The Prisoner is Questioned

[Amanita Vernia]

Amanita still doesn't reconize her own brother.

Bread and water was all the prisoner received, not even light, except when the guards came down to deliver those two things and only once a day. Venor had already been visited by the flicker of a torch that day, though he had no way of counting day from night or the rising of a new dawn. Still, the light coming to visit him was not carried by a bringer of nourishment, instead, it was held by the merchant. She was accompanied by three men, but only one that the prisoner would recognize if he could even remember the man who'd stabbed him a hand ago, Arculeius. His dark skin was even richer in the shadows of light, a contract to the woman covered by pale robes and with the same light complexion. "He still hasn't learned to speak?" she asked her most loyal guard knowing that he'd come down several times since the capture and attempted to speak in his native tongue along with several other inland dialects. The man still looked like a barbarian of some kind, but it was decided that it was not the jungles he'd come out of. She brought the light closer as the three men watched carefully to make sure the prisoner didn't step out of line. She could see from his face that the guards had tried to encourage him to speak using some physical tactics that left bruising, but his more serious wound was covered by clean bandages and appeared to be healing. "By now you must have some idea why you are being kept alive.... you would be smart to use it as a bargaining chip, sooner than later." She addressed the prisoner this time looking at him curiously.

Alone in the Dark.... It was curious, the things that happened to a man when he couldn't move or see. Of course, there was the obvious; that skin had paled, lost it's deep luster of tan in short-order, with the Tor-tu-Gor gone and only the grime to keep one's skin company. The rags, or remnants of rags, long gone now by some fickle guards sick humor, hadn't even been enough to keep that deep tan from other area's. So, overall, he was a waxy pale of dirty grit and black smears from the sedimentary decay of the walls he hung from, with red welts about those wrists from their captivity. Though, oddly enough, his lower-half was much cleaner...After-all, when you were hung up for days, you couldn't go off to a bucket, now could you? The diet of bread and water alone made it an easy chore of a good sluiced bucket, to drain it away through the grate beneath his feet. Thinner, cordier, he was just so much meat and bone now, though the former was lacking and the latter seemed visible in more than a few spaces. But it was something else that changed over those long periods of silence, when things rattled away in your skull with only the dark to distract you, play a backdrop to old things you'd seen before that your mind created to keep it's sanity...Eyes tight-knit against the harsh light of that torch, those words of the Merchant's had a full ahn' to sink in, before the slight rub of those chains came loud in the silence, and that dry-as-parchment voice roamed, low and almost, sad. "Alive, this is...not." Those words given a few spare moments space, while each was sought, and put out. Those long stretches of listening rattled some things loose.

The merchant had just about given up on hearing him, certainly her efforts delivered no more force than the guard's blows, but there was something to be said about the woman's charm. Somehow she had plucked the right phrase to bring his lips to life. But what fragment of information had he given? Not a name.... no answers to anything she wished to know, but a complaint about the accommodations. Surely she was being generous allowing him that bucket, which alongwith the delivery of his food was emptied once a day. It was too dim to see if there was feces filling it or not, but the stench was unmistakable. Splatters on the wall that humbled their killer now as he stood shackled against the stone wall. Nothing to shield him, not even a scrap of pride as the woman stood before him never bothering to avert her eyes. Was it pity in them? "Ah.... but it still goes on... and on... much like a life, even if it's not. You can help decide to end it.... if you cooperate. Are you willing or shall I leave you to think a bit longer in the dark?"

Again, he was silent for a time, as he rolled those words about in his mind, like hard-candies that needed some coaxing-along in their melt before teeth could find their set and crunch out the morsels...But there was more to it than the words alone; with every morsel, he remembered more words, their meanings, useless things. Trivial things. It was...that tone. That ever-feminine lilt almost every woman had, that needed the little bit of savoring. At least one part of him understood what the voice of a woman meant, and had the sense to react. The brain on the other-hand, didn't even bother acknowledging it as more than something pleasant. Like, a cool stream to soak in or soft wind to whisper through the trees. "I don't know what..you ask."

