Kristin, Chapter 2- Kimber

        The first thing she noticed was the cold. It was an irrepressible, undeniable, unavoidable cold. As her consciousness began to return to her, she found that she was lying on a hard stone floor in the middle of a rather large room. Slowly, slowly, she pried apart her heavy eyes.

      Around her, four unadorned stone walls loomed up to a ceiling that was too high to make out. There were no windows, and the darkness threw a thick, foggy blanket over everything. Painstakingly, she rose to her feet and began to grope around for some sort of door. She found it in the middle of the third wall. From the feel of it, the door seemed to be made entirely out of iron or some other heavy metal. There was no knob or handle to speak of.

Kristin finished her inspection and sat down in the middle of her room, unsuccessfully trying to process just what exactly had happened to her.

Clara was dead. That was all she could think about. The little bright-eyed child, whom Kristin had spent many nights holding and many days scolding, was gone. The pain in her heart grew until she could not contain it and it ripped out of her in a great, soul-piercing wail.

      She couldn't remember when she quit screaming. She lay in a heap on the floor sobbing, with tears streaming down her nose, off her chin and onto the floor. Her weeping was rudely and quickly cut off by the large iron door banging suddenly open. The man with the scar and half a score of guards strode into the room.

“I wish to politely enquire as to how you are enjoying your lodgings, and humbly request your presence in the throne room,” jeered scar-face with a malicious smile and a low, sweeping bow. He smiled all the more when two of the guards lifted her off the floor by her arms and he could see her messy, tear-streaked face. They carried her out the door of her room and into a bleak, sparse hallway, lined with other iron doors similar to hers. These doors had one very noticeable difference, though. Some were much, much bigger, as if they housed monsters or giants behind them, and some were much, much smaller, as if to imprison fairies or gnomes.

“What,” Kristin thought to herself, “Could they possibly be keeping here?” They turned left and continued to the end of the hall, where there was yet another iron door. This one opened to stairs behind it. Up, up, up they went, never stopping, never talking, with Kristin sagging in their grip.  After what seemed an age, they reached the top of the stairs, opened the (iron) door leading out, and marched into the most opulent room Kristin had ever seen in her life.

The room was a perfect circle. Everywhere, there was gold and diamonds, marble and velvet, any and every type of extravagance that could possibly be imagined. The floor had great pillars rising up to a domed roof. In the center rose a tall platform, with an imposing throne rising over that. All of it, the floor, pillars, roof, platform, and throne, was one gargantuan carved slab of black marble. Kristin stared in awe. The pillars were draped with blood-red velvet and gold tassels. Diamond chandeliers, lit with a strange inner blue light, hung from the ceiling by a gold rope ten feet in front of every pillar. The throne was carved with strange runes and draped with a gold-fringed velvet sheet. Above the throne, a bright, sun-like sphere hung, seeming to float on its own.

The door they had come through was on the far left of the throne. The guards hauled her around to the front, dropped her on her knees and forced her forehead down onto the cold, unyielding floor. Two of them stood at her sides and the rest lined up in two ranks of four behind her, at attention. Scar-face knelt on one knee before the throne.

There they stood. Nothing happened. Time passed slowly, it seemed to Kristin, whose knees and forehead were beginning to hurt. Why were they kneeling in front of an empty throne? Her question was soon answered. A feminine voice, as dark, unyielding, and cold as the marble on which Kristin was kneeling, cut through the silence.

“Rise, Lucifer, and tell me what you have taken from the far desert foothills.”

Scar-face rose and, in a voice with a subtle mixture of pride, awe, and envy, gave his report. “Fifteen small farms, twenty head of cattle, thirty pounds of potatoes, assorted farming and cooking tools, sixteen pounds of strawberries, ten horses, seven pigs, and one very old mule.”

“Hardly anything,” the voice remarked sharply. “Unless you wish to be promoted to the honorable position of head swineherd, or perhaps spend a day or three in the courtyard as entertainment for my soldiers, I suggest you work very, very, VERY hard at boosting your numbers.”

Kristin tilted her head, almost imperceptibly, and caught a glimpse of the being behind the voice. It was a woman, beautiful in face and form, with long, blond, curling hair, unnaturally long eyelashes, and blood-red lips. She was dressed in a gown of black silk rimmed with silver lace, and lounged on the throne as if born in it.

“Yes, Milady, of course, Milady,” Scar-face groveled. “Milady, I have also retained this young girl to serve you.”

The voice gave a harsh, eerily beautiful laugh. “What do I need this pathetic creature for? You have seriously botched your assignment this time, Lucifer. Getting me nothing I need and everything I don’t. Perhaps I shall move you residency to the courtyard for a few days, simply to remind you who’s in charge.”

The tremor of fear in Scar-face’s voice was audible. “M-mi- milady, I-I thogh-thought that sh-she…”

“You thought? You are not here to think. You are here to execute my will. Thinking is reserved only for the intelligent, and you, Lucifer, are most certainly not intelligent. As of right now you are demoted to the rank of soldier, until perhaps you can learn to follow orders and not think so much. You will be taken out into the courtyard, tied to the post and whipped until unconscious at noon every day for the next three days. Remove him.”

Two soldiers stepped out of the ranks and grabbed a stunned Lucifer. He was marched out of the room through a large golden door behind them.

“Now,” said the voice, this time silky smooth, “Finabard, step forward.” One of the soldiers in the front rank stepped out in front of the throne. “You are replacing Lucifer. You may take up residency in the upper floor of the barracks.”

“Yes, Milady,” he answered, in an impressively impassive voice.

“Very good,” she remarked. “Your first assignment is to find something to do with this girl. If you can find no use for her, you may kill her.”

“Yes, Milady.”

“Oh, and Finabard, when you have finished with that, come up to my chamber, I wish to talk with you.” The coy sweetness was practically dripping from her words. It made Kristin want to throw up.

“Yes, Milady.”