Prison Darkness

The flames sputtered as they snapped at the little remaining oil on the shaft of the torch, sending tiny puffs of smoke wafting to the stone ceiling. The light carried less than an arms’ span to where iron bars broke the light into lambent shadows, playing on the grimy face of a massive man who sat on the stone floor.

Jarin sat with his knees pulled up to his chest and his thick arms wrapped about his shins. His mouth hung slightly open as his gray eyes watched the undulating flames on the torch. The flame had subsided considerably since he had awoken—moments or hours earlier, he could not decide.

The torch was almost spent.

That must mean dawn would be coming soon.

Without shifting his seat, he craned his neck to peer out a small hole near the ceiling in the wall behind him. It still looked terribly dark. Dark and wet. A heavy, dripping mist had descended the day before, and while no solid rain appeared through the tiny window, the cool dampness seeped from the walls and floor into his bones.

He turned his face back to the dying torch.

Dawn had to come soon.

He watched the torch as the flame languished on the last remnants of fuel, fading slowly from sparse orange fingers to a single, blue flame at the base of the cloth wrapping. Then, silently, the flame disappeared and Jarin tensed, his throat squeaking involuntarily in the darkness. The sound echoed once off the narrow walls.

He sat, still as the surrounding darkness, his gigantic form tense for a long moment before a man’s voice, raspy and high-pitched, slid through the blackness from the hallway beyond the iron door.

“So I did get some company yesterday.”

Jarin started, his eyes wide. “I … I thought I was the only one here.”

The voice chuckled, staccato and wheezing. “Hesh-sh-sh. No, no. I’ve been in this dungeon for quite some time, and I thought I heard someone new yesterday. But one never really can tell what’s real and what’s not here in the lonely darkness, you know?”

Jarin unfolded himself and stood. Standing made him feel even more confined; the cell was neither long enough, nor wide enough for Jarin to extend both arms without touching stone, and the curved ceiling only allowed him to stand to his full height in the very center. He turned and pushed his face toward the tiny opening where the night sky was beginning to gray.

“Then … you’re a prisoner, too?” Jarin asked as he hugged his arms against his chest.

The wheezing sounded in the neighboring cell again. “Oh, I’m stuck here, alright. And it’ll be nice to have another soul with me … even if just for a bit.”

Jarin nodded, still looking out into the misty dawn. “Yeah … how long you been here?”

“Oh, quite a long time … actually. I think most people outside have forgotten all about me and just ignore that I’m here. It gets lonely just me and the guards so I always welcome some new company. Heska’s the name, by the way.”

“Jarin.”

“Now, what about you, Jarin?” asked the voice. “How long will you be here?”

“Don’t know.” Jarin continued to squint out the hole, trying to pick out shapes in the slowly lightening morning.

“Well, I guess that depends on why you’re here. So … why are you here?”

“It’s not my fault,” said Jarin quietly. His face tightened as he fought the sudden mistiness in his eyes.

Heska laughed again, a wet, wheezing sound. “No, of course not. It never is, is it?”

Jarin whirled in the cell and latched onto the thick, cold iron bars in the doorway. “It’s not! That damn Tarod, it’s his fault! It’s his fault!” Jarin shook at the iron gate, its hinges rattling and squawking in protest to the mighty hefting.

“Shh …” the voice was calm. “Shh … we don’t need to wake the guards, do we?” The voice paused, then continued, a bit more slowly, “Tarod, did you say? As in the duke’s son, Tarod?”

Jarin leaned his head against the cell bar with clink. “It’s his fault.” He wiped the beginning of a tear from his eye with one giant hand.

Jarin heard the thick jangle of the door latch and the slow creak as a door opened down the dark hallway to his left. Orange flickering light spread suddenly through the passage and angled into Jarin’s cell as a man carrying a torch shuffled in. His sixty-odd years showed as much in the bow of his shoulders as in his tired face.

