Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Three
The Justice of the Dark
Amekot clung to the bars of the deepest cell in the Murk, gaunt and shaking as his breaths wheezed out in rattles. He had conjured every enchantment to his knowledge trying to break free. He screamed out in Dark Tongue but now even the Shanii had gone, and the echoing words of power fell on nothing but stone.
The Fortmaster’s hands were gnarled, scraped, and even broken to a degree. During a particular bout of thrashing madness, he shattered every finger on his left hand save for his thumb. His throat was dry as sand. The battle for Fort Guardian had come and gone, and no one had come within shouting distance of the Murk since.
The thirst and the dark played terrible tricks with what remained of his mind.
Shadows leered behind him and the stone bit at his hands and feet. The silence even chittered when he found himself drowsing off.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” muttered the faceless voice of Klaryah, echoing through the darkness of the Murk.
Amekot clutched the cold, iron bars and trembled. “Please, let me out.
“Let me think about that.” A drawing bowstring creaked in the blackness of the jailhouse.
Amekot stumbled back away from the bars, muttering pleas. He couldn’t see a thing. The world was silence and dread. The bowstring whispered across the dark, stone floor and tears glistened in the traitor’s eyes.
Amekot swallowed, “I’m sorry, okay? Is that it? Is that what you want to hear?”
An arrow whistled passed the man’s head and shattered against the wall tearing through the silence like a knife through cotton. “Not yet you’re not.”
Amekot fell to his knees huddled against the floor as cold sweat ran down his quivering forehead.
“We survived Nikereus, in case you were wondering- well, a fraction of us. Michael- yes that boy you tried to have me murder -died saving the Guardians you betrayed.”
Amekot wept and the fear which choked him held all thought of Arcancy at bay. The power needed direction and intent, and all the mental faculties associated with that clarity had long-singe been driven from Amekot’s mind.
“Please let me out of this place,” his voice jittered. “I can’t bear it anymore. This darkness is blinding me. I can feel it in my eyes!” His screams echoed throughout the cavernous prison and the unseen figure huffed.
“Good. We dug two hundred graves up there. You’re a rat. And rats deserve the dark.”
The traitor nodded and huffed in the darkness. Anger bloomed on the edge of his raving fear. “Yes. I am.” Amekot became wide-eyed suddenly and he pressed himself against the bars. “Water. Give me that at least-”
Footfalls lightly muttered in the dark and the man turned whip-fast, looking all about the Murk like someone was tugging his shoulder.
“Leave me be!” Amekot screamed, but not at Klaryah.
The pitter-patter of his mind crawled onto the ceiling and Amekot forced himself onto his back, panting and shaking. His fine garb of the gentry, now considerably less so.
“If I left you here you’d go mad and die of thirst… soon, by the looks of it. If I let you go then I think I’d go mad. However, if I killed you, then everyone would be happy.”
The man sunk to the floor as he stared into the shadow, clinging to himself as his demons encircled him. “What do you want from me?”
“Just some answers.”
“If I give them, will you release me?” quivered the traitor, slightly raising his head.
“If you give them I’ll give you a choice,” Klaryah’s voice grumbled a little louder, closer in the dark but still unseen.
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Silence lingered as the traitor waited. He crawled forward, his tear-stained face pressed up against the bars.
“Did you ever believe they could win?” she asked finally. “You never struck me as being terribly fond of this place or its people, but I must say, I didn’t expect this. Was there ever a real hope or did you scamper off into the caves as soon as your first War Council ended?” A quiet rage vibrated in the words Klaryah spoke.
Amekot let go of the bars, sensing the arrow upon its string and looked deep into the shadows.
“Answer the question,” her voice mumbled, no speck of levity about it.
Amekot took a shaky breath, feeling the assassin’s rage through the bars.
He knew his answer already of course and shook his head. “If I say then you’ll just kill me for it.”
Voices whispered in the dark of his light-starved heart and he clawed at his ears, beginning them to stop.
“Perhaps it’s what you deserve. Now, tell your tale, or I will leave you for the shadows to devour your body.”
Amekot stammered another breath and nodded. He pushed himself into a sitting position and stared blindly into the darkness, wringing his hands. He nodded to himself and tried to speak but his thoughts refused to become words. In the darkness the bowstring creaked further back and Amekot let out a whimper and cleared his throat to speak.
