Merlin

Merlin had seen the grand buildings of the capital city of Karze. Each one was a towering monument to the greatest city in the Kingdom of Aysela. The buildings, the architecture, and even the royal family themselves. They had a way of making you feel small. Like an insignificant piece of larger design.

That feeling paled compared to the looming pyramid of black rock. It was imposing. The idea that people made this. People in chains. Now, those chains chinked at his feet as well. It was amazing how much could change in a few hours.

The line slowed to a halt, and he craned to look further ahead. A guard walked by, brushing past, forcing Merlin back into line. He struggled not to drop the heavy pile of rocks in his arms. He bit back a smart remark.

It was better not to stick out.

All around him there were others, unchained, but still prisoners. That much was obvious. There wasn’t any sort of uniform. Most people seemed to be wearing normal clothes. Normal, except for the fact they were tattered and torn. Merlin looked down at his fine purple cloak. It was an odd thing to be worried about in this situation. But this cloak meant a lot to him. It was full of history. Things he didn’t want to let go.

He would not see it destroyed in such a fashion.

The prisoners sat on the ground. There was no greenery. Just dirt and the pyramids. This was clearly some sort of mining operation. A large part of the economy, no doubt, considering they were nearly in the exact center of the city. He’d shuffled along with the others for hours after being separated from Charlie. But that was the price of shuffling forward one step at a time, in a line full of people carrying heavy black rocks.

You moved slowly.

The line before him grew smaller until finally Merlin reached the front. Two soldiers stood at a table with several wagons filled with black rock beside them. A third guard, one of the men who had been escorting the line of people, unlocked the chains of the man in front of Merlin. He wasn’t sure where the old lady had gone. They’d taken her out of the line shortly after the incident earlier.

The newly freed man walked up, sat his rock in the wagon, and then walked up to the table. They nodded toward a rusted metal barrel next to them. The man leaned in, grabbed a small piece of bread, and walked to find somewhere to sit within the camp. Merlin watched him. The person behind him nudged Merlin forward. The line guard eyed him, unlocked him, and beckoned him onward. Merlin did the same thing the man had. He sat his rock on the wagon, walked by the table guards, and then went to grab a piece of bread. His hands moved quickly, tucking an extra piece inside his sleeve.

“Hey,” the line guard called out.

Merlin’s heart beat quicker in the chest. “What?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“You didn’t work today. No food.”

Merlin scoffed. He pointed toward the wagon. “I brought that rock all the way here, didn’t I?”

One of the table guards put a hand on the hilt of his sword. “You heard him. No food.”

Merlin made a show of dropping the bread in his hands. “Fine.” He hurried off.

He’d made it five steps before someone grabbed him by the sleeve. “I know it’s hard. But it is the way of things. We work for our food. And we don’t take something that we didn’t earn.”

Merlin froze. He looked back at the man holding him there. He was a Black man with dark, low-cut hair. His clothes were finer than the other members of the line, but he didn’t look like a guard. There was a special badge on his chest. It was shiny, and the remnants of the sun reflected off of it so he couldn’t quite make it out. Merlin understood the warning. He didn’t resist; he knew when he had lost. The man took the piece of bread from him, discreetly, and nodded at him.

“You’re a quick learner. That’ll be good here. Work hard tomorrow. You can eat then.”

Robbed of his dinner, Merlin pulled his sleeve free of the man and stormed off.

Besides the pyramids and scattered slaves, this was nothing more than a crater of dirt. There were caves, or perhaps the more appropriate word would be mine-shafts. They dotted the craters walls and even now people moved in and out of them. He didn’t see tools in their hands, nor were there rocks. They were going into the mines even when they weren’t working. He wanted to investigate further, but someone calling out got his attention.

“You there! Wait a moment!” a man called out.

Merlin turned around. He blinked in surprise. He recognized this man. “You were in the line. You tried to help that woman back there.”

The muscular blond man grimaced. “That I did. But you did help that woman. I wanted to thank you.” He held out a hand. Merlin instinctively opened his own up and recoiled when a small piece of bread fell into it. “I saw what happened. It was a nice trick. You almost pulled it off. I’m Crussus, by the way.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I thought we’d all be on the same side. Apparently not. Merlin.”

Crussus laughed. “Come on, I’ll show you around.” He started walking, and Merlin, having nowhere better to go, followed him. Crussus continued speaking. “Thing is, Achai isn’t a bad man. He’s our sitter. It’s his job to keep an eye on us.”

