Nethermost Realm: Prisoner of Arlunn

Chapter 53

Please note: I am updating this draft of The Prisoner of Arlunn. The most important change is that the main character's name has been changed from Philip to Rian.

53

The Adherents of Miak.

Human cages in a large cavern. Chains and whips. Humanoid creatures with bug-like eyes and antennae and an extra set of arms. Terrified, he's taken from his cage, beaten when he tries to run.

To the pit.

A cold iron chain around his neck. Chained on an outcropping of rock over the pit. He can't stop shaking.

A hum of wings. Slow, low, rasp of something rising from the pit. Long red wings, black eyes, black jaws. Claws. Hovering above him. Malice incarnate ... from darker places than even the Nethermost Realm.

He struggles but the chain holds. Slowly the creature circles him, drawing closer. The wings beating faster. The air closes in. He can't breathe.

Suddenly it lunges at him, boring into his mind, encircling him with darkness, drawing tighter and tighter. Trying to extinguish him.

Surrounded by hatred, malevolence, animus, rancor.

Fury and wrath.

His life draws to an end.

They only need his body ... not his soul.

* * * * * * * * *

Too many thoughts rushed in on him; his mind was a swirling vortex of memories: pain, guilt, rage. Everything had been uprooted. Nothing in his mind was in a familiar place. Names, places, hopes, desires, dreams, and deeds jumbled together in a tangled mass. He tried to slow it down, make sense of it.

Something from outside tried to force its way in, a mental attack from those who wished to destroy and doom him. He fought back—struck out against his attacker.

Fragments of memory assaulted him: his own or someone else's—he couldn't be sure. They had to be his own.

Horrified, he remembered coldly and dispassionately stabbing his father in the heart; taking the beating heart from his body which lay in a pool of blood—in order to create the magic-spawn, that pale, weak useless freak of a brother who had brought him nothing but trouble. He had murdered his own father—the man who had sung songs to him, taught him to sword fight and read him bedtime stories!

He wasn't the only one. There was murder, after murder, after murder, after murder! He couldn't be this person!

The flood of memories threatened to tear him apart. He felt his mind fracturing into pieces, unable to hold together all the dichotomy of his own identity. He fought against oblivion; being sucked into the nameless void of darkness.

Finally, the hurricane of thought broke, and slowed down somewhat. Some of the thoughts began to clear. And suddenly, he found himself awake in a dungeon, laying on a cold, stone table.

He was weak, sweating and exhausted, chained hand and foot so that he could barely move, and naked from the waist up.

"What is the meaning of this?" he shouted. Overcome by rage, he pulled uselessly at his chains. A young man came into his view, well-dressed, with blond hair.

"Rian, are you all right?" the man asked with concern.

The face was familiar but the name eluded him. Who was this? Shouldn't he know him?