Roar, page 5
The tunnels and the grates that opened up to the road above brought fresh air which helped with the smell. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to see during the day. At night though, it was only the fact that his new form gave him large cat’s eyes and excellent night vision, which allowed him to safely navigate the sewers. Those people who came down were reliant on whatever light source they carried with them.
About half way to the market district Thorm had a sudden change of mind. It was still too early to go to the market. And he doubted that the merchants he spied upon had any new books for him to steal since the day before last when he had last spied upon them. It was time to do something else. To go once more to one of those parts of the city he normally never wanted to go. To the Royal Dungeon. So he turned to the east and headed for the sewer tunnel that ran beneath the dungeons.
When he had first started finding his way around the sewers, the dungeon had been one of the parts he had most often frequented. Mostly because he didn't know what had happened to his family. They had been away on a trading journey at the time when everything had gone wrong and wouldn't have known what had happened. He had worried about what would happen to them on their return. If the Royal Enforcer had suspected them of helping to his his magic, then he would have thrown them in the dungeons. Or worse, killed them.
So he had come every day and spied on the prisoners and the guards and torturers, hunting desperately for any sign of his family. It was a relief that he had never seen them there nor heard their names called out. And as his fear had eased his visits to the dungeons had become less frequent.
But what did that mean? That question plagued him in the night, making his sleep fitful. Had they got away? Or had they simply been caught and killed? Were they instead locked away in another dungeon? There were other dungeons in The Eternal City and unfortunately most of them he couldn't reach through the sewers. There were other cities too with their own dungeons. There was supposedly even a dungeon under the Palace of the Sun which he couldn't get to. That entire half of the city had a completely separate sewer system. Or had his family been given forewarning of what had happened and stayed away? Had they simply escaped? He had no way of knowing. All he could do was keep checking the central dungeon every so often. And it occurred to him that he hadn't been there in a full week.
Thorm hurried along the sewer, mindful that four bells had been rung some time before. That mattered, because half way between four and five bells the guards changed over. He always timed his arrival with the changing of the guards. It gave him the chance to listen to the roster of prisoners being read out as they checked it off at the end of each guard’s shift. They used it to confirm that there had been no escapes. No one was allowed to leave. Except of course, through death. That was usually the way the prisoners escaped their cells.
The central dungeon was for those convicted of serious crimes. Not the drunken brawls of alehouse patrons. Not cut purses. Those convicted of minor crimes would find themselves flogged and then chained to a work gang for a set period of time. But the dungeon also wasn't for those found guilty of the most terrible crimes such as murder, treason or banditry. People found guilty of those crimes were tortured and then hung. As for those who committed crimes against the King, they were given the severest punishment of all. They were thrown into the Tri-consular Orb.
Those who were found guilty of crimes in the middle found themselves in the central dungeon. Sometimes for only a few months, sometimes a few years, and sometimes for life. But for all that the prisoners gaoled there were not to be killed, their time in the central dungeon was a horror. Many were tortured, maimed and mutilated, before they even arrived. Then they were thrown into overcrowded, poorly lit cells that stank of disease and piss, never to see daylight again until they were released. Not even in chains. They were considered too dangerous to work on the gangs.
The dungeon truly was a part of the Night Maiden's empire. A place of dark dreams and darker awakenings. Thorm suspected that for many of those locked up death would have been a blessing. Nyx truly ruled here.
Thorm had had to hurry to get to his spot beneath the grate under the dungeons before the guard change, and when he got there he found himself panting. But that was alright. No one would hear him. Not when he could hear the rattling of chains, and people shouting orders at one another.
No one would see him either. Because while the grate was a huge circular affair that was so large it had to be opened in two halves, each side lifting on its own hinge, there was only slightly more light above than there was in the sewers. Also, because of the way the dungeon’s torches had been arranged along the walls, most of what light they cast did not make it all the way down into the gloom of the sewers. So all there was was a large circle of pale light, barely brighter than the darkness surrounding it, shining on the slow moving water.
It had initially seemed strange to him that there should be such a huge grate in a dungeon. After all, it suggested a possible escape route for the prisoners. But Thorn had soon discovered that it was needed for the type of waste that got flushed away in a dungeon. Bodies. The guards threw the prisoners down into the sewers after they died and let the water take the bodies away. It was cheaper than a burial he supposed, and there was no need to call a priest.
Thorm stepped back out of the pale wash of the light from above, and waited patiently for the calling of the roster to begin. It took a while because he had to wait first for the guards to confirm each of the names of those who had been on the last shift – and then receive a detailed report from them on what had happened during the previous shift. The guards were very thorough – probably because they knew that if anything went wrong and a prisoner escaped, they would be held responsible. And the Eternal King would not be merciful. He was never that.
Eventually though the guards got around to calling the roster, moving from cell to cell and then identifying and naming the occupants one by one and he started paying more attention.
