Magistaire Chronicles: Shadows of the Past

Chapter 27

Elies opened his eyes and stepped forward. The ball and chain around his ankle weighed down his feet. Where was he? With a strenuous effort, he slogged to the only light several feet away, only to bang his head. He felt around, pushed and pulled, then cursed. He was in a dungeon; he didn't even remember how he got there, only that a sword hilt struck his temple, and then all went black.

"Hazelmere!"

Elies turned around and surveyed the room—in his friend's place was mold eating at the cracked walls and water seeping into the middle of the floor. In the corner was a single wooden bucket, and across from it were two stone slabs that he assumed were his bed.

"Horsepiss," he breathed.

He stared into the row of cells across from his own, eyeing a man who repeatedly banged his bruised head against the wall and a wide-eyed woman who hunched on the floor, her skin covered in cuts and gashes. They looked worse for wear, scraggly, and caked with dirt. Both of them ignored Elies when he called for them.

Tightening his lips, Elies peered into the cell to the left of theirs, spotting a man sitting against the wall—bronze-skinned with hair that resembled a sheep's mane. A single black tuft hung from his chin, and his eyes were amber. He ignored Elies as well, much to his dismay.

With a huff, the young man slumped down and leaned against the wall, shutting his eyes until footsteps startled him awake. He scrambled to the bars, his knees still on the floor, to see a knight stomping down the dimly-lit hall, bucket in hand. He chucked its contents between each set of bars while absently staring ahead, the sconce adjacent to Elies' own revealing the black void in the crack of his helmet.

Elies gasped, a chill piercing his spine. He was just like the Shadowhand from the tavern that night. He gulped when the brooding giant reached his cell but spoke nonetheless. "Guardsman! Where am I? What is this place?"

The knight rumbled and rummaged through his bucket. "It shut!"

Elies flinched away from a rock-hard object that bounced off his head and into his lap. Mold covered it, but Elies couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. Bread? A root of sorts? The young man grimaced and let it fall from his hands.

"Oi!"

Elies looked over at the bronze-skinned halfling, who stuck his head between the bars while his hands squeezed the life from them. His eyes flickered with a fire not unlike Ayko's.

"Let me have what he's having!"

The brooding knight stopped in his tracks and whirled around. With quickness Elies could hardly comprehend, he rammed his knee into the halfling's face, knocking him further into his cell. "For you, none," he rumbled. "Says Lordress."

Elies watched the knight march away and turn down the corner of the hall, his shadow shrinking until it finally vanished. He turned back to the Halfling's bars and watched him sit against the wall, ignoring the blood gushing from his nostrils. He gave Elies a hurried glance, then locked his eyes on him.

"You," The Halfling said. His eyes darted to the molded mass at Elies' knees. "Give me that."

Elies followed his gaze and smirked, taking the rotted food in hand. "So food makes you break the act, eh?"

"Hand it over," The Halfling said evenly.

Despite the bars between them, Elies still felt the need to hold it further out of the Halfling's reach. "Nay. Answers first."

"What good will that do? There's no leaving this dungeon."

"As good as this'll do for you," Elies replied. He squeezed, letting flames crawl from his fingertips.