“Our sitter? We’re prisoners, not children.” Merlin took a bite of the bread. He spat it out. “That’s super stale!” He looked down at it. Flecks of green dotted it. He should’ve looked at his food better. “And moldy!” He ran a finger along his tongue.

Crussus grimaced. “Give it a day or two. You’ll actually look forward to it at the end of the day. If you don’t want it, give it back. We can’t afford to waste it.”

Merlin handed it over, feeling bad anyone was hungry enough to eat something like this. Crussus grabbed it and took a small bite. He spoke in between chewing. “A lot of the people around here have children. The guards take them, you know? They leave all of them in a dungeon somewhere in the city. There are a couple of different locations, but they all have the same name. They call them daycares.”

Merlin stopped walking. “What? You can’t be serious…”

Crussus paused as well. Turning to look at him. “I am. That’s why they work.” He beckoned at people in worn clothes all around them. “They work to keep their children safe. It’s how Varroc keeps the peace. By controlling their children, he controls the people. But Varroc knew they wouldn’t take him at his word. So, every mine site has someone called a sitter. We vote on it. Achai is ours. Once a week, he goes into the dungeon and verifies that all the children are okay. He gets to see his son. But in return, if we act out, or break the rules, it’s his child that will suffer.”

Merlin shook his head. “That’s evil.” He paused. “So, when I tried to steal moldy bread, he…”

“He stopped you because he was watching out for his son. Like I said, he’s not a bad man. He’s just doing the best he can to get by and keep his family safe.”

Charlie. Charlie was in the dungeons. In that… daycare. Did that mean, would they hurt him if Merlin acted out? Had they put themselves in the middle of this evil system as well? He turned back to Crussus. A sudden suspicion in his mind. What did this strange man have to gain here? People were always looking for opportunity.

What opportunity did he see in Merlin?

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Merlin asked.

Crussus took a step forward and placed a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “Because what I saw back there, in the city streets, was a man with fight inside him. I want to make sure you don’t lose that. Everyone else around here has.”

Merlin backed away. He wasn’t a fighter. He’d been angry. He’d watched Varroc pick up Charlie and throw him like trash. Merlin had told that psychopath he was going to kill him. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, he wondered what the hell he’d been thinking. No. That wasn’t true. When he said it, he meant it. But Merlin wasn’t that kind of man. Maybe Charlie had shown him he could be good now. But he wasn’t the kind of man who could stand up to someone like that. He still couldn't believe he had stood his ground against that brute of a man named Brel.

“To be honest, after earlier, I’m surprised they didn’t kill me,” Merlin said, more thinking out loud than anything.

Crussus grew serious, a distant look in his eye.

“That’s the thing about men like Varroc. They don’t kill men like us. They break them.”

Charlie

On the way back to the daycare, Lyra and the others stopped. One of the closed doors they passed earlier was now open. Beyond the door was a trail of claw marks, as if something had stabbed its long nails into the dirt while being dragged.

The trail led back to the daycare.

Charlie’s eyes widened. Further down the path toward the children’s homes were scattered claw marks and stray scales. Luc was the first to investigate up close. He pressed his fingers into one of the claw impressions in the dirt and turned to show the others.

Stolen story; please report.

His fingers were smeared with blood.

“Kashak,” Lyra muttered. “Hurry everyone, back to base!”

The children with spears straightened up, most of them moved to the front of the group, hurrying back home, but a few of them lingered to keep an eye on Lyra and the three recently initiated.

“Arhhhh!” a warbled scream came from the daycare, echoing through the dungeon’s hall. Their group broke into a run. They leapt over some of the mini staircases and held onto each other so that they weren’t thrown off by the flickering lamps.

They made it back quickly, but when they arrived, there didn’t seem to be any sort of emergency. The children weren’t scared. They were celebrating. Lyra stepped into the room, and as she crossed the threshold, Charlie took in the scene.

All the children were gathered in the middle of the room. One boy towered over all the others. He was tan skinned with a long mane of brown hair and wild green eyes. The children were excited about something. Lyra approached, and everyone, upon recognizing her, made way for her to get through. Charlie, of course, benefitted from this new view as well.

The tan boy was proudly standing over a large cage the children must have constructed before. Charlie wondered where they’d been keeping it. Inside it was a green lizard, two times the size of the large boy. Though it wasn’t very big in terms of bulk, it was long, with a tail that extended well past its body. It had a ridge of scales that started on its head and continued down onto the small of its back. It had a wide, red eye on either side of its face, and they moved independently, much like Mousifer’s ears often did. Charlie couldn’t decide if he thought it was hideous, or cute.

