The Demon Comes

Chapter 1

Camille

“Twenty-five riel! Do I hear thirty for the tall brunette? She’s of perfect breeding age and obeys your every whim!”

The throaty voice of the auctioneer echoes off the hard rock walls, every moment punctuated by the steady drip of water. The dim sconces barely brighten the cells around me, my every movement disturbed by the clinking shackles bound to my feet. In the shadows, I can see the silhouette of the auctioneer’s cloak entering from the other room. The woman beside him stands perfectly still, flanked by guards.

My back is wet from the damp rock I’m leaning against, watching as I do every day, waiting for my turn on the auction block. Waiting is the most difficult part.

There has to be a way out of this, I think to myself. A small flame burns in me still, unlike the other captives huddled around me. I can remember the days I watched that light leave them as they resigned themselves to their fates. Many of their personalities have eroded away, until all they are left with is a vacant stare, like that of an animal’s.

Beside me, an elderly woman slinks against the wall, quietly muttering prayers to elven deities. She has grown weak and frail from deprivation, her eyes gaunt and ringed. I imagine becoming her, waiting out all of my days tossed between buyers like a common piece of livestock.

I shiver at the thought, my cold flesh coated with the slimy dampness of the cavern wall. The guard’s cruel, vacant stare never leaves me, his own body obscuring the events of the other room, which I hear perfectly. I can feel him challenging me to move against him, and it almost dissuades me from what I know must be done.

“That’s twenty-five riel for this perfect specimen! Thank you for your purchase, Mr. Aleric!”

The crowd’s complicit applause echoes. Our lives are little more than a sporting event to them, deriving the same amount of enthusiasm.

Occasionally, I turn my head, sensing motion in the corner of my eye. I think it might be another prisoner moving to escape, or perhaps an old figure from my past life coming to rescue me. Out of desperation, my imagination grows stranger and stranger.

But every time, I’m disappointed to see that it’s just the dancing flames, casting shadows that play tricks on my mind.

A rodent slinks across my feet, and I try to keep myself from squealing as it darts along the wall, settling next to a carcass.

The prisoners around me, rattling their chains with every exhalation, exude a foul odor of sweat and decay. The cold, slimy walls all smell strongly of mold. I have to unconsciously scrunch my nose just to endure these conditions, keeping my mind focused. 

If I don’t want to be up there soon, I have to escape.

The guard approaches my cell, joined by another guard from the other room. As they walk toward me, their eyes align with mine, and I fret that I may be next on the block. But instead, they move toward the elderly woman at my side, gripping her by the wrists and standing her up.

         “Come along now,” one of them growls. “I’m sure you’ll make an excellent housekeeper.”

         She protests loudly, sobbing as they move her forward through the darkness.

         He turns toward the guard accompanying them, who holds her other wrist.

         “Mayek is on break, so we’ll need to escort the prisoners ourselves.”

         “But isn’t it policy to always have a guard watching the cells?”

         Their eyes look toward ours, their voices speaking over the wailing of the woman in their grasp.

         “I don’t think they’re going anywhere, do you?”

         Out of everybody here, I had figured that she was the safest. Agatha told me she lost her family years back to elven raids and that she’s been waiting here since, hoping to die with dignity somewhere.

         In her time of suffering, she began to pray to the Thirteen, because it was all she had come to know.

         I can only hope that in the hands of another buyer, maybe she’ll beat the odds and experience some amount of fair treatment. Though I know that hope might be blindly optimistic and she’ll probably end up dead in the outside world.

         One of the men sitting across from me shakes his head. “That’s awful,” he says.

         I don’t know his name, and he didn’t know hers.

         As I turn my head to look at him, I want to wipe my unkempt blonde hair out of my eyes.

         I can hear the crowd’s reaction to the woman being led on stage.

         “This human woman has spent a lifetime working and serving, and she’s ready to serve you!

         “We’ll start the bidding at five riel!”

         “They’re even taking the elderly now,” the man says. “Is nothing sacred anymore?”

         My eyes dart wildly toward the exit, now unguarded. I move my gaze across the room, trying to strategize.

         There isn’t time to mourn.

         “Aren’t you going to say anything at all?” the man asks me.

         I realize that his comments weren’t addressed toward just anybody but toward me.

