[Plot] The Costs of Loyalty (ft. Five)

[The Narrator]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐲​ Continued from Prices Willingly Paid. "The worst part about it all is the babbling about you." "He has become rather obsessed, I think." Cartell chuckled a little bit. It had been a little over a week since they'd arrived. Cartell had slipped Howe quite a bit more of the Blue Lady than he had been ready for, and had put the weak-willed pawn of a man into a deep slumber. Getting him onto a cart had taken two thralls under his care. The lady, Heartless, had decided that it was time to move him to Sha'yogeth, and what the lady wanted, she would receive. Every time that he spoke to her, he was more and more sure that the lady was acting on behalf of the Herald. How else could someone without eyes see so much? When Cartell had awoken after reaching Sha'yogeth, it had been to the screams of Howe. What exactly his brother in service has been doing to the man, he didn't know—he also didn't ask. It wasn't the sort of thing that he cared to know about either. He was no sadist. It was all in the service of the Herald's wishes. But this was part of what needed to be done. He would slip into the man's cell, under the guise of being a savior to Howe. The first day he had even given him a pencil and that journal of his that he always carried with him. He had been tempted to just leave it on the ground where it had fallen. They had needed to jostle him a bit to get him into the cart. Instead, he saw it as something that he could use to gain favour. His brother would torture him for a day, perhaps two, and then Cartell would sneak himself into the cell. Sometimes he'd speak from the other side of a wall. Was Cartell also a prisoner? Was he a servant? Howe couldn't possibly know. All he knew for sure was that every so often Cartell would continue to ply him with favours. Smaller favours now. A dab of Blue Lady to dull the agonies faced that day for a very short while. A drink of fresh water. One time he'd even given him about a cup of cheap alcohol made from the disgusting mushrooms that grew along the outside of the prison. It was foul, but drinkable, and like the borderline trivial amounts of drugs, they were to serve a purpose, not to intoxicate the prisoner. "Has he said anything of note?" Cartell asked, pouring himself a glass of red wine as he carved into the tender meat of a deer that had been brought for them. "No indication of why the lady is interested in him?" His compatriot, a slightly older man named Crowe, shrugged. "He talks about his work when prompted. He's a mason or something, just a low-class stepping stone with some familiarity about rocks or whatever. Seems otherwise unimportant. He ahs no family to speak of that matters, he is not connected to any of the upper ranks in any military or church..." Crowe shrugged, biting into meat and chewing loudly. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "Other than that, nothing of note... mostly just screams and cries. Sometimes I'll let him scribble in that book of his for a while, so I finish early and leave him alone. He hides it, though. Thinks we don't know where it is." Cartell nodded. It was the sort of thing that would keep someone tethered to sanity, though for how long? He knew that the ritual would be soon. The next time that he spoke with Howe, he would start to talk about the Herald. How the Herald would be the path of redemption for him. How she would come and she would free him from this place. True, in a manner of speaking. But progress needed to be made yet. The Heart to Open would have to be ready. Cartell would make sure that he was.

 

[Five]

Day 1, Half Moon, ???​

I don't know where I am. Am I in a dungeon? Have I been arrested? If I have been accused of some crime my punishment is coming first. I can only hope that a trial is soon coming and I may at least be assuaged by the knowledge of my misdeeds. Some reason for all of this torment. To die not knowing, to have no meaning to any of it... The story of my life, actually.

At least I have this. My writing. My only solace, this hidden record, that someday my unknown bastard, or anyone should discover these wrinkled, damp pages, and my trembling scrawl, and they might know me. Might be aware of my existence. Might find some value to my story.

Cartell is here. He is a prisoner, like me. They have made him some kind of servant or runner in between. Must be because he is wealthy or more important station than I, they can't afford to whip him mercilessly the way they do to me. He is fearful though. And he risks so much in his furtive moments to come to me. He found my journal in some office and returned it to me with the stub of a charcoal pencil to write with. I am blessed.

Even laying here, on my elbows and knees, crying as my back feels shredded and exposed down to the bone, scribbling by moonlight from my cell window, I feel blessed by the comfort of this page. And the presence of my only friend in the world. It is terrible to say but I am glad to not suffer alone for whatever crimes we committed.

---

Day 3, Half Moon, Not Tethis​

Hi. It is me again. Howe.

