A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
He awoke to half a world. Dark and dim. The pungent smells of sweat, urine, and blood. He lay on a hard, rough, surface that dug into his back. Every muscle ached. Every inch of skin stung or itched. A throbbing headache passed through his right eye and to the back of his skull. He took a breath and felt something sharp in his nostrils. He moved his hand.
‘Hold still, almost done,’ a voice said. Calm, gentle, but firm. Fatherly.
Nemo held still. His chest pressed tight and warm by cloth, his thigh too. His right ear was muffled and held against his head. For the first time in days, weeks maybe, his scalp did not itch and his hair was not clamped to his forehead with sweat and blood.
‘There you go,’ he said.
Nemo heard the clatter of metal and the snap of a box. He looked to his right and saw a man in a plain brown shirt and trousers. His shoes were calf leather. He held a candle in one hand, his box tucked under his arm on the other side.
‘Who are you?’
‘A physician. A rare guest of this place,’ the man forced a smile.
‘Thank you,’ Nemo croaked.
‘You should eat and drink water. An extra serving has been made for you. Just this once. Don’t waste it,’ the healer said. He turned and his shoes padded out of Nemo’s cell and out of the gaol. A guard closed the gate to Nemo’s cell behind him and then the gaol door. The familiar rattle of keys followed. The light diminished to a gloom.
Nemo turned his head to his right and saw two cups of water and a whole flatbread. He pushed himself to a sitting position, ignoring the screams of his body, and snatched at a cup of water. He downed it in three gulps. He rolled the flat bread into a cylinder and bit into it, tearing off a third in one ravenous bite.
He choked down the full, fresh, flatbread. It caught in his still dry throat but he didn’t care and swallowed harder. He tried to breath and felt only sharp objects in his nose blocking airflow. He coughed and brushed his thumb against his nose. It touched on something hard. He picked at the edge of his nostril and dried blood came away. Blood, my nose is full of dried blood. He paused his eating and pressed his injured nose between thumb and forefinger. The cut stung. He pressed and rolled his nostrils. His eye watered with the shock of pain. Dried crystals of blood rolled out of his nostrils and caught in his moustache and beard. Blowing air out of his nose, lightly, a few more chunks of iron red blood dislodged. He brushed them away. That will have to do.
He gulped from the second cup of water in haste and the double serving, barely a meal, was gone within a minute. He licked at the inside of the cups for the last drops of water. Rolling the clay cups in his hands he poured the dregs that gathered at the bottom into his mouth.
His stomach rumbled and ached for more. More bread and more than only bread. His teeth felt the need to bite into something chewy and firm like dried meat. Even Tura’s dried goat would have been a blessing.
Forcing himself to stay sitting he rested his back against the damp wall of the gaol. Muscles spasmed at the touch of the cold but soon settled. He looked to his thigh that had been a mess of skin and muscle churned into neither and found clean white bandages. He could bend his leg but when he pressed on the bandage there was no sensation where Stipi had stabbed him.
The cuts on his torso and ribs had begun to heal. Those that needed stitching had been with a thin black thread pulled so close to the skin Nemo wondered if he would be able to remove them with a knife. At least the healer was skilled.
Nemo worked his hand through knots in his hair finding it had been cleaned of blood and sweat. No longer hanging dank over his shoulders or across his face. On the right side he felt the the soft, layered, cloth of a bandage pressing against his ear and hugging around his forehead and down the right side of jaw. He followed the line between fabric and skin and found it covered his right eye. He pressed against the bandage with a light tap. Wincing and withdrawing instantly. He tried to blink his right eyelid but failed to tell if anything had happened at all. He couldn’t see inside the bandage or feel cloth clawing at his eyeball.
Did the healer remove it? He wondered. Can I still see with it? Nausea rose in his stomach as he realised he was seeing with one eye. Off balance even when sitting. The gaol tilting. The door of the gaol seeming closer than the gate to his cell. He closed his left eye and breathed a heavy breath.
The nausea passed, thankfully, as throwing up his food was not a quick road to recovery. He waited a moment more and steadied himself to the coming disorientation.
Nemo opened his left eye and the world seemed normal. The door and gate where they should be, the bars of his cell, and nothing appeared double. He reached forward to his own leg and struck the hard cobblestone with his palm.
He blinked.
