was screaming and the taste of blood was filling his throat. He scrambled to his feet and ran forward into the inky darkness only to strike his head on sheer stone, knocking himself straight back into unconsciousness. Another time, he thought he was free and escaping from the city,only to realise, as the blackness returned, that it wasbuta delusion-any images that came to him were now fantasy; only the blackness was truth.
At times, he thought he could hear a scraping, like some clawed creature pawing at him from beyond a wall, and a whispering sounded at the edge of his perception, sometimes forceful and insistent,at other times pleading and desperate. At one point, he felt that the wall around him had collapsed and that the whispering thing was now upon him, but it was all dreams and nightmares,fever and illusions. All he wanted was to return to his love, but the pain behind his face would not allow it.
He awoke more and more frequently, and it was only at these times that it was truly dark and quiet. He took such opportunities to explore his surrounds, crawling around on the hard stones and moaning for someone to help him. No one came to his aid and he could only collapse flat back onto some rags on the floor and wait for unconsciousness to takehold ofhim again. Each time, a tiny vestige of his strength returned, and soon he hoped to be able to hold onto his awareness long enough to discover what had happened to him.
He found himself surmising that he must beimmuredagain in the Queen’s catacombs, buried beneath Mount Karthma and,along with the thought,came a strange and sudden euphoria, for he realised he was fully awake.
He scrambled desperately to find the door, clawing away in all directions at the stone, only to realise that one hand was passing through air while the other met rock. Fumbling his fingers about his body, he discovered a wet stump just below his right elbow, and remembered what had happened.
Carefully, he raised his stump and explored the wound with his fingers. It had hardened and was dry in some places, but was seeping in others. Testing the extents of his prison, he felt around with his left hand held out before him, searching for the door. Eventually, he realised that he must have already made two or three circles around the chamber without finding anything. There was no door to find and the cell was scarcely large enough for him to lie in. Testing his suspicions, he ran his palm over the rocks, standing on the tips of his toes and reaching up. There was no ceiling above him that he could feel and the rocks seemed to lean in, as if narrowing inwards to form a chute.
It seemed that he was in the same cell that had been Balten’s home for so long, in the deepest recesses of the Paatin Queen’s catacombs. He was without an arm and without his ring and,even if he had either, he was separated from freedom by a mountain of magic-defying stone.
He was lucky that he had survived being thrown down into the cell in the first place, for the fall could easily have broken his neck, and lucky that he had not then bled to death as he had lain unconscious. If what had happened to Balten was any indication, he would be left without food and water until he rotted. Unless someone came to save him, he would be down here indefinitely-but all his friends had already fled the city.
The Emperor was a prisoner of the enraged Queen and the Koian woman, pregnant with his child, was in no condition to come to his aid. Was that one of his feverish delusions? Did he really love her? Now, awake and coming to terms with his predicament, he was not very sure of anything.
Realising his throat was crying out from thirst, Samuel stopped down low and licked around the base of the wall for tiny droplets of water. It was hard work, but he could feel the coolness on his tongue and it tempered his thirst to some degree. His stomach was aching for food, but there was simply nothing to eat. He patted around on the floor with his remaining hand for any scraps his captors may have thrown down, but there was nothing but hard stone and grit. Not even bugs ventured around the cell, and even his magician’s
It was curious that his rendered arm caused no pain, for he imagined the wound should be worse. The only feeling was a deep throbbing in his bone, but the weeping end gave no sensation at all. Often, he forgot about the injury and thought he could feel his fingers wiggling on the end of his hand in the darkness, but any attempt to clasp his hands together quickly taught him thetruthof the matter. His arm was gone and it would not be returning on its own any time soon.
He slept on the hard stone and awoke whenever he imagined he heard something, but,as he sat perfectly still, cocking one ear towards the trapdoor above, there was nothing to hear. He talked to himself and murmured away in the darkness to pass the time, singing songs and humming tunes. He guessed a few more days might have passed in the meantime and the terrible realisation kept coming home to him that very shortly he would starve to death.
He rememberedthat Balten had survived by enteringintoa catatonic state,and so Samuel began by sitting in a similar position andtrying tocalm his thoughts. It proved difficult, for he felt restless and jittery-an effect of his injury and starvation, he guessed. Many times, he leapt up in a fury and roared out loud, screaming and venting his wrath towards the hatch far above him, but it did no good. He threw himself at the walls and smashed his fist against the hard stones. Hisefforts were futile and he dropped to the floor, weeping in misery. Exhausted and parched, he laid himself out on the floor and peered up through the darkness to where he imagined the exitwas.
‘I’m sorry, Leila,’ he croaked to himself. ‘I thought I would do better for you. I wasn’t strong enough. I was never strong enough. I couldn’t save anyone.’
‘
After that, nothing happened, except the dark remained dark and the quiet stayed quiet for what felt like a long,
Perhaps it was his uncanny ability to recover from injury, or perhaps it was merely his inability to admit defeat, but Samuel lived. In fact, he did much more than that-he became stronger.
In his comatose state upon the floor of his cell, his mind had a complete lack of stimuli and so it turned in upon itself and began to soar. The world outside his imagination had become dark, and he could no longer reach the Koian woman beyond the confines of his cell, and so he followed the only light he could find, that which was burrowed away inside his mind. He followed the channels and rivers of energy that ran with his thoughts, carried in all directions by a compound nest of vibrant and shimmering filaments. He explored the endless landscapes inside himself: rivers and mountains and oceans of power. He found his memories and delved himself inside them, exploring the years and moments of his life and reliving all the moments of joy and sadness, love and hate.
He was running with Leila in the meadows of Tindal, marvelling at the wonder of her beauty, as she spun amongst the daisies. He was standing on lonely hilltops, moving through his stances and dancing amidst the lightning. He was in the School of Magic, laughing and joking with the Ericsbesidehim, poking them in the ribs and receiving the same back twofold. He was studying in the Great Library and watching Master Glim dictate the secrets of magic, with the friendly old teacher peering back at him over thick spectacles. He felt a flash of exhilaration as he relived watching Master Ash blasted to ashes and he experienced the moment of triumph as he followed the sword that buried itself into the Emperor’s flesh.
Then he was young again, bound towards Cintar atop the shuddering wagon with Tulan Goodwin, hugging his knees and nervous at what would come. He relived the terror of that night as Master Ash’s witch hunters slew his family, and he saw again that incandescent vision of Ash standing in the doorway, directing the slaughter-but now Ash looked young and thin,as he would have truly been, not at all as frightening as he had been to Samuel, distorted by the memories of a child. He heard his mother’s sobs as she dragged Samuel from the house, and he saw his father’s blank expression as he lay dead upon the floor, staring at Samuelfromunder the table. Night flashed to day and he was in the markets, frolicking with Tom and the village boys, causing mischief and covered in soot from head to foot. Through the trees and valleys around his home he roamed, darting and prancing and waving his stick-sword,runningdown into Bear Valley, dipping his toes into the icy waters. Then he was playing on his mother’s rug,carried in her arms and nestled against her bosom.
Before that, everything was warm and dark and comfortable. He could still hear the voices of his mother and father nearby, along with the steady drumming beat of her heart-always present, always reassuring-a steady,rhythmic pounding that gathered his thoughts and set the rhythm by which he had set his life. Finally, it was dark and quiet again and he was racing towards some boundary, an incredible barrier of energy that required tremendous effort to penetrate. He was not afraid, for he was accompanied by a guiding spirit that would see him through, and there was a flash of light-and he was someone else.
He turned calmly to the woman beside him, for he was suddenly standing in a world that seemed entirely
