#6 - Calming the Vicious Beast

Weeks, I think. Silence. No human contact but the occasional dumb show when they want me to thrust my hands through the bars so they can shackle me and clean my cage. I don’t fight them. Not yet. I’m still studying. I will find a weakness.  I will get out.

Silence is become oppressive. I sing to myself.  I recite every passage out of the Holy Book of God… that I remember.  My memory is being blurred by this blasphemy I read.  I even went so far as to memorize Goddess passages to bellow at the silent, unanswering walls.

Nothing. The lamp is lit in the morning, I assume.  I study it, every day. Then it is put out in the evening.  Their schedule.  The woman, and three men.  No boys. They’ve all fought. I can see it.  A dirty blond, two brunette and a mahogany red-head.  The woman is one of the brunettes. They are now refusing eye contact as I get louder.  They’re good.  Not mute, not deaf, I think.  They’re good.  They hate me for not being him.

I bow under silence. I held up the Holy Book they gave me and signed ‘please’ for more.  They don’t know that I would get on my knees to my captors for more books at this point.  If I stare at the walls during the day I can make them swim in my sight as if I tried a bit harder I’d make them go transparent.  I’m going mad.  They bring no more books for me.  Who may I grovel to, for books?

It must be fall by now.  The air is getting colder and there is no sign of a stove down here.  I couldn’t burn anything down.  It is clammy. I think they have a brazier outside the corridor here. A puff of dry warmth sometimes blows through the barred window.

I sing every hymn I know.  Every drinking song my soldiers taught me. Every child’s nursery song, dredged up from my memory before I forgot innocent things.  My throat goes raw and I am reduced to a hoarse whisper but I cannot fill the silence.  The silence encased in stone. I spent my life driving people away from me, not realizing I was clinging to them like a howling toddler unable to bear being alone.

No wonder I craved the war trail.  I am… I was… adored by my soldiers because I couldn’t bear losing them and they knew it; being with them, around their campfires. Not having to say anything, just be there and listen.  They seemed so alien to me with their talk of sweethearts and mothers and fathers who loved them, who they loved. But I could be with them, gladly, and didn’t have to defend myself from them or their dreams.

I sit and stare at the page before me.  Please. God. 

God cannot help me.  I can help me.

**

Ahrimaz tore a scrap of paper out of his book and scribbled a single line on it, folded it shut and wrote ‘Limyé Ianmen’ on it, laid it on his tray.  When the guard came to get the dishes, Ahrimaz, carefully standing in the middle of his cell, waved to get his attention.  He pointed at the note and put his hands together, palm to palm. Please.

The guard stared at him suspiciously, tucked the note into his belt, took the tray and secured the pass through.

Scorching hell, please let him deliver it. Please don’t let him just toss it in the nearest flame.

**

He had no pocket watch, left in another world for another him to wear and consult and slide into his watch pocket.

The outer door clicked and Ahrimaz was on his feet, like a sight hound confronted with a distant hare, tense and quivering.

The guard let the Imaryan in, set a folding chair under the shelf with the light.  He set a stack of books on the floor next to the healer and locked him in. 

Feeling as though his voice had rusted shut, Ahrimaz coughed, cleared his throat and forced the pleasantry out.  “Thank you for coming.”

“You are welcome.  It was a very politely worded request.”

“You made it clear last time that rudeness wouldn’t be tolerated.” It felt so good to speak and be answered. 

“I will come and listen to you, speak with you, Ahrimaz.  If we can have good conversation then I will stay, of course.  If you slip and revile me, I will allow two such mishaps.  If you accept me as your healer you may say what you wish and I will not leave you to rot alone in this place, whatever you call me.”  He didn't mention the books, nor look at them.

 

Aha! Of course he wants me in this thrall… he wants to catch me as his patient. Vile manipulator.

“For the moment I think we are at the good conversation stage, Ser Ianmen.”

“If I may call you Ahrimaz then you may call me Limyé.”

“Limyé. Certainly.”  I know how to hide what I truly feel from those in power.  I could hide under my father’s eye for long enough to kill him.  Though when I was a little boy I always had my heart out and open for him to stamp on. “Please, tell me, what is the weather?”