Chapter 22

"Streams of fresh and delightful waters, which natives desirously yearn for, are the countenance of Lies, whilst honest Truth is as rivers of blood. Yet all brooks, both falsehood and honesty, run their courses to converge into the large and blooded ocean of Reality and sovereign Truth.

When blood meets water, blood must triumph; all countenance of lies will end in the grave reality of truth."

~

Western Culvert of the Under-ground Dungeons,

Steep Cliff Face of Shillingston,

Kingdom of Tristendyre,

The first Phrinight of the Second month,

XXI Year of Regency

Consciousness and unconsciousness warred to claim property over her darkling senses. Wakefulness prevailed, for there were frigid drops of water on her eyelashes trickling down her wet face.

Imogen shivered in the cold, feeling weakened and numb and drenched in the rain, discounting a heavy layer of sheet resting over her arms and chest, which prevented the sting of the frosty air.

In all the consuming chill, that weight over her torso provided a warmth that the exposed portions of her being coveted, because she was robed in damp clothing.

She realised that, though the waters were not pouring upon her body, the sound of the reigning storm was farthest from calm.

Her clothes were soaked and heavy, like a trunk filled with water and her hair was wet enough to cause her a touch of fever. The smell of salt was rich, like she was at the seashore, but the ground she lay on was as solid as rock.

She opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times until the blind-fogs dancing in her rippling vision began to be dispelled.

Her gaze was beclouded, plagued by fatigue and droplets of water; the chill of the air afflicting her lenses in their condition. Further, despite the retreat of the haze, her sight was only composed by vague tones of darkness.

The damsel sat up straight, just as the thick and large cape lined with an overlay of fur that had been draped over her rolled down to her lap. The sudden touch of icy winds, which inflicted chills to her unshielded arm and neck, caused her to shudder and sneeze.

Her body yearned for the luxury of warmth and she lifted the large cloak to wear over her shoulders, holding it firm against her chest.

The comfort of summer beneath the wrap was certainly a pleasure, but the enclosure it brought was guarantee that her wet attire would not dry soon.

Even so, she was freezing under the pitiless and unrelenting ardour of the weather. Imogen wondered how she had not died by then.

She could not discern whether this moment was of the collections of illusions that she was fantasising, in some realm betwixt life and death.

The damsel looked around to find that she was seated in a place that seemed akin to a stone cave, the gaping and open doorway, of natural construct, on one wilder end displaying:

The showers relentlessly pouring down, waves of the Prussian Farriage Sea raging beneath in its indignation against the scourging torrent, the wrath of the storms pelting bolts of lightning at the skies, rumbling thunders, a shadow of the ruining Cross-Fraught in its distant position, sight curtained by the furiously descending spears of rain and its ethereal mists of fog.

She perceived this opening to be the entrance of the den wherefrom she may have entered, for it was the path of her fall, although there seemed to be no means of escapement there-through, unless one wished to hurl themselves into the violently convulsing seas.

The other end of the tunnel in which she had found herself was dark and unknown, leading further into the depth, as if it were an alleyway.

Someone seemed to be approaching, footsteps sounding against the stone and Imogen was on her guard, despite her humble state of frailty.

"Gen", sounded the voice belonging to the treading silhouette of a man. "I see you have awoken quite soon."

A sharp pang of fright slashed her heart when she recognised the person. "J-Jaycob?" asked the damsel into the uncertain night of the cave.

The man stepped into the fairer parts of stone where the flashes of occasional lightning could incandesce the subjects it reached.

He strode forth, vest as black and polish as rivenhove in dusky light, high collars, over-coat bearing a single, broad lapel (that was the protraction of one side of his collars) plated with ruby trimmings making its way down to the other side and relenting beneath the lock of blood-coloured metal sashes that produced fobs ending in crystalline shards of sanguine suspended mid-air like they would have connected to another part of clothing but were hanging unfastened (and one would be granted to perceive such other garb to be the cape that had been draped over Imogen), his belt bearing the coat of arms of the Imperial Castle, a strap lined with chains extended from his metallic epaulette (without fringes) to the belt, sleeves folded till his elbows and overlaid with straps of ends cut in the shape of 'V's' being connected by loosely suspended fobs, boots long and garnished in the fashion of armour: regalia befitting of the Chief of Artillery.

