Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,57
the cavern. I dumped the contents of each chamber pot into the pool before returning them to the prison cells.
On my third trip (of mayhap twenty), I noticed something unsettling about the cesspool but curious, all the same. There appeared to be something frothing from the midst of the pool, bubbling up as if a creature were breathing from beneath.
“What is it?” I asked of one of Ermolai’s guards who happened to venture past me.
“The Greorken,” the Veit responded. “You will clean up your spills once you return to your post,” he added. I figured he was referencing the piss stream from my unartful carrying of the latrine pots.
“What is this Greorken?”
“A creature that feeds upon our waste,” the Veit responded and then gripping my chain, yanked on it and forced me back to the walkway leading to the prison cells upon the second floor of the cavern. There, I was to clean the feces that had sloshed from the chamber pots whilst my fellow inmates threw crude epithets in my direction. I did not bother to notice them, but did my job in silence.
When I had finished this duty, I was then instructed to fill with water each of ten wooden barrels that stood as tall as my waist, though half as wide. The fountain from which I was to take the water was a ten minute hike through rough and loose terrain, up a sheer cliff and through a forest of stalactites and stalagmites. A good portion of the way was bathed in darkness, owing to the missing phosphorescence of the fungi that lit the rest of the cavern.
I carried each wooden barrel upon my back, filled it from the gurgling fountain that appeared as a small geyser from within a crevice of the rock floor, and bore the incredible weight as I made my return to Ermolai’s post. All the while, a scrawny and young female Veit followed me, doing little to stifle her boredom as she yawned repeatedly.
“How many o’ ye be within this outpost?” I asked her as I hauled the third barrel upon me back.
“Mind your business, slave,” she responded and then tapped me none-to-gently with the barbed end of a narrowed stick.
I hauled the barrel in silence back to the post, but when we had turned to face our fourth trek to the fountain, I spoke again. “What is yer name?”
“Aaliyah,” she answered and yawned again.
“Are ye a lowly guard or do ye enjoy accolades?”
“You ask too many questions,” she said and glared at me. I hoisted the empty barrel from my back and dropped it to the stone floor before I took a deep breath and carried it into the pool of cold water. It was not enough for me to fill the barrel with the clean water of the pool, but Aaliyah insisted I fill the barrel with the water from the spouting fountain. I was convinced this was merely to further complicate my task. I filled the barrel and hoisted it back upon me as I struggled with the weight and forced myself from the pool. My kilt was drenched and the wool was itchy upon my naked legs.
“I am no lowly guard,” Aaliyah said as she walked beside me. I could not summon the strength to speak, so I allowed her to continue. “I’ll have you know I am being groomed as Ermolai’s replacement.”
“Ermolai’s replacement?”
She nodded. “She seeks to take control of a new outpost in Jezzerin and I will soon be controlling this one.”
We reached the outpost and I dropped the barrel from my shoulders onto the floor. Aaliyah yanked upon my chains but I could not take another step until I breathed in deeply. She jerked my irons a second time.
“You will wear our prisoner to death if you do not adequately rest him,” Ermolai snapped, from where she appeared beside Aaliyah. Ermolai was a head taller than her protégé and near ten years older, were I to guess. She stroked Aaliyah’s hair as the two of them stared at me with unabashed admiration.
“He is strong as Mullion,” Aaliyah said. “I did not want to baby him.”
“You are not babying him,” Ermolai insisted as she smiled at the younger woman before sidestepping her and approaching me. “Are you tired, slave?”
“Aye,” I answered, still struggling to catch my breath.
“And how many barrels have you remaining?” she pressed.
I glanced behind myself and noticed three more. Last I checked, there had been two. “Three,” I responded.
“Then you shall not rest