“It’s a little early for such noise, don’t you think?” The jailor stopped to face Jarin. His hair was gray and thinning and he wore shabby leather breeches with a gray woolen tunic. His face was tired, and a fleshy mound of stubble sloped from his chin to his neck, hiding both.

Jarin looked down at his feet, grimy and black on the wet floor. “I … I just get excited sometimes.”

The jailor smiled and nodded slightly. “I know. I’ll be back in a few hours with some food.” He turned and started toward the open door.

“Wait …” Jarin reached one meaty hand through the bars. “Can you … can you leave the torch?”

The jailor paused, looking back over his shoulder. Slowly, he nodded, and turned to replace the spent torch with the one he carried.

“ Thanks,” whispered Jarin.

The jailor nodded again and trundled back through the door, its heavy latch ringing as it shut.

Jarin stood for another moment in silence before the unseen voice rose again from the cell.

“He’s nicer to you than most.”

“Ewan is a friend of my father,” said Jarin as he slumped again to the ground. He sat cross-legged facing through the door.

“Well, Ewan’s apparently not that good a friend.”

Irritated, Jarin looked up again and called out, “What do you know about it?”

“Well …” the word faded into the stone. “You’re still in here, aren’t you? If he were such a good friend, don’t you think he’d help you get out?”

“Ewan’s a good man!” Jarin stuffed his face between the cold, dark bars of the grate as he tried to see into the neighboring cell. The iron pushed in on his cheeks as he strained to push through, but his eyes only fell on a few feet stone wall where dark pits flickered in the torch light.

“Easy … That’s quite a temper you’ve got there, friend. But, maybe that’s why you’re here, eh?”

The cell door shuddered with gritty squeal as Jarin shoved hard against the bars, pushing himself back a step. “Damn Tarod.”

He leaned forward, planting his massive hands against the stone wall, and bowed his head. He stood thus, silently staring at the floor for a long moment before he heard the voice again.

“Tarod. Is he dead?”

Jarin didn’t move. “I didn’t mean it. It’s not my fault.”

“Well … with a temper like yours, things tend to happen.”

Still Jarin stood, breathing heavily through his mouth. “It’s not like that. It’s not my temper. My father told me to hide it. Especially around nobles. So I did. Even when Tarod mocked me.”

“Ahh … I had heard the duke’s son was of his father’s ilk.”

“He was a dog. Mocked me because I’m so big and I couldn’t do anything to him. Every time that skinny bastard came to the docks to have me unload his merchant’s ships, ‘filthy cow dockman’ is what he called me. ‘Stupid giant.’ Any other man I would break in half.”

Heska sounded amused. “Sounds to me like you did.”

Jarin stood up again to his full height and stuck out his chest. “I drowned him. Threw him into the water.”

“I see …” the raspy voice, quiet and low, trailed off into silence.

Jarin took a deep breath and settled slowly to the stone floor. He wrapped his arms about his knees, hugging them to his body tightly as he leaned to the side, placing the rough stubble of his cheek against the damp, gray stone. He looked up through the grate at the torch, its end submerged in flame, and his eyelids slowly ebbed half-closed, then open until sleep washed over him.

Jarin drifted in and out of sleep as the gray through his window slowly lightened. He woke and shifted often, searching for a comfortable position. He had slept little the night before and now tried his best to sleep through the day, only waking when Ewan returned with a bowl of gruel and a wooden cup of water. After his quick meal, Jarin returned to his half-hearted sleep.

It was only as the grayness out the window began to darken again that Jarin roused himself and stood, attempting to stretch his muscles in the narrow space with a loud yawn.

“Sleep well?” came the voice from the neighboring cell.

“No,” said Jarin simply. He turned to look out the window again, squinting his eyes for a moment.

“You snore like an ox. Do you always sleep during the day? Odd habit for a dockman who works all day, isn’t it?”

“I … I couldn’t sleep good last night. Kept dreaming about goblins here in the dungeon.”

