TST (5 page)

Suddenly, the world snapped back into focus, but when he opened his eyes, it was not a world he had ever before seen or even imagined. The sky around him was gloomy like on overcast day early in the morning just before the sun has peaked over the rim of the world. He looked beyond the rail and tried to make sense of the environment around him. All he could see was a dark grey but whether it was the grey of clouds or distant stone, he could not tell. The scene felt gloomy, lifeless, and colorless.

Ahead of the ship, he could see land of the same cold grayness growing closer as the ship rowed on towards an equally colorless city of tall towers and strangely shaped buildings. Minotaurs, brain suckers, humans, a few dwarves, and beings he had never seen before wandered the streets and worked the docks that they were quickly approaching.

Several minotaurs threw ropes out to the awaiting beings as the ship pulled up parallel to a large dock and secured the mooring lines. Minions extended a gangplank and the brain sucker lightly strode across, stepped onto the dock, and was greeted by another of its kin. They seemed to confer even though Azerick did not hear a single word and could not see either of the creatures’ mouths move.

More workers rolled several carts with large cages on them out onto the dock. Minotaurs carried Azerick and the other sailors across the gangplank and carelessly tossed them inside the cages. Azerick was glad to find he was sharing a cage with Captain Zeb and that his friend was conscious once again, although he looked pale and a little bewildered.

“You all right, son?” Zeb asked in a slightly slurred voice.

Azerick nodded, unable to speak due to the gag that was still in his mouth. The wagons lurched forward, pulled by humans wearing tattered clothes and blank, lifeless faces.

“Here, let me see if I can get that gag out of your gob,” Zeb offered and used his teeth to pull the tightly wound strip of rough cloth off Azerick’s mouth and down around his neck. Azerick spit out the filthy wad of cloth someone had stuffed into his mouth then tried to work up some saliva to moisten his parched mouth and throat before trying to speak.

“Thanks,” he was finally able to gasp out. “Are you all right?”

“My head feels like it was used as a catapult stone and my stomach sent along for the ride, but I’ll live; for awhile at least,” the captain replied darkly, looking around at his surroundings. “Think you can cast any spells to get us out of here?”

“Not with my hands tied. I can’t form the weave that makes up the spell,” the young sorcerer regretfully explained.

“I’ll take it that means no since I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zeb replied with a small grin.

Azerick was heartened to see that the captain was able to make at least a small joke and knew Zeb would be all right so long as no one decided to change their condition. A shudder coursed through Azerick’s body as the image of the desiccated sailor passed through his mind.

The carts rolled down the cobbled streets, pulled by the human slaves, and guided by the brain sucker from the ship. The workers, likely slaves from their appearance and bearing, pulled the captives through streets that thronged with the glazed, lifeless-eyed denizens of this strange place. The prisoners were rolled into a large, squat building. Barred cells holding prisoners of various races lined the walls of the interior. The ship’s crew was unloaded and herded into the vacant cages.

They placed Azerick in a lone cell, separated from the rest of the crew with empty cells to each side, likely to prevent anyone from freeing his hands. A minotaur gestured for the sailors to turn around and put their hands between the bars. When the humans complied, the creature cut their bonds, freeing their hands. No one afforded the spell caster such freedom. His hands remained tightly secured behind his back.

“What do you think they are going to do with us?” Balor asked, nervously massaging his wrists.

“I don’t know, but I am sure that whatever it is, it does not bode well for us,” Zeb answered despondently. “It’s my guess we’ll be sold into slavery from the looks of it. It looks like this whole city is run by slaves.”

“Why don’t the slaves revolt? There must be a hundred times more of them than those ugly monsters from what I saw,” one of the sailors exclaimed.

“They obviously have some way of controlling them. There are spells that can control a person’s mind or compel their actions. It is possible that they employ some such method though I know of none that would work on such a scale as this,” Azerick supplied. “Even if that’s not the case, look how easily one of these things overwhelmed out entire crew. The body count of an open revolt would be horrendous.”

Several human slaves walked in bearing trays with bowls of some sort of grey gruel. They passed them through the narrow bars to the prisoners but supplied no utensils so the sailors were forced to eat with their hands. Azerick could not even manage that small dignity with his hands secured. He was forced to kneel down and lap up the bland, odorless, tasteless porridge like a dog. He decided to suffer this ignominy to maintain his strength. So long as he drew breath, he had a chance to escape his captors and freeing his friends.

As the hours passed, Azerick tried to sleep but there was no possible way to get comfortable enough to enjoy any decent rest. He sat with his back to the wall and finally exhaustion pulled him into a restless slumber. He woke several times during what he assumed was the night, his cramping muscles never allowing him to sleep for long. He woke once again to the sound of a wooden bowl being slid under his door. Again, he had to eat like an animal from the bowl. Spots of the gruel stuck to his face as he licked the bowl clean. He swore that someone would pay for this insult one day.

The bowls were taken away a short time later and the prisoners were left alone with the exception of a single hulking minotaur wielding a stout cudgel sitting on a wooden stool near the door. He would occasionally get up to walk the corridor of cells, smacking the bars of the prisoners’ cages with the club when someone came too close to them. Other than the guard’s occasional rounds, they were left to themselves.

