Jenever's Archives

Archives

Home

Credits

Confrontation in the Cage

"My apologies, sergeant," Simon said quietly, no malice or threat in his voice, "but the Lady has requested that I remove that one for questioning. Which leaves us at something of an impasse." He clasped his hands palm in palm behind his back, his posture very relaxed and calm. "If you have your way, you will of course answer to the Lady, and if you allow me to remove her for questioning, then I will of course answer to the Hunter." He shrugged. "I am prepared to undergo the latter, of course."

Lazarus was draped over a dirty bale of straw, laughing, when the ladies were escorted back to the chamber. When he noticed, he became quiet and rolled off of the bale and onto his feet in a graceful maneuver.

"Opal? What's going on?" He glared at Simon, "If she's hurt, you are a dead man."

The cage door was opened and Jenever and Dot thrust inside with sufficient force to make them stumble. Then the guards pushed Opal to her knees. The Sergeant (newly created by Simon) looked at the guard who had brought the female prisoners back, then slowly walked around Opal, as though considering her from every possible angle.

Dot stumbled and landed not far from Morgan. She rose quickly and smoothed herself out before moving as the guards demanded. She was intently quiet as the Hunter spoke and Simon was consigned to the cage.

Finally, he looked at Simon, and slowly scratched his chin.

"It seems to me," he said, "that if I disobey the Hunter's instructions, and let you take charge of this prisoner - it'll be me answering to the Hunter - not you. And if I obey my orders ... well, the Lady might stamp and storm - but she'll likely be doing that with you - not me. So ..."

He suddenly moved to Opal, grabbed her hair and forced her head back - so that she was forced to look at him.

"One question you can answer, doxy. Where did you get that nail?"

Opal laughed bitterly. "I stepped on it. In your exercise yard. Look at my foot if you don't believe me," she said bitterly.

"Simon!" Lazarus barked. He, much like Seth, looked like he'd fall over any second from exhaustion.

He moved so languidly that although everyone present could see it coming, it was almost impossible to believe that he was really doing something so overt until it actually happened. With acute slowness and deliberateness, Simon stepped up to the sergeant and caught him by the back of his neck, squeezing and twisting, such that the poor man's eyes widened and started from his head. A strangled gasp escaped his lips, and he buckled at the knees, letting go of Opal's hair to clutch ineffectually at the black-clad arm that held him, with so little effort that Simon had seemed to simply rest his hand on the man. All around the chamber, stunned guards nevertheless raised and pointed their weapons, drawing a bead on the Lady's servant, their training leaping to the fore despite their confusion.

"If indeed your assessment of our situation is correct," he said in the sort of tone one might use to discuss the weather, "then it seems to me that for me to fulfil my instructions, I must dissuade you from fulfilling yours. Quite an invidious situation on both our parts."

"And while you may well have me shot," Simon continued conversationally, "I dare to presume that you will almost certainly die, either from a broken neck or from a stray shot. At which point your successor will then have to answer to both the Hunter and the Lady, for both your death and any injury that might well occur to myself."

"Now who wants to do that?" he asked with a small smile, glancing around the room. "Now, sergeant, I must ask that you discharge Mistress Opal into my custody and permit me to deal with the consequences." The guard gave another strangled gasp. "Please," Simon added thoughtfully.

"I think you will find," said a new voice, "that you have somewhat exceeded your authority. My sister Ruler will be most displeased."

From out of the shadows at the entrance of the room came the Hunter, dressed in black, the cruel lines strongly marked around his mouth.

The arrival of the Hunter made Jenever stand up as straight and tall as she could, her eyes blazing. A look of hatred mixed with some complicated, nameless emotion flickered on her face.

Behind him was the Sergeant whom Simon had earlier ruthlessly demoted. He cast a venomous look at Simon, which had something of fearful triumph in it as well.

"So," said the Hunter. "You seek to intimidate my guards. One might almost believe ... "

He stepped forward and gave a sudden hard yank at the front of Simon's jacket. The material ripped as easily as if it had been butter muslin ... and then, on Simon's pale chest, could be seen an extraordinary sight ...

Glowing a rich, rare red was a strange Plantaxy crystal.

Opal's mouth dropped open when she saw the Plantaxy. Then she looked up at Simon with a panicked, puzzled expression.

The Hunter stared at it for a long moment in silence, then reached forward and with a sudden fierce tug, pulled it from Simon's neck.

"This," he said, "is proof positive that she's finally run mad."

He turned to the guards.

"Fetch manacles," he said curtly. "Throw him in the Cage with the rest. My sister Ruler can explain what little games she'd set him to play."

Quietly, without further ado, Simon let the man's neck go, and placed his hands cooperatively behind his back for the shackles. The guards seemed to take a certain relish as they unlocked the Cage and pushed him inside.

Lynx cast a nervous look towards the Hunter - and then turned towards Simon, her eyes wide with worry ...

