The Fourfold Key

Chapter Fifteen: Daydreams

She was in a corridor—to a dungeon, perhaps. The walls were covered in slimy moss and shone in the flickering firelight. Footsteps echoed. The Sorceress came into view. No one was accompanying her. She was completely alone. She hurried past door after door. A hand reached out from one.

"Sorceress, please. You have the wrong person. I didn—"

"Ra domenish lapeltey," the Sorceress muttered.

The prisoner began to choke and hack and writhe. His arm stretched out farther as he tried to say more. The choking stopped. The arm went limp and slithered out of sight. The thump of the dead man's body falling to the floor echoed faintly as the Sorceress walked by, a small smile flitting across her lips.

After a while, she stopped at a cell door. She pulled a key from her robes. Unlocking the door, she stepped inside. This cell was larger than the others. A man chained hand and foot sagged on a rough bench in the corner.

"All right. Get up you lazy boy," she commanded. He didn't move. "Alli mor ca do ban," she said, and he was dragged to his feet.

The man groaned and lifted his head. Ruth looked closely. He had black hair with a thick beard and mustache. He opened his eyes. They were dark green.

Dad! Ruth thought. He's alive! She hadn't recognized him with the beard. Her heart swelled at the sight of her father and her eyes brimmed with tears.

"Now, Collen, why don't you tell me how to get to Earth," the Sorceress said sweetly.

"Why would I do that?" Collen asked, voice raspy and low. It was nothing like the voice she had heard so much when she was younger.

"Because..." Her fingers twitched at her robe and her oily gaze met his. "I have your daughter."

Ruth's dad chuckled. It sounded nothing like his real laugh. This laugh was rough and grating. His real laugh was light and loud and clear as a bell. "Liar," he spat. "You've pulled that trick on me before. That was the only reason I told you how to transport non-living things to Earth! I will not fall for it again. Besides, why would Ruth be here? She knows nothing of this place."

"You will tell me." She murmured a command and the chains around his wrists and ankles fell away, revealing scarred, infected skin. She murmured again and his body slammed into the wall. He cried out. She slammed him again. And again. The fifth time she hurled him against the wall she let him to fall to the ground. He lay where he had fallen, breathing heavily. "Tell. Me," she insisted.

"No!" he screamed. His rage gave him the strength to stumble to his feet. "I won't! I never will! Torture me all you like, but I will never tell you, you beast!"

She sighed, exasperated. "I've tried to be patient, Collen. I really have. But you leave me no choice." She issued a command and he was chained once more. "But, as it turns out, Ruth is here. Not with me, but in this world."

"Oh really? Prove it," he challenged.

The Sorceress shrugged. "If you insist." She created a misty sheet, separating the two of them. The mist bubbled and shivered, revealing Ruth lying in a clearing, shivering and pale, staring at nothing.

"Ruth! What did you do to her?!" Collen cried leaping at the vision. When he touched it, the picture evaporated.

"Oh, nothing. Yet." She smiled smoothly and sailed out the cell door.

"You're a monster! You know that? Nothing but a cruel, heartless, monster!" he called after her.

The door slammed shut behind her.