Chapter 15: Gao, the Bard

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Gao, the Bard

Gao ran for his life. Abandoning all but his flute, he ran pell-mell down the streets, his shirttails flapping in his wake.

"I'll have you, I will!" came a shout from behind him.

Gao thrust his head forward in a desperate effort for more speed. Dashing around a corner, he came to a sliding stop before a company of guardsmen, just off duty. They didn't notice the slim, young man in their midst at first. Probably they wouldn't have, except the female companion to the Captain grabbed Gao's arm as he lunged past.

"Where ye be goin', handsome?" she purred.

"I - I," he stammered, throwing a nervous look over his shoulder as he tried to pull his way loose.

"Let go of the boy, Letitia," said the captain. "I'm more'n enough of a lover for you."

The wench laughed. "You? Ha! I need more to move me than your tiny wick!"

The captain turned bright red in anger as his fellows began to laugh. Gao ducked as a fist came plowing his way.

Gao's pursuer turned the corner just then, easily spotting the bard's blonde hair among all the blacks and browns of the guardsmen. "Stop him!" he shouted. "Don't let him get away!"

The captain's fist flattened and he grabbed the boy instead, turning to face his superior easily, despite his captive's struggles.

Major Vudro smiled in satisfaction at the captive bard, his flute still clutched in his fingers. Fingers that, just moments before had -- Smoothing his face out of its ferocious scowl, he addressed one of his captains. "I want this man thrown in the dungeon. Then I want you to bring me back the key."

"The castle dungeon?" the captain asked, surprised, and not a little curious.

"You heard me!" Vudro snapped. "Do it at once!"

Captain Telincof had not risen as far as he had nor as quickly as he had by asking questions. Holding his young captive in an iron grip, he strode away quickly, leaving his men to their pleasures.

Gao winced in the captain's rough grasp, trying to dig in his heels, but finding no purchase. For once in his life, he found being tall no advantage. After slipping and being dragged for several feet, he decided strength was going to get him nowhere, and he switched to talking his way out. After several moments, Gao realized his words seemed to be having just the opposite effect that he desired. Instead of slowing down to hear him better, his captor was actually speeding up. The gates to the castle proper were now in sight and Gao began to struggle once more.

Everyone had heard the gruesome tales of the castle's dungeons. Only the worst of felons were ever sent there. And no one had ever escaped, not in over a hundred years. Three kings before their current one had built this castle, its keep, manor, dungeons, and the surrounding walls, moats and fortifications. He had been a formidable king, and this, his capitol city, was just as strong. There were mazes within mazes (or so the tales went) inside the dungeons and men who had been dropped down holes and forgotten. It was also said that this was where the king himself interrogated his prisoners.

Gao's mind lurched away from the tales spinning around his head. He struggled to hold back his imagination and mounting fear as he was dragged beneath the first massive portcullis. His heart pounding crazily, he managed to gasp, "This is all a mistake, a mistake, to be sure!"

Telincof's mouth twitched in distaste. "Why don't you be a man and accept your fate!" he snapped. His thick eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead as the guardsman scowled. He could well understand the boy's fear; he himself had only been to the dungeons once, and left just as quickly as his feet could carry him.

Gao's feet caught on the lip of the portcullis trench. He dug in his heels, effectively bringing himself to a halt, nose to nose with the guardsman.

Telincof sighed as the boy launched into another series of complicated reasoning. "Look," he interrupted, "why don't you tell me what in alls hells that you did, and I might let you go? And if you lie to me, boy," he growled as Gao opened his mouth, "so help me I'll -- "

"Eh, there, Captain," hailed one of the castle guard, "what’ve ye got there?"

Shaking his captive roughly, Telincof answered, "Why s'nothin much, Sir, just a local riffraff."

The guard squinted at Gao. "This wouldna be th' one Major Vudro sent word bout, would'e? Though' e musta be bigger."

"I didn't do nothin!" Gao protested.

Telincof winced inwardly as the boy hit the paved entranceway. Despite their lax speech, the members of the castle guard were as crisp as their uniforms. The only tougher, meaner, men in the country were the king's own bodyguards, handpicked from the finest the army could provide.

"Ye spek whin yer spoke to, boy!" said the guard.

He nodded to Telincof. "Ver well, cum thisa way, then."

Gao would later remember little of the rest of his trip into the bowels of the castle, but he would carry its sounds with him the rest of his life. When released little more than a month later, he seemed to have aged decades instead of only the days that had passed. Outwardly, he was the same as he ever was, except for the new lines etched around his mouth and eyes, and haunting shadows that appeared now and again in the deeper blueness of his eyes. Without a word, he left the city, his childhood, and his dreams far behind.


{c}"Chapter 16: Truth? or more Mystery?"