Angeleyes' Story (For Roland and all)

[Occhidiangela]

The Joys of Jehryn's Dungeons"


First there was the throbbing, dull pain behind her forehead, then the chaffing and burning of her wrists and forearms. Gradually, she became aware of the cold, damp stone against the bare skin of her back and her heels, and the dull ache of her shoulders. The cool, dank air and the smell of rotting straw were a clue to her whereabouts, but the fur ball in her mind stood in the way of clear memory. Had she been struck blind by the blow from that spear butt? A spear butt flying into her field of view was the last thing she remembered seeing before the lights went out.

Angeleyes drew in a slow, deep cleansing breath to clear her head. The long exhalation seemed to help, so she took three more, rhythmically breathing while closing her eyes. She knew her eyes were closed by the sensation of her lids falling more than by any change in the lighting conditions. The darkness surrounding her was complete. There being no light, she took inventory by feel and reason, resulting in discoveries that did nothing to improve here spirits.

She was shackled above the ground, her bare feet told her when she wiggled her toes, to a damp stone wall, held by both wrists and ankles. The wall she presumed to be within a cell in Jehryn’s dungeon. Yes, that was right, she had been in Lut Gholein, searching for signs of Tal Rasha and drinking at Atma’s Tavern in a parley with a sardonic death mage. She shuddered as the rest of the memory returned, along with the grisly revelation of her brother’s walking corpse and her flight from the tavern. She returned to her inventory.

She felt no clothing touching her clammy, goose bump covered skin, so she assumed herself to have been stripped as a precaution by her captors, whom she guessed were Greiz sellswords and spear pullers. Had she captured a Mage Slayer, she mused, she might have taken similar precautions. Whatever else, the inconvenience of being unclothed meant that someone had also removed her sword, her boots, her black leather armor, her various equipment. Even the rings from her fingers had been taken. She gritted her teeth at the irritation of having to find her “kit” before she could payback whomever she owed this favor. Her arms and legs, as best she could tell, were fastened such that her body formed an X against the wall.

She sneezed. The accompanying body tremor sent a new wave of pain through her joints, stiff with their lack of use over the past - how long had she been here, anyway? Her body froze in terror.

Where was Mikal, her nephew? She’d been carrying him under her arm as she fled Atma’s when the blow fell across her head with a shower of black and gold stars. She fought the pulse of panic flaring up within her stomach, then reached mentally for her center, took another cleansing breath, and worked her way steadily and resolutely back to calm irritation at being someone’s, probably Jehryn’s, prisoner.

“Light blast them all to cinders,” she swore under her breath, “But save six to be gravediggers and pall bearers at the mass funeral.” Her father’s old multi-purpose curse came scratching out of her throat, sparking the realization that she was terribly thirsty. At least her last drink had been a Westmarch Bitter, so there was that to be thankful for. The return of her sense of humor cheered her up for a second or two.

Whatever escape plan she chose would have to wait, she realized, until someone came to her cell bearing light. Without shadow, she could not summon her Shadow as she had in Orthas’ room. And constrained as she was, she would need her Shadow to free her hands and feet. But she could at least get a better sense of her surroundings, and thus be as prepared as possible.

By wiggling her fingers she determined that they were free, albeit unable to ply their skills at lock picking since her locked wrists were at arm’s length apart from one another. One deep breath later, she arched her stomach forward, her shoulders and heels forced against the stone wall, and then slammed her lower back into the wall while snapping her hands downward at the wrist and exhaling a forceful “Maulisai!” She felt the force go out, away from her.

The echo of reflected force came back to buffet her, but the pain was worth hearing a rattle that could only be a door, or a latch, and a sense that the wall facing her was about two or three strides away. The rustling sound that accompanied the rattle resolved itself into a few shards of damp straw swirling across her cell to stick to her head, belly, and face. A few deep breaths later, she settled down to wait for the first victim of her growing anger, anger at being trussed up like some common thief.

She flushed in bitter memory as she thought how loudly Kashya would laugh to see her strung up and helpless like this. But that bit of politics was behind her now, she reminded herself, though she couldn’t help but wonder if any of her Sisters would help her, had they known of her present fate. Her change in occupation from traveling Sister to Mage Slayer had made her life more complicated, that much was for certain. Perhaps that bridge had been burned.