Even over his own wretched smell he might of been able to catch her scent as she moved even closer not appearing to be disgusted by the man. She didn't hold her breath, instead let it come out in a smooth exhale in an upward climb aimed at his ear. "Then you will tell me what you do know and I'll find a way to reward you." She pulled back and directed her eyes at his own grays. "A bath, perhaps.... well, at least a slave with a washing cloth. That is what I offer for your name as well as the one who sent you to me." All eyes as well as ears were on the prisoner with that question, it seemed a simple enough answer to give and the merchant took a few steps back letting the long braid of black flip around her shoulder so she could touch it's tail waiting for his words.

Ah...Now there was a question that came often from her En'-Guards' mouth. Your name, and the name of who sent you. The words came out with that same, careful linger; but they came more readily to his lips than the others. "I do not, remember. I was not...sent." It took him a long time to consider wether he'd been sent or not, really. Especially since he had no idea why he came to those lands in the first. But, those eyes did open somewhat to stare out at her from the screen of his lashes, filtering out as much of the light as he might manage at the cost of leaving her and her-own merely blurs of sharp color.

"Don't remember," she sighed as the words left her and with them a tone of frustration. She knew this was the same answer he'd given the guards time and time again, their treatment of him much rougher than her own, but she had hoped that he might change his tune. The man she'd hoped would return to the house, or the city for that matter, to ask him in that memory jarring manner was not to be found and this left her doing the digging herself. Dark eyes flashed over to Arculeius who could read her expression well as she passed the light over to one of the standing guards. "Is there nothing you might remember for me, if not a name, perhaps a face or some instructions you were given," said with her head still turned away but her voice hitting against the walls of the small, nearly empty, basement room. "I am only asking that you give me something to prove you are willing to corporate... otherwise there will be no end to this not alive, not dead, state of existence. It is your choice."

Like the greasing of a wheel, the words came easier; they needn't be rolled quite so much as before to be understood, to fall into their prospective slots of knowledge, though a few still skimmed over his head sometimes. Intructions was one such, one he couldn't dumb down...and it made his head ache to think further on the word, as he swallowed, thickly, to rasp out more words of his own; halting, loud if-only to his ears from the long stretches of silence. "Remember...snow. Rock. Bitter water. Then...then..." He knit his brow into a fine tracery of lines that got darker from the collected grime. "Heat. Sticky heat. Wood, wet. And now." And, he slackened, hanging heavier-still as he took some deep breaths, grimacing with each...It was hard, remembering those few words.

Amanita was not the only one studing the man as her words crept into his head. Arculeius who could read even the smallest of expressions from another watched even closer from his few extra feet of distance and the merchant turned to him to answer that unspoken question. Was this an act? The broken pattern of speech didn't match the blow he'd taken to the side of the head and his attack didn't fit the profile of an victim. At the same time Arculeius could see the man was struggling, either he was the best of actors or he really didn't remember. Amanita wasn't as good at reading the stranger, but with a few subtle signals from Arculeius she turned back to their captive. "Do you know where you are now?" a step closer she took, "Do you remember what you did to be chained.... or is that also lost with your name?"

Those were easier to answer, and it visibly showed as he exhaled, leaning back into the wall with a settling back of his skull to the wall, closing his eyes again from the light. "Where? Cave. No more...move. Not must. And I..." Taking a moment, he thought of the word...And simply shrugged. "Stopped Mercenaries." That was a word he remembered clearly. But, not for any particular reason he could fathom. He cracked an eye, and nodded with a grunt to Arcelieus then. "Guard stop me."

[Amanita Vernia]

"Yes." It was all she said to him as he recounted the event, but the reason for him to enter the house was still left unanswered. There were many ways a stranger might of chosen to enter the house if he didn't already know the best route, he had either guessed lucky or knew more than he told. The merchant was a believer that luck for anyone, especially a fighter like he, was just by chance. Was he just buying time before someone came to rescue him? Or did he know he was cornered and just doing the best he could to find his way through the dark. She started to turn her body towards the stairs and with a hand indicated the man holding the light should take the lead. "Have him cleaned and allow his arms to be lowered , but add a second pair of manacles to his ankles that are secured to the wall. Still bread and water, but twice a day," she instructed before leaving. Three pairs of feet left the room which soon grew dark again with only the prisoner and another's soft breathing heard.

