Jhary had spent a quiet and reflective evening alone in his quarters. He was by nature a calm and affable man, at ease in most social situations. However tonight he had felt unusually withdrawn. That did not matter, his new Lord had been in no mood for music after today's scare, and the slaver had dined almost alone.

There was as always a lone guard placed on duty at Jhary's door, but there were no chains to bind him. Jhary was free to move as he wished about the house and compound, even if he was shadowed by the appointed watcher. The bard had found this unnerving at first, but as the weeks wore on the idea had become a matter of course. This idea of freedom was by far more palatable than what many others must bear.

He had pondered going to Aurianne's room but had decided after the events of today his actions may be deemed other than innocent. Tonight as he looked out on the chill compound beyond, he debated for the first time being truly brave. His friend had almost died today. A man who had saved him many times without ever calling on payment. He was sorry this evening for the way he had reacted over the incident with the mule in the canyon. He felt ungrateful and stupid, and what of his friend?

The bard sighed, listening to the faint sounds of those housed below carry to him on the night wind. Sounds of human misery and anguish. He was down there, suffering, his friend. Jhary fretted over how he could make a difference, what could he do? He might be able to escape alone, yes, that would not be so difficult. He may even be able to engineer the escape of the beautiful Aurianne if he was clever enough, but what of his friend? He was devoid of ideas, even bad ones.

He pulled the thick velvet drapery to cover the iron-barred window. There was no glass in the abandoned panes to keep out the cold. Glass was a commodity that had become hard to come by. The thickness of the plush velvet was all that was available to keep out the worst of the chill. He pushed a chair up against the drape to stop it from being blown open and went to the side table to snuff out the candle. He sat in the dark for some time. Why, he thought, do our troubles seem oh so magnified by night?

*****

Aran had at first lain in abject misery bound in chains. The dirt floor was unyielding beneath him. As his fight wore off his agony grew. He was aware of the taste of his own blood in his mouth, mingled with the grit of the sand from the floor. He tried to raise his head but he could not do so for any extended length of time. His chest and midsection throbbed where it had been raked by the unkind caress of steel. The back of his left knee was on fire.

He exhaled, and even that small act hurt. He wanted to cough, though he dared not. He tried to stifle the reflex. However, the sand he had inhaled aggravated it more. Losing the fight, he rolled in pain coughing hard, falling back on his face in the dust. It was already growing dark and he was beginning to shiver from the cold.

In the depths of his mind, he was despairing. I will be ill this time, this will weaken me. If I weaken I succumb. If I succumb I die. He didn't want to die, but he didn't wish to live. Least not in his present circumstance.

He was chained in such a fashion to prevent him from standing. Not that he was sure he could, even if allowed the freedom to do so. Wrists tightly manacled together, with no slack length of chain in between, ankles likewise. To add to his encumbrance, a short length of chain passed between the manacles on his wrists and ankles ensuring his knees stayed bent in a drawn-up position to prevent him from kicking. Aran thrashed and struggled against the impediment of the chain. It was a mindless act, with nothing to be accomplished, yet he did it anyway in his remaining fury.

Keith was a hard man but not a cruel one. He cared for his charges well, even the difficult and dangerous ones. Though the passage of time and the ensuing misery may have seemed long and unreasonable to Aran. Keith did not make the injured fighter long wait for medical attention. The day was drawing in, the dark came early now, eerily so.

Aran looked up through his haze of anger and pain to witness Keith and his entourage of faceless guards standing about him in a semi-circle. The men lifted him and bore him to a cleaner cell. He was placed on his back on a wooden bench, the chain joining his ankles and wrists released. Though his guards were careful to pin his legs and arms to the board beneath strong hands.

Aran made a feeble attempt at defiance but was stilled by Keith's calm but demanding words. "This will go easier if you cooperate, do you understand?" Thumbs and fingers digging into his slack jaw. Aran looked up to see Keith peering at him intently, demanding some form of recognition. Aran exhaled and his body slumped to the dead weight on the table, he groaned and nodded.

He desired to fight his captors. However, he had little left. He closed his eyes and let the arena master clean his wounds. Keith attended the simple ones first. In the main most of the angry gashes were superficial. Keith was pleased with what he saw. This man should have come out of that one-sided contest in a far worse state than he had.

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Though his wounds stung as they were cleaned, Aran used the sharp pain to focus on the present. He felt he was slipping away, and he fought the terrible suffusion that was dampening his clarity. His mind was muddy, his head an explosion of pain. He could barely see, and when he did try to look about him the sharp pricks of the candlelight caused a roaring pain in his head.

He gave up and lay back on the hard wooden bench, letting Keith have free reign over his exhausted body. He had not felt this way since he had sustained the terrible wound in his sword arm almost a year before.

