Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain

“He was attacked,” she said. She looked up at Vedoran.

“A spider jumped out of the crevice up there,” Vedoran said, pointing to the creature’s hiding spot. “It poisoned Ashok.”

“Poisoned him with a sword hilt,” Ilvani said. She fixed a mocking, innocent expression on her face.

Vedoran worked his jaw. There were two courses open to him. If she’d only witnessed him rendering Ashok unconscious, there was nothing to worry about. But if she’d heard everything.…

There was one way to know, Vedoran thought. He wondered if Ilvani would rattle as easily as her brother had.

“You’re right, I knocked Ashok unconscious,” Vedoran said. “He was trying to run away-with this.” He held out the bloody parchment sheets.

With a curious tilt to her head, like a child, Ilvani took the sheets and unfolded them. Vedoran went on, “This may be hard for you to hear, Ilvani, but I’ve discovered something shocking about Ashok. He’s been deceiving us all this time.”

“Everyone lies,” Ilvani said. She examined the notes, and her brow furrowed. “He’s not an artist. Why would he draw pictures?”

“So he could deliver the information to his enclave once he had escaped the city,” Vedoran said. Ilvani looked even more confused. “Natan didn’t tell you about that, did he? Ashok was captured by patrols outside of Ikemmu. He was a prisoner of the city while you were a prisoner in those caves.”

“Two prisoners, two different prisons,” Ilvani said. But she was listening, Vedoran thought. That was the important thing.

“Ashok was able to rescue you because he came from the same enclave that took your scouting party prisoner,” Vedoran said. “I saw it myself-the way he knew the layout of the tunnels, where the guards would be-only I couldn’t confirm it until now. Ilvani, Ashok was responsible for what happened to you.”

He waited for her reaction, but she only continued to stare at the parchment sheets in her hands. She didn’t appear to have heard him, or the words weren’t registering in her mind. She looked down at Ashok, but her gaze was turned inward.

“He looks peaceful,” she said.

“Even the guilty can seem at peace,” Vedoran said. “Ilvani, I’m sorry to have to tell you all this. I didn’t want to.”

“Uwan,” Ilvani said. “Natan. Ask them.”

“They were deceived as well,” Vedoran replied.

Ilvani’s face scrunched up, but there were no tears. She looked as if she might break apart instead. She brought her hands up in claws to cover her face.

Vedoran took a step toward her, but she backed up and screeched, “No! Ask them. Ask them, and they’ll tell me, and then it can be but not before. Before it’s just words, and you’re putting them together so they’ll sound pretty.” She looked at him with an expression very close to hatred in her eyes. “Why do you all do that?”

“We’ll make this right,” Vedoran said. “I’ll present the evidence to Uwan, and Ashok will be dealt with, I promise you.”

Ilvani looked at the parchment in her hands and said a series of words Vedoran didn’t understand. The parchment floated up from her palm, hung in the air for a breath, and vanished.

Vedoran caught his breath. “What did you do with them?” he cried.

“Safe,” Ilvani said. “They’re safe in the Ashok box until needed.” She looked at him, a hard set to her face. “Time to go,” she said.

A woman made of stone, Vedoran thought. He realized he wouldn’t get her to change her mind. He briefly cursed the loss of the evidence, but perhaps it was meant to be.

Who better to make the case before Uwan, than the woman whose life Ashok’s people had ruined?

Ashok awoke to a dull throb at the back of his skull. He was on his feet, blind, and breathing hot air. It didn’t take him long to assume the rest.

He was in a cell, chained deep in the caves behind the forges. Maybe it was Chanoch’s cell. He couldn’t tell for the hood covering his face. There were no sounds; the room was absolute silence and cold.

In a flash of morbid humor, Ashok remembered the cleric’s words to him, when he’d first woken in Ikemmu.

Perhaps someday you’ll see how we treat our prisoners . Prophecies abounded in Ikemmu.

You have no one to blame but yourself, Ashok thought. You should have left the city when you had the chance. But you didn’t really want to escape, did you? Ever since he’d ridden out of that cave and left the slaughtered members of his enclave behind, he’d been looking for punishment in place of absolution. He’d betrayed his own people, and he’d betrayed Ikemmu by not confessing the truth.

Ashok only hoped, before it was all over, that he would be given the opportunity for that confession. If they left him alone in the dark, forgotten, he would fade away and still bear the shame.

No. It wouldn’t happen. Uwan would come. Ashok knew the leader would be there in the dark, at some moment. He hadn’t left Chanoch alone.

Ashok closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but he was aware of the lingering ache in his shoulder. His hands were numb from being held above his head. A tingling sensation ran down his arms. And he was cold, so cold all over, except where his breath was trapped inside the hood.

They were none of them sensations that he cared to think about. All were associated with a lack of feeling, a frozen state from which he couldn’t emerge. Ashok stomped his feet hard just to feel the shock go up his legs. He twisted his body from side to side as best he could, trying to coax some feeling back into his limbs, but the chains were suspended so tightly he had trouble drawing a full breath.

He tried to remember the journey back to Ikemmu, but his mind was choked with fog. There were snatches, bits of conversation where his name had featured prominently, but he couldn’t remember the words. He hoped Tatigan had reached the surface and his caravan safely, and he enjoyed the brief regret that he would never see what the world of Faerun looked like. He imagined that it would be a place full of people like Tatigan and Darnae, and that gave him comfort.

Some time passed, and perhaps he slept, but more likely Ashok thought he drifted in and out of stupor. Once a guard came into his cell with a bucket and helped him to relieve himself. Ashok was faintly grateful for not having to soil himself, but the guard never removed the hood, and Ashok felt it was one of the most humiliating experiences of his life.

The next time the door opened, Ashok didn’t detect the heavy tread of the guards, but a single set of footsteps. They stopped in front of his cell. Whomever it was, Ashok could hear their slow indrawn breaths, and feel the contemplative silence with which the stranger regarded him.

“Well met, Uwan,” Ashok said.

“The guards tell me you’ve been restless,” Uwan said. “That’s a good sign. If you’d been subdued, we’d have had to move you somewhere else. We won’t risk you fading.”

“So I haven’t been condemned yet?” Ashok said. He turned his head to follow Uwan’s pacing outside his cell, though it was a futile gesture to try to see through the hood.

“Not yet,” Uwan said. His tone told Ashok that it was a foregone conclusion. “The evidence is being gathered.”

“By Vedoran,” Ashok said.

“Yes,” Uwan replied, and he stopped pacing. Ashok heard his hands moving over the bars. He could picture the leader deciding how much he wanted to say.

“Ask your questions,” Ashok said. He’d been waiting for the moment, and felt a profound relief that the time had finally arrived. “I’ve nothing left to hide.”

“Is it true?” Uwan said. “Did you kidnap Ilvani?”