Chapter 16 - The Prisoner

Cable was a captive again, and he was utterly miserable.  Anyone watching the boy--with his hands and feet tied and with a hood covering his head--would have felt sorry for him.  He was draped over the back of a horse, exposed to the hot sun.  His sweat made the fresh wounds from the wolves sting horribly.  He could see nothing.  The hood was suffocating.  He was hungry, and thirsty, and filled with despair.

The despair was the worst part of it.  Cable wondered why he'd ever come on this mission.  He'd done the right thing, after all.  He could have taken the hermit up on his offer and gone home to Corrin, but he didn't.  He'd done everything he could in order to fulfill his mission.  And now, it seemed as though his mission had ended in failure.  He was a prisoner again. 

Then Cable's mind drifted toward Remma and her mother, and he sank even further into despair.  He knew that Remma would be able to escape the fire, but what about her poor, sick mother?  He felt like a fool, chasing after the wolf in the yard and falling into a trap.  And now, because he'd let his desire to get revenge on the wolf get the best of him, Remma and her mom might not even be alive.

The only thing that gave Cable any hope whatsoever was remembering that he'd been a captive once before, at the hands of Dor-ko.  He had escaped that time.  Perhaps he would escape again.

Eventually, the riders stopped.  Cable heard one of them--the fat one with the raspy, high-pitched voice--say, "Guess what, kids!  You're at the castle!  Just where you always wanted to go!"  He laughed and pulled Cable off the horse.  Cable tumbled to the ground, grunting in pain.  He heard Andres fall as well.

Cable then felt someone cut the ropes around his legs.  "Get movin', boys," said the tall man with the deeper voice.  Cable was pushed from behind, and he stumbled to the ground.  He winced in pain.  He could barely feel his legs after the long ride.  But before he could recover, the tall man grabbed him and yanked him back to his feet.  "Better not fall down again, boy," he said again.  "Next time, you might just fall into the moat.  And then I wouldn't be able to pick you up."  With that, Cable staggered along as best he could, not seeing where he was being led.

After a few minutes, Cable heard the tall man's voice again.  "Watch your step, boy," he said.  "You're heading down some stairs.  I wouldn't want you to break your neck before you even get to your prison cell."

"Yeah," said the high, raspy voice.  "If you die in the cell, we can leave you to rot.  If you die in the hallway, we've got to lug you out and toss you in the moat.  You'll make it a lot easier for us if you just get to your cell."  The fat man laughed.  He was quite impressed with his own sense of humor.

At that point, Cable heard Andres speak for the first time.  "Hey tubby, do you ever notice that you're the only one that laughs at your dumb jokes?" he asked.  Cable cringed.  Why couldn't Andres just keep his mouth shut?  He heard Andres get smacked with a stick of some sort.  Then he heard a snapping sound, and he heard the fat man mumble some curses.  Cable managed to chuckle to himself.  The fat man must have broken his staff over Andres' head!

Cable descended the stairs, and then was pushed down another hallway.  At long last, he stopped.  He heard a door open--a great, creaky door.  He was pushed into the room.  Then, at long last, his hood was removed.

He and Andres were in a dungeon.  The air was cold and damp.  The only light in the room was a torch that the tall man was carrying.  There was no window to the outside.  It had a dirt floor.  The only furniture was a small wooden table that stood in the middle of the room.

The fat man then spoke again.  "As I'd said, boys, today is your lucky day!  You're about to get a candlelight dinner!"  He inserted the torch into a slot on the wall.  He then reached into his pocket and pulled out two pieces of moldy bread.  Throwing them down on the table, he said, "Here you go, boys!  You're last meal!"  And he laughed again.

"What do you mean, 'you're last meal'?" demanded Andres.

"We mean this," sneered the tall man.  "When we leave this room, we're not gonna come back.  We're gonna lock this door and throw away the key.  We don't want to worry about you boys ever again."  Then the tall man walked over toward Cable.  He reached down, grabbed the necklace that was around his neck, and yanked it off. 

Cable's heart sank.  If he'd felt like a failure before, he knew he was a failure now.  The ring--which he'd so carefully guarded for so long--was gone.

