Beneath, part one

                Very few people knew about the capitol city’s massive underbelly. Hundreds of miles of cavernous support structure stabilized the world high overhead. But there were also few openings, so it was nearly impossible to end up down there by mistake. Of the few people that knew of this dark place’s existence only a handful had knowledge of the cells. The support structures were many hundreds of columns re-enforced magically against the ever growing weight of the city above. They were circular, thirty feet across, and for many, they were hallow. Why the cells had been built into the structure of the city is even more of a mystery than the existence of the caverns. But all the same they were there.

                When the city-states began to struggle against the empire for power the province had been sending prisoners into the darkness, without the public’s knowledge. There was never an official count taken of who was sent into the depths, but it had come out that there were many beneath the city. After peace had been reached and the rebellion squashed a public outcry had sent soldiers in to the deep to retrieve those now thought of as ‘unjustly imprisoned’ rather than ‘enemies of the state.’ Soldiers had spent more time under the city since the peace than they had in it, and perhaps that was for the best. Everyone was tired of war after so long an interlude. Mothers could take comfort in knowing that when their soldier sons went out that they would most certainly not be returning to them in a box.

                Several battalions of enlisted men spent months stumbling through the darkness of the catacombs with wizards to help them open all the cells. Each cell received a mark setting it apart as checked, and every cell that was checked contained at the very least a hand full of prisoners. They had found so many imprisoned in that time that all count had been lost. Now it had simply become a race to find them all before they starved to death. No one had any idea that the situation would be so dire. There were just too many of them. It was a wonder that there had been enough to surrender. Even those whom had believed the hardest in the cause of their government were shocked into reconsidering. When the hours had turn to days, the days to weeks, and the weeks to months, much hope was lost that all the prisoners would be found. Even so they continued to search until they came upon the last of the unmarked columns.

The wizard stood before one of the doors. There were six doors on this cell, meaning there were at least twelve individual holding cells within. The cells were designed with magic to minimize the space they took, while maximizing the capacity. It was ingenious really. Every door opened from both sides to reveal a different room, usually with terrible conditions. This single column could house up to forty prisoners, but probably held considerably more. The sorcerer began opening doors and carefully the soldiers began bringing out the detainees. They were very proud persons, though some were so emaciated that they could barely stand, but still they tried at as mighty a stance as they could muster. The prisoners accepted no help and gave no thanks for the little they received. They had the air of opposition that many of the rebel fighters had maintained through their long imprisonment. They all were quite comfortable together. They seemed to know each other well, as though they had all been friends and were now meeting again after a long absence of the others' company.

The Captain of the battalion watched as the final door was opened. It was empty. That was notably odd for in all their searching they had never encountered an unoccupied cell. The wizard tried the other side of the door. Still the cell was vacant. That was nearly unfathomable. The cells always had some prisoners, but this cell stood completely empty. It was bizarre. The Captain at first found it strange, but then thought nothing more of it and continued with his duties.

After all cells had been searched and all prisoners removed, it was the battalion’s duty to inform them of the current history. It began with 'the war is over', and went on to apologize for their prolonged captivity, and their newly instated rights as citizens of the empire. It was a speech the Captain had said so many times that he had it committed to memory. Everything went alright until there arose a disturbance that quickly became a panic that spread like wildfire to every man and woman present. He could tell they were on the verge of extreme violence if he did not act quickly.

“My friends,” he shouted over the screams, “My friends, what causes this crisis?”

At first there was no response as the group continued to swell with anger. Then slowly one woman came forward quickly followed by a short broad man. They pulled themselves through the writhing mass of humanity, and as they moved past the crowd calmed and quieted to gentle murmurs. It was as though the pair were suppressing the group's anger with sheer force of will. The two approached the Captain in earnest.

“Sir,” the woman spoke with a voice quivering from exhaustion, “there is one more in this group I am sure.”

“I am sorry Madame but all cells are empty,” he replied.

“No, we are sure,” said the man definitively.

The Captain held out his hand granting them freedom to search. The Captain followed slowly behind as the pair made their way around the column. He offered them the use of the sorcerer as they searched, but they opened none of the doors. The woman held out her hand to each door closing her eyes in concentration. As she passed the doors her companion watched intently. She was obviously searching with some magic force that the Captain could never understand. The Captain always found magic to be a useless and over rated skill. Suddenly the woman stopped before a door. The Captain immediately recognized the door to be that of the unoccupied cell.

“That cell is empty. We have checked.”

The man smiled weakly, “You have not checked it right.”

