I stand upon the back of Cran who had transformed himself into a giant wooden bird as we fly above a blanket of clouds following a glirdon toward the task that will save Ashe, Upendo, and Mlinzi from the highest court of the glirdon. I grimace as the frustration of being manipulated by a man I thought I could trust burns like a fire within. Upendo acted all friendly toward me only to leverage my last friend that isn’t a plant or shares a piece of my soul… Upendo leveraged someone who is basically my sister against me without consulting me and then gave himself and Mlinzi up as additional leverage and some form of recompense for what he did to Ashe. What type of boar shit is Upendo pulling, no one needed to become a hostage as I was more than willing to do whatever the Glirdon wanted if it meant that I gained their blessing to become their ambassador to the people of Tackenae. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now. Why did Upendo up and overcomplicate a situation that should have been simple.

To distract my boiling thoughts, I watch as the glirdon in front of us looks like she is swimming through the air as she flaps her fins by oscillating her entire body. How the glirdon flies looks like the ripples of water made by throwing a rock into a still pond. I also notice that the three crescent moon shadow of a glirdon in flight is formed by the glirdon holding their wrists with their hands in front of their face to be able to move their arm fins into a position that extends out from their body, and the fins on their legs and tail extend outward to finish the distinct silhouette.

I sit down upon Cran’s back and stare at the glirdon and force my brain to entertain the question of how the glirdon is even able to fly, as I genuinely don’t see how glirdon flight is possible and this curiosity helps push the anger deeper inside myself. I gaze at the glirdon through my spiritual eyes and ears and focus on the fins of the glirdon, and I see that they are filled with hydrogen gas that is lighter than air and that within their bodies they also possess bladders that are filled with hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas originates from the stomach of the glirdon, where it is then pumped into the various storage bladders and fins of the glirdon. The vast storage of a gas less dense than air is coupled with Glirdon bones being similar to bird bones in that they are pneumatized which reduces the glirdon’s weight allowing for a glirdon to at least glide upon the winglike fins upon their arms, legs and tails.

Though the glirdon don’t just glide, they fly, and hydrogen is the secret to how they compensate for the difference between these two actions. In addition, to the hydrogen gas stored throughout the glirdon’s body acting to lighten the weight of the glirdon and fill their fins to stretch the fleshy sacks of the fins into the shape of an aerodynamic airfoil, it appears that the hydrogen is also used as fuel for propulsion. The bone-like projections that emerge from the glirdon’s back are connected to what could be described as a tertiary lung that then connects to the various hydrogen stores in the glirdon’s body and the glirdon’s other two lungs. Air and hydrogen mix within the glirdon’s tertiary lung and then the gas mixture is expelled out of the bone like projections on the glirdon’s back. These bone-like structures are composed of a material that reacts with the gas mixture, igniting it as it is expelled, to create a focused jet of flame. The glirdon releases bursts of propulsion from her bone tubes in between her oscillating dance in the air that flaps her fins to not just glide but fly.

“No wonder the glirdon were so uneasy when you summoned plasma balls,” says Cran who must have been peering into my thoughts, “one misplaced spark and…”

“Boom,” I say finishing his thought, “knowing what makes glirdon fly now, we might have been able to take on the entire glirdon army with a single torch.”

“You’d really blow up all those people?” asks Cran eerily turning his birdlike head one hundred and eighty degrees to look at me with his bioluminescent eyes.

I nod my head and say, “For Ashe I would. Ashe, Esther, Lamia and Gareth’s child are all I have left... If there was no other way to save her, I’d burn the skies to rescue her.”

“We’ve changed, haven’t we?” asks Cran turning his head the other one hundred and eighty degrees to put his head back on straight.

“Why wouldn’t I,” I say remembering Argentum’s disappointment at my failure to follow through on a moment of opportunity long ago, “if I wasn’t weak and misguided before, maybe my family would still be alive.”

“Is mercy weakness?” asks Cran voicing a question that floats in my heart.

Though I don’t know the actual answer to the question I say, “mercy without wisdom is foolishness. Mercy unrestrained is a weakness.”

“You’d second guess being called upon to kill in the past, and even judged Uzuri for her decision to kill the Gehennan,” says Cran reading my mind to voice the uncertainty in my answer, “yet now that you are called upon to destroy a jail and potentially kill to achieve this goal you do not hesitate. Why?”

“I didn’t want her to taint herself with sins like mine… I held that woman on a pedestal and didn’t want her to fall from grace like I did… The Gehennan were mostly women and children with very few men… I killed most of the guards that would have joined the Gehennan the day I killed Gehenna… The choices made by a few men damned so many that didn’t need to die… Right now, I don’t have the luxury of debate like I did in the councils that lead Uzuri to choose the destruction of the Gehennan… We no longer have a choice... not just because the glirdon have Ashe but because if I don’t win them as allies then…” I grimace and grind my teeth in frustration, “Right now I’m fighting to save the entire world all to protect five people… if I have to destroy a few lives to save millions and those I love then…”

“How is that different than Gehenna?” asks Cran and his question slashes into me as I know that I am sacrificing the one for the many, as Gehenna sacrificed Uzuri to protect the village of Unadeam from the demons that he thought surrounded him and his people.

“I’m not fighting for myself,” I say pounding a fist into Cran’s back, “at the end of our journey I fully expect that I won’t be welcome in the future that we create. I’ll become anything that I need to be to protect those I have left… I mean to save as many lives as possible. If I had just let go of who I wanted to be and became what I should have been, then Gehenna would be dead by my hand, just Gehenna and no one else. I had him and I froze and because I didn’t become the demon that I should have been he went forward and killed my grandmother, then my parents, and then his shade killed Gareth and so many more… If I’d have just killed him instead of only crushing his hands… If I had abandoned my ideals and submitted to being a demon, my family would be alive, Gareth would be alive, Uzuri would still be safe in the Dune Empire with Mul’Rensi, and the Gehennan would still be alive… Damn me… Argentum… Lamia… they were both right, I should have done more and could have done more and because of my inaction even Maria swung upon the rope meant for my neck! I’ve been called upon to kill slave traders, and so I’ll become a demon of death to the slavers, and to the glirdon a god of salvation. My mother once said there isn’t much difference between demons and gods, and now I know what she means.”

