A Hand in the Mines

To begin with, I should probably make it clear that I'm not beginning at the beginning of this story. I don't know the beginning. Or I may have been the beginning, but not this time. But this time isn't the proper beginning of this time, either! I'll just say things were indeed happening before our hero arrived and leave it at that. 

I may just call him "our hero," "the hero," etc., etc., for this whole story, if only because I thought he gave his name as Jagal, but lately I've been hearing about this fellow called Jackal that sounds an awful lot like him, and I really can't promise I heard him right, or remembered him right, or even that he gave me his name at all. But it would be tiresome to not use any names, wouldn't it? It would, so I shall use them. Both, or one, or—I haven't decided yet. We'll see what happens when we make it that far.

So, our hero arrived at Everbay Mine on one bright and stormy day in some month or other. He'd heard about a black iron deposit that had cropped up in there, recently enough to still be in the mine but far enough back to not still be in the mine. Hoping to help himself to the goods, he did a real bang-up job of sneaking past a good few many guards near the entrance. He even took down a Commander (and took his shoes, which would come in handy later, unless they didn't) without alerting anyone to his presence. That's aside from the Commander, whose alertness was the whole reason he needed to be taken down in the first place.

I feel that I should clarify, Everbay isn't usually a place with a lot of guards. The Mine Commanders have their own little set-ups, except for the ones that don't, and there's usually one or two at the very entrance, but that's about it. But between the new deposit of much-more-valuable-than-the-usual-stuff and the things that were already beginning, the forces were pretty impressive. I think. I'm not sure what qualifies as impressive. They outnumbered the miners, at the very least, but I don't know that we had an impressive number of miners. Was I a miner anymore? Yes. No. Yes, but not a good one. No, but not entirely retired. This is difficult. Never mind!

Any which way, The Jackal was still navigating the tunnels as best he could when one began to flood. He fled through the closest available exit, except he wasn't the only one fleeing, and also the exit ended up leading him into a collapsed tunnel. So now he had to contend with rising waters, a whole horde of deep rats, and some particularly unstable rocks that were blocking any less watery exits. Now, he was keen to tell me that all of this would hardly pose any problem to The Jackal, which he immediately took back with the kind of laugh you only get from people like us, which is a very complicated thing that I will not attempt to explain because, really, either you get it or you don't.

But he really had no trouble with the rats, at least at first. Even with their numbers, they were easy targets for his daggers. But his attempts to find higher ground and push a few rocks around for a way out didn't make for stable fighting grounds, and soon both the rocks and the rats were falling on him, some more literally than others. It was unpleasant and painful and damaging and not at all helpful for any part of his escape. But just as it seemed that he'd surely be crushed, clawed, and drowned, suddenly—

What was it that happened? I know this—hang on, give me a minute. And maybe a drink, or another minute, or both. Maybe a nap. No, no naps! Just a minute now...

Then suddenly, one of the falling rocks revealed a passage that our hero could easily fit through! He was too injured and generally frazzled at the time to count his lucky stars, but needless to say he took the exit immediately. It was too far up for the rats to follow, but with a short enough tunnel he quickly tumbled out into the next chamber. It was not another collapsed tunnel, nor a flooding cave, nor any of the other highly unpleasant areas to be found in that mine. It did, however, contain a very unpleasant person inside, that being the Lead Mine Commander Widogast. This was his own personal recovery area, which would appear to be a good place for a battered and bleeding Jackal to end up, but, well!

I've had a good few many run-ins with Widogast myself, most of which I can't remember exactly but some of which I remember vaguely and even a few of which I remember with perfect clarity, though I can't always remember which of those are which. The important part is, Widogast is a man stuffed so full of bombastic egoism that there isn't any room left for things like compassion, or subtlety, or some forms of critical thinking that I have no room to speak on personally. But he does have power, physical and political—at this point, by which I mean that point—and he loves to flaunt it at any opportunity, even if there isn't one.

But a thief stumbling into his personal quarters was every bit an opportunity, and try as our hero might, the only other exit from the room was soundly guarded by Widogast's imposing personal guard. So The Jackal was at Widogast's full mercy, which was one of those things the Commander did not have. At the time Jagal arrived, Widogast was just about to move some supplies from there to the public infirmary, so he decided he'd just force the outsider to haul it all up for him, or at least attempt to haul it all up for him, in a humiliating processional march sort of thing. 

But despite his injuries—or because of, if you ask me, looking back at some of the things that haven't happened yet—The Jackal had no issue bearing the load. He still pretended otherwise to keep Widogast off his guard, which was not a difficult thing to do when the Commander was always ready to brag on how much more lifting power he had than anyone else. Though it's my understanding, or misunderstanding, that something in whatever ramble that that stirred up struck a wrong chord somewhere. Jagal didn't share that much detail, even when he spoke to me, but I gather from other witnesses that it had something to do with powerlessness and usefulness and who could accomplish what or not accomplish what else, or something at least vaguely tangential to that sentiment, to some effect. In any case, it was particularly unpleasant, which is really saying something considering Widogast's baseline level of unpleasantness.

Another thing you ought to know about the Commander, besides the unpleasantness which I believe I've established fairly well at this point, is that he has had many more failures than he would ever allow someone else to believe, and one such failure was the disclosure of a certain secure passageway within the mine. This disclosure may or may not have been to me personally. I can't recall this happening, but not a lot of other people there would have taken enough advantage of it for it to really count as a failure, except I wouldn't either, not now, or then, but before the beginning and after the other beginning I probably would have. But however that did or didn't happen, the tunnel's location wasn't common knowledge to anyone in the mine but him.

