by S T Branton
One of his little arms stretched out, showing off the flap of skin that connected his wrist to his ankle to turn him into a glider. Those flaps along with fur that made him look like an abandoned toilet brush, his bug eyes, and a long thin tail concocted a Franken-creature that seriously freaked out the other prisoners when they glimpsed him.
Their dirty, raggedy selves even had the gall to mutter that Splinter was ugly. I frequently reassured him he was adorable. He was most certainly ugly, but in an adorable kind of way.
"His switchblade, my runes, and the lessons he taught me are all I have left of him. I'm going to make sure everything Solon put into me wasn't in vain," I told my little friend.
Splinter's bristle hairs stood on end, increasing his toilet brush chic appearance, and his big green eyes darted around frantically. Apparently, my soliloquy didn’t impress him. He bounced around on my thigh, then ran into the shadows. Him getting skittish like that could only mean one thing.
Showtime.
Footsteps and muffled voices came toward my cell. I closed the locket and placed it around my neck. Power left the rune, flooding my body as I rose to my feet. I didn’t want to be sitting when they arrived.
Like I said, one way or another, this would be my last night here.
Chapter Four
"Well, well, well, if it isn't little Sara Slick…"
Ten years in this dungeon, and the nickname was the only thing left of me from my life in The Near. I was practically a legend in this place.
The goblin’s voice slithered through the bars, without fear that the guards would overhear. They didn’t care what happened inside The Deep. But I knew why these assholes were here. There wasn't any doubt they'd be coming that night.
"I have to say, ten years was a pretty good run," another voice said. This one was deeper, probably an ogre of some variety or another. "We tried to put together a pool to bet on how long you would make it, but no one would place their money on anything more than the first night. I guess you proved us wrong. But a lucky streak can’t last forever."
In the Big Book of Nasty Far Creatures I’d been compiling in my head for ten years, ogres ranked among my very least favorite. Right below goblins. Big, brutish, and dumb as toast, what they lacked in charm they made up for in horrible smell and ego-driven displays of machismo.
They were like overgrown frat boys with poor hygiene and delusions of grandeur.
He paused. He wanted me to beg. The cruelty in their eyes told me they already had plans for me. They were there to take revenge and were ready to bring my sentence to a close.
"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" the goblin demanded.
He was clearly the leader of the posse.
"Um. Let’s see…” I tilted my head as I pretended to think. “My name is Sara. I like long walks on the beach and sharing tacos by candlelight. My favorite show is that one with the show choir. Embarrassing, I know…”
The ogre hissed, obviously offended.
"How dare you? Little piece of Near filth. You know what you did. Your insolence knows no bounds. Explain yourself.”
This particular insolence was sticking my foot out in the lunch line and tripping their boss, a pig-looking creature on two legs. It was a memory I would cherish for a long time.
“How about no, and fuck off? That work for you?” I snapped.
"Maybe if you showed some remorse,” the goblin said, “we would have killed you fast. But because you insist on being defiant, we'll make sure your torture is slow and your death even slower."
He cackled as he stepped aside, letting the ogre get closer. A second later, the sound of rusty hinges greeted my ears as they opened the door.
Check. Step one complete.
“You could have at least called ahead. I’d have put on a pot of tea,” I said.
As my cell swung open, I saw four of the ugliest creatures to have ever assembled in the history of ever. Their stink wafted into my room, and I figured even if they managed to gouge out my eyes during the fight, I could still use my sense of smell to find their nasty asses. Bonus.
“We’re feeling generous tonight,” the goblin said. “So I’m going to give you one more chance to show how sorry you are and beg for mercy.”
“Not happening.“
The goblin wasted no more time. He rushed me, wrapping leathery arms around my neck and lifting me off the ground. Goblins weren’t large creatures, but I’d learned over the years not to judge any of the beings within the prison by their size.
The sheer overwhelming power of his crushing grip held me immobile against the wall, and I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness as he pushed against my windpipe. All four of his eyes gleamed with cruel pleasure.
The plan was not going well.
The ogre entered next, and I felt Splinter run up the back of my leg and around my waist. Normally a bit of a coward, Splinter knew full well what was at stake. He leapt past the goblin and latched onto the ogre, sinking his pointy teeth into its giant knobby nose. The grip on my neck lessened as the goblin got distracted. Just like that, the tide had turned in my favor.
This was my chance.
I drew on the power of the locket and kicked my captor. The magic of the rune combining with my muscles meant my foot could have broken through cinder blocks. The goblin took the full force of the kick in whatever soft parts his kind had. He folded like an accordion, a soft wheeze escaping his lips.
The ogre was still flailing and grabbing at Splinter clinging to his face, so I rushed past him. The third member of these self-appointed executioners, a thin pale wight, stood right inside the door. I leapt forward, aiming as high as I could, and only reached his chest. The blow sent him stumbling back a few steps.
The last dipshit, another goblin, was coming in when the wight barreled into the door and slammed the metal shut on the goblin’s hand. The distinct snap of bones breaking echoed through the cell, and the goblin cried out in pain. That hadn’t been my plan, but I was never one to turn down a blessing in my favor.
