the room and in­vaded Will’s nose. He coughed, fall­ing to the ground. He strug­gled to reach the rope, find­ing it hard to breathe. Then the world grew dark.

    ***

    When Will woke, the five guards were crouch­ing over him and the room he was in glowed with crys­tal light. The guards, out of ne­ces­sity and maybe even sport, had blasted the cave to get to Will. He coughed vi­o­lently as he woke and some­one pushed a wa­ter­skin to his lips. Will drank the cool liq­uid greed­ily only to have the wa­ter­skin pulled away and a guard shove his face back.

      Ahw, he didn’t die. a guard grunted. An­other guard re-shack­led Will.

      You half-wit! The sergeant grabbed Will by his tu­nic and brought the boy’s face to his. Look what you did! You de­stroyed the cave. You won’t be get­ting any food for days. I will make sure of it. Back to your work boy, you’ve half a day to fin­ish.

      Will was sur­prised they didn’t find the door but he was not sur­prised they blamed him for fail­ure. His heart sank when he re­alised he had less time to fin­ish fill­ing his bucket and he’d be left hun­gry. Will gave the sergeant a hope­less and empty stare and was re­warded for it by be­ing shoved to the ground. Cold metal bracelets clicked tight around his wrists, an­kles, and neck. Will spit, blinked, and stared.   

      As the day was end­ing, Will gath­ered his min­eral pail then am­bled to­wards the exit. Af­ter de­posit­ing his pick and al­low­ing guards to tighten and shorten his shack­les, he showed his pail to the stone-faced guard who waved him along. An­other guard lifted Will’s arms and pat­ted him all the way down to his toes and checked his hair and mouth. Will re­mem­bered the ob­ject he had found and held his panic back. Not notic­ing any re­ac­tion, the guard nod­ded him on­wards chain­ing Will to the pris­oner line in front of him and then passed the boy through. Be­fore they could move Will was grabbed and jerked back. He was turned to look at who had in­ter­rupted the en­tire post-work process. It was the guard who wore the faded blue sash. The guard’s tan eyes re­garded Will with a deep sus­pi­cion.

      You didn’t find any­thing, did you? the guard asked. His grip was ac­com­pa­nied by a slow burn, threat­en­ing to cast on Will. The man’s voice was calm and col­lected, not harsh or un­in­ter­ested like the guards nor­mally sounded. This sus­pi­cious tone con­fused Will and he didn’t know what to say. The other guard had missed the ob­ject and he was so close to leav­ing with it, but the sting of the burn re­minded him of the rooms be­neath the cell blocks, where men and women an­guished, their ex­is­tence known only by the screams.

      The guard who had checked Will walked for­ward. Naught any­thing on him. You sense some­thing?

      Maybe… nay… noth­ing. The guard pushed Will into the pris­oner in front of him. Move em’ along. Will was ush­ered to his cell, chained to it, and left alone.

    He sat mo­tion­less against the back wall. In si­lence a weight pressed on his ears, the sound of stag­nant air. Wa­ter plopped onto rock in a per­fect rhythm, echo­ing through the cracks of his cell. It was a tap­ping he’d grown ac­cus­tomed to.

      Straight­en­ing him­self, he took the pearl out and stud­ied it. In the dim light within his cell the ob­ject em­anated its own soft light, and a shift­ing mist swirled about its cen­ter. Will thought about his mother’s few charms; this was noth­ing like them. The pearl warmed him again, giv­ing him en­ergy. It was as if his mus­cles were tight­en­ing and ex­pand­ing, al­low­ing en­ergy to flow. Will be­came sud­denly aware of him­self. He looked over his body. Why had he been born like this? Like a mon­ster, like ev­ery­one saw him as? The thoughts of the shadow that had re­vis­ited him a day ago sur­faced.

      Will’s eyes fol­lowed the swirling of the mist in­side the pearl. It drifted to­wards his cell door. A shape took form. In awe, Will watched his mother come closer and smile.

      William. She raised a cloudy hand to his cheek.

    M-Ma… Will spoke, look­ing up at her light translu­cent form, his locked emo­tions strug­gling to feel some­thing.

      You aren’t a mon­ster. You aren’t worth­less and be­yond sav­ing. You are my son. My able son. Your life is pre­cious and worth liv­ing. She hugged him and kissed his fore­head. Her touch was like a soft feather barely touch­ing his skin and her nose nes­tled next to the grad­ual curve of his own. He stared at her wide-eyed, trem­bling. The ap­pari­tion faded. Will sobbed into his arms, mak­ing him­self small. His heart sank and his breath thinned.

      Then some­thing changed in him, some­thing shifted within his be­ing. The feel­ings he was used to started to push back, as if they were fight­ing some­thing else. A sense of loss, less painful than empti­ness and de­spair, filled him. Re­mem­ber­ing his mother’s fruity voice, her pleas­ant face, her ten­der touch forced him to smile. Maybe he did have some worth left.

      Will looked up. He looked at the pearl. The source of his sud­den com­fort pulsed in his hand. He tossed it aside, hud­dling in the cor­ner and feel­ing lone­li­ness and de­spair surge back. What had he felt? Had he smiled again? He didn’t re­mem­ber what a smile looked or felt like. He could not smile. What was that ob­ject? Will hes­i­tated. He looked down at a fin­ger on his right hand. It rested in­side an un­known pocket be­tween the vest and tu­nic of his prison uni­form. His eyes grew wide, feel­ing the new well-hid­den cav­ity. This ob­ject was magic! Will swore there was no pocket be­fore. He stared at the faintly glow­ing ob­ject then looked away. He skulked into a cor­ner of his cell. Will shrank back look­ing at the ground.

      A dis­tant shout of pain tore through the air mak­ing him shud­der. What a stupid ob­ject. It was like the shadow read­ily teas­ing him with the things he could not have nor feel any­more. Ma­nis must be pun­ish­ing him. Wasn’t it enough that he was here? Why all the dreams and mem­o­ries these past few days? He didn’t want to re­mem­ber; it made ev­ery­thing worse.

      The mys­te­ri­ous ob­ject still glowed in the cor­ner of his cell. He crawled to­wards it and picked it up, hes­i­tat­ing as he did. He placed it se­curely in his new pocket then curled up in a cor­ner, un­able to go back to sleep. Fine then, he’d play along, tor­ment af­ter all was sup­posed to cleanse his sin­ful soul. The scream­ing in­ten­si­fied. He waited. His pur­pose was to be a per­son who sits in a cell.

    Chap­ter Three

    Will pushed a mine cart full of rock and ore to­wards a cargo lift. Sweat rolled down his face and his sticky, slimy hands slipped on the cart’s han­dle. He’d been

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