So apparently this discreet little passageway began somewhere near the common housing quarter, which was precisely where our hero and company were parading once they left the private quarters. Between observation and some pointed statements, Jackal somehow managed to ascertain both the existence and opening of the passageway, if not the other location it led to. But most any location would have been preferable to his current location by Widogast's side, so he waited for the Commander's attention to slip just enough (I think his hawk was involved in this somewhere, but I'm not sure I've even mentioned he had a hawk, but I really should have, because Jagal most certainly did have a hawk, who would be very important in the grand scheme of things in one place or other, and hopefully by the time I mention him again I will remember his name), then bolted for the entrance. Widogast may have been strong, but he wasn't nearly so zippy as The Jackal, so even with miners still in the area (and a lot of them weren't, for reasons that will soon become clear), he couldn't save himself the humiliation of his prisoner escaping right from under his nose in front of whichever people were still there. But once Jackal made it to the entrance, there was this other issue, which wasn't an issue, but still seemed to be an issue and still could have been an issue, and—

Now I've forgotten where I was. Where were we?

Our hero had barely begun his retreat before Widogast's personal guard pursued. Her name was Wullan, and she wasn't fast enough to catch up entirely, but she was certainly making a good show of it. She hadn't exactly left her big club behind, either, so this was still an awfully concerning development as far as Jackal was concerned. But once they'd gone some distance into the hidden passageway, beyond where they could have possibly been overheard, she told him they weren't enemies after all. She was preparing to revolt against her superior and everything he stood for, and this little escapade with The Jackal was actually quite a convenient excuse to slip away without drawing suspicion. Jagal may or may not have completely believed her at the time, but it certainly seemed in his best interest to go along with it, so he did.

Now I'm not sure why anyone would have trouble believing Wullan. She was in Widogast's direct employ, yes, prone to using physical force, yes, and generally not that great at talking to people without sounding like she's about to use physical force, yes, but she's quite kind and affectionate once you get past all that! I think! I didn't really get to talk to her very much myself until after the end, at which point she was probably in a particularly good mood, all things considered. 

But back to before things, or during things, or wherever we were before, which is not all that before. Our hero came up to the tunnel's exit, took a moment to make himself look less like he was on the brink of death, and donned the Commander shoes—the ones from much earlier, not from Widogast, though I would stand in support of anyone willing to steal the shoes and their annoying little tread right off that man's feet because he most certainly deserves it—before checking out what lay ahead. Now apparently the tunnel was a big secret because it led straight past the high-security gate that sat in front of the black iron mineworks. I suppose it kept Widogast from having to fuss with any of the entry security things, except he could have simply told everyone he wasn't going to fuss with any of that, so maybe it had more to do with other people who would have had to fuss with it but were special for other reasons that I am not privy to and cannot really guess right now, or then, or at any time. In any case, Jagal and Wullan successfully entered this part of the mine and, as luck would have it, just a little farther in was the group of rebels trying to make enough sense of things to get their thing going sensibly.

As far as they were concerned, Wullan being beside him peaceably was already a point in The Jackal's favor in terms of authority, except that was a thing we associated with Widogast, so perhaps more in terms of trust. But Jackal still decided to make full use of his resources, that being his silver tongue of sorts and the shoes he'd gotten after so much trouble, to convince the crowd he'd come from some eastern division or other, which I'm not sure that we have divisions, let alone eastern ones, and I don't think a lot of the people there were sure, either. He went on to explain that he'd been sent to help them out, only it was imperative that he got the black iron out safely prior to the rebellion, for reasons relevant to the eastern division and its troubles, whatever they were. Wullan never contradicted or stopped him, because these rebellion things can always use an extra boost to people's hopes, which are very important, and that's the whole reason I'm like this, or at least part of it. Part of the reason or the like-this? Yes. Probably.

Well, apparently Jagal's story was very convincing any which way, so the rebels guided him over to where some of them had personally helped store the black iron. This storage area was guarded, of course, but The Jackal had little issue sneaking past the guards to get inside. Unfortunately, no black iron was actually in there at this—that is, that—time, beyond a few crumbly little traces. 

So the next issue was to try and get the new location out of the guards, who eventually noticed the crowd of rebels not all that far away, but there was a whole hubbub and the guards kind of got killed before any questions could be asked, which is unfortunate for a number of reasons, but at least that was a few people we wouldn't have to deal with later when things really got out of hand. And without those guards continuing to guard, Jackal managed to locate some official-looking papers in there, which he couldn't read but Wullan mostly could, and the gist of those was... something. I know he told me what it was, it was... Er...

The papers talked about some under-the-table arrangement (as if anything was ever over-the-table there) to hand the black iron over to raiders for some benefit or other that I'm sure would only have benefitted Widogast anyway, because that's simply how he operates. But it sounded as though the iron had not yet been exchanged; perhaps it had only been prepared and moved to a more secure area, even though this was already a fairly secure area, but I suppose not secure enough, considering some miners had just taken out some guards right there. 

So our hero rallied the troops to search for any sign of where the black iron had gone, but there really wasn't anything of the sort around. At that point, it was getting hard for the miners to believe the iron was so utterly necessary to their cause, especially when they were no longer sure the iron was even still inside the mine. Jagal managed to negotiate by swearing to guide their revolt, which he'd already implied, but you know how much more serious a little iron vow makes things seem. It isn't fun when they're broken, by your own fault or anyone else's. That's off-topic. Anyway, he performed a proper vow with bloodletting and everything in exchange for their help with the black iron once the whole uprising had shaken out.