The Captain thought it a ridiculous folly, but still he allowed the two to satisfy their curiosity. The Captain nodded to the sorcerer. The wizard edged his way towards the couple, but the woman waved the man away. She knelt to the floor, but nearly fell. It was only the attentiveness of her companion that kept her from breaking upon the ground, and it was only with great effort that he did not fall to the floor on top of her. These people were not well, but still the life of this imaginary prisoner meant so much to them. The Captain watched in silence as they opened first one side of the door, then the other, finding both empty. The Captain sighed, though he knew that the cell was empty he had almost hoped for them to find what they had been searching for. He expected the couple to be satisfied with their defeat, but they carefully probed the door. Then the man huffed when he found what he had been searching for and carefully slid his hand to the base of the door. Slowly he lifted the door from the bottom and pushed it back into the entryway until it completely disappeared. The Captain was amazed, he had been certain that the doors only open from the left and the right. He had been told those were the only possible choices.

The door slide back into the frame and the Captain was stunned to see a young woman, nearly a living skeleton, dirty upon the floor, chains clasped about her wrists which were held above her head to a column in the center of the cell. The only thing that clothed the child was the dried blood and filth that seemed to coat her every surface. The Captain feared immediately for the woman's life for she did not move upon their entry into the room, and she hung so unnaturally from the chains. The two prisoners ran quickly to her side but were greatly dismayed upon finding her cold. The manacles bit fiercely into her wrists and were inscribed with magical runes. The Captain assisted with the vile bondage. He had never seen any prisoner held under such precautions. Hidden doors, shackles, solitude. She was the only prisoner in their searches to be found this way.

“Who is she?” the Captain asked himself aloud, “Who could she be that this torture would be necessary?”

The male prisoner wrapped cloth about her blood caked wrists as he spoke, “She is our strongest fighter, an unmatched sorceress. She is the reason so many of us fought for so long. She was our hope in this war.”

The woman prisoner took the girl into her arms and held her as a mother holds their dear child. She rocked the girl gently and whispered into her matted hair. It was a surreal scene, to be certain, but it seemed natural at the same time. She became a matron holding her wounded child, attempting to pass on some soothing comfort.

The young woman choked suddenly to life. The matron held the child up and allowed the girl to fill her lungs. The girl’s pupils were wide with the constant darkness that must have consumed them these past several months. She seemed wild at first, but then she calmed into the serenity of almost sleep like stillness.

The matronly woman whispered into the girl's ear and the girl emerged slowly back into consciousness. The man helped the girl up carefully and the woman steadied her. The girl was barely conscious. The Captain offered his own cloak to clothe the child warrior. Together they lead her slowly out of the cell. The Captain followed in amazement. The young woman had seemingly arisen from the life beyond. She was living on borrowed energies. They proceeded slowly to the other prisoners, and she made it about half the way back around the column before the effort became too great. She collapsed into the matron's arms. Their male companion acted quickly. He lifted the girl into his arms and ran to the other prisoners. They all came to her aid. They placed their hand upon her, as if in prayer over her limp body. In truth they were forcing into her what little strength they had. They forced their life force through her, and it cost many dearly. The prisoners began to collapse through the effort, and as the young woman regained consciousness she forced away the hands. She pulled herself from the man's arms and rolled onto the dirt. She writhed in agony upon the ground, but the Captain was not entirely sure if it was caused by physical or mental pain.

The prisoners sat back and watched in silence as she wept. She cried out in agony, and the matronly women fell to her side. But always the girl pulled away from them. She forced herself away from them all. She was just a child, held alone so long in the darkest of places that she no longer remembered sun light. She had felt the bite of tearing whips, and lethal knives, and powerful fists. She had suffered innumerable pains, unfathomable horrors, she was only a child. Her gift was her curse, her curse was magic, for it made her a gift to whatever hand wielded her. The girl wept upon the floor. The great and powerful warrior, the hope of the rebels, now lay upon the ground broken and no more than she appeared, and she appeared to be no more than a broken child.

 

Whenever prisoners were brought to the surface they went through rigorous processing. Wounds were tended with the utmost care. Meals were served with unyielding frequency. Luxuries we lavished upon all. But that was merely a front to the true goal. The government was bartering for silence. If the prisoners emerge looking healthy and happy then the situation could be down played to the point of nonexistence. And thus the new-old government doted upon the prisoners the way quarreling parents bribe their children. The last to emerge were shown nothing less than the most astute attention. The child they had taken from the hidden cell was taken right away to the infirmary, though it was not without great agitation to whole party, more than a hundred in all.

In the end the matron accompanied the girl, which was an acceptable compromise. The girl had been beaten savagely, stripped of clothes, her head had been shaved; though there was substantial new growth present, and the gods only know what other horrors had befallen her. She was only barely alive, though she breathed and wept without end. The Captain knew that the image of her hanging from the stone column would forever haunt his mind.