Her shoulders protested as she relaxed, further stretching the soft tissue, but as gravity was not willing to negotiate, she accepted their fresh messages of pain as the price of her eventual freedom. She closed her eyes, sought her center, found it, and calmly drifted into the half-waking, half-dreaming meditation she had learned from the psi-masters in the North. She drifted inward, to behold not her usual “place of peace” in the ordered rock garden she’d made as an apprentice Mage Slayer, but instead to the older vision from her earliest training: the view of a bright, softly glowing, Sightless Eye. She hung there, a trap ready to spring on her first visitor.

Footsteps brought her out of her trance.

Her ears, hyper tuned by her relaxed state, told her that one pair of feet were iron shod, another wore leather boots, and a third slippers. The voices were somewhat muffled by echoes and the door, but with concentration she could make out a muttered conversation.

“We’ll not enter the room, Mistress Zenovia, strict orders on that, but you can have a look to see if this is the woman what killed your boy in that tavern brawl.” She frowned, as she remembered running from, not fighting at, Atma’s. Then something opened and light entered her cell. She let her eyelids stay drooped as her head sagged, then inwardly rejoiced as she made out shadows against a red, flickering background of torchlight. Patience, Occhi, she said to herself, patience before payback.

“I can’t see her, Durga, not with your face pressed against the bar.” This voice from a woman who sounded middle aged, though the faint echoes out in the passageway made that uncertain. Keeping her head down, she cracked her eyelids open a bit further.

“Durga, back away!” came a short bark from another woman. Her tone brooked no discussion. “We are down here to identify a suspect, not for you to stare at the prisoner!” A slight shuffling of feet allowed more torchlight to leak into the cell for a moment, only to be partially blocked by another face, hooded and shrouded in shadow.

“I can’t see her face from out here, Sergeant Xandtia, with the light behind me and her head all slumped down like that.” The woman’s voice dropped into sarcasm. “For all I know, that’s one of Lord Jehryn’s concubines being punished for not being sufficiently grateful for his attentions.” A pause followed and the red light flickered.

“Is there anyway I can get you to push the torch into the chamber?” The shadow in front of the little window in the cell door withdrew and the red light flickered more brightly. Black and red shadows danced into the cell.

Angeleyes drew in a breath and reached her fingers to position her palms face up, her wrists screaming at her as their skin tore within the manacles. The torch poked into the window, forcing her eyes shut from the pain of new light, yet creating a new host of shadows that chased one another around what her brief glimpse revealed as a small cell.

“Umbrogliu!” she breathed out, and felt the energy channel out of her, leaving her weakened and slightly light headed.

“What’s that, wench, you sassing your betters?” Durga’s guttural growl echoed slightly in the passageway outside the door. “You keep it shut with that ‘pole you’ nonsense, or we’ll see what a few doses of the cat will do to your sass!” Angeleyes sensed the quickening of the shadows to her right, and decided to keep the attention on herself. She raised her head and slowly opened her eyes, squinting against the red torchlight that danced about. A mailed fist, thrust through the iron bars in the small window at the top of the door, held a burning torch. The face next to the torch was indistinguishable within its hood, but behind the cloak she could make out the reflected glow of golden hair, doubtless one of the two guards.

“You get your laughs from staring at chained women, lady?” she rasped, her voice cracking in her dry throat. The longer the shadows danced, the faster her summons would complete. “Well, gaze away, I’m not going anywhere at the moment.”

“You should have gagged her, you fool!” barked the louder female voice. “Shut the window!” The torch and the face disappeared as the opening slammed shut. Hints of red light leaked into the room under the door.

“Assassin, you hold your tongue behind your teeth!” The woman’s voice again, stern with the aura of command, though slightly muffled through the door. “No food or water for you until tomorrow. Murderers get no mercy, and no food, unless they keep a civil tongue in their mouth.”

“Murderer?” shrieked Angeleyes. “Murder is it? How about the son of a whore who stole my nephew, Mikal?” Her voice cracked but her fury forced her on. “You golden-haired twit, which of you bughumpers has my nephew? And who did I supposedly kill? I rescued my nephew from a death mage, you cat kissing bitch, before one of your drunken spear-pullers played cricket with my forehead!” She would have said more, but her throat burned and cracked from the lack of moisture, choking off her next words.