“Ah, but you’ve heard too many tales, friend. Sprites, imps and goblins that live in the darkness, feeding off the unfortunate? Sh-sh … now, even if that were true, at least they’d be some company for a poor old soul.

“No, no, friend. I’ve had no other spirits at all to chat with. Oh, the guards on a rare occasion. But you’ll get used to it if you’re here long enough,” he purred.

Jarin shuddered at the thought of remaining cramped in the cold darkness, but looked up as his thoughts were interrupted by the grating sound of the door at the end of the hallway. He pressed his face against the metal of his door to peer out. Again, Ewan entered, carrying a torch. He walked to the doorway of Jarin’s cell pressed a cold bowl of whitish gruel through the bars.

“It’s the best I can do, Jarin. I usually can’t bring down anything. Eat it. Keep up your strength,” he said.

He nodded and took the bowl from the older man’s hands. Ewan turned and pulled the spent wooden torch from the wall and replaced it with the burning brand he carried.

“It’ll be dark soon. Try and get some sleep tonight.”

Jarin, neck bent as he stared into the mush in his hands, nodded again, his shoulders shaking with his head.

Ewan took a deep breath as he watched Jarin for a moment before he turned and shuffled back out the latched door.

Jarin leaned his shoulder against the stone arch around the grate and dug three fingers into pasty lump in the bowl, scooping it to his mouth.

“You know, Ewan isn’t the friend you may think he is.” Heska’s voice was slow.

Jarin’s brow furrowed as he stopped feeding. Again he tried to squeeze his face between the narrow bars, but could still only see the stone and the dark shadowed outline of another grated doorway. “What? Ewan’s my friend.”

“Oh … maybe you think he’s your friend, Jarin, but I wouldn’t be so sure. What did he bring you to eat?”

Jarin looked at the wooden bowl cradled in one hand. “Gruel. And it’s better than what he gave you.”

Sniggering. “I’m not that interested in gruel. Cold mush is the best he can manage? I can bet you he just ate roast chicken, or a stew of vegetables. And he brings you gruel? He mocks you, Jarin.”

Jarin’s eyes lingered on the half-eaten gruel. The torchlight flickered over the side of the dish, casting half the bowl in shadow, the other half flickering orange dancing on gray.

A long silence was only broken by the slow hiss of mist on the stone and a slight crackle on the torch.

Heska’s raspy voice slid into the air slowly, quietly. “And what about that torch? He leaves it for you … you’re afraid of the dark.”

Jarin, eyes wide, looked up from the dish to the wall separating him from Heska’s voice as if he could see through the mortar. “No.”

“Yes. I heard him talking, Jarin. While you were sleeping I could hear him with the guards. Mocking, belittling you. ‘A mouse in an ox’s body’ is what they said. ‘Cries in the dark’ they said.”

“Ewan’s my friend,” Jarin’s voice was pleading.

“Jarin, there is more than one way to mock a man. Ewan brings you that torch to tease you. Didn’t he let it go out in the dark before sunrise? He mocks you, and you can’t even see it. Picture his face … when you see that pity in his eyes, it’s really scorn, Jarin. Ewan mocks you as surely as Tarod mocked you.”

“No … Tarod …” Jarin leaned against the cold wall, its moisture seeping through his linen shirt into his shoulder.

“But you didn’t really kill Tarod, did you? You lied to me. You first told me it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your temper, remember?”

Jarin dropped his face into his palms, muffling his voice. “No …”

“It’s alright, my friend. I understand. I’ve been in here long enough to see what this place does to men, and what it does to turn their friends against them. Now, why don’t you tell me what really happened?” Heska’s voice was a silky rasp.

“No …” Jarin slumped to the ground, sliding down the rough wall on his shoulder to where he sat, face hidden in his hands.

“Tell me or don’t, it’s all the same to me. But perhaps telling me the truth might make you feel better, clear your head a bit. Besides, it looks like I’m the only friend you’ve got.”

Silence seeped through the dungeon. Jarin rocked back and forth on the hard floor, one arm wrapped around his knees and one hand furrowing again and again through his hair. His eyes stared sightlessly at a puddle of light on the floor.

