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“So that’s how it went down? I heard about that in Windhelm.” Ritcher said. “Apperantly the sewers were restless and the streets were filled for days with the muffled sounds of fighting. They called them the tremors of th Flock. It was a big deal. Windhelm is a strong city for the empire.”
“Yes.” I said. “And I failed Justinian that day. Not my only failure of course, what kind of history would I have. Where would I be if he was my only one?”
“Do you still feel bad about your friend’s death?” Ritcher asked.
“I feel bad that I was the one who got lucky.” I said. “That it was not me. As many things usually aren’t. You know - you know.” I started laughing, I don’t know why. “It almost feels unfair how lucky I get.”
He looked at me with the torch behind his head and the low moans of men beyond in the halls, not necessarily wretching at me but wretching for something.
“Are you saying you would have preferred dying with him?” I asked.
“I’m saying anything else would have been better.” I looked up. “Even a quicker death for him. But it doesn’t matter. We’re here now and I’m stuck and mourning would be too late for Justinian, especially when Chaucer needs it more.”
“You won’t mourn long. I’m devising a way to get you out, perhaps packing you in a box.” Ritcher said.
“That’s an ideal.” I said. “All these plans, all these schemes. Questions answered. Have you ever put a thought of consideration into the idea that maybe nothing will work out? Maybe you’ll hear things you should have never heard. Or seen things that can’t be unchanged?”
“Do you think my brother is dead?” He asked.
“No.”
“Then that’s all that matters.” Ritcher said. “Hope is important. Hope is everything.”
“Is it?” I asked. “And where could I find hope?”
“In me.” Ritcher said.
I smiled and lowered my head. He extended his hand out for the book and I looked at it, at the pages. I scrolled through them all, the wind of which blew against my face like a fan and right at the end, with just a half second of looking I spotted it.
The map. Dug in there, in one of the pages. Exactly where I’d put it.
I grabbed it and crumpled it in my hand and gave him the book.
We shared some words and he left and I waited in my cell for hours, for the guards to leave.
And I studied the map that Chaucer had left. Because I always held it thought told myself I’d get rid of it. Because there was a time I wish I’d never seen it and here I was now, huddled in my cell over the map. Studying every little nook and cranny.
Hope for the hopeless, only snake oil salesmen sell that. There’s a practicality to life, a certain way it moves and you either bend or break. I had no hope of escaping, not yet at least. And even if I did I wouldn’t want to. There was a place, a certain work to be done in the prison.
I turned my once broken arm and bent my fingers, the fidelity was there. I turned my other arm, three fingers remained and of the two lopped off, I still had some tall stump remaining. I Grabbed hay and pinched it. Strong grip, still. The map unfolded at my lap.
I spent all night studying.
There were forty six holes in all, forty six entrances in the broken underground of Shrieker’s Veil. Miles of channels where the shit flooded and the water poured and the food-slop sat fermenting. A drop of water landed on my forehead. I looked up to the sleek walls. Then put my ear against the wall, listening to the torrent bash against stone like an intruder. Let me in. Let me in.
It was the cry of Shrieker’s Veil. And it cried for Gunther's blood.