“So, you’ll abandon the healer to brandish the sword?” asks Cran forcing me to confront myself before I become my own problem.

I nod and say, “Not the sword but the saw. A healer must be prepared to cut off a gangrenous limb to stave off infection. The slavers are a gangrenous arm that must be severed for the sake of humanity and the glirdon. The slavers are weeds in the garden, and I cannot wait to see if they are wildflowers. Their time has run out.”

The glirdon whistles to us and starts to descend. Cran and I follow close behind as we drop with her through the clouds. Once we pass through the clouds, I look down upon the ground to see a titanic circular wall topped with a dome that possesses an opening at its pinnacle surrounded by a walkway where watch men keep vigil. The wall has only one entrance and exit in the form of a metal gate. That building must be Shoron Gaol.

The glirdon and Cran land upon a hillside far from the imposing structure. Once we are all comfortably standing upon the hill we landed on, our glirdon guide points to herself and says, “Lekhaka.”

“Yes,” I say wondering what this blue, white, and black feathered glirdon meant by that word. The glirdon nods her head excitedly at hearing me answer her.

“Shoron Gaol,” says the glirdon pointing to the large domed fort in the distance.

“Yes,” I say again realizing that the first word she spoke was her name.

“Go bye, Go bye Shoron Gaol. Yes?” says Lekhaka emphasizing her words by smacking one of her fists into the palm of her other hand.

“Destroy Shoron Gaol, I think is what the highest matron wants right?” I say, thinking I get the gist of what my guide is attempting to explain.

“Destroy? No Go bye,” says Lekhaka in the broken language of Unadeam, or rather the language of Othenel I guess is how Upendo refers to the language I speak.

“Go bye, Shoron Gaol. Yes,” I repeat and Lekhaka smiles and looks proud of herself.

“Bad Hu… Bad Humeanies. Slave Glirdon,” says Lekhaka trying to express a more complex thought with her limited vocabulary, but she finds herself lacking a word and mimics picking something up and placing it into her hand that she curls into a partially closed grasp, “slave Shoron Gaol. Bad place, bad Humeanies. Slave sad.”

“Go bye Shoron Gaol,” I say again and Lekhaka nods seriously to impress upon me the importance of her message, which I still don’t understand.

“luck take, yes. Me you food go bye Shoron Gaol.” says Lekhaka spreading her wings, and her face turning red at what she is trying to say with utmost ridiculous seriousness.

“Me you food go bye Shoron Gaol,” I repeat not really knowing what I’m saying, but every time I repeat what she says sometimes I get more context.

“You me, me you?” asks Lekhaka getting close to my face only to realize that she’s forgotten the last part of her inquiry and backs up to think through the rest of what she wishes to say, “you me, me you, go bye Shoron Gaol, you speaky yes yes me, you me, me you, go bye Shoron Gaol. Yes.”

“Me Skath,” I say exasperatedly pointing to myself as I try to understand what this woman is trying to say, “yes, me go bye Shoron Gaol, yes. Slave sad, save slave. Happy glirdon, yes?”

Lekhaka looks disappointed at my attempt to communicate as I must have missed the mark, “need Mahana. Mahana talky yes yes.”

Lekhaka then reaches into her feathery poncho and produces a fan made of her feathers and gives me a feather from the fan which I’m obligated to take as she forces it into my hand, “luck take.”

With that awkward gesture of good faith and Lekhaka blushing brighter and brighter the longer we talk, most likely in frustration for not being able to fully communicate the will of the highest matron, Lekhaka waves goodbye. Lekhaka grabs her wrists with her hands, bows herself so her fins are somewhat parallel to the ground, sprints and then jumps off the hill we landed on. Lekhaka glides down the hill gaining speed as the tube bones on her back throw flames to drive her faster and faster through the air until the thrust is enough for her to begin to gain altitude enough for her to begin oscillating her body to flap her wings and begin flying back to the glirdon village on Claw Wing Peak.

“Martog’s maw, what was that about?” I ask Cran who jumps from his bird body in his staff form into my hand.

“I believe she was trying to impress upon you that it is important to destroy Shoron Gaol but save the slaves imprisoned there,” says Cran in his whistly voice.

“So, we can’t just place a ton of seed bombs and call it a day,” I say sarcastically, “I got that much, but I’m still not sure what she meant by all that me you, you me stuff.”

“Maybe she was imprisoned here once and she was trying to explain how important it was for her that you were destroying a place of torment for her,” Cran extrapolates as he shrugs the leaves of the branches that come out of the branches that split from his main shaft and rejoin to form the hole that Cran speaks through and sometimes grows various fruits from.

I shrug and begin walking toward Shoron Gaol accepting Cran’s explanation as at least it somewhat makes sense. I still have no idea what she was talking about food for, but maybe it was supposed to be a loaner word to mean something else. Maybe she was thanking me for taking on this task.

“Do you have a plan to save the glirdon and destroy this place,” asks Cran as I walk absentmindedly toward our quarry.

I roll my eyes as he should know better than I that I have no clue as to where to begin our mission to destroy that bastion of stone. I stop in my tracks, as I need more information on that place before trying anything. I growl to myself in frustration as I wasn’t given a briefing on my mission or any additional information to help me. In fact, as soon as Hawa had confirmed the task Visala wished for me to complete an overly enthusiastic Lekhaka broke through the crowd and basically pulled me along beside her, forced me to climb one of the various watch towers, and then she beckoned me to follow her into the sky. Now I’m here with just go bye Shoron Gaol as my guiding words. Why couldn’t the highest court of the glirdon have sent me with someone who could actually speak with me? Maybe if my guide was Mahana instead of Lekhaka I could have gotten some intel that would have helped me get some form of bearing on the situation at hand instead of trying to parse together words that I assume just repeat the original directive.