“I … couldn’t see. When he pushed me in. I couldn’t see. It was so dark. I didn’t know … I thought something touched me, but I couldn’t see. He laughed and called me a dirty pig and pushed me off the dock. And I just grabbed when I was falling, I was grabbing for anything and I pulled him in with me. And then when I was in the water I couldn’t think, I couldn’t see, I just wanted out … it was so dark. I just wanted out. He shouldn’t have pushed me in.”

“How did you get out?”

Jarin stopped rocking, his hand froze at the back of his neck. “Huh? Oh … um … I don’t know. I think they fished me out with a rope. That’s when they told me I dragged Tarod in and drowned him …

“But I didn’t mean to drown him! I didn’t! It’s not my fault!”

A small, squeaking chuckle echoed on the dank walls. “Oh, I believe you, my friend. But I don’t think the duke is quite as understanding as I. I’m not sure that he’ll have leniency when you tell him you’re just a giant frightened by his spindly son.”

“I fear no man!” Jarin’s voice rang out, suddenly hard and angry.

“I see … so what is it you do fear? Hmmm? Death? The water? Perhaps monsters in the sea?”

Jarin’s breathing had slowed from his earlier outburst, but his voice remained strong. “I do not fear the sea, or even the serpents of the deep, and I certainly fear no man. I have never seen the thing I could not best.”

“Ah, but what about those things unseen, Jarin? Is that what you fear? The darkness and the unknown?” Heska’s voice was insistent, anxious.

Jarin sat silently, his breath held as he lowered his chin onto his knees, his stubble and the rough wool audibly scratching at each other.

“Jarin, listen to me,” Heska said, his voice confident. “The fear of the unknown, of the dark, is a rightful fear. One that some of the world’s most powerful men cannot overcome. What is more hidden and dark than your future? The duke is not known for his mercy, and when he returns, he is sure to be furious. You will likely be executed, my friend.”

Again, Jarin began to sway forward and back, both arms about his knees now.

“But I didn’t mean it.”

“Ah, but that will not matter to the duke, you see. He will kill you for a murder you did not commit.” Heska paused, drawing a slow, audible breath. “Unless …”

“What?”

Again, Heska pulled a long draught of air. “Unless you escape.”

Jarin stopped rocking. “Escape? I can’t escape. We’re locked in here.”

Heska chuckled. “That shouldn’t matter to a bull like you. I heard you shake the bars and they nearly came apart without you even trying. Just tear them from the hinges.”

Jarin scratched his head and looked at the wrought iron door. The black bars and hinges were pitted with age, and he could see the anchors resting loosely in worn holes in the mortar.

“But … but the other door is locked. And there are guards outside.”

“Ah, true. That’s a shame, then. That the only time you’ll go through that door is when your friend comes to lead you to the gallows and the duke’s henchmen snigger at the frightened ox being led to slaughter.”

“No! I won’t!”

“But what will you do, Jarin? Sit here in the darkness? Waiting for your false friends to save you as they giggle and mock your fear behind that wooden door?”

“No, I’ll … I’ll break out. When Ewan comes in. He leaves that door open. I’ll escape then!”

Heska chuckled. “No you won’t.”

Jarin rose again to his feet and gripped the bars on the door. “Yes, I will!”

“No, you’re too afraid. Your friend will come in, and he’ll pretend he pities you, and you’ll forget that in his heart he laughs at you. Laughs at a rightful fear and looks forward to leading you to the gallows. You’ll forget how he left you in the dark and you’ll just ask him to leave the torch so he can continue to mock you until you die for a murder you did not commit.”

“No!” Jarin’s face flushed with blood as he yelled. He began to tear at the bars of his cell door. His muscles knotted painfully as he yanked and shoved, his hands seized shut around the iron rods. Squealing metal filled the tiny cell as Jarin beat against his confinement and iron rang against iron and stone. Gravel roughness of grinding stone reverberated through the metal and into Jarin’s hands, seized on the bars like vices as he shook.

