Chapter Fourteen
Slowly, my consciousness returned to me and I picked myself from the floor where I had fallen. My head pounded, but the only blood on my head had already dried, matting my hair. I inspected the rest of my body for injury and saw that other than numerous bruises, I sported a gash across my chest from when I had scraped along a wall in my descent. My shirt hung from me in useless tatters, so I pulled it off and used the rags to clean my wounds as best I could and change the bandage around my shoulder. I was relieved to discover that I was still in possession of my sword and the Dagger.
Only after I had assured myself that I was still intact did I take any real look at my surroundings. Looking upward, I saw beams of late afternoon sunlight shining down on me from far above, where I had broken through several weak wooden floors. I could not see the sun to guess at how long I had remained unconscious, but I knew there was no time to waste. I needed to return to Farah as quickly as possible. Looking around, I saw that I sat amidst the rubble from the collapsed ceiling, in a large room with dark, grime-streaked walls. Old straw and the rotting remains of food that had never been picked up littered the cold stone floor. Lining the four walls of the room were cold bars marking out cramped cells that contained chains attached to the walls, some still locked about the wrists or ankles of long-dead skeletons. A stink wafted towards me from all quarters, the stink of death and decay. I could see stains old and new upon the floor, stains that looked like blood from executions or unutterable torments carried out here behind bars.
In my father's palace was a prison much like this. I had never set foot inside, never even thought about what must take place here. And now, here I was, a prisoner seeking an escape. Picking myself out of the rubble, I moved closer to one of the barred walls in search of a door. When my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light away from the hole, however, I realized that I was not alone. A dozen growls rolled out towards me as I approached the cells; I drew my weapons before I realized that the creatures stood behind bars, having once been prisoners. The imprisoned sand creatures pressed their faces up against the bars, snapping and snarling at me like a pack of rabid hunting dogs long deprived of meat. Their gnarled, emaciated hands groped out towards me, seeking my living flesh, so I stayed carefully out of their way. Had they ever been human? Or had the torments they faced in these dungeons turned them into monsters before the Sands of Time had even been released?
Finally I found a narrow door in the corner, and made for it with all haste, not wanting to stay in this place any longer than necessary. I did not trust the strength of the old, rusted iron penning them in. Before I could even reach the door, something strong knocked it towards me from the other side and it crashed to the floor. Through the doorway stepped two enormous, broad-shouldered prison guards, their eyes glowing golden from the shadows of the doorway. Their faces looked as though they would be cruel even in life, and their living death had brought out all their ferocity. Both sand creatures stepped toward me menacingly, brandishing the cruel, steel-barbed whips they were accustomed to use on their prisoners. I could see swords at their belts as well.
With a sudden roar, they rushed forward, snapping out the whips with sharp cracks. I ducked swiftly, feeling the barbed cords whistling over my head, and rolled out of the way. I attempted to dart forward and stab at the nearest creature's leg, but it brought the whip whirling around before I took a single step, and I barely managed to dodge back again out of its reach. I could see that they were able to attack me from much farther than my sword could reach; these were unlike any creatures I had yet encountered. Backing up warily, I watched their long, dangerous whips carefully for an opening that I could exploit. Yet whenever I began to edge to one side, the whips would crack and I would be forced back again.
One creature seemed to tire of this, and stepped forward suddenly, snapping its whip in my direction. I could see the tips darting towards my face, and leapt backward instinctively. Yet I had run out of room to retreat, and my bare back slammed against cold iron bars. Even colder than the bars, two dessicated arms wrapped around my neck, pressing it with inhuman strength against the unresisting bars of the cell. I felt sharp teeth jab against my shoulder, tearing through blood that had barely congealed. With a desperate cry, I jabbed back over my head with my other arm, and the Dagger sank into the creature, sucking away the pain.
Before I could recover, my pursuers were upon me, and I saw that one had abandoned its whip in favor of its sword. I blocked the creature's blow, but its strength knocked by arm back against the hard bars of the cell, and pain danced up from my elbow. Yet I wasted no time considering the pain. Bracing a foot against a bar, I brought up my sword and propelled myself quickly forward, under the creature's lunging attack, and slammed my sword as hard as I could into its chest. The creature's sword clattered to the floor, and as it staggered backwards and fell to its knees, I wrenched my sword back out, leapt to its shoulders, then flipped backwards to where I could hear the other creature snarling and cracking its whip. Twirling around so I could face it, I brought my sword crashing down upon its head and felt it split in two. The body fell beneath me, the whip falling uselessly to the floor, and I gathered the fallen guards' sands with immense relief.
Yet when I stood up, I saw that I had come close to the next cell, and the creature held within reached out furiously, gnashing its glowing yellow teeth and groping with long-nailed fingers. I hastily backed away, looking around at all the creatures howling and snarling behind their bars, straining as if to snap them in half though they had not the strength. I knew they could not reach me as they were, yet I did not want to linger any longer in this place than I needed. The sand creatures' voices always meant pain and strife, and I had come to dread the sound of their approach. Down in the gloom and stench of the prison, they seemed even more horrific than before. The sand creatures were always vicious and bloodthirsty, yet somehow these creatures seemed even more so than usual. I watched as one used the bars of its cell to break an arm, as if that would help it escape and reach me. A shudder shook me from head to toe, and I recoiled from them to the door. I thought, as I stepped through, that I would leave the creatures to their own misery. Yet as I took in the next room, which looked even more grisly than the last, I felt my dread and horror only rise within me.