In his grasp were large fetters that matched the size of sabre-toothed pythons from the Wroshmanian wild.

"Indeed", said he, resting a knee against the floor before her and settling down.

Imogen's vision granted her to gaze at his profile: wet tufts of olive hair veiling his forehead and nape, a mask to cover his black eyes that reached down to his left jaw.

It had always been a curious mystery what the man was concealing beneath the siege of a mask, but he had refused divulging. Further, everyone had always accommodated it as part of his visage for it had found its place on his face ever since introduction.

At present moment, the origin of his masquerade was hardly one among her prime concerns, for there were far greater apprehensions this uncertain man seemed to be causing.

Her eyes looked down to meet the wet chains his hands seemed to be holding. His demeanour did not dictate any intention of binding her with those, but she understood not why they were damp as if they had been exposed to the rains when Jaycob was completely dry.

"I fail to comprehend, Jay", the flame-haired young lady began. Anger brewed within her heart against the words and deeds of the man knelt before her face. "I thought you had told me that you were leaving on a journey beyond the frontiers of the Kingdom."

Jaycob nodded, "I had, for reason of a secret mission to retrieve a fugitive from another country, but I was withheld confidentially. The travel for search has been deferred."

"How then that the Regent revealed your departure before the whole gathering", said she, vexed. "Had you not told me that it was secretive, and that I disclose not to any soul that you are away?"

Jaycob nodded again, before answering, "I was there undercover, in the shadows, during the execution proceedings; it so happened because the Regent had been unnerved, speaking excessive, at the unanticipated mention of my name, lest it may begin to bear tarnishes.

After all, there was no concrete evidence that you were, indeed, the one to have assisted the escape of Jehu. There is, in pristine honesty, no authentication to testify of any presence that has associated with his abscondence.

They could not have dealt with a second convict appended to the case, for I am highly required in their favours and errands. Lying of my absence from the country was the only means in the lack of alternatives."

All of her contemptuous and chaotic feelings of self-sympathy from their exile, poured back into the provinces of her mind like resentful sepoys in mutiny, afflicting her emotions severely.

And they had conquered her. It was a difficult fort that her heart had built against her thoughts to contain them, when she had felt crippled for being the sole victim.

Imogen could not understand why she was as ferociously hunted; solely her, of all the persons involved. In fact, she was merely providing alms.

But amidst the tribulation, she was curious about still being alive.

"How did I survive the fall?" asked she, "There were no odds of persistence."

Jaycob chuckled, "You were beginning to cause me doubts as to whether this question would ever come."

He held the chains up before her eyes and she instinctively turned to see her ankles relieved of the heavy manacles. "These were the fetters that were suspended to your feet, but they are of peculiar nature."

He turned to the opening of their den and lashed the chains against the air. They whipped the floor heavily (causing Imogen's startled fright to escape her composure in a squeal), but as the fetters darted far, cords appeared between the links of each chain.

"Fibres of Ryfletch reeds are elastic. These may appear, to the common eyes, as a conventional stream of bonds, but they are, in truth, expansible wires in the disguise of chains. The pace of your fall would have been relaxed after distance, causing it to cease any threat to your breath. That would compromise the fatality of you propulsion. After that, I awaited here to retrieve you", he explained.

Imogen listened, "Then I truly was executed from the crag directly aloft? And this passage where I am being held now is excluded from the knowledge of the common folks?"

The head archer nodded as he looked at the open end of the tunnel displaying the rainy night. Imogen was struck by the sheer amount of deliberation conferred upon the process.

The chains of her feet that had required to be severed prior to her descent surely could not have escaped the notice of the men that had desired her execution.

"Were the Regent and his men, then, involved in salvaging my life?" asked she, curiously.

Jaycob nodded, and answered: "I was sent hereunder, by the Regent himself, to secretively retrieve you with breath."

~