14 KiB
Chapter 1
Naked and Alone
41 I woke up naked and alone in a cold dark prison cell. I had no memory of how I got here. In fact as I thought about it I couldn't remember anything about anything. How cliche I thought, amnesia! I shivered and looked down at my body. Against all the odds I found myself in good health, clean, and uninjured. I ran my hands down the sides of my trim, toned, almost wiry body and admired myself. I was in excellent shape. I admired as well my dark almost reddish brown skin. I did discover some old scar tissue on my sides, a criss cross of what must have been once a serious wound on my thigh: claw marks? Teeth? Knife wounds? So strange to bear such marks but no memories. I must be or have been some sort of warrior I thought. Maybe a hunter. I tried to conjure something out of the association but nothing came. Or maybe I'm some sort of an outlaw. Who might have captured me I wondered, and placed me in this cell. I gingerly touched my face and discovered another cruel long gash extending from my forehead, crossing my left eye, cheek, and lips.
Wow, I thought, it is a wonder I'm not blind in that eye, or maybe I am? I closed my eye and gently touched the outside of my eyelid. It felt okay but how can I tell? My cell was pitch black [[ed. you just looked at your own skin so make up your mind]]. Perhaps I was totally blind, but I didn't think so. I had it in my mind that being actually blind would somehow be different from total darkness, but I couldn't remember where I got such an idea. About then another idea came into my head. If I never see any light will I eventually lose my mind? I felt like that was a thing. I started then to wonder whether worrying about losing my mind could cause me to panic. I didn't feel panicked. I didn't even feel as worried as I think a woman should feel upon finding herself naked and alone in a dungeon cell. I only felt a kind of eager anticipation, almost exhilaration. Weird. 43I'm pretty sure that's not how people are supposed to feel in prisons or dungeons or ... oubliettes. Oh my god what a word. Oubliette. A place where prisoners were thrown to be forgotten. Was I being starved? I had no memory of ever having been fed in this place. Wait maybe the oubliette has made me forget everything. I don't think that's what the word is supposed to mean but then how can I trust anything. The notion of being left to die of thirst of starvation should be really horrifying. Surely that idea should get my heart racing and make me start to hyperventilate with anxiety or something. But no. I put my hand on my neck to feel my pulse. Calm and relaxed. How smooth my throat felt. No marks or scars. I wondered how I looked. Immediately an image appeared of a woman, strong, lean, athletic. Beautiful but rough edged, skin that matched the endless red sands of... of where? Where was I from? Where had I been? My hair was closely shaved on each side but jutted out in thick red spiky locks all over the top of my crown.
Was that really me I was seeing in my minds eye? Well I hope so because if so I am extremely hot. I wondered if I was getting my memories back. I reached up and touched the sides of my head and the crown, close shaved and messy just as I imagined. Is this proof my memories are returning? It didn't feel like that, if anything it felt almost as though my hair hadn't existed until I thought about it. As though my own imagination was leading the way. Dream! That's it this is probably a dream. If I just wait I'll probably wake up now that I've identified the situation. I waited. I did not wake up. Nothing happened. I couldn't decide what was going on. It was hard to pin down why but none of this felt the way I imagine recovering from memory loss should feel. But then what would I know about recovering from amnesia would feel like? This entire train of thought was rapidly going nowhere so I derailed it and returned to more scientific questions.
Like how do I even know I'm really in a dungeon. This took no time to to confirm. I reached out with both arms to each side of me and immediately slammed my right into a dry stone wall and found my left hand coming up against the icy cold iron bars of a cell. "Hmph" I snorted half in pain, and half in fear that I might have called these stupid bars into existence by imagining them. That would be idiotic. Surely I could have the presence of mind have imagined myself waking up beneath silk sheets on a luxurious palanquin begin carried towards a soothing tropical oasis or riad. Or in a temple surrounded by devoted dancers... I took a moment to close my eyes and 45 concentrate on just such a scene, wondering as I did so where these images were even coming from. For just a second I felt or remembered a warm touch, a soft silky caress, a hand, cream coloured on my darker... What!? My eyes jolted open and no, it didn't work I was still cold, alone, and locked up in the pitch black... Wait no. What is that? There was a flicker of something. In the otherwise pure uninterrupted night there was a flaw, a flame. I blinked each eye, one at a time and saw with satisfaction that each eye agreed, the light was real and both of my eyes were fully functional. The light bobbed and flickered as though being carried. That was because someone was carrying it. As it approached, it grew painfully bright to my eyes. It was like seeing the sun for the first time I imagined. I had seen the sun before. Right? I was now actually blinded by its brilliance but I could not tear my thirsty gaze away from this glorious fire.
