After what felt like an eternity in the stifling darkness, which included a few more bumps into walls and stumbles over crooked stones underfoot, she began to see a hint of light shining up ahead. Like the lighting in the Moon Chamber, this was not the warm and fiery brightness of tungsten, and nor was it the harsh starkness of fluorescent strip lighting. Instead, it was the cool, bluish hue of the full moon above, diffused and amplified by the crystal domes of the castle and enhanced by the glow of the bioluminescent fungi.
What was more, it was not only light that was spilling into the secret passage; there were also voices. One in particular was quite familiar to Margaret: that of the General. She hurried forward, doing her best to move with stealth. The carpet of matted dust underfoot aided greatly with muffling the sound of her footsteps, at least, but she also had to worry about maintaining her balance. To fall and cry out now would be a certain giveaway of her presence, and God only knew what that maniac would do if he discovered her spying on him from a secret passage in his fortress.
With bated breath and a violent drumming of her heart, Margaret pressed her hands against the stone wall and inched forward, with a pervasive fear weighing every step she took with the leaden ponderousness of dread. Still, she pushed on. She had to; there was no turning back now.
The voices became louder and clearer, and soon she was able to hear the entire conversation. The General’s voice was booming through the passage, and causing the very walls to vibrate, it seemed, with its authoritative ferocity.
‘You, the vile scum who calls himself “Colonel Reaper” of the LRA, you are hereby convicted of the crimes of rape, murder and the wanton destruction of nature! And for committing these crimes, I sentence you to death.’
‘Jesus! Handing out death sentences?’ Margaret whispered. ‘So he’s judge, jury and likely the executioner as well, huh? Well, I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised, no, not with that attitude of his.’
She crept closer to the source of the light – a small hole drilled through the wall – giving her dark-accustomed eyes a good bit of time to adjust before getting too close, for after half an hour in this sheer blackness even the gentle moonlight seemed harsh.
When she felt that her eyes were ready, she stepped up the peephole. After pressing her eye up to it, she saw below her a large hall that looked a lot like the Moon Chamber. This space, however, was shaped like an amphitheatre. A number of the teen soldiers were seated in the stands, while the people Margaret had met at dinner sat in the front row. At the bottom of the amphitheatre the General was seated on an ornate throne, and in front of him a prisoner, dressed in plain khaki trousers and a tee shirt, was chained to the floor. The prisoner was a wiry middle-aged Congolese man, and from what Margaret could perceive in the soft light, his body was crisscrossed with a variety of scars, most of which were old and long-since healed. In his eyes there burned a devilish and defiant fire, and he gritted his teeth as he writhed and struggled against the chains that anchored him to the floor.
‘Have you any last words, Colonel Reaper?’ the General asked coldly.
‘Fuck you!’ the man roared. ‘Fuck you an’ everyone here! The Lord’s Resistance Army will kill you! They will find this place an’ burn it to d’ground! Me boys will cut your heart out an’ eat it in front of you! We will rape all ‘dese sluts, an’ we will skin every man an’ boy alive! You dead! All you motherfuckers! You all dead!’
After the man had finished his tirade a tense silence settled over the room; a silence heavy and thick, pared only by the condemned man’s desperate panting. And then, it began – a bassy wave bouncing off every wall, shaking the ancient foundations of this castle to their core; the General was laughing.
Other pockets of laughter started to erupt, bursting like fireworks from the gathered crowd of teen soldiers and the General’s friends, and soon the entire amphitheatre was a riot of hooting and mirthful howling. Then, abruptly, the General held up a stern hand, and dead silence returned with immediate effect. The prisoner was looking around him in frightened bewilderment, and any sense of false bravado he may have had had now been dashed by that crashing tsunami of mockery.
‘Colonel Reaper,’ the General asked, a dark mischief gleaming in his eyes, ‘would you like to hear what has become of that band of thugs, murderers and rapists, that collective of brutes that was your “mighty” battalion?’
‘Wh-, what the hell you t-, talking about?!’ Reaper spluttered.
The General stood up from his throne and turned to face a large door at the far end of the chamber.
‘Lieutenant Curie! Approach the court!’
A short, strongly built teenage girl strode into the chamber from the shadowy doorway. Like the General, she was attired in an extravagant Victorian-style military uniform. Behind her strode a lanky teenage boy, dressed in similar finery. He carried with him a large sack, bulging with a number of bulky objects. The girl stopped in front of the General and saluted stiffly. Her prominent brow was knit with determination, her eyes cold with bladed purpose.
‘General! Hail!’
‘At ease, Lieutenant,’ he replied.
The girl’s arms slackened at her side, but her back remained ramrod-straight, and her shoulders tense with readiness.
‘‘Lieutenant’?’ the prisoner spat, the furrows of lines and scars of his face contorted into a look that was at once surprise and disgust. ‘This little slut’s a lieutenant?!’
The General clenched and