“No,” he finally said, and nothing further.
Klaryah sighed and an arrow whipped through the bars, glancing Amekot’s shoulder, sending him screaming over backwards. “Feel free to elaborate.”
Clutching his torn arm, Amekot cried, “No, I never believed they could win! I left the fort that first night and followed the army’s’ trail!- Argh! I caught them before they’d gotten very far and pleaded for the commander to spare me. Okay?- I- I offered them our plans for my life,” he said, his voice as hollow as bone.
Klaryah knelt down in the dark and leant in close to the bar. “Hm..”
For the first time in days Amekot could see another soul clearly and despite the threat to his life he inched forward, almost in disbelief. When he could finally see her face, there was nothing on it but disappointment.
“Well, I suppose that settles that. Since you don’t look in any hurry to leave, I also want to know why you had me stay? I’ve known you a very long time. I offered my help and you took it after you’d already condemned everyone here?”
Amekot buried his face in his hands and shook his head, quickly sputtering, “I’m sorry, Johnny-”
Another arrow tore through the darkness, zipping across Amekot’s cheekbone and he screamed out, thrashing against the ground.
The hitwoman said, with a practiced calm, “My name is Klaryah.”
Amekot looked up and spat, “I knew you before you lost your mind, J-”
This time the arrow went through his knee, and all words he otherwise would’ve hatefully spouted, were cut rather short as he virtually exploded in anguish. His cries resounded off the walls and Klaryah looked down at him, the bow still aloft and string quivering.
She took a long breath and lowered her bow, finally letting out a harsh sigh. “So, you needed to kill Michael before he found out about your Dark Arcancy. Who better to pin a murder on than a murderess... And Oliver?”
The man clutched their knee hand and shivered against the cold floor. This time he knew better than to remain silent. “The day they were all leaving for their mission, I ordered him into my office and bewitched him. I needed someone to blame, in case anyone went looking for the files I gave to Nikereus.”
The hitwoman watched Amekot stare blindly through the bars for a long time before she nodded. “Why him?”
Amekot scoffed, his hand itching to pull at the arrow in his kneecap. “He’s a nameless peasant. No one was supposed to care. Michael was never supposed to doubt his own power. And failing all that, you were never supposed to miss.”
Klaryah smiled to herself. “First time for everything, I suppose.” She looked at him through the cage bars and slowly came to the realisation there was nothing left to ask. “Goodbye, Amekot. Oh-” she pulled a water skin from her cloak and threw it into the cage.
Amekot snatched it from the floor and immediately drank until the pouch was empty.
Klaryah looked at him and sighed with satisfaction. “Now, you’ll last at least another couple days. Long enough to read this a couple times.” Her off hand dropped a tight scroll on the stone.
Amekot looked to the water like it was poison and then to Klaryah, watching as she turned away. “Wait.”
But she stepped back into the dark and her footsteps disappeared in the black.
“Please no! Don’t leave me here! Shoot me or let me go but don’t leave me in this fucking place! You gave me your word! You said I’d have a choice!”
The demons of his mind whispered in his ears and laughed maniacally in the base of his skull. They clambered across his blindness in the corner of his eye. His voice seemed to roll across the cold stone floor for eternity, echoing lightly until it faded and died.
Echoing from far up the Murk ramp, Klaryah called down, “Here’s your choice. Read that scroll or don’t, but it won’t bring them back to life.”
“Klaryah! Klaryah!”
But nothing more came.
After a long haunting moment in the dark, Amekot picked up the scroll. He could barely make out the writing. The scroll was filled from top to bottom with names, and it became clear that Klaryah had just added to. At the top, scrawled in a heavy hand were the words The Fallen. Amekot read the list name-by-name and felt his throat close inside him. His horror grew and enveloped him and the tears welled hot behind his eyes. The man buried his face in his hands and screamed into the void of the Murk. He cried out for the hitwoman but knew in his heart she was gone. The darkness held only him and he lay on the cold stone, quivering in the mess of himself. The last name on the list was his own. His death certificate was signed. The traitor’s thoughts ate him alive and he teared at his hair and thrashed his fists against the walls, wailing to every Gargan and every god he could name.
Far up the ramp, Klaryah’s hands wrapped around the rungs of the ladder. She looked back down the long hall of stone and shadow and sighed, content.