He was almost asleep. Aran could feel the warm water on the cloth and the sting of salve as it was applied. The methodical action soothed him. He was dreaming it was Maya in attendance, not the rough hands of some soldier out in the field. More grotesque pain as he was rolled over onto his stomach. Keith was prodding at the back of his torn knee. Aran clenched his teeth to stifle an outcry of pain.

He writhed under the sea of impersonal hands that held him. Keith paused and took up the candle from the edge of the bench as Aran thrashed about. The men attempting to again subdue him. "Stop, let him go." Keith instructed the men. They looked at the arena master quizzically as they retreated, to leave Aran to thrash about for some moments.

It finally dawned on Aran he had nothing but shadows to fight. He ceased his struggle and lay panting on his stomach, muscled arms stretched out above his head still tightly manacled together.

"I know it hurts, but we have to look at it." Keith said quietly.

He said more but Aran could not grasp the man's words through the curtain of jagged pain. He heard one of the men leave the cell, and the iron door clank shut.

Keith tentatively assessed the wound. Again Aran had been immeasurably lucky. The curved axe head had somehow missed the tendons behind the knee. Instead, cutting down and incising his upper calf. No true and lasting damage had been wrought. However, the wound needed to be stitched and bandaged to heal well.

"Okay." Keith said, "we are going to sit you up."

Aran nodded, he was beyond caring, he just wanted to sleep.

The men assisted him to a sitting position on the sturdy bench. Aran's head lolled forward, he wavered unsteadily as Keith helped him maintain his balance. The guard had returned from his errand, bearing a hand-thrown clay mug, brimming with an unknown warm beverage.

"Drink." Keith encouraged as he held the mug up to Aran's cracked lips. Aran was suspicious, this man had drugged him before. The warrior paused, reluctant. The substance smelled like plain black tea. He could feel the caress of the warm fluid on his lips, he gave in to impulse and drank.

It was exceedingly bitter, far more bitter than he had ever remembered plain black tea being. However it had been so long since Aran could honestly say he had partaken of real tea, his recollection may not have been accurate. He had never much cared for tea anyway.

Though he desired not to drink all of the mug's contents Keith pressed him to. He was now too tired and sore to fight and did as the man wished. Anything to be able to once again lie down. An iron brazier had been brought into his cell, Aran could feel the welcome warmth on his side adding to his sleepiness, as he let Keith continue cleaning his wound. It hurt and at times the warrior would twitch in pain.

Curiously the poking and prodding did not feel as sharp as before, and before he knew it his eyes were closed. Pain banished in sleeping bliss...

*****

He could see the hue of royal purple. Yes, the color that heralded kings. He tried to open his eyes, to see more clearly. It was as though he was peering through a gauze curtain set before him, rendering all objects indistinct. Try as he might Aran could not focus. He turned about swiveling his neck. He could no longer see the defining bars of his imprisonment. Just darkness, deep and unfathomable, stretching on indefinitely.

He looked down as he felt a weight straddling his lower torso, ivory flesh, a pool of raven hair. She was not at all heavy as she sat astride him, her hands spread before her, fingers bejeweled in stones not of any earthly brilliance. He tried to rise up onto his elbows, to see her better and, more importantly, to touch her. She was exquisite, unblemished, and fine.

Alarm as Aran discovered he was unable to move, it was as though he was paralyzed. He was strong he knew that, why was his body not responding? He felt the tips of her dainty, long fingers meander up his abdominals and come to rest on his pectorals. He salivated, he wanted her as he ached and burned in his need. They had sent him a reward for his victory after all...

There were others present too he registered with a start, pale faces in the near darkness watching on. Whispers in an indefinable language like the hiss of snakes passing between these unknown entities. Aran lay exposed to these beautiful beings, experiencing fruition of a sort. However not an active fruition of his desires, it was more of a passive one.

She touched him tenderly on his face, this unknown maiden. She smelled of violets, sensuality, and female musk. He opened his lips and she traced the contours of his mouth. He desired to taste her, bite her, take her, to make her give him her all. Yet, it was she who was in control, not he. This bothered him in the back of his mind, this lack of assertive control. He craved more, but she was leaving. He fought to move his arm, to catch her raven hair in his hand. No, she could not go, he was not finished...no!

*****

Aran stretched out his hand, out into the darkness. Softness beneath it, he curled his fingers about his retreating prize, crying out in pain. His eyes opened to the black right angles of bars above him, and he found he was clutching no more than the lambswool hide rug that had been cushioning his resting place. He had twisted in his slumber onto his injured leg in an attempt to rise. The ensuing pain is so violent it had fractured his dream state completely.

He rolled over onto his back, breath coming in ragged gasps. Realizing he was now completely unfettered. He felt nauseous and dizzy, and not entirely present in his mind. He was sure Keith had given him something to calm him and make him sleep. The coals were dying now in the nearby brazier, he shuffled closer to its circle of warmth, shivering violently. Pulling his fur cape over him and again drifted off once more.