Chapter 72: 72. Maze of Cages

Excerpt from Captain Zilian Yuka’s ‘Handbook for Self-Defense.’

“Detaining prisoners is a tricky endeavour, if one wishes to do it right. Take care of the needs of the person you are holding on to, and what features they may have that might allow them to escape. Only attempt capture if it is truly necessary. You will find that kindness holds prisoners more surely than cruelty, but tight rope and iron manacles are a good start all the same.”

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Rippling forth, the deep blue warrior woman clasped Yenna with all six hands. Her grip on either of Yenna’s wrists transitioned rapidly into a behind-the-back squeeze, while the rest patted her down for hidden weapons or tools. Her body pressed close, smelling strongly of sweat and blood. Yenna shuddered under her grip, prey-animal brain shutting down upon capture as her body conserved energy for when a chance at escape presented itself. Unfortunately, the massive woman didn’t seem eager to give such a chance—with one hand clenching deathgrip-tight on her wrists and two more holding her by each shoulder at her side, the mage could barely move away from wherever she was directed.

“Ah, Nadhan, is that you? A little help?” Mulvari’s cocoon rattled slightly in place as he rocked his body, but the enchanted mud held tight.

Nadhan, as she was evidently called, simply laughed at him. “Caught a little of your own brew, leech? I would leave you, but you are needed. As for you…”

With the two great hands on Yenna’s shoulders, Nadhan turned the kesh partway to face her.

“You are a troublesome little thing, aren’t you? Very lucky that you are needed too, in one piece no less.” Nadhan grinned an awful grin, her mouth a glistening maw of fangs not unlike a wolf’s. A smell like raw meat wafted on her breath, and a primal panic of being eaten by predators gripped Yenna’s heart.

The mage began to struggle, though she could hardly budge under the woman’s incredible grip. Acting on the slightest bit of conscious thought, Yenna repeated the trick that freed her from her ropes earlier and called her knife into her hand. The quicksilver dagger appeared, wedged perfectly in her grip to cut at Nadhan’s flesh–

“Aha! Your hidden claws!”

The warrior rapidly rearranged herself and Yenna’s position. In a heartbeat the woman had gone from locked at her side to standing in front of her, Yenna’s wrists held out wide. Nadhan inspected the dagger with obvious approval, barking out a crude laugh.

“I had wondered how a worm like yourself had got free, but I had expected a very boring answer.” Nadhan took the dagger with a free hand, flicked it across her fingers expertly. Then, she thrust it forward.

Yenna squealed in surprise and shut her eyes, shivering with the anticipation of pain. But, none came—a self-assured little voice in the back of her head reminded her the quicksilver dagger couldn’t be wielded by another if she didn’t want it to be, and especially not if she lost sight of it. Nadhan gave another laugh.

“A cute trick! Where are you hiding it, wizard?”

“Witch, actually!” Mulvari called from across the room. “Let me free, Nadhan?”

“A witch! Then, this little claw I can’t take away from you, hm? Well…”

Nadhan drew close again, wrapping one arm around the small of Yenna’s back, another two around her shoulders, one against the back of her head—a lover’s embrace, their bodies pressed together. Nadhan brought her face close, close enough for Yenna to smell that raw meat breath again.

“I would love to see you try again, little snake. Much better fun than my sister, hm?”

Her sister? Could it be…? “You… is… Narasanha…?”

“I do not speak your quivering tongue, snake. Perhaps after all is done, we shall hear your screams instead.” Nadhan ran a hand down Yenna’s side, across to her lower body, sensuous and slow as she grinned that horrible wolf grin. The mage felt her throat lock up, no words able to escape as she was handled back into that locked pose at Nadhan’s side.

The two of them walked over to Mulvari, and with a single strike Nadhan punched through the mud and pulled the withered old man out. She threw him away from the still-grasping cocoon, and glared down at the enchanted mud as though daring it to try anything else. With nothing to latch on to, the spell ended, leaving a mass of conjured clay behind.

Mulvari had hit the wall with a rather resounding crack, but seemed little worse for wear. Standing up, he stretched his arms and legs, joints making loud cracking, popping noises.

“I was rather under the impression we had more time.” Mulvari pulled off his mask and removed his bloody apron. “Was a change confirmed, then?”

Nadhan grunted. “How do you think my little snake got free? When all was perfectly aligned for us, how else could there be an unseen wrinkle? She has seen the inside of the book, after all.”

