The Blackfire Annals: Chasing Ghosts
Chapter Six: Frozen Crucible

The two captives found eating difficult. In fact, doing much more than breathing with ropes tied around one’s wrists and ankles is a nearly impossible task. They still managed it, but both of them were tired an annoyed by the time they had finished. The men were still eating, but they looked as though they might finish soon. Arcaena propped herself up on a rock so that she was not lying flat and stretched her aching legs.

“So,” she began. “Why a hunter?” Carsten looked up.

“What?”

“Why a hunter?” she repeated. “You would have had any number of vocations to choose from and, based on your talents, you could have performed most of them. Why did you choose hunting?” Carsten shrugged.

“I am not an extremely talented blacksmith. I can carve gems, but shaping metal is no a talent I have in great capacity. Tinkering might have worked, but dwarves and tinkers both often are blamed for thieves, and I did not want to attract unnecessary suspicion. What about you? Why leave when you had a queen’s life waiting for you?”

Arcaena looked down, not sure how to articulate herself. “I…I felt unready to take the role my father wants me to. Since Mother died, he has been pushing me harder and harder to be a queen. I think it was because of how I refused Dothnae’s offer of marriage. I think my father secretly wanted me to marry him. But I…I cannot do it!” The words came out before she could stop them, and they hung in the air like a venomous cloud. “He wants me to lead, but he turned a blind eye to the problems with it. You said it yourself, there’s no way I’m fit for the job. I’m headstrong, selfish, and mean, and those are a few of my better qualities. I guess I was running from what he wanted for me, because I knew that I never could be.” Carsten turned his head away.

“What makes you think that character is set in stone?” He asked. “People change. Trust me. Even six days of suffering alters a man, let alone the months we’ll likely be with them.” Arcaena scowled at their captors a good distance away.

“You don’t know me that well if you think that,” she said fiercely. “You’re talking about a complete character shift, not just behavior modification. I can’t just wake up one morning and decide that I don’t want to be me anymore.” Carsten nodded, raising himself up on a nearby rock.

“No, you can’t. And I would not call that possible. But you need not remain as you are.”

Arcaena laughed harshly. “Is that some kind of twisted joke, saying that people change so easily? You are what you are. Nothing more, nothing less. I can’t exactly alter myself, you know.” Carsten leaned back, his face shielded by the lengthening shadows.

“Perhaps not,” he murmured. “But then, maybe you will not have to.” He looked up into the sky, lost in thought.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “Why would I not have to?”

Carsten diverted his gaze from the howling storm above their heads to her face. “Because hardship often molds you, Arcaena. You become better or worse because of it. Perhaps getting captured wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe you are right; you might not be able to change yourself. But then, you might not have to.” She stared at him.

“What makes you think-” she began. He smiled at that.

“I know you, or at least what you showed me of your character. You have a good heart, lass. You just need to realize it,” he replied. Then he held up a hand. “Hush. They are talking.”

‘What difference does that make?” Arcaena asked. “We cannot understand them.”

“They speak a language I recognize. I do not sure why, but they apparently know Kortish.” Kortish was the language the dwarves had once used, when they were a united people. The tongue had since passed out of common use, with the exiles and the Free groups each developing separate languages and runic alphabets. However, the royal families often still taught their children Kortish script and pronunciation. The iteration these men were using was an even older version of the tongue, but Carsten could understand about every other word. Seven of them especially stood out to him: weapon, end, fate, renegade, queen, offer, soon. But these were nearly all he understood, and the men lapsed again into silence as they ate. Soon, they had finished eating and mounted again, tossing the duo once again over the saddles before lifting into the air. Again, Carsten felt the overwhelming sensation of airsickness, suffering for two hours before he lapsed into nauseated sleep.

The next thing he felt was someone jabbing him hard in the shoulder. Carsten woke up with his face still pressed against the saddle. Suddenly, a pair of rough hands grabbed him and tossed him off of the gryphon’s back. Carsten gasped in pain as he felt his ribs jar painfully, and a solid thud next to him told him that Arcaena had been thrown from her gryphon as well. “Wake up, boy,” came a growling voice. “You have arrived.” Carsten rolled over and found himself looking at a singularly unpleasant, tattooed face. The face was ashen white, and the skin was so thinly stretched over the bone it looked for all the world like a thinly-veiled skull. However, its unpleasant, beaked nose prevented it from being completely skeletal, although its hideous grimace could easily cause one to forget the nose.

