Chapter 8
The deep, warm hum of the stone door brought Lowell back from the edge of an uncomfortable sleep. The idea of moving to sit up sounded painful and impractical so he just shifted his head. First through the door was a guard carrying a simple wooden chair. The color was striking in a world that had only been stone from the moment he’d stepped in. Behind the guard was the old man from before and then another guard.
The chair was placed on the floor a few feet from the doorway. The old man made his way around and sat, adjusting his robes as he did, before motioning for the guards to leave him. Lowell hadn’t paid the man’s clothes much mind before. Robes of a heavy linen make that ran in a gradient of deep blue to dark grey at the bottom. The bottom was frayed where it had dragged the ground for a time but otherwise it looked plush and comfortable.
“I have the name Degoed and the title of Elder Werra. I would make apologies for any, eh… roughness.”
His accent was strange, like a French person trying to speak English with a German accent. The voice itself was slow and gave the impression that he didn’t tend to speak without giving considerable thought to his words.
“Can you sit?”
Lowell wasn’t sure if this was meant to be a command or a question raised out of concern. The guards all seemed to pay close attention to the old man which spoke to his station. It took effort, but sitting was achieved. Lowell rubbed a hand over the area, lamenting how resting seemed to have given his body permission to make things hurt worse somehow.
“I again say, I make many apologies. Violentness is not our way.”
The old man did what Lowell thought was surely meant to be a kind smile but it still seemed disingenuous.
“Please, though, I would know what to call you?”
“Lowell.”
Talking hurt. Everything hurt. Laying on the concrete was stupid. He was stupid. The old guy was stupid. That stupid glass up there was stupid. This totally wasn’t a tantrum.
“Yes. Good. Lowell—” He’s not pronouncing it right. “— you have made for us a bad time. You cannot be put to fault, I think. Not so much. More Marka. She is trouble.”
“Because she brought me here? It’s not her fault. I followed her down so don’t do anything to her. I’m to blame.” He pointed to his chest. “I followed her.”
The old man sat in silence for a short while, processing the unfamiliar words and then spoke again.
“No. There is difficultness with your understanding of us. Marka is Brant. She must go with her Brant so the other may come.”
“The other?” He thought hard. “You mean the boy?”
“Boy! Yes! Brista. Is Brista. Of his Brant. Marka must go with her Brant.”
The words all meant nothing but Lowell guessed there was some group that Marka must have been a part of. He’d already assumed as much from the tattoos but the old man at least gave some broken context to the idea.
“And where is her Brant?”
The old man turned the words over for a long time but did not answer.
“Well?”
“Gone.”
Lowell narrowed his eyes. Gone? What the fuck kind of answer was that? Did he mean dead? The old man continued.
“She must also go.”
He fucking did mean dead. This son of a bitch. Lowell lurched forward and swung an arm but the pain caught him and dropped him harmlessly on the floor five feet away from the Elder Werra.
“Maybe you also go.”
Lowell looked up and caught the hint of a smirk on the old bastard’s face. The door hummed again and slid open. The guards returned, the old man stood, and they all left in the little row they had come in, chair included.
The room turned quiet again except for the occasional faint sound through the slit that let light into the cell. Lowell wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. Whatever kind of magic these people were made of, he wasn’t, so opening the door was a no go. The wall was made of stone or at least an impressive facsimile. That ruled out punching his way out even without the injury. He rolled from his stomach back onto his good side. His skin had flushed hot in the fit of anger and the cool stone was nice against it. He sighed, pulling a hand up to grab at the locket through his shirt.
The floor got uncomfortable after a while so he rolled to his back, hoping for some comfort. It didn’t much help. The pain was a low ebb and he bore with it for what must have been a few hours. The unchanging light made it hard to tell anything about the passing of time and the soft white of the cell made his brain feel like it was slowly melting.
At some point amidst Lowell’s slow descent toward human goo, the hum returned. He thought maybe he was imagining it at first until the light shifted at the bottom of his vision. He moved as best as he could manage to stand up properly. Maybe there was a chance. He hadn’t seen an overabundance of guards.
The door was mid swing and Lowell took a step to meet it. His intentions fell flat as the opening door revealed only a slight girl in maybe her early 20s. She was dressed in a thin light grey robe with long sleeves and a red stripe down one side of the garment proper. He took a step back.
“Uh, hi?”
She hadn’t looked up until he said something and when she did she seemed almost startled as though she had half expected the room to be empty. She said a single word in the language he didn’t know and bowed her head. Behind her was a cart that she turned to pull into the room. It was really more of a dinner tray than a cart and it was made of flimsy wood with a thin stone top.
He failed to get a good look at what was on the cart as she stepped toward him, the door closing behind her. She pointed to the bed and said some words he didn’t understand. When he just stared back at her, the expression she wore grew more apprehensive. She said the words again, more softly, and pointed meekly at the bed.
There wasn’t a great reason to give this girl a hard time so he moved over to the bed and sat down on it. Somehow it was less comfortable than the floor. The mattress was rough and scratchy and may as well have not been there for all the padding it offered.
