by Chris Miller
“Hunter? Hunter!” Trista shrieked, expecting the worst from what she couldn’t see.
I turned to run, but the creature was too fast. Its jaws caught hold of my shirt, flinging me across the hillside and roaring angrily in frustration that it had missed its prey by so little. When at last I rolled to a stop, I turned to face what I feared would be another attack, but instead was amazed to see the once stagnant haze begin to whip up into a whirlwind around us. I squinted to shield my eyes from the sudden rush of wind and watched the monster writhe, retreating back down its hole.
As quickly as it had started, the storm was over, the threat was gone. The swirling haze settled back into place. I had no clue why the fog had stirred, or why the monster had fled. All that mattered to me was to find Trista and find a way out of this place.
Picking myself up again, I half stumbled, half slid down to where Trista was trapped inside the prison pod. She was sobbing with fright.
“It’s okay now,” I tried to comfort her. “We’re okay; that thing is gone. I’m going to get you out of there!”
Trista acknowledged my presence with heavy sobs. Her mangled pod was lying on one side, its frame bent so that the door was partly cracked open.
“It’s still locked,” I groaned, pulling hard on the door with all my might. It was no use, the door wouldn’t budge. Looking around, I located and retrieved the largest rock I could lift and brought it back to the pod.
“Scoot back, I’m going to break the lock!” I said.
Trista did her best to back away. I lifted the heavy stone high overhead, but before I could bring it down something whisked it from my hands and tossed it aside.
“Allow usss,” moaned a low, wheezy voice.
I wanted to turn, or run, or both… but couldn’t do either; something held my body in place. An icy chill passed over me as a dense wave of mist streamed around my arms, legs, neck and shoulders, collecting in front of me like a column. The spilling shape fluidly morphed till it resembled the twisted frame of a man, though no face could be seen.
“We welcome you to Dolor,” it breathed hoarsely. “We hope your stay is long.”
It stretched out its hand in a winding flow till it touched Trista’s pod lock. Something clinked inside, allowing the door to fall open. Trista lay motionless inside the container, frozen like me, her face streaked with tears.
“What’s h-happening? I can’t move!” Trista asked helplessly.
I had no answer, but simply watched wide-eyed as the grey form drained out through both arms until it assumed the bodiless shapes of two massive hands. Both hands wrapped their fingers around our waists and lifted us. With no ability to resist, we were effortlessly carried off in the floating grips, like leaves caught in a stream’s current.
The spirit navigated us down through the gloom where we soon approached a knee-high wall of loosely stacked stones, hardly a deterrent of any kind. “You must stay within these borders,” the spirit droned, gliding over them untouched, “unless you prefer the Fangworm’s hospitality over ours.”
It was obvious what the Fangworm was, but I couldn’t help but wonder who the form was that now carried us.
“We are Scourge, gods of Dolor,” came the chilling reply to my unspoken question. “We are your masters.” The spirit’s grip tightened as it said this, momentarily choking Trista and me for emphasis.
Something of a song echoed through the fog, growing louder and louder as we descended deeper into the depths of Dolor. Soon it became hauntingly clear what it was. This was no song, but rather a chorus of moaning and weeping voices rising from the heart of the fog. The sound was accompanied by a sickening smell, the air rife with the sweat and tears of oppressed prisoners.
“Hunter,” Trista gasped, her eyes welling with tears, “I can hardly breathe.”
At last, the suffocating mist thinned enough that we spotted our first signs of human life, if you could even classify the other prisoners that way. The hunched figures were dirty; their clothes tattered. Even though they moved, each laboring to carry a large stone off to some unseen destination, each looked more dead than alive. None of them even bothered to look up at us as we passed by.
“This is your new home,” our host announced as its hand-forms evaporated, dropping us helplessly to the ground next to a large black stone column. The Scourge reformed as two men-shapes and stooped low to unshackle our wrists. The twin voices of the Scourge spoke in turn.
“These will no longer be necessary.”
“You are family now.”
It felt good to be freed from the iron restraints, but their cruel play on words was hardly comforting. They had no intention of treating us kindly, of that I was sure.
“Leave us alone!” I shouted, reaching for my sword in an attempt to fend the spirits off, but the bladeless hilt was once again cold and unresponsive in my hands. The Scourge didn’t flinch, but taunted me in turn.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“It’s the same for the others.”
“Our climate is just not conducive to your little toys.”
“But don’t worry; there’s no time to play.”
Wrestling us up from the ground, the Scourge-men forced both of our backs up against the black pillar, restraining our arms tightly behind us. More haze began pooling in front of us, boiling up from the ground until a third shape emerged, the menacing form of a giant scorpion.
Trista screamed as the scorpion cloud drifted closer, flicking its tail. I tried to turn away, but the Scourge-man behind me forced my head up, holding it there with its paralyzing touch. I was forced to watch, wide-eyed, as the stinger’s tip began to steam and hiss, its color glowing red like the tip of a hot poker.
The stinger lowered slowly to hover just inches between my eyes before a crackling voice ominously said, “Now, we shall give you your new names.”
