Inmate Number One

Sophia had been following the prison warden for a while now. They’d passed countless cells. The inmates in here were of two kinds. Ones with a crazed look in their eyes, who were banging on the cell bars as they passed and the other ones with a broken look, huddled up in a corner.

“Hey there, little kitty! What’s such a fine Lady doing down here? Did you come to visit good ol’ Gunther, the Swordmaster?” a gruff voice clamored to Sophia’s right.

She stopped and looked up. Behind the bars was a tall and brutish man clad in dirty rags. He pressed his scarred face against the iron, his swollen and reddish nose poking through. There was a crazed look in his eyes.

“Swordmaster? You?” Sophia asked quietly and bewildered.

“Oh yeah, I’m the best swordman alive, I’m telling ya! Famous for the way I use my sword in battle… and in bed… Sometimes I mix those up… Haa…Haa…Haa!” Gunther the Swordmaster bellowed and laughed.

Sophia’s glare turned icy.

“Oh, I like that look in your eyes! I love me some feisty kitten with a temper and I love it even more to break them! Haa! Haa! Don’t you want to try my sword for yourself, Kitty? I won’t disappoint. Not in stamina or in length…. Haarr…. Haaarr!” Gunter continued.

“Get back you wretched creature!” the Prison Warden shouted and swung his staff through the bars right in the face of the man, before bowing deeply towards Sophia,” I apologize for the behavior of this one, Madam Inquisitor.”

“Is it much further?” Sophia replied unfaced.

“No, we’re almost there.”

Sophia waved as a signal for the Warden to move on and they left the still laughing Gunther behind.

“Huh? No? Is Kitty too busy? Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you change your mind! They always do… Nobody escapes my sword! Haaa! Haaa! Haaa!” they heard him continuing.

After a short while they arrived in a small room with a huge ornate steel door on the opposite side of the entrance.

“Here we are…” The Warden said after stopping in front of it.

He placed a hand on top of the door and began to utter an incantation. Sophia watched closely as the engraved runes began to glow and it slowly opened. The room behind was pitch-black. Torches on the walls began to ignite after the door had completely opened. The room was circular and a person knelt in the middle of it, hands chained to the walls and feet to the floor.

“This is the one you’re looking for, Madame Inquisitor,” the Warden said stepped aside and bowed. “Inmate number one, Kieran Kriega, known for his crime as The Mage Murderer.”

Sophia stepped into the room and looked at the man kneeling in the middle. His head was slumped over and his long black hair hung sloppily in front of his face. Kieran’s only clothing were tattered pants. His body was very thin and covered in scars.

“So, you are the infamous Mage Murderer?” Sophia said with a stern tone after getting closer.

Kieran did not move or respond. Being closer now, Sophia noticed something that piqued her interest. What she first thought to be more scars were in fact fine lines over his whole visible body, forming various magical circles and formulae. Sophia felt the urge to look more closely and study them, but she wrestled that desire back down. Right on his chest above his heart, she saw the mark that she had read about in his file. Sophia then noticed something else.

“According to your file and the stories about you… Aren’t you supposed to be hundreds of years old? You don’t look like that at all,” she said in surprise. “Must be the nicely damp and stale air in here, huh?”

Kieran’s neck muscle twitched slightly, and he raised his head slowly, staring directly into her eyes. For a spilt second, she saw a flash of surprise in his gaze, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. Sophia retracted her previous statement in her mind. The look in his grey-purplish eyes was that of a very old man, distant and tired of life.

“You look young for an Inquisitor…” Kieran said with a quiet, low voice and sighed.

“That’s because I am!” Sophia said proudly, held up her chin and pushed her hands into her hips, “My name is Sophia Schwerdtfeger, Inquisitor of the Crown. The youngest Mage appointed this rank since Grand Dame Inquisitor Leonore Lieblich.”

There was no reaction from Kieran. Sophia looked back at him and noticed that he was staring at her hips, or rather what was dangling on the side of it. She placed her hand on the ornate pommel of her arming sword.

