“I never understood why, but, nevertheless, in the past six months, I’ve never seen you naked.”
“So that’s what you’d need to see to be sure...” Judging by his voice, the islander felt sick. “You are definitely a real barbarian. In my homeland, only a man’s parents see him naked until he is able to wash himself. After that, only his wife sees him naked.”
“Everyone has their own quirks...”
For some time after that, they argued about the subject of nudity and the barbarism of different countries. Hadjar couldn’t understand why the islander was so embarrassed by nudity, and Einen used the word ‘shame’ a lot. Using this meaningless chatter, they tried to relieve their stress and the tension they felt. Nevertheless, the stronger a warrior was, the more difficult it was for them to face their own powerlessness. In their particular case, the powerlessness was being generously accompanied by the oppressive darkness and a hopeless dungeon.
“Wait a minute, Hadjar.” Einen’s voice became serious. “What did he mean by you having to ‘choose your fate’?”
Again, as if the underworld dwellers had been waiting for just the right moment to make a grand entrance, the sound of footsteps could be heard in the darkness.
Chapter 335
By the sound of it, there were at least ten people approaching. The many voices were almost a blessing after so long spent in isolation with just Einen.
“Stay back, you bastards!” Einen shouted as they got near him.
“Put a gag in his mouth,” a dry, senile voice ordered.
Soon, they could see three men in white, weird clothes — shapeless, roughly stitched, with the seams on the outside, patched and dirty. The owners of such robes were unlikely to hold a high position in society.
Judging by the sounds around him and by Einen’s muffled cursing, three other people had appeared near his ‘bathtub’, too.
The men held long, steel sticks: two had fishing lines and a self-tightening knot on top. Upon seeing the third, Hadjar sighed tiredly, frustrated and reassured. The third stick had a slave collar at the end, one with spikes coated in poison lining the insides. One dose of that poison would render any practitioner unable to access their energy. It was a very effective and abominable concoction. Amusingly enough, it was the most popular product of the alchemists in the nearby regions.
“Come on, get it over with,” Hadjar snarled at the boy walking along at his side. He had probably never seen a naked girl, he was so young. He hadn’t dared to come close to Hadjar’s ‘bathtub’ and was trying to fasten the collar onto Hadjar’s neck from a distance. Of course, he kept failing.
“Give me that,” the old man’s voice that had ordered for Einen to be gagged growled out. Hadjar was a bit grateful to him, as he’d been dreaming about that happening for many days now…
Taking the steel rod from the boy’s hands, the head servant finally appeared on the ‘stage’. These people didn’t have slave collars, but still wore rather modest clothes, so they were clearly servants.
The old man, who was apparently their leader of sorts, looked no better. Staring at Hadjar the same way one would a rat, he jerked the collar in place around his neck and turned the handle of the rod, snapping the two parts together.
The same click sounded from Einen’s direction.
“Drain the solution,” the old man ordered, handing the stick back to the boy.
“Yes, Salif,” one of the men bowed.
While Hadjar was being held against the wall of the dungeon like a mad dog, a strange seal was being applied to the various hieroglyphs on the side, in a certain order. After several layers had been applied, the hieroglyphs flared up. Somewhere below, a heavy flap creaked, and with a very unpleasant, chomping sound, the green glue began to trickle slowly into the hole. As his body was released from the viscous captivity, Hadjar slowly began to move his limbs.
It was difficult. Despite all the nourishing properties of the liquid, it had done nothing about his muscle atrophy. Fortunately, the poisoned thorn of the collar only prevented the external manifestation of energy, so nothing was interfering with its circulation inside his body. Gradually, after restoring the current of power along his meridians, Hadjar finally felt in control of his own body again.
“Get up!” The boy squeaked out.
His sharp tug on the rod sent pain coursing through Hadjar’s body. Hadjar was kind of glad to experience this pain. After a few weeks of imprisonment, it was like a light, warm summer rain. Standing up, unashamed of his nudity, Hadjar gave the boy a quick, sharp look. He shivered and looked down at the floor. He was clearly not a fighter.
