Kolter Versa stood mutely at his post, guarding the toilets. He had caught the duchess trying to smuggle the blackjack into the palace. The blackjack in question had been oddly shaped, to be sure, but it was about the right size and shape to knock a man out. In addition, upon removing the woman’s wig, he had found a pin in her hair no less than six inches long, easily qualifying as a hidden weapon. Kolter had declared her a spy right there and dragged her to the dungeon. He’d weathered the initial abuse upon discovering that the woman he’d arrested was indeed the baroness until his father had demonstrated his value to Kolter’s commanding officers. Afterwards, he’d been commended and informed of a secret group of cutthroats attempting to infiltrate the palace via the sewers.

Kolter had immediately volunteered to be the one to catch them, and had taken up position in front of the Royal Guard’s toilets, silently waiting for his chance to be a hero. The other guards had taken to calling him shitheel as they passed by, but only he and the captain knew the truth of the people who could even then be trying to worm their way into the bowels of the palace.

“Kolter,” came a voice from the end of the hall. Kolter blinked his dry eyes from where he had been staring at the wall, lost in his imagination. It was terribly boring guarding the shitter, after all. Kolter glanced over and saw a page approaching him.

The young man had fine features, a sharp chin and short red hair, looking a great deal like the young woman who’d played the prince at the ill-fortuned festival a month and a half ago. Kolter had been ecstatic when his father had pulled strings to have him guard beside the stage, giving him the best seat in the house.

Obviously, this man couldn’t be the princess-imposter that had fled while Kolter stood, confused. He was wearing a page outfit. Kolter dismissed the thought entirely; after all, he’d never been right about this sort of thing before. Kolter was also still a little ashamed of accusing the duchess of being a spy. Those weapons must have been for self-defence.

That blackjack had been oddly shaped. Why would anyone need a blackjack shaped like a man’s penis? Kolter’s brows furrowed as he began untangling the mystery. What if it hadn’t been a weapon? Then what was it for? Perhaps a novelty item? Drop it down your pantleg and get a few laughs from the other nobles?

Kolter shook his head. He’d never seen his father or any other nobles act like that, at least, not in public. So maybe that wasn’t it. Kolter’s brows raised, a glimmer of understanding beginning to dawn on him. Could it have been shaped like manhood in order to-

“Kolter!” The page who looked like the princess shouted, waving his hand in front of Kolter’s eyes. Kolter snapped out of his reverie and focused his eyes again, looking at the page.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Commander Davis wants you to show us to the dungeon, we’re going to be delivering food there starting tomorrow.” The page said, frowning at him.

“But I have to guard the toilets,” Kolter said, his brows furrowed. The page stood in front of him, his jaw slowly opening.

A second page stepped up beside the first. “If you’re supposed to guard the toilets, you should be patrolling the entire palace, on the lookout for people that smell like shit. The sewers connect all over the palace, after all. Commander Davis said you should get to that after you show us to the dungeons.”

“Really?” Kolter asked, processing that information. It was true, this particular toilet was one of many, what if the palace had been penetrated while he was busy with just this one? It made much more sense to simply follow his nose and arrest anyone who smelled particularly bad.

The black haired page on the right nodded, while the redhead who looked like the princess simply stared at him. “Okay then,” Kolter said, setting out.

Squirrel marched along behind the guard as they were waved through the security gate, her palms dampening her clenched fingers. A few men threw curious glances at Kolter, but dismissed her and Toren completely. Toren, for his part, looked as casual as if he were a good deal early to a picnic, almost bored.

They passed the gate, and Kolter lead them down three flights of stairs until the damp air began to press against her skin, carrying the scent of human waste and gangrene. Squirrel’s stomach tried to rebel, and she doubled over, gagging on the smell.

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” Kolter said. “They never keep anyone on this shift long, unless they’re being punished.” Kolter winked at the two of them. “So what did you two do to deserve it? steal sweets from a lord’s room? That’s how I landed this job the first time.”

Squirrel forced herself to stand, and glanced over at Toren, who stood rigid, his face green. “So yeah, I can understand why the Commander would want me to show you around,” Kolter said, pointing to one side of the rows of cages, where a pool of murky water stood. “That’s the well, make sure not to throw anything away in there, or they’ll give you double duty. The garbage chute is on the other side. It may seem like a good idea to stand by the vent to get fresh air, but that’s actually where all the smell leaves the room. The air is sweetest over there.” Kolter pointed out a damp section of wall beside a stone pillar supporting the low ceiling. “It’s where I stood when I was waiting for them to finish their meals. Make sure you get all the plates and bowls back at the end of each shift, or they’ll give you double duty.”

Kolter’s words faded for Squirrel as she looked around the dungeon, searching for a single familiar face. She stopped in front of each one, carefully inspecting the wretched figures she saw huddled in the corners of the cells. Ever taking into account near-starvation, none of them were from her troupe.

“Thank you, Kolter,” Toren said, clapping the guard on the shoulder. “I’m sure we can find our way back from here.”

“But,” Kolter said, his strained. “You can’t be in here without me, It’s the rules.”