Jarin’s breath came thickly through clenched teeth as he finally pushed himself back from the door and released his grip. “It won’t open,” he said as he leaned against the outer wall.

“Ah, but wait. Ewan will soon come, and when you see him, you’ll see the scorn in his eyes, and then … then, my friend, you’ll find the strength to finish your escape. I think you’ve nearly gotten it.”

Jarin had only a moment to wait, his chest heaving and blood pounding in his ears and eyes, before he heard the click and creak of the wooden door opening at the end of the hall. Shuffled footsteps approached the cell.

“Jarin, please calm down,” Ewan’s voice was patient. His eyes were calm and sad as his face appeared on the other side of the cell bars.

“No! You mock me!”

Ewan’s face drew back in surprise, his eyes wide. “What?”

“He heard you! He heard you mocking how I fear the dark!” Jarin raised an accusatory finger.

“What?” Ewan’s brow furrowed as he shook his head uncomprehendingly.

“And I thought you were my friend!” Jarin leapt across the small cell, lowering his shoulder and slamming against the iron door. With a tremendous squeal, the anchors in the stone wall tore free and the door flew open, its still-connected lock creaking in protest. Ewan stumbled backward awkwardly and the swinging metal ripped into his shoulder, throwing him off balance and into the wall behind him.

Jarin stumbled through the opening, still half-running when he caught himself against the opposite wall. He turned, his face still drawn in rage, to see Ewan right himself against the wall. Ewan held one shoulder with his opposite hand as he stood and looked with frightened eyes at Jarin towering over him.

Panting, Jarin looked down as Ewan, stumbling backward along the wall, groped at a small dagger on his belt. With teeth gritted and bared, Jarin leapt forward like a feral wolf and drove his fist into the old man’s jaw. Ewan’s head snapped back, smashing against the stone behind him with a wet crack before he crumpled to the floor.

Jarin stood for a moment, breathing heavily through his nose, his hands clenched at his sides and eyes fixed on the still form of Ewan. Finally, he looked up and around. Farther back the passageway stood two more grated doorways, both hidden in the shadow cast from the single flickering torch.

With two quick strides, Jarin stood before his neighboring cell and peered in. It was dark and empty.

He turned and headed to the final cell and peered through the bars into another vacant hole. He leaned on the door and pushed his face into the bars until the cold metal began to press tightly on his temples. His eyes flickered around the tiny cell, searching.

“Hallo?” he called.

No answer came.

Again he called out. The echo of his voice returned, faded, and disappeared, leaving Jarin in silence but for the monotonous crackling of the torch over Ewan’s body.

Jarin turned slowly from the empty cell and his eyes again fell on the crumpled form of Ewan. Dark blood, nearly black in the shadows of the corridor, spread slowly, silently across his wrinkled pate, mingling with wispy gray hairs.

Suddenly, Jarin’s breath caught in his throat. He looked down at his hands and then back at the cold form of Ewan on the floor. His eyes darted around the small space as his breath became shallow and quick. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and turned in place as an involuntary squeak escaped his lips.

Jarin stopped suddenly as he heard footsteps approaching. He looked up through the only doorway out of the hallway into a larger room where Ewan had bunked.

Again Jarin’s throat contracted as he looked quickly once more at Ewan’s crumpled body. He stumbled forward, scrambling past the wide-flung iron door and over Ewan’s splayed legs. He ran into the adjoining room and searched the walls frantically, but the room was sparse: one other door, a cot, a rough-hewn stool and table littered with cards, a water skin, all illuminated by an oil lamp, flickering in a greasy glass globe.

The door in the far corner creaked open as two guards, chatting happily looked in. Jarin watched as their eyes darted from him to the open door leading to the cells. Suddenly, their eyes flared and they rushed through the opening, each drawing his sword as they ran toward Jarin.