“Silence, murderess!” came the shouted command as the door slammed open to reveal a tall, blonde-haired woman dressed in chain mail and knee boots, long sword in a scabbard at her side. Even in the darkness and shadow, Angeleyes could see her golden hair bound up in the high “horsetail” favored by Amazon mercenaries, and the flash of the woman’s gray eyes as she took two quick strides into the cell to deliver a hard punch to the prisoner’s rather vulnerable stomach. The blow drove the wind from the Assassin’s lungs and brought stars to her eyes. Angeleyes writhed involuntarily as she gasped for breath that was suddenly impossible to find, so she barely saw the shadow erupt from the corner of the room.

With a jerk of the “horsetail” and a lightning quick slash of her wrist blade, Shadow ripped the Amazon’s throat open. Angeleyes heard the woman’s body fall and start thrashing about on the floor of the cell as the woman gurgled her dismay in a fountain of blood. A harsh exclamation of surprise from Durga was followed by the dull crack of leather on flesh and the ring of a metal helm against rock. A second blow cut off the beginnings of a woman’s scream as the guard’s heavy body fell to the ground.

Angeleyes slowly got her wind back, a fresh round of pain washing over her from bound extremities, as the shadow silently dragged the two bodies from the passageway into the cell. It left and returned with the still flickering torch, then shut the cell door to reveal a grisly scene.

The tall blond woman’s convulsions continued as she clasped her hands to her throat in a vain attempt to stop the red fountain of blood. The shadow stared down impassively as the Amazon went through her spasmodic death throes. The body of the hooded woman lay in a small heap in the left corner of the cell, while the large, spear wielding guard lay on his back in the other corner, the slight rise and fall of his chest indication that he’d been knocked out, not slain.

“Shadow, my manacles please?” the Mage Slayer asked when she could breath again.

The Shadow rifled through the guard’s pockets, producing a set of keys. After a few tries, it succeeded in unlocking the ankle bounds. The wrists manacles followed, which left Angeleyes to fall a stride to the floor in a heap, her pleasure at being unbound dampened by the new wave of pain erupting from most of her body, the injury to her left knee not having been improved by hanging on a wall. She spent a few minutes massaging her wrists and ankles and pondering how she would escape from the dungeon.

The guard stirred. Shadow stepped to him and knealt down, her blades at his throat when Angeleyes whispered “No, wait! I need his clothes!” A nod and a quick blow to the man’s head put him back to sleep. Angeleyes stood, awkwardly, and returned her attention to the dying Amazon. A bit tall, but it looked as though her armor and clothing would fit. Then inspiration struck her.

She sat down on the floor next to the other woman and removed her cloak. In the sputtering torchlight, she made out the features of the cook from Elzix’ tavern, Zenovia. The woman’s shoulder length, graying hair was just longer than her own, but she would have to do. Quickly removing the unconscious woman’s cloak and clothing, she dragged her to the manacles and motioned to Shadow. With a little help, Zenovia was soon shackled to the wall, her head hanging down to her chest, her shallow breath moving her shoulders. A quick tearing of cloth from Durga’s cloak provided a gag, which Shadow tied loosely into her mouth.

Angeleyes turned her attention to the guard and pulled the sword from the Amazon’s belt, the blond warrior’s form now lying still in a sizeable pool of her own blood. With a businesslike thrust, she drove the longsword through Durga’s ribs, slightly left of center, and pressed until the point emerged to touch the floor. The guard’s body flailed about for a few moments, then lay still. Pulling his scimitar from his belt, she made a couple of quick cuts across the Amazon’s cheeks, then embedded the blade into the already impressive gash in her throat, courtesy of the Shadow’s blade. She then rolled the man’s body on top of the Amazon, wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his scimitar, and then wrapped the Amazon’s fingers as best she could around the hilt of the long sword. With luck, whoever found them would assume they had killed one another, hopefully for long enough to confuse the search effort.

Donning Zenovia’s dress and cloak, she considered the amazon’s leather boots, but decided that missing footwear would expose the false “double murder” she had staged. Slippers would have to do. A search of Durga’s boot revealed a sharp knife. It was a start.

Her new wardrobe complete, she stood facing Zenovia and slapped the woman’s face briskly until she awoke. The chef’s eyes opened wide with fear when she saw Angeleyes and her dark Shadow standing before her in the red torchlight. A pitiful whimpering erupted from behind her gag.

Angeleyes put a finger to the chef’s lips.

“Quiet, you, or I’ll have to leave you dead in these manacles.” The eyes opened even wider as panic set in.

