Private with
@Rillewen @Pele Alarion
Carpe Diem – Part 29
Unalmis Raxëlilta. The last day of Autumn (last year)
In the Guardhouse of the South Gate. With
Cadil.
His retreat having met a halt behind him,
Unalmis automatically spread an arm out to either side of him. And both palms pressed flat against a wall, without his having to stretch or even fully extend his reach. For a reason he could not quite put his finger on, metaphorically speaking, this had begun to bother him. Although why he had repeatedly felt the need to measure the size of space afforded to them, since the door had shut, he could not have explained.
A voice behind him interrupted then, venturing ideas and not unworthy ones at all.
Cadil, he remembered. It was
Cadil.
“
Or maybe there’s nobody here but you, and you’ve lost what little mind you ever had. As surely as you are .. lost. Because you are of course. You know that, right ? Lost and no one will ever find you .. alive ..”
The shake of his head was subconscious and not a slow protest at the accusations, but a violent scattering of unwanted thoughts. They had not come from
Cadil but someone else. Who else ? There was nobody else here. With a frown, he decided to stop a moment and take stock of things. Which was when
Cadil asked who was out there; had a guard come to take them to the dungeons ?
Gingerly
Unalmis ventured a step forward, but did not manage the whole way. Because he heard the voices now, out there, as well as saw them. Both of them ! And how or why and what were they doing .. together ?? The Ranger turned back to face
Cadil and his brown eyes were wide.
“
Worse,” was all that he could admit. It was not a loud admission. The last thing that he needed was for them to hear him. Then they’d know that he was in here. They, he corrected himself, they were both in here, and he turned to press against one side wall of the gatehouse to secure more space. But they out there must know, that they inside were in here, else why were .. no ! What was he even thinking now ? Of course ‘
Rip’ knew, he’d locked them in. The past and present were getting all mixed up and
Nal set the palms of both hands against the wall, so that his companion had room to step up and look out of the slender window.
“
You know him ?” he asked, in a whisper. A none too subtle jerk of his head, indicated the window. No reference to Umbar was voiced, because he did not want to influence his friend’s answer.
Cadil had been to Umbar too, so if he knew, then he would know. And if he didn’t, .. ah but no. He wouldn’t know.
Arkadhur had come back to Gondor with them, before
Abrazimir ever went back with
Cadil later.
Isys had said he wouldn’t have to worry about the Umbarian any more. Yet .. here he was. And with ‘
Rip’, of all people. Was this why the infuriating Guard had been delaying them ? No, but no. He couldn’t have even known they were coming this way today. So .. so what were the two talking about, out there ? Why why why was he here. Or .. was he here at all ? Was he imagining all of this ? Sanity hung by a thread upon the hope of
Cadil’s answer.
“
He .. ”
Unalmis tried and then shook his head again, kicked the barrier behind him hard with the flat of one foot. Sliding down the wall, he sought for the knife now from his boot, and held it in both hands defensively close in front of him. This time he had a weapon, even squatting almost on the balls of his feet. This time it wasn’t like the last time. Wouldn’t be. ‘
Rip’ hadn’t been there last time.
Cadil hadn’t been there last time. That was supposed to have been .. the LAST time. What on earth was this ? Torn between now and then, and unsure which might be the lesser nightmare,
Nal dropped his chin into his chest and tried to work out what had changed, and when.
FLASHBACK. The Blood Temple of Umbar. 6 years before
His head hurt, he knew that much with certainty. All beyond that blurred and swam, muddied colours that he could not even name. It was impossible to work out how long he’d been there. It felt like years, might only have been days, but he figured too long. The number of times he’d flung out limbs in a panic of waking, the number of times he’d then held breath and expected to have been noted … the times he'd had to realise that nobody had even come to see, to check .. that nobody might ever come ... He might never get out of here. He’d met the unseen obstacle, unbending and bone bruising, in every direction. He'd lost several nails trying to prise the walls apart, to no avail. And his head had struck the wood too close above him, for about the fifty-thousandth time. Perhaps only the fifty thousandth time, that day .. Not that any of it mattered anyway. Because if the constant headache was not from the accidental striking against wood, then it was from the nagging thirst. The pounding panic of a heartbeat so loud it might have jumped up into his skull. It kept him awake. It drummed him to sleep. It proved he yet lived, unless it would explode out of his chest. His head hurt from trying to figure out if he cared. To be honest, it just hurt full stop. Somehow his back did too, though why he could not have guessed. He couldn’t remember hitting that at all. And lying there was hardly exhausting, except that it was in fact, somehow. How had he tired his back though ? Discomfort ? Boredom ? The sheer exasperation that he could not stretch out in any given direction ?