“Arhhhhh!” the lizard screamed again at the gathered crowd and the newcomers.

Cute. Charlie decided. Definitely cute.

“Kashak? What is this?” Lyra demanded.

His head spun toward her; his brows fell. “What? Why do you sound angry? I finally captured one! We’ve been trying to catch one forever!”

Luc finally managed to break through the crowd as well. “What is it? I wanna see! Wow! You caught this on your hunt? A freaking Scaler!”

Kashak nodded, breaking into a smile. This seemed to be the reaction he expected.

Lyra stepped forward, taking Charlie with her, close enough to smell Kashak. He was sweaty, and smelled a little musky, and clearly hadn’t had a bath recently. Charlie’s nose wrinkled.

“We avoid the lizards. They’re dangerous,” Lyra said, visibly angry. “Was anyone hurt?”

“A few scrapes, nothing serious. We caught it! It’s a good thing. I heard we have more mouths to feed now. This will help!” Kashak said, beckoning at the lizard again.

Lyra looked furiously at him. She seemed like she wanted to say more, but bit back her tongue. “Everyone, get back to preparing. We need food, water, and other supplies for the trip. Time is precious to us.”

Kashak’s face soured, and he brushed past her. Lyra turned to watch him leave, and then back to the kids standing around. They hurried back to work. When they had scattered, when no one else was watching, no one but Charlie. Her face fell. She looked sad.

It made Charlie sad, too. He wondered what was wrong with her.

He turned back to look at the lizard. It stared at him, blinking a few times as it took him in. It spoke again, softer this time. “Arh.”

“Hello,” Charlie thought back.

No response.

For his failure, Lyra returned him to prison.

At least, that was how it felt. Kyo laid flat on his back. He’d dozed off a while ago, listening to the hum of the girl who watched over them. It had been a while since they’d arrived here, and Charlie suspected night was approaching, if it hadn’t already. Many of the other children had already gone to sleep. Lyra remained at a desk, looking over some sort of parchment. Orb waited until he was confident Kyo was asleep, and then rolled over to join Charlie.

“So, what’s the plan, Charlie?” he asked.

Charlie sat in front of the cradle’s bars, holding them with his hands. “We should get out of here,” he said. He didn’t like the feeling of being cooped up. He wanted to crawl around and explore. It wasn’t very much fun being confined here against his will. The thought made him look over at the lizard creature still trapped in a cage against the wall. The others had moved it away from the center of the room, where it now waited for…whatever the kids had in store for it. He wondered at that.

“Hey, Orb? What do you think they’ll do with the lizard?”

“Didn’t you hear them talking earlier? They’re going to eat it.”

“Oh,” Charlie said. He tilted his head. “What? Eat it? But it’s alive!”

“Yes, well…that is where meat comes from.”

Charlie grabbed at his face with his hands. “What? Orb, we need to go and warn Merlin about this! What if he eats meat while we’re separated?”

“Charlie, he knows. Everyone knows.”

Charlie’s eyes went wide. That was a bit too much of a bombshell for him. He focused on the issue at hand. He looked around the room. The girl watching him and Kyo had fallen asleep in her chair. Lyra was distracted, and now everyone else was asleep or lying down. They wouldn’t notice if…

“Orb, fly us out of here and to the cage.”

Orb hovered next to him. “Why? What are you going to do?”

Charlie whispered, as if someone might eavesdrop on their mental conversation. “I’m going to set it free!” he said.

Orb paused at that. “Normally, I’d say hell no to something like that. But right now, I could use the excitement. Fine, let’s do this!”

Charlie grabbed a hold of the dirty dungeon core and his legs hung in the air as Orb lifted them out of the cradle and floated toward the daycare’s other prisoner. The lizard tilted its head at them as they approached. Charlie landed softly on the dirt of the dungeon floor and crawled forward the last remaining steps. The lizard, or Scaler, as Luc had called it, leaned forward, stretching its neck to get a better view of them.

Its long tongue shot out of its mouth before returning.

Charlie studied the latch on the cage door. It seemed simple enough. He started to unlatch the lock. He stopped halfway through. A thought occurred to him. “Maybe you should use your ability on it first? So that it knows we’re friendly.”

“Sentience? Hm, I guess I could try that.” Orb turned to focus on the creature before him.