The lot of them marched onward until they came upon a certain area that I know very well, even if none of them had been in it before, which I most certainly hope they hadn't, even though I really can't remember one way or the other, if indeed I ever would have known in the first place. All they seemed to know at the time was that they'd found another area under heavy guard, so The Jackal sent himself in first and successfully snuck past the guards, who were once again just very specifically bad at guarding against him in particular as far as I can tell, though granted, their additional protective helmets, not to mention the breathing masks, didn't make for the greatest range of vision.

There was no black iron under their dubious protection, but even a brief search for the stuff was enough for Jackal to feel the effects of the chamber. It was reportedly rather subtle in his case, though whether that was because of a natural resistance, or a lack of care to begin with, or the short time he spent there, or some combination of the three, I couldn't say. But I know that place inside and out. Mostly inside. More and more inside, except not so much now, or ever since it became too pointless or dangerous or something like that to keep me in there any longer.

The chamber has a few names, but I think by this point I've forcibly blocked every last one of them from my memory. It's simply That Place. There's some mystical component to it, but I don't know the details because I never asked, because they never would have told me anyway, because maybe then I could have found a way to get around it, and that was the last thing they wanted. No, I was only ever thrown inside with no more explanation than the context of the punishment and the creeping feeling that something was wrong and getting wronger. 

Here's how things would go. I'd do my work in the mines. I'd be treated poorly, and I'd see others being treated poorly. I'd get it in my head that there were enough miners to overpower the people treating us poorly, then get that into the miner's heads. But then one of them, or one of the guards, or one of blasted if I even know who else, would inform those people who would very much prefer to continue treating us poorly. And since it was all my big idea, I'd get thrown into That Place until I calmed down. Every once in a while someone else would join me, I think, but I was always the first one stirring up trouble, so usually it was good enough to make an example of me so everyone else could wonder why I didn't feel like rebelling anymore and think they probably shouldn't feel like rebelling anymore either.

But after enough time back in the mines, my will to fight would come back again, and I'd start spreading rebellious sentiments again, and get thrown in again, and drained again, and released again, until Widogast decided it clearly wasn't having enough of an effect so I needed to stay in longer, and longer the next time, and longer the next time, until he may as well have just thrown me in a choking pit and saved himself the trouble. But he did not throw me in any choking pits, though after enough times in That Place I really would have found that preferable, only after enough times in That Place I didn't have the will left to carry out that sort of thing, or any other sort of thing, myself. I'm not sure, between then and before then and now, when it was exactly that all the draining and recovering and more draining and less recovering and more draining and more draining turned into something worse than quashing my need to make things better, but I really ended up in a state. I am still very much in a state, only not quite the same state, but if I don't know when I got here then I really don't know when I'll get to leave, either.

But Jagal, who is sort of supposed to be the main character of this story if I was good enough at telling stories to make it about someone in particular, had no guards watching him and was free to just up and leave. He swiped a mine map from one of the guards on his way out, and while it was incomplete, it was enough to help the rebels map out some plans of their own. Only one thing it didn't include was... was...

All right, now I think I've upset myself too much thinking about That to keep up with myself, I'm just... I'm—Just a minute. Thank you.

The floor plans didn't include warnings for things, so the rebels unknowingly marched right into this dangerous pocket of whatever-it-was. There are plenty of whatevers in the mines—some you can see, most you can't, some that kill you immediately, some that kill you after a little while, some that kill you after a long while, and then out of all the ones that kill you there are still plenty of different ones, and basically anyone who wants to study that sort of thing really has their work cut out for them. For those of us who simply don't want to die, we just hope we've gotten a good batch of bloodwood masks or at least small birds in recently, but if all else fails we can always keep an eye on our torches and lanterns to see if they blow up or try to go out, though I suppose you wouldn't have to keep all that sharp an eye on them to know if they blow up because that's typically fairly obvious, in my experience.

But nothing was blowing up just then. Some of the survivors later recalled the lights burning dim now that I mentioned it, but for a while they didn't really feel much of anything besides tired. Of course, they would have felt that already, so it was a bit difficult for anyone to jump to the assumption that they'd been inhaling bad gases, or not enough good ones, or however any or all of that works. But when they came across the next set of guards all well and fully masked up, some of them were starting to have their suspicions. But despite things that we will come back to later, unless I forget to, Jagal was not one of the suspicious ones yet.

So when they set off an alarm through some trip wire or other, he was mostly just concerned with the very-much armed guards that were now alerted to their presence. Since he was still donning the Commander shoes, he attempted to explain the disturbance away, but unfortunately everyone was far enough into the secure side of things that no excuse was ever really going to work, and weapons were drawn instead. Despite losing any element of surprise, the rebels were able to start the battle with a bang, not literally, and The Jackal having plenty of actual fighting and/or killing experience was another good point in their favor. As was his companion, Enthr, whose name I've finally been reminded of, but it seemed some of the hawk's usual helpful tricks were not as helpful as usual, and while Jackal was still trying to puzzle that out, reinforcements arrived. With more guards piling in and enough exertion going on for people to figure out they couldn't quite breathe enough, things quickly took a turn for the worse. This went especially for Jagal, whom a good few forces had decided to focus on to the extent that he rapidly and very painfully came to the conclusion that playing dead right now may be the only way to ensure he did not become actually dead within the next few moments. 

