Chapter 56: Ch. 056 – (Then) One Way Trip

Locked in the cell, Jonathan was reduced to the same dilemma he’d had the last time he was here. Should he escape, and if so how should he do it? This time he lacked the urgency of the headsman’s axe to motivate him, so he mostly just fumed and listened to the other prisoners chat in dwarven. He’d find a way to escape, if not here then on the train, or wherever they were taking him next. In his mind escaping wasn’t the hard part, it was what to do once he was free. Even the small glimpse of the trackless underways that he’d had was frightening. How in the name of all the gods was he supposed to escape the infinite darkness and find his way back to the surface? 

It was too big of a problem to worry about just now, so he didn’t. Instead he listened to the dwarves in the other cells without letting on that he could understand them. It turned out that about half the conversation was about what it was the trollslayer might have done to get himself locked up, and the other half was about what the rest of them were in for. Most of them were in the place he was in 6 months ago - bound for the salt or another nearby coal mine for a month or three until whatever minor offense they’d committed against their labyrinthine legal system was expunged. Only one other dwarf was going to the mill like Jonathan, and the way it sounded he was a murderer on a one way trip to about the worst place they could send him. 

That wasn’t a good sign, but Jonathan was confident that if he could survive the salt mine, he had no doubt he could survive whatever new pit they were throwing him into just as easily. It was a false bravado though, and it faded with his anger for the next two days. Even though he had a hard time admitting it to himself he was still secretly hoping that Kaspov would pull off another miracle loophole and rescue him. 

When days came and went without such a visit he was forced to start asking himself some hard questions. Could his friends all really be so disgusted by his relationship with a dwarf that they’d throw their years together away because of it? And what had become of Anda. More than anything he wanted someone from the yard, anyone really - even Fedon to visit so he could ask them that question. By day four his anger had evaporated and it had been replaced with a fog of worry and doubt.  

He was at his lowest when they finally came for him and the murderer, and neither of them put up a fight. He knew exactly what to expect next. Another cramped train ride deeper into the bowels of the earth. Another day or two in a car crammed with other dwarves. That wasn’t what he got though. They guided him to a train on track 34 that had no passenger cars hooked to it. Once they were there, the guards loaded the two of them into opposite sides of a cargo car that was already almost completely full, and then they manacled each of them to a bracket on the wall. Once that was done they gave each of them a full loaf of bread and slammed the door closed, plunging them into the dark. It was a tight fit, especially for Jonathan, but once he was settled, it was no worse than the cell he’d been in the last several days. That was good, because if they were bothering to feed them, that meant it was going to be a long trip. 

He’d have no trouble escaping from here if that’s what he wanted to do, he decided after a few moments of concentration. The car he was in was fairly devoid of fire, but the cars that were both in front and behind this one contained plenty of flammable loads. That gave Jonathan everything he would need to melt iron or light things on fire. He delayed though. Once he was free, what would he do? Jump from the train car and die of thirst in the darkness? That was the most likely answer, but it wasn’t the one he wanted. He needed more information. A map would be best, but he’d take general gossip about what lay ahead if he couldn’t get anything better.

Jonathan bided his time instead, letting the bumping and rocking of the train slowly lull him to sleep. When he next awoke hours later it was noticeably warmer. He hoped that was just being shut up in this cramped car, but he knew that wasn’t true. Every minute they went ahead likely meant the train was going just a little bit deeper, and as he’d learned from his last trip, the deeper you went, the warmer it got. Jonathan leaned against a crack in the outer wall for the hint of a breeze it provided. Even the feeble breeze only confirmed his suspicions though. It was hot and getting hotter. 

When they finally stopped at a switching yard for the first time, the guards let Jonathan and the other dwarven prisoner out one at a time to use a latrine and drink some water. Water was the important part. Jonathan liked to believe that he’d long ago gotten used to dwarven heat. The stuffiness of Khaghrumer hadn’t bothered him in over a year, but this was definitely worse. By the end of the first day Jonathan would have gladly traded his fire blooded abilities for an affinity with water instead. He imagined that he could suck the water from the air and relieve his terrible thirst that way. After he fell asleep though, that idea turned into a nightmare where he was so thirsty he drained the water from all the dwarves around him, just to stay alive. Watching them wither away before his eyes was terrifying, and he woke up with a start. 