“Cell One, three pox ridden whores and three larcenous old crones,” the guard began. “Trista, Marris, Ellamer, Tyne, Roget and Stynson.”
Despite having heard it many times before, Thorm winced. This truly was a place where there was no dignity left. No forenames either. The prisoners were known by their crimes and their surnames. Their supposed crimes in many cases he suspected. The list hadn’t changed all that much over the years he had been visiting. There were often a few new ones, as well as some that were no longer called. Dead presumably. It wasn't uncommon for prisoners to spend years in the dungeons before death finally released them assuming their sentences weren't finished.
But as the guards went through their roster he did his best not to feel too much sorrow for the prisoners. He didn't know them, and he didn't know what they'd done. Maybe their punishments were unduly harsh. And maybe some of them were innocent. After all what sort of a crime was it be old or trade the favours of the night? But he didn’t actually know. Some of the prisoners could be cut throats and brigands who had actually been lucky to escape the hangman's noose. Not just people the nobles had taken a dislike to.
He tried to put his feelings to one side and listen to the names. As always though, he was only waiting to hear one name – Endorson. His family.
Unexpectedly though, his concentration was broken when he heard the guard with the roster yell out a different name. In fact not a name at all. Nor a crime. A designation. And not of one prisoner, but a group.
“Cell twenty two. Tree people; five!” The guard with the roster called it out and waited until his companion called back to confirm that there were five in the cell. He didn't call out any names.
Hearing that, Thorm was shocked. Tree people! That could only mean hamadryads. The so-called wood nymphs and tree folk. To those less concerned about causing offence – the ragged ears. But they surely couldn’t have done anything to warrant being sent to the central dungeons. The dryads of whatever race should not be here at all. Not the sea nymphs and fish folk more properly called the neryads. Not the sky nymphs or the cloud folk otherwise known as the avaryads either. And certainly not the hamadryads.
These folk weren't criminals. The dryadic peoples might have the same faults as everyone else but they just weren’t criminally inclined. More importantly, they didn’t live on the Volden Plains. And so the laws of the Plains should not apply.
The Plains ran from the edge of the icy wastes in the north in which only the trolls and their mammoths could survive, to the southern cities of Timberfell and Riverton. From Port Cliff in the west, to the Crown Hill Ranges in the east. On a map it formed a crudely rectangular area of perhaps six hundred leagues across and three hundred high. And while the Plains consisted of a dozen cities and hundreds of towns, not one of them or the lands around them was home to the hamadryads. Why would they be? The Volden Plains were the home of the Plainsmen.
Hamadryads came from the great southern wilds where they were known as the Erisen. As far as he knew, the word just meant forest. Their realm lay to the south of the southern cities and extended for hundreds more leagues. How on earth did they come to be in a dungeon in the Eternal City? They shouldn't be in the Plains at all.
The other thing that caught him by surprise was that it wasn't just five hamadryads in a single cell. As he stood there listening, he heard the occupants of eleven more cells called out, each containing five or six hamadryads in it. That meant was roughly holding some sixty tree folk. Why?
None of the people's that surrounded the Volden Plains were any sort of criminals. Some of the different races caused trouble from time to time but none criminal. To the north in the icy wastes, the trolls were dangerous but not criminally inclined. They were closer to animals, with a language that was little more advanced than grunts and howls. You didn't arrest and lock up wild animals. When the occasional raiding party came south they were simply killed as one would any dangerous beast.
To the east and the Crown Hill Ranges, the giants that called them home also couldn’t be said to be criminals. Like the trolls they too were dangerous – incredibly so. But thankfully they never left their mountain homes. So how could they commit a crime in the Volden Plains? The avaryads, also didn’t travel far but remained in their cities among the eastern ranges. Sometimes it was claimed that they flew over the Plains, too high to be seen, but if they did they never landed.
West of Port Cliff lay only the great ocean and the island nation of the neryads. Little was known of the sea folk, but sometimes they traded with the western cities and towns of the Plains.
It was true that the hamadryads, in the south did sometimes wander a little way from their forests, but he had never heard of them causing harm. Theft or assault was practically unheard of. Usually when they headed north it was because they were hunting. And even then they normally stayed well clear of plainsmen. The idea that sixty or so of them had abruptly decided to leave their homes and start committing crimes in the Plains just didn’t make sense.
Of course the one thing he couldn't get as he stood there listening, was an answer. The prisoners weren’t allowed to talk back when the guards called their name. Unless a prisoner had just returned from the torturer, they generally didn’t say much at all anyway. And if they had just been tortured, mostly what they did was moan. The dungeons were a quiet place for the most part. And that was a nuisance because Thorm really wanted to know why they had been brought here. If nothing else the presence of hamadryads in the dungeon meant that there were things going on in the world that he didn't know about. Political things like war. He was curious about such things.
