A harrowed choir unfurled its dark crows wings above the city, and shook the prison walls. The strange prisoner awoke from stupor and sat upright, as best as his manacles could afford comfort in the crammed cell. The choir continued to sing as the sun rose: a thin scyth of light which cut through the brick and mortar, and suspended a moat of dust before his eyes–forever just out of reach. The ground shook, but it was no natural quake. He would have known it. There were pulses, like waves… the footsteps of some gigantic beast, and before long, its crashing downfall.

Dust, which he had watched gathering upon the ceiling for weeks, shook loose. The strange prisoner breathed through his nose, relishing the change of sensations–the dirty, dry earth–a distant relative to the soil. He listened with intent, as did his peers, to the carnage outside. They barely stirred, even those with ailments and wounds bit their tongues and held their breaths.

"The sadistas?" Dul'tou asked in the speech of Philoxanians. The man's black hair was plastered to his pale face, covering his eyes and mouth as ivy swallows a tree.

"Fools were we to hope." Dul'tou lowered his head in dismay. "Cosmipox has risen again."

"Those are the sounds of war, my friend," the strange prisoner said. "Cosmipox is beset. The legions come again."

"And again, they shall fail." The woman who spoke had been chained to her spot since before his arrival. Vella was her name–Philoxanian born, it seemed, of mixed breed. By her condition, the strange prisoner estimated that she had been tortured for many months, or more. Worse than the lashes he received, the starvation… worse than the dark and discomfort and sleepless nights were his restraints, that he could not rise as his humanity hounded him at every hour, and ease Vella's poor soul of her suffering.

The sounds of war came ever closer. The choir's tune began shrill and soprano, but as the afternoon dragged on, it began to rumble a growling baritone. Men at arms. The clash and thud of weapons on shields. The sundering of rock. Cries of valour and of desperation.

The strange prisoner had never before prayed. But in that hour, he came close to abandoning his beliefs–his very magia–and submitting himself to the Pantheon in begging for relief.

But he would not, for what worth had a life without freedom? He would rather meet his end and return to the earth as had always been fated. At least, with war on their doorstep, that end may come quickly.

His peers–thirty of the sadistas' prisoners–formed their own dissonant harmony to the anthem outside. They babbled and prayed. Desperation thickened the air. The strange prisoner sought the earth, the winds, the life of a seed… anything to take his mind from their cell. But it was hopeless. He had tried and failed many times these past months, but his connection with the primordial spirits remained severed. It had not been the same ever since cosmipox's emissary had touched him, and fouled his spirit.

He could not even lift his fingers to blot his ears, and so receded into his mind. There was a thin peace–frail like an egg shell. He counted his breaths, waiting for the torment to be over.

Outside, the winds howled. His skin prickled and sweat touched his brow. All at once, the prisoners realised their peril. There was a blaze outside, coming closer. Would it reach their prison underground? Would they be burned alive, or else suffocated?

The strange prisoner drew a breath, but would not utter a prayer. He clenched his fists, straining in his manacles, and ground his teeth.

"If this should be my end, then I shall go into death with a warning. I shall visit them. I will visit the innocent. I will guide… I will do something."

As he repeated the mantra, blessedly, the heat died down. And so too did war's choir, and the winds, until all was still once more.

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Silently, the prisoners all awaited their fates. It was some hours later, and the sun had set on their thin window-crack when footsteps sounded in the stairwell above. All eyes were upon the door. None breathed. None could guess at what would come next.

A large man, thickly muscled and robed in red, a bronze helmet atop his head, strode down the stairs. Light trickled from above and stung the strange prisoner's eyes, but the warrior squinted as though it was not enough to see by. When he spotted the cell opposite them, he froze. Then turning, he beheld all the sadistas' cursed chamber: six cells abreast, each swollen with rotting prisoners.

"Chrysat," he cursed, and just gawked. The shield in his hand fell to the stone floor.

Crawling in his bounds, the strange prisoner rose to his knees and presented his face to the legionnaire. In Auctorian, he spoke.

"Friend of the damned. Help us here. We need water and the light of day. Break our cages. He are prisoners of the sadistas, but you are such a sight. Such a wondrous sight."

He shook an emotion unnamed–fear and destitution coming to the boil and turning to vapour, welling in his eyes. "My friend," he spoke. "Won't you help us?"

"Yes," the legionnaire responded finally, then shouted up the stairwell. "Antonius. The corpse. There were keys on him, weren't there? Bring them."

Placing his spear aside, the legionnaire shuffled towards their cell. Like wilted reeds, the prisoners bent towards him, hands outstretched, eyes wide in their gaunt skulls. The strange prisoner remained kneeling tall where the legionnaire could see him, and coughing the dryness from his throat, summoned the strength to speak again.

"Is the battle won?"

"It is," the legionnaire said.

"Then be swift, there is much work for me to do."

The second legionnaire–Antonius, as he had been named–descended the stairs carrying a ring of iron keys. He held his armpit to his mouth, squinting in the dark. "Ugh. What is that smell?"

"Look," the other said.

Slowly, the legionnaire lowered his arm, face turning grim. Mechanically, he placed his shield and spear aside and unlocked the cage, but his eyes were not on his task. They scanned the room, searching for something.

"There are no more legionnaires here," the strange prisoner said. "Only traitors to the Urkun. To the despot sultan. To their gods."

The legionnaire who had found them now appeared distant, shocked. "We should… get them upstairs."

The strange prisoner awaited his turn, and once his manacles were unclasped, he approached the legionnaire. Grasping his elbow, they shook hands. "Thank you, my friend. I am too weak to walk. Help me to the surface. I have more strength in me than it may seem. I can help. You must trust me on this."

"Hm," the legionnaire murmured.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Ballemorus Agrippa, of Summitas." He blinked as though waking from a daze. "And yours?"

"Thales Herona, of Aretynos. I have marched with the Third and the Seventh. I am known as the thaugic healer. Help me now. We can do greater good together, but you must first help me into the light."

Ballemorus nodded, and lifted Thales' frail body in one arm. Thales, though old as he was, quivered and almost sobbed when the sun's light kissed his skin, and the fresh breath brushed his lips. The day was in gloom and full of death, but not within his heart. And not for the future, had he any say.

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