It took several weeks but all the prisoners were thoroughly processed including the girl. And all the prisoners emerged from their ordeal looking almost as though they had never left the world of light and life. All prisoners, after processing are given a good deal of money with which to start a new life. Some had tried to return to their former homes only to find there was nothing left. But all the same the prisoners were released into the vastly changed world with nothing more than full bellies and a less than weighty coin purse. When the prisoners were finally forced from the warm bosom of their captivity they stood in a court yard that emptied onto a road.  The road twisted down without break or branch into a small village which reveled in the traffic of those too recently come into good fortune to know they should appreciate it. The stumbling prisoners often fell from processing directly into the bar and failed to emerge again. Though some wandered the city longer than others all their party seemed to find themselves in the tavern by night fall.

They filled the small establishment to near bursting, and it had been rather full with the previous acquisitions. There were many familiar faces to be seen it was realized. Upon the bar were husbands and wives, children and parents, friends and enemies. None it seemed had been spared the torture of the beneath. The establishment was also near bursting with writhing malaise, and conspiratorial whispers. When the young girl and her companions found their way into the tavern at first everything was as it had always been, but quickly the place fell silent, the candles dimmed, and a space cleared at the bar for her as though it were a natural thing to do. When she turned from the bar a table quickly became available. When that table was passed by a booth at the back astonishingly opened. She carefully lowered herself into the emptied booth and her two attendants followed.

Alan her male guardian took the place across from her while Taya the matron sat next to her on the bench seat. For a moment the tavern was silent as though waiting upon permission to continue. Some invisible cue was given and the tavern erupted into life once more. The chaos drowned away any bit of individual conversation. There was only mass sound. The girl put her head against the table and pressed her hands against her ears. The bar hushed, though conversation continued. It was as though the tavern goers could sense her discomfort and fought to quell it.

                She had been alone in the dark too long. Sound burned her ears, light burned her eyes, and thought burned her mind. The grain of the table felt soft against her ravaged skin. She placed her hands against the surface and felt the heat in the wood. Organic and full of life as a tree it still held onto some curt semblance of life as a table. She was liked the table, there was memory of what she had been, but in truth she was as alive as the table. She pressed hands to her ears as a man stood up at the bar to make a speech.

“I can’t stand this!” he began, anger flowing through him like water, “They think a handful of silver is enough to keep us content. But I say nay! No less then freedom from this tyranny will satisfy this man! I have seen the horrors, I have lived in the beneath. Too long have I been kept from the light. Too long have I been cold, hungry and forgotten! We are warriors, we are powerful, and we don’t have to stand for this. The people of this ‘new’ empire should know what their precious government is built upon. We have an obligation to them and future generations,” his companions at the bar tried to quiet him but he would not be silenced. Taya could see the progression of his thoughts and sent him a warning glace, but he was far too intoxicated to notice, “And why should we fear them, when we have the great sorceress!” he waved his long arm in the direction of the booth in the back, but the girl had already vacated her seat and was limping towards the door. Every eye tried to pin her to the spot, but there was no force in this life that would keep her in talks of continued war. She didn’t turn at the obvious allusion to her person, nor to the whispers that followed her out of the tavern. Shortly behind Taya and Alan emerged. The great and powerful sorceress had not stopped to wait. Alan ran ahead to force her to halt. He was angry, it was clear. He had been expecting her to jump at the chance to over throw the new Empire, the same government that had imprisoned her. Yet she had literally run from the notion.

“What are you thinking?” he demanded, “Where are you going?”

She looked up at him and for the first time he saw how dead her eyes seemed. She was a broken woman, shattered into so many pieces that she would never be truly whole again. She had made a home in the darkness that she could never truly escape. That darkness terrified her to her core, and yet she could not run from it. She was bound by the weighty chains of her mind. The darkness was a result of the war she had lost. The battles she failed to win. The men she had led to their deaths. And yet they wanted her to return to the path that brought her to that darkness yet again. She would have no more of this fighting, and she wished to escape the never ending war. Taya knew this to be so, thus when she finally reached them there was nothing but sympathy in her face.

“Where will you go?” she asked gently resting her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

The girl looked into her matron’s eyes and said, “I’m going to walk until I find a people who don’t know my name or what I have done.”

“To do that you would have to find a place where there has been no war,” Alan scoffed.

But she looked at him quite seriously and replied, “Then I will go where there has been no war.”

Taya pulled back the girl’s attention and stared deeply into her eyes. She was too young to be so broken. That is why Taya did a blessing on the girls head, and kissed her gently before walking back to the tavern. Alan was stunned, how could they just let her go? Reluctantly he followed his companion towards the establishment. Taya never looked back over her shoulder, nor did she have any desire to. The girl to whom she was saying good bye had already died, she had died back in that cell far beneath the earth. Taya had no need to trouble the dead.