Apparently he had plenty of experience doing that, too, enough so that the guards were quickly convinced to turn their weapons elsewhere. But the thing about playing dead is that it involves a lot of being down on the ground, which is already a decently unsafe place in the middle of a battle, but apparently the breathing issue was also much more intense down there, for whatever reason that may have been. Jackal hadn't exactly brought his own mask on account of I don't know how we even get our hands on those things, let alone how an outsider would. But this outsider could easily find one at that moment, seeing as several of the miners were also on the ground for not-playing-dead reasons, and at least a few of them had figured out by that time that they needed to have their masks on. So Jagal swiped the nearest available one off a man's face, even though said man was not dead at the time, and put that on himself. When those masks start to work, it's a thing you very much feel, both because you can immediately breathe properly again and because it immediately starts draining your strength away by other means that I don't entirely understand, and they're certainly unpleasant enough for you to want to keep the mask off until you have no other choice. But he'd figured out there was no other choice, except perhaps a choice of whom to take the mask from, which was admittedly not a choice he'd exercised very well and I'm going to try not to dwell on.

After a few moments of recovery, he finally figured out why it was that his hawk hadn't been in top form earlier, and upon further inspection was in even worse form now. But apparently birds are unable to use bloodwood masks, at least ones that weren't made for them, if elves do make any for them, so Enthr was sort of up a creek as far as that was concerned. Jagal didn't very much like leaving his hawk up a creek, but there wasn't anything else he could do in his current position, so he quietly gathered Enthr up in his arms and found an opening in the chaos to make a break for it. Simply getting away from the raging battle wasn't going to solve all his problems, though it would eventually solve most of mine, but no, I'm not talking about me. That's not until after the next bit. Which was... What's the next bit again?

Our hero kept running until he crossed paths with a lone guard who seemed to have missed out on the whole rebellion thing going on a little farther back. Jackal made some attempt to pass himself off as a simple lost miner, but by his own admission it was a terrible ploy all around because he really wasn't in any condition, physically or mentally, to pull it off. So the guard confiscated the mask right off his face and confirmed this was nobody she knew here. Not that all of the guards know all of the miners or anything close to that, but considering several qualities about the Jackal's face, he's really one you'd be able to remember if you're one to remember any sort of face whatsoever. It's a rather nice-looking face but we don't need to get into that right now, or probably ever.

Despite getting his mask taken, he evaded the guard's attempt to capture him properly and resumed running, but she still got a solid crack to his back on his way out, which I understand broke at least a few ribs, a little under the shoulder, I think. Not a pleasant place, if indeed there's any pleasant place, to have a bone broken, which I may not have quite as much experience with as our hero but I sincerely doubt there is one. At any rate, slowing down wasn't much of an option when she was still after him, but running forever wasn't much of an option when he'd been close enough to death before the newest injury, and forming some sort of strategy was apparently also not much of an option because his mind was not really in the same place his body was in. That's definitely a strange thing when it happens, but it most certainly does happen, and it does make it a bit difficult to think about any things that are happening besides the strange thing that is happening.

In the end, the guard couldn't keep up, and when The Jackal spotted an offshoot into a vaguely safer-looking area, he took it immediately. Said safer-looking area was at least somewhat lit, enough to be sure there was some air but not enough to see in the corners, not that there was anything in the corners. There was no guard and nothing resembling a holding cell, certainly nothing that could be broken out of, yet the room had the distinct feeling of a prison anyway. There was only one apparent prisoner there, a formerly large man with manacles on both wrists that didn't link up to each other or anything else. His hair was ragged, his gaze was vacant, and his name, insofar as he cared to remember he had one at the time, was Jevi.

Jackal did not care one whit what my name was then, only that I was not particularly interested in attacking him. He was much more preoccupied with his hawk, muttering something about how of course this was going to happen, this was always going to happen—that is, the man was muttering, not the hawk, which would have been more impressive but likely still wouldn't have drawn my interest at that point. In addition to whatever all of that was, Jagal was also muttering about the best place to try to let the poor thing rest, and which of several particularly green-smelling herbs might be of any assistance whatsoever. I don't think he was talking to me, or I certainly hope he wasn't because I wouldn't have been any help with that even if I had cared enough to respond, but he was certainly talking in that low voice of his and keeping at it until Enthr had recovered enough for him to somewhat come back to where he actually was. At that point he managed to figure out he'd stopped putting pressure on some wound or other of his that was bleeding pretty badly now, so he went on to take care of that next. 

He wasn't concerned with my own existence until footsteps started to come round the bend, and even then he was only concerned because I was the only object in the area remotely hide-behind-able. He managed to take advantage of that fact before the guard came by. She stuck her head in, saw me, and probably smelled the blood, but it's not as if my manacles didn't smell of blood on a somewhat regular basis, so considering she'd already fallen this far behind trying to run after The Jackal, she figured it was about time to start that up again. Only when she was well well away did Jackal dare to take Enthr back to whatever part of the room it was that seemed safer to breathe in. And only when that was done did he turn to me again, which is understandable since I hadn't spoken or generally moved the entire time, so I can understand if he'd forgotten I was a living person because I'd halfway forgotten that too.

"Guessing you're not a guard," he said before remembering he had broken ribs and it hurt to talk and breathe and everything. He settled down over by his hawk to try to do something about that.

