Terramancer

Chapter Sixteen

The first thing that hit me was the smell. My senses were immediately assaulted, before I had even opened my eyes.

Wherever I was smelt of human excrement. The smell of stale urine mingling with vomit was strong. I felt as though I would contribute to the smell of vomit if I breathed in any more of the scent. So, I tried my hardest to only breathe through my mouth.

I was not sure where I was, and I did not particularly want to open my eyes, for if it smelt this bad, I was not sure if I wanted to see the conditions in which I was in.

I lay there with my eyes closed for a while longer, until a tap on my shoulder forced my eyes open.

It was Iza. He looked disturbed.

"I think we've been thrown in a dungeon," he said matter-of-factly before leaning off to the side and vomiting. I got to my feet – albeit shakily – and looked around.

Iza was right. It appeared we were, in fact, in a dungeon. It was dimly-lit, but I could still see that it was completely and totally overcrowded. A sea of people were sitting or lying down on the stone floor. They all looked utterly dejected and miserable, but they had an air around them as if they had accepted their fate. With a start, I realised who these people were.

They were the citizens of Ilythiyrra.

I realised what must have happened.

The queen had invited these people to the feast, lured them in with her sweet words, and made them eat food that was poisoned. It must have been. There was no way we could have fallen asleep that easily or that fast had it not been poisoned.

I searched the heads of those in the crowd, looking for Imryll. I spotted her frizzy brown hair and waded my way through the prisoners, towards her.

When I finally got to her, she was awake too. She was horrendously pale. Her whole body shook like a leaf.

"Ece is..." A shudder ran through her body, making her pause. "Ece is not here...the queen must have taken him. We must escape and find him!"

I looked at the downcast expressions of those around us and slumped. "How?" I asked.

"I do not know," Imryll answered, "but I know we must rescue Ece before the queen tortures him, or-or worse...kills him."

"Would Ece dying really be that bad?" A voice came from beside me, making me jump, but it was only Iza. He was clearly joking, but it fell flat. None of us were in a joking mood. Iza's face fell.

"I am sorry Imryll," I began, "but I do not think escape is possible. There are hundreds of people down here. Don't you think that if they could escape, they would have?"

"Exactly," Iza agreed. "Judging from the smell, and amounts of human excretion in that bucket over there—" Iza pointed to a bucket that sat in the corner, one I had not noticed before. My stomach turned looking at it. "—it appears as though these people have been here for months, withering away."

Imryll looked miserable. "I know," she said. "But we must believe we can escape, otherwise we'll rot down here, and hundreds will die." Suddenly, her eyes brightened as she looked around. "I have an idea," she told us. "I will need to do some planning, but it's so crazy, it might just work."

Iza looked startled, but he decided to humour her. "You go ahead," he said, not sounding convinced. "If it works, maybe we won't decay down here."

Imryll did not seem to be put off by Iza's dour mood, and instead smiled despite everything.

She waved us away. "Go speak to some of the Ilythiyrrians," she told us. Iza and I nodded obediently and walked away.

The first person we talked to was am emaciated young woman holding a child. She wore a filthy white dress. It was cut around her collarbones, which protruded in a way that made me feel unwell. Her hair was lank and greasy and hung in her face. Her eyes were sunken, her cheekbones too prominent. She gave us a grim look as we approached.