Chapter 22
Prisoner 4126
“Leave me alone!” the woman prisoner’s voice shouted angrily. “Save your Code-trash for yourself…. IT…DOESN’T… HELP!”
The other party involved in the dispute spoke too softly for me to hear more than a murmur from where I stood, waiting in line. Just like the other prisoners, Trista and I had been forced into mindless slave labor, moving rocks by hand from the lower boundaries of Compound 6 (as we had learned this one of ten was identified) to the upper borders. This was where the Scourge had most recently dictated a pyramid-type structure to be built.
However, the message now being passed down the line was that the self-proclaimed “gods” of Dolor had just ordered the nearly finished project dismantled and the stones redistributed back down to where they had come from. This was not indecision, but a deliberate form of torture. It was a disheartening feeling, even for someone like me who had only spent a few days on the line, compared to the years that some prisoners appeared to have endured.
No wonder someone cracked, I thought in regards to the shouting up ahead.
“I can’t take it anymore!” the screaming escalated. “I just… CAN’T…TAKE IT!”
“No! That isn’t the way!” a deeper voice shouted.
Through the haze, I saw the murky outline of a woman sprinting away from the line. She scrambled wildly off toward where I knew the upper boundary wall to be and disappeared. No one gave chase for fear of punishment if they left the line—the Scourge were always watching and would know. Their punishment would be swift, severe and unavoidable. There was only one way to escape such a fate—never return.
“I’m free! Free! Aha-ha-ha!”
The entire line stood hushed as the crazed shouts of the escapee faded away into the fog. In only a matter of seconds, I felt a subtle tremor in the hillside and heard the distant, muffled scream as a fangworm collected its meal.
There was an awful silence before the moans and tears of those left behind returned.
Chains rattled as everyone turned in place to begin slowly filing back down the hill to return our stones, until our cruel masters would most certainly recall the decision.
“Prisoner Seven-two-six-seven,” a Scourge form groaned harshly from behind. “Come with us!”
“Ya can’t silence me, if that’s what yer intendin’ ta do. You should know that by now,” came the prisoner’s husky reply. The voice sounded familiar, the same one that had shouted out after the fugitive woman. “I speak truth! Your kind can’t touch that sort,” the prisoner challenged.
“Move! Your insolence wears us thinnn.”
“And that’s sorta the point, isn’t it?”
This brazen remark triggered a scuffle up behind me that ended with a large prisoner tumbling and skidding down alongside our line. He pulled his broad frame up off the ground and turned to confront the descending Scourge. As his long, unkempt hair fell away from his heavily bearded face, my memories all came crashing together.
Deep accent. Broad frame. Ruddy face.
“Sam?” I blurted out, breaking the foremost rule of silence on the line. “Captain Samyree?!”
Surprised, he squinted back at me, before breaking into a wide smile, “Hunter, what are you doing here?”
WHACK!
An ogre-sized Scourge bashed Sam with a wooden club. Another joined in with a length of chain that it flung over Sam’s neck, using it like a leash to drag him down the hill. Despite the brutality, Sam managed to flash me one more smile as they led him away.
“YOU!”
I looked over to see the spindly finger of the Scourge-man thrust angrily at me, dragging itself across the burn scars on my brow. “Prisoner Four-eight-six-eight. Former names are strictly forbidden.”
“I’m sorry… I didn’t…”
A cold slap from its hand silenced my explanation. The shock of it caused me to lose grip of the rock I was carrying, dropping it painfully onto my left foot. Grabbing me by the ear, the spirit twisted it cruelly. “Oh, you’ll learn. Suffering is a good teacher,” it breathed maliciously. “Come with us!”
Trista, who had been a few prisoners down the line from me, shot me a terrified look as I was forcefully led away. She started to take a step out of line, but wisely didn’t follow through. I watched her face disappear behind the gloom, her despairing expression marked painfully by four identifying marks branded across her forehead: 8747.
Having taken the form of a winged creature, the Scourge had snatched me up in its large talons and carried me off. With their powerful strokes, the wings brought me quickly down to where the sloping hills of Dolor completely dropped off into a wide-mouthed pit. Taking a wide turn, the Scourge announced our destination, “Behold, the Crux of Dolor.”
With terrifying speed, we took a spiraled dive into the ominous depths. Pulling up just short of my becoming a splattered mess at the bottom, the Scourge hovered momentarily and then dissolved into a man-shape, letting me fall the last few feet onto the rocky floor.
“This is what awaits every fool who dares resist our rules,” the cruel spirit hissed as it took an intimidating turn around me. Sweeping its arms out across the pit, the haze cleared long enough for me to get an unobstructed view of what this place held.
The courtyard, if the bottom of a pit could be called that, was rough, but flat and encircled by a series of stair-stepped rock ledges. Each ledge housed another row of rusty, iron-barred doors, creating cells out of the caves. The walls were riddled with them, too many to count. Each cell framed the face of a cheerless prisoner pressed against the bars.