I take a deep breath to try to calm myself. Given that Shoron Gaol is nestled in the mountain range relatively close to Claw Wing Peak, that means… nothing really, but I thought it could start something within my head. I’m wandering a land I’ve never walked before and have been tasked to take on an enemy I know nothing about. Instead of continuing to stand dumbfounded I sit down and recommit to the decision that my lack of knowledge should be the first thing I address.

Cran, sensing my thoughts, transforms into several of his little fairy soldiers, and I cast my eyes into the realm of mist and essence. Like when I spied on Gehenna, I move my spiritual eyes further and further away from my body following Cran’s soldiers through the air until we reach the walls of Shoron Gaol. As with my first assessment with my physical eyes, this fortress looks just as impregnable with my spiritual eyes.

“You!” yells a voice, followed by several words that sound familiar but altered in ways that make it hard for me to understand fully, or at least I hope I don’t understand fully as if I do understand what the voice is saying the voice is describing anatomy vulgarly or cursing with every other word the voice speaks. The sheer onslaught of profanity causes my whole body to cringe and almost forces my spiritual eyes to return without my cognitive switching between my physical and spiritual eyes. I shake my head and let my physical eyes regain dominance, as I turn to the voice. A group of heavily armed human men wearing armor that looks like metal scales riveted to leather approaches me.

I rise to my feet and yell out, “I’m a human like you.”

I’ve spent way too much time with the teratolion and glirdon if those were the words that immediately came to mind when addressing people, I actually look like. With an exasperated sigh I say, “I’m a friend.”

The men hearing me, vulgarly speak amongst themselves until one steps forward and says, “Othenel?”

“I speak a language that must be similar to the language of Othenel,” I say biting my tongue after I speak realizing that I am in a situation similar to trying to communicate with Lekhaka.

The man who had stepped forward raises a hand and says something that is again really similar to the language I speak but his words in combination are made incomprehensible due to the odd strings of profanity that I struggle to make out what the man actually is saying. In response to the cursing man another man steps forward. This man is paler skinned than his compatriots that are of a more honeyed beige or tanned in complexion. The pale man wears a shirt of chain and his hair contrasts with his companions in that he is blond whereas all of his companion’s sport black hair.

“Far away from home, aren’t we?” says the pale man in a language that I can actually understand. The relief on my face must be comically visible as the pale man chuckles to himself.

I shrug and say, “not really, I was born in these mountains.”

When I say that the pale man says something in the profane language of the scale armored men. The scale armored men rip my shirt off and start touching my arms face and back. I’m not sure what is happening, so I permit this rough treatment of me to try and establish trust with these men.

Once they’ve thoroughly patted me down my shirt is returned, and the scale armored men give their report to the pale man. The pale man watches me put my shirt back on and says, “you aren’t a glirdon, but those are the only beasts that live and breed in these mountains that are born with faces akin to humans. However, an Othen born outside of Othenel now that is something that is utterly heretical. Tell me do you have family nearby.”

“My family is dead,” I say hiding the fact that Esther is still alive while trying to figure out what the pale man is trying to extract from me.

“How unfortunate? Tell me, were your parents also born in these mountains?” asks the pale man continuing to interrogate me.

“Both are dead,” I say trying to look mournful to see if the pale man would drop the subject.

“I didn’t ask if they were alive, I asked where they came from?” says the pale man drawing a sword and placing it to my throat as he growls at me in frustration. I see the pale man glance at the sky in jittery movements, and he is not the only one that makes paranoid checks of the sky as most of his companions also share in this behavior.

They must be worried about the glirdon, I think to myself as I stare upward with the men and decide to give the pale man what he desires as I say, “My father I’m pretty sure was born is Visgal, but he traveled a lot. He eventually met my mother here in the mountains, and I was born here like she was.”

The pale man weighs my words and then grabs my arm, “Halfer!”

“Halfer?” ask the group of men that had just examined me in confused disbelief. My examiners try to rebut the pale man’s conclusion, but he silences them with his own explanation that I try and fail to understand.

Once the pale man is satisfied with his companions’ apparent submission to his words, he then turns to me, “I see so your grandmother was a deserter whore, and her tainted welp laid with feathered beasts. What a perversion you are, a deserter mix-blooded miscarriage of divine blood sullied in heinous filth. Oh, what a price you’ll fetch either from the Othen or from those lecherous Leathfola.”

“Does that mean I’ll be going inside that building over there?” I ask as I watch the group of men begin to surround me and draw their weapons.

The pale man befuddled at my calm acceptance of apparently being kidnapped and sold into slavery or deported and sent to the Othen to presumably just as grim of a fate as a lifetime of enslavement stares at me with confused contempt and says, “yeah, you’re going to be thrown into a cage in that building over there to be sold to the highest bidder most likely tonight.”

“Fantastic, so what are we waiting for,” I say as I extend my wrists to the pale guard. The pale guard stares at me dumbfounded but regains enough of his thoughts to put metal shackles on my wrists.

The slavers seeing my enthusiastic cooperation put away their weapons and look with admiration at the pale man that had apparently just convinced an idiotic boy to willingly submit to slavery. The pale man shrugs and attempts to explain what he thinks he must have done in the language of the scale armored slavers but even I who can’t completely understand the language he speaks can tell he is stumbling over his words. He must have expected me to scream, beg for mercy, weep uncontrollably, anything to diminish myself and aggrandize him and his companions but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of one of the perks of his job. I stole away his power, and that satisfies me in an ecstatic way as my own will has been trampled several times today, so regaining a smidgeon of control is rapturous.

I travel with my new posse of ne’er-do-wells until we reach the metal gate of Shoron Gaol. I watch as the scale armored slavers hype up the pale slaver to the gate guards. They point to me and then to the pale slaver and laugh a mighty laugh. The pale slaver says something that must be an insult toward me as he points to me when speaking a word in a contemptuous tone.

“If you are going to call me a dickish moron, I’d prefer it said to my face,” I say to the pale slaver.