Lazarus was not too tired to use his shoulder to once again try and move the hair from his eyes. Somewhat successful, he fixated on Simon. ~He just doesn't have a clue...~ thought Lazarus.

"Welcome to our humble abode" Lazarus offered.

Then the Hunter seemed to consider Opal for the first time.

"So," he said. "What have we here?"

"Let it lie, handsome," Jenever murmured coolly, loudly enough to be heard clearly. "Why torment the poor girl when you know your own sister is betraying you? Surely that is more important than a slave with a rusty nail?"

Morgan watched as the Hunter turned Simon into a prisoner, and - for the merest moment - looked as if he might say something, but obviously chose to hold silence for the time being.

His eyes, though, fixed upon the Hunter, told a different story, and were they arrows, even the Hunter must have died from the venom inside them.

The Hunter turned for a moment, and looked across at Jenever. For a long moment his dark eyes seemed to be considering her. And then slowly he smiled - a feline smile of infinite coldness before turning his attention again to Opal.

Opal sank back to sit on her heels. She looked up at the Hunter, tried not to tremble, but failed in the attempt. "I... I am Opal. I was... I was the Lady's chosen once. I do not know if I am still, as she has not informed me she has selected another."

Opal's trembling increased. "I'm thinking perhaps that is not an asset at this moment," she said softly, looking up at the Hunter.

"Well, probably not," he agreed. He looked around the cavern.

"Why is she outside the Cage? Unmanacled?"

The guard who had broken Opal's manacles swallowed nervously, and then stepped forward.

"She found a nail, dread Lord, in the courtyard, and weakened her manacles with it ...Then she hid it in the straw."

The Hunter's eyebrows rose slightly. "She did not attempt to share this boon?"

The guard shook his head. "No, dread Lord. We checked all the others."

The Hunter regarded all the others for a moment in the Cage, and then nodded slowly. "I see." He looked down at Opal, and smiled. "As for you, you ceased to be the Lady's Chosen the day you ran from the Academy. But I should not let it worry you. Doubtless you would have slurped your soup, or scuffed your shoe, or sniffed without using your handkerchief - or done or not done some other minutae that the Lady seems to feel essential in her Chosen. You might have survived one year - two, if you were lucky. But she is already breeding up new Chosen."

He looked across at the Cage, to Simon, and smiled. "Or so I believe."

"An asset ... " he echoed, his attention coming to rest back on Opal. "Yes. You must have been a considerable asset to those who added your escape."

His voice was very soft now, gentle.

"Who were they?"

In a shuffling gait, Lazarus moved back to his bale of straw and sat back down. "Guilty," he said quietly. "But I'm betting you don't honestly care. If you did, you'd have more observant guards."

He tilted his head to the side and fixated on the red-eyed 'former' sergeant. "And possibly... not so many feeble-minded men in charge."

*Doom* he mouthed, when he caught the eye of the Hunter's Sergeant.

The Sergeant flinched slightly and looked away, even as Opal's clear voice rang out.

Opal looked up at the tall, dark man. "I walked out alone," she replied carefully. "I followed the trail of her Messenger, after he'd done his work that night." Opal glanced at Simon briefly, then looked back up at the Hunter. "I saw no one, and I received no help from any while trying to survive away from the Academy." Her voice had a ring of sincerity to it.

"How very ... enterprising," said the Hunter. "And afterwards you wandered Shadow, collecting a Plantaxy from a remote temple by mere serendipity, until you decided, doubtless of your own free and independent accord, to visit that delightful Shadow Bogatina.

"Where you just happened to stumble across a convocation of similarly independently minded souls who - what a surprise - all happened to possess their own plantaxies.

"Forgive me if I'm finding this a little hard to believe. Inherent suspicion of fairy tales is something of a pre-requisite for the Hunter of Karadon."

"And yet," Morgan's voice cut in, "you choose to believe the fairy tale that we're a threat, when most of us knew nothing about you. That would seem to me a failure of logic."

The Hunter spoke to the Sergeant, not Morgan.

"If he speaks disrepectfully to one of the Rulers of Karadon again, take his tongue."

The Sergeant looked appalled, but nodded nervously.

Morgan merely smiled coldly, knowing well that nothing he had said to the Hunter had been disrespectful, save to paranoid minds, but that those minds would count anything he said from now on to be disrespectful.

Opal, even in her disadvantaged situation, smiled. "It is the truth. Perhaps not the whole truth, but the truth nevertheless. But I think I choose not to speak anymore for now." With that, she gave the Hunter a calm, almost defiant look.

"Then," said the Hunter, "rather than the free and easy discourse of the Cage, you may try the comforts of a Tomb instead."

He nodded to the guards. Despite their obvious commitment to obedience to the Hunter, they hesistated fractionally - and then two of them moved hastily to fetch a large thick crowbar from outside the cavern. They returned, and moved to where a great iron ring had been set in the floor of the cavern. At a nod from the Hunter, between them they worked the crow, and slowly a great slab of stone, fully four foot thick was lifted and stood on its side, revaling a dark hole cut into the floor of the cavern.

