The Shepherd's Refuge

I sit and contemplate my options for the hundredth time in as many hours, or maybe days? Weeks? The twisted concept of time tortures me as the war for my sanity continues. A bang from the door at the front of the room startles me as a thin wooden tray slides.across the floor. A snap of rope pulls taught and the small slot at the foot of the door slams shut before I even react. That’s okay though; I know that peeking through the slot reveals nothing but more nondescript walls in an identical room that abuts this one.

A memory of life before reminds me that there is something other than the room, but the memory is tainted by the thought of another room not much different than this one. I remember for a moment how I sat at a desk day in and day out filing missives on topics ranging from the most mundane to the dreadfully dire. A single swipe from my quill could rebalance the powers of a city, raise entire blocks from poverty, and even condemn the deserving to death.

I crawl forward to the door and inspect the contents of this meal. Moldering wood adorned with dry bread, overripe fruit, and a piece of what was probably deer meat in a previous week. This is easily the best meal I had in the last ten and I dig into it heartily. If my eyes are closed it even tastes like something which resembles food.

Even forcing myself into a measured pace the uneaten food is gone much too fast and my mind is free to wander once again. I place the tray on the small shelf beside the door and know that I wont be able to notice when it disappears. Some enchantment or feat of engineering removes the thing so fast that even if I stare at the tray it will vanish between blinks with nary a scrape of wood on metal. Not that anything more than my hand would fit through the wall’s faint indentation which the tray sits next to anyway. I lost the right pinky testing that theory.

With a sweating anxiety I flop onto my back and feel the stone seep the heat from my body in a cooling wave. I stare up at the light embedded in the ceiling and marvel at it once more. The court mages had gotten quite skilled and the light, now replaced a second, or maybe fifth, time is indistinguishable from a flickering torch. Time scrapes by and I recall how many times it has cycled on and off before I remember the counting. A week spent counting and fighting the fatigue taught me that the light comes on and off seemingly at random; there is no pattern.

Finally some variety! I think as a scream reverberates through the steel door. Three shouts, a rasp of steel on stone, and hard crash returns the silence to its natural state. I spend the next four light cyclings and next six meals imagining what that shout was. An escape attempt perhaps, a new guest, or perhaps just a trick of my mind to keep reality in order. I trim the idea of a new person nearby; the screaming would have started again if they woke up in this place after a fight. I am alone. I am alone and there is danger beyond that door that I must stay ready to defend myself against.

The mood to exercise strikes me once again and I push my body to its breaking point over and over again in an attempt to gain some measure of fitness. With no reflection and little to test my strength against I use the repetition counting to determine my progress. By the end of the mania I do one pushup for each brick in the right wall, two situps for each brick on the left wall, five strikes for the rear wall, and three kicks for the door wall. I debate whether to count them again to pass the time, but I know its a waste.

Four hundred and ninety-eight bricks. The right wall has four hundred and ninety-eight bricks. The left wall four hundred and ninety-eight bricks. The rear wall, four hundred and ninety-eight bricks. Each one is marked with their number from top left to bottom right just like a primer parchment to teach children their numbers. I carved the number in four times each just to be certain I didn’t make a mistake. It took two hundred shards from two hundred meal trays to mark each wall. I could have done it faster, but taking too much of any one tray never ended well. Once I took a whole side ridge and they didn’t give me another tray for five or fifteen light cycles. Soup on the floor is not the easiest thing to eat. The knowledge wasn’t worth the hunger.

The door wall has less bricks. Four hundred and fifteen of them to be exact. I suppose that makes the door eighty-three bricks large. My body is in a state of disrepair I can hardly describe by the time the exercise session is done and I pass out. I’d like to have dreams of wide open spaces and the people I know outside this room, but their faces have been replaced by blank stones in my mind.

When I wake up my eyes immediately turn to the door where another tray is being delivered. I stare in shock as the contents are something remarkably unique. Sitting there without a hint of remorse is a slice of cake, a sheet of paper, a small tin of cleaning poultice, and a fresh change of clothes. I half-leap, half-crawl my way to the door and hunch over the tray with greed in my eyes. I want to devour the sweet dessert immediately, but I manage to restrain myself just long enough to grab hold of the letter. Knowing my luck in this place, I would be eating a poisoned slice before I knew it. I consider not for the first time if that would be the worse choice I could make.

My internal monologue had long since turned external when new things came about and I read the letter out loud to no one in particular.