“Thanks for giving me a hand with that door. Wouldn’t want to air condition the whole neighborhood,” I said.
I grabbed the wight’s head and slammed it backward twice, smashing it into the metal bars of my cell and knocking him out. Splinter scurried up my shoulder, and I felt him tugging at me to turn around. I ducked barely in time to dodge the ogre’s hands. His bloody face helped the urgency.
Charging forward, I led with my shoulder and tackled him against the cold bricks of the wall. A piece of stone lay within reach and I grabbed it, then slammed it against the ogre’s body and head until the brute stopped moving. My muscles were getting tired and my vision started to spin. The locket around my neck weakened with each hit. That was the downside of relying on magical runes. Each had their limits. I needed to bring this shit to a close before the locket left me with nothing but my unaided human capabilities.
The goblin with the bloody hand and broken fingers made his way in after shoving the body of the unconscious wight aside. Time for the big finale.
“This was fun, but I really have to be going.” I
surveyed the gore and broken stone around me. Solon would be proud.
But it wasn’t quite over, not yet.
Goblin number one, the spokesperson for this gang, had finally found his wind again. With a flick of my wrist, I pulled out the switchblade and let it fly. The beautifully crafted weapon caught the goblin in his shoulder and he reared back. I reached into what amounted to a pocket in the rags of my uniform and took out a sharp triangular rune. These were only good for one use, but that was all I needed.
Thanks to many long nights of target practice with Solon, my aim was perfect. One point of the triangle hit the distracted goblin right at the base of his neck. He dropped to the floor as the magic from the carved stone dissolved his control over his body. His limbs twitched with the shocks that buzzed through him from the point of impact.
I walked forward and pressed
my foot against his throat. He didn’t look so powerful now as I ground my heel into him like I was putting out a cigarette he had swallowed.
His hands clawed at my leg, and he thrashed, obviously shocked by the turn of events. I leaned down toward him.
“Move again, and I’ll kill you.” His four eyes widened, and a grin turned up the corners of my lips. “I’ve always wanted to say that to one of you. I’m not going to kill you. But I do need a little something, so your cooperation would be much appreciated.”
“Go to hell,” he croaked out past the pressure of my foot.
“Step two of my master plan. You showing up here tonight was no accident. After ten years in this hellhole, you think I’d suddenly decided to trip Captain Pig Face in front of everyone? Give me some credit. Embarrassing him was the simplest way to get some alone time with you.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the palm-sized rune I’d been protecting for many long months leading up until now. It took nearly ten years for Solon to weave the intricate circle of my hair into something useful, and it was nearly complete.
The rune around my neck would be depleted soon, but this one would be much stronger.
It only needed one more ingredient.
“You know the old saying ‘Roses are red, like blood on a spear. Making a Rune needs something from The Far and from The Near’? No? Don’t know that one? Guess Solon made it up.”
“Solon was a traitor to his kind and a piece of shit,” the goblin spat. “He deserved to die in this place.”
I ground my foot harder into his throat.
“See, it’s funny to hear you say that when you’re the one on the floor pinned down by me, his protégé. I’d hold still if I were you. This will hurt.”
I yanked Solon’s switchblade out of his shoulder. It glinted in the light coming through my small window as I plunged it into the goblin’s eye socket. His eyeball popped out with surprising ease, and to his credit, he smothered his screams. My foot on his throat might have helped. One slimy hand pressed over the bleeding void.
“Relax. You have three more.”
The eye was small and hard, and I tucked it into place within the rune. The final piece to complete the magic.
I felt it hum to life.
“What the hell do you need that for?” he shrieked.
“Step three. Escape. Clean the place up before you leave.”
I smashed my foot into his head and knocked him unconscious, gathered Splinter, and took off through the open cell.
There was no time to lose.
The world was at stake.
Chapter Five
Maybe not the world, world. But the urgency behind my escape was fueled by learning my world was at stake. At the very least.
Getting that tidbit of information wasn’t easy. The only news I could get about the outside world came when new prisoners were shipped in. Of course, almost every new prisoner dumped into our midst was a thief or a murderer or a monster on top of being a liar, so anything they said was always suspect.
But there were kernels of truth in what I heard from the often-fuming, frequently foaming new prisoners.
And the strange creature known as Burne was one such figure.
I never learned what species of Farsider he was. He looked like elements of various creatures had been stuck together with some sort of Far super glue. He was much like Splinter in that way. Only not adorable.
But it didn’t matter to me what Burne was. All that mattered was what he had to say, and there was a lot of it. Even before he was in the same room with me, I heard his unchained rantings and they didn’t slow down or lower in volume once he was twirling around in the middle of the room like a demented top.
For the next several hours, he ran his mouth about being the one true servant of Hobbes the Twenty-Third and that he wouldn’t be in The Deep for long. Then he added that the end was near. It would all be over soon.
Pax Philosophia will be undone!
