Icarus sat on the cold, damp floor of his dungeon cell, his back against the rough stone wall. Not long ago, they had placed a dim torch in the corridor outside the high, rusted metal door. The dim light from the flickering torch cast long, eerie shadows that danced and twisted on the walls, but within the cell, it was almost pitch black. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the occasional drip of water inside the dungeon, echoing through the labyrinthine halls.
The cold seeped through his skin and chilled his bones. Each breath he took was laced with freezing pain. The muddy ground dirtied his fresh, new clothes. He had not realised before, but he was no longer shackled. In Ravniel’s spitting rage, he kicked him into the dungeon without his usual shackling ritual. In the dim light, he hadn't even noticed the absence of the heavy shackles that had bound him for years. The iron cuffs that had chafed his skin and weighed him down were gone. He flexed his fingers, savoring the newfound freedom of movement, a sense of disbelief washing over him.
He raised his fist slowly into the air and sighed. Opening his clenched hand, he revealed a small blue orb. Nearly an entire week had passed since he had witnessed the outside. Since then, he had been gathering information with the little blue orb in his hands. He pressed it against the light emanating from the high grille window. “I wonder how this works,” he muttered to himself.
Since then he had been using the little orb to speak to a voice from a place foreign to all his memories, dreams and experiences. “Hey,” he whispered to the orb, bringing it close to his lips. “Are you there? You haven’t talked to me for the last week, because you said you were busy investigating some kind of church.” He was met with complete silence as he spoke to the orb.
Maybe, the person on the other end of the orb was asleep. Maybe he was still investigating. Icarus waited, the silence sealing him inside the still darkness of the room. Or maybe, he was finally going insane. He laughed to himself lightly as he thought of the idea. “No, this is my first and possibly my last chance of ever escaping this place. Even if I look crazy…”
“Wahyo mean? I’m rite here.” A sluggish voice escaped the orb. Did the person just wake up from sleep? Maybe a different language? Maybe he was asking for help in some sort of code?
“Are you alright?” he whispered gently.
“Ugh, givme afew minutes.”
Icarus sighed as he realised that the boy was just now awaking from his sleep. “How long will you take?”
“I said a few minutes, god.”
“W-what time is it for you? You said your name was Kayam right?”
Kayam groaned in annoyance. “Yes. They call me Kayam. Sometimes the redhead. Sometimes the poor freckled farmer. And YAWN, I wish they called me sleepy Hart as well. But they don’t since I have to wake up so early everyday.”
Icarus tried to picture a ‘redhead’ in his mind, but then decided that he would need to see for himself. “What is a redhead? Is your face red unlike mine?”
He was replied to with a slumbered laugh. “No, idiot. Have you never heard of the phrase, ‘redhead’?”
Icarus frowned at the blue orb in annoyance. “Maybe if you were paying attention, you would know that I have been trapped inside this dungeon cell for years on end.”
“You could try living on this farm here. Boys all over the country would rather rot in boyhood churches than work a day on Frieta’s Farm.”
“Sounds worse than a freezing mud dungeon, with absolutely no lighting or way out. Of course, unresponsive guards and complete isolation from interaction makes it better than living on this ‘Frieta’s Farm’.”
“I’m sorry, that was said in bad taste.”
Icarus rolled his eyes. “Tell me. How did this church investigation go?”
“Nothing at all,” Kayam replied. “I went to St. Biskmus’s church multiple times. They have too many priests surrounding them.”
“Saint Bismusses chuch? What is this chuch you’re looking for anyways?”
“No. Ugh, why is Elijah not here. He could help me explain these things to you. A church is where people go to pray. You know what a prayer is?”
Icarus thought long and hard about his dreams for a few moments and realised that he did know. “In one of my dreams, I saw this mother and father holding their hands together and they called it a prayer. They were asking for blessings and for protection.”
“You seem to know what it is. Well, church is a place where many people gather to make prayers together.”
“Who do you ask for blessings and protections from?” Icarus was sceptical of the idea of a prayer. The idea of praying to someone who could help so many people felt idiotic.
“God. We call him god. We knew his name once upon a time.”
“Is he a person? How did you forget his name?”
Icarus flinched as he heard an annoyed sigh from the orb. “You got a lot of questions. He’s not a person. He’s an all-knowing, all-powerful being who we can’t see. And how we forgot his name… Let’s say that a lot of our history has become lost on us.”
“I-I’m sorry. All this is very new to me. So he’s someone you can’t see. But you believe in him. I feel like I kind of understand. I guess you put your hopes in this person?”
“Yes, we put our hopes in him, and we pray to him, hoping that he blesses us.”
“O-okay, and how about your history? Who is the ‘us’ you refer to?”
Kayam slumped against his soft bed on the other end of the orb. Elijah left the tedious tasks to him, while he ran off to Central Mienn. “You don’t know anything, do you? I guess I can take some time off my busy day to explain some things.”
