Level: Novice

Ant inched toward the carved double doors. Only he could hear the soft slap of his bare feet on the stone flag stones, but his throat felt dry, and his heart seemed to have moved to his mouth, where it thumped out every moment of his life as if warning him the end was near.
He knew one of the huge doors had been left ajar, so he gently pushed it, letting it slowly swing open enough for him to slip through. At last he stood within the chamber that other urchins in Nunavi Sunrum only whispered about in half-complete phrases.
“Torture, game, don’t go there,” one had told him. “None come out alive, except Him.”
“And her,” another added.
A dry feeling made a caustic smell mixed with something else he would not have been able to name, fear, catch in his throat. Above this the more familiar smell of blood floated past his nostrils, exciting him.
Ant’s mouth fell open as he stared at the wonders before him. He had to swallow, before remembering his jeopardy and clambering onto the stone plinth beside the door. He slipped behind the statue there and peeped out to take in the room’s details, hoping to commit them to memory.
The circular chamber rose all the way to the top of one of Nunavi Sunrum’s tall towers, so that Ant felt dizzy at the perspective when he looked up. Empty braziers lined the stone walls of the chamber, the only light creeping in from windows high in the tower. Beams of early morning sunlight highlighted motes of dust that drifted lazily, wafted by currents from the strange, hanging decorations in the Chamber of Slow Death, Ukawarnam Alvaka. The decorations were an assortment of bodies, in various states of dismemberment and life, some dead, some near death, hanging from ropes suspended from beams in the very apex of the tower roof. Such long lengths of rope meant that the slightest breath of dank air made of bodies into pendulums, marking out the final hours of life. Affixed in loops at the end of the ropes, below knots that bound their wrists, were long, spiralled lengths of iron that dripped with their blood, and around the victims’ waists iron bands had been riveted, from which projected long spikes. In this way, whenever a strong draft or a hand from a gallery, high in the tower, should swing the ropes, the bodies would collide, driving the spikes into one another, only adding to the excruciating pain in their stretched arms. Some were even bound with their wrists behind their backs, most dead within hours of such suspension.
Ant’s open mouth curled into a grin.
“Wow!” he whispered, jolting when he heard his word echo.
One of the bodies on the ropes moved, and a voice moaned, “Help me!”
The Chamber’s diameter was greater than the tower at its base, being two floors underground by Ant’s calculation. Around the perimeter, in alcoves like the one in which he hid, stood stone statues of the eight Rememberers, but two, Omacron and Subrisa’s, had been turned upside-down, while all the rest except Merl’a and Tantor’s, had their faces covered by wooden masks. By now, Ant had learned the names of the Remembers and recounted them silently as his eyes swept the alcoves. Then he noticed more spiralled iron rods, protruding from holes in the annular roof of the Chamber and terminating about one cubit below. Below each, channels cut in the stone floor led to a trough or bath that surrounded a stone plinth on the opposite side of the Chamber. Upon this plinth sat a large, stone throne.
Ant’s curiosity made him itch to step out and examine the troughs, but he knew what they held; blood. The Chamber stank of it. Everywhere he looked there were blood stains; on walls, on stone furnishings and the floors. Even as he looked, in the eerie silence that followed the victim’s plea for help, he heard a faint sound, as a drop of blood dripped into a trough from one of the iron rods, the sound amplified by its own echoes in the Chamber.
In the very centre of the Chamber floor stood a construction, the like of which Ant had never seen. Most like an upturned cup it seemed, and from beneath this a channel, shaped like a key that had been split down its length into two halves, ran to the trough around the throne. From the top rim of the cup stretched upward and outward a ring of long pikes, each terminating in a long, glittering iron tip. Ant could not guess the purpose nor meaning of the strange object, but most of all his eyes were drawn to two stone pedestals, about one cubit in front of the throne on the plinth. They looked to him like rests for someone’s feet. He longed to see the secret ceremony of the Inner Circle of the Blood Cult take place and hoped he would be able to remain concealed enough to do so. How he would escape after was a consideration that had not even crossed his mind.
A hand alighted upon Ant’s shoulder, making him scream.
“Are you interested in the Game?” a high-pitched voice asked, the hand now gripping Ant so tightly that he could not wriggle away.
“What game? I just came to look. Who are you anyway?”
“I’m Prince Tuma. Welcome to my Game parlour, or so I like to call it. I’m going to give you the honour of examining it more thoroughly.”
“Prince Tuma! I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you Sire. I meant no ’arm, honest I didn’t!”
“You meant; you could do no harm. But you and I know you could do a lot of harm!”
“What do you mean?” Ant replied, swallowing as the self-styled Prince Tuma II’s angular, pallid face, sunk to his level and his black eyes probed the boy’s.
“I have been watching you, little urchin of the Fortress. You’re not like the other boys, except that friend of yours, Chico. Some of the other boys … .”
Ant struggled again to wriggle free, but Tuma held him firmly.
“Other boys?” Ant asked, trying to think of a way out of his situation.
“Keep still, you little rat! Some of the other boys tell me neither of you spoke Atalan T’ean when you first appeared. That’s strange, very strange. I am wondering if you followed the Raiders into Llantu.”
“What? No. We’ve lived here all our lives!”
“Where then? Where did you come from?”
“Erm. Gondwater. Papertown. My father moved around!”
“What did he do?”
“He was an … an … .”
“I thought so. You did follow the Ischian raiding party from the outside. I think I know exactly who you are!”
“You do? I mean; I’m Anthony Beelson, of Flat 10, 2A Campbell Road, London E3!”
Ant thought this explained everything and expected Tuma to let him go. He wriggled again, but Tuma gripped him ever more tightly.
“I’m wondering why you followed the Ischians. Were you fascinated by their blood-drinking reputation?”
“Yes! No! We only heard about the Dog Monsters in newspapers. Nobody believed the stories, but when locals said they had seen them, Chico and I wanted to see! That’s all! We did nothing wrong! We didn’t steal anything or nuffin’!”
“You see, I have never been outside. But my father, Tantor, has. In fact, he has been missing now for two hundred years. You have his sly features and brawny arms. For a kid, you’re quite strong. You know what I’m thinking?”

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