As promised, here is the second half of the chapter. If you saw a garbled version of this chapter a little earlier, the fanfiction site is a bit wonky today, I guess. I think I've fixed it. This is probably the longest chapter I've ever written! I hope you enjoy. I am so grateful for any reviews I receive if you have the time and feel inclined, or send me a pm.

Aramis' brothers found that the room where they had fought and subdued the now-unhooded men also had a second door opposite the first one, so since this would be somewhere they hadn't yet been, they decided to search there first.

Unlocking the door with a set of keys hanging on the wall next to the door, they found when they opened it that there were three hallways branching out from a small alcove containing a desk with a chair behind it and one facing it from the opposite direction. They surmised that it might have belonged to the man in charge of the prison guards, but it was just conjecture made a century later.

They kept together, Athos not certain they might not find more of the men who worked with the ones who were now locked up, and not wanting to risk one of them being alone and attacked.

They went down each of the corridors, checking cells for Aramis, but the cells had all obviously been unused for a very long time. There was an air of mustiness everywhere they went.

Finishing the three hallways, they were at a loss as to where to look next. They looked at each other, growing disappointment and sadness in their eyes. They had been so hopeful. Maybe those men had never been here to guard Aramis in the first place. They may have just been local bandits who may have just happened upon the place, and thought it would be a good place for a hideout for themselves and their ill-gained goods.

Still, there was a feeling they all had that their brother was near. They were so attuned to each other that they could often sense each other's presence without any evidence to the contrary. So they continued to look.

They finally found themselves back in the room they had fought in, which seemed to be the center of the sprawling prison ruins.

"He's here," Porthos growled. "I can feel it. He's here."

"We've been over every inch of this moldering ruin, Porthos," Athos said, understanding exactly what Porthos was feeling. "We have nowhere else to look."

The silence that descended at these words was painful and telling. They didn't often run into this bad of a dead end, where all the possibilities had been exhausted.

The uncomfortable, heavy silence stretched out, none of them even allowing the idea of defeat to enter their minds and hearts.

"I may have an idea?" Laurent hesitantly broke the silence.

They all swiveled their heads towards him, hardly daring to think that he could have information to help them. But desperate hope spread over their faces as they waited for him to speak.

"One of the things my brother couldn't wait to show me was one of the most evilly-conceived things I have ever seen," he said softly, his eyes reflecting some terrible sight his brother had shown him at the tender age of seven innocent years.

"There was this….deep pit." He stopped, now in the grip of his memories. "They unlocked this grate, and my brother made me look inside. He held up a torch, and I could see how far down it was. Without the torch, it was pitch black."

Athos quietly said in a tone of disgust, "An oubliette," the others nodding. They had all, unfortunately, seen one before, during a mission the year before. It had disgusted them all.

"My brother seemed to take great delight in describing it to me. Telling me convicted men were sometimes sentenced to them, and that none of them ever got out again. They wasted away for days, weeks, years, depending on how long they were fed. Many went mad long before their deaths."

"Do you remember where this oubliette was, Laurent?" Athos asked him, hoping against hope that he remembered enough of what his child's mind had seen.

Laurent shook his head slowly, and their hearts sank.

But he began to speak again. "I remember it wasn't in a cell. The oubliette was located in a room at the end of a hallway, but that's all."

Determination and growing hope started filtering into their expressions again at these words.

"Those dark musty rooms full of cobwebs!" Porthos exclaimed. "But we looked in them already."

"We looked from the hallway," Athos responded. "We did not walk around the rooms themselves."

"If he was there, wouldn't Aramis have called out?" D'Artagnan asked.

"Not if he was in no condition to have heard us," Athos grimly explained, all three of them's insides knotting themselves up as they realized how bad off Aramis would have to be not to notice any sounds.

Without a word, they all turned and headed back to the center of the prison.

They reached the room which seemed to be the chosen place for the enemy to conduct their affairs, then backtracked through the empty, darkened rooms, searching for any opening in the floor that might lead them to their brother. They swept aside the clinging, filmy cobwebs that seemed to be determined to cling onto their hats and doublets, and even the sides of their faces. They moved aside the few wooden boxes they found, first looking inside of them. Rats and other crawling things skittered away from the lights of their lanterns.