"I am not."

I still find it strange that I said anything at all. I didn't talk much anymore. I didn't move much anymore. I didn't do anything to make anyone think I might consider escaping that tiny little area anymore, and I didn't do it on purpose, either. I'd just been ground down altogether into so much nothing at that point that there wasn't a me left to do any of those things anymore. Except apparently there was still a me somewhere, because I just did one of those things. It may have just been the case that the whole situation with the strange little outsider, close to dying, with a strange little hawk, also close to dying, both abruptly using my person as a hideseek spot without any warning or explanation, was all just absurd enough to rattle me back into myself, at least a little tiny bit.

But I think Jagal still wasn't really where he was, because his eyes had that sort of deadish glaze to them yet, insofar as I could tell in that light. So I'm not sure if he really meant to or not, but he asked me what I was, if I wasn't a guard, as he started to bind up his ribs.

And I told him. And I kept telling him. And I don't even know if he was listening, and I don't think he knew either, but I knew I was speaking all of a sudden and it was a strange feeling. I still don't understand it, but I think maybe I just hadn't bothered to say anything in so long that I'd forgotten how to stop saying things, and I think I still haven't remembered yet actually, even though I'm pretty sure I've stopped a couple of times in-between then and now, but maybe that was all by accident.

Except in this case, Jackal ended up talking, too, so that was a reason for me to not be talking sometimes, and that's how I heard about most of the things that I've said here already. He didn't seem like he was telling me on purpose, but he was certainly telling me, and as his hawk slowly got to acting normal again, Jagal slowly got to looking like he could actually do things on purpose again. And he did intend to do a few things on purpose, on account of that iron vow to the miners, so once he was satisfied he'd patched himself up as well as he was ever going to in this place, he got up to leave, except he had to walk past me to leave and he didn't quite do that all the way. He stared at me for a while, like there was something strange on my face, which there very well could have been, but I don't believe that's what he was actually worried about.

"Well, they're finally out there with your big rebellion. Wanna see how they're doing?"

He offered me a hand up, which I'm not sure was one of the things he was doing on purpose, because his voice was so dull he couldn't have been all the way where he was, except I suppose that may have been more of a bodily pain issue. Either way, I had to stare at his bloodstained fingers for a minute to figure out both what he was doing and what he was saying. But even when I got that figured out, there was a whole lot more figuring out to do, and I couldn't really do it.

"I don't know what I want. I don't know if I can want, anymore. I can't think of a single thing I've really, honestly wanted for a good long time now."

His face twisted in some certain fashion, and I knew immediately—he understood exactly what I meant, and both of us would very much prefer that absolutely no one, ourselves included, would ever have to understand that or anything like it. 

"Yeah," he said with a wheeze, which I don't believe had anything to do with the rib issues. "Yeah."

He held onto his broken little grimace-grin for a moment longer before taking what probably passed for a deep breath and leaning in closer with his hand still out. He flexed his fingers, which successfully drew my attention back to them but did not get me to do anything about it.

"C'mon. Don't make me drag you. Look like you're heavy."

I couldn't say how much longer I just kept staring. Not long enough for him to start dragging me? But finally, with a laugh that wouldn't have been anything like it was if it had come from anyone who wasn't like we were, I managed to take his hand. He still hauled me nearly all the way up himself, which couldn't have felt very pleasant, but I hadn't quite figured out how to move again before he'd already finished doing all that. 

"All right." Near well everything about him still felt strained, but he had a slightly more normal (if every bit as tired) grin on his face now. "Let's go see the damage, shall we?"

Once you actually start moving it's much much easier to keep moving, and I think our hero may have said something to this effect as we went but I'm not altogether sure how he'd phrased it. Something about sometimes it's all you can do, or the like. In any case, we slunk back towards the battleground, though he was most of all concerned with keeping Enthr as high up as possible until we finally found a decent perch at a decent altitude, a decent distance from whatever mess we were headed into.

Only when we got there it was a lot less messy than I expected, aside from the number of people on the ground. I couldn't be sure if there were more of us or more of them because I can't count that fast to begin with, and especially not when we're talking about dead people that I knew, and especially especially not when the man who'd just rescued me had more or less killed one of them himself. Nobody was getting killed right now, at least, though a few guards looked ready to start that up again if they had to. But according to Jackal, most of our forces had vanished from the scene, and considering they'd all been rebelling, I was fairly sure I knew where they'd vanished to, even if I really didn't want to think about it. 

The Jackal likely wasn't thinking about it either as he went over to sneak past in the usual way, only the guards were much more on-guard than before, so he was caught rather swiftly. In fact, he was bodily apprehended by a particular guard who'd chosen to forgo his mask by that time. Since we'd been caught anyway, and since I was already moving and had probably forgotten how to stop doing that too, I continued over there myself and got back to talking.

"Oh, Tristan! I wasn't expecting to see you! Not that I've been expecting to see most anything lately, aside from the inside of my cell, or whatever you'd like to call it, but I really wasn't expecting to see you. Especially in guard armor, which is probably nicer for you but really not the same side you used to be on, is it?"

It had been a while since I'd tried to make sense of other people's faces, but even I could tell Tristan was entirely dumbfounded, as was the other guard, whose face I couldn't see but whose voice I could hear. 

"Is that Jevi?"

