The Shadowy Path - 21. Chapter 21

Zdain

When Josel finally woke up, Zdain was a nervous wreck. Several rats had slipped through the bars and into the cage, and the bravest had even climbed over their feet. He had to fight to keep from screaming.

Josel lifted his head from Zdain's shoulder and straightened his back. They quickly pulled away from each other, pretending as if by mutual agreement that they had never been in each other's arms.

"Oh, you're awake?" Zdain asked, rubbing his arm, numb from leaning on Josel.

"Doesn't it look like it? You are admirably sharp..." Josel said, yawning.

Zdain imagined the familiar grin on the boy's face. Bored, he added: "'Look?' There's nothing to see here."

"There is! Look around you, it's a bit brighter here in the cellar."

It was true. Zdain could make out his own feet, and as he turned, Josel's features were vaguely visible. He had been so busy watching the rats that he had not noticed the small window letting a little more light into the cellar. So it was day, or at least morning, outside.

"I wonder where I can relieve myself?" Josel continued.

"I don't care, as long as it doesn't spill into this cell," Zdain replied. His own bladder was full too.

Josel chose to do his business between the bars of the back wall, where the floor sloped downwards from their sleeping area.

As his cellmate passed water, Zdain's eyes wandered around the cellar. In the far corner was something he had noticed on his way into the cellar. A large, shapeless object was hanging from the wall in the corner. Zdain squinted to get a better look and motioned for Josel to take a look too.

"It's like it's stuck to the wall," Josel said.

"The rats are all over it," Zdain observed.

"Then it must be something to eat."

They were silent for a moment. Then Zdain realised what the bundle on the wall resembled.

"Human!" he exclaimed. A shudder ran through his entire body. He was both disgusted and aghast.

"Hence the stench," Josel said in a choked voice.

If this place was a prison, the carcass left for rats and flies to eat might well have been Marta's last prisoner. At that moment, Zdain was grateful that the cellar was unlit.

Before he had time for a second thought, Josel drew in a deep breath and jumped up abruptly. He crashed into the bars and cried out in a heartbreaking voice: "Dad!"

The boy pounded his fists against the bars, moaning inarticulately.

Horror gripped Zdain, the thought of Andreuz Sandkan murdered and eaten by rats was terrifying.

Zdain stood up and put his hand on Josel's shoulder as he sobbed softly.

But Josel shook his hand away and said: "Don't touch me!"

Zdain sighed and sat down again. Josel leaned against the bars for a long time before sitting down in the corner of the cell, as far away from his fellow prisoner as possible. The boy was probably crying, though he tried to stifle his sobs in front of Zdain.

This went on for some time. Finally, Zdain asked in the gentlest voice possible: "Are you sure it's your father? At least I can't see well enough." Zdain was not lying, it was too dark to identify the body by its appearance as anyone familiar.

"Who else! Dad was supposed to be here to meet us," Josel almost whimpered, then sniffled.

Zdain admitted that this was the case, but said that the corpse could be any of Marta's enemies. Josel should not jump to that conclusion so hastily. Besides, Marta had asked with great interest about the whereabouts of Andreuz Sandkan, Zdain tried to convince Josel.

"He lied, and that's easy to say when your own parents are sipping tea by a fireplace somewhere," Josel said.

Trying not to lose his temper, Zdain took a deep breath. If the rat-ridden body was really Andreuz Sandkan, then he had no right to be angry with Josel. In that case, Josel would have lost both his parents.

* * *

Time passed, but the basement became no brighter. Rather, the room slowly began to darken. It meant that noon had turned into afternoon, or that the sun had disappeared behind a veil of clouds. It was hard to keep track of the time any more. Either way, Zdain was thankful that they did not have to look at the body.

Josel had slowly moved back into position beside Zdain, though he was careful not to touch. The blond boy had not breathed a word since their last conversation. He was staring at the floor, his knees bent and his head resting on his hands.

Zdain mentally promised that if he ever made it out of the cellar, he would sort things out for Josel as best he could. But of course Josel would not want any help, least of all from Zdain. Although there was nothing to suggest that they would get out of Marta's captivity alive. The stinking corpse in the corner was testimony to how the mistress of the house treated her prisoners.

