Dreams of the Oracle

Chapter 2

Jack Linch sat in the darkness. He had sat in it for ten years now.  So said the marks he'd scratched into the walls and floor. With no sun or moon he judged the passing days by his meals. 

Chains bound his hands and feet, allowing him little movement in his tiny cell. The doorway to light and freedom stood but six feet away and just out of reach.

The door had no windows or bars. Heavy and rimmed with iron, it opened twice daily. Once for his food, and once to remove the slop bucket that sat in one corner of the cell. They eyed him sometimes when they opened the door, as if he was planning something.

A bitter smile crossed his haggard face, as if he could find a way out. Rumor had it that some prisoners held in the top levels of the prison had managed to escape in some distant past. Jack didn't remember much of the tale. He had heard it before being thrown down here so long ago. Back when he had thought he was invincible. He did remember the tales of prisoners, like him, who had been locked in the lower levels. Some had whispered that there really weren't any lower levels, that the guards simply killed anyone sentenced to the lower levels and kept it quiet.

That particular rumor proved to be untrue. 

Jack shifted his position, the chains that had once been tight enough to cut into his flesh were now almost loose enough to slip over his hands, but doing so would be largely pointless. They'd just slap on tighter manacles when they next opened his door.

Jack glanced up at the stone walls. He had once thought that he could slowly chip his way through the walls and floor, but the stone was hard granite. Calchas prison had once been a fortress to protect the northern border of Tursa and it was built solid. These bottom levels were constructed of stone blocks that were almost ten spans across. Moved and placed by some long forgotten method by some long forgotten race. A skilled stonecutter with sharpened steel tools would have trouble chipping his way through. Jack was no stonecutter and he barely had enough strength to crawl over to his bucket when he had to relieve himself. His filthy prison garb hung from him in tatters. He scratched a louse from his beard. It really was amazing what one could get used to. Jack crushed the parasite between his fingers. 

It was time.

The door opened, two guards stood outside, a wizened old man took Jack's wooden bowl and filled it with the contents of a black pot on a rickety wooden cart. He placed the bowl at Jack's feet and walked out closing the door behind him. Jack listened for the lock to click and the bar to drop into place.

At one time he had commanded fear and respect wherever he went. Now, he sat alone in the blackness, even when the door was open only the flickering haze of distant torch light entered this cell.

They will pay. 

 It was the only thought that kept him alive. Someone would, someone had to be made to suffer for this. 

At one time, he had thought that only one man was really responsible, but after ten years of deliberation, he had realized that it wasn't just one man. There were others, so many others who had conspired to bring down the great Jack Linch. They would all pay, each and every one.

He reached up and scratched his greasy nose with a filthy broken fingernail. Visions of revenge clid across his mind. He fell into a coughing fit. The coughing had started two or three years ago, and it was getting worse.

The fact that he was still alive told him that the game wasn't over, and it wouldn't end here. No not here. His enemies had stripped him of his respect and title. They had taken his life, and they had taken his power.

They had broken him and flung him away to rot in a dungeon. But things were going to change. Jack had waited ten long years for Fate to intervene and intervene she would. 

Jack Linch was not destined to die in a prison cell. 

No. 

His was a grand destiny, one that no one could steal from him. He fell into another coughing fit, hacking up bloody phlegm from is throat. Crawling to his bowl, he slurped up the watery contents. It was little more than beans and water, utterly tasteless. Ten years ago it had disgusted him so much that he could barely choke it down. 

Finished, he didn't crawl back he simply lied down where he was. The chains kept him from stretching out so he curled up on the stone floor. He shuddered involuntarily. The gray haze that passed for sleep settled over his vision. He was never completely asleep. He would lie on the floor as he did now in a daze letting his mind drift and wander. He was never asleep.

His thoughts drifted lazily as they often did to a time long ago when he had made his enemies howl. When raw power had coursed through his body and those that displeased him cowered and died. Such a distant, gray tinged, memory. 

He shuddered again and went into a coughing fit, He was momentarily brought back to reality, to the hard, cold, feel of his chains. His body groaned with a hundred aches and cramps that would never go away.

Hate burned inside him, sending tingles across his fingertips. It was the only real emotion he felt anymore, strong and burning. It filled him and pumped through his veins. He felt it on the back of his tongue like bile. 

He took a deep breath and let it out, but as he did he fell into a coughing fit again. His face twisted into a mask of burning anger. That anyone could do this to him. That anyone could reduce him to this state! They would beg for death before he was done. They would grovel at his feet with tears in their eyes, and it would all start with the man that took his powers away.