The drip though was of course his most devoted tormenter. In a place where he could quench no thirst, obtain no peace, it refused to dry up and leave him be. He couldn’t drink that. He could barely stand to think about what might be dripping. Any more than he could get away from it. And it was not a sluicing gush poured through the airhole now, or any new threat of drowning to panic him. Just a drop. A slow and steady piercing little drip. The pace could almost be counted on, until it seemed like it had stopped, and then, no .. there came another. There was no room where he lay to evade this smallest of intruders. It slipped down through the metal grate like the choking smoke of the altar did, on occasion, and dropped down through the door he could not close; that open letter-box of an airhole which had been cut through the thick wood and allowed him to live this long. He wasn't very sure of the point, of course. He was already interred underfoot. He was unbound but banged up and bruised, from even trying to turn over. There was always ... never enough room.
But this, now a distraction. Focus. Footsteps, voices, hushed. Who was that ? Could he tell ? Was it one of the voices he had heard before ? One of those he even by this point could name, or .. holding his breath to hear better only made his head hurt worse again. There were two though, of that much he would bet his life. But why now ? It was quiet. It was creepy, down here, in the darkness. He could not imagine it was any better up there, .. where you could see .. nausea promised to return. He swallowed it back, unwilling to give up any single portion of saliva. It coated his dry throat with a want to retch. He daren't. He’d already stopped making water, though that might have been through sheer will. Because there was no place for it to go and this place stank to high heaven already. So humiliating. Could the wet have seeped since .. through his back, into his bones ? Or the cold perhaps, another frequent visitor. Maybe that was why it hurt so. For what could be bottled up for his kidneys else with a want to burst ? There was nothing, had been nothing offered to drink. Nothing provided to eat. There was .. only
Gael. Bless her. She dropped crumbs, whenever she passed. She soaked rags in water and slid them through the cracks so that he could suck upon the moisture. He had a pocket full of sucked dry scraps of cloth now. He'd tied one around his hand. The one which bled the most from all the scrapes. The scraping, scratching ... All that she had got to him, brought comfort, in some way. She was the sole reason he was still alive, and he knew it. He’d told her to stop coming. But she kept on coming all the same. Unless he was imagining her too.
Two sets of footsteps though. Perhaps it an echo, or was his hearing blurred the way that sight blurred ? It was dark anyway. No, no there were definitely two sets of footsteps approaching. Not
Gael then. So .. What if it were him ? His Uncle ? Who else would be here, now, when all folk ought be asleep ? It had to be him, right ? Rescue ! Hands raised ready to pound with what he might have left in him, to lead his estranged, much yearned for and sought after relative .. to find him. But then .. .. who would the other set of footsteps be ? And if it were his Uncle, was that a good thing ? That’s what the Burned Man wanted, right ? The whole reason for all of this was to lure his Uncle .. right here. They would be watching, they would be waiting … If it were somehow possible to wish somebody let him out and at the same time will that rescuer to be gone and far from there .. all at once .. it was not simply impossible. It was irrelevant.
Because just then the grate was lifted and both locks upon the box were turned. A lantern strove to throw light down and drown him in white blindness, even as the shadow of a vast length of wood was removed and discarded offside like a fear before the dawn. And he was .. unearthed, with no wood, no nothing, between him and Umbar now.
Unalmis had made a childhood out of pretending to be asleep when his Grandmother came to check after lights out, so that experience had come to serve him well .. as chance would have it. But who it was beyond the ruse of feigned sleepy lids this time ? And why they had come here, now … two of them .. He needed words from them to know any clue of what might be happening, and what he should do, what he could do .. what could he do ? But when the words came, he wished that they had not.
“
Not dead,” one diagnosed. At once both cheered and concerning all the same.
“
Not yet,” the second sounded closer, as it’s speaker leant in to better inspect.
“
Come then, what is your thinking ?” the first seemed almost to dare the other to admit his plan.
Stars, as they were speaking,
Unalmis had realised, he recognised them both. He’d heard those voices both before, speaking carelessly overhead while he had been bored underfoot. He knew their names. He’d eavesdropped on their conversations. But why should they care now, when they never expected apparently for him to still be alive .. why now ? What was this now ?
“
Break him,”
Arkadhur’s emotionless shrug could almost be heard through the flat decision which he spoke. And against all odds, against all sense and reason, brown eyes opened, and beheld the faces he had only heard until then. Somehow
Unalmis knew, he would never forget those voices. He would find those faces flash before his eyes on waking, for the longest time after .. if he survived what they had come for.
At one point, some point, since he had found himself here,
Nal had made a belt buckle ready. Just in case. To while away the time. He’d worked with what he had to hand. Which was nothing really much to speak of, and still nothing had come of it in the end anyway. Because he’d snapped the prong of the belt buckle free well enough, and sharpened it upon the wood with bruised and bloodied fingers. And then those stupid bruised and bloodied fingers ... they had dropped it. In the dark it was impossible to know where it had gotten to, and that was crazy enough,… there was so little space for it to hide ! But it was gone.