* * *

A sliver of light cut through the darkness as the door at the top of the stairs opened. The rats scurried into their holes to escape, and Zdain and Josel scrambled to their feet as well. The light of the lantern stung eyes accustomed to the dark, and the sound of footsteps led the guests into the cellar - Marta and someone else.

Marta was accompanied by a man with a lantern. Zdain had never seen him before. The stranger was a thin, stooped man with an unpleasant wheeze. His hair hung greasy, his face was covered in pimples, his nose was bent like a fishhook, and there were two small pig's eyes too close together. Zdain decided straight away that he hated the man.

The hunchback raised his lantern and shined the cell. "But, but, Your Mighty Highness. What a pair of sweeties you have found," the man said, breathing a long sigh at the end of the sentence. He opened his mouth to reveal a broken row of yellow-black rotting teeth.

Zdain instinctively backed away.

It made the man whooping in a way that only distantly resembled laughter. "Oh, Your Greatness," he addressed Marta. "I'd take the brown-haired one for myself. The blonde is pretty too, but the darker one seems to be more scared."

Zdain shuddered, he wanted nothing to do with such a disgusting creature.

Then Martha spoke, "Lurk, your time will come after mine. That is, if the prisoners have anything to give you by then." The woman's voice lacked emotion.

Josel tugged at Zdain's sleeve, motioning for him to look into the corner where the corpse hung. Zdain shivered in horror and relief. The body chained to the wall could not possibly be Andreuz Sandkan, for Josel's father was quite bald, while the corpse had long grey hair.

That was the end of Zdain's joy. It was a terrible sight. Most of the flesh had been eaten away, and the strips of skin covering the skeleton were rat-infested. He had to turn away in disgust.

When Marta noticed where her prisoners' attention was focused, she instructed her assistant to better illuminate a corner of the cellar. "Well, well, have you met Marta?" the woman said in a cheerful voice, nodding towards the skeleton.

Josel groaned. Zdain felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured down his collar. "Who... why?" he asked.

"Oh, all in good time, my young friends," the woman posing as Martha said, smiling sweetly.

"What do you want from us?" Josel asked angrily.

"First of all, all information about the Blue Moon's operations and headquarters. And of course the whereabouts of your parents."

"We know nothing."

Hearing this, the woman ordered her assistant: "Lurk, get the tools!"

The slimy man was strangely eager to climb up the stairs, leaving the woman with the lantern in the cellar. The woman was content to watch her captives with a look of contempt and self-satisfaction on her face.

When Lurk returned with his load, the woman finally bothered to answer Josel. "Fool, you may not know anything, but I'm sure the governor's son does... Lurk, open the cell door and bring the Monteilon boy here."

Lurk rattled his keychain, and fear of what was to come gripped Zdain.

When the door opened, Josel attacked the man without a second thought. Fake Marta screamed, but Lurk was quicker. The man yanked something out of his robe, a blue light flashed and Josel fell to the ground in pain, accompanied by a strange crackling sound.

"Do you want the same, little one, or will you come nicely?" Lurk said in a creaky voice. He held a strange, slightly door-handle-like tool in his hand.

Zdain's gaze shifted to Josel, who was writhing on the floor, moaning in pain. He decided to obey the ugly man and walked stiffly out of the cell.

Josel was left alone on the cell floor, gasping for breath. On Fake Martha's orders, Lurk began to secure Zdain's other arm to a chain hanging on the wall.

While Lurk was working, the woman spoke to Zdain. "They say this cellar was once used to keep animals for food, hence the barred cell. Poor Marta must have enjoyed being chained up here like a goat for slaughter. Well, she was slaughtered in the end."

The woman snickered disgustingly at her own words, but continued in a harsher tone. "That's enough. Let's begin. Where are your parents and Sandkan now?"

"I don't know," Zdain said in a firm voice.

"Wrong answer," she said, nodding to her assistant.

