Still burdened with a headache, her stomach uneasy, Belka stumbled out into the harsh morning light. “What?” She asked, blinking. “Who?” Someone had been knocking.
A pair of soldiers with sheathed swords and the royal insignia painted on their breastplates stood on the landing outside of her apartment. “Are you Belka…?” Trying to read her last name from the sheet of paper in his left hand.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
Belka sighed, turning around. As they affixed chained handcuffs around her hands, Belka wondered exactly what they were arresting her for. There was a list somewhere she was sure, perhaps in some celestial deity’s cabinet.
They led her down from the steps from her room at the top of the inn, and down into the city street.
“Finally!” The inkeeper cried.
“Fuck you,” Belka said, without looking. “When I come back I’ll break something you’ll wish you’d appreciated more!”
No one else, from the smelly wards, across the market to the path leading to the palace, seemed to care at all. Most of them wouldn’t know Belka anyway, and even if they did, she doubted they’d be as hostile as the innkeeper had been.
And finally, past the palace, they neared the castle behind the necropolis. “Wait,” Belka said, now considering running.
“Getting cold feet now?” The leftmost soldier asked. “Yes, you’ll be meeting your fate here.” His tone turned vicious turn as they passed through the lichen and moss spotted necropolis.
Cold feet? “Hey, it’s not like I agreed-” She made a show of shaking her handcuffs, “I didn’t agree to be arrested, I can’t get cold feet if I never agreed.” And anyway, she hadn’t done enough to send her to the deep dungeons, had she?
“Quiet,” the soldier said, as Belka was led through the castle’s portcullis and into the overgrown courtyard. The bricks crumbling, the towers either listing or fallen entirely. The soldier drew his sword and pointed it toward the darkened opening on the far end of the courtyard. An entrance into the castle itself. “Willem,” the soldier said, “take her down two floors, her cell will be there. You will know it by the sound.”
“If you insist,” the soldier, Willem, said. He took Belka’s forearm and tugged her forward, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword as she moved forward.
Willem was scarred, with an almost-limp and weary eyes. Something in the way he looked at Belka implied an implicit hatred.
They entered the shade of the hallway, and stopped beside a bundle of torches. Willem took one, lighting it with a drop of oil and a match, and forced it into Belka’s bound hands. He gestured for her to continue into the dark.
“What, afraid of what’s in there?” Belka asked mockingly.
He lifted his hand to backhand her, and she flinched, stepping backward to keep out of his range.
So it’s a hatred of women, then?
She resisted the urge to spit at his feet, deciding she’d have to take vengeance on him soon in some other way.
“Right,” Belka said with a slight nod, now heading off into the dark.
They moved through the dark awhile, with Belka listening to Willem’s steps, making sure he wasn’t too near. But the other soldier’s words, the “you’ll know it by the sound in the air”, made Belka wonder if she heard something other than Willem’s footsteps.
Belka’s understanding of the deep dungeons came only via barroom rumors, and sometimes tales told by fellow mercenaries would mention these old dungeons.
They all claimed it was unearthly to be there. That magic had sustained the dungeon, protecting it from the gradual decay of age. That ghost lamps kept the hallways illuminated only enough for you to watch your step. And, as well, tales referenced the numerous prominent immortal prisoners: Elro the Kingslayer, Timbre of the Infernal Melodies, Cordelia the Witch-Queen of Old Sakria, and usually Monomyth himself. Though Belka always doubted that Monomyth could be contained, if he existed. Yes: each cell, rumor held, contained one such being. Someone who would overturn the order of Sakria if set free.
None of it seemed true to Belka.
The torchlight cast shadows on the walls, revealing cracks and fissures in the stone, which only grew more numerous as they descended. And once they descended to the second floor, there were no “ghostlights” or sunlit windows to illuminate the dark. Only the flickering torch.
And of the cells they passed, each was open and empty. Sometimes with a bedframe in the corner. Belka might have asked Willem if he knew why the cells were empty, but she supposed he was ignorant.
Then, it seemed as though at random, Willem stopped her. He grabbed her shoulder.
Belka turned around, lifting the torch to his eyes. He cried out, reaching for his sword, and she kneed him between the legs. He doubled over, wheezing.