The girl followed him over and reached out gingerly toward his arm. She touched him lightly, almost like she was prodding a pile of jello to see if it was set. When her hand failed to catch fire, she moved it back and grabbed his wrist to turn it over. For the life of him, Lowell couldn’t understand her confusion. She was human by every visual indicator. Maybe she had magic goo in her blood or something, but everything was in the right spot at least.
By now he had assumed she was a nurse of some kind and at least that was looking like a better deal than whatever the old gremlin had planned behind that shit-eating smirk. She checked his arm and head, pressing until he complained. His head was still bruised but mostly better. The features of the world stayed put, anyway.
She moved to bring the tiny table over to where he was sitting and he could see now that it had bandages and a few vials full of clear liquids. She pointed at his shirt and then motioned over her head.
“I don’t…”
She stopped sharply at the sound of his voice and seemed to panic a bit. She thought a moment and pointed to his shirt then lifted slightly on the middle of her robes.
“Oh, right, right. No gowns to wear, though?”
He waited for a response for some reason and all he got was a confused, awkward smile.
“Right.”
Pulling the shirt over his head was an exercise in self-torture that he wasn’t keen on repeating. He managed to get it off of everything except one of his arms and that’s where he gave up, slouching and breathing heavily. All of it hurt and he was beginning to wonder why the hell he was going along with this. She was probably here to poison him, right? Those vials were probably poison. Maybe they wouldn’t work, though. Maybe they’d give him super magic powers like Marka had.
He was leaning back on his arms, shirtless, trying to avoid the pain in his ribs to no avail. The girl stared at his chest intently and put a hand out to touc
h it. Maybe she was intrigued by the locket? He watched her quietly, not sure if this was part of the whole thing. Her hand landed lightly on his chest and the softness of her cool fingers wasn’t unwelcome. When her other hand rose to her chest in a light clutched ball, he began to feel like this maybe wasn’t part of the checkup.
“This, uh… thank you but…”
Her eyes widened as she caught herself. Rather than pull her hand back she pushed it forward and Lowell let out a yelp of pain. That was when she pulled back, repeating what sounded like apologies over and over as she shuffled over the things on her cart.
The push had shifted something and Lowell clutched at his side trying to unfuck his insides. The girl’s face straightened with determination, though Lowell wouldn’t have noticed, and she moved his hands away. He didn’t have any strength to protest and again the cool touch of her hand was on him. She place a hand firmly on his side and another on the shoulder above it. A warmth began to bubble inside around the spot. It was almost pleasant beneath the waves of hurt. But the warmth kept growing. It was nearly hot now. The girl was repeating the words that had sounded like an apology as the heat began to feel like it was cooking him inside. That was a loud crackling noise. He couldn’t hold it anymore. He screamed but the girl didn’t move her hands. It felt like hours but he knew it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. The heat began to dim and the pain followed. He could feel her hands again now, cooler than before and just as soft. He was exhausted and thankful and confused. Mostly thankful. The pain was gone. The girl pulled back and turned to her tray, trying her best not to look at him. She grabbed the bandages, wrapped them around his chest as quickly as she could manage, and then reached for one of the vials. She broke the tip and poured the contents onto the bandage where he had been healed. The area instantly numbed. She grabbed the table and started to turn.
“Wait!”
Lowell put a hand on her wrist and she froze, still looking away.
“Thank you. I don’t know if they’re going to kill me or what but thank you.”
She turned to look at him and seemed to get what he was saying.
“Please. Do you know where they took Marka?”
“Marka?!”
She pulled away from him and hurried toward the door, shouting up at the guards as she did. The door opened and shut and she was gone. Though he felt better, the pain was still fresh in Lowell’s mind. He pulled his shirt back over his head and decided to have a look around. As it turned out, that was an absolute waste of time. And not very much time, even. There were no secret cubby holes to speak of. The bed was a raised slab, the walls were all blank white and lit in such a way that it made it genuinely difficult to get a sense of depth except when looking up at the enclosed watch station.
Honestly, the room was starting to annoy him now that his energy was back and his life wasn’t just a series of stabbing pains and aimless anger. It was boring and if he was going to die at least they could put him on top of the big spire thing and make him jump off or something more visually appealing.
He paced around for what had to have been hours, tried some pushups, and eventually wound up on the mattress-like bag of… maybe sand? He hadn’t really noticed before but the stuffing was noisy and never missed an opportunity to amplify the noise of any sound he made. He ended up back on the floor. He could probably have pulled the mattress off of the raised platform but it didn’t make much sense to bother.
The door slid partially open and a bowl was placed inside. It had shut long before Lowell made his way to the bowl. A half dozen medium-sized chunks of deep brown meat in a brown sort of soupy stew. A two pronged fork was stuck into a piece of the meat. Lowell paced around and poked at the food. It didn’t smell of much at all and there was no discernable spice in the stock. He pulled up the piece of meat to inspect it more closely. It hadn’t been seared. The odd darkness was just the color of the muscle.