But more than that, hamadryads like all the dryadic peoples, had magic. Not magic like wizards. Not spells and a language of magic. But the magic of nature. Instinctive magic.
It abruptly occurred to him that the differences in their magic might mean that they had a way to heal him. Or if not that, then perhaps they had knowledge of others who might know. In his entire life, he'd never met anyone else with magic of any form. Not that he knew that was. Suddenly it seemed that the gods, the Seven Sisters, had finally dropped some hope in his lap.
He had to get them out! Even as he stood there, listening, Thorm knew that. He knew it with every fibre of his being. And not just because it was the right thing to do. Because it was the only hope he had. His studies weren't providing him with the answers he needed. The chances were that they weren't going to. There were no wizards around to help him. Not in the Eternal City. Any others in the Plains who might have magic were deep in hiding. He would never find them. And even if he could find them he couldn't ask them. He could only spy on them, hope they cast the right spell in his presences, or steal their notes.
But there was one other thing that made him eager to rescue them. The hag who had done this to him, was said to be part hamadryad. Perhaps then the magic that had been used on him was theirs. That would explain why he'd never heard of such a spell. And why he'd never read of one. If it was the case, the hamadryads should also have a cure too.
His heart started beating a little faster in his chest while his mouth became dry. Maybe there was finally some hope!
Chapter Four
Twelve bells had rung and all was quiet above. Thorm had been standing beneath the sewer grate listening carefully for hours. Listening for any sound that might indicate that the guards were alert or doing their rounds. Or that anyone was actually awake.
There had been none. Only quite a lot of snoring. From past experience of sitting through the night, Thorm was reasonably sure there wouldn't be any movement from them again until the early hours of the morning when the next shift took over.
It was time to strike. Although “strike” was perhaps the wrong word. Even after three years of practice, the range of spells he could cast with just a thought, was limited. It took so much concentration to hold not just the words but the gestures in his thoughts as he released the magic, that his range of spells was limited to only those he practised regularly. He suspected it always would be. But when one of those few spells he had was for opening locked doors, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that there were four guards above in the dungeon, and some two hundred prisoners.
Thorm began by making himself as comfortable on the walkway as he could. For what he was going to attempt he needed absolutely no distractions. Luckily he had cast the spell of opening many times over the previous years – it was essential to his being able to steal what he needed. Before he'd mastered it he'd had to break down doors, and there had been a lot of chases and weapons fired after that. So he knew this spell. But he had never cast it on so many locked doors at once. Then once he felt completely calm and centred, he sent his thoughts – his wizard sight as some called it – into the dungeon above.
Wizard sight wasn't like normal sight. You didn't see colour and shapes. Instead what a wizard saw was thought mostly. Concentration. Emotion. So he couldn't see the actual locks and bars of the cells. What he could see were the thoughts that had been concentrated on them over the years. The effort put into their creation by the smiths who had created them. The hatred of the prisoners who had been locked behind them. Their frustration too. Decades, even centuries of thought and emotion concentrated just on those locks. So strong were the layers of thought by successive smiths and prisoners, that the locks showed up to his sight like beacons in the darkness, almost as bright as the souls of the people trapped behind them. It made it easy to add each lock one by one to his spell's focus. Every spell had to have a focus that it acted upon. The only problem he encountered was with the number of different points of focus there were. The dungeon had to have at least forty or fifty locked cell doors. But then it was the central dungeon for the city.
Next, once he had his focus set, he concentrated on the words and the gestures. They were complex, naturally. Unlocking something was more complicated then just creating light or fire. The words formed a sort of sentence. Abien varron ne della for … and so on. It was quite a long sentence. Actually it wasn't so much a sentence as a series of commands about force and rotation of tumblers. And the gestures that went with the words; the open sweep of the arm with the palm up, followed by the sweep of the fingers upwards and then the stiffened fingers jabbing and turning of the other hand, and the rest, they were the same. The gestures were the physical expression of the words. Almost a form of sign language. Some called it the song and the dance.
Once the words and the gestures were fixed in his mind, and the focus clear and strong, he called on the spark of magic within him and released it. How that worked he didn't exactly know. But all that mattered was that he could see the results of it as the words, gestures and focus combined, and he felt the magic flow just as he wanted.
In a matter of heartbeats he knew the joy of the magic accomplishing its goal, just as a man might know the satisfaction of completing a task. He felt the clicks above him that told him the cell doors had unlocked and swung open. But he also knew the pain that told him he had extended himself too far. The spell had been too big. Still the pain would go away. And others were going to hurt a lot worse than him.
The escape began quietly enough. For ten and then twenty beats of his heart he heard nothing, though his wizard sight showed him the thoughts of souls moving through the fog. Angry, scared and desperate souls. Confused souls. But souls that wanted one thing above all else – their freedom.