Lurk jabbed Zdain in the thigh with his strange weapon. Blue light flashed like lightning, there was a hissing sound, and in an instant an excruciating pain shot through his entire body. Zdain had never been hurt so much before. Drool trickled down his jaw and he found himself sobbing.

"Do you remember better yet?" the woman insisted.

"No," Zdain gritted his teeth.

"Again," she said, and Lurk struck with his cruel weapon.

Zdain shook and howled in pain, the second time was worse than the first.

"Are you ready to talk?"

"I don't know what..."

The bluish light flashed again and an immense pain tore through Zdain. Tears clogged his eyes and his whole body shook as if he were in ague.

"Maybe we'll try the cane next. Swing and hit hard," the woman said.

Lurk raised a wooden stick above his head and prepared to strike. The first blow was to the side and Zdain writhed in pain. He tried to protect his head, but with one hand cuffed it was difficult. Lurk struck again, this time to the shoulder.

Zdain rolled to the ground, trying to dodge the blows. His wrist was chafing on the chain. The cane slammed his thigh, then his forearm, his buttocks and his back. Blows rained down from all sides. Zdain screamed in pain, but Lurk did not stop.

"Leave him alone!" Josel shouted from his cell - to no avail.

The beating continued and Zdain fell to the edge of consciousness. Somewhere in the distance, Josel begged him for mercy, and at the same time the cane kept hitting him, but Zdain felt nothing and passed out.

* * *

Zdain woke up to find that everything hurt and he could not see much. The cellar, the cane, Lurk... it all came back to him in an instant. It was as if he had been mangled like a sheet. He was broken, crushed like a sack of potatoes left under a rail-carriage. He tried to move, but even the slightest shift of his legs caused a twinge of pain.

"Don't move, just rest," said a voice near him.

Josel. Zdain tried to turn his head - they had not hit him in the head - and could discern the outline of Josel beside him. More precisely, he was on Josel's lap. On Josel's lap? He might have laughed at the situation if the mere movement of his shoulders had not been so painful.

"Where are they?" Zdain managed to squeeze out.

"They left after throwing you back here," Josel said, sounding miserable. "They said they beat you harder on purpose because I tried to attack that man. To teach me a lesson. I'm sorry, Zdain."

Zdain? Josel Sandkan held him in his arms and called him by his first name?

"I tried to look at your injuries. It wasn't very easy in the dark. You're covered in bruises, but I think you're only bleeding from your wrist. I bandaged it."

Zdain felt the cloth around his throbbing wrist. "With what?"

"I tore my shirt," Josel said.

Zdain pressed his head back against Josel's chest and tried not to moan aloud. Tears ran down his cheeks, it hurt so much. Luckily Josel could not see it.

"It wasn't your dad," he whispered into the darkness.

"No. For that I am grateful."

They were silent for a while. A curious fly sat on Zdain's forehead, but he did not have the strength to sweep it away. Zdain felt Josel's heartbeat against his cheek. At any other time, in any other place, he would have enjoyed being in another person's arms.

Josel decided to continue the conversation, which took Zdain's mind off the pain for a moment. "If what that madwoman said was true, then the body really is Marta. That would explain a lot. But who are our captors? The woman was interested in the Blue Moon. Maybe she's working for the Shadow Cross. But surely you know there's something worse than the Shadow Cross."

"You mean the fallen."

"Yeah. Dad told me they were everywhere," Josel said.

Zdain cleared his throat for a moment and then spoke: "Yes, I suppose so: as market vendors, carriage drivers, civil servants, even as teachers in your school."

Josel was silent for a moment before he asked: "How much do you know about everything... the fallen and the Blue Moon?"

"Not much, really," Zdain replied, grimacing as he raised his hand to a better position. "I've only been told enough to know how to spot danger. Though not much is known about the fallen. Not who they take orders from, or what their ultimate goal is. Destroy the Blue Moon first, I suppose, but then what?"

It hurt to talk, and a coughing fit forced Zdain into silence. And there was no point in talking too much about the Blue Moon, for Marta's sound-transmitting pipes could reach down to the cellar.