The pale slaver looks at me in shock and says, “I thought you couldn’t understand the Tackian dialect.”

“Not really, I was just guessing,” I say with a smile, as the pale slaver in his frustration finally gathers his thoughts enough to order the gate guards to open the gate.

“I’m going to make sure that you are sold off to the worst fate possible tonight,” says the pale guard as he throws me through the gate to another group of slavers, “I’ll sleep peacefully knowing that soon your back will be flayed, your hands barely functioning stumps, your body exhausted from endless work, and your ass loose and spewing vile filth from being ravaged mercilessly.”

“I plan on being out of here in a few hours, so you better hope to sell me before then. Then again, a few hours may be longer than you’ll have to enjoy, as I think before nightfall I’ll be seeing you choke on your blood as the hands of those you damned to the fates contained in the words you spoke to me come to claim you and subject you to a hell worse than the realities you afflict upon so many innocents,” I say staring the pale slaver in his eyes to impress upon him that soon his sins against his fellow man and the glirdon will be paid in full. I really have changed, as words like that would have me doubled over in self-doubt before, but now when faced with men that are Gehenna’s kin in nature and deed, I can’t help but desire to kill them before… the events of both of my parents’ deaths flash to my mind and I clasp my hands into fists.

The pale man hearing my words backs away from me in fear contrasting the joking attitude of his distracted friends who speak with the gate guards. I hadn’t realized that I had opened up and filled the spell storing scars on my arms and face with blood to conjure further horror into my words, and I hear the pale slaver say, “that boy is a demoniac.”

I close my scars quickly and playfully say, “whatever do you mean. Take me to my cell and… see you tonight.”

“I must be seeing things; I have to be seeing things. I really should not drink on the job anymore” mutters the pale slaver as he watches me disappear behind the gates of Shoron Gaol.

My new compatriots treat me rougher than my previous band of jovially confused miscreants. They add a second pair of metal shackles to my feet and then connect the shackles on my hands and feet with a second chain. They are really careful about making sure their merchandise won’t be getting away, as these shackles look like they are designed to prevent glirdon from flying away by limiting their arms mobility.

The new slavers push me forward and I stumble into Shoron Gaol making mental notes of the sheer thickness of the wall, as the length of the hallway that pierces through the wall is about the length of five men laying down head to toe. Once we exit the hallway, Shoron Gaol opens up into a large main chamber illuminated by the oculus that acts as the only other opening to Shoron Gaol besides the gate that I just came through. The main chamber reminds me a lot of the immense cavern that the crystal record of the teratolion sits within except emptier. When my slaver guards and I exit the hallway completely we stand upon a circular platform that surrounds a massive hole which only expands the void that is the interior of Shoron Gaol.

The platform my doomed guides lead me around has very few things of note upon it. Guards are stationed at regular intervals next to braziers, each guard brandishing a bow with an arrow whose arrowhead is a spiraled metal basket carrying a mass of burning material. Though the guards attract the eye first due to their blazing weapons, there are four more impressive objects that are stationed in the four cardinal directions around the pit. These objects hearken to my memories in the mental classroom when my grandfather taught me about physics and the six simple machines. These four objects are large cranes made of wheels and pulleys to manipulate their large arms, chains, and hooks to move people and platforms carrying various supplies and materials in and out of the pit.

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The slavers that are guiding me through Shoron Gaol approach one of the cranes and the operators of the machine spin it sideways and lowers a hook upon a chain that my slaver guides take into his hands and then connect the hook to the chain that binds my arms and legs together. The crane operators then start raising the hook which causes me to trip backward onto the ground with a painful thud. My arms and legs are pulled upward putting me into an extremely vulnerable position, that one of my slaver guides exploits by stepping onto my stomach to hold onto the chain that now suspends me in the air.

The crane operators then spin the crane back over the pit and me and my guide who now stands on top of me as a living platform descend into the pit dangling from the hook of the crane. Downward we fall, and I stare at the walls of the pit to see various wooden balconies that jut out of the pit that act as areas to deposit food and prisoners at the entry points of small caves that must act as the prison cells of Shoron Gaol. The uncomfortable and painful journey ends when my guide jumps off of my stomach onto one of the wooden balconies dotting the wall of the pit we were descending and being closer now to one of these wooden balconies I see that the caves are not just open tunnels but are secured by metal bars and a thick wooden door held shut by a lock. The slaver guide pulls me over to the platform where he unhooks me from the crane and then attaches the hook to himself as a portion of his armor is designed to act as a harness for the crane to presumably lift him out of the pit. The guide then viciously pulls me to my feet and then kicks me into the tunnel where he then unlocks the thick wooden door and shoves me inside my prison cell. Except, it’s not just my cell. Illuminated by a dying fire, I see four faces.

A jet-black skinned and frizzy haired woman wearing a simple golden armlet around her forearm and a purple, gold, and a black dress huddles next to a white robed man with brown skin and frizzy hair wearing a sash decorated with a symbol of an eye huddle in a corner to talk with one another as if trying to bring comfort to an otherwise hopeless situation. My other two cell mates sit in opposite corners, and both are treating their imprisonment in vastly different ways. One of my cell mates sits relaxed in the corner wearing colorful vestments and a broad triangular hat brandishing a lavish fluffy feather for ornament that currently covers his face. This man sits seeming not to have a care in the world as he naps pleasantly awaiting whatever fate is to come his way. His hat and vestments hide details to what this man looks like, so I turn my attention to my last cellmate to see what they look like. My last cell mate is a… man of a tan complexion with flaming red hair wearing armor that looks like it is made of cloth. I would call it a gambeson, but the construction is a bit more deliberate and refined. I analyze it quickly with my spiritual eyes and ears and see that the cloth armor is made of sheets upon sheets of cloth and unspun plant fiber with crystalline salt permeating the structure. The armor is sewn in a diamond lattice pattern and died in various colors of greens and browns as if to add a camouflage component to the armor. The man also wears an animal skin cape that drapes over the redheaded man’s left shoulder that streams forth from the skull of a feline animal forming a pauldron on the red headed man’s right shoulder. Though each of us are different in our own way, each of us wears the same chains.

