The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 13: Captives: Section II: Dashel

Dashel: A Cell: The Palace: Qemassen

A ball of light brighter than the noonday sun bobbed in the corridor leading to Dashel's cell.

He squinted to lessen the light's sting, tears springing to his eyes, chains rattling when he instinctively tried to draw his hand to his face as a shield against the brightness.

The sphere elongated as it neared, bouncing off bronze or gold at the torchbearer's wrist. Cheti eq-Horeb, the court scribe, had come to see him. It could mean only one thing.

A judgement had been made.

No one had harmed him. No torture, no brutal beating, no lash of the whip. He was damp, thirsty, chained by his wrists to a wall in a dark cell, but he was unhurt.

What eye had turned its gentle gaze on him, to spare him the injury another man would have suffered? They whipped princes nearly to the bone in Eshmunen's city.

Dashel shuddered at the memory of Aurelius's savaged back, a sob sputtering from dry lips. Aurelius was alive. He was alive, alive, alive and Dashel hadn't been too late.

The crunch of Cheti's feet stopped and was followed by the rattle of the keys to Dashel's cell. Cheti stepped inside.

Harsh flame bathed the cramped little room with orange light, revealing dark stains on the floor, the shit-pail in the corner, Dashel's bare legs bent beneath him. He was covered in dirt. He'd known he was covered in dirt because he could feel it caked to his skin and because that was what happened when you were thrown in a cell and forgotten, but he hadn't expected there to be so much. So much blood. Eshmunen's blood. It had soaked straight through Dashel's clothes and when they'd stripped him, they hadn't bothered to wash it off. That had been days ago, he thought, but days measured light, and where there was no light there were no days.

Cheti slotted his torch inside a metal sconce on the wall. Sparks spit from it as fire grazed the stone wall.

"What—" Dashel's voice came out a croak. He wetted his lips with his tongue and tasted iron and piss. "What's going to happen?"

"There is to be no trial," Cheti announced. He held an unrolled scroll in his hands. He tilted his chin to read from it. "Your guilt has been ascertained by your own confession. You will be executed tomorrow, before the people of Qemassen, for the murder of King Eshmunen the Third and your involvement in the slave conspiracy against the Semassenqa." Cheti furled his scroll, an exaggerated frown on his lined face. "I would pray to your Erun god if I were you; there will be no pain spared you upon the morrow."

From the darkness behind Cheti, a second set of feet shuffled.

Hima, arms folded across her chest, stepped inside the ring of light. A beautiful ghost. "That's enough, Cheti. Leave us."

The scribe bowed, turning to go. "As you wish, Sese."

Dashel relaxed against the wall, his breaths coming more easily. He closed his eyes and flicked his tongue over his lips again. Hima had come to visit him, but to berate him or to praise him?

Her footsteps scraped against the floor as she neared him.

Water sloshed, then dripped. The cold metal rim of a cup brushed Dashel's lower lip and clinked against his teeth.

"Dashel. Drink." Hima tipped the cup slowly and Dashel opened his eyes, sipping at first, then gulping. They'd brought him water, but it had been what felt like a long time ago now.

Hima had crouched in front of him, her honey eyes—the same as Eshmunen's eyes before Dashel had chopped his head off—staring directly into Dashel's. She'd never been beautiful, but against the backdrop of this dank little hole she was a heavenly body.