His leg was an inch to the left of his hand. He moved his hand onto his knee and the image crystallised. His eye and mind adjusting to the new location, the new perception. He repeated reaching for his leg with both hands in sequence. Each time he titled his head a little more to the right to make up for the loss of vision.
At least I should still be able to fire a bow, he thought having only ever used his left eye to aim. I may never test that.
He reached for the bars of his cell and fell short. Tipping over and landing with a crunch of his elbow on the cobblestone floor.
Maniacal laughter echoed through the gaol. ‘The traitor becomes the one-eyed traitor. Good for nothing now,’ the stone-obsessed man cackled.
‘What is wrong with you?’ The merchant, curled up in the corner of the cell he shared with the crazed man, said unthinking.
The stone obsessed man craned his neck backwards over his shoulder a disturbing distance and scowled. One finger still jammed down the side of his cobblestone between his feet. ‘What was that?’ His tongue spat venom.
‘He tried to do something about the rotten situation and all you can do is mock him. What is wrong with you?’ The merchant reasoned.
Nemo noticed a shift. The stone obsessed man’s hand tensed over the cobblestone he had had the patience to dig and claw around.
The merchant squared his shoulders. Foolishly. Feeling confident when he should have been scared.
‘Don’t—,’ Nemo started, pushing himself up off the floor.
The cobblestone was out of the floor and in the crazed man’s hand. From confidence to shock the merchant’s face fell. The cobblestone hurtling towards him. An explosion of gore erupted from the merchant’s nose and mouth as the stone obsessor drove the cobble into his adversary’s face. Blood splattered in a ring at first impact.
He withdrew the stone and drove it in for a second attack. Teeth burst from gums, his nose a mess of cartilage, bone, blood, and mucus.
A ear splitting scream shattered through the air from the cell to Nemo’s right.
Keys rattled, faster than usual. Two guards burst into the room. One fumbling the keys to the cell, the other ready with a leather club.
The stone came away from the merchant caked in blood. Strings of spittle ran from the stone to gum, a tooth jammed into the stone its other half still in the gums of the merchant. The stone charged for a third strike.
The gate slammed open, keys in the lock. The first guard grabbed the arm of the stone obsessed man.
He screamed, ‘No, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,’ over and over again between unintelligible yelps and curses. The crazed man tried swinging with his feet and caught the guard between the legs with his heel. His grip on his arm loosening as he fell to one knee grimacing.
The other guard swung his club and caught the assailant across the jaw. The stone obsessed man collapsed to the floor in a heap. Then leapt to his feet and swung his cobble at the guard who struck him.
The downed guard punched the prisoner in the gut as the other guard clobbered him across the head once more, an audible crack of bone. The stone clattered to the floor and the prisoner followed.
The merchant coughed and clawed at the air. Tears streaming from blood shot eyes. Lips moving in four sections failing to keep blood and spittle seeping out his mouth. A bubble of blood popped where his nose had been.
‘You get him to the healer,’ the armed guard said, pointing to the merchant. ‘I’ll tie this one up,’ he kicked the foot of the stone obsessed man.
The other guard grunted and limped to the merchant. He rubbed a hand between his legs and stood up straight, stretching his leg. He grimaced, and said to the merchant, ‘Can you stand?’
The unfortunate prisoner tried and his legs wobbled beneath him. The guard, to his credit, put an arm around the merchant and helped him limp out of the cell and gaol.
The other guard’s back was turned to Nemo as he began to tie up the stone obsessed man.
Keys hanging in the lock of the cell gate fully open towards Nemo.
Nemo shuffled to the edge of his cell, as if watching the chaos unfold as the prisoners in the third cell had done. He shot a look over and saw neither the screamer or the silent one watching him.
He tilted his head so the keys were in the centre of his vision. He reached through the bars. His fingers brushed the blackened iron of a key hanging from the keyring. He pressed himself against the bars of the cell. The cold iron grating his skin. Wounds whimpering to stop.
Nemo curled a finger around the back of the three keys hanging free and grasped them against each other. With them silenced he pulled. The fourth key clicking out of the lock with surprising ease. He caught the cell key between his little and ring fingers and retracted his hand.
He secreted the keys behind him, out of the light of the single torch against the far wall. Out of sight of anyone, he placed on the floor behind him. He gripped the bars of his cell with both hands and watched the prisoner being tied and chained, the keys shrouded in shadow behind him.