Jarin, eyes wide, stumbled a step backward before he again rushed forward. The first guard, still surprised, struggled to raise his sword before Jarin reached him. The guard’s hand was still rising over his head when Jarin lashed out. His fist struck the guard’s sternum with a crack that reverberated through his fist and up to his shoulder.

The guard’s sword fell from his grip with a clang as he was torn from his feet and flung into the man behind him. The second guard fumbled slightly, shifting the weight of his falling companion past him as he dodged to Jarin’s side.

As the guard recovered his balance, he managed a clumsy swing in a wide arc toward Jarin’s abdomen. Jarin brought one fist down, smashing against the guard’s wrist and loosing the sword, which, no longer aimed, flipped in the air, its tip nipping the skin over Jarin’s lowest ribs.

Jarin stumbled, his hand automatically grasping for his bleeding wound before he turned to his opponent, who had not yet recovered his balance and propped himself up on the table. Jarin, his arms held out before him, rushed forward.

The guard clumsily punched out with one hand, his fist glancing across Jarin’s jaw. Jarin slowed only slightly, and his arms clamped around the man’s chest underneath his arms.

The guard yelled as the air was painfully forced from his lungs. He fumbled, futilely punching at Jarin’s face and chest. His eyes shut tight, the giant man lifted his face to the ceiling to avoid the feeble blows as he pulled his knotted arms tighter. The punches ceased as he felt the guard’s body wriggling and twisting against his chest and belly.

Jarin, expecting to see the man nearly spent, tilted his head forward and cracked open his eyes. The guard, red-faced and his body contorted in Jarin’s grip, twisted as he pulled the oil lamp from the table and heaved his arm at Jarin’s face.

With a sudden burst of light, the lamp exploded. Searing glass shards dug into Jarin’s skin. A spray of oil escaped the metal reservoir and splashed across his nose and cheek, catching alight.

Jarin screamed and stumbled backward, dropping the guard; the tearing heat pulled at the skin on his face; gritty shards of glass ground into his forehead, cheeks and eye sockets. He raised his hands to his face, screaming, trying to squelch the pain, but the flames burned his hands as tried to pat at the fire and the glass shards wormed painfully deeper into his skin as he smacked at his burning face.

He felt himself thump against the wall behind him before the floor smashed against his knees as he fell. He continued to scream, continued to slap painfully at his burning face. His ears were filled with the rush of blood and the echoes of his own wailing. Vaguely, Jarin felt a massive thud against the side of his head. Then a second sharp crack. Still focused on the searing, tearing pain, he never felt the third blow drive him sideways to the floor. And after the fourth, Jarin felt nothing at all.

Slowly, Jarin began to feel flashes of consciousness, separated by strange, unfocused dreams. Cold moisture soaking through his skin; hard stone digging into his shoulder; the hard slamming of a door; rough metal scraping across his ankle bone; the patter of rain flicking across rock. He dreamt of Ewan’s dead body reanimated, his bloody face sad with furrowed brows and accusatory, staring eyes; he dreamt of being submerged again in the dark, choking sea as he grasped at the black water surrounding him.

Through it all remained the pain. Terrible pain in his cheeks, forehead, nose and eyes. As the flickering consciousness began to grow, Jarin would only just begin to become aware of his surroundings, a stone cell, before searing, tearing pain in his face would drive him back to unconsciousness.

Jarin lay on his side, twisted on the floor when consciousness fully returned in a coughing fit. He reached out one stiff hand against the wall as his rasping lungs twisted and hacked. The effort tore at his scorched face, pain again surging through his cheeks and eyes and deep beneath the bones.

Jarin pushed himself onto his back and took a long breath, his lungs still hiccupping in an echo of this harsh coughing fit. Jarin opened his eyes. And saw nothing.