Somehow, of all the things Nadhan had said, that was the most unsettling of all. Yenna hadn’t seen inside the book—the black book, the one Demvya had been holding, no doubt—but her captors implied that not only had she gleaned some power from it, but it had been what set her free? Yenna wasn’t about to correct them—if they were mistaken about her having some phenomenal secret power, the mage was more than happy to let them continue believing it.

That little bit of potential leverage propped up the tattered remains of Yenna’s courage.

“W-Wait,” Yenna squeaked out. “C-Can I check on my friend?”

Stupid! Yenna had meant to say something like, let me tend to my friend, you monsters! I’ll never go with you, not until you release my friend! Instead, Yenna felt like she was five years old, asking permission from her elders. Nadhan ignored her, but Mulvari wormed his way in front of Yenna.

“Oh, not to worry, not to worry! Rather unlikely there will be any long-term side-effects of exposure, though I hardly suspect we will get a chance to see anything long-term, heh!” 

His tone was easy and comforting, a professional giving advice to a worried student, but Mulvari’s words chilled Yenna. She looked back at Jiin and vowed to run back here at the first chance she got.

Nadhan pushed Mulvari out of her way with contempt, and shoved Yenna through the door out into the hallway. Every step of the way, even when Nadhan couldn’t help but move away from Yenna’s side, the warrior held her tight. In the corridor proper, Yenna’s heart sank at the sight of Valkh standing there staring directly at a wall, her lips still mouthing nonsense phrases. Nadhan grabbed her by the scruff and bundled her under an arm like she was a sack of vegetables, not that the woman seemed to mind.

Yenna felt as though she was being led to meet her executioner. Dread froze her to inaction, fears for her allies and friends, worries for her own self. Her whole body shivered and tears ran freely down her face, but none of the fear-driven lightning of dark-tinged Pride came forth—was it scared, too? The very concept of fear and despair, hiding inside—if Yenna hadn’t been so very frightened, she might have laughed.

At the end of the corridor, Mulvari slipped past them and unlocked the gate at the other end. The man slipped a tiny key made out of a dark crystal from a sleeve and tapped it to a point just above the keyhole. The bars rung like a struck bell before swinging open. Yenna recalled the danger of active magic within it, and Mulvari’s actions insisted that this door was more of a trap than it seemed. Almost thankful she hadn’t had to muddle through breaking its spells, Yenna nonetheless looked at the staircase beyond with a mounting sense of dread.

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They went up the staircase, a thankfully wider affair than the last one she had encountered. The top of the stairs opened into a tall, wide room, filled with cages. Yenna’s eyes opened wide in horror at the sight—the cages were all filled, some containing animals, others holding people. The occupants of each cage seemed possessed of a deep despair, collapsed forlornly at the bottom of those grim bars. Yenna could sense some kind of magical circuit passing through the cages, though hadn’t the time or focus required to make sense of it. When the group passed around a corner made by a wall of cages, Yenna screamed.

Narasanha sat in a crumpled heap on the floor against a stone wall, each of her arms and legs bound in chains attached to the floor. Apart from loose undergarments, the guard had been laid bare and beaten savagely. Her crimson flesh bruised to black all over, and dark red blood dripped from her face and hands. At the sound of people approaching, Narasanha lifted her head with great effort. Grim determination, hatred and defiance burned in her expression. One eye was swollen shut with bruising and her face washed with her own blood, but Narasanha still maintained the fierce dignity of a beaten but not defeated beast. Yenna could have sworn she saw a twinge of something else when the guard’s one good eye fell on her.

“How good for you that you get to see your pet one last time, sister.” Nadhan mocked the chained guard. “I would pluck her apart in front of you, but she is needed. Let us both hope she returns intact, hm?”

Narasanha growled, a deep and hostile sound that made Yenna quiver, and the mage watched in alarm as the guard struggled against her chains. Thick metal bands strained as they cut into Narasanha’s flesh, mere iron struggling to contain the woman’s rage. Nadhan didn’t look even remotely concerned.

“I haven’t time to play with you any more, sister. Perhaps afterwards, then I can break a few more bones.”

“... hurt her…”

Low and filled with pain, Narasanha’s voice was barely audible.

“Still barking, cur?” Nadhan leaned in, her wolfish grin wide.