The guard finished shortening the chains. The prisoner, his arms held above him against the wall, his legs pulled apart by chains on his left and right. His back to the wall with the door on. His head lolled but his eyes were open. The guard planted a boot in his groin. The stone obsessed man yanked at the four chains holding him in place and wheezed. He doubled over as most he could, both arms pulled back and high into the air.
The guard grunted and turned to leave, pulling his own set of keys off his belt, leather club held in one hand. He closed the gate and locked it with a jingle of keys and did the same with the door of the gaol.
Nemo breathed for the first time in what felt like hours. That’s the easy part, he thought.
The stone obsessed man hung limp in his shackles. Drooling down himself in restful slumber. Was it night? Nemo couldn’t tell. There had been no more visits from the guards, busy with keeping the merchant alive. If they cared. Or had been called to explain what happened by higher ups.
Nemo looked to the other cell. One was awake sitting in his usual curled up way, knees to his chin, arms wrapped around his legs, head buried in the shadow. The other lay sprawled on the floor fast asleep.
Sooner the better, Nemo thought reaching for the keys behind him. He had remained sitting up close to the bars of his cell for hours. Or what felt like hours. The ever present and flickering torch had dropped a few inches but how long that was outside he had no clue.
He stood up with numb legs. Stretching out the lethargy while he watched the three other prisoners for any signs of movement. Part of him wanted to help them too, well two of them, but they would only increase his risk of being caught. That was not a risk worth taking. Escaping is risk enough, he pressed bent toes against the cold stone floor. His leg tingled with new blood.
His right thigh throbbed. A deep, dull, pain reaching to the bone. He leaned a little to his left side to compensate. Would he remember in a time of chaos, he didn’t know.
The door of his cell wavered in his vision as his brain adjusted for one eye. If he forgot his vision was almost normal, like aiming an arrow, he thought. As soon as he remembered he was swimming unable to judge distance or depth or even position properly. He stared at the lock of his cell.
He placed his left hand against the lock of his cell and chose a key at random. It slid into the lock and refused to turn. He pulled it out and chose the next one. That didn’t even fit the lock. He let the key fall from his fingers. It rang against the other keys on the ring.
He paused.
A shuffle of feet alerting him to his right. The scrape of straw on skin and stone. He felt sweat gather under his eyes.
Slowly he moved the next key on the ring into the grasp of his thumb and forefinger. The keyring hung on his third finger. The key, same length and handle as the others, slipped into the lock.
He turned the key and heard the lock click as firm as the snap of a twig. The cell door popped out of place. Hinges whining as the weight of door rested on them totally. Nemo pushed the door of his cell open. A high pitched cry echoed off the stonewalls at first movement and faded into nothing.
One door open, he thought, stepping into the space between the three cells.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ A voice asked.
Nemo looked to his right to the see the man sprawled on the floor looking up at him with bright white eyes.
‘Leaving,’ Nemo said masking his limp as best he could.
‘Get me out too,’ the man sat up in a hurry, hand rushing to grab an iron bar of his cell. He pulled on it, rattling the frame.
‘Keep quiet. They will hear you,’ Nemo chided.
The man stopped and said, ‘Open the door then,’ eyeing the door to his cell.
‘Quiet,’ Nemo said as he approached the door out of the gaol.
The door was solid wood, a dark heavily grained sort that grew far north. He peered through the narrow gap in the door at eye level, two iron bars prevented a hand from slipping through. He saw nothing but walls either side of the door and lights burning further down the corridor. He ran his hands along the door feeling each of the ridges and knots across its surface until he reached a metal disk. The keyhole.
He chose the key that refused to fit the lock on his cell. The key fitted and he tried to turn it. It did but he stopped. How loud will it be, he tightened his grip on the key till his thumb turned white and began to open the lock. He felt the lock being pushed open. The mechanism grinding along and an audible click as it fell into place.
He ducked out of view of the narrow opening. He heard no footsteps. No voices. Nothing. He retracted the key and turned the handle of the door. Cold to the touch the metal handle turned silently and the door opened.
‘Come on, let me out,’ the other prisoner said.
Nemo looked back at him and without a word placed the keys on the floor of the gaol a little out of the prisoners reach.
Nemo darted out of the door and closed the door behind him and crouched low. The corridor was as dark and dingy as the cell save for a few torches spread in an austere fashion.
