Wisdomatch - Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

            “I can’t believe you did it.” My voice, hoarse from hours of disuse, bounces over the damp, musty walls. The backaches brought by the hard floor have long ago benumbed, and the absence of light is making me forget the difference between having my eyes opened or closed.

            Vic sighs from his corner of the cell. “You know why.”

            “I know you’d rather see me selling my dignity to perverts than working towards a better life by joining the Wisdomatch, but what I don’t know is what kind of lunacy caused you to tell on yourself,” I say.

            “Well, I couldn’t leave you here!”

            I knew it. The moment I was shoved into this stinking prison, I’d expected Vic to follow shortly.

            He is, after all, my stupid best friend.

            “Isn’t that heroic? Now Grandpa will starve along with your mother and sister. And for no reason at all,” I say, though unlike a few sentences ago, my words are without venom.

            Silence, then, “What are you saying?”

            Our argument earlier at the town square was one of the very few we’ve had in our decade-long friendship, and look where it got me, us, our families. “I didn’t Enlist,” I murmur.

            The silence is even longer this time, and I’m beginning to think that Vic didn’t hear me when he says, “What?”

            If only I can see him, I’m sure I can watch the truth slowly sinking in him.

            “When you left, I realized I couldn’t risk dying. What would happen to Grandpa without me?” I ask. “But now that I’m here and basically dead, I think I’ll learn the answer to that.”

            He mumbles, “Sacred deity...” Then, like he’s trying to regain his pride, he asks, “Well, wouldn’t you have done the same if I were the one who wanted to join?”

            “No,” I say, “I would have joined with you.”

            The toes of his leather boots squeak against the dank floor as he crawls to my side. “Just so you know—I would never want you to become a harlot. I’d rather you die.”

            “That’s not really helping with your apology,” I say, but I still lean against his skinny body, as familiar to me as my own. We fall asleep like that, only to be woken up by a Bluecoat kicking the metal bars of our cell.

            “Get up,” he says. The lock clicks when he turns the key to open it.

            Three other Bluecoats are with him, one of them holding a torch and the other two waiting to bind our hands with manacles as soon as Vic and I step out. I’d feared it, yes, but I never thought that I would actually get to feel the heavy weight dragging down my arms, much like how nightmares scared people, but they didn’t really believe they would live in it.

            “Aren’t we supposed to wait years before trial? Did we even get a trial? Will we?” Vic questions the Bluecoats as we march down cramped corridors. We pass by numerous other cells but I can’t tell if they’re empty; the only source of light is the torch one of our guards has, and the only smell is that of mold and grime mixed together. Aside from our heavy footsteps, it is eerily quiet down here, like this place is impenetrable by life. Or maybe our town’s crime rate is just low.

            Vic’s face meets the filthy ground when he’s kicked by the Bluecoat behind him, the same one who had opened our cell door.

            “Stop pestering us with your questions, boy, or I’ll mash your head on the floor with my bare hands,” the man says.

            “Hurt him again and I will mash your head on the wall with these,” I say, eyeing the pair of iron balls attached to my shackles.

            “Just get the boy up, Hanson,” the torchbearer says, his graying hair a vivid orange with the fire.

            We begin marching again. I should be nervous but instead, I am calm—excited, even. I hated the anxiousness I felt when we were in the cell. I also hate being in the hands of other people, but I know that for the most part, your life isn’t really up to you; it’s up to what people who are intertwined with yours do to theirs.

            Unless you live without caring about anyone but yourself, in which case I don’t believe you’re living at all.

            After numerous lefts and rights into identical hallways, the heaviness in the air clears and sunlight streams in straight ahead.

            What Vic said earlier is true: normally, criminals don’t get trials until years after they’ve been thrown into prison. That way, guilty ones get punished longer than they should, and the innocent are condemned of the crime of suspicion.

            Judging by the sun’s position and the cool crisp in the air, it must be hours before noon. Vic and I had been in jail for almost a day.

            We cross the town square to the Drop, North Borough’s council hall. A few stares come our way, but by now, I’m certain almost everyone’s heard of our arrest, especially since the mayor’s involved.

            The Drop is, like almost everything else in our wretched town, crumbling down, its roof about to give in and its white walls turned gray. Dud can’t even bring himself to use a fraction of his money to get the place restored, when his mansion is one of the few structures, along with the other rich people’s homes, in the borough that do not drip wet when it rains.

            We enter the building through its wide, open doors. I’ve never been inside before so, contrary to the unwelcoming façade, I am surprised to see that its interior has been well-kept. A circular marble desk stands in the middle of the entrance hall, with matching stools spread along its inside. The Bluecoats take us to the West Wing—as the plaque above its entrance announced—which is actually an auditorium. A skylight illuminates rows of chairs on its three sides, and some thirty people are in it, including Dudley who easily spots us from where he stands on the podium.

            “My dear friends, were your accommodations at the Prisons to your liking?” he calls out to us with a despicable grin on his face. The group gathered in front of him—westerners, I’m certain, judging by their exquisite clothes and the evident looks of disgust and wariness on their powdered and colored faces—makes way when the Bluecoats bring us there.

            “Not much, as any other person would find it, but I prefer it than here in your presence,” I say, grinning at him.

            Vic elbows me quite strongly on my side, and I remember what he said about my habit of taunting a tiger while inside its cage. He clears his throat. “What are we here for, Sire? Are these people our trial committee?” he asks, ever so polite.

            I almost laugh. With Dudley as the arbiter in our trial, a committee is unnecessary. Our fates are as set as a blade in its hilt.

            “They quite are, but for a trial different from what you think,” Dudley answers. “You see, though you are not worthy of it, luck has come your way, thieflings.”

            I grunt. “Enough of the riddles, epicene,” I say, drawing gasps from the group behind us and a furious frown from Dud, “and just tell us why we’re here.”

            He takes a deep breath, probably to stop himself from giving in to the temptation of having us executed right then and there. “Very well. You are here because according to the rules of the Wisdomatch, Enlisters are not to be hindered from participating, even by the crimes from which they shall no longer be tried for in the event that they win the Wisdomatch.”

            “So you really did get us into trouble for nothing,” I say, loud enough for only Vic to hear.

            “Sorry,” he whispers back. “But we didn’t Enlist, Sire,” he tells Dud.

            “These,” Dud says, throwing two sheets of paper to our feet, “tell us otherwise. And also according to the rules, Enlisters cannot withdraw once the forms are handed in.”

            This must be Dudley’s way of getting rid of us. “We didn’t hand in anything, you dolt.”

            “Look at the information on those papers and tell us if you see anything erroneous. If so, we shall burn them, declare it a farce, and bring the two of you back to your cell,” Dud says in a voice quivering with anger.

            Vic and I bend to pick them up, the iron balls making deep, dull thuds on the marble floor when they hit it.

            My eyes skim past my name to my age, and I recognize the simple but comely handwriting that belongs to the only person who knows I’m sixteen, not seventeen. I snatch Vic’s form from his hands—it is written in the same hand.

            In Grandpa’s hand.