Staggering and stumbling a couple of times in the process, scratching his knees and his hands vigorously, Hadjar got out of the bath.
Looking around, he barely resisted the urge to curse. He wasn’t too shy to swear in front of the young boy, but swearing was often a sign of weakness, and the last thing a prisoner, or worse, a slave, should ever do was give their captors the satisfaction of hearing such a thing.
The place where he and Einen (who was being dragged out of his bath, swaying and trying to hide his ‘shame’) had spent the past month and a half looked like a bathhouse. There were at least forty empty ‘bathtubs’ in this place. Just how many people do they normally imprison in here!
“Hold them down.” The old man made sure that the collars were firmly attached to the prisoners and then went ahead. “If they send any of you to the forefathers, it will be your own fault.”
“Yes, Salif,” the servants replied in chorus.
Two servants stood on either side of the prisoners. They put a ‘bridle’ around their necks with great dexterity. Getting into a sort of arrowhead formation, they pulled the prisoners toward the exit.
To Hadjar’s surprise, they indeed walked over to a stone door. It resembled the one he’d seen in the sheikh’s treasury — massive, but very functional. It glowed faintly in the dim light of the cave, and had various patterns and hieroglyphs painted on it. The resemblance had some implications... which would have to be pondered later.
Keeping up with the servants while feeling the terrible weakness in his whole body wasn’t an easy task. Hadjar often stumbled. After one such stumble, accompanied by the servants’ displeasure and the tightening of his ‘bridle’, Hadjar began to feel warm blood running down his shoulders.
His cold, blue eyes flashed. With a growl, Hadjar grabbed one of the rods. He fell to his knees, accompanied by the servants’ laughter that sounded like the barking of hyenas. Blue sparks of lightning danced across his arm, and pain shot through his body. The hieroglyphs on the rods glowed.
“Stupid stranger!” The man who was leading Einen along shouted. “He’s just like a dog. Until he gets disciplined, he doesn’t understand who the master is.”
Hadjar gave him the look he usually reserved for those he wanted to kill. The servant started and turned white, but didn’t look away. Instead, while still leading the islander, he drew a simple club from his belt.
Coming closer (Einen was trying to slow down the progress of his trio of guards, but couldn’t do it), he hit Hadjar on the head. Sparks flew from Hadjar’s eyes. They were blue as well.
“Come on, stranger, look at me like that again. Fucking dog…”
He started to swing again, but was stopped by the old man’s shout: “Don’t ruin the merchandise, you fool! Or do you want to deal with Karissa?”
“I beg your pardon, Salif,” the boy bowed, still looking at Hadjar. A mixture of fear and rage could be seen in his childish, wolfish eyes. Hadjar knew from personal experience that such a person never became anything worthwhile — just a scoundrel and an asshole. Once upon a time, the first man Hadjar had defeated in a duel had looked at the world in that same exact way. That man had killed a daughter in front of her own mother.
“Move, you dog.” The boy tried to spit on Hadjar’s face, but the prisoner dodged.
Standing up with his back straight and head held high, Hadjar
followed the old man. The young man holding the rod with his collar almost stumbled at the sudden change of pace.
Einen, who had also received a painful blow to the chest from that club, greeted the northerner’s actions with a broad grin. It was the kind of small victory over their captors that gave them hope. And for prisoners, along with their dignity, hope was their last refuge. Hadjar realized dungeons made him quite philosophical…
Chapter 336
They followed the old man into a long corridor. The passage, obviously manmade, had, at first, naturally formed over hundreds or thousands of years and, judging by the number of irregularities on the walls and the ceiling and how far the stalactites and stalagmites had grown out, no one had interfered in the process.
Now that he was in the narrow stone corridor, Hadjar felt the lack of a clear sky overhead as almost a physical pain. While he’d been in prison, he hadn’t been particularly aware of the fact that he was underground. And now the realization struck him.