A stride or two to his left the wall opened and a light flickered from inside. The end of the corridor was lit and with only one way to go.
His hands shook. Choice has been made, he thought and that calmed him. Having only one pathway to walk helped. Forcing him into action.
He stepped forward, the clammy soles of his feet sticking to the cold cobblestone of the floor. He pressed himself against the left wall and peered around the corner.
There was a guard.
Asleep.
Night duty then, Nemo hoped.
The guard slept on a crude cot in the corner of the recess. Straw blankets and folded wool pillow. Beside the cot was a low desk stacked with scrolls and sheets sitting in boxes or weighed down with husks of iron. Two stools stood around a second table with two jugs and four cups.
Water? Nemo hoped, his throat suddenly dry.
Nemo spied the chests on the far wall. Surely not? He thought wondering if that were the prisoner affects.
The shallow breathing of the guard. The muffled crackle of a burning torch. The whistle in his nose as air forced its way past blood old and new. Each small sound joined to drown out the throb of his own heart in his ears.
He stepped out into the open, a waving flicker of light passing over his single eyed vision. He had five crouched steps to make to the chests. Maybe six. What came next he dreaded to think. Future problems, he dismissed them all.
Each step he made he turned his head to see if the guard moved. Unable to keep an eye on two things at once his head became a swivel between the two. Destination and guard.
He spied keyholes on the chests. Small cuts in the blackened wood. Reaching out with one hand Nemo made the last step and pulled the lid of one chest. It opened. Relief washed over him deep enough for the pain his body spoke with to be drowned out for a moment.
Inside the first chest was a coat of rich purple, a shirt of fine cotton, and suede slippers. The merchant’s.Nemo wondered why the guards held on to their prisoner’s belongings. To sell? To take with them? Or are they planning to free people eventually? He moved onto the next chest of three.
The lock, once again, was unused and the lid lifted freely. Hinges silent and inside a familiar leather jacket. Ahh, Nemo pulled out his and found the wristbow and knife underneath. Trousers and shirt stuffed into the corners. Boots standing upright on the other side. How good of them, he thanked the sleeping guard as he tore off his prisoner’s bottoms of rough, undyed wool, and dressed himself.
He kept the boots to one side and carried them in his hand. Nemo padded around the corner from the recess towards the light at the end of the corridor. He pulled his boots on, cold and damp, and headed the only way he could.
Nemo stopped under the burning torch at the end of the corridor. He looked back to his gaol, his home for… he didn’t know. A week. Two. A few days. He turned to his escape route. The long, dark corridor stretched into the distance. Stone walls shimmering with damp. How deep am I? He thought.
The pulse of torchlight guided him. Every twenty steps was a light. He pushed through the velvet dark between torches where it seemed the walls would rush in and crush him. The first waypoint of torchlight signified a crossroads. The hallway carried on straight as he had seen from the start. But to his right now lay a new corridor lit with wall sconces seemingly losing their battle with the ever present darkness. Which way? Nemo didn’t know where he was let alone where he was going.
Sconces suggest order. Suggest habitability. Suggest people. Torches are rougher, less used. Torches it is. He carried on down the pathway lined with distant torches. Bundles of branches tied together with cloth, dipped in oil, lit, and jammed in iron rings in the wall. Effective if not brutish.
Nemo became aware how silent the tunnels were. The sound of his own breathing and the scrape of his boots along the cobblestones barely piercing the silence. He stood still, yet the sound of footsteps continued. Not good, he thought.
The tap of a crooked nail in the sole of a boot spiralled through the corridor. It has to be coming from that way, Nemo thought looking ahead into the corridor. He spied towards the torches lining the tunnel but could see no one. He squinted his lone eye and noticed the corridor bend a hundred paces ahead. A flicker of fire in the distance became a ripple of goosebumps on his arm.
Someone is coming, he headed towards the sound. Nemo moved as fast as he could half crouching half running. He passed torches and searched for another passage way. There were none. How far away from anywhere is that gaol? He panicked.
The clack of the nail on cobblestones grew into an all encompassing racket. Tendrils of shadow waved over the floor.
Nemo pressed onward. Masking his steps with that of the guard. Or the healer, Nemo thought. Maybe it wasn’t someone who was going to try and kill him. Or Stipi. Nemo hurried his steps and broke into a run.