Several more guards stood in this room, armed to the teeth, and even as I watched, one of them pulled a lever in the wall. A rusty creak echoed throughout the prison, and all the prison doors behind me swung open. I could hear the eager howls of the creatures rushing towards me even as the guards started forward as well. I was trapped between two vicious mobs.
For a moment, terror froze me to the metal grate that made up the entire floor. Yet as I stood and heard the hungry howls draw ever nearer from before and behind, an idea began to form in my mind. Drawing myself up, I waited until the foremost creature in each group rushed in for the kill, then leapt into the air as they collided, swords slamming into one another's chests rather than mine. I landed feet-first on the next burly guard and toppled its large body to the ground with the Dagger in its skull, slashing viciously at the creature that had been standing behind it. My sword sliced through its soft belly, sending sand pouring in every direction. Its head flew through the air, hitting one of the creatures that had been imprisoned. Swiftly I thrust the Dagger forward to gather up the scattering sand, blocking several blows with my sword.
The creatures pressed in on every side, so after kicking out at one of the thinner creatures, I turned towards the wall, ran up its rough stones a short length, then kicked off to sail over the heads of my enemies. As I descended, I sliced a creature at the fringe of the crowd in half, hastily jabbing the Dagger into it. The remaining creatures roared as they turned to face me once again, and I darted towards the pole standing in the middle of the room, where the guards would chain prisoners to beat them. As the creatures rushed around me, I spun swiftly around the pole with sword outstretched, catching the creatures by surprise and immediately felling several in a circle about the pole. I spun away from the pole, darting around to take the creatures' sands before the few that remained could close the distance and attack. Yet as I plunged the Dagger into the final creature, I felt cold iron clamp around my throat, and realized that one of the imprisoned creatures was using its chain to choke me.
The chain tightened around my neck till I could not draw breath. The last guard came toward me, brandishing its whip to use on me as it had on many other men bound by chains. As my vision began to fade, I threw the Dagger towards the approaching guard with all my might and swung my sword as best as I could around behind me. The pressure around my neck lightened as the creature dropped the chain, and the vicious iron fell from my neck as I coughed and gasped for breath. I saw that the Dagger had fallen to the floor after drawing in the sands of the guard, and I quickly reached for it, but even as my fingers extended it slipped between the metal of the grate floor. Before I could despair or turn around to finish off the last creature, a sudden great force struck my back and sharp nails jabbed into the bare skin of my back. I slammed into the floor, and with the sound of rending metal, the grate gave way beneath me.
Scraping past sharp metal edges as I tumbled head-over-heels into the newly made hole, I fell below the floor with the creature still clinging to me desperately. The descent was not long, but as I landed atop the creature, its grip loosened and I was able to roll away. The ground was uneven and my footing uncertain, but I had neither light nor time enough to inspect my surroundings adequately. I spied the Dagger close by, glowing faintly as usual, and grabbed it even as the creature came howling at my back. Whirling around, I plunged the Dagger straight into its open mouth, past its gnashing teeth and out the back of its throat, and cut off its howls forever.
Sand converged upon me, sliding through the grate above me and wrapping around me till I could no longer see the bloody prison. I collapsed wearily to the ground before the sand overtook me, yet even though my eyes closed in exhaustion, images still burned across them. I saw myself fighting for my life, slowly working my way up a curving flight of stairs. Though the sight of even more pain and fighting should have made my heart sink with dread, I felt instead the refreshing breath of hope, for Farah was at my side, pulling back the bowstring to her ear and aiding me in our common quest. Then the familiar sights of battle faded away, and I saw myself sitting upon the ground with head bowed (whether in remorse, shame, or merely weariness, I could not tell). Farah knelt at my side, and with a gentle look in her fierce dark eyes, took my hand in hers. Even in the grip of the vision, I could feel my heart pound.
As soon as my eyes opened to see the broken grate above me, I spoke aloud, though the only living ears to hear me were my own, "All right. I've decided. I will marry her. I'll tell her the first chance I get." I smiled to myself. "It's time to put an end to all this...fencing about and not saying what one really means. We've made it this far! It's foolish to deny what we both feel..." I fell silent, ruminating over these happy thoughts. We had met but the night before, yet all our time together had been spent aiding one another, and if these hours of strife and peril had drawn me closer to her, was it too much to imagine that her affections would be turned toward me as well? If the vision spoke true – and the visions never lied – then she would only be overjoyed to hear my pronouncement.
