My mind was dampened again and darkness took me along with thoughts of pain and torment.
Because of the circlet, I could not entirely understand what the Lord Commander said about ending my life. However, somewhere deeper in the recesses of my mind, I did, and I suspected it was because of that my dreams were pained and full of terror for the entire wait.
I had wrapped myself into a small ball in the corner, held warm by the old wool blanket. The cell was still damp, and my body was covered with a cold sweat. Nobody came for me during the single day of waiting, and there was no light coming in from under the door.
In my dreams, I was running from a four-legged shadowy creature for what felt like an eternity. When the guards came for me, they kicked me awake and laughed as I coughed in pain. Without the wool blanket, they took me into their familiar firm grip and brought me out from under the ground. We went up some steps, through a spacious and bright room filled with much furniture and creaking floors. But for most of the route, I was dragged along and my bare feet scraped against the ground.
Further ahead we went, along a wider carpeted hallway where no voices or sounds I heard, and then through a set of doors, which when opened, creaked loudly. Suddenly a whiff of fresh air entered my lungs and a warmth from the right.
I was taken to the middle of the room and pushed down into a small chair of old wood. Around me, I saw light coming through the windows, still blurry and blended together, and to my right, many shadowy blobs talking in whispered voices. The two guards who took me here walked back and out of the room with heavy steps, and were mumbling protests along the way.
To my left I felt a radiating warmth—a fireplace and I could vaguely hear the sharp cracks of burning logs, and on my right, farther away, was a wide and tall window, very colorful and bright from the Sun. And now and then leaves grazed against the glass.
Then, with no warning, a powerful pair of hands held my head, while another took the cursed circlet off and the fog was lifted.
Immediately my eyes flashed white, and a sharp pain struck my head. The clarity of my sight overwhelmed me. I was so overtired that I could hardly sit without collapsing, and my breaths were shallow and quick. After a moment, I looked at my surroundings. I sat inside a small room with walls of chiseled grey stone and old brown carpeted floors, and tall, mosaic-painted paned windows.
A pair of hands from behind pulled me against the flimsy backrest and the worn wood was cold against my skin—I was still only in my old and worn underwear.
“A few more days, and he would find his end in that cell,” I heard a calm but commanding voice say from behind. It was the Lord Commander Ardovar Verrier.
“What a pity,” Captain Dion, who stood beside him, said with noticeable sarcasm.
In the room stood the same three members of the Yasman Lodge as yesterday. Captain Dion and Maore took their places at my sides, already gripping their swords with naked hands. In their eyes was a readiness to pounce upon me the moment I showed danger. I don’t think I could’ve even walked ten paces, so that was entirely useless.
There was a fourth man I did not recognize in the room with us, leaning against a wall farther back. He was tall and thin, with a worn dark coat with a high collar, and a long sword handle behind his back and his boots bore dirt and many scrapes from long travels. And in his eyes, there was a weariness, and his shoulders were slumped forward as carrying an invisible weight with him. As the Lord Commander paced forward and back behind me, the unknown man grabbed a padded chair from under the desk and set it in front of me.
“Thank you, Rian, you can go now,” the Lord Commander said.
“You don’t need me to hold him down?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“No, we have this handled. Keep watch in front of the door. Nobody can enter.”
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“Except for…”
“The dean, of course.”
The man named Rian left with long steps, leaving crumbs of old dirt on the already-brown carpet, and closed the door gently.
With another heavy sigh, Ardovar Verrier, Lord Commander of the Yasman Lodge, sat across from me and pulled up his sleeves with his fat fingers. He leaned back and his maroon coat fell on the chair’s backrest. He looked at me with care and interest, and I felt a chill run through me and an odd pressure poking around my skin here and there.
“Let’s see if I can even salvage something from this worn-out mind,” he said, almost to himself. “You pushed his mind too far, Captain.”
“The safety of my men was more important than this one. Either of those savages in Veneiea could rip three men apart, tear arms or legs off. I saw it myself. I couldn’t risk that.”