“I’m all for solidarity in rough times,” I say to my cellmates as I listen for the wooden cell door to lock, and I turn my head to see my guide begin to be pulled upward by the crane that had deposited us on the wooden balcony. As soon as my guide is out of sight, the scars on my arms open to release bubbles of burning blood that melt the chains off of my arms and legs, “but the jewelry of this place rubs me the wrong way.”

The chains fall to the floor with a clatter, and though the sound makes me anxious, the clatter didn’t warrant investigation from the slavers. The man in the corner raises his head to the sound of my chains hitting the floor and I see him flash a smile from under his cap. A golden tooth glints in the fading light of the dying fire, “a kindred spirit, eh? One who won’t give into the gloom and faces the future come what may?”

“Not exactly,” I say knocking my hand on the wooden door, but I think against punching through it, at least for now, especially considering I can most likely bend the metal bars of the cell with less sound being produced as I don’t want to create to many suspicious noises in sequence that may draw the attention of the guards and put me in a situation where I’ll lose the advantage of surprise, “our hosts just don’t realize who they’ve graciously let into their home.”

The priest and woman stare at me holding out their hands in an odd gesture. Each of their fingers touch their mirrored partner to form an oval shape with their hands. They do this while chanting in a new language that again sounds so familiar, but I can’t fully comprehend what they are saying. I get bits and pieces, but like the slavers I just can’t understand them, but what they speak sounds far less vulgar in comparison to the slavers’ way of speaking.

The relaxed man rolls his eyes looking at his compatriots, “they think you are a demon, or witch. I’ve seen enough entertainers in my time to know an illusionist when I see one. Names Prorem, I know it’s tricky to say, but if you roll the r it helps. I’m a traveling minstrel that has fallen on some misfortune. Tried crossing these mountains to get to Tackenae from Nursil for a gig. Just wanted to avoid paying the exorbitant tolls in Wakuda, but slavers had other plans for me. Slavers of late have recently been capturing anything and anyone especially if you speak the Othenese dialect.”

“I’m just glad to find another person that talks like me, though I’m not Othen, I just speak like one,” I say sitting down on the cold stone ground to warm myself by the dying embers of the cell’s fire.

“Your pa a deserter?” asks Prorem removing his cap to reveal a head of brunette hair and a pale complexion much like that of the pale slaver, “that’d explain why you can speak Othenese, but not be an Othen.”

“No, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” I say enjoying the friendly conversation after a day of manipulation and willfully being enslaved, “I was actually born in these mountains, and if I had a nationality to claim I guess it would be Unadeamy for all that’s worth.”

“What a strange word you just said, as very few people know it and as far as I know you are the only person that I’ve met that claims it, and I know a lot of people,” says Prorem tilting his head to then lean in to better look at me, “though from what I know of the word, it means we come from similar stock. I don’t say this to many people, but I was born in Othenel, and I believe that your ancestors were from those snowy peaks originally. That means we share roots.”

“What so am I supposed to call you cousin then,” I say chuckling that I’ve somehow found family in jail.

Prorem laughs to himself, “nah, we’d be cousins so far removed that you’d share more in common with a glirdon than me. I’m just saying that we come from a similar culture.”

The clanking of chains silences our conversation as we hear the crane once again start to move. The clanking stops and then a woman’s begging screams fill the pit. The screams go on for some time until all goes quiet. The stillness is only brief as the clanking once again sounds to eventually return the pit to its somber emptiness.

“What was that,” I say getting up from the ground to look out of the metal bars of the cell, “was someone killed?”

“Why would you kill merchandise… That woman may wish that was what happened to her, but a slave’s lot is to be forced to live and endure, and endure” says the redheaded man in the corner grimacing and glaring at his lack of progress on the hole he was making, “what do you think happened?”

I look to the redheaded man who is shaking in between each hacking motion he makes to carve at the stone walls, but then my remembrance of our last cellmate calls my attention to the woman. The woman still holds her hands in the ovoid gesture, but she is trembling and weeping openly as her chants to the dispel the demon are replaced with what I assume are prayers begging for protection. I clench my hands in fists as a rage burns within me, the memory of Gehenna’s defilement and murder of my mother within my mind’s eye.

I have wasted too much time, and what I just heard confirms to me I’m not dealing with men, but monsters. I force my mind to accept this rationale as truth to help justify what must be done. I look to Prorem and ask, “do you know if the slave hunters ever gather here all at once, or do they always have men out in the field.”

“I do not know?” says Prorem with a confused and concerned look upon his face, “why do you even want to know that?”

“Tonight, is the night of a gathering and merchandise will be pawned off to the highest bidder,” says the redhead, “all slave hunters are being called back so that the riches of tonight’s auction will be distributed to the appropriate hunters. No honor amongst thieves, so to speak, drives them to all be present so no hunter is cut from their earned share.”

“How do you know this?” I ask the redheaded warrior perplexed at how he knows what he does about this place.

“Why do you want to know when all of the slave hunters will be gathered,” asks the redhead raising an eyebrow and tilting his head in a sort of fed up and sassy way.

I take a deep breath and look upward in resignation as I say, “I’m going to kill them all. If I don’t the slaves won’t have a safe escape.”

Prorem bursts out laughing, “you’ve got moxie kid, but do you not realize where you are. How are you going to escape this cell, let alone climb up the pit without becoming a blazing pin cushion.”

In response to Prorem I walk over to the metal bars of our cell and bend the metal with my essence enhanced strength. I actually bend the bars so much that they pop out of the holes that held them fixed into the ground, and because of this I have to gently and carefully place the bent bars onto the cold rock floor as to not create a suspicious racket. I point to the metal bars and then walk out of the cell and back into the cell to prove a point to the laughing man.

“You’re the whole circus aren’t yuh?” says Prorem clapping his hands in blissful amusement, “I’ve never seen an illusionist strongman before. Your look strong, but I never thought that you’d be capable of something like that.”