Icarus clutched the orb in his hand for a moment, feeling its warmth seep into his skin. He rolled into a ball, a wide grin bursting across his face as he rolled around the ground in sheer, unrestrained joy. Years upon years, countless hours spent sitting in complete silence, had led him to this moment. There had been neither communication nor company, only an overwhelming void of solitude. So many hours spent in pure darkness, his senses deprived and his mind desperate for any semblance of connection.
And finally, he found solace and peace in an orb. An orb ever so fragile, yet imbued with a power that transcended its delicate appearance. He held it deep into his chest, feeling its gentle pulse sync with his own heartbeat. It was as if the orb had a soul, although it’s intricacies was lost on Icarus and his simple knowledge.
Icarus had discovered the orb in the most unlikely of places, buried deep within the mud under the little dripping puddle. Kayam’s voice rose like a faint, ethereal whisper from the ground, and as if a replica of the time when he fainted, blue lights danced at the puddle. Frantically, he clawed at the sludge, filling his nails with horrid mud, until his hands came across the warmth of the blue orb. From there, he spoke to Kayam, who let him know that there was a similar orb buried just beneath the grave of his friends mother.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
The light from the orb illuminated his face, casting away the shadows that had been his only companions for so long. It was warm, almost like the touch of another being, and Icarus felt a surge of emotion well up within him. He laughed, a sound that seemed alien to his own ears, and the echoes of his joy filled the empty space around him, reverberating off the cold, stone walls.
“-Icarus? Are you alright? Why you laughing to yourself? Maybe you’ve gone crazy or something.”
“N-nothing, but please go on. Please tell me about this history.”
“Lord, am I really stuck with this weirdo until he comes back?”
“I’m not a weirdo,” Icarus declared as his happy rolling jolted to a stop. “Now please just tell me already.”
“Alright, damn. Stop being so impatient,” Kayam grumbled as he rubbed his forehead to dispel his morning grogginess. “Two centuries ago, Givraiya was whole, every empire, every kingdom, every country strong and thriving.”
“Hold on. Givraiya? What’s Givraiya.”
“The world. Givraiya is what we call our world. I hope you also live on Givraiya because if you don’t, we won’t be able to help you.”
“I wish I knew where I am living. If you could call this living.”
“We’ll figure something out, trust me.”
“See, Givraiya was ruled by five emperors and one supreme emperor. And there were twenty kingdoms, each ruled by powerful kings and queens. I don’t know how the social norms were or how their laws worked. Elijah knows a little about it. Regardless, two hundred years ago, the twenty kingdoms were filled with people who would practice witchcraft and black magic. No one knows how black magic works either. See, churches teaches us that God despises black magic. It goes against the very fabric of our beliefs. The only way to practice magic is to accept the devil as your lord.”
“Devils? And why is it called black magic and not magic? In my dreams, the ‘people of the outside’ called this strange force, magic. Even though I cannot remember much, I can tell. That it is something extraordinary and beautiful. Not some kind of devilish work. I saw a fire once in my dreams. It felt… dangerous and scary. But when they made fire from their fingertips, it was beautiful; a dance of light and heat, swirling in elegant, sparkling designs.”
It was true. In one of his many dreams, he watched Raphael’s mother, Iuraph create flames for her very fingertips. The flames twisted and twirled, casting shimmering reflections across the surroundings, like a painter's brush on an endless canvas. Each flicker and spark was a testament to the artistry and grace inherent in magic.
Kayam frowned in disagreement. In truth, despite his earlier annoyance, Icarus was beginning to pique his interest. He sat up straight in his cabin, holding both the talking orb and the blue shard which had come out of Elijah’s knee. The shard was useless so far. Despite his efforts, there seemed to be no reaction from the stone. The blue hue had simmered down and rendered it into a dim blue jagged crystal. “But magic isn’t beautiful, is it? Elijah’s dad left him because of magic. My mother died because of magic. In short, I think God was right to punish us for magic.”
“God punished you for magic? I thought you said God blesses you?” Icarus asked with heightened curiosity.
“It’s not like that. God blesses us. But he may also curse us, if he so wishes. See God is someone who knows the truth of the world and he is also the one who tells us what is right and wrong. So when God realised that black magic was running amok our world, he began destroying us, kingdom by kingdom, until he got to our kingdom. That is until our King two centuries ago arrived at the kingdom’s border. Rakhfan Senyah. He made a deal with God. The Senyah family would rid our kingdom, Bordenheim, of black magicians, in return for the safety of their lives.”
“And so? How was it? The rule after the encounter with God?” Icarus leaned forward interested in the story.
“It was horrible. Ever since, anyone who challenged the royal authority were charged with black magic blasphemy and were put to death as magicians and witches. The Kings have always been terrible tyrants as far as I know. Elian Senyah, the king who boiled the tongues of all the people of Wintonin Village.”
“H-he did what? Why?” he asked with wide eyes and certain disappointment. Were royalty scum of the earth and not the golden nobles he thought of?
