Published at 22nd of October 2023 9:42 am

Book 2: Chapter 39

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The cell that Garrett was dumped in was damp and cold, and smelled awful. A single solitary torch at the far end of the hall gave him just enough light that he could see his hands as he touched the bruises and welts on his face and neck. The jailer had taken every opportunity he could to abuse Garrett and Carraway as he dragged them into the prison, only throwing them into the cells when he got tired of beating them. This was not what Garrett had expected, but he bore it as well as he could, thankful for the strength and endurance that his shaper level awakening had brought him. He could feel his soul spark sending out traces of energy to heal his wounds already, and had to consciously suppress it to keep it from closing up some of the more prominent cuts on his face.

Though there were a good number of people who knew he was an awakened, he had no desire for his level to be outed by a couple of cuts that healed overnight, so he did his best to bear with the pain as he suppressed his soul spark. Dragging himself along the stone floor, Garrett angled himself to find a wall and then searched along it until he found some metal chains that he could use to pull himself up. Not having use of his legs was manageable most days, but it was times like now when the stark reality of his situation made itself known. A low chuckle escaped his lips as Garrett contrasted his current situation with his accommodations a scant few days before.

“From a noble’s manor to a rat infested jail cell. Quite the swing.”

Unfortunately, the chains didn’t reach quite far enough for him to wedge himself in the corner, so he remained where he was, his hand hooked into the chain as he closed his eyes and considered his situation. The jailer had searched him and taken everything he carried, delivering kicks that tenderized his ribs in between. Clearly, there had been no personal animosity in the man’s actions, just the casual cruelty of someone who liked to wield power like a club. It would be a lie to say that Garrett wasn’t angry, but he knew full well that now was not the time for hasty action.

It wouldn’t have been hard to plant a dream seed and turn the man into a slave, but Garrett was suspicious, too suspicious, to do something that blatant. Ever since he had run into the merchants from Port Reverie, a seed of doubt had been growing in his mind. They possessed artifacts that would likely warn them if any sort of mental energy was used around them, allowing them to identify when someone tried to pull something, and if they had that capability, why wouldn’t someone in Insomnium. Besides, Garrett had seen the sealing symbol that the exorcists used, and he wasn’t discounting that other, detection based symbols existed as well.

If someone had spotted the strange spread of dream flowers, they would undoubtedly be trying to find the source of it, just as the exorcists were trying to do with the Ghost’s Mirror. Though Garrett knew he was sharp, he wasn’t so full of himself to believe that he could move unhindered through the world. There was a high likelihood that he was just being paranoid, but better paranoid than dead. If this imaginary person found out that he was the source of the dream flowers, he would end up just like one of those mysterious artifacts, sealed or destroyed.

Better that they thought he was just part of those affected. But to make that work, he needed to be more careful about how he planted them. And ultimately, that meant taking a beating without responding in kind. Feeling the cool wall on his back, Garrett concentrated its texture to take his mind off of the burning pain he felt in his face and torso. The sun was in the process of going down, and though Garrett couldn’t see it because his cell was underground, he could feel the creeping approach of the dream starting to press in around him.

A faint clang intruded on his attention and his senses sharpened, straining to their limit as he listened for another sound. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard it again, the sound of a bolt being thrown back. The door to the passage he was at the end of was almost sixty feet away, and Garrett could hear the sound echoing down the stone hallway and into his cell. The shuffle of feet came next as someone entered the passage. There was no light save for that single torch and whoever it was seemed happy enough to move in the darkness that they began to whistle a jaunty tune.

There was another clang, the sound of a cell door being opened and then Garrett heard someone speak. Their voices were muffled but he could hear an upbeat question, a fearful answer, and then he heard a scream. It was not a long drawn out scream, but a panicked, staccato scream of someone who can’t escape. A scrape and thud cut the scream short and then there was silence in the passage, broken only by the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. Half way through, the whistling started again, and whoever it was left, locking the bolts once more after dragging their burden through the doorway.

Silence shrouded the hall and Garrett’s cell, though he could hear the patter of tiny feet as vermin scurried toward the place where the screaming had taken place. Still holding on to the chain, Garrett’s lips curled back in a smile, though if anyone had been there to witness it, they certainly wouldn’t have described it as such. Checking his time, he estimated that there was about half an hour until the sun finished setting and the dream became accessible. While he didn’t want to use his abilities if possible, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so if it helped him survive.

Before that, however, he had some ideas. When he had been thrown in here, they had called it solitary confinement, so no one should be coming in. But he also suspected that whoever had arranged this did not intend for him to make it through the night. Steadying himself with his right hand, he reached up to count how many links there were on the chain that was attached to the wall. Counting twice to make sure he got it right, he found that he had twenty-five links, which was more than enough for what he wanted to do. Letting out a breath, he pushed himself up on his right arm and gripped the top of the chain where it connected to the wall.

Pulling himself up until his chest was tight against the wall and under the chain, he used his weight to press forward, leveraging both his waist and his right elbow, trying to force his right shoulder away from the wall. Rewarded with a creak as the bolt started to give way, he ignored the fierce pain in his chest and pulled again. The chains had been made to keep even the strongest man firmly in place, but the power that even the weakest awakened possessed was more than the chains could bear, to say nothing of Garrett’s shaper level strength.