Narasanha leaned forward too, as far as her chains would let her. Barely an inch from Nadhan’s face, she spoke with unconcealed rage.

“Hurt her, and I’ll kill you.”

“Would love to see you try—you’ve been trying for so long, makes me wonder if you can.”

The two massive, muscular women stared into each other’s eyes with an intensity beyond anything Yenna had ever felt. She didn’t need that witch’s insight to understand the level of hatred between them was far deeper than anything the mage could have ever held onto. When Mulvari interrupted, Yenna thought he was the dumbest man alive.

“Nadhan, we–”

Nadhan reached an arm back and grabbed Mulvari by the scruff of the neck. Standing up, she brought his face close to hers, no longer mocking but genuinely angry with him. If the warrior hadn’t been clamping down on Yenna’s wrists and shoulders nearly as hard, Yenna might have cheered her on.

They didn’t speak—Nadhan made her threat known in action, while Mulvari momentarily turned uncannily boneless and neatly slipped out of her grasp. The movement seemed to bring a wry grin to Nadhan’s face, though the alchemist’s apologetic bowing and mumbling wiped it away. With a huff, she kept walking onwards through the maze of cages.

Unable to look back at Narasanha, Yenna’s eye was drawn to the contents of the cages. Most of them seemed to contain animals of various shapes and sizes, mundane creatures collapsed like puppets with cut strings. There were people too. 

A young yolm man, curled into a fetal position, muttered under his breath. A rough kesh laid flat in the bottom of one cage, covering her face with her hands. A silupker shaped like a large spider made of plant pots was curled up on its back, making an alarming ringing noise that Yenna couldn’t decipher. The enchantment on the cages was no more decipherable in this brief passing than it was before, but Yenna could tell they were extracting a kind of energy from the occupants.

Nadhan paused briefly to put down Valkh, roughly shoving her into Mulvari’s hands.

“Cage her.”

The alchemist nodded, muttering under his breath about being ordered around as he led Valkh towards an open cage. The lizardly researcher followed along without complaint, still murmuring incessantly.

“Wh-what do those cages do?”

“Speaking, snake?” Nadhan shook Yenna playfully, though the motion felt as though her bones were liable to crumble under the pressure. “It is not for you to know. Perhaps when the Ledger breaks you, you will help us read too.”

Yenna shivered. Don’t like the sound of that.

“Who… what is the Ledger?” 

Nadhan made an annoyed grunt. Mulvari caught up and slipped in front of them again to open a wide set of doors.

“The Ledger is… well, I suppose you’ll see! I don’t blame you for being curious, I would love to see what’s beneath all that armour.” Mulvari gave a giggle. “But, I am paid well enough to not test any solvents on them, so that’s that!”

Through another corridor and another set of doors, the three of them entered into a wide, vaulted chamber. Darkness reigned here, dim torch-light flickering from wall sconces. Ahead was a small wooden railing to stop people from accidentally tripping over the edge of this raised section, two ramps either side of the door circling around. Immediately below was a dark pool of water, though Yenna couldn’t tell much more. 

The roof was domed, ancient stone still sturdy after long years of holding this place together—likely the ancient core of much newer constructions. The age of this chamber gave Yenna the impression that this place had been semi-recently repurposed from some older form, though it wasn’t immediately clear why. Convenience, perhaps? Yenna couldn’t even guess at the location, but she suspected it was somewhere within the city of Milur—opening a portal out of Highshine had been a feat, but through the city walls was a sheer impossibility. A tall stone door on the other side of the room, far larger than the rest, felt to Yenna like the front door of some ancient temple or crypt. Part of her wished it would burst open, Captain Eone revealed with her sword drawn and an army of Miluran soldiers to rescue her. The stone stayed stubbornly inert.

However, the pool below them did not. As though it had awaited their arrival, the pool of water began to glow a subtle red as the three of them descended the ramp around to its level. The moment they stood before it the liquid swirled, lapping gently at the ancient stone tiles around the pool. After a few moments, the light intensified and the water parted, forming a red ring of whirling light at its edge. It revealed at its heart a passageway.

It was a gently sloping ramp, curving down deeper, far deeper than Yenna thought possible. An unnatural radiation of magical energy washed over the mage as she drew closer, pulsing like a heartbeat or the breathing of some colossal creature. Nadhan held Yenna tight, and led her into the pit.