To the boy’s delight, Hadjar swayed slightly and cut himself quite deeply on a stalagmite. Suppressing a cry, Hadjar picked up a small, needle-shaped shard that he’d manage to break off from the ground with a deft movement of his hand. The servants didn’t notice him doing so, but the vigilant Einen did.
After a brief exchange of glances, Einen mimed a symbol from his native alphabet. It was the number three. Hadjar wished he’d taught the islander the sign language of hunters…
They both knew that, even if they succeeded in killing the servants and the old man by some miracle, their escape attempt would still be doomed to failure. They had no idea where they were, and the slave collars, which could only be removed with a special seal, were still around their necks. On the other hand, if they didn’t try to escape, they would no longer have any self-respect left.
At the first turn, Einen gestured ‘one’. Hadjar responded with a slight nod. He understood what Einen was signalling.
They passed the second turn in the same silence and at the same leisurely pace. Apparently, only one of the seven servants wanted to harm the strangers. The rest of them, and even old Salif, were trying to set a pace at which the journey would not last forever but the prisoners wouldn’t be forced to stumble after them.
Five minutes later, Einen and Hadjar had regained control of their bodies. This was the result of years of hard training and their high levels of cultivation.
As soon as the third turn appeared ahead, the islander pretended to stumble. A great actor was clearly being wasted, trapped inside Einen. He staggered plausibly, cutting his forehead against the stone wall, leaving streaks of blood and skin behind. Blood spurted in all directions. Only an inexperienced person believed that there would be a lot of blood if one cut into a torso. In reality, cutting one’s face or head was the far more guaranteed way to ensure lots of blood loss.
“By the Evening Stars!” Salif exclaimed.
Noticing the holdup, the old man had wanted to kick the prisoners at first, but then he’d seen one of the strangers in a pool of his own blood. He took a special flask out of his pocket and walked over to Einen.
“Hold him down,” the old man commanded.
Due to this unexpected situation, he’d completely forgotten about the second prisoner for a moment. Hadjar didn’t waste the opportunity. Unclenching his fist, he deftly seized the stone needle. Rushing forward, ignoring how the collar choked him and the screams of the falling servants, he grabbed Salif by the shoulders and held his ‘weapon’ against the old man’s perfectly visible carotid artery.
“Don’t move!” Hadjar shouted to the boy who was already swinging his club.
He was aiming right at Einen’s head. Such a blow wouldn’t kill the sturdy islander, but would certainly send him into oblivion for a long time.
“Don’t be silly, stranger,” the old man said calmly, almost lazily. “You understand that you won’t escape, don’t you?”
“I do,” Hadjar nodded and pressed the needle down harder. A red trickle ran down the old man’s skin.
“Then why do this?”
Neither the pain nor the blood seemed to be bothering the old man.
“Take Einen’s gag out.”
“What?”
“Take the bald man’s gag out.” Hadjar had forgotten that he’d been shaved as well. His thick, long hair was now a distant memory.
“You heard him.”
The servants looked fearfully from Hadjar to their leader and back. After some hesitation, they carefully pulled the greasy cloth out of Einen’s mouth.
He stood up, wiped the blood away with the cloth, and then threw it in the face of the boy with the club. His face flushed with the indignity and his hand trembled, but the old man stopped him in time.
“Don’t you dare. I’ll deal with them myself…”
“And what will you do?” Hadjar asked impudently. At the moment, he felt like a desert bandit. “Will you send us to meet our forefathers?”
“Meet your forefathers? Oh no, stranger, you won’t get off that easily.”
Hadjar pushed the needle in even harder.
“Then what’s supposed to stop me from killing you?”
“What difference would it make?” The old man asked calmly in return. “They won’t take your collars off and they won’t release you. You can slit my throat right now and it won’t change your fate.”
Einen gave the arrogant youth a look so haughty that the servant choked with humiliation. The islander could really assert his superiority when he wanted to.