"You see, this is all we wanted," snarled the fat man.  "Now that we've got it, we don't need you any more.  Yeah, Slumbutter's gonna be some happy when he sees this!"

The tall man and the fat man then turned and walked out of the cell.  If the boys had been thinking, they'd have made a dash for the door in an attempt to escape.  But it was as though the despair had paralyzed them.  Their feet felt like they were nailed to the floor.  They couldn't move.  They just stared in disbelief at the men that had taken them captive.

The tall man spoke up one last time.  "You boys can keep your satchels," he said.  "I saw the daggers.  They sure do look nice!  But you see, there is another prisoner in that cell.  He's lying in the corner, like he always does.  He's crazy, you see!  Pretty soon he'll start moaning and groaning and screaming.  You'll love it!  And since your hands are still tied up, I kind of wonder if the crazy man might want to grab those knives and kill you himself."

The tall man and the fat man then left the cell and slammed the door.  The boys shuddered when they heard the lock tumble into place.  Then the fat man spoke once more.  "Hey kids, I'm gonna leave you one last present!  Since I won't need this key any more, I'm gonna give it to you, just 'cause I'm such a nice guy!"  He then slid the key under the door.  "Of course, it won't do you much good in there, since it only opens from the outside.  Ha ha ha!  Am I clever or what?"  And the fat man filled the hallway with a sinister laugh as he walked down the hallway.

The boys were prisoners again.  And this time, there was no getting out.  The ring was gone.  There was no reason for their captors to pay any more attention to them.  Whatever hope they may have clung to before was gone.  They had followed the hermit's directions and made it to the castle.  But their quest had ended in complete failure.

The boys then heard a sound from the corner of the cell.  A voice muttered, "Who is in here?"

Andres turned to Cable.  "It's the crazy man!" he said.  "He's going to come kill us with our own daggers!"

Cable thought quickly.  "If we can get over to that torch and burn off the ropes around our hands, maybe we can grab the daggers before he does."

The boys darted over to the torch.  But it was mounted too high.  They couldn't reach it.  And as they turned to the other side of the cell, they saw a tall figure stand to his feet.  He slowly came to walk toward them.

"Stay away from us!" cried Andres.  "Stay away, you wild man!"

But still the man came closer.

Andres and Cable backed away.  They moved toward the door, hoping that somehow it might swing open.  But of course, it did no good.  Their hands were tied, and they couldn't get away.

Andres then did something desperate.  He lowered his head and ran as hard as he could at the approaching man.  He startled the man and knocked him over.  "Way to go, Andres!" shouted Cable, who was impressed with his brother's courage.  But it did little good.  The man simply pushed Andres to the side and stood back to his feet.  He then grabbed Andres' satchel and pulled it off from his shoulder.

The man pulled the dagger from out of the satchel.  Andres backed up against the wall, terrified.  The man walked toward Andres, grabbed him with his left arm, and held him against the wall.  Andres shrieked and wiggled and made every attempt to get free.  But it was no use.  He couldn't escape.

Cable then ran at the man in an attempt to knock him over.  But it was futile; the man just pushed him away with his elbow.  Cable fell to the floor.  As he rolled over and looked upward, he saw the man take the knife and point it toward Andres.

Andres, pushed against the wall, closed his eyes and waited for the end to come.

And then--to the boys' great surprise--the man cut the ropes that bound Andres' arms. 

Andres spun around.  The man handed Andres' dagger back to him.  "Here, you can have this back," he said.  "Go free your brother.  I mean you no harm."

Andres was stunned.  "But they said you were crazy!" he half-whispered and half-yelled.

The man remained calm and still.  "Haven't you learned that these men are nothing but liars?" he asked.  "Why would you believe anything they say?"

Silence overtook the room.  Andres shuffled over to Cable and cut his arms loose.  The boys laid their satchels on the ground and slowly walked over to the man.  Looking up into this eyes, they finally asked the question they'd been longing to ask.  "Who are you?" they said in unison.

"I," the man replied, "am Dorian."