"The last one is awake." a voice came from the flickering void just behind the light. It sounded muted as though the speaker were turned away from me addressing another. "I'll process her and you handle the surface delivery. Then we can all go home for the night."
From deeper in the dark came a muffled and incomprehensible reply.
"No" spoke the first voice again from behind the flame. I was beginning to make out a figure, cowled and obscured. A woman's voice, perhaps. "I've got it. Just stay ready in case" there was a pause, "in case she chooses to do things the hard way."
Then louder and clearly, yes it was a woman's voice, strangely accented, and she must be facing me now, looking at me from behind the flame.
"You don't want to do things the hard way do you?"
At this point the flame was directly outside the bars of my cell. The vertical bars of the cage, silhouetted against the light cast shadowy stripes sectioning my body and face as I stood up 47 open mouthed and looking dumbfounded. Finally I could see a hint of the face of the first voice's high bronze brow and a finely sculpted nose. Her eyes were lost in shadow.
"No? Good." She seemed to take my stupefaction as compliance and quite frankly I was at a loss for any idea of what I might do to make things either hard or easy. Escape if you can! I thought to myself. To go where? I asked myself in reply. I felt as though if only I could formulate some destination in mind I might be able to cobble together a plan. I think I had done so in the past. I felt as though I had in fact escaped from captivity more than once in the past, but now things were different. In the past I had places to go, people to see, and a purpose to follow. Now, I had nothing.
Perhaps the situation was not that my memory had been wiped but the whole world as I knew it had been obliterated leaving only me, this cell and this stranger. And possibly the other one she spoke to out of my hearing. I felt this dreadful fear that if I were to kill or overpower her and her colleague and flea from this cell I would discover only emptiness. I would exchange this cold cell for the immaculate void, for an aimless, endless, suffocating abyss. Thinking this thought made me finally feel fear for the first time since waking, since memory started. I shuddered then, suddenly chilled and aware immediately of my exposed nakedness before this stranger. 49 I looked up into the flame with a plaintiff expression and covered myself, crossing my arms over my breasts.
"Please" I said. "the easy way."
"Very good choice exile!" the woman boomed, a slight mocking tone in her praise but without any apparent malice. Her tone lacked the subtle or overt sneering sadism I expected from jailers. For what else could I call her but that? Her voice though held more of a sense of teasing anticipation, as though looking forward to bringing me into an inside joke that only she understood at the moment.
"So listen to me exile. If we're going to do this the easy way it means you will answer my questions quickly and truthfully. When you've answered what I ask, I shall tell you what you need to know to get out of here and begin a productive new life here in Exilium." She smiled. "Oh look, do you see what I did there? I actually gave you some fresh information already. I bet you didn't know that was the name of the world you were in did you? Of course you didn't it's wouldn't be possible for you to know. Not yet. But maybe you'll understand later. Now I've said enough and it's definitely your turn. Here's your first question: What is your name?"
"My name?"
"Yes my sweet, your name."
This stumped me, obviously. Should I have been surprised. I mean isn't forgetting your own name the most typical part of the old 'amnesia' trope? I almost thought she must be mocking me still.
"Why are you asking me?" I snapped. "Why would you be keeping me in this prison if you didn't even know who I was? Shouldn't you know everything you need to know about me already?"
"Oh no my precious. That is not at all how it works. Right now, you need to say your name. Until you say it, it cannot be known. Go ahead, just say your name. I'll let you know if you say something wrong."
