Tung huddled in the darkest corner of the executioner's dungeon, trying to ignore the bone-chilling coldness which was draining his life away. Violent shivering was his body's last-ditch attempt to generate enough warmth to stay alive but the icy stone floor sucked heat away faster than he could produce it. Standing might be warmer but after the beatings, the cold, and next to no food, he couldn't find the energy to get up.
He had to get out of this place. Escape or death, he didn't care which anymore. Anything was better than the wretched existence he'd suffered for the last thirty days.
His fingertips bled and throbbed with the pain from futile attempts to pry open a tiny crack in the heavy wooden door. He knew it was hopeless but what else could he try? Maybe dying was a better option, maybe it was the only option because he was due to be tortured to death the very next day. Roll on death, it couldn't come a moment too soon because being wet through, bruised, starving and parched with thirst had sapped his will to live. Yes, roll on death.
Dark, dank and putrid were the words an unscrupulous property merchant might have used to glamorise this miserable dungeon, there were no words nauseating enough to describe the true horror of this dreadful place. To be fair though, it wasn't all bad, at least the green slime, which oozed like pus from small cracks in the walls, added some colour to the drab greyness. But the green slime tasted vile, he'd tried it twice in vain attempts to get some sustenance into his stomach but each time, within a matter of seconds, a rancid stream of vomit had erupted from his guts, adding to the stench of the cell.
Fighting the fatigue, he forced himself onto his side and prayed to the gods for sleep, but how could anyone sleep in this frightful place? Hands over ears, he tried to shut out the sounds of torturers' hammers smashing bones, the metallic clunk of ratchets on the racks and the anguished screams which echoed forlornly down stone corridors. Rank stenches crept under the door to assault his nostrils, the acrid stink of flesh seared by white-hot branding irons overwhelming the other odours of human sweat, urine and excrement. Wails of despair reverberated inside his head. Did these evil tormentors never rest?
By some miracle, his brain dragged his tortured body into an uneasy slumber. Praise be for the gift of sleep, at least he still had this last sanctuary. His nightmares replayed his pathetic life as his subconscious tried to figure out how he'd ended up in this pitiful mess. The work of the devil, no doubt - with a little help from his fiends.
The dreams relived his sixteen years of poverty and the daily struggles to find enough food to survive. His mother had battled relentlessly to try and stop his father from drinking and gambling away whatever meagre wage he had earned but she'd been drained dry by the futility of her efforts to turn beer money into food money. Most of the time, the family went hungry and, to add real injury to insult, a beating was the reward for anyone daft enough to complain.
Tung doted on his mother, so it broke his little heart when, just before he turned twelve, the will to fight for her kids deserted her, and she deserted them. She'd either died or run away. He never discovered which.
Without anyone shielding him from his father's drunken wrath, the beatings increased in regularity and harshness. His childhood descended into a nightmarish hell of torment and deprivation. To make matters worse still, he'd heaped a couple of cartloads of guilt onto his tiny shoulders because he couldn't protect his little sister from the torrent of paternal abuses. His father only brought pain into their lives. No support, no money and no food. Tung had become the man of the house and stealing was his only option to put meals on the table.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, his memory reconstructed his first theft, an event destined to determine how the rest of his life would play out.
***
He was a mere child and his victim was a giant of a man whose purse bulged with gold and silver coins. He'd watched the man for weeks and resented how he seemed to have an endless supply of money to waste on fripperies. Resentment was to become an enduring theme in his life; resentment sprinkled with an unhealthy dusting of jealousy, spite and bitterness.
The sight of a fat man buying a gaudy hat at an up-market market stall wasn't anything out of the ordinary although something about this fellow piqued Tung's interest. He followed him for the rest of the day and on many occasions after that, creeping in the shadows, always ten steps behind.
