***
Wynn awoke on a cold stone floor. Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry, save for the metallic taste on her tongue that could only be blood. She looked around her warily, unsure if she actually wanted to see where she was. As her eyes opened slowly and the world came into focus she saw she was in a room. It was lit softly by numerous torches attached with brackets to the walls; the flames licked the pockmarked stone and cast their gentle amber glow over the ground. Ahead of Wynn there was a throne, carved painstakingly out of the very rock of the walls. It was empty and seemed disproportionately high from her angle on the floor. She tried slowly to get up, but found her arms shackled to the ground. She yanked at the binds suddenly utterly terrified, but the edges of the manacle only carved into her flesh. She howled in despair and kicked her legs in the air like a wounded animal.
“One as beautiful as you should not yell,” a soft voice said from behind her. Wynn let out a strangled cry and tried to turn her head to see who the voice belonged to but her body would not contort into the position, her bound state keeping her as such.
“Show yourself!” Wynn cried after only silence followed. She listened out for footsteps, for breathing, but none came. She wriggled her wrists again angrily but nothing happened other than the cuts growing deeper and bleeding more profusely. Time stretched before her, she had no way to gauge how long she lay, shackled to the icy stone floor; the flames danced consistently and the silence remained unfailing. She risked using a small amount of magic to stem the flow of blood, and to calm her nerves. Wynn sometimes felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle but she could feel she was alone. No emotions, no life, just her own silent beating heart. Not even the alien sensation of the un-dead creatures that hunted them.
Would the travellers try and find a way to reach her? Had they found Arabella? They would have no way of knowing where Wynn was without her, and even then she was unsure if Arabella could feel so far away. Wynn pondered her situation with growing dread, stopping dead when the torches unexpectedly blew out and she was left in darkness.
“I have heard much about you,” a voice said into her ear, icy breath tickling her skin. Wynn’s blood ran cold at the closeness of this unknown figure, he could kill her with such ease. She could feel no life, no soul beside her and yet the breathing continued soft and eerie against her ear, it seemed disjointed, a body had to be somewhere, but nothing brushed against her, she felt no heat, nothing but the cold unchanging air.
“Who are you?” Wynn whispered in return.
“I am Procel, Supreme Judge in the Spectre Court.”
Wynn gulped, her breath catching in her throat, “I do not know you.”
“You have had no need to,” the voice said monotonously, “but now you are here, in my province, and there are sacrifices to be made.”
Wynn felt the shackles pop open; she scrambled up and away from the voice, tripping over her feet in her haste, until her back hit one of the walls and she felt a little safer. The torches lit again as though they had never been extinguished and the flames once more cast their glow over the small room. Wynn was alone, she could sense it, but the shadows were too black, and the silence too complete. She felt her heart flutter and she tried desperately not to panic.
She then felt the icy breath on her neck again – though it was impossible that someone was behind her when all she could feel was the unyielding stone wall – and jumped away, only to crash into a figure who had not been there a moment before. She fell to the ground, paralysed with fear. He towered above her, clad in a long black cloak, hood pulled over his head, face shielded from the light. Wynn scrabbled away again until she was against the throne, the furthest she could get from the figure, and watched it hesitantly. He stood motionless, darkness where a face should be, the hood shielded his face from the light but Wynn was sure he had a face, though she could not say why. The darkness was merely protection for now.
“I am Procel,” the figure said again, in the same soft voice and extended his arm, his sleeve concealing his entire limb, out to Wynn. There hung the leather bag with her book inside. Wynn slowly stood and walked over to the figure, but did not touch his outstretched arm and did not go for the book. She was wholly unsure how to treat this hooded man, he had had many chances to kill her, even torture her first if that was his desire, but had not acted, she was confident her life was safe... for now.
“You are not alive,” Wynn questioned, trying not to eye the arm as though it was diseased and failing.
“No child, not yet,” Procel answered cryptically, then walked away into the darkness, where the soft flame could not pierce, her book still over his arm.
Procel led Wynn through a labyrinth like the tunnels they had walked through for days, the only different was that these tunnels were unnaturally lit with a grey, dull glow, but wherever Wynn looked she could not find a source. She thought it effectively described the creature ahead of her, dull, lifeless, and emotionless, maybe that was why he had chosen such lighting. The grey depressed her infinitely, and so she tried to conjure images of Lumber Forest, her friends, anything but the unending corridors and grey light, but she could not hold onto them, the oppressive tunnel extinguishing any joyful thoughts. Procel padded onward silently, with no footsteps to be heard. Wynn followed obediently, knowing she had no option, she could not run, for there was nowhere to run to, and she had no idea how to fight such a creature. She would have to follow and hope.
“Your friends are looking for you,” Procel said suddenly, after what felt like years of walking. Wynn’s heart beat quicker, but she continued walking behind him, she wondered if he could feel what she felt, like those with the gift. Maybe his magic was different.
“I came alone,” Wynn replied defiantly, her friends had no need to face what was coming; she would be strong and protect them.
