Episode Two: Caged
The carpet rotated faster and faster until it hit the floor, knocking the air from Hamar’s lungs and piling on him in a flush of dust.
He lay stunned. But the living carpet hadn’t finished moving.
It began to slide off of him. In the dim light Hamar could just see the slippered feet of one of the men who were lifting the carpet’s edges! The two figures worked their way closer until Hamar’s body felt light again.
He weakly kicked out as they grabbed him by his arms and pulled him to his feet, partly helping, partly confiscating him. Hamar’s hip bumped against what might be a dagger case on the side of the bigger man. They said nothing.
Briskly they marched him ahead. But at least they weren’t stabbing or beating him! They headed him toward a torch-lit stairwell.
Left behind on the floor the carpet’s folds flattened out till its corners reached square to the walls. Then, with no other sound but the hiss of grit being sucked up beneath it, it flew itself back up to the surface.
….
In the lamplight Hamar only saw each worn stair tread in front of his feet. His head was spinning and the turning of the stairs made him dizzier so that he had no idea how far up he was when they finally stepped out of a doorway.
Bobbing circles of torchlight made moving shadows along gleaming masses of stone oozed into strange faces with long candle-like teeth. A dank, clay-smelling breeze was blowing through the place.
He groggily looked around. Here and there cavern walls were smoothed flat and in the torchlight he could see cave openings, some with doors, – many, many doors.
Just then hooded figures detached from the shadows and came over.
They formed a pen around him, some of them large and broad-shouldered, a few thin and hunched, each one excitedly muttering and wanting a turn to examine him for themselves. Not one of them spoke to him as they forced his head up, lifted his arm, checked his palm, turned Hamar’s face from side to side.
But as he peered hard at where a face should be inside their hoods, there wasn’t any face!
Each of the dark holes seemed to have something fiercely staring back, but out of an empty hood! The fingers seemed human enough, – but were the figures demons?
Hamar’s legs went weak!
Finally the creatures seemed to agree with each other in some strange burble. Mercifully they didn’t seem to want to hurt him, – at least not yet.
His back and ribs ached, his stomach tightened up ready to vomit, – the boy couldn’t help leaning into his captors’ arms.
Suddenly a tall, bald-headed man in a red robe stepped through their ring.
The man’s cheekbones and face were covered in a complicated blue tattoo, and the pitch-black pupils of his eyes stared at Hamar. The boy swallowed hard. The other beings bowed and stepped back, tucking their hands into their sleeves.
“Look at me, boy!” the man ordered in Hamar’s own dialect. A large silver ornament with a strange sign on it flashed on the man’s forehead in the lamplight.
Hamar gulped down his fear. Surely if they all saw how pathetic he was they’d kill him!
He focused hard on the man’s face, but there was no sign of how the man felt as he kept intensely checking out Hamar’s features.
“What is your name,” the man demanded. “Answer me!”
“Hamar Mi-sha Baltshazar,” the boy whimpered, regretting the grandness of his name.
“Baltshazar,” the man’s eyebrows lifted high. He straightened up, “Who-is-like-Baltshazar?’ That is your name?” and he looked wonderingly into the air. Then he broke into a grin.
“Yes,” he said to them all. “We have him at last!”
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