A few hours after their morning meal, the guard suddenly snapped to attention as the outside door opened. Several guards of human and minotaur races walked in ahead of two brain suckers. The spider-faced creatures seemed to be conversing in a language that sounded like someone trying to chisel stone with a dead fish.

“Master Xornan, I am sure you will be most pleased with my newest acquisitions. I have one in particular I know will please you immensely,” the slave master promised silkily, if such a word could apply to such a liquid and grotesque language.

“We shall see, slave master Valinquar, you have disappointed me before,” the psyling lord reminded the subordinate.

“It was bad luck that the ogre was slain in The Games, Lord Xornan. Surely your lordship cannot hold me responsible for simple ill fortune?”

“I hold you responsible for selling me a creature that was too stupid to move out of the way of a charging Aragonax. You managed to find a creature that even its own dull-witted kind would label as feeble-minded,” Lord Xornan replied, his displeasure evident despite his quiet tone.

“I assure you, this one is different. He is a human wizard, very smart as humans go,” the slave master assured his esteemed client.

“A wizard you say? It has been some time since I fielded a magic user in The Games,” Xornan mused, suddenly far more interested in his purchases today.

Azerick watched the exchange, feigning indifference as he sat in his cell with his back pressed against the back wall. He could make nothing of the squishy conversation of the two psylings, but the way they looked at him, it seemed that he was the topic of their conversation.

Come stand before me, human, so I may look at you,
a voice commanded.

Azerick heard the command but could not see where it came from. It took him a moment to realize that he did not hear the order with his ears but inside his own head.

Yes, human, I need not sully my mouthpieces with your crude language to communicate with your primitive mind. Now come closer. Do not force me to command you; your cooperation is requested, not required.

Azerick decided that such trifling defiance at this point was futile and did as the monster bid him. He would play the part of the subjugated, obedient, and compliant slave. He would let these disgusting creatures think that they dominated him until they let down their guard. Then he would make them pay.

You may play whatever games you like, human. They will avail you nothing. I know everything you think as you think it. Resistance is less than futile; it will no longer even be possible once I bond you. So, you are a sorcerer not a wizard. How delightful. I do not think Valinquar realizes what a catch he has. Yes, you will serve me well, human.

“He is not much to look at is he, Valinquar?” Xornan said to the slave master, looking at the dried gruel stuck to Azerick’s face.

“He is merely soiled from his captivity. Do not judge him so hastily. Had I not quickly subdued him he would have wreaked great havoc on my hunters and ship. It was he who killed one of my minotaurs and seriously injured several others with a most powerful display of wizardry.”

“These other humans,” Xornan asked, gesturing to the sailors in the other cells, “they were with him? They are his shipmates?”

“Yes, Lord Xornan, I was fortunate to capture most of the ship intact. A very fine haul, all quite healthy and strong,” the slave master replied smoothly.

“Very well, I will take the lot if we can agree on the price,” the psyling lord offered.

The slave merchant wrung his long fingered hands together in anticipation of such a profitable deal. The two bulbous-headed psylings haggled for several minutes in their indecipherable language before striking a deal. Minotaur and human guards   secured the sailors’ hands once again and marched them out, prodding them along with their weapons into wheeled cages similar to the ones used by the slave master.

Several of the newly acquired slaves were ordered to pull the carts under threat of force, encouraged by a minotaur wielding a scourge. The indentured sailors had no recourse but to grumble their displeasure and pull the carts. Even their grumbling was subdued lest they invoke the minotaur’s displeasure and feel the scourge on their backs.

Xornan climbed into a silk-curtained palanquin hefted by four minotaurs. The humans were pulled through cobbled streets past various single and two-story buildings. Azerick spied a huge, circular stone structure that dominated the center of the large bustling city, obviously an arena of some sort.

After a while, larger mauve colored structures of much more elaborate design began appearing, replacing the shorter grey buildings were. These fanciful buildings were unique not just for the color of the stone but also for the fact that they appeared to grow from the rock itself and not constructed of stacked cut blocks.

The walls blended smoothly with the ground and no signs of seams or mortar was evident. Eventually these manor houses dwindled and even taller towers began appearing. These too were of the same hued stone as the manor houses and appeared to have sprouted from the very earth like the stalks of some massive amethyst plant or tree.

The carts halted inside the courtyard beneath a huge tower that must have reached over a hundred feet in height. The slaves were hustled out of their cages and made to stand before their new master.

Take them to the cells below. I will indoctrinate them later. Leave this one to me
, he projected to his guards.

The guards escorted the humans through a door at the base of the tower, down several twisting flights of stairs, and into the cells that lay below. Azerick was left standing before the repulsive Xornan.

You belong to me now, sorcerer, fully and completely. I am your master in all things. You will obey my commands, you will not attempt to flee, and you will not resist. The lives of your comrades hinges on your compliance. Do you understand?

Azerick simply nodded in affirmation of the instructions as a human guard cut the bindings restraining his hands by the order of the psyling lord. Azerick rubbed his chafed wrists and looked at the creature that thought to be his master.