Yet gradually another sensation invaded upon these pleasant contemplations. I became aware of a foul stench, and felt many odd shapes pressing against my back as I lay on the uneven ground where I had fallen. I sat up, and heard a clattering sound as the ground shifted with my movements. The light was dim, but I bent down over the pile of stone and earth upon which I lay. I picked up one of the large stones and held it to the light to examine it – then dropped it immediately and recoiled with a cry. It was a human skull. Looking around myself now, I saw piles of skeletons and half-rotted corpses, all jumbled together in a confusion of tangled bodies, where the guards had thrown dead prisoners. They were all about me, empty eye sockets staring at me, broken teeth leering, rotting hands groping towards me. The stench was overpowering, and even as I struggled to stand, I lost my footing and the dead bodies nearly seemed to grasp at me and throw themselves upon me, hoping to drown me in their cold, eternal embrace.
Finally I managed to grasp onto the edge of the hole over my head, and quickly scrambled up it till I was out of the pit of death. I was covered with grime and blood both old and new, but I cared nothing for that. After the dark and terror of the pit, the upper level of the prison, with its merciless cells and bloodstains on the walls, seemed to me a place of light and warmth. Breathing a sigh of relief, I grasped the bars of the nearest cell lest I break through the floor again.
Hoping to still my racing heart, I slid to the floor and leaned against the wall. I dared not look down through the holes in the floor, fearing to see the corpses leering up at me, perhaps moving in some mockery of life that the Sands had wrought. Instead I turned my gaze to a crate at my side, a small metal box with metal bars that allowed one a view of its contents. Peering inside, I saw the white glimmer of bones, and chuckled weakly to myself, desperately needing something to laugh at. Why on earth would anyone go to the trouble of locking a bundle of bones in a cage? "Look, there's bones in a box!" I said lightly to myself, hoping to lift my spirits even a little. Yet as I continued to gaze through the metal bars, I realized they made a human skeleton, bent and deformed, as though there had once been a person confined in that tiny space, forced to bend nearly double, unable to move at all. I stared, stricken, at the bones of a hand clutched desperately, futilely, around one of the bars.
Scrambling back onto my feet, I looked around desperately for an escape from this dreadful place. All that met my eyes spoke of pain and gruesome, prolonged death. I could see many assorted torture devices set up around the walls of the room – thumbscrews and whips hanging on the walls, stone pots where hot coals would smolder, waiting for one of the many metal implements hanging on the walls to be inserted, then held against the most sensitive flesh of a prisoner. It was the first time I had seen such devices at close range. Close enough to touch. The men whose trade it had been to apply the question, to extract the answer their king sought, now resided within the Dagger as nothing but sand. In the end, they had met the same fate as their victims. Guards and prisoners were made equal by the Sands of Time. Their only legacy now lay in the cruel devices laid about the room, and the bones beneath my feet.
The dark silence was oppressive in this place of death, and I searched for a way out ever more earnestly. Looking up, I saw far above me a hole in the ceiling that let a dim light fall down into the room. The walls drew closer to each other as they neared this hole, and many metal beams criss-crossed the empty space to support the ceiling. Finally I thought I could see a way to escape this prison. Grasping one of the chains hanging from the whipping-post in the center of the room, I climbed up and precariously balanced myself on the top. Before I could lose my balance, I leapt towards the nearest support beam and managed to grasp it with my fingertips. As I hung there for a moment, I looked up at the beams stretching up to the top. I knew this was my only hope, but it would require much strength.
Swinging myself towards the wall, I kicked off it and leapt towards the next pole behind me, then kicked off the opposite wall to another pole above that one. In this way I climbed ever upward, drawing closer and closer to the hole. My shoulders ached as all my weight hung from them, and a few times I heard a clatter as the pole I had just let go of fell to the floor far below. I could not spare a single moment to rest, not with such a distance to fall, so I pressed onwards till I could grasp the lip of the round hole with my fingers and heave myself through it.
Yet even then, I was allowed no respite. For as soon as I emerged from the opening into the dazzling sunlight, I became aware of the sounds of sand creatures making battle. Leaping away from the hole, I immediately drew forth my weapons and faced off against my enemies. Many of the creatures already lay upon the ground, but I had no time to wonder at this, using every mental faculty and every ounce of strength left in my body to fight off the few who remained standing. Sunlight bounced off the white stones of the courtyard where I stood, nearly blinding me, yet I managed to dance around the blows of the large creatures who assailed me and collect the sand from their fallen comrades. Yet weariness made me stumble, and several times I barely dodged a creature's attack.
At last, I leapt upon one of the final creatures, who wielded a bow, and twisted its own bow around its neck until it fell at my feet, then stabbed it with the Dagger. As I rose from the ground, my knees gave out under me and I stumbled back to the ground, just as the last creature ran howling towards me. I attempted to raise my weapons to defend myself, but my arms were leaden and dropped back to my sides as darkness closed in on me. The creature raised its sword for one final stroke, but I saw a flash of red and heard a distant twang of a released bowstring. The creature fell on the Dagger I still clutched in my hand, and I collapsed wearily onto the stones. I longed for a deep, dreamless sleep, but the sands soared towards me, whirling past my eyelids even as they closed in sleep.