A Single Step
Prologue
There was a deep, pervasive darkness all around. In the darkness, formless shapes could be felt more than seen. They moved, shuffling, making little sound. There were groans, sometimes, as the shapes moved, deep lows of pain and suffering that fell silent only in the deepest hours of the night.
Slicing through the darkness was a beam of light. It shone brightly through a tiny, barred window, high up the eastern wall. The light did not illuminate the inside of the room, though; all it did was shine down in one direction, highlighting the floor which was covered in damp straw, slopped food and, occasionally, dried blood. The light was not for the benefit of the people within the cavernous room. It was simply there to remind them of the freedom they would never again experience.
Lying on his back with his arms behind his head, Shizaki Hakyudo glanced at the beam of light. He was the only one in the room who could still bear to look at it, but this was only his fourth week in the place. The others had been here longer. The others no longer saw the light as something to hope and yearn for, but as something that represented disappointment and served to remind them only of their permanent incarceration.
There was a scraping sound from the huge main door; the bolt was being pulled back. This was unusual. The door only ever opened once per day, in the mornings when the prisoners were fed, and they had already been fed several hours ago. Shizaki sat up, and moved towards the bars of his tiny cell. He was the only one who did so. The other prisoners cried out in fear at this break from routine. They cringed towards the back of their cells, hiding their faces in their hands as if trying to make themselves unseen.
The gaol-warden stepped into the room, and the panicked cries of the prisoners suddenly ceased, but they continued to recoil, pushing themselves into the corners of their cells. There were footsteps, and when the gaol-warden stepped into the shaft of light, Shizaki realised that he wasn't alone. Behind him was a tall man wearing gleaming armour and a flowing cloak. The man's hair was black but greying, and he wore a massive two-handed sword sheathed across his back.
The warden and the man stopped in front of his cell, and he was suddenly gripped by the icy hand of fear. Why hadn't he shrunk back from the bars like the other inmates? Why had he let his curiosity get the better of him? It was his greatest failing. His mother had always told him that his curiosity would land him in trouble, and she'd been right. Granted, his four-year crime spree Nathlekh's prestigious Shou district probably hadn't helped, but he considered his curiosity to be a mitigating factor in his life of petty larceny.
"Is this the one?" said the armoured man. Dark eyes inspected Shizaki closely, and he repressed the sudden urge to shiver.
"That's him," said the warden. The warden was one of those men who was deaf and blind to suffering. Even when inmates died, he didn't have the bodies removed until morning, when his guards opened up to bring food. As far as the warden was concerned, the prisoners were little more than dogs. Rabid dogs that needed to be locked away for the good of society, kept hungry to dull their wits, kept in tiny cells to prevent them from exercising their bodies. After a few months in the gaol, most inmates turned to papery skin over angular bone. Shizaki wasn't quite at that stage, yet, but he'd lost quite a lot of weight since they'd first thrown him in here. His clothes, which had fit him comfortably on his first day, were now hanging off him in places. Given enough time, they would turn to rags and eventually fade away, just like the clothes of the oldest and greyest prisoners still clinging to life.
"And you say he's good?" said the armoured man.
"Got away with it for four years," the warden confirmed. "Even managed to worm his way out of a hanging."
"I thought you Shou were fond of capital punishment?"
"We are. But him," the warden grunted, nodding at Shizaki in either disgust or admiration - it was hard to tell, with the warden - "he was very careful not to kill anyone. Always ran at the first hint of trouble. Never engaged anybody he surprised. Probably out of cowardice, but that's what saved him in the end. The judge decided to be lenient."
"Some might argue that a life sentence is less humane than a quick end," said the armoured man. Shizaki didn't bother to repress the shiver this time.
"Keep your opinions to yourself, outsider. You want him, or not?"
"Very well, I'll take him." There was an exchange of a coin purse, and then the armoured man turned back to look at Shizaki. "How soon?"
"Tomorrow morning. When the guards come in to feed them, they'll see him lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. He'll have cut his wrists with a sharp stone. The children are fond of throwing them through the window," said the warden, glancing up at the barred hole. "What do you want him for, anyway?"
"That is between Helm and I," said the armoured man imperiously.
"Fine. As long as you take him away from Nathlekh and never bring him back. If he's caught a second time, I'll be in that cell with him."
"I'll see you again the morning," said the armoured man, and he stalked out of the room through the open door. The warden, however, lingered for a moment, taking a step towards the bars of his cell, so that he was no longer in the beam of light, but cast into shadow like the rest of the room.
"Congratulations, Shizaki Hakyudo," he said with a malicious smile. "You're dead."