Queen of Hearts: The Crown (Queen of Hearts Saga #1)(30)
The temperature change was immediate and severe. Whereas before they had been freezing, Dinah was soon covered in sweat. The air was thick, humid, and filthy. Pillars of black smoke rose up from below them. They appeared to be in a giant cocoon—a spiraling black tower, wider at the bottom and consistently narrowing toward the top. They were looking out across a wide chasm filled with heavy, dangling chains that twisted down from the cone’s point. On either side of them stretched endless cells embedded in the circumference of the tower, one after another, smaller and smaller the higher they went. The smell was inhumane, and Dinah gave a loud retch, unable to control herself, followed by another and another. Urine, sweat, human waste, and blood, all mingled together in the thick air.
Wardley bent over her. “Are you going to be alright?”
“I’m your prisoner!” Dinah quietly reminded him in between heaves.
Wardley stood up. “Right. C’mon then.” He gave a yank of her chain and Dinah followed along behind him as they circled their way higher and higher into the tower. High-pitched screams of pain echoed up from below, and Dinah fought the urge to clap her hands over her ears. Wardley yanked her chains so that she walked closer beside him.
“They torture prisoners on the floor of the tower, but the smallest cells are at the top. The worst criminals are kept in the top cells, so that after their torture sessions, they have to crawl back up the spiral until they can rest.” He shook his head. “The crawl is its own form of torture.”
Dinah’s eyes rested with pity upon an old man in a cell they passed, sitting on the floor in his own waste, licking the black slimy wall. He turned as they walked by. Dinah gave him a sad smile from under her hood. Without warning, the man lunged at her from inside the cell, and managed to grab the edge of her cloak. He pulled her violently against the bars, shaking her back and forth as he reached out to grope her.
“The hearts, the hearts, I love my hearts!”
Dinah felt his rotten breath splash across her face, and she fought another rising wave of nausea. Wardley drew his sword and raised it above the man’s gnarled hand. “You will let go of her or you will lose a limb today.”
The prisoner laughed in Dinah’s face. “Lose a limb, lose a limb, we all will lose our limbs and heads today. . . .”
“Quizzer, let that prisoner go!” boomed a very loud voice from behind them. The man let go of Dinah with a final shake of his head and sunk back into his celled cave, hissing, “I’ll be watching you, my dark-eyed Queen, yes I will!”
Dinah stepped back in shock. They turned. A fat man, larger than even her father, waddled up before them. His Club uniform—a thin white tunic overlaid with a gray breastplate and gray wool cape held in place by a club clasp—stretched out to fit his massive girth. Over his breastplate, the Club symbol was encompassed by a much larger skull. She had seen this symbol in a book once or twice; this man was a torturer. Dinah looked at the ground. She felt a slight twitch of fear ripple up Wardley’s hand and through her chains.
“Thank you for your aid. I’m to take this filthy wench to the Women’s Tower, but we must have taken a wrong turn. I apologize.”
A man’s shrill scream circled up from below, followed by pleading whimpers. A tear leaked from Dinah’s eye, cutting a clean line through the dirt on her face. Without warning, the man reached out and struck her hard across the face. The blow took Dinah’s breath away and she fell to the ground. Wardley looked stunned, unsure what to do.
“Who are you to have sympathy for that man? He is no longer a man. Once you enter the Black Towers, you become a part of them. You belong to the towers and to the Club Cards. You are the dirt under our feet, the waste in our privy, a slave to the tree. Do not weep for that man, for he deserves what he is getting. His screams say that he is thankful for the King’s justice, thankful to repay his debt to Wonderland. Soon your screams will say the same thing.”
Dinah stared at the ground.
“Where did you say you were taking her, boy?”
“To the Women’s Tower. I’m new. I was just transferred here from the Heart Cards.”
The man gave a spiteful sniff and spat on the ground. “You look like a Heart Card with that pretty face. Be glad you left. They are a bunch of weak, ignorant bastards who love to boast that they protect the King. Instead their lives are spent guarding doorways to empty chambers and watching the royal family count their jewels.”
On the floor, Dinah wiped the blood from her mouth and thought about the ring hidden in her cloak pocket. Counting, indeed.
“Well, at least you have joined a real deck of Cards here.” He clapped Wardley on the back. “You’re young and strong. You’ll do well here, if you learn to stomach the smell and the screams. I’m Yoous, the head torturer of this tower.”
A bellow, a sound of pure agony, floated up from below. The Club guard leaned back and closed his eyes. “Ah. I revel in the screams. That sound means that justice has been accepted, and that Wonderland is back on its way toward balance and harmony. Learn to love the screams, boy.”
Wardley nodded his pale face. Dinah kept her head tilted toward the floor. The prisoner who had so frightened her leered out at her from his cell, licking his lips. “My Queen. . . .”
“So, where do I take this one, this . . . detriment to society?” Wardley yanked her chains roughly.