Lowell shrugged and bit into it. Not good. He dropped the fork back into the bowl and almost gagged. The meat, whatever it was, tasted like a combination of chicken gristle and old shrimp. He wasn’t hungry yet and counted that as a sort of blessing. He’d probably need to eat it eventually and he hoped that the future need would make it easier to stomach. Other than the awful taste, it was bland. Like muddy water that’d been filtered so it still has that earthen taste but none of the grit. The better part of an hour passed, filled with poking at the weird meat and wondering if he was being tortured or treated to a fine delicacy.
It wasn’t long before the door started its hum again. Really, it seemed a bit busy for a prison cell. He stood, not sure what to expect. A pair of guards led in, and grabbed him by his arms. They didn’t stop at just securing him and it was his back slamming against the far wall that signaled the end of the short trip. The old man was behind them, walking briskly, a frantic look on his face. He looked dead at Lowell.
“Marka! She gave you a thing?!”
“What? No.”
“DO NOT LIE!”
“She didn’t give me anything! Jesus! Let me go!”
The old man ignored him and began to paw over his jacket and pants squeezing things.
“Hey! HEY! What the hell, man?”
Lowell would have turned his pockets out if he’d just asked. Degoed began patting the flats of his clothes, looking for anything he could find. Lowell had hardly noticed until the Elder hit on the locket and lifted up his shirt. The old man reached out to grab it and Lowell’s eyes flared. With every ounce of blind rage, he raised a leg and plunged it into the plush robes. He thrashed wildly against the wall.
“NO, FUCK YOU! YOU DON’T TOUCH THAT! THAT BELONGS TO ME!”
He was screaming wildly and the guards were struggling to hold him still, both looking terribly nervous. The crumpled form pushed up from the ground and stood, clutching his ribs. Fair dues by any count. The Elder said a few words through hushed, heavy breaths and the guards let Lowell go.
“A precious thing. I do understand it. I make apologies again, Lowell.”
The tone of the broken English didn’t match the words. He was sorry, certainly, but it had nothing to do with keeping him prisoner or the events that led to the kick. He wanted something. Something Lowell didn’t have.
Whatever he wanted was elsewhere and so the Elder Werra turned and left without another word.
Chapter 9
Counting the passing of days by way of sleeping seemed to be a decent enough way to go about things. He’d just invent days and sort of keep track in his head. There was nothing in the room strong enough to mark the walls in any meaningful way. He’d tried to keep his jacket on as well, so he wouldn’t lose it or so that they couldn’t take it but the room was so standard in its temperature that he’d given up on the idea that he’d need it. He tossed it around from time to time just to give himself something to look at.
Lowell wondered what his mother must be thinking by now. Cops had probably been all over his apartment looking for stuff. It had only been three days or so but that was likely enough for them to start looking for him. He doubted they’d look wherever he was now. Didn’t seem like the sort of place that was on the SPD patrol list. Did they rule that sort of thing a suicide? Seemed likely in his case. No one was apt to talk about how chipper and full of life he generally was.
A frown swept over his face and he looked down at the locket. He’d been holding onto it a lot more since the old man had last visited. He opened it for the first time in years and it squeaked a high pitch little squeak. Inside was the picture of a girl of twelve. She had a soft face and a big, dopey grin. Her long brown hair was a mess in the picture. Lowell shut the locket and shut his eyes. He gripped the jewelry tightly and muttered apologies into the stale air of the white cell.
Another sleep crawled by and Lowell decided to do something at least. Marka was probably dead by now. That had to be what that old asshole had meant. He was doing some jumping jacks and pushups and the like when he heard shuffling on the obser
vation area. A guard he’d never seen before had come by and was talking to his watchers. They looked down at him a few times and laughed occasionally. One of the guards mimed a large bite being taken and they all looked like they’d die from how hilarious whatever he’d said was.
What was he miming? Lowell remembered the creature that Marka had killed those nights ago and there was a sinking feeling. They didn’t have one captive, did they? Not that he was exactly stoked on the idea of being killed by weirdoes in a sewer city, but this was across more than a few lines. They were bringing him bowls of meat slop a few times a day, maybe he could catch the door and pull it open.
He took up his perch in front of the door and waited. And waited. And got bored and started drawing things on the door with his finger. Or, at least, he was pretty sure he was in front of the bit that was the door. Whatever seam there might’ve been was hidden completely. His legs had started to hurt from sitting on the floor so he got up to move around a bit. He hadn’t been pacing for long when he heard a few faint thuds from above. He ran back to look and the guards normally overlooking his cell weren’t at their posts. He ran back over to the wall, waiting expectantly for the door to open, but it did not. He kept himself at the ready in spite of the lack of movement. He couldn’t miss this opportunity.
Rather than the smooth slide of the door, there was a sudden shudder under Lowell’s feet. The ground moved. He looked down just as the sound came. A massive rumble followed by a sound like someone was tearing a flock of birds in half. Even through the stone it was near deafening. Lowell fell to his knees, covering his ears for whatever little good it would do. There was another sound among it. He could swear it was a roar. The sounds seemed to ebb for a half second before picking back up. When the noise dropped he heard a deep thud against the far wall. The wall that lead outside.
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