The redhead drops the rock in his hand and crawls over to the newly made exit to our prison cell in disbelief. I sigh to myself, wondering why I’m trying to prove myself to these people when I should be conserving my strength. I take a seat in the vacant corner of the cell and call over to the redhead, “as I said, I’m going to kill them all, and I need to know the timeframe for when all the patrons and slave hunters will be here, and when the auction itself begins. I want to finish the bloody portion of the job I’ve been sent to fulfill before I free everyone and collapse this place in on itself.”

“You have lofty goals,” says the redhead staring back at me, “who sent you?”

“The highest matron Visala, and to a certain extent king Upendo,” I respond to see if those names garner a response from any of the people within my cell. I want to see if these names carry with them a reputation that will go on to prevent my future ambitions.

“Upendo!” sneers the white robed man as his companion’s prayers continue to grow more and more desperate. Prorem sits unfazed by the names I just listed, and the redhead now studies me.

“You clearly understood that word,” I say turning my attention to the white robed man, “do you speak the Othenese dialect, as I want to know your thoughts of my patrons.”

The white robed man with a quivering lip of hatred speaks and surprises Prorem as he says, “Upendo is a demon lord of hell! If you serve him, you too must be a demon!”

“I’ve been called worse,” I say nodding my head as this reaction tracks with the history I know, “though, I’ve been called better too.”

The white robed man stands up and walks toward me holding his hand in the ovoid gesture and starts yelling at me, “By the power of God! I exorcise you foul demon of the pit! Begone, you face shifter that perverts the appearance of the chosen creation of God! By the holy power of the priesthood that was passed down from Angtos the One-Eyed Prophet to my brethren in a line of holy authority, I banish you!”

That’s a first. Generally, when people try to exorcise me as a demon, they just try to kill me. To actually see someone try to use a holy ritual to get rid of me, makes me laugh. As I laugh, my laughter only grows as I latch onto the fact that I was being exorcised in the name of my grandfather.

“By the power of God given to Angtos and through him to me…” says the priest losing faith in his exorcism. The priest starts to step backwards away from me, his fear of me growing as I continue to laugh at him.

“Oh, give the poor sod a break,” says Prorem patting the priest on the back as the priest continues to retreat wide eyed and confused into the corner, he originally huddled in.

“I’m sorry,” I say regaining my composure, “it’s just funny that… it’s just funny that… he tried to exorcise me in the name of my grandfather, who just so happened to be a one-eyed celandil.”

“You dare use the holy name of our prophet!” says the priest regaining some of his lost courage.

I look at him confused and say, “you mean Angtos? I didn’t say his name you did.”

“Cel… the name held sacred above all others that must be kept only within the heart and spoken in the holiest of places to honor his glory,” says the priest falling to his knees to prostrate himself to his prophet and god.

“Ahhh, celandil…” I say to see the priest stare at me in abject horror that I would actually repeat the holy name again in vain, “well this may shock you, but I’m a celandil.”

“Cel… is not a state of being but the holy name of the highest priest who communed with god and rescued humanity from the plague of corrupted witches and warlocks that sold their souls to the devil,” professes the priest to correct my flagrant heresy, “with his holy hands he bound angels and demons alike to him with the authority and power of god, and with said power he inspired man to rise up against our false gods to return to the one true god!”

“Does the word Argentum, or…” I say to see the priest look at me confused and though the name was only used once by my grandfather the context leads me to believe that perhaps it is related to Argentum, “how about Aifeargid?”

“How do you know the sacred name of the Archangel, that is only revealed in the holiest of places? How can you even say it as a demon?” says the priest once again horrified at the abomination he finds himself contending with.

“Well, Aifeargid is my uncle, which would make Aurhea my cousin,” I say probing the priest. I see that Prorem who asked me to give the priest mercy is now enjoying how the priest has been put on the defensive, and the redhead now sits cross-legged observing the conversation with a vested interest. The reaction I didn’t expect was that the woman had stopped her prayers and now stared at me in bewilderment. I guess my knowing what only the most consecrated of priests know, must have garnered her attention.

“How dare you use the sacrilegious name of the false idol of Othenel and the Archangel in the same sentence!” says the priest his holy indignation rekindled by my sacrilege.

Finding enjoyment in taunting the priest whose outbursts feed me with information about the outside world I decide to probe him with one last name to see how he reacts, “Do you know anything about Turas? He’s my father, and was the son of Angtos?”

“I’m going to stop you there,” interrupts Prorem and I notice that the dark skin of the priest had started to turn red in rage as I must have hit several nerves with that last sentence, “You’re breaking our priest. His heart can only take so much, and you’ve basically committed blasphemy of the highest order in his religion, and probably half of the other religions that are practiced in this world.”

“Do you know anything about Turas?” I ask, seeing that there was some recognition of the name on Prorem’s face.

The redhead nods his head and says, “Turas is the name of the hero god of lightning worshiped by the herdsmen in Tackenae. Turas is also venerated in Visgal, not exactly as a god, but fairly close to one. Turas’ mother Felarbha sits as the founding mother of modern Visgal and is seen as a holy martyr that led Visgal toward a reawakening.”

“Felarbha is the name of my grandmother,” I say coming to an understanding that the history of my family though forgotten in its entirety has been preserved in myths that have shaped the world of humanity in unforeseen ways.

“Alright, now somehow you’ve combined nearly every human religion together in an orgy of doctrine and names that never have fully meshed together, but the way you talk makes it sound like a story has been forgotten that shouldn’t have been,” says Prorem placing his head thoughtfully upon his hands, his mouth curling in a shimmering grin.

I hear the chittering sound of a bug’s wings and turn my attention to it to see a flittering fairy soldier flying in my prison cell, “Cran I was wondering when you’d show up.”

The small soldier grows in size transforming into a staff that I grab from the air. All the people I share my prison cell startle as what just occurred can’t be considered some illusion made through chemistry, strength, or sleight of hand. I ignore the company I once kept and ask Cran, “tell me what you found?”

