The Three Kings

by Slawomir Rapala

Chapter III: End of Days

part 1 of 5

Iskald was slow to regain consciousness. His head ached and his ears were filled with an irritating high-pitched noise that would not recede or subside. His eyelids were heavy, as if made from lead, and he could barely lift them to open his eyes. When he managed to do so they fell right back down and over and over again Iskald felt himself coming back to the brink of darkness.

Eager to conquer the overwhelming fatigue, he drew a deep breath. Immediately his senses registered a sickening stench and the boy coughed and shook his head vigorously. The wretched reek made him sick to his stomach and it was all around him, all around in the darkness, that thick blackness that surrounded him even now, though he was fully awake.

For some time the boy stared absentmindedly into the pitch-black surroundings. His head still pained terribly and he lifted his hand to touch the sore spot. When he moved he felt something heavy and cold slide down his wrists with a metallic clank. As he moved his hands up and down several times, Iskald realized with utter confusion that he was chained to the wooden floor where he sat.

He instantly forgot about his hurting head and quickly moved his hands down to his legs only to find them shackled as well. He closed his eyes trying to gather thoughts together, trying to understand what was happening to him. The cold metal burnt his skin, but it bruised his pride even more.

Who dared do this to him?

He opened his eyes, just about ready to scream and threaten his invisible oppressors, eager to tell them that his father, the almighty Vahan of Lyons would avenge this insolence done upon his son. And then he remembered.

He sat still for a few moments, his head flooded with a sudden rush of memories, bits and pieces of the events he witnessed, trying to piece everything together, to put it all back in order.

His father.

Iskald closed his eyes again and saw him tumbling down that dreadful crag. He saw the triumphant look in the beastly Tha-kian’s eyes. The savage’s victorious, sickening yell still echoed in the boy’s head. He kept his eyes closed and felt a flood of tears rushing down his cheeks. He wanted to shout and cry and scream all at once, he could feel his heart being torn to pieces, trampled, ripped and shattered by the brutal memory and by the horrible image.

His father was dead.

Iskald bit his lips trying to hold the tears back, but in vain. His shaken soul demanded an outlet. His trembling hands rose up to the dark sky that was beyond his reach, hidden in the awful darkness. The boy’s eyes glowed in the blackness and as his face turned to the gods, he looked them in the eyes and with one long, horrendous shriek he demanded justice for the suffering he was dealt without any warning or reason.

The sound that left his throat was anything but human. The empty darkness turned a deaf ear and swallowed up this voice full of hurt and hatred, hatred for those that took his father and imprisoned him. The wild shriek echoed off the walls of the closed compartment and died quickly, but no sooner was it gone when Iskald felt someone pulling him by the arm and shaking him violently. A terrified, feverish whisper was spitting words straight into his ear:

“What are you doing? What are you doing, are you mad? Shira must have heard you! Cover your face, remember, cover your face!”

The strange voice fell quiet just as suddenly and retreated back to the darkness from whence it came and all Iskald could hear now were the heavy steps of someone approaching. The boy first saw the light of a lantern the man was holding in one of his massive hands and only when his eyes adjusted to the sudden flood of light did Iskald see the man himself. He was large and his skin was black, although not nearly as black as his heart was, as Iskald was soon to learn. He wore no shirt, revealing a heavy-set chest covered with thick and dark hair. His eyes burnt brightly like two torches set amidst a black face that was now twisted in a furious grimace. It all made the Tha-kian resemble some sort of a mythic beast, primitive and vicious.

“You wanna scream, you little maggot?” Shira growled, his eyes shining dangerously in the fickle light. “You wanna holler like a little piggy?”

The man spoke in Azmattic, the common tongue in nearly all civilized nations, and Iskald had no trouble understanding the threat behind the words that the beastly-looking Tha-kian spat into his face, especially since at the same time the brute unhooked a long and heavy whip from behind his belt. Before the boy knew what was happening, his already weakened body was exposed to a series of severe and painful lashes that left behind long and red marks.

Shira’s face twisted with rage and he beat the boy viciously, infuriated by what he perceived to be insolence. He used the whip with great skill, without wasting any motion or breath, making sure that each blow was delivered with utmost strength. Each lash bit into Iskald’s skin with rage and tore painful screams from his throat. Though the ragged clothing he now wore protected him somewhat from the savage beating, the boy still could not come to his senses long after the Tha-kian had left. He lay on the floor like a broken doll, bleeding from the lashes, breathing hard and weeping into his arm.

He was only a boy.

When he finally regained some strength, he noted that his brutalized body now rested against the wooden wall. A young man crouched close by and stared intently into his face. Iskald could only see his dark outline and could not make out his features at all, but there could be no mistake as to his presence because it was marked with a set of eyes burning like two open flames in the blackness around them.

Noting that Iskald was finally coming around, the man stirred. “You were lucky this time,” a hoarse whisper escaped the shadow’s lips.

“Lucky?” Iskald stammered, barely able to force the words out of his throat. His mouth was dry and he felt in it the sweet taste of blood. His whole body was shaken up and hurting, and he would do anything for a drink of water right now.

“Water?” he whispered.

“No water,“ the stranger replied. “They ration it out in the morning.“

“I shouldn’t be here,” Iskald wept.

“You should thank the gods,” his new companion continued. “When Shira takes a hold of his whip, he doesn’t let go of it so quickly. He could have beaten you to death.”

Iskald tried to lift his body, but the man warned him: “Watch it! Your back is flogged; it’s in pretty bad shape. I stopped the flow of blood as best as I could, but I’m no healer. You’re lucky too, that he didn’t hit your face, that’s how you lose your eyes around here.”