Belka grabbed the sword from his sheath and cut across his stomach. He took a step back, now mumbling something, and fell to his knees. Belka drove the sword down through his collarbone, leaving it sticking out next to his shoulder. He whispered something else before he sprawled on the ground.
She knelt and checked for keys, patting down his pockets, but discovered nothing but a coin-purse. She pocketed this. But still. No keys.“Shit.” She turned to face the darkness, picking up the thankfully still blazing torch from the ground.
She turned to face the darkness. A slight ringing, which she’d heard above, was now much louder and unavoidable. This is why he stopped. The distinct sound.
Belka had only taken a few dozen steps forward before a closed cell door loomed out of the dark at the end of the hallway.
“Hello, swordswoman,” came a feminine voice from behind the cell door. Slightly deep, smooth. “I saw that.”
Belka glanced back at Willem.
“I’m impressed,” the prisoner said. “Though I think he was perhaps too simple a man to deserve such a brutal death.”
“I think he would deserve it, if he had me the way he wanted to.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” the prisoner said. “It appears he had no keys for your manacles?”
Belka nodded. “No,” she added. “No keys at all.”
A sigh. “A shame,” the prisoner said. “Come close to the door, so that I may at least free you from your shackles.”
“Aren’t you… locked in?” Belka asked. “And who are you?” Her voice wavered, and she thought the ringing in the air had grown louder. She realized her headache was fading with the sound, and her stomach growing less upset.
The prisoner paused. “A witch,” she said. “But I am not your enemy. Someone has brought you here, to me. For me. You are a mercenary, aren’t you? I will define the payment later, but for now, you should step forward and receive your first portion.”
Shaking her head, Belka said, “You’ve got a magic… spell… prepared, and you’re going to possess me, if I come closer.”
“I would have possessed you if I could,” the witch said. “Distance has nothing to do with it,” she added, almost playfully.
“You expect me to trust you,” Belka said.
“Yes, trust me,” the witch said. “I am a witch who was imprisoned here by the Hyacinth. I do not know how long ago it was, but I assume the Hyacinth are still in power. They are bad for mortals, you must know. I am their enemy. That makes me…”
“That makes you dangerous,” Belka said, though she stepped forward. “You’re the Witch-Queen. Cordelia.”
“I will tell you more if you’d let me unseal with your chains,” Cordelia said. “Another step forward. If you try to leave, thus restrained, the guards above will cut you to pieces. No matter how good you are with a sword. If you die, well, I was never quite successful in bringing back the dead, and I don’t think hundreds of years out of practice will make me any better at it.”
Hundreds of years, Belka thought. If only I knew the year she was imprisoned. I could tell her that much, at least. And Belka didn’t think there were really any guards left above, only the other soldier. But Cordelia was right. With shackles, the best Belka could hope for would be to catch him by surprise.
So Belka stepped ahead, lifted her manacles, and closed her eyes.
A burning enveloped her wrists and she cried out, opening her eyes in time to see the manacles burning orange, then bursting into glimmering sparks. She glimpsed a window set into the cell door at head height, and saw the face of the Witch-Queen Cordelia for only a second before the light died. A woman whom did not look to be hundreds of years old. Perhaps only thirty.
She sighed, lifting her freed hands. It was strange how light they felt.
“And now,” Cordelia said, as Belka caught her breath, “please open my door.”
Belka looked up again. The torchlight was enough to keep the window illuminated, but not enough to pierce the grate. “I don’t have any keys.”
“Trust me, again,” Cordelia said.
“If it’s not locked,” Belka said, “why don’t you open it yourself?”
“It might kill me,” Cordelia said. “But no such spells exist on the outside. I think I was mostly forgotten down here, so I doubt the spell still exists. But I don’t want to risk it. You are a mortal, and you can ignore the spells woven to keep me inside. Just grab the handle there, and push.”
Belka hesitated again, though she felt freer. She stepped up to the door and did as the Witch-Queen Cordelia had suggested. The door swung back slightly.
“Now,” Cordelia said, standing on the other side in a radiant plate armored robe of white fabric, “we will return to the surface and seek the Hyacinth who left me down here.” She walked past Belka, striding down the hallway. She stopped beside Willem, and drew out his sword. Belka half-expected Cordelia to hand it to her, but instead Cordelia took Willem’s belt and sheath too, and fixed it around her waist.
Belka grinned. She understood now.
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