Josel must have realised the same, for he continued to talk about more mundane matters. About how much he wished he were home, and what he would do first if he ever got back to Paidos. Zdain would whisper an answer now and then, but otherwise he was content to remain still, careful not to move his mauled limbs.

It was a little easier to be. Josel's steady pulse and the warmth radiating from him were soothing. Despite all his bruises, Zdain fell asleep.

* * *

It was not a pleasant wake-up call. Zdain was terribly cold, his mouth was dry and the marks from Lurk's blows were painful. It was dark in the cellar, so it must still be night. He had not slept very long, and sleep had not refreshed him at all. On the contrary, he felt very ill,as if a fever were rising. And even Josel was no longer holding him.

Zdain brushed his hand in the darkness and reached another boy nearby. The touch woke Josel and he mumbled something. Zdain whispered an apology for waking the other.

But since Josel did not seem to be angry, Zdain plucked up courage and dragged himself alongside the boy. Zdain was sore and cold, but at least he did not have to endure the misery alone.

They sat in silence, side by side. Neither could bear to repeat aloud how desperate the situation was. Nor was there any point in grumbling about hunger or thirst. The hours crept by, and slowly the worst of the darkness in the cellar receded.

Feeling even weaker, Zdain touched his forehead. It almost burned. There was no point mentioning it to Josel, as there was nothing he could do about it. So Zdain just crouched down, trying his best not to shiver from the cold.

Then, suddenly, as the sense of the time that had passed was again completely blurred, the door at the top of the stairs creaked open. Zdain's stomach churned with fear; would the beating continue? Or had the woman who had been playing Marta found them useless and decided to finish them?

Zdain gritted his teeth. He would not show his fear to his tormentors. The son of an imperial governor would not die like a crying baby. And yet he groaned loudly, just by straightening his back as he hurried away from under Josel's arm.

The lantern flashed again, but Zdain could see that this time it was neither Fake Marta nor Lurk who had entered the cellar. It was only Toma.

The servant dragged something down the stairs behind him, accompanied by a loud clatter. Something living, whimpering miserably as it clumped down the stairs.

"You'll have company," Toma croaked, hurling his victim to the front of the cage. The new prisoner in the cellar was very small.

A child! Zdain felt anger and pity at the same time. Could not even the children be excluded from this monstrosity?

"Where's the chain..." the man muttered, and then found what he was looking for hanging from the child's arm. Toma attached the iron chain to one of the bars of the cage. The key turned and the lock clicked shut.

"The little beast can do well outside the cage. Maybe it'll catch some rats. Or maybe the rats will eat it," Toma chatted to himself.

Zdain and Josel had watched in silence, sitting on the floor of the cell. Then Toma's lantern flickered, illuminating the face of the newcomer for a moment. The little prisoner was not a child.

"The goblin!" Josel was the first to gasp.

"Sharp thinking. Lurk brought this to the house as a gift. He had bought it at the market from a slave trader. A useless animal, but still entertains the mistress." Toma laughed and glanced at the goblin, its white hair stained with blood. The beaten little creature lay curled up, face to the floor. Toma got up to leave.

"Can we have some water, please?" Josel asked as politely as he could.

"Water? You're going to die anyway. Go thirsty, it's a lot easier than dying in her hands."

With that, Toma and the light of the lantern retreated to the stairs. The door to the cellar closed behind the man and the prisoners were back in the dark - now the three of them.

Are we going to die here, Zdain asked himself. His body ached all over, his throat burned with thirst, and despair took over his mind.

"The goblin must be the same we saw earlier," Josel whispered with surprising fervour and stood up.

Zdain was left shivering in the cold, leaning against the bars. His back and legs ached, but he decided not to complain. To say something, he asked: "I wonder if it's still alive," referring to the goblin lying in the darkness - or whatever it was. Only the flicker of white hair told him that the creature was indeed in the cellar; the goblin made no more noise.

"Of course it lives!" Josel replied a little too loudly and indignantly.

Zdain remembered how fiercely his fellow traveller had reacted to the goblin at the market. It was as if caring for tiny creatures in distress was Josel's life's work.