“To the creature which formerly called itself The Shepherd.

It has come to our attention that your penance has come due. A great many years has passed since you were relegated to that place, and now it has come time for you to leave. Your services are required elsewhere. Please eat this reward for time served, clean yourself, and change into this new uniform. Your release is scheduled for later today, if you fail to comply with these instructions we are happy to give you another decade or ten to consider our proposal.”

I finish reading the letter once and repeat the process to read it twice more before I set down the paper. This is it then. Falling to my back, I stare up at the ceiling and consider this news. The stark slabs of stone supported by a weave of reinforced metal bars cages me there too. Holes in the stone, formerly occupied by anchors used to tie off shackles and all sorts, remind me that there was once something worse than the neverending boredom.

Will that nightmare return? How long until my keepers decide that deprivation is no longer their best choice to bend and break me? Can I risk a better offer?

I roll over to my stomach and stare at the cake with my chin resting on my nested hands. If the meal is mandatory there is no doubt any number of unsavory ingredients. The right mixture from the alchemists could kill me, though that wouldn’t be too terrible. Just as likely was something to break my will. Make me pliable to their demands. That didn’t make sense; they could do that with anything they fed me in the past. Each moment brought me closer to that risk, and I knew that there was no real choice here.

There had never once been a time where they provided me more than the bare minimum for survival. I watch my hand reach forward to pick up the confection with a shaking hand that is so unsteady I am terrified I will drop the thing before it reaches my lips. I reinforce my grip with my other hand and ever so carefully take the smallest bite of the sweet.

The flavor is so intense that I nearly retch from the impact of it. My stomach tosses from the first sugar I have tasted in an effective eternity. A second bite smothers the overwhelming sensation of the first just before I am affected twice as powerfully. I roll over onto my side and feel the cool stone of the floor embrace me once again.

One hundred and forty-four stones in a perfect grid sit beneath me and I recall each of them fondly as if they were old friends. Entire days I have spent standing in place on each in quiet meditation and the stones all have heard my secrets enough to know them by rote.

“Goodbye, my friends,” I whisper to them, one by one, “I am terrified to leave you, but I can no longer stay.”

I rise to my feet and scoop up the dessert. I hold my breath and eat it quickly in the vain hope that the speed will outpace the illness I am sure to feel. The task is done in a moment; I am more than well-accustomed to choking down food in a hurry. A last wave of nausea cripples me for a moment, but it passes.

The next object of my attention is the small tub of cleansing agent and the thick rag which rests just beside it. The cleaning agent will not be pleasant of that I am certain. The reagents required to cut through the grime and indignity which festers upon me could not be anything short of caustic. Still, the thought of being clean is something which has been weighing on me for many light cycles.

My hand scoops the paste from the bowl and swipes it across my chest before I have time to worry about the process. I work quickly enough to get most of my torso clean as the heat of a cleansing flame soaks into my skin. With a swipe from my other hand the paste is wiped free and I watch in horror as the filth dissolves into the paste as though eaten by acid. My skin does not fare much better, but the wounds heal soon after they open. An indeterminable amount of agony later and I am spotless and unfortunately hairless in my entirety. Apparently, the provider of this cleanser thought my ratted hair utterly ruined or at best not worth saving. I decide they are probably right as I deposit the paste back into the bowl which I now notice has a slight magical glow. Probably just an enchantment to keep the paste from eating the bowl itself. I consider taking it with me but decide it isn’t worth the risk.

Finally, I reach the clothing that sits folded crisply into a bundle. The black and purple uniform looks as though it will fit me nicely though how the measurements were obtained I could not begin to fathom. The clothing style was nothing like the uniforms I was familiar with in my past, and it takes me several tries to get everything on and in its proper place. Without a mirror I must simply assume it is in place at the very least. I am sure someone will be more than happy to abuse the correct methods into me if I did anything wrong.

Cake eaten, body cleansed, clothing donned, and a stock of each element of my confinement counted. I think it is time. As if on cue, I hear a metal click so foreign to me I do not recognize it. I spin to face the door and nearly sink back down to my knees.

The door sits open in its entirety. The solid frame is empty as the air of the cell. My freedom stands four paces ahead of me. I take a fist step. Then, I take a second. A third gets me within arm’s reach of the door. One more step and I am outside the space which has been my personal refuge and private hell for longer than my mind can recall. I lift my foot and make my choice.