Despite being as thin as a stick, his bones and muscles had been supernaturally reinforced and it was this that he used now, calling on his full strength for the first time since he had become a shaper. With each tug, the bolt loosened until it suddenly popped free, dumping him painfully on his face. Feeling his nose starting to bleed again, he took a moment to suppress it with a stream of energy from his soul spark, and then crawled to the wall. By this point, his clothing was wet with the slime that grew on the floor and walls of the cell and his own blood, but he didn’t care one bit. There was only one thing on his mind right now. Surviving whatever was thrown at him.

Pushing himself up against the wall, he kept his position with his right arm and checked the chain with his left hand, pausing when he came to the bolt. The entire thing had been torn from the wall and was badly bent, but that would work even better. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he crawled along the wall to the corner of the room by the door and then laid down his chain carefully. Making sure that he was in the position he wanted to be, Garrett closed his eyes, trying to let his mind and body relax. This was not the first time he had been in difficult circumstances and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

He had no idea how much time had passed before the sound of the bolt echoed again. It seemed that whoever was entering the hall was taking their time, drawing it out as long as possible, because even after the bolt was thrown, they didn’t enter the hall for almost a minute. Once again, Garrett’s lips curled up, an amused smile on his lips. He had to admit, there was a certain tension to what they were doing, but these sorts of psychological games were child’s play to someone who spent their nights walking in the dream.

The slow shuffle of feet grew closer and closer as whoever it was approached Garrett’s cell and the tension in the air seemed to build until Garrett gestured silently into the air, almost as if he were conducting. On beat, the whistling started, a jaunty tune that was at complete odds with the building tension. Louder and louder it grew until it seemed to fill Garrett’s cell. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine himself walking down a street, whistling the tune himself. Almost. The hard stone, his wet clothes, and the biting chill that the combination of them produced was too strong for him to imagine himself anywhere but in a dark cell.

The whistling stopped outside his cell and a key sounded in the door. Again, there was a long pause between actions, but Garrett didn’t care. He simply closed his eyes and focused his attention on what was about to happen. Garrett was laying on the ground, stretched out along the wall to the right of the door, which opened left. So when the cell door finally opened and the person stepped inside, he swung the chain as hard as he could, putting every ounce of his strength and anger behind it.

Tearing through the air, the chain slammed into the man’s shins, causing a sharp crack to echo in the room and down the hall as his left shin snapped in half. Both of the man’s feet were swept out from under him and he fell to the ground screaming dreadfully, dropping something with a loud clang as he hit the stone floor. In the faint light, Garrett could see metal glimmering but he didn’t care. He let go of the chain and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling him close. Too disoriented by the pain to know what was happening, the man’s screams were suddenly cut short as Garrett’s fingers closed around his throat like iron bands, choking the breath right out of him.

Though it would have been much easier with another hand, Garrett didn’t have any other option so he tugged his enemy over, feeling the coarse leather apron he wore as he rolled over on top of his enemy, keeping his chest to the man’s back as he wrapped his right arm around the man’s head, pulling his head back to get a better grasp on the man’s neck. Sharp pain bit into his back as he rolled onto the axe that the man had dropped, but he ignored it, twisting his right arm sharply as he wrenched with his left. He was rewarded with a sharp snap as the man’s spine cracked, but he didn’t let go until the twitching stopped. When it did, he let out a gasp, his lungs desperately searching for air, and heaved the corpse off of himself.

The axe had cut deeply into his back as he rolled on it, and he was completely exhausted from both the tension and the physical struggle, so he let his soul spark work freely, sending rejuvenating streams of energy throughout his body. He could feel the wounds starting to mend, but once the bleeding had stopped he restrained it again. By the time he had the energy to move, half the night had passed, and he spent the rest of the night arranging his cell and planning his next move. The feeling of impending crisis was still weighing on him, and Garrett was starting to get worried. He had expected that tension to vanish now that he was in the middle of a problem, but the fact that it hadn’t spoke to something bigger on the horizon.

When the dream finally receded, Garrett felt like he had done all he could. Viper and the ghouls were in position, with some of them even making their way to the crypt that lay under the prison, and Ryn, Obe, and the rest of the awakened were standing by at the inn. Though the sun did not make its presence known in his cell, Garrett could feel its influence even in the dark damp. It was like a warm light that crept over him, driving back the cold of the dream. Time passed slowly in the cell, but Garrett had plenty of plans to make and he amused himself by coming up with as many plans as he could for how he would find whoever had arranged this little play.

Eventually, the door, which had never been re-bolted, opened and the sounds of heavy boots echoed in the hallway. There were angry voices too, including one that Garrett had been expecting. Light danced down the passage, chasing back the shadows and forcing Garrett to squint his eyes. In less than a minute, Grant stormed into the cell, his face dark with fury. Behind him, the belligerent jailer was trying to keep up, but both of the men stopped dead when they saw the scene in the cell. Garrett was sitting by the wall, his back perfectly straight, with bruises and dried blood covering his face. What drew their attention, however, was the man across from him.

The light of the lantern that Grant held shone over a shirtless man with a heavy leather apron that was covered in splatters of dried blood. A rough sack mask covered his head that was lolled to the side, his neck wrapped with a chain that rose to a bolt stuck in the wall. The chain was not quite long enough for his butt to reach the ground, but his legs were splayed out, supporting his back against the stone wall. If that were it, it would have been fine, but what caused both of the men to shudder was the bloody axe the man’s fingers gripped, and his left leg that lay in two pieces.

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