He repeated the assertion so many times it became background noise. It wasn’t a novel thing for new prisoners to come in spouting only vaguely coherent nonsense about the Pax Philosophia. The ancient law put into place by the Philosophers Guild was a popular topic of debates, rants, and raves among the prisoners. To say it was a touchy subject was a tremendous understatement. It was meant to bring relative peace to the realms, maintaining balance between The Near and The Far, the humans and the weird.
As good as that sounded, and as much as it should inspire sitting around holding hands and singing Kumbaya, not everyone felt the same way. According to Solon, many hated the Guild’s control and believed it was dragging down the magical creatures of The Far.
They wanted it abolished. A rogue underground cult called the Harbingers had formed. Led by this mysterious Hobbes character, their sole goal was bringing the Pax down. Which would almost definitely lead to a war between The Near and The Far.
So...not great.
A fair percentage of prisoners who ended up tossed into The Deep claimed to be part of this revolution, but none had ever produced any even slightly reliable information.
Until Burne.
Even with his adamant name-dropping of Hobbes, this new prisoner’s rants were run-of-the-mill crazy talk until those disturbing words came out of his mouth.
“The war is beginning, and we will strike the first blow in the Holy City!”
He could have been talking about Jerusalem. Or maybe Rome. But I knew, knew, in my gut what he meant. He was talking about Charleston, nicknamed the Holy City because of the abundance of churches.
And it happened to be the city where I was born, raised, and snatched by the Guild.
The words were barely out of Burne’s mouth when I cornered him and demanded more information. He spilled, but what poured out once I got him literally up against a wall was mostly a jumble of words loosely linked together into sentences that made no damn sense.
I had gotten very little out of him before the guards decided to break it up. Fortunately for me, by that point I’d already learned how to measure my behavior and not ruffle feathers. Unfortunately for Burne, he hadn’t gotten that crash course yet, and the continuation of his screeching rant resulted in his first night in The Deep also being his last.
His murder was brutal, but I was already hardened against it. Watching him die cut deeper because he had, moments before his last breath, revealed to me the only bits of truly valuable information I’d gotten about The Near since being in prison. Starting with the threat that my hometown was in danger.
The sobering news came along with the location of the Harbinger’s hideout and the promise that Hobbes’ followers were planning to do something so terrible it would make the world tremble.
That was when I decided to finally make my escape.
Solon and I had planned it from the beginning. But when he died leaving me with his switchblade and a half-finished rune, I hesitated. For weeks I waited, scared to move. I knew I would only have one shot. If I failed, I’d either be killed or thrown into a hole so deep there was no dream of escaping.
Fear of death, or worse, kept me in a holding pattern. I was biding my time, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Until this Hobbes radical threatened my city. My home. My family.
I immediately put Solon’s plan into action.
And his plan brought me here, sprinting down a long corridor toward either escape or doom, the fate of my world at stake.
No pressure.
My sprint dead-ended at a thick door with a series of complicated locks. I seriously didn't have time for this shit.
Four creatures coming down to my cell to kill me and not coming back to the rest of the horde with bits of my carcass wouldn’t go unnoticed.
I had to escape, tonight. Now.
Dropping to my knees in front of the door, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the implement I'd crafted out of several of Splinter's bristles. It was an as-of-yet untested device, but now wa
s as good a time as any to see if it worked. Poking it into the first lock, I jiggled it around until it caught. One down. The rest of The Deep to go.
There was a reason no one had ever escaped The Deep. It wasn’t a prison in the normal sense. It was its own dimension. Well, fragment dimension. The physics of it all were still a little fuzzy.
After Pan’Rhea, the great collision between realms that sent all manner of strange into The Near, our world, what remained of the dimension known as The Far split into two. Two splinter realms, different from each other in every way. But Philosophers were never ones to waste a good dimension. They turned one half into a magical utopia, known as The Heights, where the Philosophers Guild made their home.
The other half, the antithesis of The Heights, was The Deep, an inescapable prison world crafted out of nightmares, evil, and probably more than a little spit and bile.
The entire violent dimension existed purely for the purpose of torture and punishment, which meant moving through the building wasn’t as easy as simply going through doors and climbing stairs. This place put the Winchester mansion to shame.
Stairs led to nowhere. Passages turned progressively smaller, the walls embedded with glass and sharpened metal to shred anyone trying to run through. Levels of the prison were uneven and irregular, so some were small and low and others wide with towering ceilings. Doors opened to blank walls and pits of blood and bones.
The map Solon once drew me before quickly destroying it was still etched in my mind and that part stood out the most. I was not interested in swimming through Corpse Lake.
Keeping part of my awareness focused on the cell behind me so I'd hear if the goblin or one of his men approached from behind, I picked my way through the rest of the locks. It felt like it was taking forever. A sense of doom pressed in on me from every angle, but I pushed away the fear. My hunger for freedom drove me, and I could already taste it.
Finally, the last lock clicked, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I slipped through the door, then paused. Without the key, I couldn’t lock the door without reversing the process with my homemade pick. That would take time, time I didn’t have. I weighed my options, pulled the door shut and fled down the hall.
