Chapter 24

"But when the Star that is knighted to reign over the Day rises with his burning heat, he needs no advocate to plea in the stead of his incineration.

Likewise, Death needs no warrant but the order of the Sovereign God to execute his office and reap."

~

Western Culvert of the Under-ground Dungeons,

Steep Cliff Face of Shillingston,

Kingdom of Tristendyre,

The first Phrinight of the Second month,

XXI Year of Regency

"Jay! Carefully! Err not over and down the edge!" she screamed frantically.

Imogen's heart was rushing as she watched the man warned turn to eye her. Her might was staggering and she could not propel herself towards the rim of the den where he safely stood.

When it seemed sure that the banks of their refuge posed no threat, the damsel rested against the jagged wall and watched him approach her.

"Have you sustained injuries?" asked Jaycob, his stride pausing when he was by her side. He seemed like her frenetic disposition had stirred him to worry, be-cause in the observation of one who was uninformed of her vision of Death, her sudden and agitated frets may have seemed as if she suffered a worrisome condition.

She shook her head: implying that she had not, and lifted her gaze to meet his masked face. Imogen's mind hardly inscribed her sightings into its tables of consciousness when she wondered wherefore He that claimed souls may have paid this indiscernible visit.

The maiden's clad expression displayed a face most troubled, since the hourglass in His grip had spelt only about a quarter added to an hour's worth spared to a human's mortal life.

It would not be a weight of trouble that began to grow its herbs in the ploughed farms of her mind had death not been lingering close, since her philosophy was not as absurd as to assume she could tend to every of Death's appointments; but if His client was of her dear ones, she would strive greater, most indulgently, to spare them peaceful moments of painless rest, fore to their farewell.

"Your feathers appear ruffled", said Jaycob, gently grazing a knuckle over the creases of her furrowing brows, before he leaned down and scooped the waves of his cape shed upon the floor. The archer winnowed the mantle until the dust tenanting upon its mane fled invisibly into the air.

Imogen's sharp gasp caused him to shoot her a quick glance. "Are we still at the face of Shillingston's cliff then?" asked she a-ghast, for she had vaguely recognised a fresh apprehension that was well-connected to whose night Death may be visiting.

The man in reception nodded. "Is there another place you wish to meet? Is it urgent?" asked her tall friend, tousled by her concern.

"If it would not be much of a hassle, may I plead to visit the Under-Ground Dungeons beneath the Castle?" asked she. "I am aware that my profile is required to remain secretive and undetected by human cognisance, but this calls for my most immediate presence."

Jaycob nodded, handing his large cape to her, for she was shivering under the raging spite of the cold and rain. "Do you seek to visit the cell in which you had been contained?" asked he.

The girl whose hair was the colour of chestnuts in the lack of light nodded. "But would you be aware of its location? It was greatly chasmic leading a long way down, all but at the heart of the earth, and I would be unable to discern its direction from the Gates forth, since my eyes had been blinded for the stretch of the path I was led through", she explained.

"I was about", replied Jaycob with no sense of emotion in his nonchalant voice. "I shall take you there unto."

"Would it be a long journey here-from?" asked she, the cogs and gears of her mind at full throttle.

The longer the journey was, the farther the location and thus, the scarcer the chances of demise, for Death's presence may not have appeared by her station where they presently stood, had His hunted game not lingered close by.

"It is presently the closest harbour of life, if that fascinates you", he responded, adjusting his mask out of habit, as most did their monocles.

Imogen looked up vaguely confused. "Jay, are you jesting? Such theory presents itself irrational, even to my novice judgement" stated she, for the information he stated did not clasp with her assertion.

"We are at the farthest cape of Shillingston and the Capital Dungeons beneath the Imperial Castle is quite a flight away", she levied her logic upon his understanding.

As the couple walked into the unyielding swirls of darkness that plagued the inside of the cave, Jaycob began expounding the construct of the architecture to her understanding:

"You must know: the Under-Ground Dungeons begin their paths winding from the root of the Imperial Castle which stands on lofty grounds (when weighed with the altitude of the remaining portion of the Kingdom).

As the Prison structure dives deeper and deeper beneath the earthen surface, a large number of layers and floors are afforded. It branches out to reach through even the cities neighbouring the Imperial Castle, for the Dungeons are a massive establishment. Shillingston, boasting its perch on exalted floor, mildly diminishing from the Castle's grounds, also accommodates a grand share of jail system underneath its stone-scape of city.

Now the portion deepest in the Prison's quarters is no more even of detainment cells. It was a refuge for the erstwhile generations of nobles and royals to lodge during times of Dragon Raids and seasons of calamity.

It was oft times even used to reserve grains and husband them in expected famine. And such point of the Dungeon has extended its spread to a length that reaches the very Cliff's face."

Imogen nodded. Jaycob's pace was long and fast and the girl hurried, garments held in her palms to prevent them from waylaying her scuttling steps.

"That would justify the furnishing of comfortable ventilation; was it afforded by piercing the walls until the cavity thereof would open above the Prussian Farriage Sea and the fresh taste of crisp air is sought within the rooms of the cell?" asked she, her breath audible.

"That is correct", the tall man acknowledged, granting her a smile of approval for he was impressed by her keen observation.

Imogen thought about the silver dust that had gathered in the nooks and vents of her cell. It was potential that such aged-old dirt was truly just the salt taking refuge from escaping the airs above the seas.

There was reason for prominence in the sound of rain within the deepest sole of the Dungeons, forbye.

"This tunnel we tread was once a passage of escape into the Prussian Farriage Sea where ships would await the refugees and outlawed exiles. However, it was later sealed away and forgotten, for the arrival of pirates and foreign invaders was most facilitated by such access granted readily. And it also suffered the escape off murderous criminals", Jaycob continued, as well-read and vigilantly as he seemed to be.

