A drop of water hit Perin in the face. He blinked and stared up into the darkness. Another drop came. Annoyed, he sat up and moved over. It must have rained a few days ago, he thought.
The darkness was all around him. He had not seen light in quite a while. How long exactly, he did not know. Days. Maybe a week. A month? It is difficult to keep time when it is constantly dark. He knew where he was – a dungeon, located beneath the city of Pons. The dungeon was enormous, stretching for forty feet straight down and a mile wide. It was supported by ancient limestone caves that had been carved by rain water flowing out into the ocean. When the prisons in Pons had gotten too full, they moved the worst prisoners underground.
Perin’s cell was a small square with an angled ceiling. A normal sized man would have difficulty standing, but Perin was quite short and could at least sit up with no problems. Filling in the spaces around the original cave walls was stone, which was covered in mud and clay. The cells had unique shapes. Each cell had a solid metal door. Because it was underground, there was never any light. Even when the guards brought food, they slid it through a small opening at the bottom of the door so that no light got inside. The prisoners could not even see each other. All they had was the darkness. Sometimes, if Pons got a lot of rain, the cells would flood. Prisoners had drowned in the dungeon. Some had starved. Some had killed themselves. No one ever checked.
Perin moved backward until his back hit the wall and he leaned against the dirt, trying to sleep again. Now that the cell was getting wet, he could smell wet dirt. The cell probably smelled like other things as well, but he had been there so long that he didn’t notice it anymore. He wished that he was more tired. If he were tired he could sleep and not stare at the darkness and smell the dirt. He heard a small noise that made him jump. The rain drops were still falling and making a splash noise as they hit the bottom of his cell. Perin shook his head. I’ve been down here so long that rain is starting to scare me.
Perin sighed and rubbed his eyes. He did not know exactly why he was in the dungeon, but he did not expect to be there for so long. A man named Jerek Tyler was the dictator of Pons. Every so often Tyler would throw his associates into the dungeon to teach them a lesson, but he would pull them back after a few days. Perin expected that he had done something to make Tyler angry, but he was not being pulled out. Whatever happened, it must have been severe.
The dark and the quiet were supposed to affect the mind, to cause the unruly soldier to come crawling out, begging Tyler to let him return to the surface. But Perin knew something that Tyler did not. The same caves that supported the dungeon served as a hiding place for about a hundred women. Several years earlier, Tyler had decided that women were only good for producing children, and so encouraged his men to treat them very badly. In Tyler’s opinion, women had to be “put in their place”. A woman could not do anything without consent from an army officer or from Tyler directly. Those who chose not to produce children for the army were punished in Tyler’s torture rooms. Sometimes, just speaking was punishable by death.
A few of the women decided to protect themselves by going underground. Nico had come up with the plan, and Perin had helped to save them. They would pretend to take women into a whore house, doing their patriotic duty. Instead the women were shown to their new home through secret tunnels in the floor. No one ever asked where the women went, and as long as there were not too many disappearing at a time, no one would care. Of course, a few actually were whores, but most chose a life underground. The women that Perin had saved had not forgotten that kindness. When they had found out that Perin was in their caves, they had come to keep him company.
Maybe that is what Tyler is angry about, he thought. Maybe he discovered that the women are missing and he knows that I have something to do with it. No, if that were the case, then they wouldn’t be visiting him. They would be more concerned with protecting their own. They are probably safe. The women had tried to convince him to go underground with them, but he had refused. If Tyler came looking for him, and he was suddenly gone, it would put all of them in jeopardy.
Perin stuck his fingers into the moist dirt below him. Years of prisoners had formed a shallow layer of dirt and grime. He had no idea what was in that dirt, and for once he was glad that he could not see it.
There was not anyone up there who would notice that he was gone. Tyler might notice, but he would not care. No one else would dare to try to help Perin. Well, Nico might, if he were in his right mind. Perin had no family and very few friends. Nothing to think about.
