Sketcher's Row [Prototype]

Act I / Chapter V

Soal at long last pried a sillingrock from the stone's grasp; in due time it was replaced with three measly mushrooms, as blackened and shriveled as a fungus beyond a volcano could likely be. Rejoicing from the sustenance, he declined to attend to the subsequent disappearance of thirty-three other charks, as well as the indistinct cacophony that had taken place once he last noticed them huddle into the flagstaff area, and refused to follow.

A long-legged and bleary-eyed witness of the pandemonium stumbled toward Soal, while he awaited the comforting clutches of sleep. Like many charks at this time of nightfall, only her silhouette could be deduced. But her words, oddly, repelled the urge to bounce off the walls.

"Did you like what you ate today?" she heaved a sentence.

"Better than anything I've ever had," Soal yawned, accepting her awareness of the mushrooms he ingested.

"Would you like some more?"

"Yes, yes... definitely."

"Then... take this," the chark threw one of Henrab's "barrels" to Soal's feet, unaccompanied by an explanation as to the method and motive of its obtainment. "You've heard of the massacre, haven't you? The commotion by the flag?"

Soal could solely gulp.

"Hide the weapon; stay inconspicuous overnight. If everything goes how I tell the others it will, you'll get your meal again.... soon."

"What are you talking about?" Soal leapt upright, less than willing to surrender himself to this unidentified conspirator. "And who are you?"

"I can't answer that myself. Just... go to sleep with that thing behind your back. If anything rouses you awake, ignore it. There'll be another directive for you at dawn. Got that?"

Soal sank back onto the ground, bowing to morbid curiosity. "I guess so," he accepted the offer, sliding the "thing" behind his back before he himself slid into unconsciousness, as he had done so many times; the still-nameless chark scampered away imminently.

The remainder of the night bode no disruptions. Sunrise's disruption was simply the lack of one: there was not a single living being -- ewyk or chark -- to be found within the mine's musty corridors.

*     *     *

Henrab was the son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a daughter of a son of a son of a renowned Qorkan charksman. And each of those sons had inherited the business of their forefathers -- that of an utmost cachet and insurmountable wealth. These necessities had been leaning over a precipice for three generations, and their time was now to plunge into its abyss.

All that had to be done was to lock the door. Once the sentinels had been put to rest with the arms from their arms, the keys from their feathers extracted, their colleagues shepherded into Henrab's compound, the operation automated itself. And its enactors were shocked they had not succeeded in similar, earlier attempts. With that, they deserted the lair of their torture once and for all.

There was a crudely handwritten note for Soal upon his awakening:

Sure enough, the mundane-looking key was where it was promised to be -- somehow operative of a door similar to that of a safe, through which the highly stymied sounds of coughing and frenzied knocking wafted. The key was not food, however, and Soal's abdomen took note.

Aside from the subdued tones of the doorway, the mine was a pit of deathly silence. Soal barely resisted the crawl of such desolation through his fizzing, five-frame skin. Nevertheless, he persisted in the task he was assigned for two consecutive days.

On the third afternoon, the door sluggishly swung open, yanking the sentry's eyes open. The two ewyk at its helm, already feeble in spite of the compound's comestible reserves, squinted at Soal tartly. It took five seconds, once he stood, to slide his weapon between his fingertips, and ten seconds more to locate its crucial mechanism. Twice that length would pass before his hands descended to his waist, defeated by the premise of destruction he could have wrought. The skeptical ewyk only stared.

As if awaiting amends, Soal held aloft his other hand, drawing in a gulp. But with a spontaneous motion, one of the birds across from him drew a familiar shape, which sent to Soal's palm not another of its own, but an invisibly small, airborne sphere. Nigh instantly, all of the hunger of the previous weeks was compressed into the point of contact, and directed outward with such bodily resounding agony that a raven plasma spilled from it and splattered on his face.

Momentarily Soal was stifled by the painful waves rolling over him, but had energy enough to return the gesture and "squeeze the trigger on the barrel". A red fluid of similar variety to his own covered the wall behind the attacker, who was toppled into sleep once a new sphere was sent squarely between his eyes. His companion grabbed the weapon from the body's feathers and scurried out of vision, signaling Soal to frantically shut the door -- a monumental task considering his relative strength and condition -- and lock it tightly, at least until someone else attempted escape.

He lurched five steps back, losing grip of both the barrel and the keys, before succumbing to the small pools of liquid dripping from his right (dominant) hand, falling to his back and gasping for breath. Holding up the source of excruciation, Soal reeled, questioning yet again the unreality of this pernicious new world.

By gravity into his mouth, droplets of that liquid were dragged. His tongue found it rather sweet.

*     *     *

Thirty-five days of door-staring, even ten, would inevitably be inconceivable for someone whose grave injury had just cost him five. Coupled with foodlessness and the compound's sustained seclusion following the recent incident, Soal hobbled to the "unrelenting" flagpole of Qorkas, whose banner, lacking maintenance, had since been allowed to careen to its knees for ideal use as a blanket. Funnily enough, eleven perfectly circular perforations had been blasted through it, one wide enough for Soal's head to comfortably fit through.

The origin of these was of little concern to him on his first day of its use. His right palm had been permanently scarred, sore of touch at the best of times; it was a miraculous recovery, but the reason it was necessary was what frightened Soal now. Not the sterilized mine or the hunger or the fact that he may have just killed a man, albeit an avian. It was a bullet -- the one that struck him.

How did Soal learn these words? It was as if the interpreter of days past had sorcerously annotated his instructions with much-desired context. Gun was pinned to barrel. Shoot was pinned to squeeze the trigger. How did Soal learn these words?

Another humble concept joined the army of newcomers: death. What is that? he contemplated when it somehow slithered into his head. From that moment forward, the shame of his speculated answer was more potent than the ringing of the location on his hand where this answer could have reached him first. How did Soal learn these words?

Nestled in the "circles and streamers", he pondered for nine days, eating nothing, noticing nothing previously unseen, approaching no conclusions, and feeling nothing but self-induced bewilderment, having grown numb to the pangs of his screaming stomach. The world was petrified.

He began to wonder again about the source of the holes in the flag. Those responsible visited to inform him.