Rising up from the center of the Crux was a towering rock formation. A spiral staircase wrapped around the enormous spire chiseled into its sides to provide access to the top. But this was one rock you wouldn’t want to summit, for fixed atop the spire was a giant sculpture of a vicious serpent head. The jaws of the snake yawned open, bearing its fangs for all to see. Three curled horns angled forward around its head, one on top and one on each side of the jaw. It was no masterpiece, but the crudely hammered metal, perhaps iron, still adequately portrayed the fierce features of its honored subject: Sceleris, the evil spirit and supreme master of the Shadow.
I shuddered, remembering what the real face of Sceleris looked like when I had faced him emerging from the Bloodstone.
Even though it was expansive, everything about the Crux made me feel claustrophobic, especially as the grey fog settled back in. I just wanted out.
“I get it. Your rules are important,” I stammered nervously. “I won’t…you know, talk in line again.”
The spirit chuckled cruelly, “It’s not that easy. To leave the Crux, you must be prepared to give what we require.”
I gulped, sensing there was a steep price to pay for my freedom. “W-what are you asking for?”
It held a twisting hand out to me, “Your sword.”
“My sword?”
“As a token of your renouncement of the Author and the pathetic Resistance; only then can you return to the upper regions of Dolor,” it breathed evilly in my face, causing me to cough.
I had heard this demand from the Shadow before. Venator had wanted the same thing before I, or rather Aviad, defeated him. No matter the circumstance, I couldn’t deny the truth I knew.
Aviad is dead. He will not save you this time. Your sword does not even work here—the Code of Life is powerless in Dolor. Like a suffocating smoke, the doubts swirled up in my thinking, clouding my confidence. It was true—I was powerless here. If Sam had been held here for three years, if the Author had not found a way to rescue him or any of the other Codebearer prisoners from this place, then what hope did I have? What hope did I have of surviving, let alone finding freedom, if not by their rules?
“That’s right. Our rules are the only way in Dolor,” the Scourge coaxed me on as if finishing my thoughts. Somehow, without me realizing it was happening, a smoky arm had draped itself around my shoulder, enveloping me in its clinging cloak. My mind became muddled, my will weak and my body all but frozen.
The voice now whispered gently, lulling me under its persuasion. “You desire peace. You want to give up the sword and abandon the Resistance.” As it spoke, every counter-thought began to fall. Slowly, under the Scourge’s direction, my hand reached toward my sword to remove it.
Suddenly, a high-pitched scream broke the spell of the moment as something swooped down to land next to me. The arrival of another winged Scourge with prisoner in tow shook me out of my stupor.
“Get your claw thingy’s off me!” the feisty girl shouted as she struggled to free herself.
The defiant words resonated like a clapper against the bell that traps it. I immediately recognized what had been happening to me and ducked out from under the Scourge’s smothering folds.
“Never! I will never give over to the Shadow!” My voice sounded more confident than I felt as I stood my ground.
“Ahhhh!” my guard growled angrily at its foiled efforts. Raising itself to tower menacingly above us, the spirit screamed, “Then you will die here! Lock these two Resistance rats up!”
Instantly, the two Scourge figures whipped up into their fist-shaped forms, snatched and hauled us away up the ramps to a vacant prison cave door three ledges up. The door slammed shut with the Scourge’s parting threat, “We will squeeze the Code of Life out of your pathetic bodies yet.”
Spreading their shapes out to become winged creatures once again, the Scourge guards launched out into the grey void above, laughing cruelly as they disappeared.
“What were you thinking coming down here?” I tried scolding Trista, but it was hard to mas
k my true feelings. I was glad not to be left alone.
Trista gave her head a sassy turn and snapped back, “As far as I’m concerned you dragged me into this mess, so you’re stuck with me until you get us out. Besides, never alone, right? I figure we were sent here together, we may as well stick it out together.” She gave me a reassuring smile, like everything would be okay somehow.
I almost laughed, marveling at what it would take to ever keep this girl down. But this was no time for laughter; the grave reality of our situation quickly set back in.
“Listen,” I began, “it’s great to have you here, but the truth is, up there we were slaves. Down here…” I hesitated to say it, “they only mean to kill us…or worse. Besides, look at my arm…the wound is spreading already. How long do you think I have before it takes the rest of me?”
Trista’s wistful smile faded away as we both took a moment to let that reality sink in. The hollow silence of the Crux’s depth took over.
Trista finally broke the silence to ask, “Who was that man you saw up in line? He was a Codebearer captain?”
“More than that…he’s my friend,” I explained. “Sam was there to teach me and train me from the first day I set foot in Solandria. He was the one who first taught me to use a Veritas. We all believed he had died when he was overcome by the Shadow’s attack on Sanctuary. But he’s really been alive all this time in Dolor.”
“Since the attack on Sanctuary? So he’s been held here for three years?”
I nodded with a far-off look, caught up in imagining what it must be like to have survived in Dolor for that long.
“Then,” Trista perked up a bit, “that means there’s some hope for us, right? I mean, if he’s stuck it out that long, then there must be a way.”
The seeds of doubt once again began to spread their ugly roots through my beliefs. “That’s just it,” I sighed. “Sam knows the Code of Life better than anyone. If there was a way to fight this place or escape, he would be the best equipped. But all he’s managed to do is survive. He hasn’t escaped, he hasn’t even been rescued. He’s been left here to…” I intentionally let that thought trail off.