“Get up,” the man snarled, if man he was. “You are wanted below.” Arcaena was the first of the two to try to rise, and she nearly failed. Even so, she swayed uneasily on her feet, trying to shake off her airsickness. While she was not usually susceptible to such things, their sudden descent had dizzied her. Looking around now, she saw that they were in a vast courtyard, populated irregularly by tents made of some thick brown material. There seemed to be some kind of circular orientation to them, and fires burned at the center of these tent-rings. On the verge of her site line, which was greatly reduced due to the snowstorm, a forbidding dark wall seemed to rise from the snow-covered ground. It wrapped around the perimeter of the yard like a malevolent black snake, rising to a crescendo in the shadowy spires of a keep. Several lights burned in windows far above her, but just looking that high up gave her vertigo. Wherever they might be appeared well-fortified, making escape much harder. The man shoved her hard, and she nearly lost her footing on the slippery flagstones. Arcaena managed to rise again, and she saw a cruel glint of pleasure in her tormentor’s eyes.

“Move it, girl,” he growled. “On you go. The dungeon master is waiting. And he can be an unholy terror when he gets in one of his moods.” Carsten snorted.

“And you’re all just unholy anyway,” he muttered. The sharp blow to the back of his head that followed stung something fierce, but Carsten did not even flinch. He grunted and put his hand to the back of his neck, feeling his hand stick to the newly opened wound there. His captor spun him around and set the jaggedly serrated blade he carried to the dwarf’s throat. Carsten felt a warm trickle of blood slide down his neck.

“Say something else, and I’m going to carve off your arms. The dungeon master said alive, not whole.” He shoved Carsten hard, and the red-haired dwarf went down. Carsten got up and, biting back a fiery rejoinder, kept walking. The man pushed them through a small postern door below one of the castle’s spires and into a winding, darkly lit staircase. The walls were dry and sooty, inclining Arcaena to believe no one had cleaned them in a good while. Torches hung in metal fittings at strategic points to ensure that travelers would not lose their ability to see entirely, but the corridors were still dark for all that. The trio made their way slowly down the stairs, which were surprisingly slick. More than once, Carsten nearly lost his footing, only to regain it before striking his back on the stone stairs. They descended for what seemed like an eternity, the twisting stairs seeming to go on for eternity. But they did not descend the entire staircase; instead, after descending seven levels, their captor came to a side door that he unlocked with the keys hanging from his rough leather belt. The lock creaked and groaned in protest, but it finally opened. He swung it open wide and gestured with his sword.

“Go on,” he growled. “He awaits us.” Carsten stepped through the door, and Arcaena followed. The entryway opened into a long corridor lined with steel-barred cells. Most were empty, but a few housed prisoners, although neither Carsten nor Arcaena could. The man behind them pushed them inside and shut the door again. Inserting the key into the door, he locked it again and returned the key to his belt. As Carsten looked around him, he saw halls carved out of the earth itself. In fact, the cells’ bars appeared to be grafted into the stone and packed earth of the tunnel walls. While an inefficient design, this motif certainly unnerved the prisoner, who felt that he was imprisoned in the earth itself. The man was pushing them down the hallway, toward a chamber at the end of the long corridor. From inside, Carsten heard the sound of a crackling fire and the hiss of steam. Suddenly, he heard a cry of pain from the room. He looked at Arcaena, whose eyes were wide with surprise and fear.

What was that? She mouthed. Carsten shook his head.

I have no idea, he replied. The man, seeing this exchange, struck Carsten hard on the side of the face.

“Shut it,” he snarled. “No talking.” The dwarf spat out blood and phlegm from his mouth and kept walking. Again, he heard someone yell in agony, although the source of the sound was not visible. However, it soon became so. The room at the end of a hallway was a large smithy, one that housed all manner of weapons and other devices. Although Arcaena had never seen many of them, she was certain that at least a few of the machines in the room were torture devices. Carsten’s eyes, however, gravitated to the men standing in the center of the room, with two prisoners prone at their feet. In the hand of the taller of the two men was a red-hot iron, still smoking from its recent contact with flesh. Arcaena’s eyes widened as she realized what it was. A branding iron. The man escorting them stepped in front of them and unlocked Carsten’s chains, and then hers.

