CHAPTER 9- A Turn for the Worse

Elsewhere, in darker settings, lay a dark damp cage. It appeared, for all practical purposes, to be a reproduction of an old medieval dungeon. For all anyone knew, it might have been real. Some might think that mere stone and good masonry isn't enough to keep a powerful wizard confined. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't, but set deep within the mortar were powerful binding spells, which incapacitated even the most powerful of wizards.

A man with shoulder length black hair lay curled into a corner, shivering uncontrollable. With a groan he forced his head up a scant few inches to glare at his surroundings. He pulled himself to sit upright, using the offending wall behind him to support himself. His mind was fragmented and torn.

He'd only been in this little filthy prison three hellish days but it already felt like an eternity. Sometimes he couldn't remember who he was. Or those he'd promised to protect.

But then he'd realized that it was partially because they put that damn drug in everything he ate and drank. So for two days he hadn't eaten. He'd barely drink.

He hated feeling weak. And he could do anything about it. Even a movement as small and insignificant as the one he had made earlier was enough to drain him. He shook, little tremors erupting through out his body.

He rubbed a free hand across his chest and murmured a single word. A name the penetrated the darkness of his little slice of hell, "Sophie".

-

Markl came back to himself slowly and groggily. He couldn't remember what had happened. He sat up, the stone beneath his hands was icily cold, and realized quickly that such a movement had been a very bad idea. A pain ripped across his mind so sharply that he cried out. He grit his teeth against the agony of it. In an attempt to relive the pain, he pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. His back found the wall and he slumped into it and didn't move till the pain was a mere throbbing in his temples. Even a tiny shift of his head made it stab at him painfully.

He wanted to sob at the injustice of it. All he wanted was his family to be together again. He wanted Sophie and Howl safe and well back at the castle. That wasn't too much to ask, to hope, for. Was it?

His cries must have gained him some attention because a pair of shoes entered his line of vision. He tilted his head up, though it made him wince. It had gone un-noticed before now, because of the pulsing throughout his entire skull, but he was in a cell of some sort. The bars were thick and rusted, the first several layers of metal peeling away like the wax of a well-used candle. Only a few well places sconces bolted to the walls kept the cell lit with dim light. Outside his cell was a walkway then another cell facing his. Markl followed the pair of shoes up to the face that belonged to them. The face of a sneering guard met his fuzzy gaze.

"I thought you might have died, little scum. Pity." He said, a severe cruel grin twisting his face into sharp angles. The light from the candles flickered and the shadows it cast on his face made him seem all the more fiendish.

Markl blinked trying to keep his eyes in focus, "Where am I?"

The guard's lip curled, "The prison in Kingsbury. So you're filthy and dumb? How you ever managed to kidnap Milady Jessica I will never know."

"What?" Markl said, trying to process what the guard's heavy foreign accent and words.

"Don't feign innocence. The whole city knows what you've done and we'll see you're properly… berated for it." The guard said, sliding his thumb slowly across his own throat.

Mark swallowed with difficulty. "I didn't kidnap anyone. I just met her on the street. Just ask her yourself!" He finished clinging to the bars, in an effort to steady himself.

He guard's hand whipped out and snatched his throat into his grasp through the bars. Markl gasped as the hand tightened, cutting off his oxygen. "Don't lie, you nasty little worm!" The guard snarled, bringing his face right up close to Markl's, "You attacked my fellow guard's men as well as Milady's own personal guard in order to steal her away. Don't deny it when a dozen people witnessed it! So don't start spoutin' off that rubbish on me, or I won't let you see the light of day ever again." He pushed him away roughly, his hand leaving his throat and Markl ended up sprawled out on the ground, coughing and gasping for air.

Markl sat up gingerly, taking slow breaths, and glared at the guard, "They're convict you of manslaughter if you kill me before my trial."

A sinister light ended the guard's eyes, "Not if it's in self defense." With those frightening parting words the guard left the hallway of cells and disappeared out of sight. With his absence, a tension left Markl's shoulders on the wings of a sigh and he touched his sore neck gently. If he had a mirror he would see the large purple bruise that had already started to form.

Markl settled himself against the cold stonewall, as far from the bars as he could and mulled over his situation. Apparently, he had been put in jail for kidnapping Jessica. But the thing was, he was pretty sure that that hadn't been his intention. Further more Jessica had gone quite willingly with him, and to that effect she had been doing most of the leading. He was just an innocent bystander. More than that, he felt as if he had been aiding the girl in escaping some very unsavory characters.

The more he thought about it the more confused and sick he felt. It didn't make any sense… unless of course this had been Jessica's intension from the start. He hadn't felt like she were bad a bad person. He wouldn't have helped her otherwise. His head throbbed painfully, reminding him that he hadn't come to be here without injury.

He took inventory of his minor and major hurts. The top and most incessantly irritating hurt was obviously his headache. The second was, well, his whole body. He felt weak and achy. If he didn't paying attention, his whole body would begin to tremble. He felt like a huge weight was lying on his chest, constricting his heart and lungs. Not to mention that he couldn't stand without getting one hellava dizzy spell.

All his symptoms pointed to- he swallowed with difficulty- drugs. He certainly hadn't been injected or inhaled anything. So that only left the things he'd eaten. He doubted anything he'd eaten that morning would take so long to affect him. Or rather, yesterday morning, he corrected, looking around the dingy cell for some kind of clue as to how long he'd been unconscious. And besides the fact, he was doubly certain that no one in his family would ever harm him that way.

So that only left two people. Jessica or that kindly old woman. They both had opportunity to put something into his food. Neither option was in any way a comforting thought. Was it possible that he had so badly misjudged one of them? Another pressing matter was the question of 'Why?'. Why would either of them do something like this? What did they have to gain from his incarceration? He didn't understand any of it.

An irresistible urge to sleep came over him and the poor boy was too exhausted and pain ridden to deny his body that one small reprieve from the horror of this situation.

-

Markl came awake with a jolt, for no apparent reason at all. His blurry gaze immediately went to the bars of his cell, expecting to see the guard sneering down at him. But there was no one. A shifting in his peripheral vision made him glance into the corner and what he saw there made him gasp.

So filthy and beaten he was barely recognizable anymore, was Howl.

Markl scrambled over to him, surprised by his presence and that the movement had cost him no moments of coherency. He sat on his knees in front of Howl, his eyes wide with hope and concern. Howl made no movement and it was then that Markl took note of the chains that bound him in place. Some of them were sharp and digging nasty cuts into his skin.

"Howl? Is it really you?" He whispered, his own voice sounding strange to his ears. His mud caked hair kept falling into his eyes, concealing them from view.

"Yes, Markl, it's me." Howl's voice was scratchy and hoarse, but more importantly, tinged with pain.

"I don't understand. How did you get here? Where have you been? Why did you leave? Don't you know how worried we've all been since you left?" Markl's wave of questions had begun out of curiosity but by the end his voice was high and accusatory. His eyes sparked with anger.

"We don't have time for that now. Listen, very carefully, and do as I-." Howl's words caught in his throat as a look of agony rippled across his features. A shudder swelled through him and Howl began to convulse.

Horrified, Markl couldn't move. Then just as suddenly as he had begun to convulse, he stopped, going as limp as a rag doll. His chest wasn't rising or falling as it should. His eyes were wide and blank, without sight. Shaking, not understanding, Markl touched Howl's hand which was already turning icy. With a sob choking him, Markl fell back.

Howl Pendragon was dead.