Tristan attempted to make some noises with his mouth but got a little distracted keeping hold of Jagal. Eventually Tristan got him wrangled enough to make some more attempts. "You're alive? You're here? I—" And then he went back to making noises before giving up again. Both guards exchanged some sort of look before the not-Tristan one decided he needed to get someone higher up to figure out what he was supposed to do about me being alive and here. He apparently didn't have to go all that far before he found someone about as high up as you could get.

When Widogast walked over to us, he was very clearly feeling some things, except I'm not sure what things he can feel besides arrogance and cruelty and maybe indigestion, so in this case I think it was at least mostly the cruelty. He very much didn't like me, and he didn't much like Jackal either after the running-off-on-his-watch bit earlier. Despite the rebellion, which he may not have even heard about yet, he was mostly preoccupied with telling his current prisoners all the terrible, horrible ways he was going to punish us for our disrespect and insubordination, though I'm not sure how The Jackal could have insubordinated him on account of not being subordinate to him in the first place, but then again I suppose Widogast expects all people everywhere to agree that they're beneath him even though they very much aren't.

"Get on with it, then," Jagal said, still soundly in Tristan's grip. 

"Excuse me?" Widogast said.

"All your fun torture-execution stuff. Just get it over with, why don't you? In fact, do your very worst. I dare you." And Jackal grinned like he was absolutely looking forward to it, which I have to hope he wasn't but I can't be completely sure because it really genuinely felt like he was.

Widogast didn't know what to do about this until eventually he did. "Oh, you've got something planned, do you? And you think you can bait Widogast into playing into it? But I see through your ruse, boy! You'll pay for your insolence on my time, not yours."

Which I think was probably Widogast playing into the actual ruse, if there really was one, which I wasn't sure about then and still aren't now, and likely never will be because we didn't get any farther on our own just then.

"Mine Commander, sir!"

Turning towards Tristan didn't require a lot of motion since Widogast had already been looking at Jackal, who was right about in the same place, but the Commander still managed to do it slowly. "Lead Mine Commander."

"Of course, sir! I apologize! But if you'd allow me to make a suggestion..."

Widogast assessed him a moment longer before nodding.

"Well, sir, I believe they might both benefit from some time in..." He gestured down the passageway, as well as he could with both hands occupied, which was not all that well. Widogast looked That way regardless.

Then a terrible smile split across his face, and he turned to me. "It may as well be your second home, anyway, hmm?" He spun with a snap. "Take them both in, and don't let them out without my say."

"Yes, sir!" Tristan dragged Jackal a pace forward before nodding at me. "Come along, then, if you don't want things to be even worse for your friend here."

I certainly didn't want that, and I wasn't sure what to do besides just keep moving, anyway, so I followed. At the time I couldn't think of anything beyond how everyone just really didn't want to drag me places today, except they probably never particularly did, because that would be a really odd thing to want to do to someone.

We made it past a few bends and slopes in the tunnels before Tristan came to a stop. He looked around a bit, and also stepped aside since I was about to run straight into him. Once he managed to not get run into, he let go of his prisoner, but Jackal still only stood there dazed.

"The others have already been rounded up in there," Tristan said. "I don't know how to release them—we don't get told anything we don't need for our specific posts—but it can't be that hard."

Jagal and I just sort of stared at him. Tristan looked more concerned than he did already, then stopped looking either of us in the eye.

"I can't... I'm going to wait this out in the housing area." He clasped one of my hands tightly in his without looking up. "Good luck."

He let go and ducked away, down another tunnel I hadn't noticed because I very much hadn't been looking. So I looked for a bit, but he disappeared and the tunnel didn't change, so I looked over at Jackal instead. He patted himself down briefly, as if he needed to make sure he hadn't lost anything, or he didn't know what all was broken at this point without checking, before seeming satisfied and turning to me.

"Guess we'd better go check on your friends, huh?"

In his typical fashion, our hero snuck past the few guards posted at That Place to get a better look. I did not take a look myself on account of I was having trouble looking in that direction at all, let alone at any of the people or things in that direction. But I would gather later that there was some lever involved in releasing things and people, and that in the process of getting it flipped, The Jackal managed to wrench something or other of his over to where it was before he'd fixed it a little bit ago. While he successfully stifled any sounds of pain, the shutter to the place wasn't nearly so silent once it got going, so the guards finally figured out something was happening.

They were outnumbered now that everyone was free again, except everyone was still in That Place, which makes it difficult to be all that free. The miners did just sort of stand there at first, but Jagal reminded them that he was supposed to be seeing their revolt through, and he'd even found me so I could help out with that, although I wouldn't end up being much help in the end, but the idea of it was enough to make them start leaving. Not enough to have them start fighting the guards, but Jackal was up to that himself. Or at least mostly up to it, seeing as one still got away to notify whoever they needed to notify, which would include Widogast since it was his direction they ran off in.

Meanwhile, the freed miners were still coming back to themselves, but they came pretty quickly to the conclusion that if another fight was coming, they didn't want it to be right here in front of That Place, and they didn't especially want it to be somewhere they couldn't breathe, either. There wasn't time for many more thoughts than that, so they just figured Widogast would expect them to flee so maybe they could still surprise him at least a little bit if they went towards him. Which was also the direction Enthr was in, so Jagal was happy with that, insofar as he ever seems or actually is happy with anything.