They had finished searching all the rooms on one side of the corridor, and were most of the way down the other side. Their hopes felt like they were about to be dashed once again.

It was in the next to last cell, almost back to the central room, that Athos, bending over to examine something, called out, "Here!" Porthos, d'Artagnan and Laurent were at his side immediately, as he pointed.

There, under some kind of black cloth covering which Athos had already pulled asude, was a grate. It was locked, and Athos looked expectantly at Porthos and his lock-pick abilities.

Crouching down, it took him less than a minute to pick the lock. He then lifted up the grate, peering down into the blackness. They could not see how deep the oubliette was.

Porthos tried calling out, "Aramis! Aramis! Are you there?" but he received no answer from the inky darkness.

D'Artagnan, who had been looking around the room, said, "We need something to help us get down there. They very obligingly left us just what we need," holding up a long ladder, which he and Porthos carried over to the pit and maneuvred against its inside wall. They did so as slowly and carefully as they could, as it was virtually impossible to see anything, and if Aramis was indeed down there, they didn't want to risk hitting him.

Athos elected himself the one to head down the ladder. Removing his hat, weapons belt and doublet, he swung himself over the side, and, grasping the sides of the ladder, began moving down, d'Artagnan coming along behind. The Gascon had argued that without a torch or lantern, Athos would be feeling around for Aramis, or even possibly stepping on a hand or foot without meaning to. Athos acquiesed.

Even with the lantern held aloft as they stepped off the ladder, the darkness in the pit took a moment to get used to.

At first, they feared that the pit was empty, seeing no one. Bu then, d'Aragnan raised the lantern higher.

D'Artagnan suddenly said, " He's there! pointing towards the far wall. Athos began to make out a huddled shape and a glimpse of curly locks amidst the gloom. They both moved swiftly to what they saw.

Their hearts were torn in two by the sight they beheld as they knelt down on either side of their brother.

Athos spoke softly to him, "Aramis? and once more a little louder, "Aramis?" but there was no answer or movement.

"He is unconscious," Athos said.

From the meagre light of the lantern, they could see that he had tried as best he could to curl into a ball, which right away told them he probably was wounded or sick, as it was a trait he had when either of those occurred. Athos knew they didn't have time to check into his condition more closely, as they had no idea if more of his kidnappers would be showing up at any moment.

He saw the shackles on his wrists, and attached to the wall behind him. 'They added cruelty upon cruelty,' he thought. 'He had no way to climb out of here. Why did they then add these?'

He was at the boiling point, but with effort held it in. Now was neither the time or place for it to be unleashed. But there would be a reckoning, and he would exact judgement at that time for his brother.

D'Artagnan called up to Porthos, "I need your lock picks, Porthos," bringing Porthos' bubbling anger to even a higher level at the added senseless cruelty to his best friend.

He dropped them as carefully as he could towards d'Artagnan, hoping their youngest had learned enough from the lessons he had given him to get the shackles off.

Aramis had not moved or made a sound thus far. This prompted Athos to lay two fingers along the dide Aramis' neck, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt the reassuring thump of his heartbeat but at the same time his worry ratcheted up a further notch.

With his doublet and cloak on, he hadn't been fully affected by the chill in the air. But when he had touched his brother's skin, it was icy cold. Swiftly, he pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around the frigid body of his brother, he and d'Artagnan lifting him as carefully as they were able, not knowing what other injuries he might have.

But as they started to lift his upper body off the dirt floor, he gasped in pain, glassy eyes opening, but they coul see that he wasn't lucid.

"Pl….please…don' h…hurt m..me," he gasped before suddenly going utterly limp once more. Athos tried to soothe him, saying softly, "We are taking you out of here, Aramis," but his brother was no longer even semi-conscious to hear the words.