“Shirts off,” he growled. “Both of you.” Arcaena shook her head vigorously.

“No, not in a thousand years. You cannot make me do it,” she protested. The man stepped close to her, lowering his voice.

“Listen carefully, dark elf,” he hissed. “I won’t enjoy this any more than you will, but they’re going to brand your back. That’s how they mark all the prisoners. So take off the shirt before they rip it off and take your head with it.” Reluctantly, she slid off her jerkin, revealing a white cloth undershirt that was tucked into her trousers. To Carsten’s surprise, he realized she wore no necklace. She left herself completely unadorned, he thought. An odd thing for a princess

“I am keeping that on,” she snapped. The man shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” he said. Gesturing to the men, he said, “The dwarf first. Then the elf.” Carsten stepped forward and walked calmly over to the men.

“Well,” he said, “let’s get it done.” He pulled off his jerkin, revealing his broad shoulders, and knelt down. The second man grabbed his arm and held him firmly, as though he would not let him go. The lead man thrust the branding iron into the fire and let it sit for several moments. After it was suitably hot, he withdrew the iron and looked intently at for a moment.

“It’s a curious thing,” the man said, examining the searing hot metal. “They say that fire only has the power to destroy. Have you heard that?” Carsten looked up at the man, his eyes hard.

“You speak of destruction as though it’s a terrible act,” he pointed out. “Sometimes the old metal has to be smelted to forge something new and stronger. Impurities must be purged, and that can only be accomplished by fire.” The man smiled as he stared at the iron.

“Very true. Well spoken, boy.” Then, the man said a few words in a language Carsten did not know, and without any warning, thrust the red-hot metal into the skin between Carsten’s shoulder blades. The hot iron sank into the flesh, scorching the skin around it and filling the air with the acrid smell of burning tissue. The dwarf bowed his head and set his teeth, trying not to scream. Finally, after twenty-two agonizing seconds, the process was finished, and the man withdrew the iron from Carsten’s back. Where it had been, there was a raw, red circle, and at the center a runic symbol that seemed to glow with inner fire. The man holding Carsten let him go, and the dwarf slowly stood. The one with the branding iron gestured to the room beyond, where the other slaves who were in the room had gone.

“You’ll get your new attire in there,” he said. “Get dressed and then come back in here. Now,” he continued, facing Arcaena, “you’re next.” He put the brand into the fire, and his partner tore a hole in the back of the undershirt. The dark elf lowered her head and braced herself. From what she had seen, they were branding the prisoners with a Cuirson Brand, a common practice among slavers. The Cuirson Brand attracted several species of dragon, slavers often kept these selected species on hand for use in apprehending runaways. She knew the kind of pain she was in for, and she did not at all relish the idea of it. The man lowered the brand and pushed it against her back. Try as she might, Arcaena could not stop thinking about the agony, nor could she ultimately keep herself from a small cry of pain. As abruptly as the burning sensation started, it was over, and she collapsed. The man with the iron dipped it in a nearby bucket of water and gestured to his companion.

“Get her up and dressed,” he growled. “Then show them to their appointed tasks.” The man extended his hand to Arcaena, who knocked it away savagely.

“I’m fine,” she growled. “So long as you stay away from me, that is.”

Carsten was still in the room where he was supposed to get dressed, staring at one of the outfits. As Arcaena came into the room, he asked, “Are we supposed to change our shoes, too?”

The dark elf stopped, looking perplexed. “Shoes? Why?” Carsten shook his head.

“Nothing, never mind. It was…just a thought.” If we’re not supposed to change our shoes, we might have a shot of getting out after all, he thought. He called his question out the door, and the men responded, with sundry profanities, that changing his boots was completely unnecessary. He smiled. Good.

Arcaena looked at the racks of jerkins, tunics, and shirts. “I wonder where they got all of these clothes,” she murmured. Carsten looked at one of the outfits, which was covered in brownish stains.