Somehow his thoughts always came back to Nico. Nico had cared for Perin after his family had died. He did not know how they had been killed. It had something to do with Tyler’s conquering of Pons, but other than that, Perin knew nothing. Nico, who was nearly thirteen years older than Perin, had taken the young Perin as a brother. They had joined Tyler’s army together. Perin did everything with Nico. Approximately ten years earlier, Nico had changed. Something very bad happened to him. He started drinking far too much alcohol, and then he became violent and withdrawn. One day Perin found him lying in the street. Perin dragged Nico back home and watched over him all night. In the morning Nico left without saying a word to Perin, and the next night Perin found him on the same street. Again, Perin tried to help him, but Nico shoved him away. Nico told Perin to leave him alone, and when Perin refused, Nico had punched him in the face, breaking his jaw. That was the last interaction he had with his brother.
He heard a scraping sound – the door was being opened, and a small light appeared through the darkness. A guard entered his cell and shackled Perin’s wrists and ankles. He could tell that there were two guards, one who was shackling him and one who was holding the light, but he could not see who they were. The light was still blinding him too much for him to see properly. One of the guards pulled roughly on his wrists, forcing Perin to move. Finally, he was being taken out of the dungeon. Perin was pulled up several flights of grungy stairs, all the way outside onto the streets of Pons.
The sunlight blinded him further, and he stumbled along for quite some time before he was able to see. The warm air rushed into his lungs. He was thankful to not be smelling dirt anymore, but some of the smells of Pons were worse. As they walked, he caught a glimpse of himself in a very shiny window. His dark hair fell over his ears and stuck to his head from the humidity of the dungeon cell. Perin was a small man with a small face, although his eyes were a bit too large for it and made him look like he was constantly surprised. All over, he looked like a child that had simply stopped growing. He squinted at the image of himself. Wow, he thought. You look like hell.
Pons was a large city. The streets were interwoven in an odd pattern that sometimes confused even the city’s oldest occupants. The city was a giant circle, and dead center was the tower, a monumental black stone building that loomed over everything else. Underneath the tower was the dungeon, and Perin had surfaced from a small door in the ground.
Perin looked again at the man dragging him along. In the sunlight he could see the man better. Bomzie, that was his name, or at least what everyone called him. Perin remembered Bomzie when he had first joined the Pons army. He was younger than Perin, but much larger and nowhere near as intelligent, so Bomzie was only assigned duties that required physical strength, not mental strength. Like pulling people out of dungeons.
Three other people were being herded along, two older men and a young girl. The men had graying hair and wrinkles, and their clothes were torn so much that they were barely wearing anything at all. The girl was in a perfectly clean, plain brown dress, although her face was dirty. She had evidently not been in the dungeon with them. She would have looked worse if she had been. The dungeon had a strong effect on anyone put into its depths, more so if that person were a child. Perin knew all about the dungeon and its occupants – he had put more than his fair share of people into it.
He realized where they were going. The city was enclosed by a high stone wall for about three quarters of the circle, and by the sea for the other quarter. They were heading for the wall. He looked at the people being punished along with him. He was not sure what any of them had done to deserve this, especially the girl. The men, well, they had probably done something against whatever law happened to be in effect at that time. He had long ago lost sympathy for the victims of Tyler’s laws. One cannot function as a law enforcing soldier while at the same time feeling sorry for the law breakers. But, what had the girl done? She was so young. He felt pain in his heart for her. She had probably spilt something, or spoke when she should not have, and she was being used as an example. He studied her for a second. Perin had seen her once, when she was younger. He blinked several times. After spending so much time alone in the darkness, his thoughts were very blurry.
When they got to the wall of the city, they were poked and prodded up to the top edge. Jerek Tyler was waiting for them. He was a tall, thin man with blonde hair and very straight teeth. He watched them climb, a broad, menacing smile on his face. That smile was always the most haunting part about Tyler. He would smile as he killed you, he would laugh as you struggled, and if you begged him for mercy, he would smile as he told you that there is no such animal. To anyone who did not know Tyler, the smile gave them a false sense of hope. But Perin knew Tyler well. The smile meant that they were about to die, and Tyler was going to enjoy every second of it.