He spent much of the second day wondering what his destination was going to be. Mills were for grinding, and it was called the powder mill either because it ground things very finely, or because it was used to make the only powder that mattered: dwarven powder. That much made sense to Jonathan. Even though the dwarves were incredibly tight lipped about the stuff, Jonathan had long held his own private theory that it was just a ground up rock they mined somewhere in the deeps that was infused with elemental fire. He’d held a fire shard before of course, so it stood to reason there was some other mineral halfway between coal and the crystal of pure fire that they’d long ago learned how to harness into a weapon inside of steel brands the same way that they learned how to use fire and water to power the boilers that made steam engines race down the tracks of the underways. 

Jonathan smiled as he thought about it. Why on earth would they ever send a fireblood like him to a place with veins of rock more flammable than coal? Didn’t they know what he could do to a place like that? The more he thought about it though, the more frustrated he became. In the salt mines he could let lose without any fear of causing a chain reaction and accidentally getting himself killed. Were they counting on his self preservation instincts to become a sort of invisible shackles? He couldn’t very easily use fire as a weapon if he was living in a tinderbox, could he?

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He reached no conclusions about whether it was remarkably smart or remarkably stupid of them to send him to the powder mill before the train came to the stop for the last time. After two days and three switching junctions the train finally stopped at their final destination. Jonathan had been prepared for the heat when they opened the door, but the stench took him entirely by surprise. “Welcome to you new home boys,” one of the guards told the dwarven prisoner as he unshackled him. “They say a strong dwarf can live down here for five years before their body gives out. What do ye think that means for the cold blood?”

The murder eyed Jonathan, “A week, tops.” They both laughed at that but didn’t even attempt to explain the joke to Jonathan. That was fine. Jonathan had already beaten one pool that was betting on heat stroke for him. He’d beat the next one just as easily. After that both of them were handed off the mill’s guards, and then the train crew turned to unloading other supplies and cargo that didn’t need to be watched at all times. Even with Jonathan’s certainty, he was forced to doubt at least a little bit as he looked around. It was warm enough that he was already sweating profusely, and there was an obvious heat shimmer on the tracks. 

After all the paperwork formalities had been handled, and a guard had been found that could speak fragments of Wenlish, they were escorted from the loading dock to the mill proper, but Jonathan had already seen enough barrels stamped ‘DANGER - Black Powder’ complete with a picture of a skull that Dwarves used to label very dangerous substances. They really had brought him to a fireblood’s version of heaven or hell, depending on how you looked at it. 

Past the loading dock, things opened up quite a bit. A wide tunnel led to a small cavern, and in that dim cavern was a large building with a dozen wheels that looked almost like water wheels, but they were closed in. Water wasn’t driving them though. He couldn’t figure out what was doing that, but the only thing resembling a river was a canal filled with raw sewage that cut through the area. 

The guard mostly ignored Jonathan, offering at best one word explanations while they walked through the compound. “Mill” he said as pointed to the building, not telling him anything he couldn’t have figured out for himself. This trend continued with other brilliant observations like “bed” and “food.” It was pretty much useless. Fortunately he was a bit more helpful to what he told the dwarf in the stone tongue, so Jonthan listened to that while he pretended to walk around cluelessly. The work shifts were broken down into three groups of one watch each, and new blood started in the pits, whatever that meant. Jonathan wanted to channel some fire to give himself some relief from the oppressive heat he had been immersed in, but he decided it was better to hold off until he better understood the situation with the powder. 

After that Jonathan tried to follow, but between the smell and the heat things started to get hazy. At first it was like they’d shifted from speaking into stone tongue to another language that Anda hadn’t thought to teach him. After that he became dizzy, but leaning against a wall didn’t seem to be helping much. The guard looked at him with a mixture of concern and scorn. Something was obviously wrong. That was when his vision started to go gray around the edges. Jonathan shook his head as he tried to clear it enough to pull fire from his body, dwarven powder be damned, this let him understand a fragment of conversation the two dwarves were having about him.

“Giants are so weak,” the guard gloated in dwarven. 

“I’m surprised he lasted this long, to be honest with you.” the murder chimed in. 

Everything after that was lost, and seconds later Jonathan slumped into a heap as he passed out from the heat.

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