Everyone started that way, and I did too because apparently I was back to moving again. An awful lot of the people seemed happy to see me, even though I couldn't get the words together to explain how I was or where I'd been or what had happened to me or to anyone or anything else. It's my best guess that I was happy to see them too, but it was still very hard to tell, and all of us were a little too busy, what with getting ready to possibly die, to be as happy as we could have been. And there was also an issue with the secure part of the mine being harder for this many people to fit through, and somehow a tunnel support got taken out in our wake, but we chose to hope for the best or at least ignore it until we couldn't anymore.

And we could ignore it for a while longer, because now it was much more important to pay attention to the people we were approaching. They were guards, which—ignoring Tristan, since it sounded like he'd really prefer to be ignored at this particular point in time—must have made up nearly if not all of the forces remaining, including Widogast himself. I expected some very tense words to be exchanged, only I didn't have any particularly tense ones myself so I couldn't exchange them, and apparently everyone else was more inclined to just go on and get this whole thing over with, because there weren't actually any words before there was fighting. 

Some people fought better than others. Wullan, of course. A few other miners I could name, except then they'd just be names in this story and they deserve better than that. There was Jackal, too, but despite all his earlier victories he was mostly just getting the tar beaten out of him now, to the extent I think it nearly had to have been on purpose, which of course doesn't make sense, until you get to a bit that I get to later. And on the other side of things, or at least the other side of the fighting things but certainly not the other side of the miners, I'd gone back to not remembering how moving worked again, but maybe it was all for the best, because there wasn't much space for everyone to be fighting in, and I didn't have any weapons unless you counted the fetters, which mostly only hurt me.

But the fighting was ugly, anyway, and I may have seen it but I don't think I could bear to see it. It's one thing to know you must fight for something and another very entirely different thing to actually fight, right now, in reality, or the closest thing to that that I could manage. Here was everything I'd been striving for, for everyone, for so long, but all I could do now was stand there and try not to die, though as I'd be told later it was quite nice for the others to be able to see me standing there not dead, so I suppose it was sort of fighting in my own strange little way.

Some parts of the tunnel were starting to not be a tunnel anymore, because of that support that was not being a support anymore and because of a few others that had decided to go on and join it. This wasn't a total collapse of the mine, but quite a few of us weren't so sure it would stay that way, so people kept trying to push forward, only Widogast and his were very much trying to push back, so it didn't work any better than anything else. But at least rocks were hitting both sides instead of just ours, not that people getting hit by rocks is all that much better than people getting hit by people.

But people were getting hit one way or the other, and it was a few more of their people than our people. The Jackal did get hit with a few rocks really pretty badly, then immediately took down about four guards at once, which I think is good grounds for my theory that the more damaged he is the more powerful he is, which still doesn't make a lot of sense, but there are an awful lot of things that don't make sense that are true anyway, so this might as well be one of them. He didn't quite make it to Widogast himself, but he was still close enough for the Commander to decide that fleeing was probably the best option now, only the last thing anyone wanted was for him to flee and get more backup and start all of this up all over again. Except Jagal was busy with the last few guards now, but some people weren't as busy, and one of them was Wullan. With either some kind of prescience or just very very good timing, she cornered Widogast with a few club strikes, and two good-sized rocks immediately fell and pinned him there. A mighty man he may have been, but even he couldn't singlehandedly push those aside.

I just stood there for a while before realizing everyone else was just standing there too. Or, quite a few people were on the ground, but quite a few people weren't. And then I figured out that all of the people standing were us—not a single person who'd been on Widogast's side. 

We had won.

Getting people out and safe and fixed up was a whole other mess, but it was at least a lot less of a mess than the fight had been, though there were still a lot of blood smears and a lot of people who weren't getting back up. Not all too many, I suppose, considering the number of people in the mine to begin with and then the number of people who hadn't actually been at the fight, but it really doesn't take very many dead bodies before you feel like there are a lot of dead bodies.

The less-dead bodies got taken back to the residential area, if they were basically doing all right, or the upper-level infirmary, if they basically weren't. I'm not sure if I was doing all right, but I ended up upstairs one way or another so that was simply where I would be. I may have helped pass a few items or people along from someone to someone else, but anything I could have done is still hazy enough I can't be sure I did anything at all. I suppose I could ask around, but I should think anyone who needed my help would have been awfully hazy about then, too.

I do at least remember a bit of hubbub about Jagal, who was very much one of the people who were not basically doing all right, but that wasn't really the problem. Some other fellow (who I could name here except for the reasons given earlier, unless I forgot to give them) had noticed him taking that mask away for himself and was as unhappy about it as I'm trying not to be. The Jackal tried to explain that the mask-haver had been very much on his death throes and had told him he'd rather help someone else live, even though that's not at all what Jagal had said about it earlier when it was just me listening. Still, the story was really quite compelling up to the point he passed out cold in the middle of telling it. A few people weren't so convinced, but not enough to keep anyone interested from going to look for that black iron he'd been promised. Certainly not enough to deny him medical care, either, so he and his hawk got taken into the air room. I'm not sure how it works, but it's supposed to be especially good about letting you breathe, which is a nice thing to be able to do generally, and even more so after you've tried to suffocate in the mines to some extent or other. And I either followed him there or got taken there myself, and with the way my head was working, or not working, I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought maybe it would do me good to have a little extra air. And maybe it did. I couldn't say.

But I was there when our hero woke again, which must have been a decent while later, seeing as he was ready to go immediately after assessing Enthr's condition and was indeed actively leaving before I thought to do anything about it. But I was able to catch up since he still wasn't moving very fast and also didn't know where he was, which I think wasn't quite where the rest of him was yet, either.