The shadow of the guard lengthened. His head, arms, and chest continuing forever. The shadow fought with the little light offered by the sporadic torches. His own shadow sprouted in two, one ahead, one behind, each spinning as he crossed paths with burning flames. One fading as the other grew in intensity.
Nemo slowed his pace as he neared the bend in the tunnel. He gripped the leather scabbard at his waist and pulled the knife free slowly. Sweat ran down his side and stung the cuts along his ribs. His right thigh throbbed and swelled under the tight wound bandage.
His soon to be assailant whistled to himself. Nemo failed to recognise the tune but it had a tone of merriment. A children’s ditty or tavern bar song most likely.
The tunnel turned to the right less than ten paces ahead. A candle offered pale light at the corner drowned out by the swaying legs of an ever lengthening shadow.
Nemo readied his knife, the tip of the blade out front with one hand on the handle and another behind the hilt, to stab whoever appeared through the chest in one move. Difficult at the best of times, impossible with Nemo’s injuries.
He neared the bend, hugging the left wall, and saw the curl of light fall over the offending the nail. The boot rose with a scrape and fell with a click. Nemo made to pounce but his eye caught a glimpse to the right.
He turned his head to see what it was. An opening in the wall of the tunnel, unlit and embraced in dark.
Nemo darted across and pressed himself against the wall of the recess and crouched low. He turned his face away to show dark hair more than white bandage and held one arm around his head to hide the rest. His other hand, knife ready, between his legs.
The nail scraped the stone floor as the guard turned the corner.
Nemo could see nothing. Unable to even steal a glance with his missing right eye he listened to the footfalls. For a cough. For the guard to finish his tune. Anything.
The footfall rang out in the shadowy recess followed by the dull thud of a wooden sole boot. The tune reached an apex of high notes the guard struggled to hit resulting in a shrill cacophony raining down upon Nemo. The nail tapped to the wrong beat and the guard continued down the corridor towards the gaol.
Nemo listened as the cheerful guard’s whistling faded down the corridor. Counting the steps he had made away from Nemo. Ten, he counted and turned his face to the corridor. Empty. He leaned outward into the pale light of the tunnel and saw the guard continuing his patrol towards the gaol.
Nemo sheathed his knife and dart out of the recess and round the bend in the tunnel. Out of sight of the guard he relaxed. He padded the sweat from around the bandaged half of his face. Lifting the edge of the white fabric he ran a finger along his skin to catch the glistening sweat.
Now, where does this go? Nemo stared down the corridor the guard had walked down. Was it to the governor’s palace? A guard house? Out of the city? Nemo didn’t know where the prison was in Tanussi. He never went that far into the city preferring to keep to its edges, where taverns were full with travellers, like him, and the guards were loose lipped about runaway criminals. Fast friends and simple bounties.
Now he had a time limit. That guard is going to check on the gaol and find a cell empty and the keys on the floor. Or a jailbreak and dead prisoners, Nemo hurried his steps ignoring the ear splitting throb of his wounded leg.
Nemo followed the flickering lights alternating between candle and torch on either side of the tunnel in equal ten step distances from each other. Too ordered for his liking. A sign of regular use.
A few hundred steps further Nemo approached a crossroad in the tunnels. One carried on straight into the unknown. A passageway to his left turned back on itself and seemed to twist off a few yards in. The final choice was to the right, a long straight corridor, to yet another unknown.
He stood in the middle of the choices. Which way? He thought now having a choice. Escape would have been a simple task with one corridor. So too would recapture.
Nemo looked from candle to torch to dark tunnel. A breeze whipped his hair then it was still. Where did that come from? A chill passed down his spine. The whisper of words carried on the breeze. Or maybe only the wind on rough hewn stone. This may take awhile.
He felt a breeze brush his left cheek. Or not. He stepped in front of the tunnel that turned back on itself and twisted off into the unknown. The whisper of voices greeted him. Nothing he could make sense of but certainly more than the wind.
Nemo started down the passageway that took him back on himself. Steeling himself for a conflict or another dash to safety. His thigh throbbed and he leaned onto his left side as he walked. He turned as the tunnel turned and walked into the wall, banging his right shoulder into course stone.
He blinked.
The walls moved when he reopened his eye. A band of pain emerging over his head and clawing down behind his eyes. How can something not there feel pain? He thought pushing his thumbs into the soft skin either side of his forehead. He leant his forehead against the cool wall and felt a moments reprieve.