Procel shook his head, and stopped, turning to face Wynn, “You may have fallen alone, as was intended, but your friends will be joining us soon enough, my child.”
Wynn curled her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms. Anger clawed its way through her; once again she was being manipulated, used. And once again she was endangering those she cared about... But this time she could protect herself and others, a voice cried in her head, this time she had magic. Carefully she reached deep into her store of magic, ignoring the countless warnings from Arabella that what she was doing was dangerous and shaped her magic around the creature. She willed the magic into the form of ropes, though not made of twine, she knew that kind of rope would do nothing against the figure who could move as swiftly and invisibly as a shadow, but into a rope of unseen magic and wound it around Procel. He continued to stare at her, seemingly oblivious, if he knew what she was doing he made no move to stop her. Wynn concentrated more than she ever had in her life, focusing solely on releasing the magic exactly where it was needed, making sure an errant thought did not change the magic’s course. When she was satisfied she stepped hesitantly back, glad that she had only taken a few moments to draw and form the magic – Procel continued to look in her direction, oblivious; Wynn could not tell if he was looking at her for his face was in darkness so she did not really know if he saw her at all – and opened her palms, the ropes tightening around Procel with the action.
With all of her strength she willed the ropes to hold him to this world, to keep him where he lay, unable to hurt anyone. As the magical ropes tightened Procel cried out, a strangled, heartless cry. He then fell, the cloak billowing around him, onto the cold stone floor, and lay silent and unmoving. Wynn knelt down and prised the leather bag from him then hurriedly ran off into the labyrinth, following the curve of the walls until she came into a room. The air had changed, and the space around her seemed larger, but the room was in such total darkness that Wynn was unsure her eyes were open.
“Hope is such a delicious emotion,” a voice said knowingly into Wynn’s ear. She screamed and jumped to the side to avoid the owner of the voice. She could feel nothing and yet someone was there, close enough for her to feel their breath on her neck.
The room began then to lighten, as through a colourless sun was rising over the horizon. The grey light filtered into the room, cold and merciless. The room was vast, carved out of the mountain and reaching to its very peak. It was at least three hundred yards wide, the very peak of the mountain so tall it was shrouded in shadow even in the unnatural grey light. The walls, roughly strewn from the rock, jutting and pockmarked randomly, results of chiselling, were darker in places, and Wynn could not see why, until she turned to the wall closest to her. Blood, centuries of dried blood caked the walls.
Equipment of torture lined the room, a multitude of chairs, with straps to hold arms and legs, bars to crush bones and restrict breathing attached. A
rack leant against one wall. A rack
consisted of an oblong rectangular,
wooden
frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied. The victim's feet are fastened to one roller, and the wrists are chained to the other.
Various cages lined the room, of all sizes; Wynn shuddered at the sight of them. She did not want to think how many people had suffered here. The thing that caught her eye forcefully however was the large stone altar, which was dyed black with blood.
“Welcome to the Spectre Court,” Procel’s unmistakable voice echoed around the room, interrupting Wynn’s inspections. High above the torture equipment, three thrones sat carved into the wall. There was no conceivable way to reach them and yet there Procel sat on the middle throne, his hood still covering his face and body.
“I bound you!” Wynn cried in desperation, “You cried in pain, you fell to the ground!” Her cry resounded through the room, mocking her. Procel extended his arm and the sleeve slipped away revealing a hand with no skin, just gleaming white bone, using his forefinger he indicated for Wynn to move forward. She did so, unwillingly, and stopped below his throne.
“I cannot pretend that your use of magic did not hurt, you are undeniably strong, despite your ignorance. Your magic did not work however because you tried to bind me to this world,” Procel said impassively, “and I am not of this world, of any world, I am nothing and everything. I am the Shadow; I judge those who try to pass.”
Wynn’s stomach lurched and she fought the urge to throw up. Here it was, before her, Death. The tarot card truly had predicted her fate; she shivered with dread and hung her head. How could she fight a shadow? Her body was too weak, her magic unpredictable, her skills untaught. To fight now, really fight for her life, would be her downfall, and Wynn could not accept that.
“You are to judge me?” Wynn suddenly yelled up at Procel, indignant, “who are you to judge me, you are nothing, a shadow, what hold do you have over me when you yourself cannot be held?”
Procel did not react to her angry words, which irritated Wynn all the more, and continued to stare down at her. He did not react either when two more figures burst into existence in a puff of black smoke to sit on the thrones beside him.
“These are my jurors, Bernael and Enepsigos,” Procel said, as if Wynn had not spoken, indicating to the two figures beside him. Wynn stared at them, evil encased in a cloak as black as night, indistinguishable from each other. Procel waved his skeletal hand over the room and an army of shadows burst from the air behind Wynn. They were the semblance of men, the outline unmistakeable, but they had no features. Each wavered in the light, to look directly at them would cause them to mist and dance, they were nothing and everything, servants of the Judge.