"Where's the iron?" he asked me once he saw me.

"Which iron? This iron?" I presented the first iron item to cross my vision, which was my fetters.

"...No."

"Ah. Then I'm afraid I don't know, which is unsurprising, because I feel like I've known very little for a very long time now."

"Right." He kept walking slowly, then glanced back at my fetters. "They not find the key for those?"

"If they did, they didn't tell me, but I really think that's the sort of thing they would have told me, unless they couldn't find me, but I think I'm rather a good bit easier to find today than I am usually. Where are we going?"

He stopped walking slowly and sighed. Before he could answer me, if indeed he was ever going to, someone else found us, and we ended up following them back to the main infirmary, so then Jagal asked them about his iron. They were a little more concerned with getting him some food and water, which he also seemed all right with, and telling him not to walk around right now, which he didn't seem quite as all right with. But someone—I believe it was Tristan, but I may be getting him mixed up with the earlier fellow or some later fellow—came over with the black iron. It didn't seem like much iron but it did seem black, and I've been informed that there usually isn't much in one place at one time, so this was all very much all right by Jackal. He didn't look like he should have been carrying any more than he already was but he did anyway, and the healers couldn't say anything about it since everyone had agreed to give him the stuff, and it would be hard to do that if he couldn't take it.

The healers also couldn't afford to keep watching him when there were other people who needed to be watched more, but the moment they were gone, The Jackal went back to standing up and walking slowly. So I did too. I think it took him a bit to notice me, but once he did, he did.

"And where are you going?" he said.

"If I knew, I would tell you."

"Fair enough."

We made it a little farther before he looked at me again. "You need something or what?"

"Do I? Do I. I think you've done very well enough, or more than enough, for me already, so—yes! Yes, I need something from you still, and that is... That is... Well, I think what I need is for you to accept my thanks, or at least hear my thanks, because it's probably a little much to demand that someone accept something, even if it isn't a thing so much as a saying, but what was I saying?"

He didn't answer, but it was close enough. "I prefer physical goods over thanks, but I'm guessing you don't have a lotta goods right now." He glanced at my chains again, which were indeed just about all I had to offer as far as that went. "Actually, lemme see one of those."

"I would, only I don't think I know how to get them off, or if I do, I can't."

"Yeah, that's the point. Humor me?"

So I held an arm out, but it seemed like a silly thing to do, because if he was going to take one of those fetters he'd have to take the whole arm, which hopefully would come with the rest of me, but the rest of me didn't make much sense as a thing to try to take. But he looked over the cuff and scoffed when he saw something, then told me to hang on just a second, which I did, and I'm not sure exactly what happened next because I was staring off somewhere else again, but then something clicked and the fetter felt different.

"It'll probably take off some skin, but your infirmary's right there, so."

He ducked over to my other side while I was still still staring, and then that fetter felt different too. And then there was still a little more staring.

"Unless," Jackal said slowly, "you don't want them off?"

"What? Oh!"

I rapidly fumbled with the cuffs, which I do think ended up tearing some skin or other but I couldn't be bothered with those sorts of details, and they fell to the ground with two thumps. I think one grazed my toe unpleasantly but I couldn't be bothered with that either. I looked at my wrists, and it was a strange thought to me that I didn't even know how long it had been since I'd actually seen my own wrists, and it had been an awful long time since I'd seen or thought or felt a whole lot of things that I had today, and I was free and we were free and we had won.

Of course, we'd won quite a lot earlier than that, but compared to standing around a bunch of dead, semi-dead, and partly-dead people, when you're instead standing somewhere safe with your chains freshly off, it's much easier to want to go ahead and celebrate. So I had a strange little giggling fit and pulled our hero into a hug that I'd eventually figure out he didn't seem all that enthused to be in, and then I let him go. But there was still a lot of babbling for me to do, because I wanted to celebrate, because there were so many things to celebrate—we'd won, and Widogast's reign of terror was over, and everything I'd wanted so badly had finally come to pass, and I knew I did want those things, and that was something else to celebrate.

I think at some point I started crying because the ceiling wasn't dripping, so I don't know how else my face would have gotten wet, but Jagal wasn't crying with me. If anything, he looked mildly uncomfortable at all the gratitude, but then again I'm not sure how many bones he'd broken and I don't think the hug was that gentle, so that's probably my own fault here. 

"Ah—um—sorry. Probably. Er, do you want the fetters, then? At least?" I nudged them his way just in case as I tried to dry off my face with my hair, which was dirty and matted and didn't do a very good job of it.

He peered down at the cuffs. It's not as if they were especially nice or especially useful in their current state, but he shrugged and took them anyway, because I suppose a good chunk of iron is still a good chunk of iron. Then he started waving me off.

"Now please go have them look at your wrists."

"Er, yes! Okay! Right!" I started to turn that way, then turned back again and smiled widely. "You... You've saved me. Thank you."

He smiled back, just a little bit, before looking uncomfortable again. He'd probably hurt his face somewhere in there, too, so I suppose looking too happy would have felt unpleasant. His voice came out a little fainter than it usually already was. "Yeah, sure thing. Good luck."

He turned and waved, and I waved back and went back to everyone else, because I could go back to everyone else, and there was an us again, and I think I probably got back to crying before they even saw to my wrists, but I can't be certain.

I do know that, by the time—or, I suspect, well before the time—all of that was wrapped up, The Jackal and his hawk were long gone.