“Thinking about how to get your hands on it so you could kill me?” Sophia taunted, turning her side with the weapon a bit closer to him.

“I don’t need a sword for that, kid,” Kieran stated more as a fact than a threat and looked back up.

Sophia nearly took a step back. There was no hint of malice in his eyes, just blunt and uncaring truth. She took a few breaths to find her composure again.

“I have an order for you, Mage Murderer.”, she said trying to sound unfazed.

“I decline,” Kieran replied immediately and lowered his head.

Sophia blinked a few times surprised. This was not how she had envisioned this conversation would go.

“You can’t decline an order!” Sophia exclaimed bewildered.

“Then I refuse…” Kieran answered curtly.

“I haven’t even told you what the order is about!”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s an order from the Grand Dame Inquisitor!”

“Now I care even less…”

Sophia felt frustration and anger well up in her.

“You are to assist me…” Sophia began with a calm voice.

“I am not,” Kieran replied again, cutting her of.

She glared at him for a moment.

“… in apprehending or if not possible eliminating a dangerous rogue mage,” Sophia continued less calm.

“No…”, Kieran said curtly.

Sophia’s nostrils flared as she breathed sharply.

“If you fulfill your orders satisfactorily, you might receive some minor improvements for your imprisonment.”, she mentioned, strained to remain calm.

“Don’t need it…”, Kieran declined.

Sophia’s left eyelid fluttered and a vein appeared on her forehead.

“You get a chance to see the outside again… for a while at least.”, she tried enticing.

“Don’t want to…”, he replied.

Sophia’s patience was at its end.

“You rather rot here in your stinking cell for all eternity?”, she snapped.

“Yes…”, Kieran answered quietly but truthfully.

“Well, too bad you’re in no position to decline an order. Not from the Grand Dame Inquisitor and not from me!”

Sophia reached out her right hand and placed it on top of the magical mark on his chest. Kieran slowly raised his head and looked directly at her again.

“Yeah… too bad…”, Kieran said with a tired sigh.

Sophia noticed pity in his eyes, as if he was pitying her, which infuriated the young Inquisitor to her bones. She began chanting the incantation and pouring her magical energy into the mark. It immediately began to glow brightly and slowly shining lines appeared on his body. They stretched out to his arms and legs, where he was bound. The shackles began to glow, and the chains began to rattle. Slowly the metal links moved as if they got retracted by the glowing shackles. After a few moments the chains were gone and the glowing slowly subsided. Sophia took her hand off his chest and made a fist. She felt a sensation as if she was holding something invisible in her hand.

“I now hold your chain in my hand.”, Sophia finished the incantation in the ancient tongue.

“My life is yours… No harm shall befall you nor shall any orders go unfulfilled… until death…”, Kieran answered defeated, “or you give me free…”

She felt an unfamiliar power washing over her body, coming from her hand. She looked at it and noticed a symbol had appeared on the back. The same symbol that was on Kieran chest. Sophia looked back at him and noticed that he was still looking at her with that pitying expression.

“Stand up.”, Sophia ordered and felt a strange sensation.

The mark on her hand and the one on Kieran began to glow dimly. He stood up.

“It worked! Turn around on the spot.”, she ordered.

He turned around on the spot.

“Paw!” Sophia ordered and held out her hand.

Kieran placed his hand in hers.

“Good boy,” she commented with a smirk, “You can follow orders after all.”

Sophia felt strangely euphoric about this new power and was fascinated by the ancient magic that she had invoked just now. She watched the glowing on her hand slowly dim out. Sophia’s curiosity was now completely unfettered, and she could not wait to study this ancient magic further, but there was one more thing she had been very curious about since she had read the files about him. An idea sprung into her head. Sophia turned around and left the cell into the room where the prison warden still waited.

“Bring that Gunther guy up to the fighting hall.”, Sophia ordered curtly.

“Yes, Madame Inquisitor.”, The Warden said, bowed and went to fulfill his order.

Sophia walked back into the room where Kieran was still standing and waiting.

“Come with me.”, she ordered.

Kieran followed her without a word.