“That is not something I would wish to enquire about,” he said. He took a faded red jerkin off one of the clothing racks and slipped it over his head. Then, he grabbed a pair of faded brown trousers and pulled them on over his tattered grey ones. Carsten pulled on his worn boots again and walked to the back door of the room. As he turned back, he saw Arcaena go over to one of the racks of outfits. There, on her otherwise unscarred pale shoulders, the red-orange rune glowed like a malevolent eye. Carsten looked ahead and eased the door shut behind him as he left the room. Might as well give the girl some privacy, he thought.

Arcaena emerged several minutes later, wearing a simple green jerkin with several patches on it and a pair of trousers. The two men emerged from the clothing room and slapped the duo back in irons again. The taller of the two led Carsten further down in the dungeons, taking more flights of dark and winding stairs. Chains made walking difficult at best, but Carsten negotiated the steps skillfully. The man took Carsten to a heavy, barred door and, turning a key in the lock, swung it open so that he could see the inside of the room. At the center was a large wheel with spokes protruding from it at right angles. At each of the spokes save one, two people were pushing wheel around, with it grinding and moaning in protest. Around it stood several large men with sour-looking faces and whips in their hands, striking at anyone that moved too slowly. At the spoke with one man walked another dwarf, with matted black hair and massive arms. The dwarf wore no shirt and pushed with all his might, which looked to be quite the substantial force. One of the men with the whips, seeing Carsten’s captor enter, shouted something in a language that Carsten did not know. In response, the other men cracked their whips over the shoulders of the men at the wheel, and they stopped in perfect tandem. The man with Carsten gestured to the wheel.

“This is a grinder, dwarf. We use it to pulverize materials we mix in…a special compound that we use here,” he said. “You will join your kinsman in this task.” Carsten nodded.

“All right. Shall I begin?” The man nodded.

“Yes,” he replied. “However, you will be unable to do so in your chains.” He took his key and unlocked Carsten’s manacles and tossed them to the nearest guard. Carsten went over to the wheel, rubbing his wrists. An idea already had begun forming in Carsten’s mind, but he would need more time to develop it. The other dwarf looked Carsten up and down rather scornfully.

“A bit scrawny, are you not?” He asked. Carsten shrugged.

“Perhaps. I have been told I lack strength,” he replied. Then, he put his hands on the wheel. “But we shall see, eh, brother?” One of the guards flicked his wrists, sending his whip in a painful lash across Carsten’s shoulders. The dwarf’s face twisted in pain, but he made no sound. The other, seeing this, smiled coldly at the sight. As the wheel began to turn, and the grinding sound began, he looked at his workmate.

“Indeed. You will do, friend. They call me Thomas. Who are you?”

“Carsten,” he replied. “And I am not your friend.”

“Well, Carsten, I suggest you warm to me,” he said. “We will be working together often.”

Arcaena’s captor took her up several flights of stairs into a large chamber beneath the fortress courtyard. The massive, vaulted room housed several forges, at which worked several short, broad creatures that she recognized as orcs. Unlike goblins, who had green skin and absolutely no hair, orcs had brown or grey skin and a good deal of hair on their bodies. Several dwarves stood at other forges, wearing massive dragon-skin aprons and gloves to protect themselves from splashes of molten metal. They were hammering and shaping weapons and mail rings, while about twenty members of other races were working linking plates and rings together to form coats of mail. The guard with Arcaena gestured to one of the people making mail coats.

“This is Essa,” he said. “She will show you your work from now on. I will unlock your manacles, dark elf. But do not try to escape. If you do…well, I have ordered the guards in this room to kill you. Do you understand?” Arcaena nodded mutely. “Good. Then I will leave you to your appointed task. And, by the way, welcome to Frostspire Castle.” He turned and calmly walked out of the room, leaving Arcanea standing next to the young human woman. The girl stopped linking plates long enough to brush wisps of her dark brown hair out of her face. She turned her mouse-brown eyes on the dark elf, and Arcaena immediately recognized the blazing determination in them.

“Are you going to help or just stand there?” She challenged. Arcaena raised an eyebrow.

“How can I help when you have yet to show me how to do so?” She asked. The other woman’s lips quirked upward.

