Chapter 12

"Age is, but, as the abyss of earth where the deeper you mine as you grow older towards the bowels of the terrain, the more diamonds you shall collect."

~

The Under-Ground Dungeons

Kingdom of Tristendyre,

The first Phriday of the Second month,

XXI Year of Regency

Darkling and cold, the hallway was endless with passages branching from every side. Mind racing like a horse galloping down a steep hill, Imogen looked for light.

There were torches of fire suspended to the walls of stone. As she bestowed consideration on how cold it was (to the point where heat would fail to survive), she looked about her to find the torches slowly extinguished, as she had expected, in the night-smitten cell of the perpetual dungeon that held her.

Desperately in need of warmth, she reached to lay hold on the single torch that remained unquenched and despite the height it was on, her grasp managed to claim the light.

Imogen remembered the guards and their contempt and just as her thoughts surfaced, she heard sounds of men from behind. She needed no gaze cast over her shoulder to know that they were chasing her. The damsel ran ceaselessly, alleyways opening at every turn to let path for her fearful retreat.

The maiden's flight proceeded until she perceived it was long enough before they were met with the various subjects of the underground prison. In all truth, the young woman had never before been in the place, but she was curious. Surely, there was much to be seen there, but at present moments, there were pursuers at her heel.

She ran till there was a large moat that discontinued her long-winding trail. Eyes closed tight, Imogen leapt over the waters, hope plenty.

True to her contemplation, her feet reconciled with firm ground and she required no balance before she proceeded to hurl herself forwards. Her mind did not remember the torch, neither forgot the guards.

The hastening damsel's voidless surroundings were nebulous and transient, changing consistently with the shifting surge of her musings.

Bolting across in the windswept outdoors, heaven's face bearing the colours of a cloudless night, Imogen ran, with a portion of her thoughts engaged in the conception of those hunting her person and the other concerned with the trail ahead.

Just as a sense of uncertain sorrow settled within her, hopelessness seeped in. She lifted her gaze to find a large, unfathomable chasm awaiting her and guards following close.

Evacuating the ridge of her foothold, she flew down the pit. With berserk thoughts seeping into her mind like a relentless waterfall diving to depths that hold dark secrets, Imogen's mind expected water and found just the same.

"You will be executed by Noyade."

Words that had pronounced her execution echoed through the halls of her mind like a nightmare as she battled for balance. The waters were cold and rushing, devouring her into the formless deluge of its consuming body.

She could not scream for help; her senses prevented it despite anguished efforts to. The seas encompassed her very face.

As she drowned helplessly, her final sight was the mysterious inscription from the pillory engraved into the stone that loomed over her. Her mind began to conceive the possibilities of what would ensue, before her vision was benighted and she awoke.

Her heart was still pounding, body throbbing to the rhythm of its percussion. Cold sweat began to cover her palms and face as she raked a numb hand through her dishevelled hair that had now dried after the earlier exposure to rains.

The sensation from her dream had been so frightfully unfeigned that it still lingered, like she was descending to her grave underwater.

Reality slowly began to impel its anchor as the realms of delirium started to fade. Blinking a few times, she looked around her prison. She could not recollect much of her dream, but the portion of her drowning was still vividly etched in her senses.

She blankly stared at the walls gathered around to contain her. There were curious markings and art chiselled against the stone.

From how dreadful everything that hung about her seemed to be, she could not help wondering if she was still entranced in a nightmare.

"Are you alright, young child?" asked the old and haggard voice of a man and Imogen turned to eye its source.

Senile and meagre, a man lay on the floor of the cell beside hers, drunk on age and wisdom. "Being alright is a luxury long robbed of me", said she, bringing knees close to her chest.

There was a moment of silence shared before the man broke conversation. "What vision did you have?"

It was curious how he had known, but she paid it no consideration; Imogen shook her head pensively, to reply: "It was a nightmare of what awaits me this eve." She thought deeper to recollect any details prior to the final part. "There were also the inscriptions", she said, wiping the sweat from her brows.

She looked to see the man's gaze shift to the engravings that spread over her wall. There were portrayals drawn after the fashion of humans and large dragon beasts and maps that she did not understand, for they seemed deranged.

"Are there no other prisoners besides us here?" asked she, looking around the frigid containment. She could not be a single, rare law-breaker subjected to imprisonment, out of the whole country.

The elderly man's mild chuckle ended in coughs. "Were you brought here blindfolded, young one?" asked he and the young lady affirmed.

"We are victims of the corrupt reign, not criminals worthy of such detainment. These chambers are highly discreet, withheld from public knowledge", said he, voice serious and low. "It has been ages since I have felt sun and moon shed light upon my body." The man's body was starved of such bare necessities and wasted.

He continued forth: "I had offended the State by revealing truth I had learnt, me and my partner, and we were silenced hereunder. Our families knew not that we were alive until they perished."

"How had you escaped execution?" asked she.

The man spoke his passages between wheezes and strain:

"It was upon a time when we were required by the government. As those that had been Soldiers in the Army, our deaths were celebrated after the honour of war heroes and with our breath unaccounted, my partner and I were used as spies of the Kingdom. This containment was solely our refuge to lay our heads as home, lest our presences be detected, for the Government will then suffer public embarrassment."

Imogen's face paled, blood rolling away from her chapped lips. Emotions, the kin to fright and horror, besieged her heart. Her voice broke forth in course whispers, "But they feed vigilantes these days to dragon flames; had they also been facades of people spared and put to secret use?"

"No, my little one, that is no longer in habit. This ends with my partner and me. In present times, Execution of Death is grandly carried out to instil fear in the hearts of the Regents' subjects. After the manner of our lives, it is a great source of stress for the State to keep our secret lives in check, for lasting the dishonest countenance of their reign gravely depends on the confidentiality."

"Isn't it felon that they would mis-expend your years to their advantage?" asked she, feeling the rise of ire. Although Death was to claim her soon, forgiving these men was going to be trying.

"True as it is, the Lord has not denied me my entitled ration of enjoying fair moments from my place in the shadows. And I have not been sole in my adventures, not entirely. Israel's intelligence has conquered in tracing my presence. For that, I am glad", and these were the words of his contentment.

"Who is Israel?", asked she, curious.

"A child whom I have known; he brings me, by duty, the daily victuals assigned to my consumption."

Imogen nodded. In her years of service at the Imperial Castle, there was none by the name Israel that she had met. The damsel wondered, if may-be, he was a person withheld from affiliation with the courts of the palace for the danger of his office.

And with the pondering of the mysterious lad that was charged to minister the man, the saffron-haired maiden considered why the man was still held alive.

She was aware of why the Regent and his men may have utilised his service during the youth of his health, as spies (for ransom, in an extreme case, would be beyond their concernment, regarding men counted dead to the people of the Kingdom).

However, the theme of keeping him at an age where he could no longer be of emergent or physical service was beyond her conceptions. It would be harsh to ask, but she did know as much that the men of the Aristocracy would rather they dispose a life grating on their honour than preserve him for mercy's sake.

"I have walked and seen far and wide and hold pearls of experience and history", the man continued. "As much that my goblet is brimming with sweet wine that I wish to pour into your vessel as well."

"That truly is wonderful to hear. I should be blessed for the Destiny of meeting to hear such from you, but my time in this world is just as curtailed", she informed.

Just then, there was a loud sound of someone approaching and the two turned to the door of the containment.

~