“There’s only one way back,” Toren said. “We’ll be just fine.”

A dim memory caused Kolter to furrow his brows. There certain were rules he had to follow, no matter what. They were simple ones that his drill instructor had made him and others like him chant as they did push-ups.

If someone tries to go into the dungeon alone, report them.

“You can’t be in here alone,” Kolter said, his face darkening like a stormcloud as he reached for his shortsword. “I have to report you to the commander.”

“I’m not alone, I’ve got my friend with me. Why don’t you wait for us at the top of the stairs?” Toren said, making an effort to grin through the stink of the air.

Kolter’s face lightened up immediately. “Oh, that’s right,” he said, his shoulders relaxing as the grip on his sword loosened. “But wait, where’s…” Kolter’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the slimy cobblestones, Squirrel standing behind him with an iron chamberpot in her hands.

“What in the Abyss?” Toren demanded. “He was our ticket out of here!”

“What would the other guards say when he comes back without us?” Squirrel asked.

“Ah,” Toren said. “Then you found your troupe?”

Squirrel shook her head. “They’re not in here,” she said, glancing around the dark stone room. The prisoners began to clamor as they realized what was happening. Emaciated arms stretched between the bars, reaching for the two of them in supplication.

“What? Then why-“ Toren’s flabbergasted voice was cut off by emaciated arms stretched between the bars, reaching for the two of them in supplication as they wailed.

“Please, let me out!” The phrase rang from so many voices, and echoed from the walls, creating a plaintive cacophony.

“SHUT UP!” Squirrel’s voice rang through the dungeon, clear as a bell, cutting through the wails of the inmates and stunning them into silence. “They’re not here,” she said, turning to Toren. “But I think they’re close.”

Squirrel took the keys off of the wall and held it up in the eyes of the prisoners. “Now listen closely,” she said, jingling the keys for effect. “If I give these to one of you, and that person tries to escape alone, that person is going to be back here in a matter of minutes, with extra bruises for the attempt. But, if you let each other out, and try to escape as a group, some of you might make it. Do you understand?”

The prisoners nodded emphatically, and Squirrel tossed the keys into the nearest cell. The man hooted loudly and immediately set about freeing himself while Squirrel lead Toren to the place where the air was ‘Sweeter’.

Squirrel watched the prisoner out of the corner of her eye as the gate on his cell swung open on rusted hinges. She saw him take a first step toward the exit, where two guards waited by at the top of the stairs, before he stopped. She watched him revisit what she said in his mind, muttering to himself as the plan he had mindlessly agreed to slowly began to dawn on him. The emaciated man turned on his heel and began opening other doors, motioning for the other prisoners to stay quiet.

Squirrel let out a small sigh, relieved that at least occasionally self-interest and altruism could align. Squirrel took two steps into the alcove Kolter had designated as having ‘sweeter air’, and noticed that it did indeed smell slightly less foul in this particular part of the dungeon.

Then Squirrel smelled something else. Blood. The sickly smell of iron wafted from some unknown location, and Squirrel fought down the urge to retch again. “They’ve got to be here somewhere,” she said, fighting down bile. “Maybe there’s a passage.”

Toren stepped closer to the wall, and ran his hand above the stones. “ Wow, You’re right,” he said, his brows raising. “The wall’s an illusion.” Toren knocked his knuckles against the stone. “A really good one.”

The prisoners formed a tight mob, and with the largest of them bearing Kolter’s shortsword, bore up the stairs as Toren held his hand over the wall.

“What’s taking so long?” Squirrel asked, waiting for the sound of fighting to erupt. “If it’s an illusion, just take it down, or walk through it or something.” Squirrel leaned forward and pressed her hand against the stone wall, leaning her entire weight into it, but nothing happened.

“I told you, it’s a very good illusion,” Toren said, his eyes closed. “It uses a technique that draws matter from another realm, giving it the solidity of real stone.”

“So it’s real,” Squirrel said, listening to the sounds of distant fighting.

“Nooo…” Toren said, sliding his hand along the edges of the wall. “The matter is bound in place by a spell, and meant to allow passage to the other side…. here we go.” Toren tapped his finger on an innocuous little stone in the cobblestone wall, and the surface began to ripple as though he’d thrown a stone into a lake. The wall slowly withdrew from the center of the ripple, widening like an iris, until before them lay a dark hall, leading into shadow.

“Alright then,” Squirrel said, snagging one of the lamps from the wall and stepping forward. Their breath hung around them as they moved forward, weighed down by the silent intensity of the air. behind them, shouts and the ring of steel faded away as they crept forward. Squirrel glanced over her shoulder and saw the stone wall in place again, the individual stones shimmering in the lamplight.

“Leaving is going to be a problem,” Toren said. Their plan had already begun to deviate wildly when Squirrel decided to club the simple guardsman over the head. Toren winced in momentary sympathy for the poor man.

“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Squirrel said firmly. Squirrel crept forward cautiously, keenly aware of the smell of blood permeating the air, growing thicker and more cloying the further they went. She desperately hoped it wasn’t her family making that smell. Why would they bother to hide a torture chamber behind a false wall in the first place?