         The taste of iron fills my mouth as I open it to speak. I am overwhelmed by rust and by the tang of the rusty shackles that encase my wrist.

         “Truly terrible.” I nod in agreement.

         This may be my only opportunity.

         I look at the resigned stares of the captives around me, hoping to find even a speck of hope in their eyes, unextinguished by tribulation.

         Not many people dare speak for fear of being reprimanded by the guards. It’s been a quiet existence, only subject to the ambiance of the cells.

         Taking a risk, I speak, pressing into the disturbed tension.

         “Do you ever wish we didn’t have to deal with this anymore?”

         It’s a rather stupid question. The look on his face clearly conveys this.

         “Sure, it would be great if we could just walk out with no consequences, but that’s not going to happen.”

         I stare at him blankly, still trying to think.

         If I can just convince the rest of them to fight, maybe we’ll have a chance of escaping. If I try to escape alone, I’m almost guaranteed to die. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count.

         The other prisoners’ eyes are upon me, but their stares aren’t kind.

         “Sure, you’re probably right,” I acknowledge, hoping to ease some of the venom from his eyes. “I was just thinking that maybe if a bunch of us rose up together, we might have a chance.”

         “Haven’t you been here longer than I have?” the man asks. “Haven’t you seen what happens to people who talk like that?”

         His voice is rising in volume, and I realize with some nervousness that if he continues speaking this loudly, it’s bound to draw the guards back toward this room.

         “I hear seven riel,” the auctioneer shouts from the other room. “Do I hear more? She’s trained in all manners of household chores and can even watch your younglings!”

         “She isn’t worth seven riel,” one of the crowd members shouts. “The only place she belongs is buried in a hole!”

         “Ten riel,” somebody from the crowd shouts.

         I speak in a hushed whisper, attempting to encourage him to do likewise.

         “Those people all try to sneak out alone,” I say. “What I’m proposing is a temporary alliance, not a suicide mission.”

         “It’s all suicide, lady,” he says. “When are you going to see that?”

         I feel myself heating up.

         “Unbelievable! That’s fifteen riel to the man in the front with the white coat!” the auctioneer cries.

         Perhaps addressing this man was a poor idea. In spite of his apparent sympathies, he clearly has no intention of escaping.

         “None of us are happy. And a chance like this might never present itself again. Can we at least agree on a plan to escape this cell?”

         But the others are silent, their judgmental stares firmly fixed upon me.

         “How were you planning on getting out of the shackles?” the man asks. “Getting out of the cell? Your plan is stupid, and it’s going to get us all killed.”

         I spit back.  “Ridiculous,” I say. “They wouldn’t kill all of us. There’s no way they’d let all of us die.”

         I hear a scratchy voice and see a grizzled elderly man to my left.

         “Four years ago, I was in a market like this, in the middle of a dense forest,” he says. “The prisoners all started talking about banding together and escaping. They were suffering delusions and thought they were invincible, just like you.”

         The man’s eyes shift to the elder’s, and I listen to his account over the sound of a now frenzied crowd.

         “I kept my mouth shut. Many of them had become my friends, but I knew nothing would come of their plans. Then one day, it was time. They had pilfered the key, and they were going to head for the forest. But something was horribly wrong.”

He leans forward intently, continuing. “As one of them broke his shackles, freeing himself from his confines, they all started coughing violently. Soon, everybody in that group was coughing up blood except for me. Forty-six people died that day, and the elves who took the bodies thanked me for not trying anything. I was the only one left alive because I’d resisted their plan.”

I shift my eyes back to the man as I hear the crowd erupting in satisfaction.

“If you try anything at all,” the other man says. “If you mention this even one more time, I’ll report you myself. And we’ll see how sound your plan seems once you’re dead.”

There’s clearly no way to win this argument. If I want to escape, it’s going to have to be on my own terms.

         “You’re right,” I admit quietly. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea.”

         “Yes, it was,” he growls, his eyes raging with fury.

         When I look toward them, trying to find some amount of comfort, they all look away from me. I suddenly feel like a leper in their presence.

         The guards return to the cells, bringing with them another prisoner, and I buoy myself with quiet determination.

         It doesn’t matter that I’m alone. I will not remain a captive in these cells or a commodity to be auctioned off.