"Behold one of our Tombs," said the Hunter to Opal. "Four foot deep when it is sealed, six foot long and five foot wide. Rather cold, I understand - and definitely dark. There's a raised slab to sleep on .. although, of course, no creature comforts such as blankets. The thickness of the stone seals off all sound too - I am told it is the silence and the darkness that drive men mad. We shall try their effect on a woman."

Lynx, her hand pressed to her mouth and her deep purple eyes wide, backed towards the Cage.

Tobias stared at the looming darkness, like a convenient little pit of hell had been carved into the floor. He shivered.

"Sir... Hunter... Please. This is hardly necessary... Mad, you won't get anything out of her. She's already doomed enough, isn't she?" He looked down at his feet, his breathing uneven, as though he might pass out any second.

Morgan watched the unsealing of the tomb, saying nothing, his pale face blankly composed. His body language told a different story, however, of contempt for the one so frightened of a slip of a girl that he would seek to entomb to assuage his fears.

"Why..." Opal swallowed. "Why must you do this?" she asked faintly from where she sat on the floor. She'd started to tremble again. "Will... will you let me out? Or do.. do I die in there?" she said, her voice catching on the last part.

"Oh, you'll survive," said the Hunter. "In fact ... "

He turned and saw Lynx creeping closer to the Cage. "You! Fetch a flask of water ... and some bread."

He turned back to Opal. "I'll even have your hands manacled in front of you. I don't want you to starve." He leant towards her. "However - you could avoid this ... very easily."

Opal, still shaking, stared bleakly at the grave sized hole in the floor. "You want me... to tell you who taught me? Taught me Plantaxy? You won't put me in if I tell you?"

"That," said the Hunter, "would be an admirable start."

Opal stared at the hole for several seconds more. Then she dropped her head. "No...," she whispered. "I will not betray those whose confidence I have. I'm afraid," she tried to swallow with a dry throat, "I will just have to enjoy your hospitality in a hole in the ground. Somehow appropriate." The last was said with a mix of trembling and something resembling laughter.

The Hunter glanced at her, caught by the note of hysteria, but before he could spreak further, the dark-haired Lynx returned, carrying a water flagon and a chunk of the coarse dry bread they had eaten earlier. There was not much - perhaps enough to feed Opal for a day. The Hunter nodded, and then held out a hand. Lynx moved closer, her eyes nervously downcast as the Hunter tasted the water, and the bread.

Opal looked at the bread, then up at the beautiful dark haired girl. "Keep the hair clip," she whispered to the girl. "She would have wanted someone like you to have it." Opal gave her a weak smile.

Lynx raised her head and looked briefly at Opal, a flash of the purple eyes, puzzled, wary. Then she lowered her head again.

"Put them in," the Hunter said to Lynx, who hastened to obey. He looked at Opal with a little smile. "You'll live - if you don't destroy them by mistake in the dark."

Opal watched as Lynx put the supplies into the hole. She said nothing. Her face was a mask of sadness. And despair.

The Hunter made another signal, and a guard stepped forward, a set of manacles in his hands.

"Why the manacles?" Opal asked. "It's not as if there is any escape from there..."

The Hunter smiled grimly. "Sometimes, I err on the side of caution, woman. I would not have you walk the songlines to escape."

"Songlines?" Opal sighed. "I keep hearing that word. I always forget to ask what it is. Quite an oversight at this point, I suppose." She looked very small as she sat back on her heels. She slowly raised her arms in front of her towards the guard holding the manacles.

He fastened them, his face expressionless, although his touch was oddly gentle - unlike when the first manacles had been fitted. But it was not kindness that actuated him. It was, rather, the sort of respect a man might show a corpse he was laying out.

The Hunter did not reply to Opal. Instead he reached out a black gloved hand and caught her chin, twisting her face towards him and staring deep into her eyes.

Opal swallowed, her face showing a combination of uncertainty and fear.

Opal started to hyperventilate staring into to the Hunter's eyes. Her whole body started to convulse, but he kept his grip on her chin. Then, suddenly, she screamed, "I TOLD YOU!!! I'M OPAL!!!!" and burst into sudden shockingly loud tears. The Hunter released her, and dusted off his fingertips fastidiously.

"Put her in."

The guards moved forward, perhaps a little slowly, and Opal, still weeping, was lowered into the pit. The Hunter stood for a moment, regarding her impassively. Then he signalled - and the two guards with the crowbar hastened forward to secure the stone across the pit - and Opal's heartbroken sobbing was smothered until it could be heard no more.

The men tightened the ring, their faces averted, tight-lipped. The Hunter watched them for a moment, and then strolled forward to stand full on the stone, his feet either side of the ring, surveying those left in the Cage.

Then, with a dark shimmer, he was gone.

Copyrights & Credits

Designed by Aethereality.net
Images © Index Stock
Textures © The Blooming Effect and Hybrid Genesis
Brushes © Relished.net and Cirratus.org and Roshiweb.com