Whispers echoed towards him again. This time followed by someone crying out as if struck. Nemo snapped upright and peered around the corner. He squinted and counted the sconces. Fourteen. Then darkness. Where are those people? He wondered and forced himself to take the next few steps.
The sconces, piled with chips of wood and charcoal, flitted passed in rapid succession. The cry of pain ricocheted off the walls of the tunnel once more. Closer. And more to the right.
Loose bricks littered the floor ahead. Details he failed to see. He slowed his approach and saw a hole in the wall. Bricks yet to be cleared away. The stone of the wall bulged and sagged from the missing support structure.
Crouching, he peeked into wherever it led. A cavern with stone and compacted sand and soil for walls. The floor left as uncovered dirt. The ceiling was lost in darkness. Light from braziers barely piercing above head height.
People huddled on the floor, hands tied behind their backs, around the braziers for heat. Guards paced the room. The wide eyes of the prisoners watching their every move. In the far corner against the rubble of an ancient construction a woman was bound. Her arms held in rope tied to iron hooks in the cavern wall. Her back stripped bare and lined with lash marks. The crack of a whip sounded after the whip had struck. The woman flinched as a new red weal lined her back.
In the huddle of people nearby guards gripped the faces of prisoners refusing to watch. A guard placed both his hands around the ears of a boy and twisted his head to the scene of the woman being whipped. The boy was no older than ten, not yet learned how to skin a boar, tears streamed his face. His eyes a brilliant blue, Nemo knew, his chin prominent while still young, his dark hair falling straight. The boy’s nose was his mothers.
Avaya! Nemo tensed every muscle of his body not to shout. Not to jump up and run to his son. To hug him and hold him dear. Nemo tried to see the face of the woman. Is it? She turned her head as another lash of the whip landed. No. It’s not Delara or Mani. He scanned the room again looking for wife and daughter. Neither were there. Only Avaya, his son.
Nemo counted the guards. His hand on the hilt of his knife. Ten, at least. He began to unsheathe his knife. A throb of pain pulsed through his leg and up into his ribs. I can’t. What use am I dead? He crouched back into the shadows of the corridor and stole one last look at his son.
Avaya wiped tears from his face with chained hands and fought the grip of the guard. Turning his head left and right.
The guard pushed him to the ground, ‘Keep that up and we’ll string you up next,’ the guard said moving to relinquish the whip from the soldier flogging the woman.
Avaya pushed himself up on to his knees and kept still. Kept silent. Tears no longer streamed. Avaya stared at the guard who flung him, glaring with anger at the man beginning to flog the woman.
‘Stay strong, Avaya,’ Nemo whispered into the dark. The name on his tongue was like honey. To say his name, to see him, was to be closer to home. Closer to pure joy.
Nemo retreated back into the corridor, away from the prisoners, away from the flogging, away from his son. A pang twisted his heart. To see his son only to leave was crueller than never seeing him again. Nemo felt a steeled resolve form inside. No more games, no more distractions. He dove into the pale lit darkness determined to see the sun again.
The pulsating pain in his thigh marred him little. The crown of pain, reward for losing an eye and straining the other, became a peculiar pleasure. He surged onwards through the tunnels of the underground looking for something that led up. Anything in fact, whether ladder, stairs, or a hole in the ceiling. How deep am I? I don’t need to climb yet, keep looking. His head spun from left to right searching for other passages.
The underground tunnels were less a maze and more a labyrinth. Too few passages and numerous destinations. He remembered the entrances on the surface, patrolled and locked by Thesusian soldier and Resistance fighter alike.
Rumours from taverns spoke of them leading out of the city and up to the palace. Surely they lead elsewhere? Why build them otherwise? That depended on who built them.
Nemo barrelled left, a slim passage narrow and squat. Torches lined the wall sporadic and unlit. Unused. Nemo had a sense of something, a gut feeling, telling him to go into the shroud of darkness.
Nemo pushed deeper into the woollen black. He looked back from whence he came and saw only a small keyhole of light in the distance. He dove further in.
His calves began to tense with each step. Thigh muscles quivered from the strain of climbing and injury. Climbing, I’m going towards the surface. Finally, Nemo thought and thought of Avaya to dispel the pain. That brought only more pain of a different sort. One that he could walk with but fought the desire to turn back and rescue his son.