With the torch gone, and the door aloft left open, it cut the light enough that, opening his eyes, he could see without the flinching-away...At least enough to turn his eyes over the faint outline of another. The large set of the shoulders said easily-enough who it was...And he didn't mind in the least. The man was perhaps the most-respectable of the many who seemed to float around. And he was definitely not a hireling...So, rocking over somewhat, he pushed up on his feet with a straightening-out, leaning his shoulders to the wall as he eased up the weight on his wrists, staring. Waiting.

The dark skinned man had been silent the entire time, letting the merchant speak, while he listened to the things the captive did not say. The cut of his body told a story as did his lack or reactions to certain words, at the same time there were things said that gained some forum of familiarity to flicker within him even if those eyes remained shut because of the blinding light. Like the prisoner Arculieus appeared to be more comfortable in the dark, it brought his other senses to the forefront and he could hear how the man straightened. A few ehns passed with no sounds from either, then there was the distinct sound of chains. Arculieus knew even before the merchant ordered it that it would be better to have his ankles secured before he was taken down from the hanging hook. "Had you not killed, there might of been a place for you. Now, it is a waste." It was more words that Arculieus said to most and they were passed on with a tone of respect. The bucket was kicked to the side before he knelt down to fasten the additional pair of shackles. It would be the only chance the killer had to attempt to take him out, though in his condition reflexes would likely be weakened in comparison.

As naturally as the kill came to him, he had no urge. The restraints...well. They weren't welcome, of course. But he knew if he did anything, it would only result in him being left to hang there, with a senseless or dead body at his feet. No...he could be patient, for a little while longer yet. Still, staring down at the man as he worked the manacles on, a phrase came to mind. And he said it as if by rote. "Kill, or be killed." And he shrugged, just slightly.

Arculieus was aware of the opportunity he gave the weakened man as much as he recognized the warriors mantra he spouted of kill or be... but at the same time he rose unscathed by the man. He looked at the man's face, not his expression this time, but the place his steel had struck and the bandages that covered it. "You are not stupid. Perhaps you were hoping to be killed?" Many of the other guards who'd questioned the man thought from the way he spoke that he wasn't coherent enough to understand, his limited speech made him seed daft, but Arculieus saw beyond that as well as witnessed his fighting skills. Even had them tested against his own. The dark man knew that he'd not made his decisive blow due to his talents, but by the man's distracted state of mind. Like every man of arms he wondered if his own head might of been taken off the same way the intruder took one of the other guards. He looked back towards the haggard man who's body was covered in grim and sweat, as well as his own filth and waited for that answer. It didn't require a memory to know if one wanted to die.

Blinking somewhat, he looked at the man under the furrow of his brows...And grunted, low and hard, giving his wrists a light knocking together. "This death. This stupid." And he nodded his chin off to the other. "You...hm. Couldn't." And he sighed, resting back to the wall...The words were coming all the easier now, as he worked his jaw, rolling his tongue over the roof of his mouth. "Stupid. Couldn't."

"Couldn't?" Arculieus echoed waiting for the answer to this puzzle. The man might of been baiting him, but at the same time he might of been asking. "What couldn't I do?" His head leaned to one side and under the very limited light he listened. Breathing was even and except for the rustling of as the prisoner leaned back to the wall once more, there was no other noise to be heard.

It was very simple to answer that, yet he looked at the man somewhat strangely for not making a seemingly obvious connection. "Die. Couldn't die." And he nodded past him to the stairs. "You guard. Mercenaries?" He just shook his head, almost sadly at the common fact. "Ex-Penda-ble." He enunciated the word so oddly, as if it were almost a quirky joke.

"Expendable." he said, this time the echo had no question behind it, only a nod. Arculieus brought his hand up to his face letting fingers run down his own jawline while his thumb shadowed in the same manner against his other cheek. He thought for a few moments, but rather than say more he just let the quite sink in. One of the house slaves eventually made it down the stairs and with her game a basen of warm water and soap. Arculieus remained while the prisoner was washed, something another guard in the house could of done, but so many of them were still upset knowing that his man was still breathing. He might of been protecting the prisoner, but at the same time he was protecting his men from this deadly predators. Once clean Arculieus moved towards the man again to unhook his arms from overhead and allow him the mobility the merchant promised. Small rewards for his speech, but she wasn't finished with him yet. Only when she was could he die.