The Three Kings by Slawomir Rapala	Biography and Bibliography
Table of Contents Chapter III: End of Days part 2 of 5

Taking note that Iskald no longer paid attention to his surroundings, Xunnax did not try to talk to him. He noticed that the boy was still somewhat taken aback by everything that had transpired. Xunnax felt sorry for him, though he had hardly shown it.

As for himself, having grown up in a coastal town, on a land surrounded by waters, always under the threat of a Tha-kian attack, Xunnax had quickly grown accustomed to the idea that he had been kidnapped. He always knew that it was a possibility, and now it had happened. Yes, he mourned for his father and mother and sister who were killed in the attack, but he realized that weeping was not going to bring them back. He thought he would best honor their memory by keeping his dignity in the face of these dreadful circumstances.

But what for him came with relative ease, must have been tremendously difficult to accept for Iskald. After all, he was a Duke and though flesh and blood he was different from the other boys here. With that final thought in mind, Xunnax closed his eyes and drifted away into sleep. Just before he fell asleep, however, Iskald grabbed his arm.

“Where are we, anyway?” he asked.

Xunnax looked at him, or rather at the spot in the darkness from which the whispered question emerged and wondered how strange his new companion was, failing at once to notice something so obvious. He shook his head in the darkness.

“We’re on a ship,” he sighed. “Can’t you tell?”

“You’re right, I can tell by the way we’re rolling. I think I can hear the waves hitting against the side of the ship, too. They must have us stashed in the hull.”

“You were unconscious, they had to carry you in here.”

“Do you think we’re already out in the open sea?”

“How should I know?” Xunnax exploded and Iskald drew back in fear. “I’ve been stuck down here for days, how should I know these things?“

A moment later, sensing that Iskald was about to say something more, the young Izmattian added, but calmly this time: “Look, I’m pretty sure it’s already night by now and since this is the best time to rest, try to get some sleep and let me do the same. The guards are all sleeping now too, so at least we have some peace until morning. Use that time wisely, because I guarantee you that tomorrow won’t be any better. If anything, it will be worse.”

Having uttered these grim words, Xunnax turned around. Soon enough his deep and steady breath attested to the fact that the boy had indeed gone to sleep despite the dreadful situation they were in.

At first Iskald tried to follow his advice, but to no avail. Alone in the dark, his body hurting, Iskald could not rid himself of the gloomy thoughts that returned. Everything he had experienced on this day and night was so surreal, so distant from his normal life, that he was willing to believe he would soon wake up from this nightmare and go about his daily business.

All he had to do was close his eyes and he would wake, that was all, that was it. He closed his eyes and opened them again, closed and opened, closed and opened... The same thing greeted him over and over again: an immense darkness, all-encompassing and total.

This is no dream, he thought as if trying to convince himself.

Nor was his father’s death a dream.

Iskald thought back to that final moment when Vahan plunged to the bottom of the crag after sending him a farewell smile. An immense sadness took hold of the boy’s throat. Throughout his whole life, his father was the only person he knew and found solace in, him and then Aezubah. Now he was gone, he was dead, and Iskald would never again hear his voice and he would never again see him. Iskald could not understand why fate had treated him so cruelly. He was never even given the opportunity to meet his mother and now his father was murdered before his very eyes. And all he could do was watch.

Why then? Why?

He raised his chained hands to the gods once again and he wept, and he asked and begged for a response, long, long into the night. His despair slowly diminished with the tears and the words of a passionate prayer, but his heart and soul were still torn.

The gods in the blue skies listened quietly to the pleas of this young boy, and shed their own immortal tears from their ageless eyes. And their heavy tears fell down from the sky, darkness increased and a vicious storm swept over the sea.

Wild swinging woke Iskald up some time later. He hoisted himself to a sitting position and carefully rested his hurting back against the rough wooden wall. He felt with his hand and touched Xunnax. The peasant boy stirred in his sleep, but did not wake. Even the storm could not tear him away from sleep, although judging by the racket everyone else must have been up. Iskald heard voices over the noise made by waves slamming against the ship and the clattering of shackles. Yet Xunnax slept through it all; he must have been exhausted as well.

The boy dismissed the idea of going back to sleep; he thought it a miracle that he had slept at all anyway. The ship was being thrown violently against the waves and was rocked by the savage winds. Iskald, who had never before been on a ship during a storm, much less bound and chained in a wretched pit such as this, was already feeling nauseous. His head still hurt and his bruised and beaten body was also beginning to trouble him. He tried to make himself as comfortable as possible and, as a refuge from the pain, he turned his thoughts to his immediate surroundings.

Glancing around for the first time since he woke, Iskald realized that the darkness around him was not so absolute anymore. Perhaps one of the guards had lit a torch somewhere down in the corridors away from the pit or maybe light was penetrating the cracks between the boards.

Either way, he could see now that the hull the Tha-kians had stashed them in was fairly large; it must have extended for most of the length of the ship. Along its walls Iskald saw rows of boys and young men, all chained in a similar manner as he. He could not see all of them from the spot where he sat because the opposite end of the hull was still immersed in darkness. Judging from what he could see, however, he estimated that the pit could have easily held several hundred people, crammed side by side, and judging from the commotion and the noise it was probably full.

Since all of the captives could not have been gathered at one spot, Iskald concluded that the Tha-kians must have been scouring the coasts of Izmattic Isles and of Lyons for quite some time now, sacking villages and towns and capturing slaves. Having destroyed Uaal and succeeded in murdering Vahan, the Tha-kians had probably abandoned their atrocious venture and, fearing a violent retaliation from the Lyonese, quickly headed home.

They would have little to fear behind the high walls of their capital, protected by a fleet of high-speed war vessels manned by hundreds of slim, brown-skinned warriors, all veteran cutthroats. But Iskald knew that the ocean journey to the land of Tha-kians could take even up to a month and although he shuddered at the thought of spending this much time in this repulsive hull, he was happy about it on the other hand. It was a long journey and plenty could happen before it would end. He was sure that Aezubah would move heaven and earth to find him and to break him free.

What if he indeed ended up in the Southern Realms? What would happen to him then? From what he knew of slave-traders and the ways of the Tha-kians, Iskald gathered that the captives would most likely be taken to the market and quickly sold to the rich and prosperous aristocrats of the Kingdom. The life that awaited them, if it could be called such, was that of strenuous work on cotton plantations or in the mines, in which the Tha-kian Kingdom was abundant. Iskald could wind up anywhere amidst the uncharted Tha-kian Realm, hidden from the eyes of the world, rotting day by day, dying a slow and hideous death.

The young Duke shuddered.

On the other hand, perhaps he would be sold to some wealthy noble from one of the surrounding Kingdoms. Many foreigners came to the land of Tha-kians drawn by the low price and value attached to human life. Iskald turned his thoughts to the Realms that neighboured the Tha-kians.

Proceed to part 3...

Copyright © 2008 by Slawomir Rapala