Iskald felt the pain as soon as he stirred, and he gave a low moan. “It hurts...” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Sure it hurts!” the stranger gave a hushed laughter. “Shira has a heavy arm and he sure likes to use it. But don’t worry too much; the pain will pass in a couple of days. You might be left with a few scars, but that’s a fair price to pay for keeping your life and head in one piece, don’t you think?”

Iskald slumped back to the floor in utter exhaustion. He allowed his head to rest against the hard wooden floor and closed his eyes. He lay on his side breathing heavily without saying anything for a long time, using all of his strength to stop the flow of tears that came rushing from his eyes, so that his companion, whoever he was, would not think him weak.

His mind flooded with a wave of unstoppable thoughts, none of which made sense. Iskald’s entire world made no sense and language could neither express nor embrace the feeling of absolute shock and despair that overwhelmed him. His world was being unmade with each passing moment.

The man crouching at his side was quiet as well, as if knowing what went on in Iskald’s mind. He looked at him with sudden compassion in his eyes. “You ever been flogged before?” he asked after a while.

Iskald raised his head and looked closely at his neighbour. The darkness seemed to lessen a little; perhaps someone lit a torch in the distance and the young Duke could now see the features of the man before him more clearly. He was not a man at all, but a boy of about sixteen or seventeen years of age, much like himself. Rags covered his lanky body and he stank terribly. His face was dirty and his long hair matted. But his eyes burnt keenly and they were full of life.

“Who are you?” Iskald asked, trying to hide the fact that the stinging pain was now becoming almost unbearable. He bit his lips to stop himself from crying again, but his eyes swelled up anyway.

“My name is Xunnax.”

“You’re from Uaal, right?”

“No,” the youth replied. “Where’s that?”

“I saw you there a few of times.”

“It couldn’t have been me. I come from the Izmattic Isles.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Iskald waited for Xunnax to ask him about his name, but the question never came. He decided to speak anyway.

“My name’s Iskald,” he said.

“I know who you are,” Xunnax lifted his head.

“How?”

“People talk around here, there’s whispers floating in the air.” Xunnax laughed quietly. “And as wretched as the air is here, I breathe it in to keep myself alive. So I heard about you. Who you are doesn’t really matter in here, does it though? Strange are the paths we must take, no? Stranger still is the company we must keep sometimes.”

Iskald said nothing. Xunnax was odd, he thought. Perhaps he was already overtaken and driven mad by the grief, the pain, and the suffering.

“Several days ago you dined on gold dishes and slept on silky sheets, and today? Today you’re in shackles, sitting next to a peasant boy and just like the rest of us you’ll eat from a dirty pot and you’ll sleep on this dirty floor, thinking it’s the most comfortable bed in the entire world! Oh, life is not without its irony!”

Xunnax chuckled wildly and blinked hard. He leaned in to look into Iskald’s terrified face and chuckled again like a madman in fever.

Iskald drew back quickly. The sudden movement caused him to accidentally touch the rough wooden wall with his maimed body. A faint cry escaped his lips and he had to lean on his elbows.

Xunnax stopped laughing and moved back to his own place under the wall. For a while Iskald could hear the shuffling of chains, but soon everything was quiet. He thought Xunnax went to sleep.

The pain was subsiding now and the boy sighed with relief. He closed his eyes and thought about going to sleep as well, but he gave the idea up as soon as he closed his eyes. His thoughts raced.

After a while, he sat back up. He tried to penetrate the darkness around him, but to no use. He could hear Xunnax breathing hard beside him. Iskald leaned his body carefully against the wall and tried to gather his thoughts again. He could not understand anything, and the more he tried to make sense of it all, the less sense the world made. His pained head was flooded with thoughts, but not one of them was distinguishable from the hundred others.

Iskald succumbed to a strange feeling of disbelief and disassociation from the world; how could it be that his father was dead, that all the villagers were slain, that Uaal was destroyed and desecrated by the filthy Tha-kians? How could it be that he, Iskald of Lyons, now lay in some wretched pit, unable to move his hands or feet because of the vile chains holding him down, beaten and maimed by a primitive beast?

The boy stared into the pitch black darkness in a state of utter disbelief, his mouth half-open, trying to make sense of this overturned world, where everything that he knew to be normal and real, suddenly ceased to be such. His reality was suddenly inverted and he was forced down to the lowest pits; how did all of this happen?

How could all of this have happened so quickly?

The boy recalled Aezubah’s warnings now, his tired and troubled eyes, and his troublesome words. Did he have anything to do with all of this? How did he know, how could he have known when even his father did not?

Iskald flushed in the darkness, ashamed that such a thought even occurred to him. Aezubah was his mentor and friend; he loved the boy and would never do anything to betray him. And he was a proud warrior, too, one of those whose actions stirred the hearts of people and of whom tales were sung around campfires. He was the General, beloved by thousands of warriors for his courage and honor. Aezubah was incapable of betraying his friends; he was a soldier in every sense of that word. He was the General.

How did he know, Iskald asked himself? He knew because he listened to his feelings, the same feelings that his father ridiculed. Aezubah’s instincts had kept him alive for over sixty years now, why then, why did they not listen when he tried to warn them of an elusive threat? Maybe it would all be different now. Maybe his father would be alive...

Iskald curled into a ball like a small child and wept, silently and quietly shedding tears for his father, for the slaughtered villagers, for the mad Xunnax, and finally, he shed tears for himself.

To be continued...