As odd as she sounded, I felt like something fell into place just then. I wasn't sure what, but I didn't feel so uncertain.
"Yyanu!" I blurted out, surprised even at the strength of my own sudden certainty both that this was my name and also that I had never heard such a word before.
"Yyanu?"
"Yyanu. Yyanu Nav" I expanded decisively.
"Okay" the jailer finally accepted with equanimity. "That's fine. Now for your next question: Have you revi..."
...
The rest of her second as well as what must have been several more following it seem to have taken place outside of my mind. I know she asked me several more questions and I know that I answered but I do not remember. Upon reflection it feels as though the rest of my interrogation was something that happened to someone else. It is as if I stepped outside myself for a while and certain things were decided and an understanding was reached about me but without me.
"Well that is just perfect, my child." was the next thing I recall her saying and she said it with unmitigated approval and almost, did I imagine it, affection. "I'm sure you'll fit right in. Let me give you something to wear. It's not much but better than nothing. Take this." 53 She reached between the bars, allowing me a glimpse of an exquisitely smooth golden-hued wrist and delicate fingers, and handed me a rough-spun, threadbare shift. I agreed with her that it was not much. Whether it was better than nothing might be up for debate. It felt well worn and I wondered what had become of it's past owner or wearers might be more accurate. I took it and turned away in a quaint performance of modesty only to hear the jailer cluck appreciatively at the view from behind. I rolled my shoulders and flexed slightly for her benefit but said nothing.
The shift settled on my shoulders, falling above my knees. It did next to nothing against the chill and even less in the cause of decency but it was still technically clothing and so at least I was no longer technically naked. I turned around to find her still appraising me until I finally lost my patience and snapped. "Well are you letting me out of here or just planning to keep me in this cage for your own amusement?"
Clink! chimed the heavy iron key, which she must have slipped into the lock while I was turned away. Without breaking eye contact the smirking jailer swung the barred cell door wide open for me.
"Trust me love, releasing you into our world will provide me infinitely more amusement than keeping you here. You'll see. Come." she said, challenging me to accept this inexplicable freedom. I stepped over the threshold, pushing myself through a fresh wave of doubt. The whole 'amnesia' thing was starting to seem questionable. I had a queasy feeling that there were no memories awaiting me out there. That I would never recall my past because there was nothing to remember. I was becoming increasingly convinced that once I escaped this prison I would spend the rest of my life in the dark about what if anything had come before.
55 The next few hours of my life were no less disconcerting. The jailer with the lingering eyes passed me immediately into the custody of another, second jailer who by way of contrast seemed to find me utterly boring. He had nothing to say as he lead me down a long unlighted rough hewn stone tunnel. I had to keep close to him and his feeble lamp to see anything at all but he paid me no heed. At one point I dared a quick glance behind and saw the first jailer standing exactly as I had left her, still holding her lantern and still gazing at me with her leering smile. Why did she stay like that. Didn't she have somewhere better to be than in this pit? Unnerved I faced forward and never looked back again.
As for the second jailer, if that's a fair title for someone who showed no interest in jailing people, I got the strong impression that he had a long itemized list of placed he'd rather be than in the dark with me. Hurrying down the corridor I got only a glimpse of his young face and world weary, impatient eyes. Our hasty, stumbling on my part, flight down the corridor ended at another cage, I flinched back afraid I was only about to be confined again but the young man stepped in himself and stood waiting and for the first time favoured me with an actual look, of weary contempt.
"This is an elevator. It's a thing that goes up." He spoke slowly as though I was an idiot who didn't know what an elevator was. "It's the only way out of here."
"Ugh! I know what an eleva..." I started but by that point he'd thrown a lever which created a shrieking cacophony of grinding metal gears and the cage began to lurch upwards. I dove forward in a panic at being left behind. He didn't even have the courtesy to sneer at me but closed the cage door with a tired sigh as I tried to regain my composure.
...57[[Consider omission of some expo and smells but include in a branch called "smells"]]
As the cage lift screeched and rumbled to a stop the world began to resolve itself for my benefit.