“Zenovia, consider the short time you are confined here as punishment for the quality of the swill you dish out at Elzix’ tavern.” The woman stiffened with surprise. “Yes, I recognize you, and suggest that when you get free, you find another occupation. You have been rotting Lut Gholein’s guts for far too long.”

Zenovia’s face relaxed as she realized she might survive.

“Now, chef, you can guarantee your own life if you answer me one question: who has my nephew Mikal?”

The woman shook her head and gurgled.

“OK, let me try this again: there was a young boy taken from me when I was captured. That boy is my nephew. He is rather unusual looking, as he has a deep reddish brown complexion and bright blond wavy hair, almost curly. He is 8 years old.” The woman’s eyes opened again and she nodded her head frantically. Angeleyes reached up and untied the gag.

“Please don’t kill me, Mistress Assassin!” The woman sobbed for breath. “The Necromancer Orthas it was who charged you with murder. My boy is in the town militia, and Orthas told Greiz that you killed him in a brawl at Atma’s!” She began to weep. “There was a little boy who looked like the one you describe in Orthas’ company at Elzix’ this morning, but I think they were leaving town. Headed north, if Elzix heard it right.”

Angeleyes’ jaw dropped in dismay. “Orthas still walks under the sun in Lut Gholein after his iron golem killed those people in Atma’s tavern? And after he let a fire golem loose on the streets of Lut Gholein?”

She felt dizzy for a moment, unable to comprehend the kind of cover story that could convince anyone with a working brain that she, not he, was the cause of the fire and death on the streets of the city that day. He must have something on Jehryn, she thought.

“Please let me go, please don’t kill me too!” The woman began to weep uncontrollably. Angeleyes slapped her with the back of her hand to shut her up.

“You will not die by my hand, Zenovia. I don’t know what that death mage did to confuse an entire guard force, not to mention dozens of-oh blast the light!--drunken witnesses.” She winced as she started to see part of the answer. “I can assure you that the boy is my nephew. He is Mikal, son of the Paladin OcchiOTemplar and his wife the battle maiden OcchiSonya. You may remember them from a few years ago, the two who slew The Wanderer, He Who Was the Lord of Terror reborn.” She watched the older woman’s eyes cloud in utter incomprehension, then spat on the floor. “Yeah, I thought so, you can’t see past the end of your nose.” She stepped back from the woman, then reached forward to replace the gag. Zenovia stared wildly at her, panic clear on her face.

“Why don’t you just hang around here and see who drops by, alright chef? I’m sure that eventually the guards, or Greiz’ mercenary scum, will wonder where these two lovebirds ran off to and come looking. You’ll be out of here faster than Warriv’s mule skinners regurgitate the food you cook.” With a theatrical bow and a flourish of her ‘borrowed’ cloak, Angeleyes backed out of the cell accompanied by her shadow, who closed and locked the door. The Mage Slayer took the key ring and mused aloud.

“I wonder what other doors these open, Shadow. Care to find out?” She turned to look at the dusky double of herself standing there in black leather, wrist blades held casually above her waist. Shadow’s impassive expression was, as usual, no help. Angeleyes began her slow walk up the passageway, her mind tearing through courses of action and rejecting them as fast as they emerged.

“My brother and mother are dead, my sister in law is off on a mad mission of vengeance, and my nephew is in the hands of a Priest of Rathma.” She shook her head and stopped. “And I am accused of murder in the one city where the lore exists to find Tal Rasha, the mage who has doomed us all.” She swore as she realized that she had added to her own problems. “Light burn my short temper, I’ve now done murder, havent’ I? Or, haven’t we?” She paused while she considered the riddle of her complicity in the death of the two guards. “Hell, Shadow, did you have to cut her throat? You left me few choices.”

Shadow said nothing as the Mage Slayer resumed her journey away from the dungeon, but merely carried the torch whose flickering light created a macabre, moving mosaic on the walls as the pair mounted the stairs to a landing before a large wooden door.

“I’m not in Lut Gholein, Shadow, I’m in a waking nightmare.” She stopped as she reached for the door’s heavy latch. “There’ll be Hell to pay before I’m done with the idiots of Lut Gholein, by the Light, and I’ll burn Jehryn’s palace to the ground if Mikal falls afoul of Necromancer magic!” Shadow remained impassive as it replaced the torch in a sconce to the left.

Durga’s boot knife in her right hand, Angeleyes reached for the door handle . . .

To be continued . . .