“This entire structure is built on top of an underground reservoir,” explains Cran, and the woman yelps only to covers her own mouth when both Cran and I look at her in annoyance, “as I was saying. Shoron Gaol is constructed over a massive underground reservoir. The prison block is constructed out of a sink hole that the humans have dug tunnels into to create the various cells in the walls, not realizing that the several prison cells they dug have actually further weakened the foundation of Shoron Gaol creating an exploitable weakness. In fact, natural erosion will one day expand the sink hole and send all of Shoron Gaol into the reservoir, so technically we could do nothing and let nature take its course and Shoron Gaol will destroy itself.”

“That’s great, but I don’t think Visala would accept a technicality as ‘destroying Shoron Gaol’” I say as I see Prorem poke the shaft of Cran and mutter to himself something about ventriloquism.

“That’s why I’ve placed seed bombs in each prison cell that are ready to explode whenever we desire to potentially speed up nature’s timeline,” says Cran growing branches out of himself to look like arms that he places to his side as if to emulate a human pridefully puffing out their chest.

“Are there any other exits?” I ask Cran wondering if the metal gate truly was the only way in and out of Shoron Gaol.

Cran shakes in my hand and says, “no. There are tunnels within the walls of Shoron Gaol, but they do not lead outside. Those tunnels serve as dormitories, meeting spaces, and the like. They also lead up to the dome allowing for the oculus to be defended.”

I nod my head acknowledging the new information. The greatest strength of Shoron Gaol will become its greatest weakness. What is impenetrable from the outside is also impenetrable from the inside. The slavers unknowingly have locked themselves inside of Shoron Gaol with me and there will be no escape.

“My… redheaded friend,” I say trying to formulate a thought but not having the names of everyone in the cell I find myself struggling to refer to everyone in a coherent way.

Cran shakes in my hand and says, “I know your thoughts better than you do, so I know that you are wanting to know the status of the slave hunters above.”

“My name is Khubel, but you can call me Khub,” says the redhead with a half-smile.

Prorem then pipes up and says, “a prison cell isn’t exactly a place for pleasantries and polite introductions, so I’ll help you by giving you the names of our other esteemed guests.”

The priest interrupts Prorem, “don’t you dare give the demon our names. We have no idea what power that could give him over…”

“My name is Choyera,” says the woman pointing to herself, “and this is the guardian of my penance, Chiphuzitso.”

“Alright Choyera and Chip,” I say trying to keep the new names straight in my head, “and I’m Skath… son of Angtos, son of Turas.”

I watch the priest snarl and bare his teeth at me at my purposeful blasphemy, “and tonight I promise that you’ll all be freed by my hand and the slave trade at least here at Shoron Gaol will choke on its blood.”

“Why must you kill all the slave traders?” asks Choyera scornfully judging my decision.

My mind conjures Gehenna and all the death he afflicted upon those I love and those that didn’t have to die but through his corruption sent to Martog’s maw, “why do you defend them?”

“Some are good people,” says Choyera and those words cause me to audibly scoff.

I look at Choyera with disdain and choose words to convince myself of my duty as I say, “a good slave trader? That’s preposterous! You heard that woman’s screams like I did. In fact, I was threatened by a slave hunter who and I quote would find peaceful slumber knowing that my back would be flayed, my hands would become barely functioning stumps, my body would be exhausted from endless work, and, pardon the vulgarity, that my ass would become loose and spew vile filth from being ravaged mercilessly. That is the fate he knowingly sends me and every slave he captures and sells here in Shoron Gaol toward in order to enrich himself from our suffering. Some people give up the right to be treated as humans because they choose to be monsters, and monsters bring upon themselves their own destruction.”

“Not all slavers chose to be slavers. Some are slaves to masters that force them to hunt their brothers and sisters. Others chose this because they found themselves and their families in moments of desperation and it was either join the slavers or die. Some of the slavers are kind to us. They give us extra rations and…” Choyera says attempting to defend people, like I once tried to defend all people. Alas, ideals are in the mind, and reality is here before us and cares not for mere thoughts and hopes of innocent dreamers. I no longer can afford to defend everyone, as I if I do I might not be able to protect all I have left… Uzuri, Ashe, Esther, Lamia, Gareth’s child.

“Even as slaves you can choose,” I say the mental wounds afflicted by Lamia still fresh and festering within me, “the circumstances may obligate your hand but…”

“There are those that are obligated to be monsters that they never wished to be,” Choyera interjects before I could finish my thought.

“If I commit an evil that ends a greater evil… then that evil becomes a necessary good,” I say feeling dirty that I’m using the logic of Aurhea to justify what must be done here. Killing the slavers and destroying Shoron Gaol must be done to establish a world where humans, teratolion, and glirdon create a bastion of peace that might be sufficient in defending against Aurhea and thus protect my loved ones from her destruction. An additional boon to destroying Shoron Gaol and the Slavers, will be that I’ll be ridding the future and this world of the evils perpetuated here. The future is bought in the currency of blood.

“Evil cannot create good,” says Choyera who stands up to make herself larger to emphasize her platitudes.

“Evil can end itself though, allowing for good to spring forth from the void,” I say, and my mind turns to Gehenna as I continue, “is killing a serial murderer who kills no matter how you try to convince him to change his ways wrong? In allowing the murderer to continue to kill again and again with several warnings, at what point do the needless deaths and the suffering of the families that the murderer afflicts become not just the sins of the murderer but the chiding yet failing convincer’s as well? If the murderer is stopped, then the needless deaths and suffering stops, allowing for any future victims to find joy in the lives they can now live.”

“Imprisonment would stop the murderer, as murdering a murderer just makes another murderer,” says Choyera trying to poke holes in my example.

“What happens if the serial murderer is in a position of power that makes imprisonment by his people unlikely,” I say telling the story of Gehenna, “In fact, his people support his murders because those he kills have been diminished in the eyes of his people and himself so much so that though he is killing humans that beg and plead for mercy, they are seen as no better than livestock. What is a slave but a human stripped of their humanity to become a beast of burden. There are fates worse than death, and sins that afflict more suffering than it as well.”