“They had a band of bardes who sang a song about the atrocities caused by the King’s son. So the King punished every person from the village as a warning to anyone else who wanted to speak ill of the royal line.”
“Oh, okay…” Icarus squinted in annoyance as he heard Kayam name a former king’s tyranny. “And the current king? Is he also a tyrant?”
“He’s the worst of them all. Eleven, ten years is all it took.”
“W-what did he do?”
“He uses each country in Bordenheim to fulfil his own desires. Beautiful buildings, delicious food, trained servants, intricate intelligence. He has everything. And while him and his nobles enjoy the riches of our kingdom, our people die slowly. And worst of all, no one can do a thing.”
“Oh… and does he have any children?”
Kayam laughed bitterly. “Not a single child. He despises children. Why do you ask?”
“Aha… no reason…” Icarus smiled sheepishly to himself. Of course, just because Ravniel called him a prince, did not mean that he was a son of a king. It was probably a meaningless mistake.
“Okay then, if you say it’s nothin-”
“A guard here called me a prince,” he interrupted quickly.
“A prince? Unless something happened elsewhere, you couldn’t be a prince. Ja Senyah has no children.”
“A-ah… I don’t doubt you. Just tried bringing up something randomly.”
Kayam sighed as he circled the house. “Hey, no. Anything could help us. Right now, you’re my only lead to what Elijah assigned for me. Everything else turned out to be useless. So we’re going to break you out of where you are. Tell me, what do the people around you look like?”
Icarus thought carefully about Damam and Ravniel. “One of my guards are thin. Another is quite big. They both wear heavy armour plates made of black substance. They have three triangular marks under both of their eyes. They have pointed ears compared to my ears. I don’t know what else. Oh yes! They have long sharp nails coming from their knuckles area. Although it only comes out sometimes.”
“You know what Icarus! You’re a genius!”
Icarus stood up suddenly with sparkling eyes. “REALLY?!”
“Hey!! Shush shush. Keep it down. Won’t your guards come out to check who you’re talking to?”
“Y-yes, you’re right,” he whispered. “Did that help you find out where I am?”
“Not at all haha!” Kayam said while leaping outside heartily.
“Ugh,” Icarus replied as he slumped against the wall. “You made me excited.”
“Now, now don’t be disappointed. Although I don’t know what that tells me. But it sure tells me something. I may not be as smart as Elijah, but I know one thing. Keep working at something, and you’ll make progress just fine. So tell me. Have you seen around your dungeon? How could you escape?”
“I can’t escape. The door, it’s too high for me. They lower a ladder for me to get out for toilets. And there’s a little hole just as high, but it’s riddled with metal bars. Usually when I leave for toilet’s they blindfold me with some kind of material. And this dungeon is too long and windy, I could never understand the directions. Other than my guards I have only seen one man, in rich gold garbs. He had deep black eyes and brown hair. And outside… I only seen it recently-”
Kayam listened and laughed as he heard about how Icarus created a makeshift mirror to see outside. “And? What did you see?”
“This dungeon is inside a cave. There is no moon. No sky. Nothing. It’s just a large expanse of a cave. There are white lights outside, which I thought was a moon. And no one ever passes by the dungeon. I have not seen a single person since I first discovered a way to look out. Not even a guard.”
“A cave?” Kayam exclaimed in confusion. “A dungeon in a cave? Alright, if anything that gives us a chance.”
“Really? Can you find a cave anywhere near you?”
“Near me? No. But do I know a land of caves? Yes. I have to go to Jezebel. But just to be sure, I’m going to meet Elijah and begin searching the few caves in Mienn. Trust in me, Icarus, we will get you out of this dungeon.”
“Alright, I trust you,” Icarus whispered. Just as he whispered his words, there was a loud clang outside as the high door slammed open.
“ICARUS, YOUR SHACKLES AT ONCE,” Ravniel bellowed, leaping through the doorway and landing on all fours like a beast.
Hurriedly, Icarus buried the orb into a small hole he had created earlier in the ground, covering it with the mud. “Y-yes, Ravniel. Here are my hands,” he stammered, extending his trembling hands toward Ravniel. Nervously, he glanced at the concealed spot where the orb lay hidden and gulped deeply. He needed to be more careful next time. It was too close this time.
Ravniel slammed the shackles onto his wrists and roughly kicked him toward the wall. “Not a word out of you anymore, boy. Not only are you a useless prince, but also a useless prisoner. I don’t want to hear of you again.”
Icarus nodded hurriedly, desperate for Ravniel to leave.
The cold metal of the chains bit into his wrists as Ravniel linked the other end to the loop in the wall. Icarus winced, but remained silent, his eyes fixed on the ground. As Ravniel's footsteps echoed away, Icarus allowed himself a brief sigh of relief. He had managed to hide the orb just in time, but he knew he had to be more cautious. The stakes were too high, and next time, he might not be so lucky.