What is it that they want?

I know now from looking at the stars and the passage of the heavenly bodies from my window, this is not Tethis. I grew up there in the city and would know what should be seen rising and falling at this time of season. I might not know exactly what day we are in the solstice any more but I at least know enough from what I remember of home that this place is not it. So...where am I?

I also know this because of how things operate here. I don't even think this man has a purpose in torturing me. He asks me questions, delves into my life but my answers, whether I tell the truth outright or resist him with stubborn lies, it doesn't matter. He seems satisfied most of the time by my horrid shrieking and wailing. Sometimes, no matter how desperate I am to please him, the screaming is all I can seem to conjure from within. Sometimes the words just dry up inside me.

Cartell is ever my savior. He cannot free me, cannot stop the man in his pursuit to break my body. But he can soothe my despair in small ways.

From somewhere, Cartell found a bit of Blue Lady to share with me. It was such a small bit, snorted off the back of my own dirty hand but it was enough to fog my brain from the agony of my bleeding sores and bruised limbs. It was such an immediate sweet sorrowful bliss that I kissed every bit of him I could grab - hands, his feet, his robes - through the bars in the cell door before he started to get anxious by my indecent sobbing and had to leave before he was discovered helping me. If ever I get the chance to repay his kindnesses, I will. I fear the chance will never come and I am ever grateful for the fact he never asks me for anything.

For now the Lady calls me to her soothing slumber. My sleep has been so fitful here, I worry what might become of my mind if I don't take this chance while she promises the embrace of just a few hours of oblivion.

---

Day 5, Quarter Full, Sha'Yogeth​

I now have a name for this place. Cartell whispered it to me, like it was a sinner's word. It means nothing to me except that I am not home and likely never will be again. This is the place my soul will be trapped. I abandoned my gods and they have abandoned me.

---

Day 8, Waxing Moon, The Realm of Death and Deep Earth​

It is me. Howe. I think.

What does that even mean anymore?

Who am I but a thing that feels and aches and starves and bleeds? I feel untethered from the world. I feel like I have slipped into the Underworld where the unrighteous dead get tormented for eternity.

The Blue Lady is not the solace I thought she was. I think my torturer knows I take it to undo and numb the hideous work he has done. They use magic on me. Somehow, some evil spell has been wrought upon my brain to torture me from the inside.

I thought we had escaped. Cartell had come, secretive, worried, slipping into my cell as he sometimes does. Only this time, after he eased my suffering with a hefty snort of Blue Lady and a robust drink of the miserable liquor he'd found, he urged me to my feet and hauled me through the door. My mind was swimming but with my pain gone and the combination of poppy and alcohol keeping me awake, I was alert and a contributor to my escape. I got a cloak and got onto a horse while Cartell led the way on a horse of his own. We rode out the gates at night and rushing grasslands surrounded us, the grey sky lightening with dawn. The beast between my legs, warm and thundering with hard, steady galloping, the rushing of cold air whipping my stolen cloak around; freedom had never felt so open and alive.

Then I faltered, suddenly aware of space around me. A wild land, prairies and valley hills obscuring what could have been a coastline or a lakeside to the north. But I found myself alone and slowed my brindle mare, turning and looking for my friend. I felt lost, alone, his name on my tongue but I couldn't bring it to life. I heard my name, said close by and I turned the horse and turned her again, the poor creature whickering in complaint over my confusing directions. Still I found no one.

My eyes focused and I saw the face of my torturer peering closely at me, inspecting me, searching for something. I was in the spread eagle pose in my usual bindings when he came to do his awful ministrations upon my flesh. There was no horse. There was no grassy field. I had never left. I know this because he suddenly seemed to find exactly what he was looking for in my face, smiling with a smug, crooked surety.

"Tch. Sooo cloooose," he cooed at me.

I thought my screams and tears had all dried up by now. I was wrong.

This is how I know this is not the land of the living. I am in the dark depths and these spirits are punishing my soul. How else could they do these things? By what power are they able to play with my mind?

My torturer has discovered fire and hot brands in his bag of tools. Have you ever been so hungry, so starving, that the smell of yourself cooking made your stomach rumble with an eager ache? Soon, he will run out of skin to marr with the flat iron and hot pokers and he will have to satisfy himself with flaying me. Who will Howe be then?