The Black Castle

Robots were already flooding, mangled and broken, through the Midway and Halfway. Hemren scanned the crowd, looking for one, specific robot, that should be taller than the others, and slimmer. And… there it was! Its body was mottled with brown and grey instead of the silvery color of the other bots. Hemren hurried to meet it and tapped it twice on its top. A screen popped up, and he typed in several new commands for the individual. With a blip, the screen slipped back into its niche in the robot’s smooth body and the bot turned and clanked into the Black Castle.

Hemren saw to the rest of the bots and made sure that they’d started their self-repairing process. Once he’d confirmed that, he followed the lone bot into the castle. The dark halls had always been confusing, but he’d memorized the way to the dungeons, on a lower level of the castle, for the sake of this mission. He turned through a series of hallways and then went down several flights of stairs. Unlike all the dungeons he’d known about, the Black Castle’s dungeon was bright, though it was still a bit damp and cold. At the end of the room was a cell a bit larger than the others. Hemren had prepared it, and it was furnished sparingly. The robot had reached the dungeon far earlier and was standing guard in front of the cell’s door. Hemren walked up to the bars and grinned as best he could while fighting back remorse. 

“So, how’s my guest?” he asked, peering through the metal bars. A girl’s face stared up at him from where she was sitting on the bed in the corner of her room. Her face was framed by flyaway, sooty hair that was tucked hastily into pigtails through holders at the sides of her slim golden crown. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and Hemren made a mental note to get her some fresh ones, somewhere. No one ever said he had to be inhospitable.

“I’m fine,” the princess of the Corale Kingdom shrugged nonchalantly. Hemren frowned, confused. He’d expected the girl to be cowering, weak, and scared. Was she braver than that? Or had she given up so much she didn’t care anymore? He resolved to find out more about this intriguing girl.

For several days, Hemren watched Riia as she settled herself into her new life. She scrounged what she could from her cell- a candle, an extra blanket, and a few other things- and made her room look far more comfortable, and brighter. 

Hemren was sitting in the dungeons one day, watching the princess hanging colorful quilted tapestries on her walls. As he watched, he gradually noticed that the collar that draped over his shoulders and wrapped around his neck was slowly growing tighter. Once this had registered with him, he jumped up and started towards the stairs to the upper level. However, before he could get there, a shock ran through his collar, strong enough to make him collapse to the ground. Riia had left her tapestry-hanging to watch him. But instead of laughing at her captor, she frowned, looking concerned. Then, a voice, coupled with an eerie, smoky-looking shadow, erupted from Hemren’s collar. “Come to me, Hemren.” the voice hissed. “A meeting is long overdue.”

Hemren shivered and pushed himself to his feet. As scared as he was, it was never good to anger him, so he hurried towards the exit. “Wait!” Riia called. “Don’t go. It can’t be anything good.”

Hemren looked at her, confused for a moment, then sad. Riia saw his expression and turned away, crestfallen. “Alright,” she whispered, “you can go. If you really need to.”

Hemren, rather confused at the short exchange, strode swiftly towards the back of the Black Castle, shaking. The thick-walled building there was still and quiet, which was somehow even more ominous than when it was quaking and spewing black smog. When Hemren opened the tiny, tinted-glass door in the side of the building, his eyes were immediately drawn to the mangle walls and furnishings of the single room. The walls were covered with gashes and cracks and black stains. On one side of the room was a perfectly intact, complicated system of screens and devices. As Hemren glanced around the room, the black stains on the walls began hissing and falling off, then gathering in a pile. Then, with a flash of pearly-white light, the scraps of darkness formed into a shadowy, swirling figure. 

“You’re finally here,” the figure hissed, surrounding Hemren with shadows and fear. “You took far too long. What kept you?” Two appendages slid out of its body and touched Hemren’s face. As Hemren tried to pull away, fog faded away from the figure’s mouth, and it grinned bone-chillingly. “So, you’ve felt sorrow and pity,” it smiled slowly. “That’s fine, those emotions are what makes our little arrangement so much fun. But what is this?

“You’ve broken a rule!” the figure hissed angrily. “You’ve felt attachment! You’ve felt affection!” The shadow’s tone was one of disgust.

Hemren flinched, then said quickly, “Hemlock, wait! I-” he stopped as the figure- Hemlock- frowned.

“You said my name,” it howled. “You said my name!” Hemlock’s voice echoed through the stone-walled building and rebounded, over and over, until it began to feel as of the world were vibrating. Hemren cowered on the ground, instinctively grabbing for his collar. His hands had scarcely reached it before Hemlock spread around him, spiraling above his head like some huge vulture. Electricity sparked from the dark collar, and Hemren gritted his teeth against the pain and the struggle to come. 

Finally, Hemlock swooped back in front of Hemren’s face, letting loose what sounded like an animalistic growl, with a bit of laughter mixed in. The energy in Hemren’s collar was let loose, and it shot through his body like lightning. Or maybe it was lightning. He moaned through his pain and looked up at Hemlock. The pain was making him delirious, and he smiled up at the shadowy monster, even attempting a laugh. Hemlock had expended so much magic when shocking Hemren that no matter how angry he was, he couldn’t do it again. Somehow, even in his half-conscious state, Hemren knew this. He sat up with his last ounce of energy, then spat in the vague direction of Hemlock’s smoky form. Having used that last bit of energy that was keeping him awake, Hemren fell, unconscious.