The only plan now then, to sneak away while the two Umbarians were engaged in a conversation .. it was laughably ridiculous. And also his only chance. His hands shook as he clambered over the edge of the box regardless. The threat at hand caught up in wondering how best to do this, how best to 'break' him. One glanced over after a while, seemed to see him for all that he froze in place and closed his eyes. As though that might somehow make him invisible. Perhaps it worked. They didn’t even move to stall him in this grand escape, so ?
Not until he’d gotten halfway down the temple’s aisle, in the opposite direction from the .. them and all. They may not have been concerned that he’d ever make it, they may have found it amusing to let him try and then step in at the last moment. He did not hear their footsteps this time, over his own heavy breathing, the shaking of hands and knees alike which threatened to collapse beneath him. The firm hand which seized him by both ankles, and razed him back to where he had begun the hopeless attempt.
They went further than that in the end. All the way to the altar, and the .. that which rose above it like an almighty maw. Recognising the direction he strove and slapped palms against the useless floor as he was hauled regardless. Then, a halt and then, a firm hand gripped his head hard from behind. The floor came up – too fast ! – to meet his face, until his lip was numb, his skull apparently the inside of a belltower. Hauled upright he cried out when his hands were bound fast at the wrist behind him. The Umbarian who’d seized him then ghosted into view close to his face, raised fingers to his lip and made a lingering ‘shhhh’ motion with no sound. Wide brown eyes stared incredulous, until they saw the sickest smile, a slight gesture with one hand. And then the pain began to come. First at his wrists, and then his elbows, until he was distracted by tilting forward against all will, until the floor fell completely away. There was … nothing. Nothing but flailing faltering panic, as the ascent did not cease. He didn't understand the mechanics of how they were accomplishing this. It was out of his sight. And all that he could think was .. this is it. It was finally his turn. They were going to bring out the saw. But the sailors had all been hung by their ankles, not their wrists ...
His wrists were burning now, his elbows pressed together as though some stake were forced through them both, but it was not. His shoulders, .. were twisting the wrong way .. He could not hear the cry above his terror, could not process anything but the slow twisting of his arms at the joint. Like a ropw which was gradually coming apart at the seams. He was glad he could not see what they were actually doing. The last thing that he saw then .. was the other Umbarian. The one with eyes so dark it looked like holes had been chipped into his skull. It looked like things would live in those holes. And a smile slunk across
Keket’s face as he strode over to stand beside
Arkadhur. A lean to, a whisper that he did not hear. And then the rope which had raised
Nal upward was released, and he fell …. The floor rose up again. His head was bowed down closer to the floor than his legs hung. His skull was going to crack across the paving like an egg in a hot pan …
Brown eyes closed, crushing lids in a determination to keep out all that was happening, before
Arkadhur caught the rope. Before the abrupt impact which would have killed the Gondorian if it had been allowed to happen too much later. It killed something nonetheless. Brown eyes could not close out a sickening crack, as the rope jolted, the small figure in it’s knotted grasp jolted .. and one shoulder was thrown forcibly out of it’s socket, the grind of the unnatural force sent fragments of bone splintering into the muscle all about. Unseen. Unheard. He was at last unconscious from the shock .. for now at least.
The after-that found
Nal back in the box, confused and contorted about the broken joint, which was raised most uncomfortably and would not be eased back into place. No tears came, only a silent shaking, nerve screaming series of jolts now. No sound .. they might hear ! They might come back !!! But why had they not killed him ? Why was he .. back where nobody would see, or hear, or know, or even care. He was back, in the box again. Put away like a toy they had finished playing with. With only the wonder, of why they had just done that, and worse, .. would it amuse them to do it again ? And when ? Worse still .. what could he even do about it ? Nothing.
The last day of Autumn (last year). In the Guardhouse of the South Gate. With Cadil.
Six years later, brown eyes rose from where they had tried to bore furiously through the floor. A pair of too familiar voices, too close, beyond a wooden door, brought
Unalmis back to now, from then. The knife grasped so hard in the young man’s hands that his knuckles were bone white. And a single thought dripped through his head, over and over relentless.
“
Not this time, not this time, not again.” He stood up somehow, and turned to the wall which was too close, too hard. His hands shook. He’d never heard of anybody being able to beat their way through a stone wall with only their hands and a knife, but he was through caring, and too caught up trying, to care.
“
Time to go,” he decided, aloud. As though he could in fact .. decide. As if anyone could hear him. He had forgotten about
Cadil being there with him, until he caught sight of the other young man, and startled. Stared some for a moment and then repeated it again. “
Time to go,” He drove the small knife in his hand against the wall. It dented. It was not enough to break through.
So he kept right on trying ..
(21)
| 