“And now his mind may be too far gone to get anything out of him,” Verrier said and tiredly sighed again. “But let’s get this over with.”
He reached his arms out and held his palms above my head, fingers spread apart.
“This will probably hurt,” he said. “Try to relax. It will be over quickly.”
Then, the fire of his life behind his eyes disappeared and the Lord Commander’s mind expanded. His eyes were dull, but the air grew heavy and the fire died to a smolder. Warden Maore grumbled and I could almost feel how the Captain grit her teeth.
And then, there was an intrusion against my mind, like false thoughts entering and compelling me to relive times past.
Explaining how a mind-scrape feels is difficult because it’s an all-encompassing feeling.
My thoughts were all over the place, but soon I was back at the grim village of Veneiea. I stood alone in the rain, ankle-deep in the mud, looking over where the young man and woman were laying in the rubble. Through a daze, I kneeled down to pick up the golden medallion again, but the hand recoiled and the blond man coughed. I jumped back and held my hands up.
Go back, I heard.
Suddenly I was lying behind the pillar, and before me were the three beast-men. They stood there, their backs were not bent, and without their bestial hunger. But alongside me, there was someone else watching me, watching the savages. Like a presence looking from behind, over my shoulder. Such a thing was unnerving.
The sensation that I was not alone in my thoughts felt wrong. There was another one listening in, and I felt the presence creeping further into my mind, deeper in and urging me to go even farther back in my memory. And I wanted to go back, but there was nowhere to go back to. All I could remember was the mud and the cold, and before that, a pure blackness without shape or time.
The presence wanted more, but I protested! It did not have the right. I pushed back. I felt the fire flicker alight again and somewhere in the distance, a tired Ardovar grunted. Something wet fell on my forehead.
Show me more. Show me what you did! The voice commanded.
No!
It was looking and urging me to keep going back. It wanted more. But my thoughts were my own, not its plaything. I pushed back, and I was then standing in the middle of the square. It was a cobblestone-covered square now, and the sky was clear and the sun was shining high. I heard birds chirping far off.
Go back, show me what you did to them!
No. The presence shook, and I heard a heavier grunt from a far place.
My mind was mine, and not a plaything for someone else. The wind picked up and rain fell down in heavy whirlwinds, clouds grew heavy and threatening, and up above struck a lightning. But its sound was gentle and the thunder was soft and it felt comforting. I remembered a word; it started with Hiskand… but I could not remember more. I wanted to, because it felt familiar and safe.
Through the storm and wind, somewhere far away, a cry of pain echoed. The stones on the square began to vibrate and rearrange themselves into circular patterns, shaking and scraping against each other. I felt more in control now, and with a deep mental exhale, I pushed the entity out.
My eyes shot open, and I took a deep breath in. I was shaking and a cold sweat was on my skin. The fire roared hot and wild, and the Lord Commander grunted and fall backward into the chair.
Captain Dion stepped forward, reached for her arm, slapped my cheek with a loose hand, and said: “What did you do?”
I could hardly notice the slap. It felt gentle and carelessly given. Instead, I stared at the Lord Commander, and how his face was glistening with sweat, and he was coughing between pained breaths. For some time, he did this and kept wiping his forehead dry into his embroidered sleeve. After gathering his strength, and leaning against the armrest, Ardovar Verrier got up, coughed, and fell on his knees.
“Ardovar!” Captain Dion cried and rushed beside him. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, get away from me!” Ardovar hissed and gathered his breath.
He got up while breathing heavily and limped to get a glass of water from a jug farther away. He downed it in moments and said: “We’re done. Get him out of here, now!”
I was about to call out in my defense, for I could not suffer another moment with the cursed circlet. When I opened my mouth and was about to cry out, Captain Dion, this time with a wide and forceful swing, slapped my jaw, and with a swift motion, set the metallic thing back.
Within a moment, my thoughts were silenced and the world turned to a dull shade of gray again, and my panicked state carried over into the maddening dreamworld. With firm hands, I was carried down into the familiar damp hole in the ground to await whatever was in store.