Toren briefly considered trying his hand at invisibility and saving his skin. He felt confident he could manage it long enough to get past the chaos outside, but something at the edge of his senses as a wizard tugged him along in Squirrel’s wake, as though she were streaming cobwebs behind her, and he were caught fluttering in them. There was something about the girl that kept him helping despite his tendancy to avoid death and dismemberment. Could it be the contract he signed? It didn’t have any geas on it. There shouldn’t be anything forcing him.

Toren was pondering this when he heard Squirrel’s sharp intake of breath as they stepped out into an open room.

Magical fire flared to life around the smooth edges of the dome-shaped room, washing out the natural light of the lamp and revealing a horrifying spectacle. The room was dominated by a circular pool with lightly glowing eldritch runes dancing around the edge of the red liquid. Along the ceiling was a series of meathooks on caked with blood, and a splotch of brown beside the pool where one of the chains hung limply on the ground, ready to receive the next offering.

Squirrel’s hair stood on end as she took in the sight. Away from the pool were shelves lined with every kind of torture instrument she knew of and many more she couldn’t guess the meaning of. Tables with leather straps for arms and legs lay stacked against the wall.

Beyond the pool, on the other side of the room stood the iron bars of prison cells. Squirrel gasped and skirted the pool of blood, darting for the cells.

“Squirrel!” Toren called after her.

Squirrel sprinted past shelves of books and a wash basin to stop in front of the cells. Behind the iron bars were two still forms that she would have recognized anywhere. Reginald’s mane of greying black hair was matted and clumped, his limbs had withered and twisted into clawlike appendages, and were covered with fresh scars. The old man hadn’t been afforded any clothes, and his ribs and spine jutted out from his skin as he slept, curled in the corner of the cell.

In the cell beside him was a form that made no sense to Squirrel. Finn’s features decorated the stitched up corpse nailed to the beam against the wall. But Finn had seen them off. Squirrel had to practically force him to stay. They had left before he’d had a chance to catch up on his crutches, and yet, his naked body was strung up here.

It didn’t make sense. Finn was alive, and this corpse’s sunken sternum had been stitched shut, showing signs of weathering for weeks. Squirrel felt a pressure on her shoulder, and she wildly swung the lamp, the muscles in her waist and shoulders crying out in agony.

Toren managed to duck out of the way of the wild swing, his face pale. “Squirrel,” he said. “We have to get out of here.” The young wizard was breathing shakily, the whites of his eyes visible. “This is a very bad place, and if we stay here, we’re going to suffer a fate worse than death.”

“Squirrel?” a hoarse voice called from the cell in front of her, and Squirrel turned toward Reginald. The old man’s eyes were open, bloodshot, and squinting at her as though the meager light of the cell pained him. “Is that you?”

“It’s me,” Squirrel said, stepping forward to unlatch the cell. Toren put a hand on her shoulder, but she brushed him off, rushing into the room as she took off the outer tunic of her page costume, wrapping it around her father. “What happened, where is everyone else?”

Reginald began to moan, a low, piteous sob. “You’re here?” he said, weakly trying to push her away. “no. Took everyone else, wouldn’t take me, girl. I done bad things before. They said they didn’t need to bargain for what they already owned. I’m damned too, It’s just a matter of time. You go, you gooOO!”

“Reginald, we’re taking you home,” Squirrel said, lifting the distressingly light ringmaster.

“It doesn’t matter,” Reginald said, ineffectively trying to push her away as she lifted him. “I already seen where I’m going. You can’t.” Reginald began to shake, curling in on himself tighter and tighter. “You can’t, You can’t.”

Reginald’s protests devolved into moans of pain as he shook in her arms, barely enough to burden her, maybe as much as two of the sacks of flour she’d been tossing earlier that day.

“You don’t understand,” Toren said, tugging on Squirrel as soon as she came to her feet. “I’ve read about this. This isn’t a torture chamber, the king is a conjurer, Squirrel! We have to leave right now!”

Squirrel glanced at Toren, who was desperately trying to pry her out of Reginald’s cell. A conjurer? The term was relegated to myth and legend, when cataclysms were commonplace and the world was ruled by chaos. Squirrel had only ever heard the term used in hushed voices, detailing the downfall of kingdoms and oceans running red with blood, nothing definitive. What did Toren know that made him think that a monster had resurfaced under the capital city?

“…..quirelll.” a voice came from the other cell, low and faint. It was Finn’s voice. Squirrel turned her head, her heart pounding in her ears, almost drowning out the corpses words. The thing’s lips and eyes had been roughly sewn together, but its head was turned toward her, and it mumbled between a small gap. “Orry… idn wan… to ng uu…” Squirrel’s hairs rose as the corpse paused, moaning in pain. “Ee ma’ me

“Ee noes. Ee noes rrr eerrr.” As if a string had been cut, The corpse’s head sank to its chest once again.

“It’s called a Dark Miracle,” a man said behind her. Squirrel spun, her eyes focusing on the form of the king as he walked around the edge of the pool of blood. Beside her, Toren swallowed loudly before vanishing.