Athos and d'Artagnan looked at each other, silently wondering what else was done to him that they couldn't yet see in the gloom. His shirt and body were covered in the dirt he had been laying in, so any further examination would necessarily have to wait until they got away from this forsaken place, and found a safe place to make camp. Then, they could wash off some of the accumulated dirt and thus see what shape he was in.

It was intensely worrisome to all of them that he was seemingly completely unaware of any of them being present. That alone told them something more was dreadfully wrong that they had yet to discover.

But knowing how many men they had seen in the times they had run-ins with them, Athos was fairly positive more men had been here, and might be returning at any time. Laurent's brother was missing also, as he had not identified any of the dead or captured men.

D'Artagnan finally picked the lock of the shackles, and hissed when he saw the deep red grooves they had carved in Aramis' wrists.

Now that they were free to move him, they did so as careflully yet swiftly as possible. While he was unconscious, the movement wouldn't cause him any more pain.

The only way to get him out of the oubliette was to tie a rope under his arms, and for Porthos and Laurent to pull him up. They both hoped fervently that it wouldn't further make any injuries he had worse, but it was the only way to free him from the nightmare of the pit.

He was pulled slowly and with as much care as possible, Porthos trying his best to make sure there were no jerks or swaying of the rope.

Finally, his body reached the edge of the pit, where Porthos carefully and gently lifted him over the rim and into his arms. Looking down at his brother's pale, almost white face and body, covered with dirt and with blood, eyes closed in unconsciousness, Porthos' face reflected the horror and pain he felt for him, as well as the intense anger towards the evil men who had done this.

Wrapping the cloak more securely around his brother, Porthos and Laurent waited in silence for their brothers to climb back up to them.

Before he ascended out of the pit, d'Artagnan had taken one more look around the floor. Seeing a pile of objects in the corner, he looked closer. A few waterskins, bags and a number of ropes lay jumbled up. The ropes had been sliced by a knife. 'Is this how they fed him,' d'Artagnan thought, 'so they didn't have to make a trip down the ladder?'

Then, another thought accurred to him as Athos called to him, "D'Artagnan, hurry. We need to get away as swiftly as possible."

Taking one more look, he counted 9 of each item. 'That can't be!' his shocked mind thought.

After finally climbing up the ladder, Porthos lifted Aramis, and they moved swiftly down the hallway, through the entranceway where they had come in, and waited a few minutes until d'Artagnan and Laurent retrieved their horses.

Athos and d'Artagnan, infinitely gentle with Aramis, took him from Porthos long enough for him to mount, before lifting him once more into the gentle giant's arms.

Mounting themselves, they urged their horses into a gallop, wanting to shed the images of the prison and it's revealed horrors, and get a good distance away before more of Aramis' kidnappers would return. Then, they could finally see what shape Aramis was truly in and take care of him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At the prison, Mattieu and six of his men returned after finishing an errand Richelieu had insisted he needed done promptly.

Heading for their central room, they were stunned to find chaos when they opened the door, signs of a fierce fight evident everywhere.

Hearing yelling from the inner cells, he strode through the connecting door to find two of his men bound and locked in a cell.

"Musketeers, Mattieu! They were looking for…." stopping when Mattieu spun on his heel and sped back through their makeshift headquarters and down the hallway at a rapid pace, his men trying to keep up with him. The scowl on his face made them apprehensive, as they were acutely aware of his temper, some of them having been victims of it at one time or another. They dreaded his anger, as he would take it out on whoever was available.

When he entered the room containing the oubliette, he boiled over at the sight of the lifted grate.

Turning to his men, he snarled, "Am I the only one who does things right? The men I hired couldn't defend this place? What did I hire you for?" as his men backed away from his temper. They were glad they weren't in the shoes of the men locked in the cell.

"Saddle back up! We have some Musketeers to catch!"

One man a little braver, or not so bright the other men thought, spoke up, asking,"What about our men locked in the cell, Mattieu?"

Glaring at the timerity of his man, Mattieu growled, "You will leave them there. They will have plenty of time to regret being overpowered, and letting our prisoner be rescued. Let's go!"