Tiny creatures - not the size of Zdain Monteilon. For some reason, the thought echoed unpleasantly. Zdain watched sourly as Josel groped his way through the darkness towards the goblin. He himself was too tired and sore to be so enthusiastic.

Josel put his hand through the bars and shook the chain attached to the bar, one end of which was chained to the goblin's leg. "Hey, wake up," Josel tried.

The goblin did not respond. It did not move or make a sound, no matter how much Josel tried to persuade it. Frustrated, he eventually backed up next to his cellmate.

Zdain dared not repeat his suspicion as to whether the creature was still breathing. Instead he said: "What the heck do Fake Marta and the others want from the goblin? If the goblins are even real. I wouldn't believe a slave trader. Besides..."

"I believe," Josel interrupted. "In my Dad's books, it says that the goblins have a very old culture and a great deal of knowledge. The kind mankind can only dream of."

"In the Troubadour Kharl books? Those are fairy tales!" Zdain exclaimed. It was impossible to remain calm when Josel was so annoying in his babbling. "I've never heard of a single place where the goblins live, even though my tutor was well versed in foreign cultures. I don't believe in stupid goblins," Zdain added.

"Then don't believe it!" Josel snapped. "I'm sure your home teacher didn't tell you about dreaders or fiend wings either. And look! We've seen both within a week."

Zdain's head ached and Josel's stubbornness felt stupid. Yet he was also annoyed that the boy might be right, despite everything. Until a few days ago, even the dreaders had been a child's tale, not real life.

"Whatever. I'm not interested in the whole goblin thing," Zdain said without thinking, hoping the conversation was over. He was hurt all over and Josel's ranting about the goblin was so childish. Zdain just wanted to rest and dream that his time in Marta's cellar was a nightmare from which he would soon wake.

But the careless words made Josel even wilder. "You don't care about anything but your own upper-class ass. There's a badly beaten goblin on the other side of the bars and you don't give a damn about it!" Josel shouted.

"I've been 'badly beaten' too!" Zdain replied. How could Sandkan be such a jerk? Had his recent concern been just an act? Tears of disappointment wet the corners of his eyes, but Zdain quickly wiped them away.

"I'm not denying it," Josel said half-heartedly, but he did not manage to sound conciliatory enough.

"Whatever. You're such a boor that it's no use," Zdain muttered, trying to roll onto his side. It hurt so much that he groaned and returned to his previous position. Josel remained silent.

The basement was filled with melancholy. Zdain's throat was growing increasingly dry, his stomach growling with hunger and his fever seemed to be rising. The bruises from the beatings were also hellishly painful. He huddled on the cold floor, suffering in silence.

* * *

An hour must have passed. Zdain changed position and could not hold back a small sigh as he straightened his aching legs.

"Why don't you sleep?" was Josel's question.

"Why aren't you! Maybe because I'm cold, hungry, thirsty and I'm sore everywhere," Zdain replied sardonically.

After a while, Josel asked shyly: "Would it help if I came next to you? I'm cold too."

Zdain swallowed, suppressing an angry reply. Josel knew how to surprise. It wasn't an apology, but still... So he said: "Come on then."

Josel moved on the floor next to Zdain but not so close as before.

Coward, Zdain thought, curling up against the boy's side. As infuriating as Josel was, it was much better to be next to him. The pain had not gone away, but the closeness soothed his groggy body.

Josel did not say anything, did not ask how he was - for which Zdain was grateful - but just stayed there. If I die here in the cellar, at least I won't die alone, Zdain thought. That made him feel a little better.

Whether it was a spur of the moment or what, Zdain could not explain to himself, but he took Josel's hand. The boy tensed and for a moment Zdain thought he would pull away. But he did not, and after a while Josel relaxed and wrapped his fingers around Zdain's hand.

The cellar was dark, the rats were gnawing at Marta's body, the goblin lay supposedly dead on the other side of the bars, and at any moment Lurk might return with his cane and torture device. But Zdain Monteilon's mind was elsewhere, for he had just realised something new and revolutionary about himself, something that both fascinated and terrified him.

* * *