He blinked again and again and the room remained as black as when his eyes were pressed shut. He lifted his hands to his face, his fingers fumbling through the darkness. The dry, cracked skin of his cheeks and nose scraped against his fingertips, and spasms of pain shot through his entire skull when he touched it. He whimpered in pain, but his shaking hands continued to rub at his face. He couldn’t see them, even as they passed over his eyes. The sockets felt swollen and tender. He pressed gingerly at crusted blood and forming scabs in his eyebrows and across his nose, around his eyes.

Jarin’s hands suddenly stopped, halted in motion on his face. He remembered. He tried to escape. Ewan. The guards attacked. The guard with the lamp.

A feral howl rocked against the narrow stone as comprehension dawned.

Jarin scrambled to sit up, groping at the rough floor and walls with trembling hands. He felt blindly around, frantically running calloused hands over the walls, feeling the short sides leading to an iron gate; he was back in a cell, his feet shackled to the floor by a short chain.

Jarin felt his way to the corner, where he pulled himself into a ball, leaning back against the wall, his head buried in his knees. His stiff muscles protested the sudden movement as he pulled his shins unconsciously inward and began to rock back and forth.

Jarin could feel his wet woolen tunic and pants hanging heavily on his skin. Feel the pressure of rock underneath him and the tap against his back of the walls each time he rocked backward. He could hear the tacking of rain against stone and the slow susurrus of its streams running down the wall. The air smelled stale and heavy. The scent of lingering rain that had long since turned to foul, oppressive mold. He could smell his own thick sweat and the metallic scent of blood. And lamp oil. He still smelled lamp oil.

Again and again he blinked, or tried to blink. His eyes felt swollen, but he knew they were open; could feel his raised lids. Over and over he tried to clear his vision. He tried to squint to see something. Anything.

Jarin pulled his legs tighter and whimpered in the blackness. A sad, wet, nearly inaudible sound. A squeak from a thick throat.

Then Jarin’s rocking stopped suddenly as he leaned forward and rested both feet on the floor. He had heard something else. He lifted his head slowly, his face grimaced in pain and terror.

There it was again; a quiet, rasping sniggering. Laughing.

Yet the sound did not come from the neighboring cell; it did not echo into his cell from outside.

His breathing quickened and became harsh, the air scraping at his constricted throat, as he sniveled and pushed himself harder into the corner, trying to distance himself from the laughing only a few feet away.

“ Ah, poor Jarin,” came Heska’s taunting voice. It was a whisper so close that Jarin flinched at the sound.

Heska laughed a little louder. “Now, what have you done? Maybe killing the duke’s only son was an innocent mistake, but Ewan’s death? That, my friend, was murder.” The word was long, and it hung in the air mingled with misty rain.

“You … you made me do it …” Jarin heard his own voice crack, unnaturally thin and high.

“Oh, it was quite your idea, don’t you remember? Even still, I told you they’ve quite forgotten that I’m still around … hesh-sh-sh.

“And you might like to know … you did murder Ewan. The old man is certainly dead. Though, you didn’t quite manage the guards, Jarin. Such a big boy like you, I thought you would have gotten at least one of them.”

Jarin’s breath continued to quicken. He did not feel the stone cutting into his shoulder blades as he pushed harder against the corner behind him. He tried to distance himself from that voice, that thick, misty voice.

“I’m afraid the duke will not be any more sympathetic on a blind man. A blind man who killed his son, murdered the jailor and nearly finished off two of his guards. But … you can take refuge in one small fact, Jarin.”

Jarin sat in the silence, trembling. The quick swish of blood in his ears and his panting breath drowned out the sound of the rain.

“The duke has been away for some time in the north, and has not yet learned of his son’s death. And while we’re having all this rain, the pass through the mountains has been getting snow, and now, my friend, I’m afraid the duke won’t return to pass his judgement for quite some time. Oh, at least until spring I’d say.”

Suddenly Jarin felt very cold and alone. He turned his head and covered his face with trembling hands, hiding against the wall. His breath came in short, wet gasps as his muscles twitched, shivering as on a deep winter’s night.

“So, we’ll get to spend quite some time together, you see ... or rather … maybe you don’t … hesh sh sh.”