Sentience!

Orb paused for a minute. He dropped a few inches from the air, still hovering above the ground, but lower than before. “Huh, that’s strange.”

Charlie blinked. “What is? What happened?”

“It seems the spell didn’t work for some reason. And now, I’m out of magic.” He plummeted from the sky and fell into the dirt. Charlie removed his hand from the latch and went to grab Orb.

A shriek filled the room. “Arhhhh!”

A metallic clang rung out. Charlie turned to see the latch had fallen open. “Oh…”

The lizard burst out of the cage and turned to sniff Charlie.

Up close like this, he wondered if it had been a smart idea to let it loose while everyone else was sleeping. He realized perhaps he had been a little too hasty. He could feel the creature’s thick breath on his face as it examined him.

A girl screamed. The other children were waking up.

It all turned chaotic quickly.

Charlie grabbed Orb, hurrying to protect him. The children scrambled to grab weapons and wake each other. Lyra, Kashak and Luc were already running to corner the lizard, but despite the fact Orb’s ability hadn’t worked, the creature was still intelligent enough to learn from its past mistake. It wasn’t eager to get captured again and return to its cage. It slammed its tail into the dirt several times, let out another “arh” and then shot forward into the room.

Luc dived, trying to grab the creature, but missed, colliding into a series of makeshift, and very crude, pots and pans. Lyra called out, warning several children to get out of the way, and Kashak chased down the creature as fast as he could with a spear in hand.

It wasn’t fast enough.

The lizard skirted out of the way of a group of spear-wielding children and leapt onto the table Lyra had been working at. Scattered papers tore and sailed through the air. A group of spears that had been freshly dug up from their hiding space fell off the wall, clanging loudly. Baskets of provisions and supplies ripped apart as the lizard clamored over them. Several apples rolled across the room in a way that would make even Orb jealous.

The lizard saw the tunnel heading deeper into the dungeon and made a run for it. Charlie crawled after it as fast as he could, but admittedly, made very little progress.

Lyra grabbed a spear off the wall and froze, lining up a shot.

She had it.

She would hit it.

Charlie wasn’t sure how he knew. He wasn’t sure where the instinct came from. But he knew in a few seconds the lizard would get impaled by that spear.

It would die.

He’d wanted it freed.

Not dead.

“Lyra! Wait!” Charlie thought toward her.

The spear halted a second before it left her hand. The lizard turned to look in Charlie’s direction, scrambling down the tunnel and out of sight, safely into the dungeon.

It had escaped.

Lyra turned around and stared at him. She dropped the spear in her hand. Charlie looked behind himself, wondering if perhaps Lyra was checking to see how the cage had been opened. Or maybe there was an injured kid behind him. But that wasn’t the case.

Lyra was staring at him.

Lyra had heard him.

“Charlie?” she asked, shaking her head.

Charlie’s eyes widened. She noticed. Lyra was observant like that. She knew he’d understood her. “But how—”

“Lyra! Lyra!” a girl called out, bursting into the room. It was Florence.

Lyra spun around. “What is it?” she cried back.

“The guards are coming! A big group of them!”

Luc forced himself to his feet, rubbing his face where he’d smacked it into a table. “A group of them? Now? But that means...”

Lyra looked around the room. “No…no no no. Everyone clean up! Hide the weapons! Now!”

Charlie was the first to notice Captain Varroc enter the room. The children in the room froze as four other soldiers followed him.

Five in total.

What had Luc said before the initiation?

When two guards come, it’s no big deal. But if they send five, it’s really bad.

Varroc surveyed the room, a raised brow betraying his confusion. His eyes locked on the spears messily lying against the wall. He turned his attention to Lyra. “It seems you didn’t learn after all. That’s alright. We’ll teach you this lesson as many times as we need to.”

Lyra stood her ground. “Wha—what do you want?” her voice faltered.

“Me? I don’t want anything. It’s our friend deep in the dungeon that want’s something. It went and picked out a child right from your very own community. Isn’t that exciting? One of you gets to go deeper into the dungeon. Won’t that be fun?”

Charlie shivered. He remembered that feeling he’d had after touching the crystal. That presence he had felt.

And now, Varroc was here to take one of the children to it.

“Now let’s see here.” Varroc looked around, staring at the children one by one. His eyes locked in on the kid he’d come for.

“Ah, there you are,” Varroc said. “Time to go, kiddo. It’s dinnertime.”