“Then we’re in a stalemate,” he said, probing his bleeding forehead with his fingers, inspecting the cut.
“There is no stalemate, strangers.” Hadjar couldn’t see it, but Salif must have rolled his eyes. “I’m only talking to you now because I haven’t been so entertained for a long time. You’re both Inheritors. You arrived here through a spatial rift. One of you has two amulets of the Sage. By the Evening Stars, if I’d heard the tale from anyone else, I wouldn’t have believed them.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?”
“I suggest you lower your weapons and come with me. Toward your destiny. Whichever one you end up choosing.”
“Demons and Gods!” Hadjar couldn’t resist cursing in Lidish, even though no one here understood it. “What do you mean by us choosing our destiny?”
Salif, scratching his own neck on the stone needle, turned his head to Hadjar.
“Come with me and you’ll find out.”
Hadjar mulled it over for a while. The islander waited. He understood perfectly that their escape attempt had been doomed from the start. However, as has already been mentioned, hope was everything to captives.
“On one condition.”
“Condition?” Salif’s laugh was like the rustle of cheap paper. “Well then, tell us your condition.”
“Make that one,” Hadjar nodded at the arrogant boy, “hit himself on the head with his club.”
“What-”
The boy stopped talking. The old man’s imperious look froze the words in his throat. Even as a hostage, he had complete control over his subordinates. It was worthy of respect.
“He’ll never forgive you,” Salif whispered so that only Hadjar could hear him.
“I don’t care.”
The old man thought about it for a couple of seconds and then waved his hand imperiously. The boy protested for a long time, but Salif didn’t change his mind.
“May the Evening Stars curse me if I don’t kill you both one day!” With these words, the boy swung and hit his nose and lips. His blood fountained out as Einen’s had a minute ago.
As they’d agreed, Hadjar moved the needle away. The instant he did so, Salif staggered back and pulled out a whip he had at his belt. He nodded to the servants, who then turned the handles of the rods. Hadjar and Einen immediately fell to the ground. Their bodies writhed in terrible agony while blue sparks of lightning danced across their skin. Only this time, Salif’s sharp whip strikes acc
ompanied the torture. It lasted for about five minutes, no longer than that. Then the weakened, bloodied, and burnt captives rose to their feet and were dragged down the corridor.
It seemed like they’d made a mistake. However, they had actually achieved their goal: they’d found out that they weren’t going to be killed in the near future. They wanted them alive and relatively intact. A small but vital piece of information that had dramatically changed things. In addition, Einen had managed to get rid of his gag. Winking at each other, the injured strangers continued on their way.
Chapter 337
Behind the third turn was... more of the same long stone corridor. Stumbling with every step, Hadjar regretted losing his things, such as the spatial ring and the sword. He’d already forgotten the last time he’d spent so long without his blade. He’d had no idea how much he had grown used to the weight on his belt and how comforting the scabbard bouncing against his thigh while he walked had become.
He would be able to get back everything he’d lost if he had a good sword in his hands and the wind in his hair. However, he currently had neither. So, his plan was to remove the slave collar around his neck and get a hold of any blade. The rest would just be a matter of time and effort.
A mere half an hour later, the darkness of the corridors was replaced by the light of a wide hall. It was semicircular and illuminated by the same green cracks in the ceiling and white torches.
Hadjar paused to stare at this miracle and was struck in the side by a club. He almost didn’t feel the pain, as it was blocked out by another, sharper one: all this time, they had been walking barefoot across the stones. By the end of their ‘journey’, their feet had been almost ground down to the bone. Then Hadjar noticed a group of about seventy people in plain white cloaks. It dawned on him that the clothes the servants now wore had been the same as these robes, long ago.
In front of the group stood a woman who resembled a watchdog. She was as taut with tension as the bowstring of a bow. She wasn’t beautiful, but sharp and ferocious. She had the same aura that the paunchy man and Serra had. She was clearly a witch as well.
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