Shadowbox

Shadowbox (Incomplete)

By: James Matthews

“Are you going to open it?” exclaimed Telamon, his curious chestnut eyes aglow in the capricious candlelight of the study. He strained forward against his bindings to gain a better vantage point on the diminutive object that his rival clutched between bony fingers. It was a paltry thing, a rectangular slab of obsidian rock inlaid with crisscrossing patterns of silver and gold. The etched symbol was reminiscent of several Telamon had seen on archaeological finds from the Angharan Peninsula, a diamond shaped design with a golden viper coiled at its heart.

“Yes, I am,” answered Vertorius, a look of triumph spread across his sallow countenance. Like Telamon, he was a bronze skinned Saari, but he loomed taller and thinner by far, a scarecrow clothed in the robes of a priest. “Are you afraid? You always were too cautious, my young friend, and now it has cost you more than standing within the order.”

“I’m not concerned,” retorted Telamon. His face was ruddy from fruitless exertion against the ropes, cords blessed with a mild enchantment by one of the elder priest’s many contacts. “This is not the first time you’ve had a strapping young man bound to a chair, and as I remember, none of them died.”

Vertorius laughed, an eerie, hollow sound. He said, “Jokes? I applaud your resolve. Most men would have already resigned themselves to death but not you, not Telamon Artorus, senior initiate and favored pupil of the high priest. You are quite different.”

“Is that a hint of jealousy I detect?” hissed Telamon, the stolid set of his jaw betrayed by frightened eyes. His bare chest and neck were marred by clusters of deep, searing burns, some of them swollen into blisters- Vertorius’ handy work. “Is it over my standing with the order or my standing with your wife? Ilena is a woman of extraordinary beauty.”

“And a woman of extraordinary loyalty,” said Vertorius, idly fondling the smooth black stone. “Do not attempt to raise my ire so that I might murder you before it is time. No, we will wait for the ordained moment, and the captive of the box will take your flesh as his own, forever becoming my willing servant. I do think you‘ll enjoy such servitude. But first, preparations must be made.”

Vertorius plucked the stopper from a transparent, cylindrical vial on his desk and emptied its powdered contents into one bony hand. The sickly green substance was ground into miniscule granules, and its pungent odor singed Telamon’s nostrils like wood smoke. Vertorius took a long draw from his hookah, the smoke wreathing his grim visage, before rubbing the powder between both of his palms. He approached the struggling Telamon and pressed his hands, thus adorned, on either side of the young priest’s face.

The olive powder stung like acid when it touched Telamon’s skin, singing away his stubble and scathing the flesh until it was crimson and raw. Vertorius returned to his high-backed mahogany chair and reclined there, face bright with self-satisfaction. He indicated the bottom-heavy hour glass at his left and said, “It is almost time for you to say goodbye, young one. So what is it you’d like to talk about in the meantime? A suggestion: Perhaps the impermanence of human life, or even the fickle judgment of the mischievous god who placed you so gently into my arms?”

“Or we could talk about what I‘m going to do to you when I get free,” retorted Telamon. He was growing desperate and it showed. Sweat beaded upon his brow. His heart raced. His was the countenance of a man who witnessed the slow, steady approach of his own death and regretted years of passiveness, of inaction. So many times he had been given the opportunity to act upon some foolhardy passion, some distant desire, and so many times he had let his life’s chances slip away.