A pattern emerged. The man moseyed round the market and then feasted in the tavern before visiting the big house where all the ladies lived. Now there was a mystery. Why did so many pretty ladies live in that place? It boggled his tiny imagination. What did they do? One thing was for sure, they enjoyed a steady stream of gentleman visitors, so they weren't short of male role models, unlike the young Tung who desperately lacked someone to set his moral compass. His father wasn't even a good example for the devil to follow. Actually, maybe the devil could have learnt a thing or two from him.
On the day of his first heist, he tailed the man to the alehouse. Through grimy windows, he watched him devour mountains of meat and drink tankards of bubbly, brown liquid. The more he drank, the more careless he became, and on this particular evening a lot of tankards were being downed. Tung watched and waited.
As the evening drew to a close, the man wobbled out of the tavern. Staggering and stumbling, he took his usual shortcut through the dark alleyway which ran along one side of the tavern. Halfway down the alley Tung sprung. He raced past the man at full speed and grabbed the purse dangling from the man's trousers. Unfortunately, the purse didn't break free, so Tung's body came to an abrupt halt while his feet kept running, flailing into the air. A ridiculous and hilarious sight for an uninvolved bystander, of which, in that deserted alley, there were of course none.
Tung's momentum and aerial acrobatics broke the leather tether and the purse tumbled to the cobbles, spilling its contents everywhere. The shock, aided and abetted by ten pints of ale, upended the victim, so he too lay sprawled on the cold stone, flapping around like a beached whale. Man and boy gawked at each other and, for an eternal split second, neither knew quite what to do. The man's glazed eyes gazed at Tung in bewilderment. Tung seized the moment, and the purse, and sprinted off into the darkness.
He ran and ran until he was as far away as his little legs could carry him, and then he ran some more. His ears throbbed to the hammering beat of his heart. Would it burst through his chest before or after his lungs exploded? He had to stop. He had to hide. A pile of rotting sheep carcasses dumped in the market square provided the perfect spot. He wormed his way into the middle of the woolly mound and collapsed in a heap, sucking in lungfuls of rancid air.
He caressed the soft, brown leather purse. It wasn't bulging any more, having selfishly emptied itself at the scene of the crime. Damn it. His shaking fingers explored every corner of the purse and there, hiding right at the bottom, was a single lepton. It was the lowest denomination of all coins but it had some value, albeit tiny.
"Yes, yes, yes," shouted Tung, starting to plan his celebration. "I've found my calling."
***
The cell door burst open without warning. His dreamlike memory panicked and fled into the ether, the night's silence vanished as the rusty hinges squealed and screeched. A grey bearded old man was catapulted into the room. He double-somersaulted across the stone floor and crash-landed upside down on top of Tung.
The old man screamed as he bounced off Tung and smashed heavily onto the floor. Tung screamed as he exploded into wakefulness. The guards screamed as they slammed the heavy wooden door.
"You'll fester in hell for this, you snivelling toadies," the old man bellowed at the now bolted door. The door didn't reply. He shouted a few more obscenities before noticing someone else was in the cell.
Tung watched the old man's face redden as embarrassment spread across it. The man adjusted his position to a semi-upright slouch, brushed the worst of the dirt off his robe in an undignified struggle to regain his composure and cleared his throat.
"I am Madrick."
He straightened his back as he spoke. He waited for a reaction but his opening line had been met by a silence stony enough to make any mountain justly proud. With blank eyes, Tung stared at the stranger, mouth agape. Surely this couldn't be happening?
The old man placed a bony hand on Tung's shoulder and shook him. To his horror, Tung realised this was a real nightmare and not a dream.
"I am Madrick," the old man repeated. "I am the Royal Wizard, as appointed by the King himself."
Tung's exhaustion left him barely able to form a response but somehow he managed. He punched Madrick hard, square on the forehead. Bang. How do you like that, old man?
Madrick fell backwards, the look on his face revealing the pain which jarred every nerve in his head yet he still didn't take the hint. He rubbed his bruised brow and prodded Tung with his foot.
"I may be able to help you escape from this dreadful place but only if you listen very carefully to what I have to say."
Madrick straightened a little more, his eyes brightened and a small smile curled across his lips. Here comes a story, thought Tung, and he was right.