Imogen listened, but her focus had shifted to maintaining rhythm with the man leading her through the prevalence of darkness.

The Archer halted his stride and lit a torch. The fire's flame was ambitious and expeditious with a knack for illuminating the contents of the chamber they were in, as a vigilante exposing the dark deeds of the Aristocracy.

Under the monarchy of the flames' incandescence, she could see tall pillars bearing the ceiling, with various figures of persons and dragons sculpted upon the surface and capitals of their columns.

The material composing their construct was rusting under the weight of age and the lack of grooming.

"We are nearly at your required destination", said he and Imogen's heart dropped.

"Is this the place bearing the cell I had been kept inside?" asked she, her senses a-flutter with tension.

It had hardly been moments that built the duration of their means thereto and the passage was straight and uninterrupted. Her worry grew rapidly from feeding on her anxiety.

Jaycob pushed a portion of wall where a linn of dust sifted from the head of the opening door, in a suffocating smoke.

She peered in from behind his arm to find the chamber bearing the prisons that she had been held in.

With the white dirt and clouds carpeting the floor, dark glass icicles fashioning the bars of the cell, curtains and pleats of cobs draped from the ceiling in the lightless hall where solely Jaycob's torch shed warmth and vision, she realised how slightly she had paid note to the lack of audience and service that room seemed to have seen.

This entrance, however, was of a view she had not expected, for the route the Regent and even Crescence had entered from was on the other stone wall of the jail-room.

"Await my approach by this threshold, and silently, if you please", said the Chief Archer, although the pleasure was not absolutely hers, for she wished desperately to hasten to her old prison-mate and inform him of her present well-being as he had desired, prior her execution.

However, Imogen agreed and stood there feeling feverish, as Jaycob walked inside. She held her arms about herself, cold clothes causing her to feel numb whilst she inspected the interior of the room.

Her first impulses commanded her attention to seek the presence of Death, but He was not found.

The elderly man lay still on the floor. She wished to go in and measure the vigour of his pulse, for he seemed like an unlit and depleted candle.

Just then, there were coughs and the man turned to lie on his side. It appeared as if he had heard the sound of Jaycob's footsteps, for he moved perturbed. "Who goes there?" sounded his haggard voice.

The tall Archer that had caused such fits calmly walked towards Imogen, a fresh set of garments in hand. He gave her the attire and said, "You may serve yourself the pleasure of warm garments before nursing the health of another, if this old man was, indeed, the priority of your concerns."

"How did you perceive? I cannot delay, it is quite urgent", she began, but Jaycob paid it no regard. He passed her side and walked out the room, just as they heard the man's fragile voice ask, "Israel? Is that you, my boy?"

"Yes, sir, I will be by your side in a moment's wait", he called back.

Imogen wondered as she watched the olive-haired man walk before her. Had he truly been the kind lad the elderly man had mentioned of earlier?

The damsel's mind considered how greatly the news of Jaycob being a pleasant man differed from her cold perspective of him; further, for how closely he was affiliated with the Regent, the man seemed to be a single of his kind.

If there was truly such charity and chivalry in his heart, the damsel knew that this man breathed none of such to display his altruism for praise before men, but continued shallow as though it was a duty etched upon his purpose.

The maiden could not imagine how much darker of secrets the Regent had entrusted in his graces, for the ailing elder's very breath was hidden from the knowledge of the people, save this Israel.

She followed the masked man's steps until he pushed against another portion of the wall that stood by the trail they had walked to reach the cell.

The surface thereof permitted an opening and they stepped into the humid room that had been unearthed. Something of his demeanour boasted familiarity, like he was much too frequent with his visits in this mysterious place.

Jaycob lit a sconce with the contagious flames of the torch in his hands and the dishevelled room saw light.

"Assist yourself to the privacy", said he, as he left, his march directed towards the cell she had been arrested in earlier that day, where the ancient man awaited the Head Archer's presence.

"Thank you", she whispered, her heart resting at the thought that Death was not within eyeshot.

Further, she was glad that Jaycob was, in fact, a nicer man than her doubts had spelt.

All of the accounts that dwelt in her heart, such as Jehu's being alive, her own life spared, Jaycob seeming cordial, the elderly friend safe: each story only warmed her, and she could not discern wherefore an unsettling presage was suffocating her comfort still.

Imogen cast the bestowed clothes to be hung on an unoccupied candle holder suspended to the stone wall and allowed them to wait on her utilisation.

Her mind considered if the persisting anxious feelings were attributing their source to the wonder of why she was alive and what the Regents may bargain of her life.

She considered whom Death may have fared this way to visit and proffer an engagement to this night. If it had been of the folks that had gathered when her execution was staged, Death could not have dived down towards the shifting skin of the Prussian Farriage Sea.

Per-haps, there were persons that voyaged across upon a vessel, whom, amidst the storms, Death wished to devour in the cloak of rising tide.

However, it was hardly likely that any would be as nil-witted as to cruise abroad when the weather was a ruthless as this evening's, for it was not wonder that such rains would follow a red veil of the readable and warning skies by the morning.

Her imagination supplied her with a varied assortment of potential souls that may be facing Death's visitation.

The thoughts continually chased her whilst she cast Jaycob's large cape over another candelabra affixed to the wall, paying attention to the ends thereof that had raked the dust of the floor, for the mantle was tailored to cater to his lofty height, which she did not seem to conquer.

As she loosened her damp garments, she felt the hair that adorned her arms raise and she turned to the door.

Imogen, wide-eyed in bemusement, caught sight of bedraggled and amply large, dark wings belonging to Death drifting past, in the path left at Jaycob's wake.

~