Dreamer's Folly by A. Samuel Bales

Author:A. Samuel Bales [A. Samuel Bales]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cassian Press
Published: 2023-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter twenty-one

Jeld shivered in a corner of his cell. The meager glow from a small barred window high up one wall narrowly staved off total darkness. That he could no longer smell the once incapacitating stench of urine and excrement was somehow worse, knowing the filth entered his lungs unnoticed with each breath.

A long moan echoed into the cell and his eyes flicked to a writhing form in the shadowy cell across the hall. This neighbor had proven well cast for the dismal setting, having performed dreadful convulsive fits throughout the evening and into the night. Jeld had often encountered his sort out on the streets—tar junkies who failed to steal enough to get their next fix.

“I’m hungry, Muma,” came the now familiar voice of a little girl from down the hall.

“I know, sweet girl, I know,” a woman said, a gut-wrenching despair beneath her gentle voice. “Muma’s hungry too. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Jeld’s gaze fell into the shadows. Though the darkness did little to mend his broken spirits, it befit both mind and setting.

He sat awake the night through, his back pressed to the cold stone wall despite the bitter chill. Time passed slowly, with little to occupy his raw mind but the past he had before been so careful to avoid.

It seemed the night would never end when at last dawn’s light pierced Jeld’s captivity and kindled a slumbering hope to live another day. He had two lockpicks in his cell’s lock when the sound of footsteps and jingling armor echoed down the hall.

Jeld quickly stuffed the picks back into the bottomless bag pressed still to his chest and slid to the ground against the wall of the cell. The sound grew louder and louder until a watchman, fatter and paler than most, stopped outside the cell with an ominous set of iron manacles in hand. The watchman stared appraisingly at Jeld before exchanging the manacles for a keyring at his belt and pulling the door open with a shriek. He waved Jeld forward with a single fat finger.

Jeld approached cautiously, coming to a stop just outside the cell before a surprisingly gentle prod started him down the hall. He followed the dark passageway, pausing at every turn until another poke turned him left or right, up or down. Down, down, down, he would silently wish at each stairwell, remembering only climbing on his albeit fuzzy journey inward, and every time the fat finger obliged.

Finally they came to a stop before a gate. Across the room beyond, light streamed seductively through a wooden door.

“Here,” said the watchman from behind.

Beyond the gate, another watchman peered around the corner.

“No manacles,” the smaller watchman said bluntly.

“Afraid of the boy?”

The other watchmen scowled back then unlocked the gate and turned from sight. A hand reached over Jeld’s head and pushed the gate open before prodding him onward. Jeld crossed the room, optimistically veering toward the door and the light beyond. The watchman did not intervene, even pushing it open as they approached.

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