My arm was gone. Gone.
I felt the bandage below my shoulder again, just to be sure. There was no arm there.
How? What had happened?
BEEP
I knew what had happened. I had activated a forbidden magical device, while riding on top of a moving train. I had caused a crash, and this was the result.
My arm was gone. My arm, my elbow, my wrist, my hand, and five fingers and their nails. Lost, taken, detached. Permanently absent. Removed, forever.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to roar. I wanted to break the walls down. I wanted to curl up into a tiny ball and disappear. I wanted my mother to hug me. I wanted to hug my mother. Or almost anyone.
BEEP
The rush of water ceased, almost as suddenly as it had begun. I remained with my back against the wall, dripping.
Even as I obsessed over what had happened to me, I could not truly accept it. Surely if I willed it hard enough, I could wake up from this terrible nightmare and everything would be fine. This could be fixed. Undone. Someone would step in and make the situation right. This was not right. This couldn't be my life.
BEEP
The door opened, letting in a rush of cold air. I was already horribly cold, but it evidently could get worse.
Something soft hit the floor near the door. "Dry yourself and put this on," the man who had led me here said.
I shuffled across the wet floor, struggling to keep my balance. My toes bumped into something soft and dry. A towel. I bent down and prodded it with a finger. Some clothing sat atop the towel. Using the towel while keeping the clothes dry would be a challenge... for someone with two hands and sight.
For me, it took some time. It would have taken a lot of time, but the impatient man yelling at the door was not willing to give it to me. The only way I would see to avoid endless frustration was to give up on the ideal of dryness.
I emerged from the shower room probably looking like a half-drowned cat. A badly injured half-drowned cat. I had sloppily draped the towel over my head in an attempt at soaking some of the water away from my hair and the cloth covering my head. Having lost some of my hair to the fire worked slightly to my advantage. That small positive did not improve my mood the least bit. I was ready to yell at someone, or kick them, or cry for a day, sleep for a week, and eat an entire cow.
"This way," my rough escort said.
"Mph," I replied, trying to sound obedient. There was no need to make this misery even more unpleasant. Not yet at least.
BEEP
I'd tried to ignore the beeping, but it was always present. There was no point in trying to ask if anyone else could hear it. Even if I was understood, a useful answer was the last thing I expected. Besides that, I was fairly sure that I was the only one experiencing the regular tones. I had determined that the direction of the sound depended on which way I was facing. Thinking about that served as a welcome distraction from everything else that was happening to me.
A heavy metal door slammed shut fairly close behind me.
"Sit down," my escort gruffly ordered. He put some downward force on my shoulder with his uncaring hand.
I fell more than sat, as I made the mistake of trying to balance with my left hand.
"Now crawl forwards."
"Mlph?" How was I meant to crawl with only three limbs?
The answer was 'with great difficulty and the occasional kick of a heavy boot in my left ankle'. The discomfort was made worse by the metal mesh I was forced to crawl onto.
A small sharp object hit me in the back. "There, you can take your hood off now," the man said without a hint of kindness." A smaller metal door slammed shut extremely close behind my toes.
I pulled my towel off my head so I could kneel on it rather than on a lattice of metal strips. Another door further in front of me was opened, and my entire cage was shoved repeatedly in that direction. My eye registered an increase in the light coming through the damp cloth that still covered me. I had to do something about that.
After a lot of very awkward and painful maneuvering I was able to get my fingers on the key I had been thrown. With further fumbling I found and removed a lock at my neck. After that it was relatively easy to remove the hood. At last, I could see. With one eye.
My other senses had been correct: I was inside a small cage made of metal mesh. It seemed to be copper, rather than steel. That was unusual. The holes in the mesh were large enough that I could see a little. I twisted to see behind me. A forbidding, windowless building loomed above me. I had not seen such a structure in Forrester's Crossing.
While I was occupied examining the building, I missed the approach of two clerics. I became very aware of them when they grabbed my cage with thick white gloves and hoisted it onto a cart.
"What city is this?" I asked, not able to stay silent. "Is Forrester's Crossing safe?"
The clerics exchanged glances. The taller one nodded to the other more junior cleric. "It is safe," the junior said.
For a glorious moment, all my worries melted away, and the pain with them. Then as the cart began to move behind a horse, I remembered that I was a prisoner awaiting trial. Even as some of my worries returned, I felt lighter. My main task had been a success. My family had been saved. I had prevented a significant amount of death, destruction, and hardship. I could live with that. Hopefully I wouldn't have to die for that, but it seemed to be a likely outcome.
Most of my remaining worries were for Skids. Had dro escaped from the Pure and gone safely home?
BEEP
Or was dro planning another rescue attempt?
BEEP
Had dro already been captured?
BEEP
Had dro already been executed?
BEEP
The beeps were speeding up. I was getting closer to drome.
BEEP
Skids was somewhere in this city.
BEEP
Or at least dro's scryer was.
BEEP
And how was I hearing the aether-singing of dro's scryer without my helmet?
BEEP
The beeps were a comforting companion as I watched fragments of an unknown city pass by my cage. I could tell from the grandness of the architecture that this was a significant city. Once we turned onto a larger street, I was sure which city. The street was very wide, wide enough to have a pleasant strip of grass, trees, and sculptures along the middle. It was the preponderance of mirrored sculptures that gave it away. This had to be Mirror City. Or, 'The Empyreal Miracle of The Great Maker' to people who really liked to hear the sound of their own voices or wanted to be extra formal or fancy.
Empyreal was the purest of Pure cities. It was the centre of recognition and worship of the Great Maker, and the site of the headquarters of the highest level clerics. That made sense. Such clerics would soon decide my fate.
From the sound of the beeps, probably Skids' fate as well.
I had little doubt what choice they would make.