“But!” Choyera tries to interject again but I raise a hand to silence her before she can get other words out of her mouth. I know her heart, as it similar to the one that beats in my chest that I’ve bound with the chains that I hope will justify me.

“Tell me what would happen if I killed all of the slavers, slave hunters, and slave traders that are attending the gathering and auction tonight. Tell me what would happen if Shoron Gaol were to have its walls fall to no longer protect the unjust imprisonment and sale of the lives and futures of those confined to fates worse than death?” I ask and I realize that I’m asking this question more to find information to bolster myself and the defend actions I will soon partake in than to win an argument with Choyera.

Khub answers my question, “the Tackenae demon and human slave trade occurring in Vilendura’s Spine would be crippled so severely it may take years to reform and gain the strength that it has now. Shoron Gaol acts as a safe house for slave traders to retreat to absolute protection after raiding glirdon villages. The glirdon do not have the siege weapons necessary to penetrate the walls of Shoron Gaol making it a haven for slavers who trade in Glirdon lives. If Shoron Gaol also fell on top of all the current slavers being slain, well the demon slave trade will never recover. Shoron Gaol is one of the last standing castles that survived the War of the One-Eyed Prophet. The magics used to make this place no longer exist, so rebuilding Shoron Gaol is impossible, which would mean that slavers seeking to increase their stores of merchandise would have to contend with a journey fraught with perpetual danger as they attempt to escape Vilendura’s Spine never having a moments respite that they currently enjoy because of Shoron Gaol’s existence.”

“So, there you have it. I kill a few men and basically end slavery in Vilendura’s Spine,” I say turning back to Choyera.

“Freeing demons from their intended purpose is the supposed good you wish to achieve?” says the priest piping up after recovering from my series of blasphemies that besmirched his faith, “the demons that still roam Nuren after the One-Eyed Prophet ripped a hole into hell to summon them to serve as the swords, spears, and shields of humanity are now by divine rite human slaves by birth! Though, the binding holy power of Angtos has waned allowing the demons to appear like they have wills and emotions of their own, these are deceptions to tempt humanity into sin! For example, the Leathfola who indulge themselves in all manner of hedonistic lusts with their glirdon and teratolion slaves.”

“The glirdon, teratolion, dracaquan, huto, and totalion, were all once completely human,” I growl at the priest, “It is due to the man you venerate that they have the appearances they have now. Angtos stole human babies and mutated human children into the demons you hate so much. Though I respect my grandfather for his mentorship of me, I cannot deny that Angtos was a monstrous individual in what he was capable of justifying in order to create the world he desired. Each of the more beastly races are in fact human and deserve to be treated with the humanity that you deny them.”

I look to all of the people within my cell and continue my words, “you treat me as human because I share your face and features, but by birth I am not entirely human. I share blood with the warlocks and witches that the One-Eyed Prophet also shared in his veins but persecuted to near complete extinction, so I am what I believe our priest friend would call demon born like the glirdon. Tell me to my face that I deserve slavery for the heritage I was born with.”

“You are worthy of death for your cursed blood and heresy,” says the priest approaching me once more to spit on my face. Though, beside the priest, all the rest of my cellmates sit in silence.

“I like the demons of Nuren each share a human heritage corrupted not by our own choices and not even necessarily by the choices of all our forefathers, but one man glorified by ‘god,’ but now through the justifications of those that came after that ‘prophet,’ me and my demon brethren have become worthy of slavery? I am human, and I am celandil, and the glirdon were humans and still are humans,” I say staring down the priest, “and isn’t our interaction enough to demonstrate to even the most pious of people, that I am not a demon? Your god did nothing to me when you prayed for my exorcism. Maybe you should be the one rethinking your accusations, instead of assuming that your beliefs actually manifest the truth of reality. Who is to say that you aren’t at this very moment speaking to the child of your supposed prophet?”

“Blasphemer,” says the priest smacking my face, but my face doesn’t move as I keep it in place. The priest’s wrist snaps backward from the force of his smack and the sound of bones snapping out of place fill the cell. The priest holds his hand and shouts out in pain, and I grab his wrist forcing the bones of the wrist back into place with another meaty crack.

The priest grasping his wrist falls backward on his rear and starts to slide away from me in fear, as the rest of our group evaluate our exchange. Prorem trying to distract from the priest’s wails says, “How and who brings a person into the world shouldn’t govern the destiny of anyone. I agree with the lad on that, though I struggle still to see the feathered demons with pretty faces and gorgeous busts as more than beastly sirens.”

“I’m not sure what to think,” says Khub rubbing his wrist as he stares at the priest, “as a Visga we are raised to not hold our beliefs sacred and to question everything as one day’s truth may be tomorrow’s lie. Much has been claimed, and large claims require even larger evidence.”

“Would collapsing all of Shoron Gaol in a single day make it so you will at least entertain the validity of my words?” I ask to see Khub deliberate my arguements and then nod his head in agreement.

“That would literally require an act of god!” says Choyera with her mouth agape at what I’m claiming to be capable of.

I chuckle hearing that word used again to describe me, “Remember when I said I have been called worse, well I don’t really like being associated with the holy or infernal, but a part of me feels being called a god is worse than being called a demon.”

“I believe that the last of those that are arriving for the slave auction and gathering of slavers have just entered Shoron Gaol,” reports Cran, and I swing him over my back and stretch my shoulders with him to prepare myself for what is to come.

I take a few steps toward the opening in the prison bars I made and Khub yells at me to stop, so I pause my exit, “If you find a man with a ticking amulet that has moving metal hands inside it, spare him, because his blood is mine to spill.”

“I can’t make any promises as looking for a time piece while engaging in combat is…” I say while continuing out of the cell.

Khub responds with genuine shock in his voice, “how do you know what I was describing was meant to tell time?”

“I’ll tell you when Shoron Gaol falls.”