“Here, like this,” she said, her hands flying over the material with dexterity. In several minutes, she had linked enough plates together to form a mail coat, and she tossed it into a pile of finished ones. Arcaena picked up several plates and began attaching them as the woman had shown her to do.

“Your name is Essa, right?” the dark elf asked. The woman nodded.

“Yours?”

“Cae,” Arcaena replied. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” the woman replied. “Now be careful. You would be unwise to link these plates poorly.”

The end of the day did not come soon enough for either Carsten or Arcaena. By the time she was finished, Arcaena had successfully assembled seventeen chain-and-scale-mail shirts, and Carsten had pushed for nine hours disrupted only by five fifteen-minute breaks spaced out over the course of the day. Their respective captors returned their irons to their wrists and led them to a subterranean cell, where they locked them inside. The sparse population of the room immediately struck its occupants; it had only one cot, and there were no seats available aside from the floor. Carsten shrugged and sat down on the packed dirt floor.

“Well,” he said, “it might not be much, but it is home for who knows how long. You might as well get comfortable,” he continued, addressing Arcaena. “We are prisoners, for the time being.”

Arcaena sank to the cot, massaging her aching hands. “They had me linking chain mail vests together for hours. The metal rings cut my hands. See?” She heled up her fingers, showing Carsten the lacerations on her fingers. Magical sparks began dancing up and down them, rapidly repairing the incisions. Carsten leaned back against the brick wall at the rear of the cell, closing his eyes.

“I pushed a grinding mill for nine hours,” Carsten replied. “They gave us five fifteen-minute breaks spaced out over the day.” Arcaena nodded.

“Did your guards give you any idea why they took us?” She asked. Carsten shook his head.

“They refused to speak on the subject. What about yours?” She shrugged.

“I caught a few hints. The people they have taken seem to be connected somehow, but I have not discovered what it is yet.” She pointed to Carsten’s back.

“It looks like you put blood on your shirt,” she said simply. “Is it all right if I look at whatever you did?” Carsten opened his eyes and looked at her.

“I would rather that you did not,” he replied. “The guards had whips at the grinding mill, and I apparently move too slowly for them. So they hit me a few times.” Arcaena rose off the cot and put her hands on her hips.

“You really ought to let me try to heal it,” she said. “Infection will be your death here.” Reluctantly, Carsten leaned forward and slid his shirt over his head, revealing layered bloody slashes between his shoulder blades. Arcaena knelt beside him, gently caressing the wounds.

“These look bad,” she said. “You cannot leave them untended.” Closing her eyes, she whispered a quick healing spell and felt the rush of magic as it surged through her fingers. Emerald light washed over the area, and the wounds rapidly sealed and faded. Arcaena explosively exhaled and sat back as Carsten slid his shirt back over his head.

“Try to go faster next time,” she said. “You will not long survive with damage like that to your back.” Carsten shook his head.

“Going faster might not keep me from a beating,” he replied. “But thank you for your help.” The dark elf smiled curiously at him. The expression warmed him; he liked it when she smiled.

“I am a healer, you know. It is my occupation. Really, there is no need to thank me.” Carsten shrugged.

“That is true, but I wanted to. I would have died once already if you had not helped me.” Arcanea colored slightly, although Carsten thankfully could not see that in the dungeon’s poor lighting.

“You are most welcome,” she said. “After all, you happen to be the only person I know in this sinkhole. I would be lost without you.” Their conversation was interrupted when one of the guards brought them bowls of a mysterious golden-brown liquid. Carsten looked once at the soup and water before he picked up the meal.

“We might as well eat,” he said. “If we are not eating on top of all of the trials of this place, I am not at all sure that we could survive.” Arcaena took her bowl of soup and began to eat.

“And I am fairly certain we should not test such theories to replace out whether or not it is true.” After finishing the sparse meal, Carsten leaned back against the wall and was soon asleep. Arcaena watched him as he lay there, his breaths coming at an even rhythm. The dwarf seemed to be perfectly at peace with the idea of being a prisoner. In fact, everything that had happened to him failed to move him emotionally at all. He appeared immovable in every sense of the word; not even having cracked ribs had completely disrupted his momentum. Still, this prison would prove a crucible in ways neither of them could foresee.