Prisoner I

  My frail throat, withered and worn, was the first thing I noticed. And then, the clanging of iron and keys which bore a cacophony of woe upon my sheltered ears. My eyes cracked the sleep of the night before as they sprang open. Someone had come to see me.

  Lifting my head, I looked up at the iron bars which had risen, allowing me a full look at the rusted metal sky leagues above and the grand, massive lights—or, at least, the best sense of a ‘full look’ I could muster through the small slits of the iron mask welded to my face.

  “Bishop! Bishop!” Rook screeched at me.

  My head dropped as I saw my little friend, Rook, pounding his thin arms down on my leg. Being a once-domesticated imp, Rook’s skin was an extremely light shade of purple—nearly pink, like ours; and his black hair, unlike most of his broken kind, had grown so long and tangly that I often considered cutting it with my nails. He still had those neon green eyes though. Every now and again, I thought about blinding him.

  But he wouldn’t like that, and I wouldn’t do such a thing to him.

  “It’s alright,” I whispered, brushing his hair.

  In response, he scurried up my leg and hugged my waist, all the while staring up at the open world he once escaped.

  Someone lowered a small, grey ladder into the cell, and down came a man with a red-cloak—the sign of a Son Consul. But it was a little different from what I remember; it bore the shape of a golden hand on it. After him came another, wearing the blue half-cape of the princes.

  Although I was slightly surprised that whatever sorry sod had become the consul of the princes had come to visit me, surprise only became my whole as I realised that the consul of the sons who had come to visit me… wasn’t Gerald.

  “Since when do we allow prisoners pets?” the Son Consul asked his partner, glancing at Rook with those… grey eyes.

  Grey. He’d aged faster than most would, with his slicked, once-black hair nearly a full set of grey and the pale of a stubble now burned onto his clean face. He was… so wrinkled, so old. The John I knew always dreaded the day.

  To be fair, however, I probably look far worse under this mask. “It’s good to see you, Johnny Boy.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” John cruelly replied, holding a hand to his partner, “this is Consul Edwin of the Princes of Hector. He wishes to speak with you.”

  “Look at you,” I ignored the introduction, instead strenuously waving my hand over John’s visage. “Consul of the Sons. Did Gerald finally kick it?”

  Instead of John, the prince consul shook his head, his long—a bit too long, golden hair swaying left to right. “John is Viceroy, Regent of Consul Gerald.”

  That position was new. As was this… Consul Edwin I saw before me. He was young—or his face was, at least. They were an odd blue; it reminded me of something… draconic. I’m sure I’d remember someone like this, even if he was a prince.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Where’s Gerald then?” I asked as a volume of flem clawed its way up my throat, causing me to violently cough.

  “Overseeing the city of Enoch,” Consul Edwin replied with his smooth, yet commanding voice. “We’ve come to interrogate you, not be interrogated in turn.”

  I sighed and wiped the extracted flem on my patchwork, browned pants—I can’t even remember what colour they used to be. “That’s nice. So we’ve a… new city now? Above ground? Or have you made the same folly as our ancestors?”

  As they looked at each other in annoyance, Rook scurried up to my raised knee and postured. “BISHOP!” he roared, demanding them to speak.

  “Why the fuck…” John backed away, lowering his hand towards the pistol hidden under his cloak. “How’d you teach it to speak?”

  “His name is Rook,” I informed them, “and he will be very, very upset if you pull out that gun.”

  Hearing my words, Rook leapt down my knee and climbed all the way up my bare chest and around my back, stopping on my right shoulder and wrapping all four limbs around the side of my mask.

  “Bishop,” he whimpered.

  “Nevermind,” I scoffed, patting Rook’s matted hair, “you already have. Ask your questions and leave.”

  “Why did Consul Gerald argue for Damnatio Memoriae instead of execution.” Consul Edwin asked, ignoring Rook. “Men have been executed for far lesser things, yet you lived for killing a consul. Why?”

  I lowered my head into my lap at the whole weariness of the affair. There was a reason they wouldn’t ask Gerald. “Did the Bilia nonsense not play a part in your musings? There’s the reason—I told him about that.”

  “And so he allowed the Bilias to continue for another four years?” John questioned in suspicion.

  …

  And he had a right to be. “What?”

  “We were told a different tale,” Consul Edwin declared, sitting down in the dirt with his legs crossed. John followed suit—reluctantly. “We were told—after the Bilias were destroyed—that you only hinted at their… situation, leading to his four-year long investigation alongside my predecessor. So? Did you hint to prolong your life? Or did you tell him all of it?”

  “All of it,” I scoffed. “Yet now I wonder whether he told you all of it.”

  “Explain,” John commanded me.

  I raised my head back from my lap, and Rook shifted to the top of my mask and sat down—presumably mimicking the consuls—although I had no true way of knowing. “No.”

  “If you don’t,” Consul Edwin said, “then I’m going to have you executed for treason—same as Gerald.”

  “Why?”

  And so they relayed to me the way of events this last week. How an assassin—a dirty thing—had been sent to Gerald after he’d been linked to some murder neither Johnny Boy nor this ‘Consul Edwin’ could make heads or tails of.

  But I could. Yet still… “No.”

  “Why not?” the consul’s voice changed. Deeper. Darker.

  “I don’t trust you.” I replied, turning my head to John. “Or you. Or Ajax. Or Frederick. Or any of the other three myrmidons I probably don’t know. I don’t trust any of you. But,” I turned back to Edwin. “I especially do not trust you. You’ve the look of the beast about you.”