Nemo kicked a wall and he flinched backwards. The impact ricocheted through his leg in a quivering wave. He pressed out with a hand and felt the rough stones of the wall. The tunnel had ended. He followed the wall with hands feeling each groove of mortar and each chisel mark in the rocks that had made the bricks. To his left the wall met the side wall in a tight corner. To his right, empty space. Nemo made slow steps into the velvet veil with one arm out in front feeling for the way.
He scuffed his boots along the ground as he went rather than step, still feeling a numb wave through the bones of his leg from kicking the previous wall. The hard stone met his hand a few steps ahead. Stretching his fingers along its surface he found it continued to his right and to his left met the wall he kicked.
Where the hell am I going? He thought. His vision only a splatter of black and grey dots fighting to create something of an image of the world.
He searched along the wall to his right and found the bricks rotated from a horizontal pattern to a diagonal one. Nemo stepped to his right, more slid his foot along the floor, and hit something. Lifting his foot and following the rock with his toe he found it disappeared after a short distance. The same thing happened again.
Steps! He thought. His heart leapt and a smile forced its way on to his lips. With both hands out to his sides charting the walls he used his boots to find each step one at a time. Sliding the front of the boot up along the back of the step and onto the next.
Nemo climbed the stairs for what felt like hours. It had only been a few minutes. His muscles cried out. The band of pain around his head pulsed with each step. He could feel his heart beat in his ears.
I am in no condition to be doing this, he knew.
His vision clouded over, dark over darkness. A hot knife jammed behind his missing eye. He halted with his hands pressed against the walls, feet on consecutive steps. Breathing deep he felt sweat run down his neck and bead on his forehead.
Must. Continue. His thoughts sluggish.
He forced his left leg to rise to the next step. An iron weight seemed to be tied to the end of his leg. Stiff and sore. The muscles groaning. But once that step was made the next happened with more ease and the next and the next. Until he was once again in the rhythm of climbing and ignoring the screams of his body.
A soft light pierced some distant hole above him. Overly small for an opening. Nemo stared at it as he climbed. More like a brick missing, he thought. He snorted air as sweat beaded around the creases of his nose. Not far now, he hoped placing more weight upon a sliver of light than he knew he should.
He dipped his head back towards the steps. Not that he could see anything save the mottle of darkness. The end seemed so small and far that he feared he would stop and fail only to waste away on unused stairs never to be heard from again.
Nemo strained himself onwards. Legs quivering from the pressure. Wounds reopening, stitches pulled to maximum, nothing was bleeding. Yet. Or maybe it was and the mix of sweat and blood was too much to distinguish.
He pressed on.
With a flit of light and the jagged edge of poor carving Nemo was gifted sight from the heavens. The slim patch of light trickled down to him. He had climbed far enough for his sight to work. A sharp ache stabbed his one eye as pale light was too much.
Nemo looked up to the light and saw a door a mere ten steps away. He rushed towards it with a bounding energy he didn’t know remained, and slammed into an iron door.
A searing agony swept his vision as the soft, pale, light transformed into a glaring sun forcing its way through a slim peephole. He blinked and saw a bright white rectangle blur his vision. He tried to blink it away but it remained, always centred, fading over time until he blinked again and it returned revitalised.
Rubbing his eye he turned to the darkness and the blurred vision faded. With trepidation he turned back towards the peephole. The light stung but did not leave lasting marks. He pressed his forehead to the door and judged where he was.
In Tanussi. That much was a relief. The street was wide. Likely an outer lane, near the wall. A few people milled along in the shadows opposite Nemo. Most will be inside. It’s midday? He thought in surprise. The shadows short and the light blinding. How long was I in the tunnels for?
He slipped to the left side and searched as far to the right as he could. No guards on this exit then. His hand brushed along the door and found the handle. Not a handle, a slide lock. Nemo pulled it towards him and the door shuddered open with a lazy whine.
Nemo stumbled down two shallow steps to street level. His feet sliding along the ground and grinding along the compacted sand of the road.
A dizziness swept over him as the ceiling receded into nothing but blue sky. His boot caught on a stone and he fell with a thud to the ground. He heard people muttering somewhere to his left. Heard the pad of fast footsteps towards him. The glare of the sun obstructing all vision. That golden orb dazzled and he felt consciousness slipping.
‘We must do something,’ was all he heard in an eastern accent.
Find out what happens next by subscribing!