A Flight of Ravens by John Conroe (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

“Not that I know of.  I heard a bunch of steps earlier, but they went to a different section of the dungeons.”

A sharp metallic screech caused me to hold up my hand, fist clenched for silence.  He nodded and hurried to lie back down as the sounds of several pairs of boots came in the darkness.

I moved to my own bed and sat.  The footsteps walked up to my door, then came the sounds of a latch being thrown, and suddenly an overhead metal grate rumbled down over the oak door, like a miniature portcullis.  The big ironbound door creaked open to reveal Egg, the jailer, holding a torch high so the light shone over the shoulder of the king. Standing back in the shadows was another man, whose face I couldn’t see.

“Ah, Savid.  Awake much faster than even I had guessed,” the king said, his voice almost jovial.  “Comfortable?”  He looked a little off, as he had in his throne room.

“I have a sharp pain in my neck, Your Majesty, from all of the sudden turns.  Hero to outcast to favored son to prisoner.”

“Too fast for you?” he asked, his tone condescending.  “My daughter has always espoused your intelligence, but I’ve had my own doubts for years.”  It was hard to get a real good look at him, but his eyes seemed a little wild, and his skin seemed slack.  Those bells in my head were going crazy now.  “So let me explain.  You are, have always been, and will always be—just a tool.  Like Toothacker here.”  He waved behind him at the man shrouded in darkness, whose shape I now realized matched the rook’s.  “And, to your credit, you are a most excellent tool at that.  But the issue is that you are my daughter’s tool—ha!  A joke in there somewhere!”

King Helat was an egomaniac but even still, this behavior was far out of his norm.

“Neil has been in your ear, Your Majesty?” I asked, taking a risk I normally wouldn’t.

He laughed.  “Neil has been with me since our days together in the Academy, when my father was still king—in the days when your father only had the guts to stare at your mother from afar.”

“That’s right. You were roommates at the Academy,” I said.  “But he left after graduating, right?  Lived in Berkette for a number of years.”

“Berkette, Mandrigo, Lachia, and Wenkroy,” the king replied, nodding.  “Neil traveled and experienced most of the cultures of our little world.  It made him the spymaster he is today.”

“And he returned only after you ascended the throne, am I right?” I asked.

He stared at me of a moment, then turned to Egg.  The squat jailer knew his cue and immediately stepped forward, tossing a bucket of cold water through the grate.  There was no room to dodge and I didn’t even try, having only enough time to close my eyes. I waited for the icy water to run free from my eyes so I could open them.

The king continued as if nothing had happened.  “Yes, that’s right.  He stepped up to faithfully serve me when my time had finally arrived.  He has forgone a wife and family to give himself to this kingdom.”

“And stood by your side the night your own wife died so mysteriously.”

The king didn’t even have to move for Egg to know to throw another bucket of water on me.  He must have taken them from outside to have the water so icy cold.

“I’ve indulged you enough, Savid.  You are a sharp weapon, one currently locked away from my daughter’s grasp.  Perhaps solitary reflection will be a benefit to you,” Helat said, backing from the door and waving at Egg, who threw one more bucket on me before shutting the oak door. Even the little porthole was shut tight.

The king and his own weapon, Toothacker, moved away down the hall while the sounds of Egg moving about told me he remained nearby.  I was left freezing cold and soaking wet in near complete darkness.

Chapter 34

I peeled off my undershirt and wrung its retained water into my mouth.  After laying it over the stone bed, I did the same with my wool pants, steeling myself to ignore the awful taste of wool in the precious water.  Whether I would receive food and water, I didn’t know, and my training dictated staying as combat ready as possible.  Naked but for my underwear, I pushed my stiff body through sets of pushups and other exercises to raise my temperature and stave off hypothermia.  When I was done, I put the pants back on, as the wool would help retain warmth, even damp.  The undershirt was cotton and wouldn’t help me at all.  I left it on the stone bed and then sat upon it, hoping the body heat of my posterior would help it to dry.  Legs crossed in a sitting position, I started a breathing exercise that was one of my first lessons from Jella.

Slow, steady, measured breaths.  In through the nose, down into my lungs, then back out through my mouth, relaxing more of my muscles and tendons with every breath.  It might have helped that the three buckets of water had washed some of the filth out of the cell, taking down the awful odors by quite a lot.

I put everything out of my mind for a bit, concentrating on relaxing each body part, starting with my feet, all the way up to the crown of my head. When I was as relaxed as I could be, floating in the chill dark, pushing away the chill of my cooling skin, I pictured a well of black ink in my mind.  Every stray thought that tried to force its way in was pushed aside and sunk into the ink spot that I kept centered.  The calisthenics and relaxation technique, along with the cloth-tainted water, all helped flush away the lingering effects of the toxin, so I was feeling better, if chilled, when I